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 Rain Bringer — The Rough Gem a Genius Saw, and the Fear a Woman Held
The late-autumn rain soaked the stone walls of Count Piast's manor.
The sky had been buried under thick clouds since morning, and though it was barely past noon, the light was dim and gray. Through the kitchen window, the trees in the courtyard shivered, their branches trembling under the rain.
Yolenta was washing a mountain of potatoes in a large wooden tub of water. Her fingertips had gone cold and numb. Strands of her flaxen hair clung to her cheeks from the damp, and she brushed them aside with the back of her hand again and again.
(This rain isn't going to let up today.)
She scraped the mud from the potato skins as she thought it. She didn't mind this work. It was simple, and it let her focus on moving her hands. But when she worked silently like this, she couldn't help thinking.
About what had happened five days ago.
She had submitted answers to the impossible problems at the Star-Reading Tower. The stunned faces of the priests. A servant girl had solved those problems. That fact could no longer be erased.
Every day since, Yolenta had felt like she was living on borrowed breath. How far had the rumors spread? Would someone denounce her as a heretic?
(But what I felt then wasn't a lie.)
She wanted to know more about the stars. She wanted to calculate more. That feeling that had surged up from deep in her chest as she climbed the tower stairs—it had been stronger than fear.
"Yolenta! Are the potatoes done yet?"
Marta's sharp voice flew from the back of the kitchen. The head maid, a woman in her fifties, stood with her thick arms crossed, eyebrows raised.
"I'm sorry, I'm finishing now."
Yolenta hurried her hands. Marta glared at her, snorted, and returned to the great pot.
In this manor, Yolenta's position was weak. She was the youngest of the servants and the quietest. Ever since it became known that she watched the stars, she had been treated even more like a blight. The maids would deliberately talk about the stars in front of her and giggle.
(Don't care. If I care, I lose.)
Yolenta repeated it in her heart over and over.
That was when it happened.
"Hey, someone's here!"
A young manservant poked his head in from the back door.
"A monk. And a pretty shabby-looking one at that."
The air in the kitchen changed in an instant. It wasn't unusual for monks to visit the manor. But on a rainy day like this, looking shabby, at the back door—
Marta peered out the window with a suspicious frown.
"Did you properly check who he is?"
"That's the thing—he says he wants an audience with Count Piast. Something about the Star-Reading Tower."
The Star-Reading Tower.
Yolenta's heart gave a violent leap.
(About the Star-Reading Tower...?)
No. Surely not about those answers?
"In this rain, poor thing. But we can't let a filthy monk like that into the manor. Send him away."
Marta spat the words out.
"He won't take no for an answer—insists on seeing someone."
The manservant looked troubled.
"Did you see his eyes? Both of them burned out. And yet it's like he can sense everything around him. Gave me the creeps."
Both eyes, burned out.
Yolenta's hands stopped.
(A monk with burned eyes...)
In this world, what crime earned a punishment of having your eyes burned out? Heresy. Those suspected of star-law heresy.
"Hey, Yolenta. What are you standing around for? Get those potatoes in the pot."
Marta's voice brought Yolenta back to herself.
"Yes."
She moved the washed potatoes into the great pot. The steam hit her face, and it was just a little warm.
But inside her chest, something wouldn't settle.
Then, from the direction of the back door, a voice came.
Low, and carrying well. It cut through the sound of rain and reached her ears clearly.
"I have come to see a certain person who works in Count Piast's kitchen."
Everyone in the kitchen froze.
"A girl who solved the impossible problem posted at the Star-Reading Tower in half a day. She should be working in this manor."
Yolenta's body went rigid.
(He's come to see me...?)
"W-what did you say?"
Marta walked toward the back door.
"What are you talking about? There's no such girl here."
"Don't lie. I heard with these ears that the servants of this manor were gossiping about the commotion at the tower. That a woman solved the impossible problem. Where is she?"
The owner of the voice climbed the step at the back door, feeling his way with a staff.
Yolenta saw him.
His short, dark-brown hair was soaked with rain and plastered to his forehead. Stubble covered his cheeks, and an old burn scar marked his left temple. And his eyes—
Clouded white. Lightless.
But his face held unmistakable will. An old dueling scar ran from his left cheek to his jaw. That scar told her this man was no ordinary monk.
Using a long wooden stick as a cane, he entered the kitchen slowly, yet without hesitation.
"...Is it you?"
The man's face turned toward Yolenta.
He shouldn't have been able to see, yet he fixed on exactly where she stood.
"You're the girl who wrote those answers."
Yolenta couldn't find her voice.
"Hey, you! Don't just walk in here!"
Marta planted herself in front of the man.
"This is Count Piast's kitchen. It's not a place for a filthy monk like you to come tramping into. And those eyes—you're someone suspected of heresy, aren't you? I won't have this house getting tangled up with the likes of you."
Marta's voice trembled with disgust and fear.
"Suspected of heresy, is it."
The man gave a small laugh.
"Those who burned my eyes judged my research to be 'suspected heresy.' But here I am, still alive. Still calculating the movements of the stars."
At his words, the air in the kitchen froze.
Calculating the movements of the stars. A monk, and yet researching the stars. That was tantamount to defying the Church.
"What is your name?"
The man addressed Yolenta.
"My name is Yolenta."
Yolenta finally forced out her voice.
"Yolenta. A good name. I am Badeni. Former valedictorian of the Star Academy, and now nothing more than a monk moldering away in a frontier monastery."
