Somewhere in Italy, 1492.
In the autumn of 1492, the carrack *Santa Lucia* wallowed through the Ligurian Sea under a sky the colour of wet slate. Lord Gregorio di Saluzzo, prosperous merchant of Genoa, stood at the rail watching his men haul in a half-drowned boy no older than fifteen.
The stranger was tall for his age, limbs long and spare, skin the warm hue of aged teak. His sodden robes—black silk embroidered with faint silver—was nothing any sailor recognised. He coughed seawater, then looked up with eyes the colour of storm-lit jade, clear and strangely calm for someone who should have been dead.
Gregorio experienced two miracles in that voyage - one was finding this boy in the middle of a turbulent sea (he wasn't sure if this was a good one or not), next was the boy shoving him away from a falling spar barely an hour after he had gained consciousness. The first made him worry about Pirates and evil at sea, the second made him think that this boy may be a lucky talisman whose presence saved him from a crushed skull.
Soon the boy became his shadow—silent at first, then slowly learning words with help from Gregorio's very patient and motherly wife, then sentences, then the sharp-edged arithmetic of trade. At first they all called them l'Orientale, as traders they were aware of folks of the mysterious Orient. Later the boy introduced himself as Lian, no surnames.
Three years passed. Lian grew into a young man well liked by his adoptive family. Gregorio's wife and mother had taken him as a protege, first in gratitude of saving Gregorio; next to fill the vaccuum left by a dead eldest son, a married off younger daughter and the youngest son now always in journeys with his father learning the trade; and finally because the boy made them proud and happy - he respectful towards elders, taller even than many local boys but slim, quiet, handsome in a way that made people glance twice. He managed ledgers with uncanny precision, spoke passable Genoese, and carried himself with a stillness that suggested he was always listening to something no one else could hear.
By nineteen, Lian's appearance had become a quiet oddity in the winding streets of Genoa, where young Italian men strutted in the vibrant fashions of the day—fitted doublets of velvet cinched at the waist, tight hose that accentuated sturdy legs, and shirts with billowing sleeves that caught the sea breeze like sails - their skins olive-toned from the Mediterranean sun, their moustaches sharp, voices loud and gestures broad, their looks a blend of Roman and Tuscan refinement. Lian, by contrast, seemed carved from a different world entirely: his features sharp and elegant, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes that held an inscrutable depth, and skin that looked coldly smooth golden marble.He remained always clean-shaven, his face smooth, his hair ink-black and straight tied back in a simple coil. His clothing only heightened the intrigue: he fashioned his own garments from salvaged silks and cottons, loose-fitting tunics and trousers reminiscent of ancient warriors of East—flowing sleeves that whispered against his movements, high collars that shadowed his throat, all in muted blacks and grays that draped his lean, tall frame like mist over mountains. Women sighed at his cold charm, men narrowed their eyes, and children pointed outright; in a city of bold colors and clinging fabrics, Lian's austere grace was as much a fascination as it was a horror.
It was in the spring of his nineteenth year that he first met Isabella Valenti.
She was fourteen, daughter of Conte Valenti, Gregorio's partner and friend. Dark honey hair, wide hazel eyes, and a mind hungry for books the nuns had never meant her to read. They met in the scriptorium of the Valenti palazzo. Lian had come to deliver a shipment of paper from Fabriano as a trade envoy of Gregorio; she was there pretending to copy psalms while actually tracing the constellations from an illicit chart.
As he waited in the ante room next to the master library, he was aware of a pair of brilliant hazel eyes curiously looking at him. He turned and bowed and the girl slowly smiled as she walked to him. She was a slip of a girl—slender and coltish, her hair in loose waves of dark honey to her waist, tied back with a simple ribbon, and her skin was fair, dusted with faint freckles across her nose. She dressed in the modest kirtles of a noble daughter and to Lian, she looked like a little bird longing to fly.
She had asked, in careful Latin, what the silver characters on his old sleeve meant.
He answered—halting, but exact—that they were a fragment of a poem about the river that flows between the living and the dead.
This had led to many questions and interesting answers - Isabella felt for the first time she'd found someone she could talk freely to.
Lian hadn't expected any further contact after he'd left the Palazzo- she was a noble lady after all, while he was a mere commoner and also foreign. Long used to curiosity in the eyes of young women and hostility in the eyes of their family members towards a foreign man with no family or wealth, he was used to being isolated after a few initial niceties.
But that was not the case with Isabella.
She sought him again and again - when he wouldn't come to Palazzo, she freely went up to Gregorio's manor, a familiar home to meet Lian. Gregorio's wife Anna had smiled at them, she had no concerns about her protege crossing any lines, he was too smart for that. Also she welcomed the girl especially when her youngest son was home. She had been hoping to contract a marriage between her youngest and Lady Isabella, only daughter of the noble Conte.
