A deep, muffled drumbeat began to sound, a vibration of ox-hide and sorrow that rose from the banks of the Cai River.
It was a place that should have been bustling with boats, but now offered only a stretch of cracked black mud that seemed to drink the sky, releasing the stench of decay. The skeletal crowd stood in a silence born of despair, their prayers long since eaten. Overhead, the sun was a red-hot bronze plate, staring down without feeling as ninety-two days passed without rain.
From inside the temporary shrine, Ling Luo heard the drum, her back rigid. She was not wearing the 'Ritual Joy Gown' as they called it. In her heart, this was a burial shroud.
Her hand, slender but calloused, moved slowly, polishing a pear-wood tablet. Her mother's. The "Bride" from ten years ago.
The Shaman-Blood inside her allowed her to "feel." She knew, long before she was chosen, that the dragon's lair out there was not "wrathful" as the priests claimed. It was just lonely. A vast, imprisoned loneliness. The Dragon Deity was real; but he was not demanding this.
Outside, a voice rose, deliberately drowning out the wail of a mother whose child had just died of thirst. It was a warm, resonant voice, thick with authority. "The heavens turn! This drought is our own failing! He requires our devotion! The Bride's sacrifice is the highest honor, a rite to wash away our sins and beg for rain!"
At the word "honor," Ling Luo's mouth twisted in a cold smile no one saw. He had said the exact same thing ten years ago, just before her mother was taken. She remembered her mother's last whisper: "Don't trust them, child. They don't fear the God. They only fear the River will stop giving them what they want."
The shrine's flap was pulled open.
Ling Luo stepped out, barefoot. The moment her feet touched the cracked earth, the searing heat lashed up at her. Her toes instinctively curled from a fissure sharp as a blade. She took a breath, swallowed the burning sting, and walked on. She did not look at the fervent crowd, nor at the families who sighed in relief that it was not their daughter.
She glided past the altar, past the Great Shaman Shadowless, who stood watching her, his face a mask of practiced compassion.
As she drew level, he shifted, a small step that blocked her path. His face remained a picture of sanctity, but his voice, a low hiss meant only for her, held a tremor he couldn't hide.
"Don't be difficult, child. This is a great honor."
He spoke of honor, but his eyes darted to the black vortex in the river, then quickly back to her.
Ling Luo stopped, her gaze locking onto his. In the space of that silence, she saw not holiness, but the raw glint of fear.
He is afraid, she thought.
She swept past him, walking toward the small boat decked in funeral flowers.
She stepped in.
It was pushed out as the chanting grew frantic and the horns wailed. The reek of the mud thickened, like death breathing in her face.
The boat stopped, bobbing directly over the black vortex.
Shadowless raised the long, bronze-tipped bamboo pole. He began the last rites, his voice cracking, rushing the words as he prepared for the final push.
But Ling Luo rose to her feet.
As she stood, the shaman's voice died in his throat. He froze, the long pole stopping in mid-air.
She stood on the fragile boat, her white robes whipping in a sudden wind. No tears. No pleas.
She gave him one last look.
Then she turned her gaze to the vortex and stepped over the side.
The cold sliced into her. She instinctively opened her mouth to gasp, but only thick mud and the smell of decay flooded her throat. The light from the torches, the sounds of horror from the bank, receded and then vanished. The blood roared in her ears, then went silent.
Her lungs felt crushed, but the suffocating death she expected did not come.
She no longer "felt" the loneliness. She felt an immense pressure, crushing her chest, as if the entire River was focusing its weight on her. There was no sound, only a thick, dull ringing in her head.
A moment, or an eternity, passed.
Then, through that veil of pressure, she opened her eyes.
She saw light. It glowed from a ruined palace.
And she saw him.
The Dragon Deity.
A man in black robes.
He was not on a throne. He was pinned by hundreds of golden chains, impaled through his limbs, nailed to the very center of the dragon's lair.
Ling Luo stopped breathing.
The Dragon Deity was not the executioner.
He was the prisoner.