The next three days were a blur of ritual and hypocrisy.
Ilia was secluded in her spire, attended only by a tight-lipped Elara and priests who spoke in hushed, reverent tones. They called it a period of "purification." They brought her sanctified water to drink and blessed bread that tasted like dust. They led her in endless chants, prayers for strength and devotion that felt like a mockery. They were polishing the blade before plunging it into the dark.
Ilia moved through it all like a ghost. She knelt when they told her to kneel, prayed when they told her to pray. Her body performed the familiar motions of sainthood, but her mind was a thousand miles away, hovering over a precipice. She felt a profound and terrifying disconnect, as if she were watching a stranger in her own skin.
The people of Aethel were told that the Saintess was undertaking a great penance to save the empire, a period of intense prayer that would push back the Abyss. They gathered in the grand plaza below her spire, holding vigils, their upturned faces full of adoration and hope. They lit thousands of candles, turning the plaza into a sea of flickering lights. They were praying for her, while she was being prepared for the darkness they feared. If they knew the truth, would they still see her as a savior? Or would they see her as she now saw herself: a necessary, tragic price?
On the evening of the third day, as the sun began its final descent, painting the sky in bloody strokes of crimson and orange, Elara came to her with the ceremonial robes. They were not the usual silver-and-white vestments of the Saintess. This gown was made of a single piece of the finest, purest white silk, unadorned by any embroidery or jewel. It was simple, stark, and beautiful. It was the gown of a bride. Or a burial shroud.
"It is time, Your Holiness," Elara whispered, her eyes red-rimmed. She was the only one who looked at Ilia and saw not a saint, but a girl being sent to her doom.
Silently, Ilia allowed Elara to help her out of her simple robes and into the sacrificial gown. The silk was cool against her skin, as soft as a sigh. It felt impossibly fragile, a pathetic defense against the horrors she was about to face. As Elara fastened the last pearl clasp at the nape of her neck, her fingers trembled.
"Elara," Ilia said, her voice quiet but clear. It was the first time she had spoken a word that wasn't part of a prayer in three days.
The handmaiden flinched, then looked up, meeting Ilia's eyes in the silver mirror. Tears welled, threatening to spill. "Your Holiness?"
"Do you think the gods will forgive them for this?" Ilia asked. It wasn't a question of faith. It was a question of justice.
Elara's face crumpled. "I think," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper, "that the gods stopped watching over us a long time ago."
A single tear escaped and traced a path down Elara's cheek. Ilia reached up and gently wiped it away with her thumb. It was a small, human gesture, one the Saintess would never make. In that moment, she was just Ilia, comforting her oldest friend. It was a goodbye.
"Thank you, Elara," she said softly. "For everything."
The Praetorian Guards arrived moments later. They did not speak, their masked faces impassive as always, but Ilia sensed a different tension in them. They were not escorting a holy figure to a ceremony; they were escorting a prisoner to her execution.
They led her not down the main stairs, but to a hidden passage behind a tapestry in her chamber. It led to a spiraling stone staircase that descended deep into the foundations of the Basilica, into places of old magic that the public knew nothing about. The air grew colder, damper, smelling of wet stone and ozone.
They emerged into the Ritual Chamber. It was a stark, circular room, much older than the Basilica above it. The floor was a complex mosaic of interlocking silver and obsidian lines, a massive arcane circle that pulsed with a faint, contained light. In the center stood High Cardinal Valerius and a dozen of his most senior magi, their faces grim and shadowed in the pulsating light of the circle.
Valerius looked at her, his gaze sweeping over the simple white gown. He gave a curt nod of approval. "You are ready."
Ilia said nothing. There was nothing left to say. She felt a strange, unnerving calm settle over her. The fear was still there, a cold, hard stone in her gut, but it was overlaid with a profound sense of inevitability. This was the end of her story. Or so she thought.
She was led to the very center of the arcane circle. The stone was cold beneath her bare feet. Valerius stood before her, holding a black obsidian chalice filled with a shimmering, silver liquid.
"This elixir will loosen your spirit from its mortal anchor," he explained, his voice clinical. "It will allow the binding to take hold. Drink it."
He held the chalice to her lips. Ilia looked into the shimmering liquid, and for a moment, she saw not her own reflection, but a swirl of distant, cold stars. She thought of the people in the plaza, their faces full of hope. She thought of Elara's tears. She thought of her silent, absent god.
With a steady hand, she took the chalice from Valerius and drank.
The liquid was ice-cold and tasted of metal and forgotten memories. It slid down her throat and spread through her veins like a frozen fire. Her body grew light, her senses sharpening to an unbearable degree. The pulsating light of the circle became a blinding glare, the low chanting of the magi a deafening roar. She felt her spirit, her very consciousness, begin to fray at the edges, untethering from her physical form.
"The eclipse begins!" one of the magi shouted.
Valerius raised his hands. "The ritual is engaged! Let the gateway be opened! Let the anchor be known!"
The silver lines on the floor erupted in a blinding flash of white light. A colossal, invisible force slammed into Ilia, throwing her head back. The world dissolved. The stone floor vanished beneath her feet. The chanting of the priests faded into a distant hum.
She was falling.
Or perhaps she was rising. She was being pulled through a formless void, a torrent of color and sound that had no logic or shape. It felt like being torn apart and reassembled a thousand times a second. She screamed, but she had no mouth, no lungs. The scream was a silent, psychic shriek of pure terror that was swallowed by the chaos.
This was the Descent. The journey across the veil.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The chaos receded. The silence returned, but it was a different kind of silence. It was not the absence of sound; it was the presence of an immense, ancient quiet. The pressure vanished, and she felt herself… coalesce.
She was standing. She had a body again. She was still in her white silk gown, her feet on solid ground.
But the ground was not stone. It was smooth, cold, black glass that seemed to stretch into infinity, reflecting a sky that was not a sky. Above her, there was no sun, no moon, only a breathtaking, terrifying tapestry of swirling purple and indigo nebulae, dotted with the cold, diamond-hard light of unfamiliar stars.
She had arrived.
She was in the Abyss.