Sacrifice

TW: self harm

Paint a picture with your eyes. Don’t let them see what you’re really thinking.

“Are you coming or not?”

Midnight opened her eyes and sucked in her breath at her reflection. Golden silk hung in luxurious spirals around her body, and golden bangles jangled up her wrists. Her white hair cascaded over her shoulders, held partially back by a black rose that matched the indigo of her eyes. It would have been beautiful if she hadn’t known what would happen next.

“Are you coming, arezka?”

Arezka. The word for royalty. Midnight glanced at the guard waiting at the entrance of the tent, his eyes reverently averted to the ground. She looked back at the mirror, at the shimmer of her polished skin and the ruby red of her painted lips. Her mother’s voice rebounded inside her head. Paint a picture behind your eyelids. Imagine a world where they can’t hurt you.

“Et pecora non sumus, ut in effodiant corvi, et ad vivere simul surgere luna amplius,” she whispered. May we flock with the ravens and live to see the moon rise once more. It was an ancient saying that offered her little but false comfort in this moment. She turned toward the closed flaps of the tent and nodded to the guard. “I’m ready.”

The guard untied the knots holding the tent closed and flung the flaps to either side, stepping aside to let her pass. Midnight stepped out into sunlight that stung compared to the comforting darkness inside the tent, but she opened her eyes wider. It was better this way; every bit of discomfort would only better prepare her for what was to come.

Immediately outside the tent, five guards stood at attention, their hands on their hilts, the gates of the city behind them. Several men in crimson robes stood directly in front of her and their leader, the well-known and revered priest of this land, Matthias, stepped forward to meet her.

“Welcome, arezka,” he breathed, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips. “It is an honor to be in your presence.”

He wore a darker shade of red than his bishops, a wine burgundy that stretched into mulberry fur trim lining his robes. A similar shade of paint had been drawn underneath his eyes, making it look like he was crying blood. What with the spired hat sitting on top of his head, he looked less like a holy figure and more like a player from a carnival troupe, an actor portraying the cautionary character from a fairy tale.

“It is an honor to be here,” Midnight recited the words she knew were expected of her. “It is by the gift of Tenebris that we live and breathe.”

“And by the gift of your lineage we shall breathe once more,” Matthias answered.

She remembered him from this same procession ten years earlier. He had worn the same robes, said the same words, and kissed her mother’s hand in the same way. The only differences that betrayed his age were the deep grey of his hair and the lines wrinkling the corners of the emptiness of his eyes.

“Come,” he gestured. “The people are waiting.”

Holding up a staff carved with the face of a leopard, Matthias took his position in front of her as his bishops fanned out on either side and the guards took up the rear. When they reached the city gates, Midnight inhaled slowly to prepare herself and lowered a white veil over her face. She could hear the agitated chatter of townspeople talking over one another in their excitement but as soon as she came through the gates they instantly fell silent. Hundreds of people crowded the path leading out from the city, stretching all the way into the distance and disappearing over a hill. She knew people from every corner of the country had traveled for days on end to be here, some of them on foot if they had to. There had been just as many people ten years ago and she felt the familiarity of the children jostling each other for position, the women reaching out in the hope they would be able to touch the robes of the arezka. It hadn’t felt so out of place then. 

Now she noticed the indigo paint on their eyelids that matched her own eye color, the dusty chalk women had rinsed their hair with to match hers. Some of the men wore masks of a black leopard lined in gold paint, a rendering of Tenebris, the god that ruled over her people. As she passed, the townspeople bent to the ground and placed black roses underneath her feet, and Midnight carefully walked on the petals just as she had been taught since she was five years old.

She heard her mother’s voice in her head comforting her younger self as she ran a brush through Midnight’s silver hair that mirrored her own. We are made differently, Midnight. We are special.

Special how? Midnight had asked, her cheeks wet with tears.

We come from a special lineage, her mother explained. You, me, your grandmother. A special lineage indeed.

Is that why our hair is different? Midnight wondered.

Our hair is what separates us, the tell that we are unlike all the others in our people.

Tell me again the story of why our hair is white and our eyes dark.

The old tales say that our family was born from the stars. Our hair was spun from silver and when Tenebris created your great great great great grandmother, he colored her eyes the same as his coat so everyone would know where she came from. The stories tell us that she was gifted with extraordinary abilities and that we have lived here since the beginning to protect our people and keep her legacy.

Is that why they took grandmother? Midnight choked through her tears. Did they think she was the woman from the fairy tale?

Every ten years, in spring, a woman from our lineage is taken in order for our world to go on living. It is considered the highest honor.

What do you mean? Midnight asked.

Her mother stopped braiding her hair and met her gaze in the mirror, an almost perfect replica of Midnight herself. Someday you will understand. Our world is built on fairy tales and in this particular one we are the damsels.

Since that night, Midnight had learned all of the prayers she would recite when her time came, the number of steps she would take, the clothes she would wear. She had been fitted for the veil at only seven years of age. She had learned that she and her mother were arezkim, royalty, and that her sainthood would start when she was finally chosen. But Midnight hadn’t understood, not really, until she turned ten and her mother’s time came. She remembered the same silk robes cloaking her mother’s body, the same bracelets glinting on her wrists, the same black rose sitting in her hair like a splotch of ink on a blank canvas.

When her mother stepped outside her tent and told her it was time to say goodbye, Midnight couldn’t help the tears that welled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother had knelt to the ground and hugged her tightly.

