In the stone-walled manor of Count Piast, Yolenta is nothing but a quiet servant girl who dusts the library and keeps her head down. But every night, she slips away to a hidden attic and does the one thing forbidden to women of her station: she watches the stars.
Three years ago, she discovered a discrepancy between the Church-sanctioned star chart and the actual night sky—a tiny, relentless deviation that shouldn't exist. Armed only with her mother's forbidden Star Language dictionary, a windo
Orb: The Star Inheritor - The star in the attic, the tower's conundrum
"Hey, did you hear? That girl was up in the attic again last night, staring at the stars."
The cold late-autumn air had seeped into the stone walls of Count Piast's manor. Steam from the kitchen's back door drifted white and murky in the morning light. Yolenta was passing by the wood-chopping yard when she stopped in her tracks.
"It gives me the creeps. What good does a woman get from looking at stars, anyway?"
That was Marta, the head maid. In her fifties, she stood with thick arms crossed, talking to the women gathered by the well. Her voice was deliberately low—but pitched just loud enough to reach Yolenta's ears.
"That girl sneaks around in the middle of the night. All she's supposed to do is dust the library. Why would she need to look at stars?"
Another maid chimed in. Yolenta lowered her head and hugged the laundry basket closer to her chest. The hem of her unbleached linen dress swayed in the cold wind. Beneath her coarse wool apron, she clenched her fists tight.
(What good does looking at stars do?)
The words rose to her throat, and she swallowed them back. She couldn't say it. That she loved the stars. That she wanted to understand their movements. If she ever spoke those words in this manor, she'd be branded as nothing more than a creepy, strange girl—and that would be the end of it.
Yolenta hurried away from the spot. Her uneven bangs fell into her eyes, making the world seem just a little narrower. She always cut her own bangs, and they always came out like this—she'd aim for a straight line, and by the next day, something was always crooked.
When she pushed open the heavy library door, the smell of mold and old paper hit her nose. The Piast family archive held about two hundred books. Having a collection that size in this era was proof of the family's status as lords. But Yolenta's job wasn't to read those precious volumes.
Dust them. Sweep the floor. Wipe the windows. That was all.
That was supposed to be all.
Three years ago, when Yolenta had just turned fifteen, she'd found a certain book in this archive. A star chart officially sanctioned by the Church of the Star Codex. The correct answers of this world's astronomy were all recorded there. Geocentrism. The Earth was the center of the universe, and the sun, the moon, and all the stars revolved around this land. That was the truth of this world—Astra Lumen.
The cosmic order as taught by the Church of the Star Codex. To doubt it was the same as doubting God. Those who doubted were dragged before the Inquisition and never returned. That was the law of this world.
And yet.
Yolenta gently pulled out a single volume hidden deep in the back of the shelf, where no one ever reached. The Church-sanctioned star chart. Its cover was worn, its corners rounded. Every time she opened it, the pages rustled softly.
This star chart and the actual sky were just slightly—ever so slightly—off.
She'd noticed three years ago. If only she hadn't. But the moment she noticed, Yolenta became captive to a craving: the need to know. She couldn't leave the unknown alone as unknown. That was simply her nature—and that day, she'd learned it the hard way.
Afternoon light slanted in through the archive window. Dust motes, kicked into the air, danced golden in the beams.
Unconsciously, Yolenta's right fingertip traced mathematical formulas in the air. She had calluses on her fingers from holding a pen—proof of the long hours she'd spent writing calculations. On her left wrist remained ink stains from the old star chart. Blue-black marks that wouldn't wash out no matter how many times she scrubbed. They'd gotten there while she was copying out her mother's dictionary—the one keepsake she had left.
Her mother.
Just thinking the word sent a sharp ache through her chest.
Her mother had died when Yolenta was seven. A fever. All that remained was a single worn dictionary of the Star Language. The Star Language was a sacred tongue used only by the clergy. Ordinary people weren't even permitted to learn it. And yet her mother had owned such a thing. Why her mother possessed it, Yolenta didn't know.
But in the margins of the dictionary, her mother's handwritten calculations remained—hasty scribbles. The angles of stars. The positions of stars by season. The movements of planets. Young Yolenta hadn't understood what any of it meant. And because she hadn't understood, she'd wanted to know.
She learned letters. She learned numbers. She learned calculation.
Beneath this manor lay an old archive called the "Chamber of Silence"—a graveyard of forgotten books that no one bothered to organize. There, Yolenta had found old mathematics texts and fragments of star charts. As she deciphered them, she gradually came to understand what her mother's scribbles had been calculating.
Her mother had been recording the movements of the stars.
Comparing the Church-sanctioned star chart with the actual positions of the stars.
And calculating the discrepancy between them.
When Yolenta finished cleaning the library, she walked down the corridor where the evening light poured in. Her footsteps echoed coldly through the stone manor.
"Yolenta, come help in the kitchen for a bit."
Marta's voice flew at her. Yolenta turned and gave a small nod.
"Yes, I'm coming."
In the kitchen, the maids were bustling with dinner preparations. Steam rose from the great pots, filling the air with the smell of mutton and herbs. Yolenta stood at the washing station and began scrubbing the mountain of dishes. The cold water leeched the warmth from her fingertips.
"You were in the library a long time again, weren't you?"
The young maid chopping vegetables beside her glanced at Yolenta sidelong.
"I was just cleaning."
