Chapter 190: War of the Priestesses

Back at the hall...

The grand hall shook as Lila’s last laugh continued fading, her body unraveling like smoke scattered by the wind. For a breathless moment, the room was silent…until Shina and the circle of priestesses dropped to their knees, palms slamming against the cold marble floor.

They formed a circle, their mouths moving as though they were rehearsing a play.

A roar shook the palace walls…not stone cracking or storm raging, but the raw echo of Dina’s fury, clawing against the protective wards, a sound only her sister Shina could hear.

The invisible wall around the kingdom had held for years, locking Dina’s presence out, but now… cracks were spreading. Her magic, dragged inside through Lila’s forged mask, was fighting to burst free.

“Hold the line!” Shina’s voice rang out sharp, though blood already trickled from her nose. She gritted her teeth, fingers twitching as she poured raw energy into the ward.

The other priestesses linked hands tighter, their chants overlapping in a desperate rhythm. Golden threads of light flared between them, weaving into a shield that stretched up and out, crawling across the ceiling and beyond like fire racing through dry wood.

The palace trembled. Shadows oozed from the walls, slick and poisonous, slamming against the forming barrier. Dina’s laugh rolled through the chamber, low and cruel, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“You can’t keep me out forever,” her voice hissed, shaking the chandeliers until glass rained down. “This kingdom will rot. That girl will rot. The king must die.”

The priestesses pushed harder. Their bodies shook violently, sweat soaking their robes, their lips moving so fast the words blurred into pure sound.

The floor cracked beneath them. The walls groaned. For a second, it felt like the whole palace would collapse in on itself.

Shina dug her nails into her own palm, forcing more power through the link. A blinding surge of light exploded from the circle, slamming into the darkness like a tidal wave. The shadows screamed, recoiled, twisted. The protective wall flared hot white, sealing, patching, healing the cracks with fire.

The last of Dina’s residue shrieked as it was expelled, pulled screaming into the void outside the kingdom. The sound cut off sharp.

Then silence.

The golden shield pulsed once, twice, then steadied…whole again. Dina was locked out. For good.

Shina swayed, blood streaming from her nose. Around her, the other priestesses collapsed, their heads slamming the floor, bodies twitching from the strain. One by one, their chants died.

Shina was the last to break. She whispered a final word, sealing the wall shut, before her eyes rolled back and she crumpled, hitting the stone with a heavy thud.

The palace was safe.

But the women who had saved it lay scattered, unconscious, their robes stained with blood.

The guards crashed into the circle like a second wave…boots slamming marble, torches swinging.

They moved to the fallen priestesses with the blunt, efficient panic of men used to blood and orders. Hands shoved under arms, ropes ripped off belts, and they hauled bodies out from the circle like harvesting fruit gone rotten.

But one of them wouldn’t move.

Shina lay on the floor like someone had hollowed her out. Her lips were blue at the edge, and her breath came in shallow, ragged pulls. A thin line of blood trickled from her nose and soaked the stone beneath her head, but she didn’t open her eyes.

The guards yelled for herbs, for heat, for the healer, but Shina’s body was a shell…her mind pinned somewhere else, in a place no torch could reach.

They carried the others away. Shouts faded, the hall emptied, and the chanting stopped. The palace felt oddly quiet after the scream of battle…like the world was listening to whatever war played behind Shina’s eyelids.

Then the scene changed.

Shina’s mind opened into a thin, bright place that wasn’t a place at all…a hollow of cold and smell and a wind that tasted like metal. It was night without stars, and at the far edge of that nothing, a figure twisted into shape. Dina.

She stepped out of the shadows like she’d always been made of night. Her hair was ash and fire, her smile the crackle of dried bones. Around her, the air bowed and split like a curtain. The trance felt like standing on a cliff while a hurricane came straight at you.

Shina laughed, soft and sharp, and the sound cut the cold. “Isn’t it embarrassing?” she said, voice flat as a blade. “Isn’t it embarrassing that a little girl destroyed your age-long curse and bloody taste for chaos with a drop of her blood?”

Dina’s eyes flickered, and for a second they were all hungry animals. She didn’t look surprised…only amused, like a bully delighted by the panic she’d caused. “Embarrassing?” she scoffed. “You think this is about embarrassment? I’m not done. I will never be done. You think I see that little girl as a threat?!”

“Ah…sister. You really don’t? Yet you nearly snuffed her light out when you were sending her sister back…didn’t you? You sly old fool,” Shina hissed, the victory in her voice unmistakable.

“I am not done! I will be back!” Dina yelled furiously.

Shina closed the distance until Dina’s presence burned across her face. “You cannot enter,” she said, voice like iron. “You and your shadows are sealed away. Remain the outcast you are, and pray…silently…that the goddess spares you a swift, merciful death.”

The words spilled out, blunt and ugly. They hung between them like a dare.

Dina’s laugh rang out like a broken bell. “You think the goddess has the right to pity me?” She threw her head back, and the air around them shivered. “The goddess is beneath me. I turned what you worship into my servant. I am my own creator. I bow to no altar, no prayer, no law you claim to stand on.”

She moved then, not walking but folding the space between them like paper. The world tilted. Shina felt fingers of cold wrap around her ribs, trying to pry the breath from her lungs. Images flashed…visions Dina sent like knives…a throne tipped with blood, the Alpha king on his knees at a pile of ash, the queen’s scream being smothered by the wind.

Dina hissed, close enough that Shina could feel the spray of her spit. “I won’t rest until the Alpha King draws his last breath. No child of that dead king and his foolish wife will still be breathing once I’m finished. I will return…and I will make this kingdom bow in death.”

Shina let the visions hit and burn. Pain was a straight thing…it sharpened rather than broke her. She gripped the air with her spirit, pulling on the last threads of power from the ritual they’d just bled through. It wasn’t much. It was everything she had.

”Not on my watch,” she said, low and steady as a drumbeat . Then, with a slow, knowing smirk… “And certainly not on the queen’s.”