Chapter Sixteen
Elysia
The dagger flashes in a clean, defiant arc, aimed straight for the High Priestess’s throat.
She moves quickly. Too fast for Virelle.
The blade doesn’t land where Virelle intended, instead skimming the curve of her neck just beneath her jaw, carving a thin but visible line into that impossibly smooth skin.
Her blood shimmers like starlight caught in ink, dark and shimmering.
The High Priestess touches it with two fingers, smearing the line like paint across her skin. She blinks once, like she can’t process that a human wounded her.
Virelle doesn’t flinch and I clench my hands at my sides.
She stands her ground, jaw set and unyielding, her stance firm as if she’s not just bracing for death, but inviting it.
Her chin lifts higher, and though her breath comes in short, tight bursts, her eyes burn with something furious and free, like she has no regrets.
Then the Priestess strikes.
No words. Just a violent wave of energy that erupts from her like a thunderclap.
Virelle’s body lifts from the mossy ground and is thrown backward as if snatched by the wind. Her limbs flail, the dagger spinning from her hand, and her body slams into the ground with a crack that seems to echo too long in the air.
She doesn’t move again, her eyes reflecting the shimmer of the barrier as if she’s staring at the sky, but she isn’t seeing anything anymore.
The moment swallows me whole.
I can’t move. My legs feel disconnected, as if the ground beneath them has vanished. My lungs won’t work and my chest caves inward as panic clamps down.
Thalia makes a wounded sound beside me and drops to her knees, reaching for me blindly. Her hand tangles with mine at my side, ice-cold and shaking.
Lisbeth doesn’t speak, but I feel her hand on my back, bracing me. Her breath shudders out slowly, as if she’s trying to control the fear building inside her.
When I glance at her, my chest fractures. Tears trail down her face, quiet and steady. Her eyes remain focused ahead, but the tension in her mouth has faltered. The armor she’s worn since the day we met has cracked, and through it, I see something raw and unguarded.
The girl who never weeps is unraveling, and so am I.
The High Priestess lowers her blood-slicked hand with an eerie calm. The shimmering liquid glints down her fingers as she wipes it on her robes.
She doesn’t look shaken. Instead, she looks … insulted.
She turns to face the rest of us, but her gaze slides past the trembling line of women from the eastern lands and lands squarely on those already broken from the Nithrin side. The ones who survived the orb but now are broken shells of their former selves.
They aren’t even standing anymore. Some sit hunched and vacant-eyed, swaying in place. Others rock silently, their lips moving in fractured prayers to gods who clearly aren’t listening.
I know what she’s about to do … I feel the charged magic in the air before it happens.
“I warned you,” the High Priestess murmurs, her voice soft now, almost gentle. “You were offered a chance to ascend and you squandered it.”
Her next words fall like lead.
“You are not fit to return. You will not carry children. You will not pass your weakness into the bloodline.”
Her hands rise and the grove responds instantly. A pulse of silver-violet magic explodes outward from her body, racing across the moss. It finds the broken women. It finds their hollow eyes, their trembling limbs, their whispered madness.
It silences them all at once.
There are no screams, only an eerie stillness.
Seventeen bodies collapse, hitting the earth with a sickening wave of finality. The glow in their eyes flickers out.
Just like that … they’re gone.
The silence that follows is heavier than any sound.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. My mind is trying to make sense of what just happened, but there’s no world in which I can understand this senseless brutality.
Beside me, Thalia covers her mouth with her hands, a soft gasp catching in her throat.
Lisbeth is silent and rigid.
My body trembles beneath the weight of everything I’ve just witnessed, and the air I draw into my lungs feels thin and brittle.
This can’t be real.
Unlike the nightmares that have haunted my sleep, there is no escape waiting for me in the slow return of the morning light. No dream-elf stepping from the shadows to pull me back from the brink, no whispered words of comfort or protective silence wrapping around me like armor.
There is no one coming to save us. No hands to steady me. No soft voice to anchor my shattering mind.
Only blood.
Only stillness.
Only the slow, methodical sweep of the High Priestess’s gaze as it moves across the remains of her own destruction.
Quiet sobs rise from Thalia and strained breaths puff from Lisbeth’s nose like she’s counting them to avoid losing control.
Somewhere deep inside, something starts to shift. It’s a heat, small and trembling, but alive.
It’s the kindling of helplessness morphing into fury. It coils low and tight beneath my sternum, rising like smoke within me.
Tears still slip down my cheeks, slow and unrelenting.
I let them fall for Virelle—for the woman who tried to protect us all when no one else did, who lifted her chin and met death with fire in her eyes.
