Nipria guides me to the upper part of the ship, where the doors leading out onto the main deck are located. Instead of heading towards one of the exits, however, she takes me into a small room filled with equipment and heavy clothing.

  “We artificers use these for working outside,” explains the rebel, moving confidently between cupboards and shelves. “There’s no problem taking them—there are plenty.”

  She hands me a sort of very heavy overcoat, equipped with a hood and covered in straps. I’ll certainly be warm in this. She puts on a smaller one herself, and then we head towards the nearest door leading outside.

  “Brrr,” I say, as the icy grip bites into the exposed parts of my skin.

  As Nipria said, the presence of the magnekinítiras means that on the Epos, snow falls as normal. A soft, white layer covers the deck and the airship’s cannons. Despite the weather conditions, several members of the crew are working outside. I don’t envy them at all.

  “Wow,” the young woman exclaims, leaning out over the rail.

  I join her, and I have to admit the girl’s reaction is perfectly justified: around the ship floats a cloud of snowflakes, suspended in the air and almost motionless, given the lack of wind and gravity. Some of them gently cluster together, forming small floating structures, as if they were pure white coral.

  The sky is covered with light grey clouds, many of them very close to the Epos. It’s as if the airship were travelling in a world made of clouds and snow. Only now and then does the blurred outline of a fragment emerge from the blanket, only to vanish not long after.

  “This isn’t something you see where I come from,” I comment, impressed.

  “No?” says Nipria. “Where are you from?”

  “From a… distant place.”

  “Another world?”

  I stare at her in surprise. She raises her hands as if to defend herself.

  “Erm… Jim told me… that you say you’re from some world called Earth,” she reveals, almost apologetically.

  “I should have guessed,” I simply reply, turning back to look overboard.

  It’s yet another confirmation of something I’d already suspected for a while: my origins are no longer a secret known to just a few, aboard the Epos… which means that, potentially, anyone could think I’m a madman or a charlatan.

  Nipria remains silent for a few seconds, watching me uneasily. Then she asks:

  “Erm… what’s it like, living on a world with only one fragment?”

  A strange question to ask. I suppose it’s a way of making conversation, even if it means pretending to believe in the existence of Earth. Well, not playing along would be rather rude towards her.

  “Um… in many ways, life is a bit simpler than here,” I say. “Since we don’t have to move from one island to another, getting around is easier.”

  “That sounds… impressive…” she says, her face bearing the bewildered expression of someone imagining something unusual. “Seeing all that land… with no borders…”

  “Oh, there is a kind of border: the horizon.”

  “The horizon?”

  “The line that separates the sky from the land. You don’t have it here… since there isn’t any land big enough.”

  “But… so, where you come from, sky and land are separate?”

  I smile. Things that are obvious to me are hard to describe to someone who’s never lived on an actual planet.

  “The Earth is a sphere,” I explain. “A single, huge globe, with seas and oceans dividing up the different lands. And above everything there’s the atmosphere.”

  “Atmos?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “Atmos, Fragment and Aqwa,” the girl lists. “The three spheres of Tersain.”

  Sounds like that’s something Archeos hasn’t got round to teaching me yet.

  “Sorry, I don’t know what those are,” I admit. “But the atmosphere would be the air surrounding the Earth. Let’s say it’s the sky.”

  “Then it really is Atmos.”

  “… I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Anyway… what were you saying about the horizon?”

  “Well, since the Earth is a sphere, it curves away in the distance, and at a certain point it’s no longer possible to see beyond,” I say, making an effort to express a concept that seems so obvious. “That’s where a line is created: below it is the land, and above is the sky.”

  “Mmh… that’s hard to imagine,” Nipria mutters, now wearing a concentrated expression.

  “Maybe I’ve got a photo on my phone…” I murmur, thinking aloud. “But by now it’ll be completely dead.”

  “What?”

  “No, don’t worry.”

  After a few moments in silence, the girl speaks again.

  “So… there are no fragments?” she asks. “No islands? No Selene?”

  Selene?

  “No,” I confirm.

  “Wait… Selene is spherical… so is the Earth like Selene?”

  “What’s Selene?”

  “The gigantic white and grey fragment, really far from Tersain,” the girl replies, stretching out her arms to indicate something very large. “It’s a sphere, and it looks small, but that’s just because it’s very far away, and it goes round Tersain.”

  “Oh… I understand what you mean now,” I smile. “You’re talking about the Moon, right?”

  “Moon?”

  “Apparently, here it’s called Selene,” I deduce. “It exists where I come from as well, but with a different name.”

  “So you do have a fragment!”

  “It’s not exactly the same thing,” I laugh. “But let’s say yes.”

  “Well, it’s a bit pointless, since you can’t reach it.”

  “We have.”

  “Really!?”

  “Yes.”

  Nipria looks truly astonished.

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  “But… there’s the void…” she says. “The horizon of the three spheres…”

  “Oh oh! You do have a horizon as well!” I exclaim, triumphantly. “Yes… some of us have gone beyond what you call the horizon… though only a few, really.”

