The ship moved off so quietly that Ieva couldn’t tell the exact moment they left the dock.
There was no vibration.
There was no acceleration.
Only the stars beyond the portholes began slowly changing places, as if deciding themselves to let them pass.
Aronas rarely spoke.
He moved through the ship without hurry, as if he’d learned every corridor not with his feet, but with memory.
The navigation room held no ordinary screens.
Only a round table, above which a living star chart hovered.
It kept changing constantly.
Every time Ieva looked, she saw a different arrangement of the sky.
“That’s impossible,” she said quietly.
“Only because you’re trying to remember an old sky,” Aronas answered.
He stepped up to the star chart.
Touched a single point of light with his finger.
The entire galaxy rearranged itself.
As if it had been waiting for his touch.
Ieva held her breath.
In all her years of study, she’d never seen anything like it.
“Do you see?” he asked.
She nodded, though she didn’t know what she was actually seeing.
Aronas smiled.
“You’re the only one who sees what others don’t.”
The words came out so simply, as if they were an indisputable fact.
After them, the ship grew strangely bright.
From that day on, Ieva found herself waiting more and more often for him to say something again.
When he was silent, even the stars seemed dimmer.
And when he spoke, the cosmos regained its depth.
For the first time in her life, it struck her that courage alone would never have been enough to travel this far.
Perhaps some paths need more than a navigator.
Perhaps they need someone who already knows where they lead.