839 didn’t put up a fight when they raped her. That mad smile never left her lips once. They didn’t bleed the female initiates, but he shivered to think what they must have done instead for her to be so accepting of her fate.
Finally, when they were done, each Elder took a knife from the altar. They cut her in turn, and still she didn’t cry out. Was she really still there, or was her mad grin a sign that her mind had distanced itself?
The soil beneath their feet was soaked with her blood when the Elders finally considered their work done. Their harvest would be good this year.
“Feed off this young one, Lord. Her blood is yours.”
The other nine elders repeated after him, “Her blood is yours.”
And then they turned their eyes hidden by those terrible masks to him.
“Come forward, 840.”
It was time.
Perhaps it won’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter. I want the truth to be known, and I’m finally lucid enough to share it.
Chapter 4
Doran
The poison burned its way through Doran’s system and bloodstream. His whole body felt on fire. He had found some jewelweed—a natural defence against most poisons—on the outskirts of the forest, but it wasn’t enough. He never would have survived long on his own if it weren’t for his basic knowledge of poisons and their antidotes. He hoped it would get him a little further. Sooner or later he’d need a healer, but it would do for now and hopefully last until he could reach a town. Or at least until he came across a carriage. Once he’d found a ride he could collapse and trust that the nearest healer knew what to do against corrupted forest spirit poison.
Sweat glistened on his forehead and soaked his clothes. Thanks to the jewelweed his vision was no longer blurred and his legs weren’t shaking as badly. If only he knew how this poison worked; oddly enough, he’d never been attacked by angry twigs before.
The jewelweed had to be enough.
He stumbled out of the last bit of forest, saw lights nearby, and sighed. People were singing, but they were too far away for him to make out any words. Maybe they had a carriage, or even a healer. If they weren’t too annoyed with him for interrupting their celebrations anyway.
Doran bit off another leaf of jewelweed—he’d stashed away a whole bushel in his bag—and made his way over to the lights and the singing.
In Ceidir, people always sang when they were celebrating. They sang to celebrate a bountiful harvest, to celebrate a marriage, or to celebrate the birth of a child. He was far away from the Ceidiree border, but it sounded like home regardless. Doran didn’t know what kinds of things they celebrated out here in Vasael’In, but it didn’t matter. Singing was something only good people could do well.
He hesitated when he got closer. The song wasn’t in any language he recognised—in fact, he was reluctant to call it a song. He had heard many different songs since he’d left Cairdh, and they’d either been joyful or mournful. This was neither. This was—
He wasn’t in a position to be choosy. He was dying, and the jewelweed would only slow the poison no matter how much he chewed.
“Excuse me.” He stepped out from between the trees and into the light of the people before him. “I don’t want to interrupt, but I was wondering if you could—” His voice froze in his throat as his eyes adjusted and took in the occasion for the song. Ten men and women—stark naked—and in the middle a young man, no older than eighteen, covered in nothing but loose trousers and scars.
This was common in the pleasure houses of the South, but they kept it inside and the sight didn’t freeze his every thought. Or rather it did, but never out of fear. This was wrong.
His eyes darted from the boy—Hjevan, judging by his red hair and pale skin, and very far from home—to a dark heap on the ground. The soil under their feet reflected the moonlight in an eerie way, and with cold clarity Doran realised what he was seeing. The heap on the ground was a girl, so mutilated her blood had soaked the earth, wisps of her long hair caked to her face with drying crimson.
Doran’s eyes shot back to the Hjevan and to the naked people. One masked cultist held a long, sharp knife, pointed at the boy’s exposed belly.
Doran had seen rituals like these before—rituals with altars and terrified sacrifices. He didn’t know what scared him more—their only altar being the bloodied ground underneath their feet, or the Hjevan’s confused expression. Was he drugged? He looked nervous, but not outright terrified.
No, worse. He looked resigned.
Twelve masks glowered at Doran. The young man, their sacrifice, looked like he didn’t know what to make of the situation.
That makes two of us.
Doran held up his hands in an apology, his mind racing. His daggers hung heavy on his hip, ready to draw blood should it become necessary. He didn’t care if the sacrifice was okay with this. Doran was not, and now he’d walked into this strange little party he couldn’t just walk out without the young Hjevan. Doran would get him to the nearest town, pass out in a carriage, and by the time he came to in some healer’s home, the Hjevan would have fled and begun to make a new life for himself elsewhere without knives pointing at his belly. Doran didn’t count ten aroused and naked grown-ups and a boy who was too drugged to understand what was happening to him as going out of his way.
“I’m terribly sorry if I’m interrupting your evening,” Doran said. He tried to make eye contact with the Hjevan, who raised his eyebrows in curiosity. How could he look so calm? “I will be taking my leave.”
As far as Doran could see, only one of the adults carried a knife, and he guessed it was an important knife at that. Cults like this never cut open their sacrifices with cheese knives. They had ritual blades, which had been passed down their odd little cultist families for centuries.
Even if the old nude man with the knife did come after him, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Doran wasn’t a child anymore by any means, but he was much younger than some of the fanatics. He had the advantage.
Unless they had demons stored away for later. After the day he’d had in the forest, he could believe anything, and he didn’t know how these rituals were usually conducted.
The ten closed in on Doran. The Hjevan was behind them.
A sudden twitch of poison-induced pain in Doran’s stomach made him grimace.
Was the boy really worth saving? Was it worth his time to cause a fuss for the Hjevan’s sake? Maybe he wasn’t drugged. Maybe he didn’t look terrified because he knew what was coming for him and had accepted it.
The cult leader spoke. “Take him. Bring him to Pios.”
Doran sighed. So this man wasn’t their leader—this Pios was, and he wasn’t even here.
They all grabbed for him at once. Their movements were sluggish; under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t have been a match for him, but he was outnumbered and the jewelweed was losing its battle against the poison.
Doran drew his daggers. He held them out for the ten to see, but to his great annoyance they didn’t seem to care. One of the masked cultists near the front lunged at him. Doran jumped out of the way just in time.
The quick movement made his breath hitch. His muscles were heavy. He’d have to finish this quickly, grab the Hjevan, and get out.