High Priest knows!

"It has been a great pleasure to have protected this place alongside you all. My brothers, may we fulfill our duty and go down with pride. I'll pray to remain brothers with you proud gentlemen in our next lives as well."

Priest Vishva's words rang like beautiful wind chimes in their ears. All the other priests immediately bowed back respectfully as the feeling of brotherhood resonated in their hearts. They were proud of the years they had spent protecting this heavenly place and were ready to die doing it as well. Since, it was what fate had decided they will happily go along with the God's plans. They had faith, the Gods would never let any harm come to this place and hoped they'd live to see it happen. The priests greeted each other with warm smiles and left for the Priesthood.

Visha opened her eyes, and a bit her lower lip nervously, as she sat up straight in her bed and looked around the empty room. She blinked a few times to wrap her head around things before she got up and left the room.

***

Shaurya furrowed his brows as they didn't find a way out that could save the situation at hand. After tracing the spell back to the Forbidden forest, everything had taken a turn for the worse. The High Priest ordered them to go back after halting their investigation mid-way. Since they themselves didn't want the coven to investigate any further, they had no choice but to comply. This also meant that they won't be forging any alliances with the priesthood and that had put the team in a difficult position. Shaurya very well knew that Young Miss wouldn't send out an elite team for a stolen stone, no matter how valuable of an item it was. If it wasn't that could benefit the coven, then it was useless to her. The main purpose she had chosen them was because of the concealment this mission required and to successfully forge an alliance with the priesthood. If the Young Miss finds out that she had wasted her efforts and resources over a dead deal, she'd definitely take it out on them. And her anger made the trio shake in fear. None of them had the guts to face her after failing this mission.

"Bhairavis stepped up to help the priesthood in need and it was them who stepped back. They owe us this alliance." Ashwin said. He felt wronged by the priesthood's unfair behavior. They were not the ones at fault, then why should they be in loss. The coven had nothing to do with their matters yet they provided their immediate and undivided attention on such short notice. Shouldn't the priesthood be grateful for it and just happily accept such a minor demand. It was just an alliance, why did they have to be so stiff about it?

"If people could forge alliances just by favors, it'd be a different world. Young Miss wants it because uptill now only one coven has been able to forge an alliance with a religious community, and that's Devdoots. The Western Priests have supported their coven for centuries. No one knows how they did it, but that kept them on the very top of the witch world for all that time." Shaurya said.

"So, Young Miss thinks it would be like that for us too?" Ashwin asked. Everyone knew about the alliance between Devdoots and the Western Priests. It was one of the most wealthy and esteemed priesthoods in the country. What no one knew was what their alliance was and how they had contributed to the long successful reign of the Devdoots. But ever since they forged an alliance with the priesthood they became invincible. If it hadn't been for the heaven defying powers of that legendary witch, they'd have probably still been on the top.

"Maybe. We can never understand how her mind works. What we need to focus on is the task at hand. Witches and priests have never seen eye to eye, and that's why an alliance with them has been an impossible task. We need to figure out how we could get the priesthood to owe us enough to make them feel burdened and then finally give in." Danish said. Both of them nodded in agreement. Even though he was not the team leader anymore, they never stopped respecting him. He was the smartest and strongest among them, after all. If it hadn't been for taking responsibility of that incident, he wouldn't have had to step down. It was a bitter memory that no one wanted to remember so they immediately distracted themselves and got back to work.

Even though it felt unfair, it really wasn't. Priesthood had asked for help and they had agreed. If they say they don't want it anymore, the coven will have to step aside. The most one can expect is another favor in return, that's all. So this trip had turned out to be a complete waste.

"Am I the only one who thinks that High Priest might already be aware of the culprit?" Danish asked. His question made Shaurya and Ashwin turn towards him with eyes widened. Their eyes blinked continuously with a blank expression on their faces.

What? High priest knows the culprit!