CHAPTER EIGHT: YEARNING FOR HER LIGHT (1)

“Praised be the supreme watcher!”

The four warriors spotted a smile of relief on the priestess’ face as she laid bright eyes on them, and it sent threads of warmth into their hearts. Her ceremonious dress from the previous day stood clear she had never left the Valley’s entrance.

"Priestess….." A groan left Cassandra's lips and she dropped to the ground, pain crushing at every bone and muscle before she could pay proper respect to the holy star symbol. She cursed under her breath as she realized her body was naturally responding to the full sensation of the Zeal-leachers' last barrage of palm attacks.

“Priestess, what’s wrong with them?”

 Eshya winced at the sight of the three young men in similar conditions as the black-haired woman, regarding her head security with little mind. “A parting gift from the goddess’ children, no doubt.” She spread her joined palms skyward while whispering in seconds of hushes. Four specks of light orbs flickered into existence and widened at a steady pace to the size of a grown man’s fist around her. She steadily moved a loose palm forward and the specks floated forward before bursting on impact with their chest, spreading a bath of golden light through their body.

The four Holy Warriors could feel the overwhelming heat, likened to being unbearably close to the sun, burning away at the previous pain. This is followed by bones snapping back into place and major wounds healing at a pace visible to the human eye, leaving all four in a messy heap of after-aches and itches. Though healed, they lay there with insupportable exhaustion as they waited out on their boiling blood. Dealing with the priestess' sun blessing this time around came with some side effects.

Eshya gestured to the head of security behind her and the large man immediately dished out orders to his men. "You can relax your minds now." She walked past the slumped warriors being supported back to the aircraft, ignoring the enervated amber-skinned man trying to say something, to place a hesitant hand on Wraith Valley's barrier.

With her eyes closed, a faint glow of golden light spread from her body into the barriers and Johnson and his remaining men witnessed the space around her ripple in sections. In three breaths, the distortions faded out to reveal the sixteen unconscious bodies of the finalists.

“Attend to the living first.”

Johnson gestured his orders and his team of men and women quickly headed over to check for possible pulsation. His brown eyes caved ever deeper beneath furrowed brows as he watched the guards picking up only three of the failed finalists. Grave eyes turned concerned on the priestess's back as his men rushed back to the wider aircraft for emergency treatments on the living. He was aware of the gravity of the situation.

“Priestess…..”

"I'll be fine, John. You know that." Eshya interrupted with a steady voice what would have been her security head's awkward consolation. "What can the temple or the city do about it? I'm still the holy star symbol regardless of their dissatisfaction." She refused to turn red-rimmed eyes at her companion as her shoulders slumped in longer received sight of the thirteen corpses. "Get them properly dressed for transport and alert my dad." She was going to need solid help diffusing the resulting issues to ensue with the other pillars and the city at large.

“On it.” Johnson already had one of his men deliver a phone tablet into his hands and he walked a distance away to get on it while giving the young priestess a much-needed space.

Eshya simply folded her trembling hands as she stepped closer to take a good look at each of the corpse's faces varying in testamental expressions of the last thing they encountered before death. These brave men and women had spent their lives only to end up here. She felt responsible for everything; the chance at a youthful life stripped from them, the eternal grief of loss that would befall their families. She couldn't help sending resentful eyes at the barrier containing Wraith Valley. The Zeal-leachers had long overstepped the trial's restrictions and the retribution goddess had made it clear the fault lay on her side. What could have caused one of the highly trained finalists to disobey such instructions of high importance?

"Though there is a current disturbance neither of us is responsible for, we still can't interfere."

Those were the exact words the goddess relayed to her. She tightened her fist in regret that she didn’t ask for the disturbance’s identity.

Her security guard had made quick work of moving the dead bodies to the aircraft that brought them here. She turned around to find a battered tall man staring at her from seven feet away in a trance. Alarm rushed through Eshya at the sight of the dirt-smeared young man. She could almost now taste the wave of danger he exuded. How had her divine senses not picked up on such a negative presence until he was right in front of her? She glanced around to find none of her busy guards were near.

“Who are you?”

The man’s dull eyes seemed to gain a bit of focus at her voice and he began to trudge towards her.

Eshya became even more wary and she immediately squared up her shoulders. “Are you deaf? Who are you?” Her trained voice of authority escaped her lips as she stared down this man. She suddenly was not in a good mood to entertain politeness, definitely not to this one who reeked of danger.

The man’s walking pace increased slightly and he pointed a trembling dislocated finger her way. “That. Give….. me that.”

The twenty-two-year-old lady's heart began racing furiously. "Stay back!" she swiped a hand outwardly and a sizeable curve of light was blasted at the ground a few inches before the man, resulting in an explosion that sent a few chunks of the earth flying into the air. The dust cleared to reveal a dented arc in the earth and the strange man had been thrown a good distance back. "The wisdom temple's priestess will ask you for the last time; who are you?" She raises her right arm to the sky and her entire body is covered in a dim halo. Specks of golden light flickered in a fearsome number around her before streaking away in flashes to surround him in three vertically layered rings of a circle. "Speak or I burn a hole through every joint in your body."

The man slowly got back up before raising his dislocated finger once again, directed at the light specks around him this time. “I…..need.”

"Don't!" Eshya's eyes widened in the realization that came late as five gunshots resounded through the air. Bright blue eyes that seemed to glow caught onto the swift bullets flying towards the strange man. She smoothly curved the index on her raised hand and two of the golden light specks left the rings in a quick spread of solar flare that easily melted the metal projectile. She could see Johnson and her guards in formation with their guns well in place. She didn’t even get enough time to call them off before the man had turned to regard them with a ferocious gaze as he roared at them in anger.

“Priestess!”

The loud call reached Eshya's ears and her eyes involuntarily followed the direction to find the burliest of her warriors slumped over a pissed-off female nurse urging him to get back to the aircraft.

“He’s one of us!”

Eshya felt a bit weak at the information and she slowly released her control on the light specks, dispelling them in the process. This, unfortunately, did nothing to stop the battered man from raising his hands at the men with guns, unleashing wild streaks of black lightning in assaulting streaks.

The priestess' security guards were all ordinary humans and held no fighting chance as the destructive attacks traveled at a blurry speed that sent a heart-stopping shock through those struck before they could even realize it.

Eshya watched in horror as her guards, five men, and three women, dropped to the ground as the lightning struck them into charred crisp corpses. Even those hidden behind large rocks and trees weren't safe as the element of destruction struck indiscriminately.