Chapter Fifteen
Elysia
I try to breathe slowly and compose myself enough to keep my hands from shaking, but it’s no use.
The dread curls tighter with every passing second, threading through my chest like thorny vines that dig deeper with each breath.
I know what’s coming.
I feel it in the air … the way the orb pulses in the High Priestess’s hands like a living heart seeking a new host. The trees around us seem to lean inward, their leaves rustling not from wind but from anticipation. It feels like the entire grove is holding its breath for the new queen to be found.
I want to speak. I want to warn the women. Gods, I want to tell them everything Maggie said, but I can’t.
The High Priestess stands only steps away, her head slightly tilted in that eerie way, as if listening to a song no one else can hear. I know better after seeing how she reacted to Lisbeth. She can hear every whisper, every heartbeat, every breath.
If I speak now, if I even try to tell them what I fear is coming, I’ll bring her wrath upon us.
So I stay silent and the guilt devours me.
Thalia shifts in front of me. Her fingers brush mine again, this time not for comfort, but a question of what’s suddenly wrong with me.
Lisbeth’s gaze flicks toward me and I know she sees it too. My shallow breathing, the tight line of my mouth, the way my fingers curl involuntarily.
“You’re shaking,” she whispers so quietly I barely hear it over the rustle of the wind in the glowing leaves.
I don’t respond. I just give her a faint nod, hoping it’s enough to make her stop looking at me like that. I don’t know how to explain it.
The Priestess lifts her head and calls the first name.
A woman from the western lands steps forward. Her long silver cloak drifts behind her like smoke, boots silent against the mossy floor. The orb pulses brighter now, casting shadows across her face in slow, flickering waves.
She reaches the altar and faces the Priestess, giving us her side profile. Her palms tremble slightly as she places them against the smooth, glowing surface.
The world stills.
The light breeze stops and the glow of the trees dims.
Her lips part, but no sound escapes.
A low keening begins, so faint I think it’s just in my head, but the others must hear it too as Thalia stiffens and Lisbeth leans in as if trying to understand the sound’s source.
The woman’s body begins to convulse. Her fingers twitch against the orb. Her pupils dilate wide until her eyes look entirely black.
Then she drops to her knees, her head lolling to the side.
Foam trails from the corner of her lips.
Her limbs spasm once, then again, before going still.
A strange whimper escapes her lips, low and wet and broken.
Drool pools beneath her chin. Her mouth moves like she’s trying to form words, but only garbled nonsense slips free. Nonsense and spit and silence.
I hadn’t shared Maggie’s vague words that seemed like warnings wrapped in delusions, not wanting to startle anyone if there was no reason, but now guilt is sinking deep within my stomach.
Her words weren’t the ramblings of a broken woman, but those of a survivor.
A girl in the line ahead of me screams.
Another stumbles back, knocking into Thalia. My breath catches as one of the offerings at the back of the western territory’s line breaks. She turns and runs full speed toward the shimmering veil we passed through to enter the grove.
“No, Threnn!” someone cries out.
She slams into it, hard.
A sickening thud echoes through the grove as her body hits the barrier and rebounds off it, crumpling to the ground. The shimmering veil flickers. It is no longer fluid, but hardened. A wall to contain us now that the guards have left.
There is no escape.
Whispers rise. Fear thickens the air like smoke. Several women step away from the altar, edging back and breaking the orderly line, not wanting to be next.
The High Priestess’s expression darkens. Her voice cuts across the panic with steel.
“Compose yourselves.”
This only sends more panic through the group.
A muffled sob builds behind me.
The Priestess steps forward again, her robes billowing, the orb raised high.
“There will be order!” she says, voice cold and controlled. “You were brought here to be tested. You were never promised safety.”
Her gaze sweeps over the crowd. For a moment, her eyes seem to land directly on mine and I wilt beneath her heavy gaze, wanting to shrink inward.
A beat of silence follows before the testing continues.
The High Priestess turns back toward us with sharp precision.
“Remain in your lines,” she snaps, her voice slicing through the air. “Those that lived beneath the Dromin to the left. Nithrin to the right.”
Women shuffle quickly, realigning their positions, fear and uncertainty clear from trembling forms and wide eyes.
At the far end of the Nithrin line, I spot Virelle. Her shoulders are rigid, her mouth parted in stunned silence. The strength she carried in every movement yesterday is gone. She looks like she’s seeing a nightmare with open eyes.
For some reason, that breaks what little resolve I was holding onto for myself.
Maybe there is no hope of surviving this. Maybe Maggie is the rare exception.
Thalia begins to crumble in front of me. Her breaths come shallow and quick, her fingers trembling at her sides. Her knuckles go white where she clutches her cloak so tightly.
“This is going to kill us,” she whispers under her breath, voice barely audible.
I reach for her hand again, squeezing tight.
Behind us, Lisbeth mutters low, her tone dry and acidic. “Some selection this turned out to be. Maybe they should’ve called it a culling and saved us the suspense.”
Lisbeth’s bitter sarcasm feels strained, like she’s trying to provide levity for us despite not feeling any herself.
