Skylight

Chapter 13: At the Helm of Empyrea

My mind was swimming with this new information she's given me. Lydia the same; she slouches, but not in a hopeless manner. In a sense, her expression is relieved, the story having lifted an invisible weight off her shoulders.

Not mine, though.

"I don't get it." Anastasia looks up, staring me down. "Why did he risk you both to have a child?"

"It's something he was never clear about." Anastasia said softly. "But he did tell me, 'I'm pinning all my hopes on my king.'"

A frown formed on my face. Our king isn't exactly one to help Dorothea's situation. "You might find something in his room." Anastasia told me. "He told me he wrote letters; thousands of them, to you, to Lydia. To the king. They never sent, but it could be important."

And that's how we ended up here; Lydia and I, strolling arm and arm down the hallway of rooms, to the one right across from mine. Almost conveniently, the wooden door is unlocked, and Lydia's hand hesitated on the knob. She glanced back at me for reassurance, and I noded, letting the knob twist and the door be thrown open.

A mess. No other words coulf describe it. His papers were strewn across the room as though a tornado had swept through, designs and drawings hung on the walls, wooden boats stacked almost to the roof. How did Calix manage to find even his bed in the rubble?

Lydia stepped in first, and I followed, the wooden floor boards groaning with the movement of our feet. Even with the sunlight shining in, it was rather a sinister room. Portraits of people he drew were pinned to the light brown walls- Anastasia, Lydia, Valentine. Even one of me, lounging informally on a throne, my crown lopsided on my head.

Lydia combed through his pile of papers, tear drops dripping onto it, mixing the ink into blemishes of black. I surveyed the room again. A crutch, covered in signatures in the corner. My name and Lydia's was on it, and so were Valentine and Anne's, I found. Beneath it, a small, nearly miniscule wooden fence, blocking off the borders into the paintings of a farm. I nearly choke up, clamping a hand over my mouth to muffle the noise from Lydia.

When we were younger, she and I, we were both scared to death of the thunderstorms that came frequently. Darkness, rain pouring like tears, thunder's scream after the flash of lightning. I cried during almost all of them, despising the roaring sound, sobbing uncontrollably beneath my blanket as Lydia tried to comfort me.

Then Calix found us. He dried my tears, hoisting me up into his arms and letting me hug him tightly. He let us camp in his room, spreading his blanket on the ground and sacrificing a good night's rest to sleep on it with us.

Lydia and I stayed up, borrowing Calix's paints and scribbling strokes of it into the nook of his room. A farm. A sheep, from the story he'd told us about land animals. A horse. A pig. I loved every minute, every second, every brush and mark upon his floor. So did he.

Crouching down as he tucked me and Lydia in, he set a candle next to me to protect me from the dark, but said something else. "The darkness doesn't have to be your enemy, Atlas." He told me softly, when Lydia had finally dozed off to sleep. "You can befriend it; that's a secret only a few people know." Pressing a finger to his lips, he smiled mischievously, the candlelight casting a ghostly glow upon his face. But it didn't scare me. On the contrary, it intrigued me, drew me in. "Keep it a secret, okay, my little king?"

"Okay, Cal," I whispered back. My small hand reached out, cupping his face, running it over his nose, his lips, his eyes. I memorized every mesmerizing curve and angle of his face, the turn of his jawline, the arch of his nose. He slowly laid down, stilling himself as I touched, like he was a masterpiece, a work of art. Little did I know then, he was. He is. No one would ever know about him, though.