Chapter 23 Elena
The grand audience hall of the High Priestess was filled with priests—paladins and guardians, novices and acolytes alike.
The weight of a hundred eyes was heavy upon me as I stood before them. Their stares lingered on my eyes and my hair and I knew rumors about the events of last night were flying like wildfire.
The temple was as resplendent as ever, despite the battle that had taken place that night in its bowels. Soaring marble columns were adorned with etched golden sun symbols, draped with the banners of the Sun God.
This place had been my sanctuary, my home, the center of everything I had been for so long.
Now, standing here, my decision to leave felt monumental, as though I were tearing out a piece of myself.
I glanced behind me, where Dario stood like a silent sentinel, his presence dark and formidable, and yet to me, he was the calm in the storm. His silver gaze met mine, and I found strength there, an unspoken reassurance that no matter what, I was not alone.
I took a steadying breath, feeling the silk of my crimson robes against my skin, the familiar weight of my ceremonial sash, yet today, it was not a comfort, but a reminder that I was severing a bond that had held me back for too long.
I raised my hand, gesturing for quiet, and slowly, the murmuring faded, leaving only the tense, expectant silence.
“My people,” I began, my voice carrying across the room. “For a century, you have honored me, and I have given you my unwavering loyalty and love as your High Priestess. It has been my greatest purpose to protect Solaris and bring forth the light in even the darkest times.”
The faces in the crowd looked at me with expressions of uncertainty, and perhaps fear. Their loyalty was steadfast, but my next words would test that faith like never before.
“But now, that time has come to an end.” My voice seemed to echo off the vaulted ceiling. “The dangers that once threatened our city have been vanquished.”
“Vanquished?” Aledrin said, frowning. He looked at the other guardian priests, who were all frowning, looking puzzled. “We have heard nothing—”
With a wave of his hand, Dario used his powers to have the surviving Elders come floating out before the gathered priests, falling to their knees beside me. They struggled against their shadow bonds, but it was no use. Dario’s powers held them captive and utterly cowed.
The priests gasped at this display of shadow powers, and I raised a hand for silence.
“Allow me to explain.”
The silence pressed in, heavier than the marble pillars above us. A hundred priests leaned forward as one, their eyes searching my face, hungry for truth, for reassurance, for anything that would make sense of the shadows that had crept into our sacred home.
I stepped closer to the bound Elders, their once-pristine robes now torn and stained, their eyes hollow with fear. Dario’s shadows still held them, writhing faintly at the edges, a warning of the power he could unleash if they dared to lie again.
“These,” I said, my voice rising, echoing through the hall, “are the men and women you trusted. These are the voices you believed when they told you the city was safe, when they assured you Solaris was strong, when they told you that the only thing we had to fear was the Shadow King.” I paused.
“And these are the same voices who lied to you, who betrayed you, who sacrificed our children for their ambition.”
Gasps rippled through the hall. Paladins shifted, steel gauntlets clinking as their hands twitched toward their weapons. Acolytes covered their mouths.
Elder Irina, her silver hair falling loose from its bun, let out a broken sob. “We… we did what was necessary,” she stammered, her voice shaking. “You weren’t following our orders anymore! Without the phoenix’s power, the city would not have survived. We sought a solution.”
“A solution?” I snapped, my fury breaking through the fragile control I had clung to. “You call kidnapping children a solution? You call bleeding me dry, vial by vial, a solution?”
“This is all your fault!” she shrieked in response, sounding maddened. “If you’d just stayed obedient , none of this would have happened!”
My blood boiled, but I pushed my anger down. The people had to hear the truth.
I stepped toward Irina, my crimson robes dragging against the marble floor. “Tell them, Irina. Tell them what you made of my blood.”
Her lips trembled. For a long, suffocating moment, she said nothing. I let my powers burn brighter in my blood, coming out as a glow under my skin, and she flinched.
Then, with a sob, she bowed her head. “A chimera,” she whispered. “A creature born of magic and flame, bound to obey. We meant to create a vessel we could control. One who could wield the phoenix’s power without question.”
The room erupted. Shouts, denials, prayers to the Sun God, the clatter of armor as priests staggered to their feet.
“Silence!” I cried, raising my voice above the storm. And they stilled, though the air quivered with outrage.
