The last thing they did before beginning the procession to the altar was hand him several trinkets, offerings that he would carry with him into death.
“The crown, for the Harvester,” the Oracle said, settling it on his head, strange flowers that bloomed when they shouldn’t, their petals soft against his skin. “To show you are the fairest flower of all, worthy to be harvested.”
Azaiah thought of a boat, moving quietly through the dark water of an unknown river.
She placed an intricate, woven belt of dark blue, gold, and black cotton rope low around his hips. “For the Weaver,” she said, tying it and adjusting the fall so the little bells hit his hips when he walked. “So that your last thoughts may be pleasant, your dreams peaceful in the longest sleep.”
He thought of a forest, an onyx throne, a drove of black hares and a horse with black wings and endless, starlight eyes.
She pressed a compass into his right hand, and Azaiah obediently closed his fingers around it, dimly aware of how it cut into his palm. “For the Mariner, so you sail smoothly to the other side.”
In his mind, Azaiah saw a shadow moving beneath the roiling sea, enormous wings rising from the surf.
Onto the belt, she tied a small sachet of tea leaves from the cup he’d had the night before. “Leaves for the Soothsayer,” she said, deftly tying the knot. “Who will read them and know this is your destiny.”
What a waste that your heart’s desire is a knife at the throat,a voice murmured in his dream, and water rippled over a deep, dark well in the warm southern sea.
Then she tied a leather cord around his neck. On it hung a small glass vial with dried red powder inside. “For the Painter,” she said. “So that your death moistens the pigment, and the picture that is painted is worthy of the gift you’ve given us.”
Finally, in his left hand she placed a piece of coal. “For the Armorer,” she said, and he thought of wildflowers burning, someone with hair like fire raising a sword to him in the distance. “To show you went willingly, as the cold coal means no fire was stoked to make a sword of strife that took your breath.”
Thus attired, he was offered a small glass pipe. The smoke from the braziers had mostly cleared, but Azaiah still felt drowsy, calm, though he heard the murmur of voices outside, the gentle ringing of bells.
“If you are afraid, it is not a failing,” the Oracle said. “You were chosen because you are beautiful, obedient, a flower in full bloom, even in the dark heart of winter. But you are human, child. And humans fear the end, for we are alone in the awareness of it, and you have sat with the certainty of yours in a way no one but the chosen ever will. The Harvester will look fondly upon you, but if fear has taken your heart, there is no shame in it. As much as you understand what awaits, the procession to the altar can challenge the most stalwart of souls.” She presented him with a small glass bottle. “This is the concentrated oil we use for the calming smoke. If you take this, it will render you quiet and your body languid, and you won’t feel anything, won’t notice who is there in the procession as you pass them by.”
It was a kind offer. It was one thing to spend a quiet evening thinking of the honor you’d bring your family when the knife cut your throat. It was another to see the village, the faces of your mother, your sister, when you walked past them. But Azaiah didn’t need it. He was ready.
“I would like to see, I think. Since it is the last time.”
She kissed him on the forehead, on his closed eyelids. “Then it is time, Azaiah. Let us go and meet the Harvester.”
The walk to the altar wasn’t long. Azaiah was greeted by the village when he emerged, blinking, from the dimly lit, windowless building where he’d spent his final night. He saw Jael weeping as the procession passed. Elya ringing a bell and smiling sadly. The villagers threw flowers at him as he walked; dried, dead flowers, carefully kept from the summer and spring just for this moment. They called out their thanks, they wept, they sang and chanted and rang bells, and Azaiah walked serenely through it all, toward the altar and the knife that waited there.
His mother and sister he saw for only a moment, weeping as they threw flowers with the rest. They would be treated well at the feast tonight. Given a place of honor at the table. And when the time came, the fresh flower crown on his head would be given to his mother along with the trinkets he held, to be placed with reverence on the altar where their household gods stood silent, watchful. She would toss the pendant with his rune stone into the sea, returning the glass to the ocean that created it, as Azaiah’s spirit returned to the Harvester.
It was quiet in the glade by the altar, which was a simple thing of stone, set amidst a copse. There was one large tree behind it, an imposing tree that never flowered, staying bare as bones even in the height of summer. Azaiah let the attendants help him up onto the stone, and they both pressed their foreheads to the pedestal etched with runes, whispered a prayer, and made a sign of blessing before they left.
And then it was only him and the Oracle, who held the knife.
Azaiah closed his eyes. The sun was high in the sky, but its light was faint, watery. Death was the end, and this was death, and he would not see the spring or feel the heat of the sun in the summer. He inhaled the crisp, cool air and wished he could feel the rain on his face again. Just one more time.
“Your sacrifice benefits us all,” the Oracle said as she stood beside the altar. She drew the hood of her white cloak up, pulled it over her hair. “The sun is nearly at its zenith. Go to death with a calm heart and a clear soul, child. Your family will be safe. Your time here was short, but your death will be long. Thank you for your life and what it will give to us. Thank you for reminding the Harvester that what is reaped here is not the earth, but the humans who inhabit it.” She bowed, deeply, and the moment was at last at hand.
Azaiah’s heart began to beat faster, and there was a touch of fear—but mostly he was ready for it to happen, to feel the slice of the knife, to finally know what it was like to submit. It felt right that this should be his first time.
I hope you will find me a fair flower for your harvest, and that when you reap my soul it pleases you. I submit willingly. I give you all that I am. I am here.
I am yours.
He felt something wet on his face as the Oracle murmured the old incantations, summoning the Harvester to the reaping. For a moment he thought it was snow, or that it reallyhadrained, but then he realized, no, he was crying. Those were his tears. When he tipped his face back, staring up at the dead branches that stretched like bones over his head, fingers grasping up at a sky they would never reach—he was smiling.
He felt it when the knife drew across his throat, but only for a moment. The pain was fleeting, there and gone, but dying was not as easy as baring one’s throat. He thrashed as his body spasmed, his breath suddenly gone, as if he really had been drawn down into the water of his dream. The air turned cold, and he could not feel his feet, or his legs… and then the trees and the sky and the Oracle began to waver, and he was drenched in blood that he could smell, still; the thick scent of it like the sky before a storm, and yes, ah, there it was: thunder—
And, oh. There, in the distance, was a figure. Not one he’d seen in his dreams. A figure of—someone, broad-shouldered, cloaked and, ah, yes, taking something from their back. A scythe, and they were closer now, closer to him, and Azaiah tried to say,It’s exquisite, isn’t it, dying. I hope you don’t mind that I waited to submit, until it was you.
The figure pushed back their hood. It was a woman, with short hair and a face that was unfamiliar and familiar all at once, and her smile was the kindest that Azaiah had ever seen. “I don’t mind at all, beautiful. And believe me, I’ve waited for you, too. We both have.”
Somewhere behind her stood another in a simple linen dress, long red hair blowing in the wind Azaiah could no longer feel. He tried to wave, but he found he could not move. Instead, he looked up at Death, who smiled down at him like a long-lost friend, like a fire on a cold day, and how strange that anyone would fear this, dying, when it felt so much like coming home.
