“A living sacrifice?” Zahra’s eyes widened in surprise. “How exciting!”

“It is the gods’ will,” Tamar said, nodding as she spoke. She maintained a solemn facade, though inwardly she smiled at the girl’s eagerness. Ah, to be young, to still marvel at the world in wonder.

They stood in the main hall of the temple. Torches lined the walls, casting red shadows across the stone floor. Night had fallen, the day’s visitors ushered out, leaving behind an empty silence. The sacrifice quivered in Tamar’s arms. She held it close to her chest, felt its little heart beating with life. It was a young ram, small horns just beginning to bud beside its ears. Tamar hated the thought of killing such a fledgling creature. But such was the way of the gods: in exchange for a life, another must be given.

“Don’t you have work to do?” Tamar asked the Apprentice-Priestess. The rest of the Order’s women had retired to the living quarters, where the evening meal boiled over a fire as they tended to their nightly tasks. Zahra, ever a curious soul, had slipped away and followed her down to the stable.

“Don’t you need help?” she countered. “Besides, Mother Saiha says I only get in the way. And I’ve never seen a sacrifice before!”

“Fine, fine.” Tamar relented and Zahra bubbled over with gleeful noises. “—but you’ll have to be silent! I’ll let you watch but I will have no distractions, understood?”

“Yes, Mother.” Zahra calmed herself, though one leg still tapped the stone beneath her dress.

“Very well. Follow me.” And Tamar strode away.

Zahra, unprepared for the woman’s brisk gait, rushed behind.

“Aren’t you excited?” she asked.

“It is not a matter of excitement.” Tamar’s tone was strict and lecture-like—an opportune teaching moment presented itself. “It is a matter of the will of the gods, and of my duty as a Mother of the Order. We serve as a conduit between the people and the Kotharat. When someone comes in search of aid, it is our duty to help.”

“So long as they pay, right?”

“Provided certain requirements are met.” She tempered the sentiment. “The gods demand their price. We cannot act out of the kindness of our hearts, otherwise the Order would become destitute.”

Zahra harrumphed, clearly unsatisfied with the explanation. But she did not argue.

“What’s wrong with the girl?” Zahra asked, changing the subject. “Why is she sick?”

Tamar shivered. A strange tingling pricked at her fingertips. “She was cursed.”

“By who? A sorceress?”

“A god. Which, I cannot tell.”

Tamar let the words sink in as they walked. Zahra was still so young, still a head shorter than the other woman of the Order, with lush brown hair which she refused to cut. But despite her youth, the child-like innocence of her face, there lay within her eyes a careful intelligence. At least so Tamar thought. She hoped the sacrifice would show the girl some truth of the world—whether Narina lived or not.

Zahra, on her part, seemed to mull over their conversation so far. Finally, she spoke.

“I knew there was something odd about her,” she said. “Even the boy, who brought her. He was all dirty and bruised, like he’d traveled a hundred leagues—at least.”

“Boy?” Tamar asked wryly. She looked back, eyes raised in amusement.

“He was—I swear!” She protested her mocking gaze. “Couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. Besides, I knew there was something wrong with her too. I could feel it, you know.”

“You must be mindful of your gift, Zahra,” she chided the girl. Her demeanor was calm, stern—but her mind coursed with worry. The girl had seen the ancient curse, almost touched it directly with her mind’s eye.

“By not relying on the System,” she continued, “you risk overwhelming your mind with things it cannot comprehend. Take it a step too far, and your spark will fizzle out”

“But I’m telling you,” Zahra insisted, “I could feel it!”

“I know, but instincts are only as strong as our control over them. Understood?”

For a moment the girl planted her feet, as if she wished to fight over the matter. But when she met the steadfast gaze of the Mother-Priestess, Zahra relented.

“Yes, Mother,” she said, her voice low and sullen.

They kept walking, Tamar carrying the sacrifice, its coat darkly mottled and smelling of dead grass and dung. Zahra followed. They went along the inner hall, ascended the spiral staircase, stepping with their toes upon the steep and narrow steps. After what felt like endless circling to Zahra, they finally emerged into the sacrificial chamber.

The chamber was all dark shapes and shadows. The torches along the wall were out; Their scorched remains emitted only the barest embers. But above them high windows opened upon the night air, blanketing the room in purple starlight. In the center, Narina still rested upon the altar, her form unmoved.

“Comfort the girl while I prepare the sacrifice,” Tamar directed. She felt Zahra staring at her back as she walked to the front of the chamber, towards a small nave recessed into the wall. She crossed the distance soundlessly, bare feet padding on the cold surface.

In the darkness she could hardly make out the feathered forms of the Kotharat, all six carved finely in stone. Pungent incense wafted out from behind the contorted figures. No one could possibly know what the gods looked like. But pieced together from visions and dreams, artists had done their best to create a worthy depiction. Feathers which splayed across eagle wings, heads—both human and beast—looking in all directions. And hands. Lithe and soft, womanly limbs carrying salves and herbs and healing mana.