"Hmm. Well, I suppose that's your job. Dusting the library. Or maybe you're in there ogling star books?"
The maid giggled. There might not have been any malice in it. She was just amused. A woman looking at star books. That alone was enough to make her a joke in this manor.
"...I wasn't ogling anything."
Yolenta didn't stop washing. The sound of water masked the turmoil deep in her heart.
(Of course I'm ogling them.)
Another self murmured inside her.
(Not just the star books. The stars themselves—every single night. Up in the attic, where no one can find me.)
She couldn't wait for night to come. By day, she was a quiet servant girl who never spoke of stars. But at night, she could face the stars in the attic. Her own time, where no one interfered.
Just thinking about that time made her cold, wet fingertips feel just a little warmer.
After dinner was cleared away and the maids had all gone to bed, Yolenta slipped out of her cot. She walked avoiding the creaky floorboards, making no sound. At the end of the long corridor, a section of the wall was a hidden door. An entrance to the old attic that even the servants didn't know about.
When she pushed the door open, cold air rushed in.
The attic was Yolenta's castle.
No one came here. No one knew. Old beams crisscrossed along the slope of the roof. On the west wall, there was one small window. Through it, the autumn night sky peeked in.
Yolenta sat down on a wooden crate beneath the window and opened her mother's Star Language dictionary. The scribbles in the margins rose up in the moonlight.
On the window frame were marks Yolenta had carved herself. The north star, the east star, the south star. Small notches indicating each one's position. She couldn't afford an astrolabe—those cost thirty silver coins. On a servant's wages, she could work for years and never reach that sum.
So she'd made the window frame her astrolabe.
She aligned the stars with the marks and read the angles. Then she wrote them down in small numbers in the margins of the Star Language dictionary, continuing her mother's scribbles.
Today's angle of the north star. The difference from yesterday's record. According to the Church-sanctioned star chart, this star should be farther west.
But in reality, it wasn't.
Just a tiny bit. A discrepancy so small you could barely measure it with your fingertips.
For three years, she'd kept records nearly every night. Even as the seasons changed and the stars shifted position, the discrepancy was always there. Regular. Consistent. As if some great force were at work.
(What is this discrepancy?)
Yolenta bit her lip.
She wanted to know. But she was afraid to know.
If she pursued the meaning of this discrepancy, it would mean doubting the Church's teachings. Maybe geocentrism was wrong. Just thinking that sent a cold chill down her spine. The Inquisition. Black cloaks and silver star emblems. That shadow, coming to seize her.
A woman, studying the stars. That alone made her sufficiently disturbing.
And yet she couldn't stop.
Yolenta clutched the Star Language dictionary to her chest. The smell of old paper. Her mother's warmth no longer lingered there. Even so, this dictionary alone connected her to the stars.
Outside the window, the stars twinkled.
Her deep emerald eyes reflected the starlight. Only when she looked at the stars did Yolenta's eyes shine. By day, she was just a servant girl. But at night, she was an observer in dialogue with the stars.
"...Mother, what should I do?"
Her voice was swallowed by the darkness of the attic. No answer came. Only the stars shone, cold and distant.
The next morning, Yolenta went out to the market to do the shopping.
The market in Piastville was held on Wednesdays. It was a place where information from throughout the domain gathered—and also rumored to be where Inquisition informants lurked. Yolenta wove through the crowd and stopped in front of the bakery, "Wheat Ear."
"Well, Yolenta. You're early today."
The shopkeeper, Hans, greeted her with flour-covered hands. Yolenta gave a slight bow.
"I'm running an errand."
"Is that so. Ah—that's right. I heard you're interested in stars?"
Yolenta's heart gave a violent leap.
"...Who told you that?"
"Who told me? Well, you know. Various people. This town is small."
Hans laughed heartily. There was probably no ill intent. But Yolenta couldn't laugh. The fact that she watched the stars was becoming market gossip. Which meant it could reach anyone's ears at any time.
"Anyway, they've posted an interesting problem on the bulletin board at the Star-Reading Tower."
Hans leaned in and lowered his voice.
"'Explain the retrograde motion of the planets,' it says. What in the world is that? Planets moving backward? Stars running in reverse—that's an ill omen if ever there was one."
Yolenta's eyes went wide.
The retrograde motion of the planets.
That was a phenomenon difficult to explain under geocentrism. All the stars were supposed to revolve around the Earth, yet the planets alone sometimes appeared to move in the opposite direction. The Church-sanctioned star chart used complex epicycles to force an explanation for that motion.
But that explanation was strained.
Yolenta had noticed the strain. Over three years of recording the discrepancy between the star chart and the actual sky, she'd begun to suspect that the planets' retrograde motion might be the key to the true nature of that discrepancy.
"...Who posted that problem?"
Her own voice sounded so serious it surprised her. Hans tilted his head.
"Who knows. The priests at the Star-Reading Tower, I'd guess? They say scholars and monks from all over the domain have tried to solve it, and no one's managed."
Yolenta stood rooted to the spot, forgetting even to buy bread.
Explain the retrograde motion of the planets.
If she solved that problem, would something change?
No—nothing would change. She was a woman. A servant. Someone not even permitted to study the stars. Even if she solved it, no one would acknowledge her.
And yet.
Yolenta's fingertip unconsciously traced a circle in the air. An epicycle. The complex mechanism of geocentrism. If she could explain it another way—
(No, stop. Thinking about it at night is enough.)
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