~RUNE
An eerie cold breeze suddenly swept through the entire space.
And I watched helplessly as the temperature dropped until my teeth started clattering against themselves.
As I brought my eyes back to the large pile of wood in the center of the grand space; instant fear filled my core and I could not understand why.
My heart began to pound heavily and my knees started weakening— almost as if the sudden fear I was feeling was crippling me.
They got so weak that I almost swayed and lost balance but I forced myself to keep standing.
The priestesses all shifted in horror as they stared at the pier which had refused to burn.
Even Uriel who was beside me stiffened.
Suddenly, one of the priestesses let out a loud wail as she dropped to her knees.
The mere sound of it shook me to the core.
She screamed like she was being attacked by something we all couldn’t see.
Every sound that exited her mouth caused my fear to only grow stronger.
Everyone stared at her
For some reason, her cries sounded almost identical to what I had heard when that arrow had attacked us yesterday.
“Spare us, Orakis! Spare us, Orakis! Have mercy!” She screamed over and over again.
I stared in horror until she suddenly stopped and dropped on all fours breathing heavily.
The next time she lifted her head, her eyes almost pierced mine.
“The darkness is calling! It is coming! It will spare no one! It is coming!” She exclaimed in a voice already hoarse from all the screaming.
This instantly caused fear to sweep through the space and the crowd began to cry with fear.
“A dark year has befallen us!”
“We won’t survive it this time!”
“We are doomed!”
“The last time we had a dark year, it nearly destroyed us completely!”
What were they talking about?
What was a dark year?
“The darkness is calling! Coming! Calling! Coming!” The priestess screamed like she was going delirious.
At this point, the other priestesses had to surround and grab her to stop her from spreading fear in the arena.
But she wouldn’t stop screaming until someone whacked her hard at the back of her neck.
This caused her to go silent immediately and her body dropped unconsciously to the ground.
I stood there, too shaken to speak as I watched them take her away.
What just happened?
What did all of the things she said mean?
What was coming at us?
I looked up at Uriel and he did not seem the least bit phased by what just happened.
He just stood tall and continued to stare at things only he could see.
The entire space fell quiet again and I started to feel my legs growing stiff from standing in the same place for too long.
“If no one is going to say it out loud,” Darya suddenly spoke in a fierce voice as she began to walk towards Uriel and I.
“Then I will.”
I froze.
The rest of the Queen’s court slowly walked behind her.
She was the First Seat after all so I understood that they were obliged to follow her.
There was no doubt whatever she was about to say was going to be bad for me.
Like brother, like sister.
Was it not enough that I already had Uriel and Morrigan on my neck?
Now I had to worry about Darya too.
Provided I even survived this ordeal.
“We all heard what the Priestess just said. Darkness is coming. We are about to face another dark age,” Darya explained in a voice that delivered words so heavily it made me want to shrink.
Unrelated but I could not deny the fact that this woman was born to lead.
She would have made a great and fierce queen.
“The King’s been ruling us for years now and we have had over five Calling Festivals. He’s lit the ritual fire in all of these accounts and nothing like this ever happened before,” she looked away from me and faced her entire audience.
Allowing all of them to soak it in, carrying them along so that they all accepted her final argument.
Her eyes eventually narrowed as she turned them back to me.
“Yet everything changes when he brings in a foreigner to be our Queen!”
My eyes grew even wider than before as she pointed a sharp accusing finger at me.
“She is the cause of this!”
The crowd roared.
Uriel suddenly snapped his eyes in her direction and I waited for him to defend me like he had always done whenever someone came too close.
But to my greatest surprise, he stayed quiet.
He simply glared at Darya without breathing a word to her.
Perhaps because he was already in a bad mood or perhaps because he knew I wasn’t really his Moon.
I was nothing but his pretend Queen, holding up this narrative at his request.
And he could drop me anytime.
Hell, he could even expose me right now.
“So if there is anything we must do, we must get rid of the foreigner-— the anomaly in our midst!” She roared.
The crowd roared with her as they started pointing fingers at me.
“The Queen is hurting the kingdom!”
“Orakis has rejected her presence! She is contaminating us!”
My heart began to rage against my chest as all the accusations were sent at me and I didn’t know what to say or do.
My eyes began to move around frantically at everyone and no one at the same time, hoping for some kind of help since Uriel had insisted on remaining silent.
All the priestesses shot accusing eyes at me, as if they truly believed what Darya was saying.
Which was strange because how could someone as powerless as me have any effect on their mighty ritual?
It made no sense.
Or could there be truth to the matter?
Yet my mother had told me all my life that I was useless.
There was no way that I could be the one hurting the bonfire.
My eyes soon fell on the Lords of Oraena.
Dain narrowed his eyes from where he stood, with no plans of stepping forward.
Sylve didn’t react, I couldn’t even tell what he was thinking as he stared at me with unreadable eyes.
While Morrigan glared with so much hate it made me unable to look away from him.
“If the Queen is the reason for the sacred fire refusing to catch, then it is only befitting that she be the one to light it again,” Morrigan stated.
Darya gasped. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Have you lost your mind?” She snapped.
“The sacred Blue flames cannot be touched more than once. Do you want to risk angering the gods further?”
Morrigan never looked away from me.
“I never said she was going to use the sacred Blue flames to light it.”
I frowned.
Then where was he getting at?
“The Sacred Blue Flame was a gift from the Moon goddess to our kind centuries ago,” he explained.
“It is somewhat similar to the gift of light bestowed upon the House Aylin by the Moon goddess herself.”
My heart skipped a beat as I realised what he was about to tell me to do.
“Queen Sayla… I demand that you use your light to set the burning logs ablaze!” Morrigan roared.
My heart stopped for seconds as I stared blankly at him.
What did he just say?
“I am sure by now, your body has healed completely. Besides, there should be no problem exhausting a small amount of light on the logs of wood,” he went on.
“You look very well taken care of to me.”
My mouth opened to speak but I could not get any words out.
My heart began to pound heavily.
What had I just gotten myself into?
The first day of this festival was supposed to be calm and smooth.
Yet here I was, being asked to use my light— a light that did not exist.
I felt my fingers begin to tremble at this point and I had to ball them into fists to stop them from becoming visible to all who were watching me.
I looked up to Uriel once more, he was not saying a word.
Had he finally decided to abandon me at the hands of my prosecutors?
He was the only one right now who could save me from this angry growing mob!
“Use your light, Queen Sayla!” The priestesses echoed, confirming that they had also accepted it.
Shit!
Shit!
Shit!
I always feared the day that I would get exposed but I never thought that day would come so soon.
I never thought today would be that day!
“Enough!” Uriel suddenly roared.
This startled everyone in the space, including me.
“How dare you order my Queen to do your bidding?” He demanded in a dangerous tone.
Morrigan didn’t back down, he glared openly at him, almost as if they were having a power show down.
Wasn’t this sort of bad and disrespectful to the king?
“We were all present. We saw what happened and it is clear that it happened because of the Queen,” Morrigan stated through gritted teeth.
“She’s the only one who can fix it or we risk having a dark age this year!”
Uriel pressed his teeth as he glared back at Morrigan.
“So, what will it be?” Sylve suddenly said.
“Will you insist on keeping your Queen shielded or will you let her use her powers?”
Darkness is calling…