Page 4 of Mountain of Dragons and Sacrifice

The head elder’s wife plopped onto the cushion facing me, then reached out to clutch my wrists in a grip as tight as fetters. “You listen to me, girl. Fate has chosen you. You must not fail our city.”

“Pretty hard to fail getting eaten. Is there a wrong way to get eaten? It’s not like I can help it if my bones get stuck in his craw.” I swallowed back the urge to break into slightly hysterical laughter. All this felt far too unreal, giving me the urge to be snarky about it.

“Hold your tongue, girl.” The woman’s fingers tightened to near-bruising. Wasn’t the sacrifice supposed to be unmarred? “None of that kind of cheek, you understand? When the dragon comes for you, you bite your tongue.”

“Right. Bite my tongue while he’s biting me. Got it.” I barely kept from rolling my eyes. I could either break into terrified shaking or pretend bravado through an excess of cheekiness. Besides, it wasn’t like it would matter how lippy I was while I was getting eaten.

Her eyes flared, her tone as intense as her grasping fingers on my wrists. “You are the sacrifice. You must embrace the solemnity of this sacred moment. Our whole city depends on you. You must appease the dragon. Whatever the dragon demands, you must do it. Give whatever he wants from you.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t the monster just going to eat me?” I couldn’t help the shudder that wracked my spine. The bravery from my flippant words was wearing off. My fingers tingled, my head felt light, but my heart pounded hard in my throat.

She didn’t flinch. The stony set to her jaw didn’t even soften. “It is not for us to question why the dragon needs the sacrifice or what he wishes to do with that sacrifice. It is enough to know that he must be appeased.” She gave me a hard shake. “You must submit yourself to his wishes. You must not talk back or resist. And most of all, you must not presume to look upon the dragon’s face. If you do, you will unleash his fury on us all.”

I forced myself to nod. What else was I supposed to do? I had been chosen. There was nothing to do but prepare myself to make the sacrifice that would save my city.

If I didn’t, the dragon would sweep from the mountain, roaring in his wrath. He would burn our city, burn the groves, burn our people. Those he didn’t burn, he would kill in other, horrific ways.

My parents. Our grove. All burned to ash.

Her fingers were talons digging into the tender skin of my wrists. “Say it, girl.”

“I understand. I will not look upon the dragon’s face.” The words fell, numb and empty, from my mouth. I’d been taught from childhood that it was forbidden to look upon the dragon’s face, despite all the artwork depicting him.

I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t absorb that tonight I would…I would…

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mama’s hugs. My bapi’s grunt of approval. Our grove in the secluded valley.

The head elder’s wife finally released my wrists. She sat back, waving at the tray of food. “Come now, do not look so sorrowful. Eat. Celebrate today. You are highly favored to be chosen for this duty.”

I didn’t feel highly favored. I felt highly sick and shaky now that my bravado had waned.

“Your parents will be honored for your sacrifice.” The head elder’s wife plucked a juicy bite of meat from the haunch of lamb and popped it in her mouth.

I had to look away, gagging at the sight of her eating, the churning in my stomach nearly too much to swallow back.

My sacrifice? That made it sound so much more willing than it really was.

For this harvest, my parents would be given the first use of the city’s olive presses. Our olive oil would be the first to the market, and my parents wouldn’t have to give any of this year’s harvest to the citadel since they had already sacrificed so much. At every festival and feast day for the next year, my parents would have the place of honor next to the elders.

Most of the families of those sacrificed moved away from the city before the year was up. Clarissa’s family left after nine months. The curse of the sacrificed, or so the phenomenon was called when it was spoken of in whispers.

Would my parents leave? Would they abandon the grove that generations of our family had tended?

Yet what would be left for them? Without me, they had no heir. No one to tend the grove when they were gone.

If I was given the chance to say farewell to them, I would have to tell them not to leave. I couldn’t do this if I didn’t know that they would be all right. That our grove would still be there, as if waiting for me to return.

I’d never return. But I somehow needed to have my home there anyway.

The golden orange of sunset beamed through the high, rectangular windows and shimmered on the surface of the washing pool.

The tray of food remained nearly untouched. I had taken to pacing, the skirt of my thin dress floating around my ankles.

The door scraped open, then the elders strode into the room, followed by their wives. Several guards marched in after them, taking up a position by the door.

The head elder swept a hard-eyed gaze down me, cataloging me in a shrewd, emptying kind of way, before he motioned to me. “It is time.”

My legs shook so hard I couldn’t force myself to take so much as a step forward. My heart thundered in my ears and pulsed in my throat.

---