Edward

Edward has the name of the age, and of the King. Which is a waste, really. History will leave him utterly forgotten. Edward is a clerk in almost every regard. Accidents of birth and education have given him a knack for literacy but no real excess of intellect. Edward has only one uncommon advantage on his side. Of a morning, when he looks at himself in the mirror, constellations are picked out across his pale skin. Not dock-side tattoo trophies but a natural coincidence of moles and marks. They make him feel small, but so does everything else in Edward's life. What they give him, that nothing else provides, is a certain contentment at the end of the day. Before sleep Edward can look across his body and know that it is perfectly alright to be inconsequential. He knows deep within himself that no matter how far the King, his namesake, is elevated above him, they are both barely dust on any scale that matters.

When he dreams, he stands in front of himself and orates equations and balances as if from a ledger, 'To be important is to burn with the mass of light. To matter is to fill the sky with glory. How could God value a man, when the stars exist?'.

What Edward does not understand is that the stars have stories only as gifts. He is a quiet heretic. That he exists, and has meaning, is a glory as great as the rising sun.