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 askedme. 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 wastaken.” His eyes burned with fury as they locked on the shadow-bound Elders. “Taken for your twistedmagic.”
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 blamethem.” 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.
When silence returned, I knew the moment had come for meto speak my own truth.