Those hands seemed to beckon Tamar now, reaching for the sacrifice, pointing to the pedestal at the center of the statues. She placed the sacrifice upside down, so that the ram’s head hung mere inches from the furrow in the floor. It brayed in protest, violently turning its neck, legs kicking against Tamar’s firm grip.

“Do you need help?” Zahra whispered. “I have some twine from the seamstress, if you’d like.” She trailed off. The dark space intimidated her. All excitement drained from her voice in the chill air.

“I’m fine,” Tamar replied. She pinched the skin behind the goat’s ears, urging it to calm. Blood rushed to its head, and eventually—finally—its slanted eyes began to droop.

She turned back. Zahra looked so small, standing by the sacrificial pool at the center of the room. She had withdrawn from Narina’s side, and now stood nervously and fidgeted, pulling at her fingers.

“Would you like to come closer, to see?” Tamar asked. Zahra took a moment to decide before nodding vigorously. She approached the nave with cautious steps.

“Will it feel much pain?” she asked, staring into the blank eyes of the sacrifice.

“I will do it as quickly as I can.” Tamar reached into the shadows of the stone gods. Her hand withdrew with a small black knife. An obsidian blade, its shape crudely hewn.

“And blood—will there be much of that?”

“There will be enough.” She gestured to the narrow trough in the floor. “The blood will flow through the furrow and gather in the sacrificial pool beneath the altar. The gods will follow, and see the object of our ceremony.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

She heard a soft inhale as Zahra prepared yet another question, but Tamar raised her hand and stopped the girl mid-thought. “Enough questions, there will be plenty of time for that later. For now, all I ask is for silence.” She brought the knife to the ram’s throat, felt the rapid beat of its heart, blood coursing at the carotid artery.

“Observe,” she instructed.

Whispering a prayer of thanks beneath her breath, Tamar plunged the knife into flesh, deep, as deep as she could. She wrenched the blade forward, violently tearing the life from the ram’s throat.

You defeated a sacrifice! +…

Before the status screen could complete, Tamar reached past it. The words distorted, falling from her sight. She felt blood trickle between her knuckles and drip onto the floor. Before her eyes, a new screen appeared.

You have chosen to forego your experience points.

Would you like to use this experience as an [offering]? Yes / No

>YES / No

Behind her, an audible gasp escaped from Zahra as the air grew thick with mana. The unclaimed blood flowed across the floor. It pooled beneath Narina’s altar, ripples trembling across the dark liquid.

Blood. The sacred substance. It powered the System, lent experience and strength whenever it was spilled. It fueled heroes and empires, stoked wars and burned kingdoms to ashes. But not only to men was blood so essential. The gods—they hungered it. It was the surest way of reaching them, of letting one’s wishes be known. There was something within the blood—some secret substrate hidden within that life-giving substance—which bridged this world with the Beyond. Tamar couldn’t speak with certainty, but it was obvious to all who could see, all who convened with the gods in some form or other manner.

Normally, the power within the blood flowed directly into the user’s system—the user who had spilled it, whether by hand or intent. There, the mana-rich force transmuted itself: into experience, stats, or the supernatural abilities the System provided. Tamar, with her training and System-granted skills, had disrupted the automatic process. Now, the unclaimed blood escaped into the air, the blood-aspect mana pushing against the senses of her mind’s eye. The sensation was uncomfortable; the mana felt cold against her skin. Sticky and decaying as if both living and dead. It didn’t smell (per se), but her body’s reaction was similarly innate. Her stomach lurched, unable to cope with the unnatural sensation beyond trying to empty its contents upon the temple floor.

She turned to Zahra, whose ashen face revealed that she too felt the sickly touch of blood mana.

“What now?” the girl whispered.

“We call out to the Beyond,” Tamar answered simply. She closed her eyes, breathing in the incense. She noticed the way it played with her perception, subtly shifting her sense of place. For a moment it was as if she stood at the top of the temple's highest spire, night wind tugging at her clothes and kissing her skin. She heard the low rumble of the city, the shouts of some distant commotion towards the southern wall. If she really listened, perhaps she could…

Focus, Tamar chided herself. This was neither the time nor place for fanciful exploration. Earlier that day she had so easily slipped into that dark, hidden place. If only she heeded the old Mother-Priestess’ words, she could do so again. Pulling herself together, she turned her focus inward, searching for her mind’s eye. The world receded.

Her mind’s eye opened wide.

She fell into the void, into the dark space which was no space at all. All else fell away, but this time, she did not allow herself to panic. She called out into the nothing.

Please, O gods, take our humble offering. Help our One in need.

