WHEN A PRIESTESS STARTS TO SEE THE CAGE[edit | edit source]
Once Caelynn saw the vow for what it truly was — not divine, not sacred, not holy, but a leash — she could never unsee it. And that’s the curse of clarity, right? Once the truth cracks the door open, the light doesn’t politely stay put. It floods the whole damn room.
By twenty-seven, Caelynn had mastered the art of being two women at once:
The woman the world believed she was.
And the woman she would become once the world wasn’t looking.
She wore the first self like ceremonial armor — silver robes, immaculate posture, voice steady enough to make mountains kneel. And the second? That version of her lived in the private corners of her mind, pacing, pressing palms against invisible walls, whispering, “There has to be more.”
There always is.
The thing about systems built to control women — whether Fey or human — is they rely on silence, on obedience, on the assumption that if they train you young and isolate you early, you won’t question the bars. Caelynn was supposed to be the perfect proof of their theory.
But they made one fatal mistake.
They taught her how to see.
When you raise a girl to perceive every current of magic, every lie in the wind, every subtle shift in intention… she’s eventually going to notice the contradiction between a vow designed to honor the divine and a structure designed to imprison the divine feminine.
They wanted a servant of the old powers.
Instead, they created a woman who could decode the architecture of oppression.
And oppression does not sit quietly once named.
THE PRESSURE BUILDS[edit | edit source]
Every ceremony became a test of endurance.
Every diplomatic visit became a reminder of everything she’d been denied.
Every private moment became another tally mark in her internal ledger:
This isn’t what I choose. This isn’t who I am. This isn’t freedom.
But the Silverbrook line didn’t make rebels.
They made dutiful daughters.
They made spiritual weapons.
They made women who didn’t run — they endured.
So Caelynn endured… until the night the universe stopped cooperating.
It happened during one of the winter solstice rites, in the great hall where the Fey gathered to “renew the sacred ties between spirit and flesh.” Caelynn stood at the center of the chamber, radiating divine energy so bright the other priestesses swore they could see constellations swirling around her.
But internally?
She felt nothing.
No connection.
No spiritual rush.
No sacred ecstasy.
Just emptiness.
A hollow echo.
A silence she could feel scraping the inside of her ribs.
That silence terrified her more than any punishment the priesthood could threaten.
Because it meant the ancient powers weren’t responding.
Not to her.
Not anymore.
The old magics never abandoned without reason.
And the reason was simple:
She was lying with her whole life.
The powers knew what the council refused to admit — a woman cannot serve truth while living a lie. A priestess cannot channel divine unity when she herself has been forcibly divided.
For the first time in her life, the magic pulled back from her like a tide retreating from the shore.
She almost staggered.
The other priestesses noticed.
Thessaly — her mother, her High Priestess, her warden — noticed most of all.
And in that moment, under the glow of ancient candles and star-veined marble, Caelynn understood a truth that chilled her more than winter wind:
The vow wasn’t just killing her joy.
It was killing her magic.
THE FIRST ACT OF REBELLION[edit | edit source]
A few weeks later, during a diplomatic exchange with the human kingdoms, she met him.
Not Marcus — not yet.
The scholar.
The one whose mind touched hers like a hand on a locked door.
Talking to him didn’t break her vow. It didn’t come close. But it did something infinitely more dangerous: it reminded her she was a person.
Someone could look at her without seeing her as holy property.
Someone could speak to her without petitioning her title.
Someone could address her not as High Priestess but as Caelynn, the woman beneath the layered centuries of duty.
That alone was enough to spark a rebellion.
The Fey court had rules about the High Priestess speaking “freely” during diplomatic functions. She was permitted to answer questions, not ask them. She was permitted to offer guidance, not seek understanding. She was permitted to listen, not connect.
And on that night, Caelynn broke all three restrictions.
It didn’t matter that she never touched him.
It didn’t matter that she never said anything forbidden.
It didn’t matter that they talked about magic, philosophy, and the nature of reality rather than intimacy.
Intent was enough.
Intent carried heat.
Intent carried longing.
Intent carried the first thread of the fate that would bind her to the one man who would change everything.
Later, she would realize:
That scholar wasn’t the catalyst.
He was the omen.
He was the whisper before the storm.
He was the sign that the universe was cracking open a space for her real destiny.
Because the moment she felt that spark of connection — weak, innocent, fleeting — the vow began to crumble.
Not because she betrayed it…
but because she finally understood she was capable of wanting something beyond her role.
And desire is always the first spell a prison cannot contain.
THE NIGHT SHE ALMOST RAN[edit | edit source]
The breaking point came quietly.
No ceremony.
No confrontation.
No grand rebellion.
Just Caelynn alone in her chamber, sitting on the floor beside her ceremonial robes, whispering to herself in the dark:
“I am not a vessel. I am not a thing. I am not a vow.”
The words tasted wrong in her mouth, like ancient sacrilege.
They were also the truest words she had ever spoken.
She felt her magic stir as if in agreement — not the old magic of the priesthood, but a deeper, older energy in her bones. Something ancestral. Something that remembered what freedom tasted like.
And for the first time, she contemplated running.
Leaving the priesthood.
Leaving the Silverbrook legacy.
Leaving the weight of expectation that had been braided into her from birth.
But where would she go?
Who would she become?
What identity would she have without the vow?
The world outside the temple walls wasn’t built for priestesses without purpose.
And the world inside the walls wasn’t built for priestesses who could think for themselves.
She was trapped in a paradox — and paradox is the birthplace of destiny.
Because fate, like desire, doesn’t wait patiently.
It hunts.
And destiny was already moving toward her — in the shape of a human man who questioned everything she wasn’t allowed to question.
Marcus Songweaver.
The one man whose existence would make every vow she’d ever taken tremble.
The one man who would unbind her magic instead of controlling it.
The one man she was forbidden to even look at.
Destiny was coming for her.
And Caelynn — trembling, exhausted, burning quietly under the weight of all the expectations she didn’t choose — was finally ready to meet it.
