Chapter 19 Elena
I needed answers.
I needed the truth, not the polished, rehearsed lines the Elders had fed me my entire life.
And I was going to get it, no matter what it cost me.
“Well,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Kathar. “Are you ready to tell me the truth?”
He laughed. The bastard actually laughed in my face.
“Oh, Elena,” he tutted. “You continue to surprise me with your naivete. Why do you think we owe you anything?”
Behind him, the doors opened again, and the rest of the Elders filed into the hall to stand behind Kathar, smirking at me.
The light from the torches danced across their faces, casting long shadows that seemed too dark, too deep, making the Elders look almost…demonic.
“High Priestess,” Elder Theron said, his voice smooth and measured, as it always was.
His pale blue eyes, cold and calculating, flickered over me as if assessing the damage.
“We didn’t expect to see you here.” He looked at Dario beside me, flickering in and out of vision, and raised an eyebrow. “Or in such company.”
I could hear the unspoken question beneath his words, the subtle accusation that I was with the enemy.
My heart pounded in my chest, but I forced myself to remain calm, to keep my voice steady.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said, stepping further into the room. “But I came here for the truth.”
“What truth?”
“I met your acolyte,” I said. “I came to investigate, and I see now that I have been too lax.” I gestured at the fallen mages around me. “You’ve allied yourselves with some dangerous people.”
Elder Irina, her white hair pinned in its usual tight bun, raised an eyebrow, her dark eyes narrowing slightly. “These riffraff?” She waved a hand. “They are thugs that we had hired for our protection, but it seems that they were running their own agenda, which we were not aware of.”
I frowned. “They were luring children away from their homes. Why?”
Elder Irina frowned. “We were simply providing aid to the drought-stricken villages, as per our duty as the Elders of Solaris.” She shrugged. “We know nothing else.”
Her voice was smooth, almost dismissive, as if she were brushing away an insect. I clenched my fists at my sides, the anger rising in my chest.
How could they sit here in their temple, untouched by the suffering outside the city’s walls, and pretend everything was fine?
“Then explain the corrupted magic of these mages,” I said, my voice rising despite myself. “Explain the missing children.”
The room fell into a tense silence. For a moment, no one spoke, the weight of my accusations hanging heavy in the air.
I could feel their eyes on me, cold and sharp, as if they were dissecting me piece by piece.
Elder Theron was the first to speak, his voice soft but laced with steel.
“You have been away from the city for too long, High Priestess.
“ He glared at Dario significantly. “The shadows of the outside world have clouded your judgment. It is obvious, you have been corrupted by the Shadow King, and can no longer be trusted.”
Their words rang in my ears, sharp and cruel, each syllable laced with poison. Corrupted. Na?ve. Too young to see what must be done.
I had faced monsters before, I had felt the bite of steel and the scorch of cursed flame, but nothing cut so deep as the voices of those I had trusted most. They looked at me as if I were a child again, foolish and blind, not the High Priestess who had bled for this city, who had bound herself body and soul to the Sun God’s light.
I wanted to scream, to hurl fire into their faces until they stopped smiling. Because they were smiling. All of them. Thin-lipped, knowing, as if this were a game they had already won.
The heavy doors creaked open before I could spit another word. I turned—and the air seemed to hollow out of my chest.
It was him.
The mage that we had seen in the village. He strode into the room with a smile,that shock of white hair glinted in the torchlight like bone, .his face unhidden and his hood down, as if he had no reason to hide away.
Like he belonged here, in the Sun Temple.
He moved with a grace that made my skin crawl, his dark cloak trailing behind him as he stepped into the light. His mismatched eyes, cold and piercing, flicked toward me, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“Rindais, what is the meaning of this interruption?” Irina demanded; her voice sharp as she glared at the mage.
“You,” I whispered.
I clenched my fists, my body tensing as I stared at him. I knew instinctively that he had somehow grown more powerful than he had been when we had last fought. Now, his magic was leagues more powerful than the mages that Dario and I had defeated just moments before.
He smirked, head tilting. “The phoenix speaks.”
“You’re behind this,” I said, forcing steel into my voice even as my stomach twisted.
There was something about this mage—Rindais—that set my teeth on edge, something dark and twisted that unsettled me.
“Behind?” He chuckled, low and amused, as though I were a child asking why the sky was blue.