Behind her, the blood mana bubbled up like inflated sacs. She stood on a sunless plane, the ground beneath her feet completely devoid of texture or grain. The black line of the horizon met an equally black sky—but unlike everything else—the sky wasn’t empty. It glittered with stars, so many that their soft movements sent ripples through the cosmic canvas above her head.

She felt herself lifted into the celestial world, enveloped in stardust clouds. When her toes left the unadorned surface, Tamar realized she wasn’t being lifted at all—she was falling, head first, deeper and deeper into the endless sea of stars. It was an eerie sort of falling. Utterly silent, with no wind whistling past her ears or rippling her clothing. Instead, it was as if she sank—slowly, deliberately—into an ocean beneath her head.

A figure emerged out of the constellations, slowly approaching as she descended. Its form was vague, constantly shifting, but unmistakably bird-like in its nature: feathers ruffled and jittery, the lurching movements of its neck and limbs unrestrained, and yet somehow graceful. It moved in a manner somewhere between flying and swimming, its wings folding and unfurling like the sails of a ship. It beat its way closer and closer, lunging forward until Tamar could make out the individual stars on its great celestial body, each one burning as bright as a desert sun. She thought of herself as a little girl, staring into the sun, enduring the searing light if only to catch a glimpse of the Sun God’s throne hidden within the divine orb. The light grew brighter, encompassing all she saw until Tamar feared her sight would fail. She tried to shield her eyes, but found her body impossible to move, unable to do anything but look upon the burning creature that approached.

And then it disappeared, as quickly as it came. The star-bird passed soundlessly through her, leaving behind little more than the shivers of a touching song, and a sorrowful feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sacs of blood mana popped and dissolved into air. With one last thrash of its wings, the celestial beast dispersed back into the sky. Tamar stood again on the empty plane. She felt heavy. The flesh of her soles pushed against the ground. She looked down at the mirror-like surface, shorn smooth and perfectly clear, but saw no reflection.

Far off, like a canyon echo, a voice sounded. High-pitched and airy, unbridled and full of sibilants, the girlish voice cut deep into her memory.

“She stirs! By the heaven’s gods—she’s stirring!”

Zahra? she wondered. Her thoughts were hazy, unfocused. She tried recollecting who she was, what she had been doing. Slowly the pieces fell into place. Her name was Tamar. She’d called on the gods to save a girl, a young seer by the name of Narina.

And she’d succeeded. The thought came to her utterly without effort, so naturally she could not question whether it was true or not. It simply was.

Very well, Tamar figured. Then all that was left was for her to leave this place.

Leave.

She tried focusing on the sounds of Zahra’s voice, the warm and joyful excitement she had heard moments before. She heard nothing. She was alone, trapped in the plane of the Beyond. A coldness surrounded her. In the sky, the stars blotted out, one by one. Soon, only a single constellation remained.

A bull. Its snout heaved Milky Way clouds of steam. Its eyes glowed with spiral galaxies of ancient stars. It dug its hooves into the fabric of space—and charged.

It barreled towards her, crossing the infinite distance of space in an instant. It did not pass soundlessly through her.

Tamar fell to the ground, her mind cracked against the cold floor. She could feel her memories leaking out, slipping away and dissolving in the dark. She tried to cry out, but no sound came to her. There was nothing to her in this place. Nothing at all.

The Bull of Heaven raged in her mind. It was hunger incarnate. Waves beating ceaselessly against ocean rock. Lions ripping into the flesh of their prey. And a girl, tied to an altar, blood dripping from her throat.

She saw through the eyes of a god and the god saw her and she saw through the god’s eyes—again and again and again. She was surrounded by mirrors, lost in a maze of her own self. And she was drowning, couldn’t hear herself think with the hunger of a god ringing in her ears and a thousand selves crowding her mind. Slowly losing herself in the tumult of alien thoughts, a single memory remained.

“Whenever you visit what lies Beyond,” the old Mother-Priestess had told her, “you must be wary that you do not lose yourself within it.”

“What do you mean, Mother?” she had asked.

“The mind is most susceptible to that which it cannot understand.”

“And what should I do, Mother? If I fear I am losing myself?”

“Remember the mantra. Repeat it until it lies etched in your bones. Say it after me now, Tamar.”

She had echoed the words after the Mother-Priestess’ instructions. And now they echoed again within her mind:

“I am Tamar, the only of my name. I exist here, in this time and place, and nowhere else. All else is falsehood.”

The warm blur of the world returned. Zahra crouched over her, soft face streaked with tears.

“I am Tamar, the only—”

She gripped the girl tightly, startled by the solidity of it all—arms, shoulders—pliant skin which twisted beneath her fingers. Zahra jumped back, yelping in surprise. She noticed a pain in her throat, realized she had forgotten to breathe. Her temples throbbed, protesting the grating voice that repeated itself incessantly in her mind.

“I am—”

No.

A surge of forceful hunger extinguished the thought. There was no Tamar.

Not anymore.