Heartbeat

I: Sacrifice-2

“TARS’KELI DRAG YOU straight to the black abyss, child! We need to get you ready immediately,” said Sarkasi as she separated the girls, dragging Iva towards the inner chamber of the goddess. “Akshara, I need you to get fresh water and scrub the altar for the ritual.”

“Yes, priestess,” Akshara said, bowing before the young woman. Sarkasi had only recently taken over the role of temple head priestess after the death of Priestess Aracea. Aracea had traveled to the light bridge and plunged herself into the abyss, because she could no longer bear the life of a servant of the goddess. She had wanted to fall in love, and make babies, but that was never to be an option for her. So, she let sweet death take her instead.

Sarkasi was not yet fully comfortable in the role, and Akshara could tell this by the way the priestess’ hand shook ever so slightly at her side. She didn’t believe Sarkasi fit to be a priestess, but what did she know anyway? She wanted to be like Aracea and get away from the dreadful place altogether. There was no way Akshara was going to dedicate herself to a goddess of blood and bone like Tars’keli—even though she had been raised in the temple and taught to love the goddess through reciting endless prayers, painting clay images of the deity, and taking part in the endless rituals that seemed to take place every night, all year round.

I should kill Sarkasi and take Iva far away from here. I didn’t even get to hug her before she was dragged into the chamber for preparation. When I see her again, she’ll already be bound on the altar, and soon after her blood will be poured down the temple steps.

Akshara thought this as she collected the water from the temple fountain into a small clay bucket. Then she went outside and stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at the top of the pyramid. She began to climb the steep stairs one by one, and almost dropped her bucket as her right foot slid backwards just a little. But the temple girl found her footing and continued her journey up the stairs that would soon enough be covered in the blood of her best friend—the girl she loved more than anyone in the world.

As she climbed, she thought of Iva, and all the times they had upset the priestesses of the temple by mocking the ritual chants or running off into the desert far away from the city for hours and hours at a time. It had always been worth escaping for those brief perfect hours, even though it always resulted in a beating that left Akshara in tears. But Iva had never cried once in Akshara’s presence. She had asked Iva about it once, and the girl had replied that she could not feel pain. Iva demonstrated this on a number of occasions for her, often making small cuts on her arm without even wincing once. Akshara didn’t like to watch these demonstrations, but if she looked away, Iva would get mad. It was as if Iva was demonstrating some supernatural power that she was rather proud of. Or perhaps she really had wanted to hurt herself. Maybe Iva too had wanted to leave the service of Tars’keli and thought of pain and death as her only way out. After all, Iva had volunteered to be the sacrifice whose death would renew the world for another thousand years. Even though Akshara had begged her not to go through with it.

What a silly, beautiful girl. I’ll never be as brave or as strong as Iva. Or perhaps as out of my mind as she is. The gods clearly made her for a great purpose—something greater than death. It’s me they should be taking tonight. Not Iva. This is wrong, and if I were half as brave as Iva, I’d tell Sarkasi exactly what I thought of this terrible goddess. And then I’d stab the priestess in the back so Iva and I could run away to the light bridge together. I know we wouldn’t fall off as long as we held hands and crossed together the whole way. We could live in the unknown lands and build a house together somewhere far away from people, their terrible rituals, and evil goddesses.

It took her an hour to climb to the top of the temple, and when she got there she knelt before the altar and splashed water from her little bucket on her face. Even though the sun was going down, it was still hot out, and Akshara wanted to drink this entire bucket of water. But she was afraid of receiving a beating from Sarkasi. She knew that if she failed in her duty to clean the altar, Sarkasi would likely leave her broken in the street where the rats would eat her. She was losing Iva forever tonight, but she was too afraid of death to go with her.

Akshara stood up and lifted the bucket onto the altar of red stone. She took a cloth from the water and squeezed it diligently over the surface of the altar. As she scrubbed, a realization came to her. Even if she couldn’t save Iva, she could run away from Aransia tonight with Heko’s help. Maybe the foolish boy would even want to come with her and keep her company on her journey to the light bridge. Once there they could cross together, and she could leave Heko in the nearest city, and find somewhere far away where she could build her small house in honor of Iva.

Akshara found herself growing very tired as she cleaned the altar, and she sat down and leaned up against the stone. The sun was gone completely now, and she could be fine resting up here while she waited for the others. She knew Sarkasi would be mad at her for wearing dirty clothes to the ritual, but it didn’t matter anyway as far as she was concerned. She was too tired to even try to climb down the temple again.

She wiped the sweat from her face with the thin and dirty light blue robe she wore. Akshara then let her heavy eyelids fall and drifted off to sleep.

*