I startle awake, and for a moment wonder where I am. The quiet trickle of water nearby is insufficient to have woken me. Warm mud seeps between my fingers, sucking at my back as I struggle to sit up. The darkness is absolute.

Then I remember, and wish I hadn’t. All the fear and dread rushes back over me like a smothering weight.

Yesterday marked the first day of the seasonal festival. The opening ceremony announced the selection of this year’s sacrifice, who would spend the next eight days in solitary contemplation to attain enlightened serenity while the rest of the tribe sing praises and appeasements to Uzafron’Elan lest he destroy us in the season to come.

The nominations were counted, the Trust debated. And they chose me to die.

I never thought much about the sacrifice before. It’s only one person, the least valuable. Usually the old, or the weak. I’m young, intelligent, capable. I should have many seasons remaining before I must consider my contributions to draw toward their end.

Yet now, I’m here. Alone in the dark while the others celebrate.

I have eight days to examine my faults in the face of this judgment and ready myself to meet Uzafron'Elan. They say that time is enough to attain acceptance. But it doesn't feel that way to me.

Right now, if I were anywhere but at the bottom of a deep pit of mud too slippery to climb even if I had the strength, I would be running as far away as I could. Maybe if I ran far enough and long enough, I could outrun Uzafron'Elan's wrath.

The outsiders, they talk freely of lands where the gods are silent and demand nothing. I would seek one of those lands, flee across the sea, find a place to live free of this crushing, desperate fear.

But if I go, what will become of my people? If I leave them to die in my place, what kind of monster does that make me?

The beating of my heart, the desperate racing of my mind, every instinct within me yearns to escape. Run and never stop. There has to be some way out of this. This can't be the end. I haven't finished anything yet. I've started so much. I'm too young to give up!

If not for me, the outsiders would have assumed we were enemies to be fought. I was the one who calmed them, tamed them, showed them our language and our customs. If I die, who will carry on my work? Who will be willing to evade the precepts of the Trust and—

"PSST! Lissan!" My musing is broken by a voice, and I blink in the darkness, confused.

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There is always exactly one sacrifice. Who else would be down here?

"Lissan!"

And then I recognize the voice. The faint accent, the burr of an unfamiliar tongue trying in vain to properly form my name.

"Drern?" I ask into the darkness, my heart sinking. If they captured him as well…

"Yes,” he replies. “What happened? Do you need help? When you didn't show up for dinner we worried."

Oh, yes. I had planned to visit them last evening after the announcement, hadn't I?

"What happened?" Drern asks. "Did you fall in a trap or something?"

The genuine bafflement in his voice reminds me of what I have to fight for. To protect. And I finally realize his voice is coming from above. So he isn’t a prisoner. He can still escape.

"You must leave," I reply. "Beyond the mountains. Past the sea if you can. You must not stay here."

"Why not? What's wrong? Wait, not here. Let me go get a rope."

I should tell him no. I should say 'leave me and run'. But I can't. I don't want to die. I don't want to force him to leave me to die.

I want to believe in the world he lives in. A place free of Uzafron’Elan and his vile edicts. An entire civilization that has never had to decide which person should die to satiate their land’s dark god.

But part of me wonders if their price is even more insidious. Uzafron’Elan is straightforward. Every season, one is killed, or the rest are cursed. Choose for ourselves, or the decision will be taken from us.

What might the hidden cost be for their seeming peace and freedom?

Something hits my face and I instinctively swat it away, recoiling into the dark with a squelch of mud.

“Grab hold and we’ll pull you up!” Drern’s voice. So they did return for me.

If I were a better person, a more noble person, I’d send them away. I’d refuse to flee from my duty, I’d face my fate with serenity.

But I’m not a good person. I’m a rebel who teaches outsiders our language. I nominated Nun’et with no better reason than her undeserved success and self-righteous disdain for me.

I take the rope.

I don’t explain. Drern finally stops asking when he realizes I’m unwilling to waste breath in explanation. We hurry back to the outsider camp.

The others don’t know my language nearly as well as Drern, but the urgency of my haste translates clearly enough. They’ve obviously been prepared for a hasty exit; their packing is swift and thorough.

“What happened?” Drern finally presses, as dawn begins to lighten the sky. “Why must we flee?”

“Uzafron’Elan will be furious at my betrayal, and the Trust will not forgive my weakness. I should never have involved you, but you are too stubborn to leave it alone.”

I should go back.

I clench my fists and turn to stare at the distant bonfires of the still-ongoing celebration.

They won’t come for me for another seven days. If I return now, they’ll never even know I left.

I should go back.

Never in all our history has a sacrifice fled. But there are stories of other villages who neglected their duty, villages destroyed and left empty with the unforgiving wrath of their gods.

I should go back.

I can’t. My legs will not move a step toward the village.

They rejected me. Of everyone in the village, the Trust decreed that my value was the least. That they could throw me away to satiate Uzafron’Elan and live without regretting it.

Bitter resentment slithers into my heart. I turn away.

“Is that why you were imprisoned?” Drern asks softly. “Is it to do with us?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter any more. You need to leave, and I’m coming with you.”