"But what of creation?" she asked. "Who began it all?"
Now, Halver paused. His tone softened. "That question," he said, "is not beneath you. It is above us all. We do not know. Not truly. The philosopher Kairon of Alzara once said, 'The true divine is not the hand that shapes the stars, but the law that binds them.' We may never et a true god. But if there is one, it is not like us. It does not sit on a throne. It is beyond the architecture of species, planets, even galaxies. It would not dwell in temples or take offerings of gold. It is gravity. It is entropy. It is the expansion of space. "
A silence settled in the room, thick and reverent.
He turned back to the starscape.
"If there is a god," he said, "then it is in the laws of physics, in the song of gravity, in the thread of ti itself."
Another student asked. "So all our stories... they're just wrong?"
"No," Elina said quietly, before Halver could reply. "They're just incomplete."
"Well said, Miss Elina," he said. "Myths are not lies. They are languages. Primitive models of a universe too vast to see all at once. But now, with science, we speak a newer tongue."
Halver let the weight of the idea sink in before continuing. "In our empire, faith has not vanished. But it has evolved. We worship not beings, but questions. We believe in pursuit. In understanding."
He turned to the holoscreen, where a rotating spiral galaxy now shimred.
"This is the Antrona. Your ho galaxy. You live on a world orbiting one star among its 100 billion."
"And beyond?" Elina asked.
"There are other galaxies. Trillions. And possibly, other universes. We call that the multiverse theory. Imagine bubbles in a sea of nothing. Each bubble a universe, with different laws."
Another student muttered, "That's madness."
Halver grinned. "Yes. It is. And it might also be true."
The class erupted in whispers. So were afraid. So thrilled. Elina's eyes burned—not with tears, but revelation.
Halver raised a hand.
"Knowledge can be terrifying. It shatters the small world you thought you knew. But it also frees you. As Kairon also said, 'The sky was never the limit. Only the beginning.'"
The bell rang—an old-fashioned chi from Britannia's past. The students began packing up, their minds crowded with galaxies.
Halver also closed the hologram. The stars winked out.
"For tomorrow," he said, "read the first three chapters of Universal chanics for the Pre-Industrial Mind. Translations are available in Old Britannian and Elian. We will discuss planetary formation and the illusion of celestial harmony."
The students began to file out, so talking, others silent, processing. But Elina remained.
She stood slowly, walking to the front. Halver was packing his tablet.
"Professor," she said. "Do you ever miss it?"
"Miss what?"
"Wonder. Belief. The thrill of the unknown."
Halver smiled again, this ti wistfully. "Wonder doesn't die with knowledge. It evolves. You no longer fear the storm god. But you marvel at the birth of a supernova. The old gods kept you in awe. The universe... humbles even ."
"Also, Professor, do you believe we will ever reach those stars?"
Halver looked up, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled.
"Yes. Maybe. Maybe soday, Our space research agency is working on this and we will have good news soon."
Elina nodded. Her heart thundered. Not from fear. From purpose.
She had given up a crown. But perhaps, she had just found sothing greater.
★★★
The second morning.
Elina now lived in one of the university's stone hostel towers—humble, but dignified, a far cry from the marbled halls of her palace. The room was small, with a narrow bed, a wooden desk worn from centuries of use, and a high window that looked out over the misty courtyards. Her only companions were a shelf of borrowed books and a raven that sotis perched on the sill in the early morning.
She rose just after dawn, as she had done in the palace, but without servants or maids. She washed her face in the basin by the window, the water cold enough to make her flinch. Her morning tea, brewed from local herbs brought by the kitchen staff, tasted slightly bitter but comforting.
Each movent of the routine reminded her: she had chosen this life. No attendants, no guards, no luxury.
And yet, in that silence, she had found a strange kind of peace.
There was sothing grounding in the rhythm of shared living. Students from every background—young mages, would-be scholars, even a swordsmith's apprentice nad Garven who sang off-key while boiling eggs—occupied the sa halls. They argued over lecture points in the stairwells, lent each other ink and parchnt, debated gods and stars over candlelight. No one bowed to her here. Most didn't even recognize her as the forr princess.
That anonymity was a gift.
She kept a small journal, in which she scribbled dreams, questions, and fragnts of thought before breakfast. Sotis she wrote about her brother, her old ho. Sotis about atoms.
That morning, she wrote one line:
We were never ant to stay on the ground forever.
....
The lecture hall once again filled with students from every corner of Britannia—mages, blacksmiths' sons, displaced nobles, forr knights. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder on benches, clutching their notepads or pieces of slate.
Above them, the do shimred, sunlight filtered through panels designed to adjust to brightness and wind. Elina took her place near the front, her stylus ready.
Instructor Halver Wynne stood at the platform, this ti with a small sphere hovering beside him. It pulsed gently—like a heart.
"Welco," Halver began, his tone more contemplative than before. "Yesterday, we spoke of the universe. Its vastness. Its origins. Its mysteries. Today, we speak of structure. Not just stars and galaxies—but the bones of reality. The skeleton of existence."
He made a subtle motion, and the sphere beside him split apart. Layers unfolded, revealing a glowing lattice of light. A model of their planet, Elina realized—but it was transparent, crisscrossed with lines.
"We begin with your world,"
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