She who swallowed the sun

Staring at the cavernous walls of the bathing chamber, Solenne prayed the shadows wouldn’t dance.

She hadn’t made them move in weeks, and she clung to that fragile hope. She monitored the pooling darkness on the sandstone of the temple, clenching her fists until her nails dug into her skin. Her skin boiled as masked, dark—clad priestesses scrubbed her raw with water touched by first light, their sponges bumping against sore scars.

The bath would cleanse her. She was Thessaron’s chosen, after all. The Burning God had branded her upon birth, his radiance imprinted on the bleached patches on her skin. She’d been pledged to his Temple, commended to his priestesses. And her life had been honourably forfeit.

The women bound her hair into a bun, hid it under a pristine headdress, and pushed her toward the hearth to dry. The fire greeted her with a familiar crackle, its shadows reaching like grasping hands. She focused on the flames, trying to draw from their warmth, their light. The High Priestess always said the flames would eventually respond, revealing her true self.

“Do you feel anything?”

The voice was muffled by metal and laced with expectation. The High Priestess was never far from her, always blending into Solenne’s shadow behind her black robes and golden mask. In seventeen summers, Solenne had seen her face and uttered her name only once— Cassira.

“Warmth,” she answered. The woman approached her, her robes whispering against the stone. They sounded like the shadows when they danced.

“Good,” The High Priestess answered. “Remember your prayers. And your penance.”

The scars on her back tingled, recalling what it felt to be cast. The trembling of her body afterwards, the seeping of fluids in the following days. The sting of her skin rebuilding itself. Her youngest brand was ten summers old, gained after the first manifestation of the Corruption. The priestesses had promised her powers of radiance and glow, heralding the day Thessaron’s gifts bloomed within her. They had never expected the cold, wicked shadows that came forth that day.

She remembered the searing ceremonial knife, the smell of her own sizzling flesh, the command to embrace the pain as purifying. Her tears had been salty, and Cassira’s mask an impenetrable wall.

The dark priestesses returned to the chamber and began layering Solenne with white, gold—laced fabric, careful not to wrinkle a single fold. The clothes weighed her down, concealing every inch of her marred skin until only her face remained.

“You are becoming pure, Solenne,” The High Priestess remarked as the women tucked her hair into her headdress. “Soon you will be cleansed.”

Solenne nodded, her head slow and heavy, and the priestesses lowered a veil over her face, completing her preparation. She had never seen her reflection wearing the robes, but imagined she looked serene. Divine. Through the veil, the women became silhouettes, and the world blurred into a familiar eclipse.

Beneath the midday sun, Solenne was not permitted to look at the people of Thessir as her entourage led her to the Sun Altar. They whispered for the “Radiant One,” never her name. Each prayer felt like bleeding, yet she kept her chin high, distant as the sun. Everyone else was but the shadow she cast.

“The solstice is a few sunrises away,” The High Priestess pointed out next to her. “Sun willing, our Lord will grant you his favour.”

“Sun willing,” she repeated as the sun climbed the sky. Midday was sacred; Thessaron’s sun blazed in a clear, cloudless sky — a clear favour for the devout. Solenne toyed with her hands, tracing her scars and birthmarks gently as she settled on the seat at the dais.

Perhaps her penance had finally yielded results. Perhaps she would finally become truly radiant and be embraced by the light. Her heart palpitated with the possibility — after years of prayer and sacrifice, she’d finally shine.

Beneath the hill of the Sun Altar, the Temple of Dawn’s domes gleamed like a second sun. Solenne’s heart echoed their warmth — this was her city, her calling, her test of faith.

Through her veil, she overlooked hundreds of followers flooding the space around her. Soon, the ceremonial grounds hummed with anticipating whispers, awaiting The High Priestess’ command.

“Be welcome,” she instructed, and the whispers died. The Priestess’ voice traveled the entire courtyard, the metal in it zealous and divine. “Bask in our Lord’s light, and in the presence of his Fire on Earth.”

Solenne felt hundreds of gazes shift upon her, strong as the sun on her back. She never liked hiding behind her fabrics, unable to see. But her glow was only to be granted to those chosen for her blessing.

“We are all shadows cast by the Thessaron’s Sun, even in days as bright as this. But in honour of our Lord’s incoming solstice, one of us will be granted his Lady’s gaze,” the priestess said.

The courtyard vibrated with anticipation. To be looked upon by Solenne was an honour, even if her blessings were a performance. Her powers had yet to manifest, but perhaps that day that would change. Her hands tingled with warmth, eager to be raised. The sun climbed atop the crown of her head, positioned in its highest splendor. Her Lord was with her. She could feel it as deep as her marrow.

“Chosen, approach our Radiant One. Accept her grace.”

A shadow priestess chose someone from the crowd with a touch and led them to the dais. A woman fell to her knees before her. Her breathing stilled.

“My Lady,” the woman’s voice choked with adoration.

“I am with thee,” Solenne recited, careful to keep her voice soft and detached. In response, she heard the shuffle of hundreds of people in the crowd lowering their heads, averting their eyes from her. Even The High Priestess looked down, allowing her to remove her veil.

