The prayer draws me like blood draws flies. A broad tent stakes its claim at the village center, canvas walls rippling with wind and desperate voices.
Guards slouch at the entrance until they don't—their spines snapping straight as citizens approach, then melting back to lazy vigilance once the suppliants pass inside.
I crouch behind the baker's low house, close enough to taste the tent's incense-thick air. Inside, bodies kneel in ragged rows while their voices rise in practiced unison:
"We are unworthy. We beg cleansing. We submit to ancient wisdom. Forgive our doubts. Forgive our weakness. Make us pure through suffering."
The words punch out in sharp bursts, less penitence than demand. They're trying to coerce pardon through volume, as if the gods respond to whoever shouts loudest.
A figure moves between the kneeling forms. Marzuq. He walks like a man admiring his harvest, stopping to press a shoulder lower, to grab a chin and lift it higher, to lean close and hiss corrections that make the faithful flinch.
"More fervor, Hakim," he commands my father. "The gods will not doubt our devotion. They will not question our commitment to purity."
My father's voice joins the chorus, cracking on the high notes. Beside him, my mother sways with exhaustion but keeps chanting.
Marzuq's smile cuts thin as wire. "Better. But not enough. Never enough until the corruption is burned away."
I edge closer, using a cart for cover. The guards haven't noticed me yet—too focused on looking threatening to actually observe.
My hand rests on my sword hilt, Rafi's lessons drumming through muscle memory: Angles. Breathing. Survival is mathematics.
Iron fingers clamp onto my shoulder.
"The traitor!" The shout explodes behind me. "The runaway has returned!"
Every head in the tent whips toward the entrance. The prayer dies like a strangled bird. Marzuq's smile widens into something carnivorous.
I turn with the movement Rafi drilled into my bones—shoulder rotating to break the grip, body flowing inside the attacker's reach. My hand finds his wrist, twisting until tendons pop. The flat of my blade cracks across his temple with precise force.
He drops bonelessly at my feet, still breathing but finished.
"She attacked!" someone screams. "The betrayer draws blood!"
The ring closes fast. Steel gleams from multiple directions. Bodies press closer, cutting off escape routes. The tent disgorges its occupants—my parents among them—all crowding to witness whatever comes next.
Marzuq strolls through the gathering mob like he's approaching a merchant stall. No urgency. No fear. Just casual interest in examining new goods.
"The gods have returned the runaway," he announces, voice pitched to carry across the square. "They want her blood regardless of where she runs. Divine justice cannot be escaped."
He stops just outside striking range—close enough to seem brave, far enough to avoid my blade. The crowd swells behind him, their faces masks of frightened anticipation.
"Such a pity," he murmurs, words meant for me alone. "Beauty like yours should wither slowly, savored across decades. Instead it must be spent in a single afternoon."
"Try to take it," I snarl, blade rising between us.
"I won't need to try." He turns to address the crowd, voice booming with practiced authority. "Citizens of Banu Sahar! The corrupted one stands before us. She who broke sacred law. She who damned us all with her selfishness."
Murmurs ripple through the assembly—some angry, most simply afraid.
"The ceremony must be completed," Marzuq continues. "Her blood, along with the other maidens, will finally appease the gods' wrath."
Other maidens?
The words slap harder than physical blows. My grip on the sword falters.
"What other maidens?" The question rips from my throat.
"Did you think your sister would suffice alone?" His eyes glitter with sick pleasure. "One virgin failed us—you proved that. So now we offer three. Your sister, the weaver's daughter, and the merchant's youngest. Triple the purity. Triple the devotion."
"You're insane—"
"I'm faithful." He wheels back to the crowd. "Do we agree? Must the betrayer die alongside the chosen three? Must we cleanse this corruption with overwhelming sacrifice?"
The response comes in a wave—thin, frightened, desperate to be finished with fear:
"Yes."
"She must die."
"The gods demand it."
"Cleanse the corruption."
I scan the faces, searching for allies, for doubt, for anything human. My parents stand ten feet away, close enough to touch if the crowd would part. Neither raises their voice in protest. Neither steps forward.
My father's eyes are hollow rooms, all furniture removed. My mother stares through me like I'm already a ghost.
"Mother," I call out, voice cracking. "Father. Say something."
Nothing. They stand like everyone else—complicit through silence, guilty through inaction.
"Where's Leila?" I demand, louder now. "Where is my sister?"
"Safe," Marzuq answers when my parents won't. "Purified. Prepared. Waiting for her glorious purpose alongside the others."
The absence scrapes at my ribs like rusted metal, a raw edge of guilt I cannot sand smooth. Leila isn't here. Isn't beside our parents where she should be if they had any courage left.
Three maidens. The weaver's daughter who taught me my first knots. The merchant's youngest who still played with cloth dolls last summer. My sister who trusted me to save her.
I saved myself instead.
The crowd presses closer, their breath hot and sour with fear. Canvas tent walls ripple in the wind, making shadows dance across faces I've known my whole life.
The baker who snuck us sweet rolls. The blacksmith who let us watch him work. The midwife who delivered us both.
All of them nodding. All of them agreeing. All of them willing to multiply murder if it means their own safety.
"You're all insane," I say, but my voice gets swallowed by their growing chant:
"Purify through sacrifice. Cleanse through blood. The gods demand. We obey."
Marzuq raises his arms like a conductor before an orchestra, and their voices swell. The sound crashes over me—desperate, frightened, eager to be done with whatever horror ensures their survival.
My parents' lips move with the rest. Their eyes stay hollow, unfocused, looking through me like I'm already dead.
The world narrows to unbearable clarity.
Marzuq has taken the single sacrifice that destroyed my world and multiplied it into massacre.
Not one virgin but four. Not one death but a garden of them, watered with young blood because he claims the gods have grown hungrier.
And everyone—everyone—seems willing to let it happen.
The knowledge settles into my bones like winter.