Sacrificed to the Demon
Christie Sims and Alara Branwen
Copyright © 2013
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
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Ayra told the elders she was ready. She assured them that all the jitters she’d had since the time she’d been told she was selected were gone. She comforted her teary-eyed father, mother, grandmam, and several brothers and sisters. She told them everything was okay and she was prepared to meet her destiny. She even told her friends she wasn’t worried, and that she was comforted her sacrifice would help feed her family for many years to come. She even told herself she’d come to terms with her fate. Now, as she watched blue fires flicker in the brown sconces on the wall, and the massive pentagram smoothly carved into the circular ceiling, she wasn’t so sure.
It was three weeks ago when her family received the letter from the Order of Pontiffs, the governing body of the city appointed by the Great Hierophant himself, the speaker for the underworld. They’d sent her family a letter telling them that Ayra had been watched by several members of the Order for quite some time, and that they deemed she was the purest of all the young females in the congregation. Because of this, she was to be chosen for the great sacrifice. In return for their compliance, her family would receive a large sum of gold equal to twenty times what her father made in a year plowing the communal fields.
Her family was shocked and afraid. They would never give their eldest daughter over to the order for sacrifice. How could they even think it? But, no matter how shocked and revolted by the idea they were, they didn’t dare tell the Order no. Nobody told the Order no and lived to tell about it.
Ayra could have run away, but she refused to let her family suffer. If it was her fate to be sacrificed to a demon in order to maintain peace in the city, so be it. She resolved to face her fate with pride, even if icy fear drilled into her stomach, she was going to face her end with dignity.
The letter instructed Ayra to get her affairs in order and present herself at the temple in a week’s time. Poor farm girls didn’t have many affairs, so she just spent time with her friends and family. She did all the things she loved to do as a kid, run in fields, play tag, eat candy and stroll around the bazaar. She did everything she used to enjoy — except kiss a boy.
She liked kissing boys when she was a little girl. She and her suitor of choice would sneak out of the temple during church ceremonies, go around the back of the building, down a small stairwell and into a basement where they would share unbridled passion. Well, as much unbridled passion as a young girl and boy usually shared, which was limited to a small peck on the lips and a nice hug.
Ayra had never really been with a man, and that was the only thing that bugged her about the whole ordeal. Even though yearning for a traditional female role in the modern, enlightened theocracy was taboo, she secretly wanted to get married and mother many children. Her friends would chide her if she revealed this desire. Not that it mattered now anyway, soon, her thread would be cut by the fates.
She tried not to let it bother her too much, but the yearning of her unfulfilled dream twisted at her stomach. She’d never known the joys of mothering children or
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