“You are too quiet, priestess,” he said at last, his voice low, almost curious. “Does the possibility unsettle you—that perhaps the danger is not here in the forest, but in the city you protect?”
My heart thudded violently. I forced the words past clenched teeth. “The Elders are not perfect, but they are no monsters. Solaris thrives because of their wisdom. Do not dare plant your poison in my mind.”
His lips twisted into something between a smile and a sneer. “Wisdom? Or fear? They hide your city from the world behind wards stronger than any fortress. They hoard your power—your light—and pretend it is mercy. Do you know how many wanderers I have seen, lost at the mountains’ base, crying for sanctuary? Do you know how many traders vanish because your Elders decree no path may exist but theirs? Tell me, priestess—what godly justice is that?”
I swallowed, my throat dry. His words were too close to thoughts I had buried. Thoughts whispered by restless youthsof Solaris, who dreamed of leaving the plateau, who begged for freedom beyond the portals. Hearing the accusation from him—this cursed shadow—the certainty in me wavered.
“You know nothing of our burdens,” I snapped, if only to silence the echo of my own doubt. “Solaris stands because we guard it. The Sun God entrusted me with its protection, and the Elders ensure that protection endures.”
“Protection,” he repeated, tasting the word as if it were ash. “A gilded cage is still a cage, Elena.”
My breath hitched at the sound of my name in his mouth. No one but my closest companions spoke it with such intimacy. His voice gave it weight, as though it belonged to him, not me. I hated how it unsettled me.
“You have blood on your hands,” I declared, trying to fan the embers of my righteous anger.
He stepped closer. The shadows stirred around him, but not in anger—in emphasis. “Your Paladins came armed, blazing with light that sears me like flame. What would you have me do? Kneel and accept execution?”
“You could have yielded,” I said, though the conviction in my voice trembled.
“And been dragged in chains to Solaris? Paraded before your Elders like a beast? Dissected by your scholars to uncover what makes me endure?” His voice rose, each word sharp as steel. “I know what fate waits for me if I fall into their hands. Death would be kinder.”
The shadows recoiled suddenly, as though reflecting his fury. The ones binding me tightened, and I gasped as the cold bit into my skin. He caught the motion, and his expression shifted—anger melting into something more complicated. He lifted his hand, and the shadows slackened again.
I rubbed my wrists against the bark, grateful for the release but unwilling to show it. “You expect me to pity you.”
“No,” he said simply. His voice was quiet again, raw. “I expect nothing from you.”
The honesty in it stole my breath.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The forest around us was still, holding its breath as though even the twisted trees strained to listen.
Finally, I broke the silence. “If you speak true, if you have no malice toward Solaris, then why haunt its borders? Why linger here, drawing us into endless battle?”
He looked away, toward the unseen heart of his domain, where the shadows thickened like fog. “Because I cannot leave. Nyx bound me to the night, and this forest is where her curse roots deepest. Beyond it, the light scorches me to nothing. Do you think I relish this half-existence? I endure because I must. That is all.”
The weight in his voice was too heavy to be feigned. A century of solitude pressed against me in that moment, and I shivered.
“You could have called out to me,” I whispered, almost against my will. “I would have listened. I… might have believed.”
His head snapped back to me, eyes blazing with incredulity. “Would you?”
I faltered. My lips parted, but no words came.
He stepped closer again, shadows curling lazily around him. “You speak of compassion, yet you sent men into my woods with swords of fire and prayers of war. Did you think they came to parley? No. They came to destroy.”
My chest tightened. “I sent them because I believed it was right. I believed you were a threat.”
“And now?” His voice dropped lower. Almost…intimate.
I looked away, unable to meet his gaze. The truth gnawed at me, bitter and reluctant: I did not know.
My heart warred with my duty. With the faith that had carried me for the better part of a century.
And my heart, cursed thing, was winning ground.
“You said the Elders…” I began, hesitant, “that they might be responsible for the children. Explain yourself.”
His gaze sharpened, as if testing whether I truly wished to hear.