Paint a picture behind your eyelids, she whispered. Imagine the story you’d like to be in and make them see the world through your eyes. You can control the direction of your story, my dear Midnight, even if they can’t see it.

Then her mother had stood, put down her veil, and joined the procession out of the city. After her sacrifice, Midnight hadn’t even been allowed to mourn her. Her mother’s sacrifice was considered the greatest honor someone could achieve, after all.

“Paint a picture with your eyes,” Midnight mouthed.

Her procession had reached its destination, a hilltop that overlooked the roaming fields and walled city she knew so well. The townspeople stood in a semicircle around the crest of the hill, allowing ample space for Midnight and the clergy. At the highest point of the hill near the edge, a shrine stood, a stone monolith depicting Tenebris as a black leopard with golden eyes. At its base, fresh black roses had been planted, and Midnight could see the ash of candles from prior rituals littering the ground. Lit candles were placed in a circle surrounding a small stone bowl held up by outstretched stone hands. From her vantage point near the shrine, she could see the dark brown staining the inside of the bowl from centuries of sacrifices.

“Let us give thanks to Tenebris, our kindhearted guardian who continues to let us thrive in these lands,” roared Matthias to the gathering crowd of people. “And let us give thanks to the worthy who have been blessed with the gift of getting closer to Tenebris than we shall ever be.”

He turned to Midnight and lifted up her veil. Midnight could hear the collective gasp of the townspeople, the bated breath of a decade of waiting for this moment. Matthias withdrew a jeweled knife from the scabbard at his waist, and the townspeople, the bishops, and even the guards fell to their knees and bowed their heads. Matthias knelt down as well and held the knife out to her.

“May you flock with the ravens and live to see the moon rise once more,” he whispered.

The tension on the hilltop didn’t at all fit the atmosphere of the surrounding city. A cool breeze blew the hair back from her shoulders and flowering trees and bushes filled the fields with color. Sunlight filtered through wispy clouds and glinted off the jeweled hilt of the blade. She took the knife from Matthias and was surprised at how cold the metal felt in her palm.

The feel of the knife reminded her of a time when she was seven and her mother had just gotten home from a long day in the fields.

Look what I did! Midnight had squealed with excitement and run to show her mother the crimson slits she had painted on her wrists.  I found it in one of your storybooks!

She had expected her mother to be proud but the storminess that took over her expression had scared Midnight. She clasped Midnight’s painted wrists and drew her closer. Why would you do this?

I found it in your storybook. The woman with white hair and dark eyes, my great great great grandmother, her wrists were bleeding. It was the ritual they’ve been teaching me about. The ritual is the greatest honor we can get.

You must never imitate such stories, Midnight. Ever.

But…you said we lived in a fairy tale, and fairy tales are good.

Her mother grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes with earnest. Fairy tales are nothing more than stories meant for those too fragile to handle the truth. Remember that.

Midnight looked down at the jeweled knife in her palm, turned to the shrine. She knew what she was supposed to do now; she had practiced it so many times that she had already knelt in front of the bowl before she even processed it. So many years of waiting, learning, and wondering, and she had reached the culmination of this journey. She glanced back one last time at the bowed heads of hundreds of people. Their eyes were averted so that they couldn’t see the sacrifice they spoke of with such reverence. Fairy tales are meant for those too fragile to handle the truth.

Without thinking, she turned back to the shrine and drew the knife across her wrist. Dark burgundy blood, the same color as Matthias’s robes, pooled from the cut and trickled down her hand stretched over the bowl. As soon as her blood dripped into the bowl, smoke leapt up from the candles, gathering into a thick blanket of darkness. Midnight didn’t know what was supposed to happen now. She hadn’t been allowed to witness her mother’s sacrifice. She could only watch with rising panic as the smoke stretched further and further until she and the shrine had been swallowed in darkness.

She closed her eyes and withdrew her aching wrist, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “Paint a picture with your eyes, paint a picture with your eyes,” she repeated over and over again to calm herself.

Her mother had taught her she could rewrite her story if she wanted to. She didn’t need to remain here if she wanted otherwise. Perhaps this hill didn’t exist at all. Perhaps she was with her mother once more and they lived alone in the wilderness among the rose bushes her mother had loved so much. Midnight’s breathing started to come easier as she imagined a different narrative, a different story where her lineage wasn’t equated with sacrifice and the damsels were warriors, too.

She opened her eyes in the darkness and was surprised to find a pair of bright golden eyes looking back at her. She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them but the eyes remained. The smoke was moving now, carrying her with it, whispering secrets that jolted her awake and told her the stories of a thousand centuries of waiting. The golden eyes blinked and in that moment Midnight knew. Tenebris. The demon was calling to her, and it demanded an answer. She reached out with her injured wrist toward the eyes. Her mother was right. Fairy tales were meant to be broken.

A clawed hand met hers and something inside her unleashed. The smoke flew outward from the shrine and enveloped the hill, amassing into a vast swarm of blackness. She heard the shocked and terrified screams of the townspeople as they tried to run but one by one they fell silent. When every voice had fallen silent, the smoke retreated abruptly, entering into Midnight’s chest until it was gone and she was left kneeling in front of the shrine. Getting to her feet, she turned around. The bodies of the townspeople, guards, and bishops lay still all along the path leading down from the hillside.  An eerie silence surrounded her now, and the breeze gently nudged the hair back from her face. In front of her, Matthias’s staff had split in two. She glanced down at her wrist. The cut was still visible, a thin white line across the blue of her vein, but the bleeding had stopped. She tossed the knife into the bowl and started leisurely down the hillside.