I let them fall for the women whose names I never learned, whose voices were swallowed by the orb and who now lie silent, broken, forgotten.
When the High Priestess begins to move again, her robes whispering against the mossy floor, her steps are slow and deliberate as she turns her attention to the remaining line of women.
She comes to a stop in front of the red-haired girl. The one whose green eyes are always too still, too knowing. The girl who never flinched at the screams and never broke rank. Who never spoke unless spoken to.
She stands tall now, her spine like a rod of iron. The High Priestess studies her for a long moment, her dark, iridescent blood still drying in a delicate line across her throat.
The Priestess doesn’t speak again, merely lifts the orb. It drifts upward from her hand like smoke turned to glass, its black and white swirls intensifying with each breath. The red-haired girl watches it for a moment before laying her hands on it.
The orb hovers, pulsing brighter, drawing toward the girl until it settles just before her chest.
A moment passes and then it begins to glow. It starts as a shimmer of light, then darkens, swirling faster as the black expands outward until it swallows the white completely.
The girl’s eyes remain fixed ahead, but her lips tremble now.
The High Priestess doesn’t move while the orb swirls, its black glow washing over the redhead’s still features. Then, at last, she speaks.
“A murderer who thinks themself above the rest.” The word slices through the grove like ice. “You thought your actions would go unseen.”
There are gasps of shock, but not from me.
The orb dims slightly, returning to its soft swirl of light and shadow before floating back to the High Priestess’s hands.
“What you’ve done is prove you could never be a queen,” the Priestess says, her voice sharp. “You put yourself first before all else.”
The woman finally moves, lifting her chin a fraction, but there is no defense. No protest. Only a final, long exhale.
The High Priestess doesn’t offer mercy, just a glance before she lifts her hand, slow and deliberate, her fingers glowing faintly. The woman doesn’t beg or cry, she simply closes her eyes tightly, as if bracing for impact.
Magic unfurls in a tight, controlled pulse from the High Priestess, piercing the space between them in a single jolt of energy.
The girl’s body stiffens and then crumples.
Her knees hit the moss first, then her side, folding in on herself.
Her face turns toward the rest of us, eyes glassy and vacant.
The Priestess exhales, the faintest sound of exertion in her breath. She lowers her arm slowly and turns back toward our line.
For the first time in this nightmare I feel nothing at the death that’s just occurred. For once, it was justice.
The silence stretches and my heart hardens.
Now that she’s gone, there’s no one left to fear among our own, only those who need protecting.
My eyes scan the line slowly, and the ache rises higher with each face I take in.
There are nine of us left.
Nine women still standing, though many of us are barely upright.
One girl is trembling so hard I fear she’s going to pass out.
Another has sunk to her knees, her arms wrapped around her chest like she’s trying to hold herself in one piece.
One stares ahead with such numbness that I’m not sure she even knows where she is anymore.
Then I find Thalia, who has pushed to her feet again. She’s pale, her eyes red and swollen, but her lips are pressed together, as if sealing in her own scream. Her hands shake and her breath shudders, but she’s still here and staring fate in the face.
Lisbeth stands on my other side stiff as stone, her chin high despite the streaks on her cheeks, her jaw clenched like she’s daring the world to push her one inch farther before she snaps.
She meets my gaze, and something flickers there, fear, yes, but also trust. That quiet, unspoken trust we’ve forged in the fire of this journey.
I feel it again, an emotion I haven’t felt since leaving my village. That tether inside my chest, stretching out and wrapping around them both.
Love.
Not the fragile, whispered kind between lovers. The fierce kind that roots itself in your bones and refuses to break.
I hear my own words again, spoken to the Elder of Edritch what feels like a lifetime ago, trembling but unflinching: I’d rather risk everything than abandon those I love.
I meant it then and I mean it now.
Take the step.
My body moves before I can second-guess it. My foot shifts forward and then the other. The moss beneath me gives slightly under each step as I break from the line.
Gasps echo softly behind me.
The Priestess watches with a stillness so absolute it feels sculpted from stone. Her eyes narrow, and for a breath, she says nothing. Then she tilts her head.
“You step forward willingly to be tested next?” she asks, voice quiet but sharp.
I nod once. “I want to be tested.”
The silence thickens around us like the mist and shadows of my nightmares.
She studies me for several long seconds, before scoffing. “I don’t know if you’re brave or stupid,” she admits.
“Maybe both,” I answer, because it’s the truth, but in my heart, I know exactly why I’m doing this.
Because if I’m found worthy, this madness ends with me and then maybe the rest of them won’t have to suffer.
Maybe they can go home. Maybe they can survive.
If not … then at least I’ll fall before they do.