  “And did they come back?” she asks, almost holding her breath.

  “Most of them.”

  “That sounds… frightening.”

  “You’re right,” I admit. “It is.”

  After that, the conversation stops. For a couple of minutes, we both remain silent. Then Nipria lets out a little laugh.

  “It’s nice hearing about your world,” she says.

  “Well… at least there’s that,” I reply, with a touch of mild sarcasm. “Even if they don’t believe me, at least it’s something interesting to talk about.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You believe me?”

  I look at her, surprised.

  “Yes,” she nods.

  I can’t help but lock my eyes onto hers. I study her carefully, trying to tell if she’s lying to me. After all, there are plenty of reasons for doing so—the first being compassion for a poor madman.

  But her gaze is clear. Nothing in it gives me any hint that she’s not telling the truth. As absurd as that is.

  “No one here believes me,” I remark, to see if the rebel will falter. “Not even Archeos, and he’s the one with the most open mind.”

  “I don’t see why you’d lie,” the girl states, certain. “If you say you’re from another world, then I trust you. It was the same for the Prophets.”

  “The Prophets… what?”

  “The Star Prophets,” Nipria clarifies. “They came from the sky, saying they were from another world.”

  “Oh, in that sense,” I understand. “Well… in a way, it’s the same for me.”

  Even though I don’t think my planet can be reached by things like spaceships.

  I continue to look at the artificer. She’s the first person to say she believes me. That thought can’t help but make me smile.

  “What… what is it?” the girl asks.

  “Nothing.”

  I turn to look out over the side, and so does she.

  I feel… strange. Happy. I mean, I’d got used to not being taken seriously when it came to what I say about myself, but… it’s not as if I ever liked it. It hurts, that’s the thing… it makes me feel somehow more… alone. Misunderstood.

  But now, for the first time since I got here… someone has lightened, if only a little, that sad feeling. Something which—as if a huge dose of happy hormones had just been suddenly released in my brain—is warming my heart and lifting my spirits greatly.

  I feel a wave of gratitude towards the girl.

  After a while, as we watch the flakes, she asks:

  “Can I ask you something? How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” I reply.

  “Oh… one year older than me.”

  “You’re sixteen?”

  “Yes.”

  A sudden noise comes from behind us: a metallic clang, like pieces of iron colliding. Startled, we turn round with a jolt. The other people outside seem surprised too. Then the crew bursts out laughing. What looks like a piece of machinery has just crashed onto the ship’s deck.

  “A piece of debris,” Nipria realises, relaxing. “It happens from time to time.”

  “But that’s dangerous…”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it: with this weather it’s impossible to spot them all.”

  A little worried, I look at the rebel.

  Then, unexpected, curiosity arises within me. Why? Until now, I wasn’t particularly interested in her. It must be… yes. In feeling seen and recognised, I now feel the desire to reciprocate. Or rather… now I actually care about the artificer.

  At least for this conversation, she’s no longer just anyone to me.

  “Listen… why did you join the Resistance?” I ask. “Especially at your age.”

  “My age?” Nipria repeats.

  “Aren’t you a bit… young?”

  “You’re never too young to oppose the Republic,” the girl declares, abruptly switching to a firm tone, though she doesn’t seem to be angry with me in particular. “I’ve been in the Resistance for two years. More or less since my father died.”

  “…”

  “He was in the Resistance too,” the rebel explains. “He was an artificer. I learned from him how to take care of machinery. He was killed during a Republic raid on the fragment where he worked.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “A lot of people here have stories like that,” she says, unfazed despite the subject matter. “The cause of the Resistance is passed down from generation to generation… and it’s fuelled by the desire for revenge against the Republic, which took our loved ones and our rights from us.”

  “So… you fight for revenge?”

  “That’s part of it… but not only that. We want to prevent others from ending up in the same situations as us. At least, that’s how I see it.”

  But by killing their enemies, don’t they end up causing exactly what they want to prevent? I wonder, though I’d rather not voice that doubt to her.

  “Hey,” says Nipria, giving me a light punch on the shoulder. “Let’s not get into all that. Whatever our reasons, the important thing is that we’re here doing what’s right. Isn’t that true for you as well?”

  “To be honest, I don’t have much choice.”

  “In a way, it’s the same for a lot of us,” says the artificer. “We’re all in the same boat!”

  Leaving aside the literal meaning of the phrase, I doubt it, I think. But unless rumours have started going round, she doesn’t know that I’m little more than a prisoner on probation… and there’s really no need for me to tell her.

  ???

  When I part ways with Nipria, I walk calmly towards my room. I can confirm it again: talking about my home has put me in a good mood.

  It’s the first time someone’s shown an interest in my world of origin: people like Archeos, who only want to know about Earth’s technology, give very little importance to other aspects of my planet… in fact, they don’t even believe it exists. Compared to those cold, technical discussions, today—talking about what my world is like in comparison with Tersain—I’ve had the chance to feel a much stronger longing for home; not as painful as it could be, but in some way pleasant, though veiled by a thin layer of sadness.

