Chapter 84: Chapter 84: Confession from the High Priestess
Chapter 84 – Confession from the High Priestess
The words of Cassius were followed by a deafening silence, the High Priestess looking at him with dilated eyes, her face twisting and crunching on itself, as if the woman was in a harrowing battle against some inner demons.
Cassius said nothing at first, staring at her with his steady red eyes, despite feeling all the hairs of his body standing on end like spikes, a deep profound danger cloaking him all over.
[Dangerous.] Ananke whispered, [She is losing her self-control. She can attack and kill you at any moment, Cassius.]
’I know.’ He said, narrowing his eyes faintly, ’But I also know that she will try her best to not kill me, not only because of my family but also because she wants to know.’
He clenched his jaw, the joints popping slightly, raising his right hand and placed it atop the one of the High Priestess which was choking him with overwhelming strength.
"You will not know if you dare touch me." Cassius said with obvious defiance, "and you will regret doing so. The Head Maid of Hood knows I am here. My own maid does too. Killing me, High Priestess, will be the greatest mistake you will ever make."
"Oh, Vorn take my wretched soul, do you really think so?" She said, laughing harshly, not loosening her hand on his neck one bit, "You really believe that killing you is something I am afraid of, Cassius? Can you not see? I have done worse."
Her lips shook, and with overwhelming hysterical strength, she slammed the table away, making it crash on the wall with a crushing sound, transforming it into a rain of splintered darkwood that sprayed everything in the room.
Nothing was between them anymore, and the High Priestess took a step forward, standing now an inch from Cassius.
"I can help you, Helene." Cassius said again, using her real name.
"Do you really think you can?"
"I can try." Cassius nodded, "I can try. And when I try, when I do anything in my life, I do it seriously."
"How do you know of my story?" Helene asked again, her face still wet with tears despite her eyes showing nothing but hatred. Not hatred towards Cassius.
But towards herself. A kind of emotion that threatened to devour her soul. And devour it, indeed, it was.
"It doesn’t matter how I know." Cassius replied, "What I can tell you is that no one knew of this story besides me and the ones who already knew. Meaning my grandmother and my great-great-grandmother."
"So it’s them—!"
"But even they don’t know who you truly are, Helene." Cassius cut in, his words like a razor, "You have learned from the mistakes of your father, it seems. For you have been able to hide your lustful nature and your depraved life all this time without any of them wondering."
Helene’s body quivered, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, looking at Cassius unable to say anything.
"And it’s that same nature, the one that swallowed your father, that makes you unable to focus on the matters of the church, making you lose the control you were supposed to hold, all because of my great-great-grandmother playing political games inside the church. At this point, Helene, you will lose all authority in no time. You will be nothing but a puppet of my great-great-grandmother."
"And do you think I care?" She laughed humourlessly, spit flying from her mouth, "You know me, don’t you? You know my hidden self, don’t you? Then can you not tell, Cassius? I do not care about this church. I do not care if I have no authority over it."
She gripped harder, face flushed red, "You heard me? I DO NOT CARE!"
Her voice was overwhelmingly loud. Yet despite all the commotion happening inside the room, no one entered. As if the room itself was protected by barriers that stopped any sound from travelling outside.
"I am not one to preach about purity and everything." Cassius said, "I myself do not care about you enough to bother with that even if I was that type of person. But what I do care about is that I need you, Helene."
Tired of being held by the throat, Cassius’s hand burst into fire, causing Helene, in her surprise, to instinctively let go of his neck, taking a step backward.
Cassius took two steps backward, sighed in relief, massaged his neck and whirled his attention back on Helene.
"I need you." He repeated, "And I am ready to help you with—!"
"I don’t want help." Helene interrupted, standing straight, her hand not even burned by Cassius’s fire, looking at him with hungry and steady eyes, "I do not want to stop my addiction. I do not want to stop indulging myself. Now, Cassius Desdemona, don’t you dare look at me as if I am a vile and disgusting piece of trash."
"You know I am not." Cassius said, "But you won’t believe what I am saying, not even what you yourself are seeing, because you expect me to look at you that way. No...." He shook his head, "You expect the whole world to look at you that way."
"Because that is the truth." Helene laughed coldly, pointing at herself, "I lived it myself. These are the same eyes I looked at my father with when I discovered his hobby! Yes, I looked at him as if he was nothing but a disgusting insect! Something less than human! A man that had been reduced to an animal of his own wicked desires."
She stepped forward again, closer to him, "And now look at me, Cassius Desdemona! I pointed my finger at him, without knowing that I was also pointing it at myself at the same time. I learned to hate the very sight of him, because at that time, Cassius, you were completely wrong."
