The Power Of Wrath-Chapter 31: Vostro

Having placated the council’s fears and given them new hope, the Grand Priestess gracefully descended the stairs to the ground. Walking out of the throne room, she exited the building.

The palace had several beautiful rooms and pleasures meant to delight anyone, yet none of them interested the mysterious woman.

Receiving greetings left and right from everyone who happened upon her, she walked away from the palace. Her image, at one point, flickered out of sight, impossible to pinpoint even for those who had been watching her the entire time.

Invisible to all, the Grand Priestess continued her walk toward the outskirts of the village, her destination directly opposite the hill where Ark had met his demise.

The sounds of wailing from the houses brought her neither sadness nor joy. Her mind wasn’t even on the happenings around her. Just as during the council meeting, she was thinking of a particular meal she hadn’t eaten in decades and trying to recall how to make it.

Her journey took her before a small temple surrounded by tall white pillars.

At that moment, both outside and inside the temple, several figures knelt in prayer, their devotion directed toward the ancestors and spirits represented by a giant female statue with six arms—three on each side—four huge breasts, and three eyes on her beautiful face.

Other than a short skirt, the tall statue wore nothing else, its breasts exposed to the world. Nodding at the sight, the Grand Priestess silently walked past the dozens of worshipers and headed for the door at the back.

Usually, whenever she entered the temple, she would reveal herself to the world. But this time, with the large crowd present and the fact that she had already solved their problems and given them a new leader, she decided to slip away quietly.

No one, not even the scantily dressed priestesses who served her and maintained the temple, noticed her entry.

Reaching the room at the back, the Grand Priestess let her form become visible again. Her sudden appearance made a few priestesses moving about flinch, but they quickly composed themselves and bowed deeply.

Her antics weren’t new in the temple. With a wave, she had the women standing straight again as she moved toward the wall at the end of the room and simply walked through it.

From the temple’s dimensions, it might have seemed possible for a small chamber to exist behind that wall, but the vast underground cave she emerged into could not possibly fit within the temple’s boundaries.

Though the floor was rough with jagged rock and the ceiling formed from packed earth, the walls of the cave were smooth and lined with luminescent stones that softly lit the place.

"Grand Priestess," a soft female voice said just as a robed figure appeared. "His Majesty asks for you."

"Oh?"

"I’ll be heading there then," the Grand Priestess said, smiling at the woman draped in a thick brown robe.

Here within the cave, the women who served her were dressed modestly, their robes covering them completely. The Grand Priestess moved forward, passing through several other caverns of different sizes, until she entered one bathed in sunlight filtering through a distant opening.

A waterfall crashed violently into a deep basin, its source unseen, pounding down on a bare-chested man with a thick white beard and hair. Seated beneath it with his eyes closed was Vostro Pulmas, the 13th King of Vladryl and father of Ark Pulmas.

Everyone believed him to be a man blessed with a fraction of her longevity but struck by illness, his life prolonged only by her care. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Vostro was here, within this network of caves, training his body to its limits and indulging his mischief every now and then.

"Vostro," the Grand Priestess said, approaching with slow, hypnotic steps, her hips swaying and her breasts subtly shifting with each motion. "Don’t tell me you’ve been under there since I left. The water could damage your skin."

"Catherine." His deep voice trembled slightly as his eyes opened. "Why did you activate Bram? Wasn’t the plan to take him with us?"

Unlike others, Vostro’s gaze was steady and unflinching, focused solely on Catherine’s face.

"It was the plan," Catherine said, licking her lips in thought, "but I might have found someone more... spicy."

"Is that why you let him kill Ark?" Vostro asked, a tinge of anger in his tone. Catherine simply crossed her arms and gave him a blank look.

"Are you forgetting that I don’t interfere, Vostro? Besides, if you liked him so much, why didn’t you save him? It beats shouting and disturbing the region."

"He was my son. He will be mourned like a warrior."

"Alright." Catherine nodded. "The boy has a strong link with death. There’s a chance we’ll be descending this epoch."

With those words, Catherine turned and walked away. Whether Vostro’s eyes followed the hypnotic sway of her hips or lingered on her words didn’t matter to her. Her concern at that moment was the dish she longed to prepare and the boy who should have already been screaming his lungs out.

"Would he survive?"