Solenne’s hands were steady as she lifted the fabric away from her face. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and the woman before her came into focus. Grey streaks marked her hair; her frail, blistered body trembled.

“Look upon me,” she instructed. The woman’s head slowly lifted, her eyes carefully finding Solenne’s. Her hazel eyes melted like honey, lips quivering between prayer and oblivion.

She would next bless the woman, who would believe herself cured or promised to the Burning One upon death. But the warmth in Solenne’s veins sang to her, the sun on her head whispered. It was time. She would cure her with true radiance. Her scars tingled in unison, the epiphany of her pain. Her birthmarks seemed to glow.

“Be blessed, child,” she recited and raised her hand, revealing it from within layers of clothes. “Receive his light.”

When Solenne’s fingers touched her shoulder, power surged from her every cell — bright, intoxicating and burning.

The High Priestess noticed and slightly lifted her head. “By his Light…” she whispered, and Solenne looked at her, beaming.

“Feel his light-“ she exclaimed. But a choking sound silenced her. She turned to the woman before her, scanning her face. Her honey eyes were now brittle and unfocused, rolling into the back of her head. Her mouth gasped like a caught fish, and the tremor in her shoulder spread across her body. Solenne’s hand turned cold. ”

“What…” she muttered. The warmth in her veins vanished, extinguished by an icy surge shooting through her body and into the tips of her fingers. From her fingers sprouted an impenetrable darkness that spread across the woman, whose gasps turned to shrieks. Her flesh burned blue where the shadows touched, and the darkness whispered wordlessly.

“No…” Solenne tried to pull her hand away, but it held on, stiff as a corpse. She yanked, but the movement spread more darkness, choking the woman from within. Her screams rattled across the courtyard while the people shifted uneasily, still unable to look.

Next to her, The High Priestess had leveled her gaze, fully contemplating the horror unfurling.

“Release her,” she commanded, her voice biting.

Solenne looked up to the sun, desperate. But its unyielding light kept pouring into her.

“Please,” she rasped. The woman’s cries died down, and her body became limp, only held up by the power binding her to Solenne.

“Release her!” The High Priestess barked, and she pulled Solenne’s hand away. The bond shattered, flinging the woman's charred body across the courtyard. A loud boom erupted from the separation, and Solenne watched in horror as a shadow expanded from her centre, spreading outwards hungrily and into the crowds. More people had lifted their gazes, and a few looked at her in fear.

“Sun—eater,” they whispered. “Plague of Dusk.”

No. No, it couldn’t be. Solenne looked at her people in horror, her hands shaking with the uncontrollable power. If she didn’t stop it, it would consume them, swallow the world. The Waning would come to be.

“Cassira,” she begged. She could swear her mask seemed contorted with horror.

Cassira looked away from her and at a nearby guard, motioning an instruction. A dull pain erupted in her head, and the world bled to black.

Paralyzed, burned and frozen in a pitless slumber, Solenne couldn’t recall what it felt to see the sun. Then again, perhaps this was what the real sun felt like. Burning and all—consuming.

Her eyelids were heavy against the blinding sun above, and her nails itched with the grit of sand beneath her. Her naked body had been laid bare for the sun to judge. It ached with the memory of shadows unleashed.

She hadn’t burned someone since her first manifestation, when she scorched a priestess’ hand. Since then, whispers of a dark prophecy followed her — Sun—Eater, harbinger of the Waning. Death of light.

“The shadow of Thessaron shall turn upon him,” The High Priestess recited somewhere near. Solenne struggled to sit up. “And swallow the sun.”

“It was an accident,” she pleaded. The High Priestess’ golden mask remained still, her hands clasped somewhere beneath her black robes. The patio was empty save for them.

“The Waning will choke the Burning One’s fire.” She looked up at the sky. The gold in her mask glinted. “Until his might is vanquished, and all light is lost.”

“I don’t want to fail you.” Solenne dragged herself to the priestess’ feet and held out her hands desperately. She looked down at Cassira’s shadow, and bile rose in her throat. But the shadow did not move. “Please. Cleanse me. Deliver penance.”

Cassira didn’t flinch. Solenne didn’t even feel her gaze upon her. “You are a scourge upon this world.”

Solenne felt tears wetting her cheeks. Her aching body shook with quieted sobs. “Please.”

“Pray Thessaron forgives you. As for I…” Solenne looked up at Cassira. The slits in her mask had never looked so dark. “I will rid us of this pestilence.”

The High Priestess left without another word. Solenne dropped her hands to the ground, her palms burning with the heated sand. Her tears formed clumps beneath her, salty and sizzling. And the sun never left her back.

Even veiled, the city recoiled from her; she was no longer a miracle but an omen. They didn’t call her name, nor pray on her behalf. No, their whispers were those of frightened children, plagued by the nightmare of a dooming prophecy. The priestesses had done all they could to restore the Temple’s radiance, but the people hadn’t forgotten the incident at the altar. The sandstone grounds hadn’t, either, permanently charred where the shadows spread. Focused on the stain, Solenne didn’t notice the seat had been replaced by a looming column that barely cast a shadow under the solstice sun. Even through her veil, the light was unusually blinding, as if Thessaron himself stood above them.

