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Mina / CaelistraThe sacred halls of the Tidal Crown, the High Temple of Etreia, echoed with distant thunder. The storm-tossed sea crashed its waves with more fervor than usual against the holy isle located right off the coast of Ravencrest.
Caelistra stood at the altar, her expression cold. Detached. Majestic. She had heard of the intruder—a spy from the Renardian Empire, pulled from the wreckage of a ship by temple guards. To be interrogated. Possibly executed. But she had insisted on seeing the heathen herself. A divine feeling, one she couldn’t explain, had demanded it.
The guards dragged the shipwrecked in. Tossed them before her on the ground. One guard grabs the back of the accused's head and roughly pulls it back, forcing it to face the priestess.
The moment their eyes met, Caelistra staggered a half-step back, barely concealing her shock. The scar, the eyes, the shape of the face... No... it couldn’t be...
But it was. The one who had sworn to marry her. The one whose voice still whispered to her in dreams. The one she had thought lost forever all those years ago. The one the priests knew nothing about—Hour!
She raised her slender hand, lips parting in measured authority. “Who are you to defile Etreia’s sanctuary?” Her tone was unyielding, yet beneath it trembled the ache of conflicted vows—duty to the goddess, devotion to a long-lost promise.
Once, she had been a girl called Mina. But that name lay forgotten—sacrilegious. They called her Caelistra now. The Sacred Virgin. The wholesome, living embodiment of Etreia.
But how could she be whole, when the other half of her soul was kneeling, broken, before her?
Born the same hour. In the same place. The old crones had called that fate.
And that fate… had just returned.
Caelistra stood at the altar, her expression cold. Detached. Majestic. She had heard of the intruder—a spy from the Renardian Empire, pulled from the wreckage of a ship by temple guards. To be interrogated. Possibly executed. But she had insisted on seeing the heathen herself. A divine feeling, one she couldn’t explain, had demanded it.
The guards dragged the shipwrecked in. Tossed them before her on the ground. One guard grabs the back of the accused's head and roughly pulls it back, forcing it to face the priestess.
The moment their eyes met, Caelistra staggered a half-step back, barely concealing her shock. The scar, the eyes, the shape of the face... No... it couldn’t be...
But it was. The one who had sworn to marry her. The one whose voice still whispered to her in dreams. The one she had thought lost forever all those years ago. The one the priests knew nothing about—Hour!
She raised her slender hand, lips parting in measured authority. “Who are you to defile Etreia’s sanctuary?” Her tone was unyielding, yet beneath it trembled the ache of conflicted vows—duty to the goddess, devotion to a long-lost promise.
Once, she had been a girl called Mina. But that name lay forgotten—sacrilegious. They called her Caelistra now. The Sacred Virgin. The wholesome, living embodiment of Etreia.
But how could she be whole, when the other half of her soul was kneeling, broken, before her?
Born the same hour. In the same place. The old crones had called that fate.
And that fate… had just returned.
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