A pair of sturdy boots stepped into my vision, and I forced my gaze up to meet a pair of assessing brown eyes.
I waited for her to shout for the guards, fear sinking in my stomach. But instead, she tilted her head at me. Whatever desperation she saw was enough for her to hesitate.
A small, knowing smile curved her lips as she extended a graceful, brown hand. Her black curls sprung from the two braids that hung over her shoulders, refusing to be tamed.
“Silk does not fare well against ice.” She looked down at my slippers as I considered her hand. “Don’t worry though, they have real shoes at the barracks.”
I reached for her hand hesitantly and let her help me to a standing position, embarrassment flushing my cheeks. I offered her a small smile before tucking my hood further over my head.
“Thank you,” I said softly. If she recognised my face, she clearly did not care.
My eyes drifted back to the Dead Sea’s black waters; it was boiling with a hunger born from a hundred years of curses and grief. A graveyard of broken souls.
It was a living testament to the wrath of the Gods who had loved the Sirens and mourned their extinction with such fury that they cursed the seas they died in. Father said the Sirens deserved to die, that they held too much power and fed off men, Fae and Mortal alike. But it was the Fae who slaughtered them after finding a way to steal their magic.
“It’s intimidating being this close, isn’t it?” The dark-haired woman said, watching the sea next to me.
“Yes, though I find myself enthralled,” I answered honestly.
“Well, I guess we are all a bit crazy for volunteering to do this,” she stated idly. My back stiffened at the word, but she didn’t seem to notice, lowering her voice and leaning towards me. “Whatever your reason is for running. Make it worth it. Run far and do not look back.” Before I could respond, a tall man with dishevelled brown hair pushed in front of me, earning a shove from another initiate. “Fancy meeting you here on such a fine evening, Dreya.” The man looked at the woman who had helped me, a mischievous smile lighting up his face. “Go to Hells Riven,” she glared at him, and he chuckled. I stood frozen, unable to look away from him. He was devilishly handsome, but that was not why my gaze clung to him. His grey eyes met mine, and my breath stuttered to a stop. There was something so familiar about those eyes. I dipped my head quickly, letting the hood swallow my face. Before I could be sure if he saw my face, the drums surged. Deep and primal, like a heartbeat before a kill. The crowd fell into silence as a priestess stepped to the stone basin at the cliff’s edge, the bonfire behind her throwing her grey robes into ripples of firelight. But it was the man walking next to her that turned my stomach.
The architect of my scars. The emissary to our estranged Gods.
The priest.
But how could they favour him when I knew how his eyes darkened with hunger every time that he fastened my chains? I knew how hard his cock got every time he cut open my skin. His blonde hair was cropped shorter at the sides and sleeked back neatly at the top. Robes of deep grey surrounded his strong build. Others found him handsome.Charming. But I knew the truth. My breath turned shallow, shoulders hunched against the memories. My skin crawling with the need to run. The priest hid his vulgarity behind the mask of divine righteousness, abusing me in the name of our Gods. I swallowed the bile clawing up my throat and kept my gaze low. But rage sparked behind my eyes, hot and trembling.Spill his blood,the whispers carried to me on the breeze.Kill him.My vision blurred. Not from tears. But from sheer, bone-deep rage. Iwantedto give in to the voice. To let my darkness take over and make him suffer. But I couldn’t give in completely. If I did, there was a chance I wouldn’t remember it. And Iwantedto remember every second of his death. They stopped before a large stone basin, arms raised to the blackened sky.
The wind died and the music dulled to a pulsing thrum, and it felt as though the entire crowd held their breath.
The surface of the water rippled as if something beneath stirred. Something waiting.
The priestess began to chant, her voice high and shrill. The priest echoing her, a harmony that made my stomach churn with bile. His voice was silken, each word slithering over my skin like the blade he had held to me so many times. Their eyes began to glow. My fists clenchedbeneath the cloak, imagining carving screams from the same mouth that had whispered prayers against my bleeding skin.
“Tonight, we sacrifice to the Gods!” The priest’s voice echoed unnaturally across the clearing, burrowing beneath my skin like an infection. “Our beloved Gods, hear our prayer!” He looked up at the dark sky, speaking to the heavens. To Gods who had turned their backs on us long ago. “We beg your judgment. We offer our blood. May you find worthy souls to Ascend, or may you find pleasure in feasting on their souls.” The shiver that curled up my spine had nothing to do with the cold.
“We vow to use the power you bless us with to avenge the Sirens and spill the blood of the Fae.” The Priest lowered his arms, the crowd watching with rapt attention. “Sea Goddess, we mourn you. Moon God, shine on us once more. Goddess of Love, find us in your heart again. And our beloved Sun God,rise! Come back to us and end this eternal winter you blight us with.”
The waters below reacted violently to his words, darker shadows stirred beneath the waves, monstrous creatures rising in preparation to feast for our estranged Gods. The priest pressed his sacred knife into the hand of the priestess. I knew without looking that symbols where carved into its hilt: I had stared at them many times while it sliced into my skin.
“In the waters of the Dead Sea, the Gods will weigh your soul. If you are strong enough, they will allow you to swim to the shores of the barracks where you will becomemore.”
I squinted into the distance, a flickering bonfire marking our target on the shores of the small island off the continent of the Mortal Kingdom. It was impossibly far away;I wasn’t even sure if I could swim. I tried to swallow the laugh that almost bubbled out of me, wondering how exactly I was going to die. Would I simply drown? Or would a monster would eat me?
“This is binding by blood. If you are not worthy,” she said, tilting her head as her glowing eyes swept over the Sacrifices, “you will die.”
Her eyes seemed to settle on me, and I checked that my hair was firmly hidden with trembling hands.
“Let the Ascension begin!”
I heard my father’s cheer rise above the onslaught of noise that erupted in anticipation.
Good.He’d soon watch the daughter he caged choose her own fate. An unbidden smile tugged at my lips, because tonight, I would be the one to hurtthem.All of them. A young man stepped to the edge of the cliff, arms hanging limply at his sides as he took one unsure step after another towards the priest and priestess.
He grabbed the knife from her with trembling hands, the wind whipping his blonde hair in his face.
“State your name,” the priestess invited.
“Jerome Blankley.” His voice cracked as he spoke, with either nerves or the timbre of adolescence. I wondered if he was too young to survive. The Gods favoured initiates between seventeen and twenty-seven years old. Any age could sacrifice themselves, but they were always killed.
