I was just seventeen when I was chosen to die. My mother had always promised I was destined for greatness. But I was only fated for blood. My father had sworn, on my first birthday, to protect me. But it was on my seventeenth that he was to sacrifice me. I was princess, and I was meant to die.
Dragen was our world, Caledira was my Kingdom. Both were haunted by a great evil, and I was meant to dispel destruction in the 1327 year of our Kings. Time had been much longer than that, but our kings had not. Man had stumbled and fallen before, but they had survived. And, in the end of the Time of the People, they chose leaders to bless and protect. So the Time of the Kings had risen. But it was not the kings who protected. It was those who were sacrificed. It was those of innocent blood—untouched and unnecessary.
No one remembered how the Sacrifice had been chosen before the time of the Kings. Stories had never been written; people had long been forgotten. Perhaps they never had the darkness we had. Perhaps the evil never followed them. But it was there for us.
I often wondered what the other kingdoms of Dragen did—the Unmentionables. Did they too sacrifice their daughters? Were their nights plagued with nightmares as mine were? Was the blood drank and the words spoken?
Every twenty-seventh day of the thirteenth month, the first girl born was chosen to be sacrificed on their seventeenth year. It had been since the time of our Kings began, when the number seventeen was chosen as the holiest. Seventeen kingdoms, seventeen Kings. It was those seventeen that decided on the sacrifice. They said it was our only protection. And the ceremony was to be done in the thirteenth month—it was the unlucky month, when evil reigned. I always thought they chose it so, perhaps, a murder of a virgin did not seem so bad. And it had always been the twenty-seventh day, when the dawn broke across the mountains. No one ever did know why they chose that day. The number held no promise; no meaning. It was just a day—or it had been. Now it was the day of Sacrifice, and that alone made it the most remembered day of the year.
I had grown up celebrating a sacrifice each dawn of my birthday. I had worshipped the festivity and grown knowing of the glory of those selfless victims, as all children were taught. But, never, had I recognized that day as my birthday—and the promise that foretold. My mother, Queen Dumia, never mentioned it. She would stand at the balcony, she would drink the blood, and then she would smile at me, her golden child, and say to all the crowd, “This is a special day.”
In my life time, I had seen my father kill sixteen people. Every time I stood on my toes expectantly, waiting as the Sacrifice waited, feeling the power of the heavy silence as the sword was drawn and raised. The victim, in her white gown, never moved. Nor did she cry. She was too pure; too perfect to be frightened. What she did was for all of us. It was her who gave us the bit of peace that made life bearable. So, as the sword fell and the blood flowed, we would break forth into cheers till our throats were rough. It was my father, the Great King Absalom—the twenty-second king of Caledira—who would wipe his bloodied hands across the white dress and say the Four Words: “The Sacrifice is received!” And I would clap with the rest. But now I was to be that girl. It would be his daughter he killed. It would be her blood they drank. I still remember the first day I realized what I was.
My morning had been spent riding on the western beaches, with my brother, Raghnall, just ahead.
“Liliana!” he had shouted over his shoulder as the waves crashed against his mount, “If you are to die, will you die remembering me?”
I had laughed, rearing in my horse as the water sprayed. “What a silly thing to wonder—are you to think of me as well?”
He had come closer then, his boyish grin fading to seriousness.
“I’ll think of you every day from the moment you die and on to my own end.”
“What makes you think I am to die before you? You’re older!”
He had stared then, and my hands had gone cold. Everything suddenly seemed to fit. My birthday pieced together with the day of the sacrifice and I realized I was the first baby girl born that day. And this was to be my seventeenth year. I couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was as if the waves were rushing through me, pulling at my heart and pushing it back—again and again.
We rode home in silence. I went up to my room and sat by the fire, letting my fingers linger just above the flames, so I didn’t get burned. Raghnall had taught me how. Sitting there, I realized he was the only thing I could ever miss. He was nearly ten years older than me, but he had loved me more than Father or Mother. He had been the one to sit by me in the library and read the stories of the early years of the Time of the Kings. He had been the one who pointed out handsome fellows from the balcony for me to tease. He had been the one to make sure I didn’t always live in fear. Each day I spent with him was one I smiled through and enjoyed. Every other day was misery in comparison. He had never married, nor had he ever left. I liked to think it was because of me—that I was the only woman he could ever love; that he could never leave me behind. But now I was to be the one to leave him. I was to die. And I could do nothing about it, because I was the Sacrifice.
That night, I went down for supper only to hear him arguing at the table—one with seventeen chairs—with my father. I hid in the shadows of the staircase, listening as he screamed for me. He told my father they should find another; that I was not ready for such a life—death. I listened as he shouted that evil and misery still reigned, even with the sacrifice. My heart pounded as he spoke of it as a farce, a lie. And I listened as my father hit him and the silence settled.
I didn’t dare move as the footsteps sounded. Father moved past me, but Raghnall laughed at my shadow. He pulled me out, holding me in his arms like I was a child. I didn’t mind. He only smiled as I wiped the blood from his jaw, where my father’s blow had fallen.
“Liliana, don’t you worry about me.”
That was the last thing I ever heard him say. He kissed my cheek, set me down, and walked away. The next day, on a fishing trip with his friend, he disappeared. Their boat was found crashed on some rocks of the southern reef, but their bodies were never discovered. Father claimed the sea monsters must have found them; mother thought, surely, the Unmentionables had captured them, held them as their own sacrifice. Either way, he was gone. And my father did not cry at the funeral. I had no doubt that he would not cry at my death, either. Nor would my mother.
That last night, lying in my bed, I remembered those past years. All those beautiful girls, dressed gaily, as if it were a celebration. And, to the world, it was. One drenched in blood and heavy with death. I remembered how I had cheered. I remembered how I had watched, jealousy hurting, as my parents drank from the silver cup. I had always been one of the few to watch the girl’s body be carried away, to be burned in the evening in the great bonfire. And, seeing the stars from my window, I suddenly wondered why.
All my life I had felt the darkness of the world. And all my life I had accepted the sacrifice as one necessary to our safety and our survival. It was my turn, now, to save my people.
Death can’t be all bad.
* all rights belong to Shelby Boyer *
