Chương 18: Chapter 17: The Trial of the Crown

Exhausted, lungs burning and legs trembling, they reached the hostel gate when the sun was already a glowing incandescent line barely visible over the edge of the western wall. Sister Anya was there, standing before the entrance, tapping a restless foot on the packed earth. Beside her, Kael stood as erect as a statue of living stone, his face a mask of silence disapproval, his jaw clenched beneath a perfectly trimmed beard. But upon seeing them appear painting in the last ray of light, Anya smiled.

And that smile wide and luminous despite the weariness etched into her wrinkles, was a sign more eloquent than any welcome: they were in the right place. —Girls! — Anya exclaimed, crossing her arms in a gesture intended to be stern, but which her warm green eyes betrayed completely. —You're late. A few more centimeters and the shadow would have touched the wall. Goodbye to a roof.

She sighed, a sound that was more relief than reproach, and in a quick, maternal movement, she took them both by the arm, dragging them inside the gate with surprising strength. —By the Flow. The goddess of compassion is merciful to you both, I see— She released them only once they were inside the courtyard, and her tone turned practical, brooking no argument. —Now, both of you, straight to Elara. To sign in. Now. There was no possible reply.

Selena and Kaela crossed the dirt courtyard, dodging the central well that reflected the last copper glints of the sky, and headed toward the small room attached to the church wall. The door was ajar, and from within escaped a dim, yellowish light that cast elongated shadows across the gravel of the path. Elara's office was, as always, a world apart.

The administrative sister sat behind her imposing desk, giving the impression of having remained immutable since yesterday, as if time itself stopped upon crossing her threshold. Not a single paper had changed place; not a wrinkle had been added to her impeccable tunic. Her white hair remained imprisoned in that bun of surgical precision, and her fingers rested on either side of the registry book with the symmetry of an altar. —Kaela. First.

Step inside— Her voice was the same: dry, utilitarian, devoid of inflection. She did not look up from the paper. Kaela entered with deliberately slow steps, almost defiant in her parsimony. Selena waited outside, listening to the scratch of the quill and the unintelligible murmur of brief responses. When the signing was finished, Elara gestured with her hand a gesture of dismissal as mechanical as a greeting.

Kaela left the office, and at the precise moment her back was at the door and Elara could no longer see her, she turned toward Selena. She stuck out her tongue, furrowed her brow in comic exaggeration, and let a grimace of childish mockery take over her face. A silly, almost timid smile emerged from the corners of Selena's lips, and that smile small and rebellious filled her chest with unexpected warmth. —Selena. Step inside— Elara's voice cut through the moment like an axe stroke.

Kaela shrugged and walked away toward the dining hall. Selena took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. She took a seat in the chair, feeling the rigidity of the backrest against her spine, still sweaty from the run. Elara extended the pen and paper, her gray gaze as inscrutable as ever. Selena, faithful to the lie that had already become a second skin, traced her signature with the fluid, perfectly foreign calligraphy of her language, Spanish: Selena.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The letters settled onto the paper like silent heresy. Elara took the document, examined it for a moment with those deep-well eyes, and then said something that chilled Selena's blood: —Wait here for a second, girl. I must go find some papers I need to fill out before you leave. It wasn't a request. It was an order, spoken in a tone that abandoned metallic coldness to adopt a texture that was strangely… close.

And it was that closeness, sat slip in the immaculate protocol, that set off every alarm in Selena's chest. It was as if a perfectly calibrated clock had emitted a tick out of rhythm. Too deliberate. Too calculated. Elara stood up with the parsimony of a statue coming to life. As she did, a small metallic object slipped from the folds of her tunic and hit the floor with a clear, crystalline chime that echoed in the silence of the office like a bell of judgment. The sister did not stop. She did not look back.

She exited through the side door, leaving Selena alone with the echo of the metal and the weight of the silence. Selena leaned over. Her fingers brushed the cold coin on the wooden floor. She picked it up. Its silver color shone under the yellowish light of the lamp, revealing on one side the stylized profile of a crouching feline, and on the other, a simple crown. It was identical to the one she kept, like a burning secret, in the hidden compartment of her bag. A silver crown.

Her mind that machine that had belonged to the man of the earth and now inhabited Selena's skull activated with terrifying speed. Elara had left. Elara had dropped the coin. Elara had left her alone with the tangible, shining temptation perfectly accessible between her fingers. It's a test. The certainty fell over her like a bucket of ice water. Her fingers closed over the crown. The metal bit into her palm with its inert cold.

An immense feeling, a ravenous anxiety, crawled up her arm and settled in her chest like a cornered animal. Two silver crowns. That was what Bjorn, the scared mercenary, had asked for his answers. What she needed to buy was a thread leading to Selena's past, to the mystery of her own usurped existence. This coin, added to the one she already possessed, was the key. It was the chance to know who she had been, why she had died, what she was now. The temptation was an abyss. Her fingers trembled.

Her breathing quickened. And then, with a laborious, painful slowness, as if every fiber of her being were resisting, Selena opened her hand. She placed the silver crown in the exact center of Elara's desk, right where the lamplight made it shine like an accusation. She left it there, exposed, returned. She knew. She has known since she stepped out. This will show what kind of woman I am. She suspects me. The thought was a whiplash. But there was no longer time for more.

Elara's footsteps, firm and measured, echoed in the gravel hallway. The door opened and the sister entered carrying a few empty sheets, white and intact, like her tunic. Selena, moving first, raised her voice with the little peace she had left; anxiety still gnawed at her vitals, but her face was a mask of forced serenity. —Sister Elara— she said, and her voice sounded firmer than she expected. —You dropped a silver crown. I left it on your desk.

She paused very briefly and added, with the learned devotion of one who has spent a full day in the temple: —May Aelthra bless you, and may she multiply the money that serves for charity. Elara frowned. It was not a subtle gesture. It was a pronounced contraction of her gray eyebrows, a deep wrinkle that carved its way between her eyes. Her jaw tightened. With a sharp, almost violent movement, she took the silver crown from the desk.

She held it for a moment between her pale fingers, as if weighing not just the metal, but the action she had just witnessed. Then, with deliberation that turned every gesture into a sentence, she tucked it into one of the buttoned pockets of her tunic. An inner pocket. A safe place. She dropped the empty sheets onto the desk. She sighed. It wasn't a sigh of relief, or of weariness.

It was the sound of a hypothesis confirmed, of an expectation disappointed, or perhaps, of a hope barely glimpsed and already cancelled. —Thank you— she said. The word left her lips as if she had to chew every letter, as if the term had remained unused for so long that its joints had rusted. It was the word of someone who never spoke it, or who believed no one else deserved to hear it. She made a gesture with her hand. The same dry, mechanical gesture as always. The dismissal. Selena stood up.

Her legs, which had run through alleys that day, which had supported her alien body through fatigue, now supported her with doubt. She left the office with the fragile dignity of one who has survived an ordeal without bloodshed. Outside, night had closed in completely. The torches in the courtyard burned with an orange flicker, drawing dancing shadows against the adobe.