  And then there’s the fact that with Nipria I can have a conversation without feeling like I’m making a fool of myself. I don’t know why the artificer is so quick to believe me, but the truth is, it’s enough for me just to know that there’s someone who doesn’t dismiss my stories as delirious fantasies. It’s an encouraging thought.

  I reach the corridor outside my cabin. There’s no one there, except for someone standing by my door.

  Dawn?

  “Where have you been?” the rebel asks when she spots me.

  “You were waiting for me?”

  “Yes… you weren’t in any of the usual places.”

  Worried that she’s been waiting because of me, for a moment I wonder if we’d explicitly arranged to meet again, but a quick check of my memory confirms that we hadn’t.

  It’s an unscheduled initiative of hers.

  “I was on the main deck,” I explain.

  “What? In this cold?”

  “Nipria took me to see the snow.”

  “Nipria?” Dawn repeats. “The artificer?”

  “Yes.”

  “O-oh!”

  The girl takes on a strange expression. Is that some kind of provocation in her eyes?

  I’m confused… it’s the first time I’ve seen her pull that face.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” she replies. “Did you have fun?”

  “Yes… I told her about my world.”

  “Really?”

  “Mmh…”

  I tilt my head to one side. Definitely suspicious. Several alarm bells are ringing in the back of my mind, warning me that there’s something off about the rebel’s behaviour.

  “You’re brooding over something…” I state, “and I’m not sure I like it.”

  “What are you talking about?” the young woman retorts, putting on an innocent look.

  Ah, so that’s how she’s playing it… or maybe she’s telling the truth? Bah… I can’t exactly grill her if she doesn’t want to spill the beans.

  “Anyway… why were you looking for me?” I ask instead.

  “Oh, nothing, just for a chat,” Dawn downplays it, now wearing a bored expression. “But I see you’ve already had your fun. Well, see you then.”

  And she strides past me, walking quickly down the corridor.

  How strange… I think, watching her vanish without looking back.

  My mind starts wandering, trying to make sense of her unusual behaviour. But before the reflection grows too intense, I force myself to stop.

  It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t always be overthinking things.

  Only then do I remember I wanted to ask her for advice about mayea.

  Looks like I’ve missed my chance for today.

  At last, I manage to do something resembling a shower. While I’m at it, I also wash the clothes I was wearing when I arrived in Maltia. Meanwhile, I eye them critically, wondering how much longer they’ll last. Sooner or later, the moment will come when I have to switch permanently to Tersain clothing.

  Back in my cabin, I put the freshly changed clothes away in the wardrobe. Then I notice three small shapes lying in a corner at the back of the compartment: my wallet, my phone, and the broken watch, the only tangible proofs that I don’t belong to this world. I half-close my eyes, letting a gentle expression form on my face. Caught up in all the activity aboard the Epos, I had almost forgotten about these objects that were once so essential when I was on Earth.

  I pick up the phone, looking at it with nostalgia. I press the power button, even though I know the battery must be completely dead by now. That’s why I’m rather surprised when the screen lights up.

  Really? I think. I’ll have to take back my complaints about this phone’s manufacturer. Its battery is longer-lasting than I thought.

  Once the operating system has loaded, the phone’s interface appears. My astonishment only grows: the battery indicator shows that half the charge is still available.

  When the captain returned it to me, it was on the verge of dying, I recall. Could this be an error on the phone’s part?

  And yet, the icon doesn’t shift to a more reasonable value. After waiting a couple of minutes, I switch the device off and on again. This confirms that the charge is exactly as indicated before.

  Really odd. Maybe the value was wrong last time… or did I misread it? Whatever the case, I wasn’t expecting the battery to hold out for so long simply by being switched off.

  Then, a sudden flash runs through my mind. A memory entirely unrelated to what I’m doing now: one from the evening before my arrival on Tersain… when it seemed as if I’d used a torch without batteries.

  A tickling sensation in the back of my consciousness seems to be trying to tell me that something… a connection is on the verge of forming in my thoughts. The feeling lasts a couple of seconds…

  … only to fizzle out without bearing fruit.

  Ah, I hate it when that happens!

  Unfortunately, intuition sometimes fails. And when it does, it always leaves me with that annoying feeling that I’m forgetting something important. Sadly, it’s also unlikely that focusing will allow me to pick up the thread of whatever reasoning was taking place in my subconscious.

  While I try to shake off my disappointment, my gaze drifts absently to the messaging app I used back on Earth. Opening it, I quickly glance at a few messages I attempted to send on my first day on Tersain… but which, of course, never went through without an Internet connection.

  My fingers almost move on their own accord, quickly tapping out yet another brief message. Then, I hit the send button.

  … what am I doing? I think.

  And once again, I turn the phone off.

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