Chapter 505: Shadows of the First Priest

Mary leaned forward slightly, her fingers brushing against the edge of the table. Her voice trembled with barely contained curiosity.

"Honestly, I am curious as to who this Dolion is too," she said. "And there’s still the fact that you guys," she said, gesturing at Orion and Sophia, "have still not told us about what you discovered after the conversation you had with the person that had been in Eldric."

Eldric’s shoulders tensed. A low sound escaped him. "Mary," he said carefully, "I would rather you do not mention that thing that I am now insisting is a dream."

Everyone was quiet. Then Ronan spoke up, his lips tugged in a smile.

"So you don’t want to admit that someone else possessed you?" Ronan asked him.

Eldric’s head snapped toward him, and he glared at Ronan, who only laughed along with some others.

Eldric exhaled slowly, muttering under his breath, "I still don’t understand this... this... concept of humor."

He didn’t find what Ronan said to be funny, but others had laughed, so that must mean it was—but he did not understand it.

Sophia’s lips pressed together, a small, amused curve tugging at her mouth. "We are not having this conversation again," she said firmly. Her gaze drifted toward Eldric, steady and calm. "About you trying to understand the mechanics behind how a joke is and how it is to be taken by others. We have more pressing matters after all."

"Since you are curious... about Dolion," she said, "then that is what we will focus on."

She cleared her throat, and the faint sound echoed across the hall. She drew a deep breath. "The person you insist was a dream," she said softly, "was not. Oculum was real."

"Oh, we know that," Daniel said with a snicker. "Eldric here just doesn’t want to believe he was vulnerable to being taken over by someone else."

Eldric rolled his eyes at that.

"The beast we encountered in the cave," she said slowly, "the one that Orion beheaded, was Dolion."

Orion nodded once, and then lifted his eyes to the council, his gaze sweeping across every face. "We have seen him," he said evenly. "Sophia, Ronan, and I. We encountered him."

"I saw him after he was beheaded, but yeah... I did," Ronan added.

"True," Orion said, his lips twitching. "Those of you who saw what Eldric... um, Oculum drew during his vision... that’s the beast. That was Dolion."

Orion continued, his voice steady, carrying the weight of what had been seen. "And also, for those who don’t know, Dolion is not just any beast," he said carefully. "He is the first priest to ever practice black magic."

His gaze swept slowly from one face to the next. "Apart from being the first priest to practice black magic," he said softly, "Dolion was... the mate of the goddess."

"He turned to black magic because he wanted her power," he said.

"This is not merely a tale of a priest gone mad," she said quietly. "Dolion’s hunger for power... it was insatiable. He grew stronger with each act of cruelty, each spell, each drop of blood taken from those he destroyed. The magic in his veins... he consumed it, made it his own. And yet... it was never enough."

Orion’s gaze held hers for a fraction of a moment. Then he looked at the council again. His voice was softer now, quieter, but still carried that unyielding weight.

"What you must understand," he said, "is that Dolion’s actions reshaped the very land he walked upon. He left a mark. His black magic... it lingered in stone, in soil, in blood. It has not vanished, even with his death."

"What do you mean by that?" Brynhild asked softly.

"The beasts in Nirvana are... as Madam Tyler once speculated, mutated. The black magic that has seeped into the lands is what made them as they are, what turned them," Orion told them.

Daniel closed his eyes for a minute, absorbing everything.

"Do you think perhaps we should continue this meeting with alcohol?" he asked. "I feel like we need it. Everything I’ve been hearing since this meeting began sounds absurd, but I am very certain it is the truth."

"And that’s because it all sounds absurd," Orion told him. "But it’s also the truth. Trust me, I thought Oculum was messing with us at the beginning, but turns out he was honest."

"I like that suggestion of alcohol," Ronan told his father with a nod. "First it was the fact that we are walking in holy grounds, then the shrine and the grave, the Trine of... whatever the fuck that is, and now the moon goddess being married to the person who first practiced black magic?"

"As much as I like the suggestion, I can’t drink. I’m still breastfeeding, and I wouldn’t want my daughter to be as energetic as Ronan is. We can hardly cope with her cries and need for attention every moment," Brynhild said.

"And I’m the one she always wants attention from," Lysander muttered.

"I’m so mad you decided to give birth when I was conveniently away from the pack," Ronan told Brynhild.

"And it’s not my fault Raina chose to come out when you left."

"I love my niece, Brynhild. Don’t blame her for this," Ronan said.

"You are also mad that I got to meet her before you," Orion told Ronan.

"Why wouldn’t I be?" Ronan asked him. "But anyways, back to this priest you spoke of. Is there anything more?"

"About Dolion?" Orion asked. They shook their heads. "That’s basically it, right, Shorty?"

Sophia nodded. "But then there’s more about Oculum. He was Dolion’s apprentice."

"And the tale just keeps getting weirder," Caspian said. "I really need that drink now."

"We can’t think straight without alcohol, and you think it’ll be better with alcohol?" Madam Tyler asked him. "There shall be no alcohol until we finish this discussion about Oculum and the other one."

Once more, Eldric was struck with how familiar the name sounded, and not just because he had been in Eldric’s body. It sounded like something he had read about in a book. He was going to have to research more and go back to his notes.