Chapter Ten: The Weight of Silence

Ivy, Meme, and I stood outside the grand chamber, the heavy wooden doors closed in front of us. We waited anxiously, our eyes flicking toward each other every now and then, hoping for some clue about what had been decided in the meeting. The air felt thick with tension, and I could sense that whatever had been discussed inside would change everything for us.

The door finally creaked open, and the priestesses began to leave. But something was wrong. Their faces were tight with anxiety, lips pressed into thin lines. None of them looked at us directly, their gazes sliding over us as if we were ghosts. They whispered among themselves, their hushed voices just out of earshot. I strained to catch a word, a phrase—anything that might give us a hint about what had been decided—but there was nothing.