The Star Academy.
Yolenta knew that name. The highest institution of the Star-Script Church. The only school for becoming a star-reader. The place where women were forbidden to enroll.
"Valedictorian of the Star Academy..."
"Ancient history. Now I'm just a dropout with burned-out eyes."
Badeni spoke with self-mockery.
"What did you come here for? What do you want with our Yolenta?"
Marta pressed him sharply.
"Only one thing."
Badeni turned his clouded eyes straight toward Yolenta.
"Those answers are fake."
A breath escaped Yolenta's lips.
"...Fake?"
"Yes. That impossible problem was one I posted on the Star-Reading Tower's notice board. A question about the retrograde motion of celestial bodies—one that not even third-years at the Star Academy could solve. And a servant girl solved it in half a day? Don't make me laugh. You must have stolen a look at the answer somewhere, or had someone help you."
Badeni's tone was arrogant from beginning to end.
"I wrote those answers alone."
Yolenta's voice came out a little stronger.
"I had no one's help. That problem can be solved by dividing the period of retrograde motion into three assumptions and calculating each in turn. I simply worked through them in order."
"Oh? Three assumptions, you say?"
The corner of Badeni's mouth twitched.
"Then prove it here and now. Recite the calculation process before me."
"...Here, you mean?"
"Yes. Here."
Yolenta looked around. Marta and the maids watched her with a mix of curiosity and contempt. The manservants had stopped working to see how this would play out.
(Do the calculation here...?)
But at Badeni's provoking tone, something blazed up deep in Yolenta's heart.
It was infuriating. She wasn't mature enough to stay silent when someone called her work fake.
"...Understood. I'll explain."
Yolenta wiped her wet hands on her apron and let her fingertips race through the air.
"First, the retrograde motion of the planets cannot be explained by the geocentric model's circular motion alone. So the star charts draw a small circle called an 'epicycle.' A planet moves along a large circle while tracing a smaller circle of its own. This double circular motion is meant to explain retrograde motion."
"Continue."
Badeni urged her on, low-voiced.
"But there's a contradiction in calculating these epicycles. The changes in a planet's brightness don't match the size of the epicycle. So I set up three assumptions. One: the planets' orbits are not perfect circles. Two: the Earth is slightly offset from the center of the universe. Three: the planets' speeds are not constant."
Yolenta's voice no longer trembled.
"Using these three assumptions and checking them against the observational records, the period of retrograde motion can be calculated almost exactly. The answers I submitted to the tower contained that entire calculation."
Silence fell over the kitchen.
Only the sound of rain echoed softly.
Badeni said nothing. With his clouded eyes, he stared fixedly at Yolenta's face. The arrogance of a moment ago had vanished from his expression.
"...I see."
After a long silence, Badeni spoke.
"You understand the calculation far more deeply than I had assumed."
"Wh...?"
"Calling it fake was a test. To determine whether you truly thought it through yourself, or were merely parroting someone else."
Badeni set his staff on the floor and clapped slowly.
"Magnificent. A servant girl, self-taught, solving that impossible problem in half a day. And you even noticed the contradiction in the epicycles. Your talent is real."
For a moment, Yolenta couldn't grasp what was happening.
(A test...? He was testing me?)
"Your talent is too precious to bury here."
Badeni's voice suddenly turned serious.
"Yolenta. Do you wish to know the truth of the stars?"
The truth of the stars.
At those words, Yolenta's heart gave a great leap.
"The truth... of the stars?"
"Yes. How the sky of this world truly moves. Whether the geocentric model the Church teaches is the truth. Or whether there is another answer. Don't you want to know?"
Badeni's voice pierced through the rain, reaching Yolenta's ears with perfect clarity.
"...That is—"
Yolenta's throat trembled.
She wanted to know.
Of course she did. Ever since she'd noticed the discrepancy in the star charts three years ago, she'd wanted to know. Whether the Church's teachings were truly correct. Or whether the discrepancy she'd found connected to some deeper truth.
But.
"I'm a woman."
Yolenta lowered her eyes.
"A woman, studying the stars. And pursuing the truth of the stars means becoming a heretic. The star-law prohibition exists. Anyone who advocates heliocentrism is burned at the stake. I can't."
"Talent has nothing to do with gender."
Badeni dismissed it in a single sentence.
"Whether you're a woman or a servant, your mind is real. I guarantee it. The question is whether you'll use it or not. That's all."
"But..."
"You want to know. Am I wrong?"
At Badeni's words, Yolenta had nothing to say.
He wasn't wrong. She wanted to know. She had always wanted to know.
"Hey, you!"
Just then, Marta cut in.
"What nonsense are you spouting! Luring our Yolenta into heretical research—absolutely not! This girl is our servant. She has no need to look at stars. And you, going on about calculating the movements of the stars and heliocentrism—don't bring such dangerous talk into this manor!"
Marta's face was pale with fear.
"That's right!"
"Drive out the heretic monk!"
The maids began clamoring all at once.
"Turn this man over to the Inquisition!"
"Tell Count Piast!"
The kitchen erupted into chaos.
Badeni slowly swept his clouded eyes over the clamoring maids.
"Quiet. I have no business with any of you."
His voice was low and cold.
"Yolenta."
Badeni whispered into Yolenta's ear, so softly that no one else could hear.
"Come tonight to the pilgrim's inn called the Silver Star. I'll be waiting i
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