Chapter 24

Chapter 24
Celeste's POV

I wore the long robe, stepping onto the muddy streets of the slums for the first time.

Under the moonlight, the dilapidated scene was worse than I'd imagined—tilted wooden shacks like houses of cards ready to collapse at any moment, walls crawling with mold, windows covered with rags and boards. The streets were piled with garbage, sewage trickling through the cracks in the stones, the air thick with the stench of rotting fish and human waste.

"Is this... the real world?" I heard my own voice trembling.

Jax glanced back at me, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. "Welcome to the other side of Free Haven, Lady Goddess. Here there are no devout believers from the prayer plaza, only people struggling to survive."

We passed through narrow alleys. A drunk leaned against the wall vomiting, a woman beside him shrieking curses. In the distance came the crying of children, sharp and piercing, like some wounded animal.

Jax led me to a late-night market.

Vendors hawked obviously stolen goods in crude language. Gamblers huddled in dim corners throwing dice, wailing after losing everything, yet no one paid them any mind.

I saw a skeletal thief sneak bread from a stall, only to be caught and beaten savagely. The screams pierced my eardrums.

Instinctively, I moved to intervene, but Jax grabbed my arm.

"Don't meddle," he said in a low voice, his tone carrying a hardness I'd never heard before. "There are no goddess's rules here, only survival. If you expose yourself, we're both done for."

I bit my lip, watching helplessly as the thief was dragged away, my heart clenched as if something had squeezed it tight.

Jax seemed to sense my distress and sighed. "Come on, I'll take you somewhere."

We entered a rundown building called the Sea Breeze Tavern. Inside, smoke hung thick in the air, reeking of cheap rum and sweat. The patrons talked and laughed loudly, no one noticing us.

A fleshy-faced woman—probably the Marge Jax had mentioned—eyed me with suspicion.

"Another woman of unknown origin?" Marge sneered. "Jax, where'd you get money today?"

"Exchanged it at the docks!" Jax pulled a few copper coins from his pocket and slapped them on the bar. "This is money that spends on this street! Cut the crap and get us some food."

Marge muttered something but still brought out two servings—inferior rum, hard black bread, oversalted pickled fish.

I looked at the food before me, hesitating. Quillan had said street food was "unclean," that it would taint divinity. But Jax was already biting into the black bread as if it were the most delicious thing in the world.

Carefully, I took a bite of the bread. The rough texture, the bitter saltiness of the pickled fish, the sharp rum—these "unclean" foods somehow had a sense of "reality" I'd never experienced before.

Not the refined but bland food in the lighthouse, but what real living people ate.

Around us, the patrons talked loudly—complaining about the merchant guild's exploitation, mocking the nobility's hypocrisy, cursing the injustice of fate. Their voices were crude and direct, not like the respectful whispers in the prayer plaza, but real, unvarnished anger and despair.

Suddenly, a drunk old sailor raised his glass and staggered toward me.

"To freedom!" he roared, his voice carrying a bleak sort of mirth. "To our wretched lives!"

I froze, not knowing how to respond.

Jax kicked me under the table and whispered, "Raise your glass, fool."

Clumsily, I lifted my cup and clinked it with the old sailor's. Rum spilled on the table, triggering a round of laughter. But there was no malice in that laughter, only rough kindness.

When we left the tavern, the moon had begun to set.

Jax pointed to the brightly lit merchant guild building in the distance, his voice carrying a certain indignation.

"See that? That's the real temple," he said. "Your failed prophecies send fishermen to the bottom of the sea, but the merchant guild's exploitation kills people every day. Why doesn't anyone question them?"

I didn't know how to answer, could only offer a cowardly defense. "But without my prophecies, even more people would die..."

"That's only because Quillan uses you as a tool to maintain order!" Jax turned to face me, looking directly into my eyes. "This whole faith system is a lie! Quillan uses your ability to control the entire city, the merchant guild monopolizes everything, the poor can only wait to die in the slums! You should expose the truth, break this lie!"

"If I expose the truth, all of Free Haven will descend into chaos!" I heard my voice trembling. "Those fishermen depend on my prophecies, merchants need stable order, ordinary people need spiritual sustenance—without the 'goddess,' this city will collapse!"

"Then let it collapse!" Jax's voice was almost a shout. "How can you rebuild something rotten to the core without destroying it first?"

"But the cost of rebuilding would be countless lives!" I raised my voice too. "You think chaos leads to freedom? No, it leads to even more brutal survival of the fittest!"

We stood facing each other, neither willing to back down.

After a long silence, Jax suddenly laughed, the sound full of self-mockery.

"Maybe you're right," he said quietly. "My grandma had a worthless son, and that worthless son had me... Now she depends on you just to survive each day. Maybe I'm just a selfish bastard who wants the world to change the way I want it to."

I looked at his weary profile and suddenly understood something.

"Maybe I'm just a coward too," I said softly. "Too afraid to face the consequences that change might bring."

Jax turned to look at me, something in his eyes I couldn't read.

"You're not a coward," he said. "You're the bravest person I've ever met—terrified but you still came out with me."

My eyes began to sting.

As dawn approached, Jax had to take me back to the lighthouse. On the way, we passed an early morning market, and Jax used his last few Silver Moon coins to buy candied apples.

It was my first time tasting this common snack—the sweet flavor melting on my tongue, making me smile like a child.

Watching my smile, Jax suddenly said, "About that scarred woman—you need to be careful. If there's danger, give me a signal."

I nodded, then asked, "Jax, if one day I have to make a choice—to break everything or maintain the status quo—which side would you be on?"

Jax was silent for a moment. "I don't know. But I wouldn't want to stand against you."

When we reached the lighthouse, the first rays of dawn were about to break.

I climbed onto the cargo lift and looked back at Jax one last time.

A green glow flickered near his ear, and then he disappeared completely into the building's shadows.

I looked at the glowing green ring on my hand, my heart lurching hard.

That "goddess" trapped in the tower felt, for the first time, like a real person.