“Ganymede... Ganymede...”
Her moon held more than secrets.
It held truth.
The voices grew louder with each visit. Once such a soft whisper, barely discernible from the gentle breeze that often whistled through the cracks in the walls in a tepid draft, now they beckoned emphatically, pulling her onward in a quest she couldn't quite remember committing to. What had begun three years ago as infrequent explorations of a lost and curious mind had become habitual, a weekly vigil undertaken by a devoted soul intent upon discovery.
But of what? The forgotten past? An unknown future?
Or was she discovering herself?
There remained much she did not know. The war, its beginning, and its distant end were a confusing mix of good and evil, truth and lies that Ganymede found herself incapable of rearranging into any semblance of order, either because she did not have the power to do so or because the answers remained hidden back in the depths of time, waiting for her to uncover them. But with each step she felt them growing closer, now only just beyond her reach. Perhaps it was not the answer, but it was hers; perhaps it was never meant to be about the bigger picture, but the individual journey.
Ganymede entered the throne room with the memory stone in her hands, cradled between her palms like a solemn offering. Inside swirled the faintest of pink gases, spiraling faster the further she ventured into the expansive confines of the room. Along the periphery ghostly figures appeared in their fine clothing, clustered in groups, lining the walls, peering over the upper gallery, as their whispers rose to join the incessant voices that so often called her name.
“Ganymede... Ganymede...”
They were more than ghosts, of course. They were memories—all that remained of a world that had seen its end so long ago. But they were as much a part of her present as they'd been a part of her past, for they belonged to her and she to them. This was her sanctuary, this forsaken world with its crumbling buildings and scarred earth. In the middle of a war in which she'd never quite found her place, her moon offered her a source of power, protection, and identity.
On Earth she was just a skinny girl with dreams of a brighter future, struggling to move forward in a world that kept pushing back. She remained that same skinny girl on Ganymede, but here her dreams found an endless well of hope, and rather than thwarting her progress, her world encouraged her onward. It called to her and she responded; she called to it and it opened itself to her in kind.
Over a mangled chandelier of dented gold and shattered crystal, and a crumbled column of pulverized marble, Ganymede wandered deeper into the throne room, following a path only she could see. It stretched out before her amidst the destruction, a long sweep of polished wood floor and red carpet, bathed in the warm golden glow of sunlight that had once brought this world to life. A sliver of the past that existed in the present, Ganymede followed it with her heart in her throat, her eyes locked on the collection of figures that occupied the dais on the far side of the room.
No Moon Queen existed here, no Princess to attract the attentions of the Prince of Earth, but there was a large man in a fine coat and jewels that Ganymede knew to be a King, and a gracefully aging woman in red silk she knew to be his consort. They were distant figures sat beside one another in chairs of gold and red velvet, beneath an embroidered canopy of state, negligent and uncaring. Disinterested in the proceedings, they showed her not a trace of warmth or kindness, merely the face of duty and obligation.
But there were three others who watched Ganymede far more intently.
The first, a middle-aged woman with long, dark, glossy hair, hanging down her back in loosely spiraling curls, with light blue eyes set in a pale face, in a plumed cap and pink jacket decorated with the symbol of Venus. Her expression was soft, her small smile kind and welcoming. Ganymede could hear her voice calling out, tempting her forward. Her gaze offered truth.
“You and I share a name, did you know that?”
The second, a boy of sixteen with cold green eyes and dark auburn hair tied back into a low tail by a length of frayed twine. Far too serious for his young age, the boy's green tunic bore the insignia of Jupiter. His fingers were curled into his palms defensively, his arms held straight at his sides. He was solid and sturdy, a heavy presence despite his youth.
His posture spoke of duty, his face of loneliness. When Ganymede closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, she felt the ghostly scratch of a beard against her face, lips against hers, a hand in her hair.
The sensations were gone as soon as she opened her eyes again, but the boy continued to watch her. Behind the walls he erected around himself, beneath the turbulence of the grim look in his eyes, Ganymede saw a subtle interest, a desire for companionship, and a vow that spanned the centuries, etched into the palm of her hand.
The last, a severe looking man who wore billowing black robes over a dark suit, with a collar of gold embedded with red jewels over his shoulders. His gray hair was short and neatly combed, his blue eyes focused, thrusting the weight of his expectations straight into Ganymede's soul.
And after three years—no, hundreds, she thought—Ganymede felt prepared to meet them.
Slowly she lowered herself to the floor on her knees, which ached against the rubble concealed beneath the fog of memory.
A priest in white robes appeared. He approached her sedately, carrying a crystal chalice filled with warm, golden oil. As the priest drew closer, his robes obstructed her view of the dais and the figures that resided upon it.
The memory stone felt warm in her hands. Ganymede tipped her head back and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. She saw grand chandeliers and painted figures of angels and saints. Among them was a lone youth in white, red, and black, with his hands outstretched as if to accept his fate and reach for the power that gave him his name. On his forehead was an ancient symbol, one that had been placed upon Liesel's forehead hundreds of years before, when this ceremony had been his to attend.