Dario moved then, shadows slithering through the air, delivering Rindais’s accursed book into my hands. I held it aloft. “The proof lies here,” I said. “Everything in this book was sanctioned by the Elders.”
Gasps echoed as I handed the book to one of the senior priests. “Read it. Out loud to all.”
He shuddered as he took the book from me, his voice trembling as he turned the stained pages.
“…the children are proving unsuitable… need younger test subjects…” He faltered, his voice catching on the word that followed. His knuckles whitened around the page. “Babies.”
The word was a death knell. It rolled through the chamber like thunder, and when silence followed, it was thick with horror.
Another priest seized the book, reading with wide eyes. “Without the phoenix’s blood, the chimera will never come to fruition. Necessary to draw from her veins once more.”
I felt the eyes of my people turn to me, saw their faces pale as they realized what that meant.
“Yes,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Every cut, every vial of blood I gave to the Elders—what I believed went into the wards to protect our city—was a lie. They used me. And they used the most innocent among us. That is the truth you must face tonight.”
Elder Theron, who had been silent, finally broke. He sagged against the shadows holding him, his voice weary. “We thought… we thought we were saving Solaris,” he muttered, though his eyes darted around with guilt. “We thought the Sun God would forgive us.”
“Forgive you?” I hissed. “You never asked Him. You never asked me . You only sought power.”
Dario’s hand brushed my shoulder briefly, steadying me as my rage shook through my bones. His presence reminded me to hold strong—not just for me, but for everyone watching.
I turned to the crowd. “This is the truth,” I said, my voice carrying like a clarion call. “Not whispered in chambers, not hidden in shadows. The truth you were denied. See it. Hear it. And remember it.”
The priests began to murmur, voices breaking, prayers rising, fury building. Tears streaked the faces of novices who had once worshipped these Elders as saints.
The hall erupted, not just with the voices of priests but with those of villagers who had pressed their way into the chamber, drawn by rumor and desperation.
Faces I knew and faces I didn’t filled the spaces between paladins and acolytes.
Their murmurs grew louder, their grief like a tide breaking through the polished sanctity of the temple.
At first it was just one voice.
“My boy,” a woman whispered from the back, clutching a tattered shawl to her chest. Her face was streaked with soot, her hair wild with neglect.
“He was ten years old. Gone in the night. The paladins in our village said he must have run away, that children sometimes wander. But now…” Her voice cracked, breaking into a keening sob. “Now I see the truth.”
Her grief tore through the crowd like lightning.
Another voice followed, sharper, angrier.
A man stepped forward, his fists trembling at his sides.
“My niece disappeared last spring. And our priest told us the Sun God had called her! Called her? She was taken .” His eyes burned with fury as they locked on the shadow-bound Elders. “Taken for your twisted magic.”
Gasps and murmurs surged. The crowd no longer looked afraid of me or of Dario. They looked at the Elders with horror, their faces hardening into rage.
A boy of no more than fifteen stood, his voice shaking but clear. “My sister… she was only seven.” His small body trembled. “You promised she’d be safe. You lied.”
His words hung in the air like a blade, and I felt my knees weaken. With a gesture, Dario’s shadows dragged the disgraced Elders back toward the dungeons, their cries for mercy swallowed in the gloom. I let them vanish without pity.
Dario’s presence beside me steadied me, his hand briefly brushing mine, but the grief in the hall was overwhelming, a sea of sorrow that no single person could contain.
Tears filled my eyes, hot and burning. “I am sorry,” I whispered, and though the words seemed pitiful against such loss, I meant them with all my soul. “I am so sorry. I should have seen. I should have protected you.”
The woman with the shawl lifted her head, her eyes red but fierce. “We do not blame you, High Priestess. We blame them .” She spat the last word like venom, her finger stabbing toward the shadows where the Elders had been dragged away.
The murmurs grew—anger now, outrage, and beneath it, something stronger: resolve.
I drew myself taller, forcing my voice to carry over them. “You must hear this. It was not shadow that betrayed you. It was not the Shadow King, as the Elders claimed. It was those we trusted most. Light twisted into arrogance, faith turned to chains. Do not let the light blind you again.”
The words rang, not as doctrine, but as plea. And slowly, the storm of voices shifted, grief reshaping into determination.