Upon arriving in Pisum, Caelus remained silent, his gaze fixed on the familiar façades that now seemed distant. Sweat clung his hair to his forehead, but it was another kind of dampness that weighed on his shoulders – the truth, now revealed, walked with him like a shadow he had never known.
At the entrance to the Governor's House, Isabela hesitated for a moment before climbing the steps. She knew that place too well, where the corridors still whispered of decisions, promises, and sins. Her coat swayed in rhythm with her steps, and her boots left almost silent marks on the hot stone. She opened the door without asking permission. She never had done so there.
In the atrium, lit by oil lamps and the last tongues of sunlight slipping through the tall windows, Fausto Duarte was waiting. Standing, between shadows and the heat that clung to the walls, he looked older than before, as if time had taken its toll in silence.
– You've returned – his voice was hoarse and restrained.
Isabela approached slowly. Their eyes met, and in hers there was something more than longing: a certain regret, perhaps tenderness. She touched his arm, a brief yet intimate gesture. It was the touch of someone who knew the other's bones and sorrows.
– Fausto, my dear, he already knows. He's discovered the whole truth, but not in the best way.
Fausto swallowed hard, then looked at Caelus, who remained upright like a statue at the entrance to the hall. The twilight cast his shadow at his father's feet, a path stretching between them that they had never walked together.
Fausto let out his breath as if releasing years of silence and suffering.
– Then… it is time – his voice faltered, but did not break. – As I promised you, my son, I will tell you everything.
He sat heavily in a high-backed chair, facing the two of them. The wood creaked under his weight, or perhaps under the weight of what was about to be said. Caelus sat on a nearby bench, eyes fixed on his father. Isabela, for her part, remained serene, yet not distant – like a wall that both protects and conceals.
– I was your age, perhaps a winter or two older or younger, and I was still an apprentice. I was stubborn and foolish, as all boys are at that age. My master and I travelled from city to city… Aureliana, Vigneto Vecchio, Azuris, Porto Verde, Minierossa, Valleverde, Lunara, Mareguardia, Perlaria. He wanted me to see everything, to touch the metals of each people of Terra Solara. To hear how the hammers sounded in every dialect.
Fausto's eyes drifted for a moment, caught on old images brought back as he spoke.
– One day, we arrived in Pisum. It was smaller than it is now. The people were honest… poor, but stubborn and proud. They worked with what they had and asked for little, but all of them, without exception, were in need of a true blacksmith. Ploughs broke, hammers and pickaxes rusted, swords were poorly tempered. And I… I saw all that and knew I didn't want to leave.
He paused. The sound of the fire crackling in the hearth mingled with that of memories.
– My master protested. Said it was too soon, that I wasn't ready to be on my own, that Pisum was a backwater with no glory. But I didn't want glory. I wanted usefulness. I wanted to serve. And so I stayed. I set up my forge beside the east wall, and that was where it all began.
Isabela touched Cal's shoulder, a silent, almost maternal gesture. Fausto took a deep breath, as one who prepares to dive even deeper into the past.
– A few months had passed since I'd set up the forge – he said, with a half-smile forming in his wrinkles, – when there was a ball. One of those events organised to celebrate some god or other. I was never very religious, but I decided to go. Why? I couldn't tell you, but it was as if something whispered in my ear that I should go, that my life would change if I did. And that's where I saw your mother. She was trying to hide in the crowd, wearing a borrowed dress and had a sparkle in her eyes like I had never seen before. She didn't look at me like one looks at a simple blacksmith. She looked at me like I was a story she wanted to read.
Isabela smiled, without saying a word. There was in that gesture the memory of youth and loss.
– From that night on, we never stopped seeing each other – Fausto went on. – At first, we met in secret. In the fields, among the rocks of the hills, in deserted streets after the bell had tolled. We spoke about everything. I explained the processes I used in the forge and told stories of my travels, and she spoke of politics and poetry. I was always good at listening. But it was she who taught me to read. Letters danced before my eyes like flames, and it was your mother who showed me how to catch them.
Caelus now looked at his mother as if seeing her for the first time. There was more than admiration in his eyes: there was awe, almost reverence.
– It was because of her – Fausto continued, leaning back in the chair – that I fell in love with books, with maps, with stories of lands I've never seen and wars I've never fought. The forge gave me sustenance, but books gave me worlds. And that is why I opened the little bookshop beneath our house.
He raised his eyes to his son, and now the weight of the coming words was visible on his hardened face.
– On an moonless autumn night, with the city in total silence, I heard someone knocking at my door. I was still at the forge, finishing putting out the embers, when your mother walked in, her skin sweaty, her eyes haunted.
Isabela did not look away. There were old tears in her eyes, but none fell.
– She told me she was pregnant.
The silence that followed was made of iron and stone. Caelus felt the weight of the revelation as though it were a hammer falling on the anvil of his destiny. But he did not interrupt.
– I didn't hesitate. Not for a moment. I took all the money I had and we went in search of a priest. We found an old friar, half-blind and drunk, near the abandoned sanctuary in the northern hills. We paid him for his silence and his blessing. We were married right there, under the stars, among reeds and whispered promises. She brought a red scarf, I brought my mother's ring.
