Page 27 of Devour
Even knowing it’s meaningless, here of all places. I don’t know what to even pray for, but the words fall upon my lips without thought.
In the darkness, there is light. With the faithless, hope will rise.
I don’t know if I believe the old prophecies. Poets of thousands of years ago sowing life into words.
“They have meaning, only if you believe,” my mother had told me.
Do I believe?
In the gods? No. In hope and light? Yes.
In love? In Astella?
“Yes,” I whisper the word aloud without meaning to.
I feel the evil that slithers through this place. The ground hums with it.
My eyes fly open when I hear his voice. “She is chosen!” the masked man cries, now on the platform with the bleeding girl. He drops to his knees beside her and removes his mask to reveal a shaven head and a pale face.
He jerks her bloody wrist over his open lips. The woman smiles wide, looking up to the sky as a drop of blood falls into his mouth.
I shiver.
“More,” he pleads.
A masked woman approaches, red blade in hand. She grabs the girl’s other arm and, without warning, slices.
The girl’s skin splits so easily. Red pours from her flesh as a scream pours from her lips.
“Life can be stolen, but the light of the faithful remains,” I whisper.
More masked people arrive on the stage. Hands grab the girl. Mouths lap at her open flesh, slurping her blood.
I gag, but I cannot pull my eyes away. As a new woman approaches from behind. She grips the girl's hair and then takes the red blade to her skin once more.
This time, the girl doesn’t even scream as the flesh of her neck is ripped wide open and her blood gushes down onto the masked beings below her.
11
Lina
“Blessings to the sacrifice!” the woman calls out as the girl’s body falls limp to the platform floor. The masked men and women repeat the words before lifting her body and carrying her away.
“Blessings to the sacrifice.”
“We thank Rosalina for her life blood. Her soul will now be in the vapor, where she will gain magic and rejoin us in her next life as a powerful warrior.”
My sharp gaze shifts to Lorraine. “This is being chosen?” I seethe.
Her eyes are wide and full of sorrow. “No,” she whispers. “No, they choose— They accept people into their community. They’re allowed to live freely and…” She trails off, doubt now filling her voice.
I return my anger back to where it belongs. This cult, I’ve long known, is awful, but now I know reality is every bit as horrific as the tales.
The golden priestess flicks her fingers, and a fire flares to life inside the stone circle just feet away. There are yelps as people dive away from the sudden burst of flames.
I cower from the searing heat and push farther into the crowd. No one else seems distraught by the bleeding girl’s death.
“We will dance to her life! Honor her!” the red haired woman commands.
