I kept my voice low, turning my gaze back to the boy’s door. “If he has any intention of continuing with his plans, he’ll have to come soon. If only to ensure that the boy doesn’t reveal his secret. He doesn’t know how much we know, only that we were following him.”
She nodded, her eyes narrowing as she continued to scan the street, her brow furrowing with concentration.
The silence stretched between us, and I found myself speaking before I could stop myself. “You surprise me, Elena,” I murmured, keeping my voice quiet. “Most would have turned back by now.”
She looked up at me, her eyes catching the faint light, a soft, bemused smile playing at her lips. “I could say the same of you, Dario,” she replied, her voice laced with a hint of challenge. “I didn’t think shadows would be so persistent.”
I couldn’t help the faint smirk that tugged at my lips, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “You make it difficult to let go of the chase.”
She stilled, her gaze holding mine, and for a long moment,there was something unspoken that lingered between us, something neither of us dared to voice.
Her gaze slipped away, her smile fading as she turned back to the street, and I could see the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks, barely visible in the dim light.
As the night dragged on, the mage still nowhere to be found, we left the boy’s street, cloaked in our magic, wandering through the twisting alleyways and quiet paths of the village in a silence that felt heavy, filled with a tension I couldn’t shake.
We spoke little, our voices soft, our footsteps quiet, but somehow, the quiet felt less like emptiness and more like anticipation, like a silence waiting to be filled.
“Tell me about your life,” I found myself asking, the words escaping before I could reconsider. “Before all this… before the temple and the power.”
She glanced at me, surprised, and then her expression softened, her eyes distant as she looked out over the rooftops as if seeing a world long past. “I was… different, back then,” she said quietly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Not the obedient priestess I am now, certainly.”
I raised a brow, intrigued. “Difficult to imagine.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she replied, a mischievous gleam in her eyes as she turned to me, her smile widening. “I was a troublemaker, always sneaking out of lessons, causing trouble for my siblings.” She sighed. “As a child, I’d never imagined I would become a priestess.”
I watched her, captivated by the way her face lit up as she continued to speak, the quiet laughter in her voice as she recounted tales of her mischief in her childhood.
It was strange to think of her like that—this fierce, dedicated priestess once a child full of mischief and defiance. But as she spoke, I found myself drawn into her stories.
“Why didn’t you leave the Temple?” I asked softly, my voicebarely more than a whisper. “If you didn’t want the life they set out for you?”
She hesitated, her gaze growing distant. “Because it’s not just about me,” she replied, her voice quiet. “The day the armies came over the mountains, everything changed. When my family…” She paused, clearing her throat. “I ran to the temple, watching as people all around me fell one by one, while I was helpless to stop it.”
I could see the faint tremor in her hands as she spoke, the quiet pain in her eyes, and for a moment, I felt an urge to reach out, to comfort her.
But I held back, my hands clenching into fists as I kept my distance, letting her continue.
“That was the first time I prayed with all my heart,” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. “I prayed for salvation, for a way to save my people, and in return, the Sun God granted me his power. He made me… what I am now.”
I blinked. The way she said it…“And what are you now?”
Elena turned to look at me as if I was being facetious. “I’m a phoenix,” she said simply. Holding her hands out, she called upon a hint of her powers, enough for me to understand.
I stared at her, the weight of her words settling over me, filling me with a strange mixture of awe and disbelief.
“So… you’re immortal,” I said softly, the words foreign on my tongue, as though I couldn’t quite believe them.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m the only one of my kind, created by the Sun God.” She paused, her gaze softening. “I don’t know if I can die, but… the prophecies say that one day, I’ll have to set myself alight. Burn everything down and rise again.”
The thought of her death, even the idea of it, sent a chill through me, something raw and terrible that cut through me like a blade.
I’d always assumed she was…like me. Immortal, untouchable.
The thought that she could die, that her life was as fragile as any mortal’s, shook me to the core.
“You don’t know,” I murmured, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Maybe that day will never come.”
She shrugged again, her face pensive.