Soon Liang no longer could avoid the lady; a part of him that had been too alone for last many years welcomed this.
The meetings became deliberate and frequent. Shared books left on garden benches at Manor. Questions about the movement of stars that required evenings and sneaking offs. A quiet friendship that felt, to both of them, as important as a warm blanket on a very cold night.
By the time Isabella was sixteen and Lian twenty-one, air between them changed.
While Lian had retained his serious handsome charm at 21, she had blossomed into a young woman of striking beauty in 2years—her figure now curved and graceful, the coltish limbs giving way to a lithe elegance that turned heads at feasts and markets. Her dark honey hair was often pinned up in elaborate braids adorned with pearls or fresh flowers, framing a face where the freckles had faded into a creamy complexion, her hazel eyes glowing when she laughed. She carried herself with a quiet confidence, her gowns now accentuating her curves.
She fell first—openly, helplessly. She would find excuses to touch his arms, to sit closer than propriety allowed, to look at him when she thought he was not watching.
He resisted.
Not because he did not feel the pull—he did, fiercely—but because something ancient inside him kept whispering *you cannot stay, you don't belong, go back to where you do*.
He had never shared any details about himself to anyone- everyone assumed he'd no memories of his past. But he did- he retained bone-deep memories of his heritage as a valued heir to a treasured cultivation sect. However the betrayal he faced - at the hands of a senior disciple he had once counted as a friend- and the lack of response from his Master whom he'd tried to contact by means of secret cultivation techniques had left him feeling orphaned and adrift. He knew deep in his bones that he couldn't stay, but he also didn't know to what he should return to.
Then came the night of warnings.
He was twenty-two.
The voice arrived in his head without sound, sharp as a blade sliding between ribs.
My treasured disciple, I finally connect to you. I have not much time as seas between us cannot keep this link for long. Listen to me with all your heart- whereever you are, leave before the next full moon. I see you amongst pale faced men and women who look at you with suspicion, fear and also love. Danger surrounds you so leave. Once you cross the waters of Western ocean, I'll find you and will helpyou. Be safe and start soon.
Lian woke gasping.
The full moon was just three days away.
He told no one and started preparing - defying Master was not an option.
His heart hurt deeply as he thought of the love he'd miss dearly even though he knew he had no fate with her - his knowledge of stars and a stern warning from his patron -Keep your wits about the lady, she is to be wed to a noble whose birth matches hers when she turns 18- had made it clear to him.
Instead, the night before he planned to slip aboard a departing trading ship, he went to their secret place—an abandoned cabin above a small cove, one they had claimed as theirs since the first summer they read poetry together by lantern-light. He had to say a bye.
Rain came hard that evening, sudden and strong. He arrived soaked and opened the wooden door in a rush.
She had come early, eager to meet her first love - he had been avoiding her for last week and she wanted to know why. But she had gotten soaked in the heavy rain and had reached the cabin some minute before Lian had
When he pushed open the door she was dropped the wet chemise from her shoulders, now only clad in soft linen clinging and showcasing her lush curves, translucent, her hair undone, her face fresh and glowing
She turned, startled and once she saw who stood at door, did not cover herself.
The candle flame trembled.
Neither moved for a long heartbeat, staring at each other.
Then she stepped forward, with a soft smile that broke all his resolves.
What followed was not seduction in the ordinary sense.
It was surrender—mutual, desperate, wordless.
The storm battered the shutters while they learned each other with shaking hands and soft, broken sounds.
Later they lay tangled on the narrow pallet, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing the line of her spine as though memorising it.
In the grey hour before dawn he felt it: a faint, new warmth blooming low in her belly.
Life.
His life, passed into her.
He could have left her alone before but now with his life inside her, how could he?
So he stayed and for the first time ever, disobeyed his Master.
The full moon came and went.
Lian began, foolishly, to hope the warning had been mistaken, that fates now looked kindly on them as a new life was in making.
As days became weeks, he could no longer stay away from a love that was now filling both his mind and body. His heart sought her out as much as his body yearned for her touch. Isabella, with the passion of Genoa in her blood; lost in her, he no longer was discrete or careful.
They met in secret to make plans for eloping whenever they could.
They were not careful enough.
Whispers began to grow louder through the narrow streets.
Isabella's brother, Giovanni, twenty-four and fiercely protective of his sister, had watched the rumours grow. When he heard, the foreign boy was searching for berths for two in ships bound for East, he could no longer sit still.