Solenne didn’t dare ask what would happen when she reached the column at the centre. Cassira had barely spoken to her in the past weeks. The sunwater baths had ceased, and no new scars had been added to her flesh.

“Today you will pay your penance,” The High Priestess said, as if reading her mind. Solenne shrank in her robes. She had never suffered in public.

The courtyard filled to the brim around her, shadows dancing into place, and Solenne grew still. The priestesses approached her and removed her veil, startling her. Some people looked away; others stared. And around them, the hill blazed with heat.

“Bask in our Lord’s light and be welcome,” The High Priestess said. Solenne’s breathing quickened as priestesses removed her headdress, then her robes, stripping every garment until she stood naked and bared. She couldn’t even cover herself before she was bound to the column.

“The Burning One is a merciful god, but his power is also one of wrath for those who defy him,” the priestess declared. “This solstice demands a true act of faith. And what greater offering to our sun… than the death of the Sun—Eater?”.

Her soul went limp as the crowd whispered in disgust. She tugged against her bonds as priestesses stacked logs into a pyre. The people clamored for the Sun—Eater’s death.

“This heretic turned her back on His Light,” Cassira pointed at her, and Solenne’s body stung as if she’d touched her. “But his will is mightier, and with his strength, we will vanquish his Shadow.”

Solenne’s heart thundered in her chest and her body arched for breath. How could they do this to her? After so many years of servitude, of devotion, of compliance? Why, Burning One? she thought, tears evaporating in the heat. Why raise me only to suffer and die? Did I not give you my life?

“Behold,” The High Priestess said, and the people around her retreated. A guard handed her a lit torch. “His power!”

“Cassira, please,” Solenne begged, looking at the dark shape of the woman who raised her. She tried remembering her face, tried to reach beyond her mask for a touch of warmth, of mercy. But the woman was steel in a golden casing. “Let me go. I will go where the light cannot find me.”

Cassira’s mask glinted with cruelty. Naught but revulsion seeped from her. “You were never meant for the light.”

The words shattered her. All hope extinguished from Solenne’s body, all devotion died in her soul. She had never been their salvation. Cassira had never been her guardian; only her keeper, there to control until she could only destroy.

The High Priestess lowered the torch to the pyre and crackling sprouted. Naked, shamed and bound before the God she swore to uphold, Solenne recalled all the times she’d burned for him. All the scars and lashings and punishments she had endured. The years of solitude and fear and disappointment. Her shadows had been shackled, her dark flames subdued. And it had not been enough.

Her feet began to feel the warmth of the fire, but her tears had finally stopped. The vengeful clamors around her did not shame her, but enlightened her. She was an object to them, revered and discarded at the whim of a god. She had no will nor power, no voice nor heart. And they would all see her burn.

The warmth from the fire faded from her body, and an unmistakable coldness crept into her. She tingled with the power, feeling it pulse through her veins. Behind The High Priestess’ mask, she could swear she saw her eyes widen.

“Bow to his light, abomination!” She yelled at her.

Coldness gathered at her fingertips like a wave about to crash on the shore. The flames at the pyre turned blue, and Solenne lifted her chin high

“I was not meant for the light,” she said, her voice loud and steady. Above, the sun darkened behind a total eclipse, the Waning incarnate. The flames at her feet sputtered away, swallowed by spreading shadows. Their whispers rose like a song, thundering over the screams of people fleeing the courtyard.

Only The High Priestess remained still, her only motion to slowly release her mask, revealing a petrified, weathered face. Her eyes were black as the sun above them, her gaze as dark.

Shadows spread from underneath Solenne as quickly as a river breaking, scorching everything in their path. Her own body swirled with their blue flames, and the shadows burned her shackles away. She stepped forward, snapping the charred logs at her feet.

Cassira looked at the blotted sun, her mouth open in a silent cry.

“I am the sun’s shadow, yes,” Solenne declared — not a curse, but a reflection. Her shadows crept towards Cassira, slowly making their way up her leg. She hissed and tried to move, but Solenne held her tightly. “But you…” The shadows reached Cassira’s mouth and filled her insides with cold fire. The eclipse watched as they consumed her. “You are its scourge.”

The shadows reached the ends of the courtyard, scorching the entire altar black. Cassira’s body collapsed, dark as her robes and faceless as her mask. The screams of the fleeing crowds faded into a charred silence, eerily peaceful. And the world waited.

Solenne released her grip on the shadows, and the eclipse waned from the sun. Light flooded slowly back into the earth, as if unsure and weakened. But it didn’t blind her. Her naked body didn’t ache like last time. Instead, it felt as if a weight had finally been dropped from it. The loss of her purpose settled in her stomach, but her powers cradled her, somehow warmer than any light she’d ever touched.

Solenne crossed the courtyard and looked down at Thessir, the city burning in blinding light — its god merciless, its people complicit. She knew not where her destiny lay, but that the Burning One needn’t control it. For the first time in her life, she had a choice.

She would not crusade against the city, nor seek another god. Her future would be her own. And when she turned her back on the setting sun, her shadow stretched long across the ground, dancing in its wake.