“Oh no, little priestess. I am not behind. I am within. The Elders laid their foundation; I built the house upon it. Every brick, every shadow, every child taken— you walked past it all with your eyes closed, whispering prayers into the silence.”
My throat closed. “Lies.”
“Truth,” he countered smoothly. His mismatched eyes glittered as he looked between me and the Elders.
“They bartered with me—your guardians, your wise keepers of light. They gave me your blood drop by drop, they gave me child after child. And you—” his grin widened, sharp and cruel—“you thanked them for the honor of bleeding.”
My stomach lurched, bile rising. I remembered the vials. For the wards, they’d said. I remembered the sting of the blade, the way Irina would pat my hand, murmuring that it was all for Solaris’s protection.
Irina’s voice cut through my haze. Calm. Dismissive. “He twists things. Do not listen to him, Elena.” Her gaze went to the mage. “That is enough, Rindais.”
But my ears were full of their lies already.
“Twists?” The mage—Rindais—barked out a laugh. “Tell her, Irina. Tell her how her blood fuels my work. Tell her why you smiled as she handed you vial after vial.”
“Enough,” Kathar snapped. His tone was hard, but I saw the fear in his eyes.
And then Theron—smooth, unbothered—added, “Elena, you are tired. Confused. The Shadow King has corrupted your soul. It has taken a toll on you. You need time to rest, and reflect, before you do something you regret.”
Something in me cracked.
“Do not,” I hissed, fire sparking to life in my palms, “do not dare tell me what I have seen with my own eyes.”
They watched me, patient as spiders, as if waiting for me to exhaust myself in my rage.
And for the first time in my life, I saw them not as Elders. Not as guides. But as liars.
Elder Irina exchanged a glance with Theron and Kathar, her lips curling into a faint smile as she looked back at me.
“We are your Elders, Elena. We have always guided you with the wisdom of the Sun God. You must trust that we know what is best for Solaris, Elena.” Her eyes darted at Dario, going hard.
“We expected you to destroy the Shadow King, not take his side, Elena.”
The way she said my name—so familiar, so condescending—made my blood boil.
I had always trusted them.
I had always believed that they had my best interests at heart.
But now, all I could hear were the lies wrapped in their words, the falsehoods they had been feeding me for as long as I could remember.
My heart pounded in my chest, the air around me feeling thick and heavy, as if the very room was closing in on me. I opened my mouth to argue, to protest, but before I could say anything, Elder Theron spoke.
“Elena, you should rest,” He turned to me, his expression cool, detached. “We will handle this matter.” His gaze darted to the mage. “You can handle the Shadow King now, can you not?”
I stood there, frozen in place, unable to believe what I was hearing. I almost laughed.
They were dismissing me, pushing me aside as if I were nothing more than a child who had spoken out of turn.
As if I was still their puppet.
“I’m not leaving,” I said, my voice hardening as I straightened my spine. “Not until I get answers.” I let my magic spark in my fingertips, a subtle warning. “And no one is touching Dario.”
Rindais chuckled softly, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Stubborn, aren’t you?”
I glared at him, my anger flaring. “Tell me the truth. What are you hiding?”
Elder Irina’s expression darkened, and I could see the faint flicker of annoyance cross her face. “Elena, you must trust that we are doing what is best for the city.”
I opened my mouth to argue again, but before I could, I heard something. A faint murmur, barely audible. A groan of pain.
It was coming from the room behind them.
I hesitated for a moment, but Dario made the decision for us.
With a flick of his hand, his shadows threw the door open, and a flick of my fingers sent a ball of light into the room, illuminating every corner.
In the corner, two bodies lay unmoving. A woman and a child were strapped to two altars. The child was breathing shallowly, but even from a distance, I could see that the other had lost too much blood to still be alive. My heart froze, and I stared at Rindais.
“What in god’s name are you doing?” I whispered.
“He’s keeping our city safe,” Elder Kathar said, and I shivered.
“Like this?”
Dario’s shadows darted into the back of the room and back to us, holding a book aloft. Rindais made a grab for it, but Dario was quicker.
In seconds, the book was in our grasp. We flicked through the pages, struggling to understand what the Elders were doing .
The book was cold against my palms, the leather damp as if it still wept with the blood of those who had died for it.
My hands shook as I opened it, the pages stiff and stained, the ink thick and almost wet-looking.
Each line I read scraped against my soul.