His voice faltered. Fausto passed a hand over his face, as if trying to erase the memory.
– We thought that love was enough. That we could have a life of our own. But the world, as always, demands a high price from those who dare to dream.
Isabela closed her eyes. A tear finally slid down her face, silent.
– When Isabela's father discovered our union, it was as if fire had taken over his house. The man would rather die than see his daughter and heir joined to a blacksmith. Fortunately, the laws of the Cult of the Eternal Sun do not allow a marriage to be annulled if there is life growing inside the mother, but that didn't stop him from decreeing that you were to be raised by me, far from the halls and inheritance of the Pisodorato. Everything was to be kept secret. No scandal could fall upon the family. It was as if nothing had happened.
Fausto ran his fingers over his temples, as if the years weighed more on him in that instant than in all his life. His voice, when it returned, came hoarse but firm.
– Despite everything… your grandmother never turned her back. She was a completely different person from your grandfather. At night, she would send loyal and discreet servants to deliver small sums of money, sacks of flour, fabrics, even books. Nothing bearing the Pisodorato crest, of course. She never let us go hungry or live a hard life.
Isabela nodded, her eyes moist but calm. She did not want to remember all the moments she had been denied with Caelus.
– And your mother came whenever she could. She brought you stories, she brought you laughter… and always left with her heart in tatters.
Caelus remained still, but the tension in his jaw betrayed his inner turmoil. Each word seemed heavier than the last, as if the world he had known until then was cracking beneath his feet.
– But her father eventually discovered she was visiting us at night. He made her promise never to see us again. Not from afar, not up close, or she would be sent to the Templum Solis until she earned forgiveness for her sins.
Caelus listened to it all in silence. A meditative silence, as if he now understood all the secrets of the world.
– So… – Caelus began to speak, in a timid but inquisitive voice – what does your union mean? What does that make of me?
– It means, Caelus… – replied Isabela – that you are my rightful heir, and that makes you the Count of Pisum by law.
Caelus remained motionless. His face was a carved mask – between shock, disbelief, and something deeper, older… perhaps a thirst to belong to something that had always been denied to him.
– I made you my personal steward not only because I knew you were capable… – Isabela's voice softened for a moment – but because I wanted to be with you. To know you. To discover what you were like, beyond the stories told in secret and the letters I was never able to write. I wanted to look at you every day and see, with my own eyes, what was left of me… and of the man I loved.
Fausto lowered his gaze. He said nothing. He didn't need to. His silence was that of someone who had always known.
– You may use the title of Count of Pisum, if you wish – added Isabela. – It is within your reach. It is in your blood.
The sound of the main door opening echoed through the hall like distant thunder. The three who were there – mother, father, and son, united by confession – turned their eyes at the same time. The quick and determined footsteps of Edouard Lefevre made the wooden floor creak, and soon after, a figure appeared in the doorway, lit by the golden glow of a hanging lamp.
– You're alive! – said Edouard, releasing his breath as if he had held it since dawn. – Thank the gods…
Behind Edouard appeared Isabella Conti.
– Lady Pisodorato, allow me to introduce Isabella Conti, our doctor. I brought her to tend to your wounds. How is your hand?
– It was a clean shot, but bullets don't usually ask permission – she murmured, with a tired smile.
– Nor do the soldiers who fire them – replied the doctor, already kneeling before her, hands steady, eyes calculating. – You'll be left with a scar, but you won't lose the hand.
All eyes were on Isabella's skilled hands as she tended to Isabela Pisodorato's wounds. Yet the wound now exposed was the one that cut into the heart of the Kingdom of Caelestis.
– And now? – asked Caelus. – Your troops have taken the city… what happens next?
Edouard was about to speak, but it was Isabela who raised her bandaged hand and, with it, the word.
– Now – she said, rising with the grace and hardness of someone born to lead, – we are in open rebellion against the crown. Against the name Calentiflor, who dared take my city and imprison me. Against Rafael and that pile of incompetent manure he calls his son, who lets his people starve and drown in debt while he feasts, goes hunting, drinks himself senseless and frequents every brothel in Calentis.
Edouard did not protest. He simply leaned against one of the marble columns with a contained, almost satisfied smile. Like a general who finally sees the right piece move on the board.
– And now? – asked Caelus. – Will you march against the king?
– Pisum was the first city to join. Others will follow. Porto Calido is restless. Torre del Calor has heard echoes of this revolt for weeks. In Riberaforte, there are those who have long desired justice… and there are those who fear what is to come. These three will be useful to us and will allow us to corner the filth of Calentis against the Monti Neri.
Isabella Conti, now tying a new bandage as the Duchess of Pisum sat back down, glanced sideways at Edouard.
– At last you have your rebel Duchess, Lefevre.
Edouard folded his arms, eyes fixed on Pisodorato.
– She's not mine. She never was. But I always knew that, when the moment came, she would be the one to raise the torch. Only she has the name, the blood, and the right kind of fury.