One evening, when Lian came to the palazzo garden side- gate to meet his love, Giovanni was waiting in shadows with a pistol - dangerous new weapon now in fashion.
Giovanni meant only to step in and frighten, to drive the boy away. But before he could warn the couple when Lian reached for Isabella's hand, a shot was fired. A startled Giovanni looked around to see a trusted aide of Count Ettore della Rovere- his sister's noble fiancee - ride away.
The ball had struck Lian high in the chest; he fell without a sound, eyes closed in pain but hands still stretched to hold his love.
Isabella's scream brought the household out.
Giovanni stared at the spreading blood, at his sister's face who looked with shock at her brother holding a gun, and understood—too late—what it looked like. But he couldn't now point to the actual culprit - his sister's marriage and future lay ahead.
He confessed it all to a sombre Gregorio and they planned for a quiet funeral. Lian had spoken freely of death, so his patro knew what he wanted. Next day evening, near the seas a funeral pyre was lit in secret, attended by the very few people who knew Lian well. Isabella who never cried after watching her love's life fade away, watched from afar and silently listened to the shocked wonders as soft cherry blossom petals that disappeared when it touched anything fell in soft showers, when the smoke and ash reached the skies - it was as if the heavens were weeping for the dead youth.
Days later, when Isabella's condition became undeniable, Giovanni refused his mother's plea to let the family physician "solve" the problem.
This child's father was killed before him and he did nothing even though he could have at least sought justice; now he would not allow murder an innocent child.
He helped his now quiet sister to continue her pregnancy in secret, delayed her marriage preparations with Ettore and hoped to someday see her bright smile.
In secret, he and Gregorio arranged passage for a trusted childless couple—Marco and Teresa, silk merchants who were close partners of Gregorio who had long planned to join relatives in London, with dreams of the new lands beyond the western sea.
At dawn two months after giving birth , Isabella stood at the upper window, watching the small boat carry her infant son away. Her brother was surprised when he had hesitantly suggested the plan to give away the child in adoption to his sister - after seeing how much his sister had adored the baby in her belly, he expected tears and blame. But she neither cried nor got angry, instead smiled, nodded and packed careful gifts - Lian's favorite brush and pen, her favorite Ivory comb, Lian's and hers hairs tied together in a locket for keepsakes.
The baby—dark-haired, golden-skinned, with his father's quiet nature and his mother's hazel eyes—was wrapped in clean linen and held against Teresa's shoulder. As he was taken from his mother, neither she nor the baby cried - something that surprised Teresa but she didn't comment. Marco lifted a hand in farewell and soon the boat faded in mist as it waded towards the waiting ship.
Isabella smiled through tears, whispered a blessing, and pressed her palm to the glass window as she watched.
The next morning, Ettore della Rovere—noble Lord she had been promised to since childhood—arrived to pick up Isabella for a quiet church wedding before he took her away to his domain.
Ettore had been enraged by Isabella's betrayal- it mattered not that he had other women and will have many more and many children outside marriage, but she - his legal wife should have stayed chaste for him! He had demanded the bastard child's death but had to settle for exile when Isabella over whom he had been obsessing over her for past many years threatened to join a convent. He agreed, vowed to allow a safe passage for the child and she agreed to be his wife in name and in bed. Soon they all left to celebrate the marriage - Giovanni and his wife accompanied new bride feeling uneasy in his heart.
That night, the wedding party was merry, filled with flowing wine and sweet meats and none minded the silent bride; soon the groom carried the bride away to ribald cheers and leery suggestions. Only Giovanni's wife worried about the dead look in her sister-in-law's eyes.
The next day, a satisfied Ettore called for a breakfast feast. He had enjoyed an amorous wedding night with his quiet silent bride - he had quite enjoyed exploring her, punishing her for her mistake and claiming her hard - he was now eager to show off her and the marks he had left on her body.
Soon however a scared maid in tears ran down and whispered to the butler. Giovanni who'd later walked in watched Ettore's face changing from shock to anger. They all rushed towards the Lady's sitting room where brides of the house enjoy the mornings.
She sat in a chair by the window.
Wrists opened with her own hidden small dagger.
A single lock of black hair curled in her bloodless fingers.
On her face was the same gentle smile she had worn watching her son sail out of sight.
None spoke later about the poor bride; facts became myths. Vittore married another soon. Giovanni brought his sister back home and laid her to rest next to her dead departed beloved near the sea.
Soon Lian and Isabella became one among many names in stories of tragic lovers, sometimes remembered, sometimes forgotten.
But some say the soul is a thread that refuses to break.
And some—only in the hour when the moon is thin and the wind remembers the sea—whisper that when two hearts have truly yearned, time itself will fold like paper, century after century, until they meet again.