Chapter 51: The Sun, The Void and Death

Lorelei cleaned the blood on Aden’s face, ignoring the crimson streaming from the wounds along her side.

Her expression turned horrible when his eyes closed once again after giving her his final instruction.

“Master…” She mumbled dazedly as she wiped every trace of blood till it became a dull crimson hue. “Don’t leave me again… Please.”

She coughed a mouthful of blood and it landed on Aden’s face. Her hands moved to clean her lips with a pale expression before she shakily got to her feet.

She turned to the corpse of the lead Saintess with absolute hatred in her eyes. Lorelei’s legs felt like lead but she pressed forward with clenched teeth.

“You… stupid, worthless being,” she muttered as the glass cracked under her feet with every step.

“You… Caused all this…”

She stood above the corpse and watched as the white hue that surrounded her dissipated, leaving her body bare of her shining armor.

Her hands reached out and pulled a gem sized decoration on her neck fiercely.

She slowly walked back to Aden after stumbling a few times. Her palm unfurled and placed it on Aden’s metallic–like bones.

She pulled him into her lap, her touch feather-light as if he would melt at the slightest force. She didn’t care that his skin was a raw, metallic ruin or that the heat still radiating from his body was blistering her own palms.

“I have it, Master,” she whispered into his unresponsive ear. “I have the key. I’ll take us back to the dark.”

The sky above the Sinking District began to groan. The Ninth Descent had been a targeted strike, but the atmosphere was now thick with the residual static of the purification ritual. The clouds were churning into a sterile, blinding white, low strikes of golden thunder sounded in the distance as the final strike of energy from the attack faded.

Lorelei ignored the sky. She hooked her arms under Aden’s knees and shoulders, letting out a strained, wet hiss as she hauled his weight upward. Her mangled knee sent incredible amounts of pain through her, as the bones grinded against itself, but she didn’t falter. She began the long, agonizing trek toward the sewer grate where Zero and the rest of the Vassals had disappeared.

Behind them, the gem she had placed on Aden’s hand which was the Royal Seal, began to pulse with a faint, rhythmic violet light.

Twenty miles away, inside the golden carriage, the Eye of Calyra shrieked with a deafening frequency.

The multi-faceted crystal spun so violently that it nearly fractured the jasmine-scented air. Four of the glowing signatures in the Sinking District turned into a bruised, oily silver before vanishing into a void.

Elara, who had been resting her head against the silk cushions, sat bolt upright. Her golden eyes were no longer calm, they were wide with a genuine, icy shock.

“Your Highness!” the voice from the rune screamed, now panicked. “The Saintess squad… their lifelines… they’re gone. All of them.”

Elara didn’t respond immediately. She stood up, her regal robes sweeping across the carriage floor.

She walked to the window and looked toward the horizon. The Solar Flare she had instructed the leader of the Saintess squad to use only under the most inevitable circumstances was fading, replaced by a dark, hovering smudge on the skyline that shouldn’t be there.

“It’s not possible,” Elara breathed, her fingers digging into the gold-leaf windows till until the metal bent. “They were in the second stage of the Aligned realm. Nothing in that rotting hole has the capacity to consume them.”

She looked at the Eye of Calyra. One signature remained. A tiny, flickering spark of violet that was moving and descending deeper into the earth.

“He didn’t just kill them,” Elara realized, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly soft whisper. “He took the tracker with him, risking me discovering him just to keep me in his radar”

The Princess turned away from the window, her face a mask of cold fury and diluted frustration.

Her fingers clenched around the Eye as she contemplated crushing it to keep her location a secret, but she slowly released her grip and tossed it on the cushion.

“Princess,” Vane who acted as the driver called out quietly.

Elara hummed as she covered her eyes with her arm that had a small scar by the side.

“Pardon my foolish suggestion, but I think it’s best if we return to the kingdom.”

The air grew heavy as soon as those words left his mouth.

“What makes you say that, Vane?”

Silence stretched between them a second longer than necessary before responding.

“Twenty lives were lost, all of which were valuable members of the Church and Royal Defense System.”

Elara’s face grew blank. “They served their purpose.”

“That wasn’t your call to make.”

“I’m the Princess and the future Heir to the Kingdom of Solstice. Every call is mine to make.”

“As weak as those Saintesses may have been compared to true warriors, they were still under the King’s command. You do not have the right to send warriors meant for the Purification Ceremony to certain death just because you were curious.”

Elara kept quiet, her gaze fixed on the back of the driver’s partition. The silence was thick, charged with the kind of tension that usually preceded a royal execution. Vane was one of the few who could speak such truths without losing his head, but even he was pushing the boundary of her patience.

“Curiosity,” Elara repeated, the word sounding like a curse on her tongue. “You think I sacrificed four Aligned Saintesses and two Attuned because of a whim?”

“What else could it possibly be?,” Vane replied, his voice steady despite the atmospheric pressure rising in the carriage. “Tell me right here, right now, what would’ve have made you leave the comfort of the Kingdom and search for this… Thing.”

Elara’s hand dropped from her eyes. The small scar on her arm seemed to pulse. She looked at the Eye of Calyra, resting innocently on the silk cushion. The violet spark was still moving, tunneling deeper into the Sinking District’s bowels.

“It’s more than that,” she whispered, more to herself than to Vane. “You wouldn’t understand.”

She leaned back, her frustration cooling into a hard, sharp resolve.

“We aren’t going back. Not yet.”

“The King will—”

“The King will understand when I bring him the head of the man who can swallow Solar Flares,” Elara interrupted. “If this Anomaly

is allowed to fester in the dark, the Purification Ceremony won’t just be a failure. It will be the beginning of an eclipse.”

She picked up the Eye of Calyra. The violet light flickered against her skin.

“Vane, signal the standby Saintesses in the second perimeter. Tell them to seal every exit of the Sinking District. No one goes in, and absolutely nothing comes out. If he wants to hide in the tunnels, we will turn those tunnels into his tomb.”

Vane sighed. He wanted to say something, but the finality in her tone dissuaded him.

“As you wish, Princess.”

The carriage didn’t turn back. Instead, it accelerated, the hum of its enchantments shifting from a melodic tune to a low, predatory growl. Elara watched the horizon, her eyes reflecting the fading light of the desert.

’Keep me on your radar, Anomaly,’ she thought, a cold, dark anticipation blooming in her chest. ’But remember that the sun always finds what hides in the shade.’

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