Venice, 1554 – Two Weeks Later
The first hint came in the smell.Not ink, not wax, but smoke — faint, acrid, drifting in through the shutters long before dawn. Elena stirred awake to the sound of distant bells, muffled but urgent, echoing across the lagoon.
When she reached the window, she saw the glow — a red shimmer behind the domes, flickering against the mist like a second sunrise.
The Arsenal was burning.
By the time she reached the workshop, Luca was already dressed, his cloak thrown over his shoulders. He was tying the clasps of a chest—one of the ones where he kept unfinished charts.
"What happened?" she gasped.
"Fire in the archives," he said, his voice taut. "They're calling it an accident. But accidents don't start in locked rooms."
He forced the chest shut, then turned to her. "Pack the drafts. The private ones."
Her heart pounded. "Is it the Spanish?"
"I don't know." He moved briskly around the room, gathering rolled parchments, stuffing them into a leather satchel. "Or the Senate trying to erase proof that I ever drew differently."
"Erase?"
"Every map they can't control."
The thought struck her like cold water: the Senate, burning its own maps. Erasing its own memory.
Luca caught her gaze. "We're not staying."
The canals were choked with smoke by the time they stepped outside. The sky glowed dull orange, reflected in the water like fire trapped beneath the surface. Gondoliers rowed hastily, some carrying crates, others shouting orders no one could hear over the din of bells.
Elena clutched her shawl tight against the ash falling through the air like gray snow. The Arsenal was only a few canals away, but already she could feel the heat.
"Papa," she said, coughing. "If they're burning the maps—"
He stopped her with a look. "Then we make new ones."
They hurried through narrow alleys until they reached a small bridge overlooking the southern docks. From there, she saw the flames rising high above the Arsenal gates. The air shimmered with heat. People stood along the quays, murmuring prayers or curses.
"It's the map vaults," someone said. "Gone, all gone."
"Every chart since the Crusades—burned to ash!" cried another.
Elena's stomach twisted. Centuries of memory, lost in hours. The sea itself, uncharted again.
Luca's hand tightened around her shoulder. "We go home. Now."
When they returned to the workshop, the street outside was eerily quiet. A patrol of Venetian guards passed by, torches flickering in their hands. One paused at their door.
"Signor Valenti?"
Luca stepped forward calmly. "Yes?"
"The Council requires inspection of your workshop. Precaution only."
Elena's breath caught.
The guard's eyes swept over her briefly, then to the chest beside the table. "May we?"
Luca nodded stiffly. "Of course."
They entered like wolves, polite and efficient. Two guards examined the shelves, rolling out maps, comparing seals and signatures. Another opened drawers, sniffing ink pots as though searching for guilt in the scent.
Elena stood frozen by the door, her heart beating hard.
One of the guards unrolled a parchment—the unfinished chart of the Adriatic, the same one the Spaniard had touched. His gaze sharpened. "This bears no Senate mark."
"It was practice work," Luca said smoothly. "For apprentices."
"Your daughter?"
"Yes."
The guard studied Elena for a long moment, then gave a thin smile. "A prodigy."
When they left, they took nothing — but they looked back too often.
The last guard lingered at the threshold. "Be careful, Signor Valenti. The Senate remembers who draws what."
When the door shut, the silence roared.
Luca sank into his chair, rubbing his temples. "It begins," he murmured.
"What does?"
"The purging. They'll blame the fire on negligence, but what they want is control. They'll gather what's left, decide what truths survive. The rest—"
He gestured helplessly toward the window, where the sky still glowed red.
Elena swallowed hard. "We can hide the others."
He looked at her sharply. "No. If they find even one, we're done."
"But you said—"
"I said we protect knowledge," he said fiercely. "Not die for it."
He rose, crossed to the cabinet, and began pulling out scrolls. "We burn the drafts. All of them."
Elena froze. "No."
His eyes softened. "I taught you to keep what matters, Elena. But sometimes, to save the world, you must let it forget."
He struck a flint.
The parchment caught fast, curling inward like leaves in a storm. The smell was unbearable—ink and glue and time itself turning to smoke.
Elena bit her lip hard to keep from crying. Her father fed the fire methodically, chart after chart, until the flames flickered blue. The silver-inked oath map, the secret compasses, the margins—they burned together.
When he turned away, she saw the tears on his face.
That night, after he finally slept, she crept downstairs.
The fire was still smoldering. In the hearth, among the ashes, she saw something glint.
A fragment of parchment—blackened, brittle, but intact enough to see the faint shimmer of silver ink.
Her heart stopped.
It was part of the oath map—the words still visible: Draw so that no tyrant may find what he seeks.
She knelt, fingers trembling, and pulled it free. Beneath it, another shape caught the light—the compass. Its brass face scorched but whole.
She picked it up. The needle turned slowly, hesitantly, and came to rest pointing south.
The direction of exile.
She pressed the fragment of map flat and whispered, "I won't let it end here."
At dawn, the bells tolled again—not for fire, but for the dead. Sailors, apprentices, guards. Dozens lost in the blaze. Smoke still hung over the water like mourning cloth.
Luca didn't speak. He watched the city from the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
When Elena came to stand beside him, he said quietly, "They'll come again. To ask questions."
"I know."
"Promise me, if they take me, you'll say nothing."
She looked at the compass in her hand, its metal warm from her skin. "I promise," she said.
He turned, studying her face. For a moment, he seemed about to speak again. Then he simply nodded.
Outside, the sun rose over the ruins of the Arsenal. The water shimmered gold and red—the color of ink, of blood, of beginnings and endings intertwined.
Elena tucked the fragment of the oath map beneath her cloak.
If the world could be erased, then she would redraw it.
And she would not let the truth burn again.