She was now an inch from him, yet he said nothing, only listening, only watching, only witnessing in front of him a being who hated herself because of her unhealthy addiction yet was not willing to let go of it.
"That day, what I had understood was not related to anything glorious like who my mother was and where she was." She was crying now, hot tears of shame yet with hidden excitement bubbling through, "The only thing I had felt, seeing that scene, was deep-rooted envy and excitement. The overwhelming envy to yank open the door and let myself be reduced to the same state as those women."
Cassius tried his best to not wince, but it was a hard feat to manage. And if Helene noticed any change in his expression, she gave no indication as she continued pouring out the things she had never been able to get off her chest for over twenty years.
"I hated, and still do, myself for it." She whispered, raising her two hands and clasping them on Cassius’s cheeks, "But how can I admit that I hated myself? How can I admit the disgusting desire in me? So I chose the only way out of it: I chose to hate my father. And I did it so well, so damned well, that I cried tears of happiness when your father killed him."
She laughed and cried, then cried and laughed. "I was happy he died! I was happy, Cassius! So happy I shed tears! Tears people believed were ones of pain! Fools! All of them are fools! I want nothing like revenge against you despite what everyone thinks! It’s all a front, Cassius! It’s all an act to hide my true self from the world! After all, how can I accept it? How can I stand in front of this church and admit that I hated my father for showing me that I am indeed his daughter?!"
Helene at that instant looked like a hysterical woman, one fighting to control the urge of madness and despair hooding her.
Yet despite all her vile words, Cassius’s face didn’t change much. There was discomfort in it, but it was mainly because of the direct and crude words Helene was using and not because of who she was.
And that difference, one Helene understood far too well, hit her like a physical blow. She almost staggered, as if unable to fathom how anyone could not be disgusted by her after her confession.
"You can still change, Helene." Cassius said, after a moment, not knowing what else to say. Once again, the information from the game was severely lacking.
He didn’t know Helene’s case was this serious. And he didn’t know that, in fact, she didn’t hate his family.
All of it was an act. An act she played so well that the whole kingdom had been fooled.
"That is where you are wrong." Helene said, squeezing his head between her palms even more, yet now there was an unexpected tenderness in her action, "I cannot be anything else but this. My father was a man who conducted orgies every night in the church. Yes, after the first time, despite my hate and fear and loathing, I always went in secret to watch him. And my mother, Cassius, my mother was a prostitute. I know her. I found her long ago, four years back."
She smiled sadly, brokenly, "Do you know what the first thing she said to me was when I entered that brothel, when our faces, identical in a plain way, locked into each other?"
Cassius didn’t want to know. Helene said it anyway.
"She asked me if I wanted to fuck her." She sobbed, "And do you know what I did? I—!"
"Enough." Cassius cut in, his heart shivering, "Enough, Helene. Enough."
He sighed with trepidation, "You don’t need to tell me—!"
"I need to." Helene said, eyes red, "You came here to confess, but now it’s me who is confessing. I am the High Priestess of Vorn, and I am a sinner, Cassius. Don’t take my standing as something that exempts me from mortal aspects. I am the sinner, indeed, and I want someone to hear me, someone to understand me. And you..."
She looked at him strangely, "You are listening to me. And you are not disgusted by who I am despite the fact that I disgust the world, even myself. You, Cassius, are an angel. Yes, an angel. My angel. One sent by Vorn to salvage my unsalvageable soul. So hear me, look at me and still witness me going back to my own depravity."
"...why don’t you just try?"
"Because, my angel, I have already stepped onto the ladder when I was young. I was only at the lowest rung, true." She said with sudden gentleness, as if trying to make him understand, "But once you have stepped onto the lowest rung, you have no choice but to climb up to the highest one. I have climbed high, my angel. And I am still climbing, with no sight of the top."
She paused for three breaths then continued, "This is who I am. I have forsaken the world and myself alongside it. But don’t forsake me, my angel. Only you can do the thing you are doing right now. What a blessed soul you have! And you do not have to worry, my angel. I don’t need help with my addiction. I don’t need help in managing the church. I don’t need help in finding my mother. But..."
Cassius Desdemona stared at Helene, who was smiling now with a certain brilliance, a certain fulfilment and liberation that was not quite there at the beginning.
"...I will help you. I no longer need to keep my act in front of you. You know me now. You didn’t judge me and even sought to help me. Even if it’s clearly for personal reasons, I don’t care. So tell me, my angel, yes my angel, tell me what you want from me. I will give it to you. I will, because you, Cassius Desdemona..."
Their eyes locked together.
"...are my angel. My Angel of Salvation."
—End of Chapter 84—
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