登入Our city-state is a thousand miles from Mount Olympus. But we have a custom. One that can never be broken. Every girl about to be married… her fiancé must enter the Temple of Hera. Led by her father. To ask for the goddess’s blessing. If he walks out unharmed, it means the gods approve. A lifetime of happiness. At twenty, my two younger sisters wore their bridal crowns. They married the knights of their dreams. But I'm thirty. And still unmarried. Because every fiancé who enters that temple… breaks our engagement the moment he comes out. They even draw their swords. They try to kill me. My newest fiancé was a noble knight from the capital. He scoffed at the superstitions of our remote city. He insisted on going in. My father, the High Priest, led him into the temple. But when he walked out… his eyes were completely gone. He tackled me. His hands crushed my throat. I don't understand. What is hidden inside the sacred Temple of Hera? What could corrupt a noble soul in an instant? My father knows. He knows every man who goes in will want me dead. So why does he keep leading them into that temple?
查看更多"Stay with me," Orion said. He grabbed my wrist and pushed open the heavy wooden door.A thunderstorm raged outside. It covered the sound of our escape.Orion had played the madman for a decade.He knew every blind spot in the patrols.We pressed ourselves against the cold stone walls. We dodged the beams of the watcher-crystals.He bent a rusty iron gate open with his bare hands.Thorns scraped my face. I didn't feel it.We jumped into the muddy moat and swam for our lives.Somehow, we made it. We escaped the living tomb.Two bodies, covered in mud. We collapsed into an abandoned tavern on the border.A cold wind blew through the broken windows.Orion’s hands trembled. He activated the memory stone.Light flared across the dark wall.The truth was laid bare.There was my father. High Priest Kael. He was stepping over bodies as he packed bleeding 'Vice Crystals' into crates. The other priests were laughing like ghouls.The final scene was clear. Kael was using black magic. He was graft
I pulled the silver dagger from my boot.I pointed the cold tip right at my heart.Bile rose in my throat. The sickening, sticky feeling from the vision... it felt like it was still on my skin.I just wanted to end this filthy existence.A sudden thud echoed in the sanctuary.Kael and Lila were on their knees in front of me. Both of them."Elara, please, put the dagger down!" Lila sobbed. Her hands clutched my dress.Kael bowed his proud head. His eyes were red."Go to the Lethe Monastery. Get treatment," he choked out. His voice was filled with a father's desperate hope. "Your family will never give up on you."Seeing them so humbled, my fingers went slack.The dagger clattered to the floor.An endless wave of guilt drowned me.I nodded. I agreed to go.The Lethe Monastery was a living tomb.The halls were filled with mind-wiped prisoners.Every day, the wardens forced a dark green, mind-numbing potion down our throats.My mind grew duller each day.I became lifeless. I forgot the sea
No miracle came. Of course not.The moment the Investigator stepped out of the forbidden sanctuary, the righteousness on his face was gone.He looked at me like I was a pile of rotting filth."Drop the inquiry," he said. I reached for him. He kicked my hand away. "Drag this irredeemable degenerate away. Don't let her filth touch the laws of the Capital."I knew then. I was utterly abandoned.As soon as my wounds healed, I started to act.I pretended to be mad.I had to get out of this city-state. It was my only way to survive.In two weeks, I used wild magic to burn the altar curtains. I shattered the defensive wards of a dozen acolytes.I set fires in the city at night. I ran through the streets. Screaming.The clergy couldn't take it anymore. They signed a petition. They forced Kael to send me away.To the Lethe Monastery. A place for insane heretics.Kael agreed.The transport carriage sped through the night.I spit out the iron shard I had hidden under my tongue. It had been tearin
"No! That's not me!" I screamed.I scrubbed at my eyes. Hard.The memory crystal flickered in the dark, forbidden sanctuary.The images were vile. Profane.A wave of nausea choked me.I collapsed on the cold stone. My stomach churned. I threw up. Violently.Nothing came out but acid and streaks of blood.The nightmare of the last ten years finally had an answer.No wonder every fiancé wanted to kill me.No wonder my family looked at me like I crawled out of Tartarus.I was a monster.Kael’s staff crackled with deadly purple lightning. Grandfather conjured a gale-blade.This time, I didn't crawl away. I didn’t even try.The spells hit me. One after another.The flesh on my back split open. The air filled with the smell of burnt skin and blood.I was numb to the pain.I closed my eyes. I let them beat me into a pulp.I didn't deserve to live in the light.My hands trembled. I pushed myself up. I sat."I'll end it myself," I heard my own voice say. It sounded hollow. Dead. "I won't stain






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