Thalia turns back to me with tears streaming down her face. Her voice wobbles and cracks as she whispers, “Elysia, what are we supposed to do?”
Her question splinters something in my chest. Because for once, I don’t have an answer. There is nothing I can do to stop what’s coming for us.
Before I can even try to speak, Lisbeth’s voice rises with firm clarity behind us.
“We do what we’ve always done,” she says, voice steadier than I expected. “We stay strong. We face it head-on, and when this is over, we go home tomorrow. Back to our families. If we’re not chosen.”
I glance at her, grateful for the steel in her words, even if we all know the cracks forming beneath them.
The words settle uneasily in my mind, because a thought rises in me that I can’t shake.
What if the only way to survive this with our minds intact … is to be the Queen?
If the High Priestess is this awful—if this is what the embodiment of a connection to their goddess looks like—what horrors wait among the rest of the elves for the Queen?
The grove seems to pulse around me, like it knows what I’m thinking.
My mind reaches for the one moment I felt safe with an elf. The one moment I didn’t feel like prey. The memory of storm-charged air and silver-veined arms holding me as I fell apart.
My Dromin elf. His arms around me. His silence and strength.
I wonder, just for a moment, if he knew I was going to be broken and if that’s why he wanted me to think of him now. So that I could remember his strength in a moment he couldn’t be with me.
I close my eyes tightly as another scream tears through the grove.
Then another, and another.
Each one more shrill, more guttural, more agonizing than the last. The line of women from the Nithrin lands is slowly, methodically pulled apart by whatever horror lies within that orb. The testing is no trial. It is a war of will … and most are losing it.
Thalia’s hand finds mine again. Lisbeth’s slides in on the other side. None of us speak. We just hold on. Silent and trembling. Three broken breaths threaded together by desperation.
Each of us squeezes the others’ hands with the same unspoken plea: Hold steady. Don’t fall apart yet.
In the darkness behind my closed lids, I reach for him again. His hands on my skin. The soothing, circular motion from his hand on my back.
I replay the memory over and over again, clinging to it like a lifeline.
It’s not enough to silence the screams.
Maggie’s words coil tighter in my skull. She chooses what bends. Not what breaks.
Yet that’s all I hear … the breaking of one mind after another, unraveling.
I’ve been strong for so long. For my village. For my family. For Thalia. For Lisbeth. Even for myself.
What if strength of will means nothing here?
What if all I can do now is wait and hope I don’t break too?
A new sound rips through the grove—a guttural, unhinged scream that cuts sharper than any before it.
My eyes snap open.
One of the women from the Nithrin lands breaks from the line, her face twisted in anguish and madness.
It’s instantly clear she’s already been broken by the orb.
She shrieks again and lunges toward the High Priestess, who is just past her in the line.
Her hands claw at the air, fingers curled like talons, her body convulsing with raw, frenzied energy.
There’s no recognition left in her gaze, only wild terror and fury.
Gasps echo through the grove as women stumble back, some crying out, others frozen in place.
The High Priestess doesn’t flinch.
With a single flick of her fingers, light flashes, sharp and silver. A pulse of magic shoots from her hand.
The woman’s body snaps mid-lunge. Her neck twists violently, a sickening crunch ringing through the trees before she crumples to the ground, lifeless.
The Priestess steps over her fallen body without a glance.
She doesn’t speak … she doesn’t even pause. She simply walks toward the next girl in line. The last one untouched from their lands.
Toward Virelle.
The High Priestess pauses in front of her, studying her with unnerving stillness. Her gaze sweeps over Virelle as if assessing something beyond her posture, beyond her physical form.
“You’re different from the others,” she says, her voice smooth and detached. “There is steel beneath the surface.”
Virelle doesn’t flinch. Her chin remains high, determination blazing in her eyes, that confidence I’d seen in her yesterday back in full force.
“You’re right,” she replies, her voice steady. “But the difference between me and the others from my lands is that I won’t go down without drawing your blood.”
Her eyes flick briefly toward me, just a glance, but it feels like a goodbye. A silent thank-you and a final farewell all wrapped into one look.
Then she turns back to the Priestess. I see it then, a glint of silver in her hand. My heart lurches as the dagger slides fully into her palm.
She’s going to try to kill the High Priestess. She’s going to try to save us all.
I take a step forward, the panic rising like bile in my throat. “Virelle!”
Lisbeth yanks me back, hard. Her grip digs into my arm.
“Don’t,” she hisses, her voice full of warning. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
I can’t look away. My heart hammers, and my throat aches from the scream I can’t release.
Tears slip down my cheeks, silent and unrelenting.
I don’t even try to wipe them away. I’m utterly torn between wanting to shut my eyes and turn away from what’s about to happen and needing to witness it.
To honor Virelle’s sacrifice with my eyes open.
She is fearless, she is fire, and she deserves to be remembered as more than just another fallen offering in a cruel selection.
I don’t want to see her die, but I also don’t want her to face it alone.
So I watch and I break in silence for the woman who refused to bend.