Now it was hers.
The past was not just in the past, she realized. It was everywhere. It was all around her. It had never died, merely dwelled here in stasis, waiting to reveal itself upon her return. All she had to do was accept it. This was her fate, and she could bear it—as Liesel had before her.
The priest dipped his fingers into the chalice. Ganymede raised one hand to unhook the beaded tiara she wore, laying it gently upon the floor. Then the priest's thumb touched her forehead and pressed warm oil into her skin in the symbol of her people.
Over, over, down, left, down.
It would be hers for the remainder of her life.
“To Ganymede,” she said softly, “to my family, to my allies, and to my people, I vow to remain faithful and true for as long as I live.”
It was a vow that spanned centuries, millennia—a vow for the present, for the past, and for the future.
“And after... until the end of time.”
From somewhere unseen to her a white light glowed hot and bright. It could have come from the stone in her hands, it could have come from some unknown spot within the room, it could have come from some place deep inside of her, lodged within her heart or her starseed, bursting forth now to seal her promise for all eternity. She paid it no mind, for her eyes remained cast toward the ceiling, beyond the priest that loomed above her, his hand frozen in its final motion upon her forehead.
The light cleared and the priest and the remaining ghosts were gone. So too was the polished floor, replaced now with gouged wood littered with dirt and dust. The once lush red carpet was no more than dingy frayed threads, and the figures of Ganymede's last known monarchs were nowhere to be seen around the pile of rubble that had once been the dais upon which they sat. The figures along the periphery faded back into the past. They left only whispers.
“Ganymede... Ganymede...”
The last to fade were the only three she knew by name—Palatine, Valhalla, and the Lord Chancellor.
When they were gone, Ganymede looked to the stone in her hands. Through the fabric of her gloves it felt heavy and warm, as more pink gas seeped through to swirl inside. It formed shapes and figures, rising and falling in wispy waves, a small collection of memories that would steadily grow with time. Hers or Liesel's. A lifetime's worth, or two. Enough to give her purpose.
Enough to give her strength.
For it was hers, this world and everything on it. Ganymede was her place to belong.
The room looked different than before, she suddenly realized. It seemed bright and open. The white light had gone, but in its place was something soft and golden. It threw shadows across the floor, intermixed with splotches of light from the shattered windows and gaps in the ceiling. There was warmth upon the back of her head, tingling her scalp, as a gentle breeze ruffled through the fair strands of her hair.
Ganymede tipped her head back to look up toward the painted ceiling. Her eyes instinctively went to the place where she knew a lonely figure in white, red, and black to reside with hands outstretched, but a break in the ceiling had taken its place over time.
Through the hole which should have shown black night and the tiny pinpricks of silver stars, Ganymede saw a stretch of clear cerulean.
Blue skies and sunlight.
She looked around rapidly, twisting to spy more ghosts and memories, but none of them rose up to greet her. The room was cluttered with debris, piles of twisted metal and broken stone. She was not seeing the past, not blinded by images of what had once been. No, she was rooted firmly in the present.
This was no memory.
A smile stretched across her face. She rose to her feet, leaving her discarded tiara there among the rubble as she climbed over fallen columns and the remnants of chandeliers. Her gaze whipped to the large windows, expecting to see darkness lit only by Jupiter's pale glow and the silvery sheen cast by other dead moons, and though she saw them there still, Jupiter looming great as always, the moons following their slow orbits, they were all bathed in an ocean of blue.
Ganymede tripped out of the room in her excitement. She ran down the length of the hall, skidded around a corner and pelted through another wing, coming to a sudden halt in the hall of mirrors.
The bits of broken window and shattered mirrors that littered the floor glinted like diamonds in the sunlight that by all accounts should not have been so bright. The sun was distant here. Its light should not shine as clearly as it did upon the Earth, and yet the world was aglow. The endless night had gone; in its place there was a glorious spring.
Her world was alive. She could feel it in the warm sunlight, in the solid ground beneath her feet; she could see it in the bright blue of the sky, no less vibrant here than in the throne room, a beautiful stretch of color beyond the tall windows, hanging over the palace and showering the capital in the illumination of a life-giving sun; she heard it in the wind that sighed through the broken window panes, carrying with it the memory of cheerful birdsong, and the long, low, mournful whistle of a distant train.
The image that met her eyes when she looked to the reflection in the mirrors was that of a skinny girl in a white corset and long red train, with sunlight all around her to put rosy color into her pale cheeks, and blonde curls that fluttered in the breeze.
For one fleeting moment she thought her eyes showed more blue-purple than turquoise, but it was gone so fast she put the thought away as a trick of the light.
Yet as she peered closer, as she approached the mirror for a second look, she saw it there upon her forehead—a curious symbol marked by the faint glisten of drying oil.
An open heart joined with jagged light.
