The Ritual

The Ritual.

And from this day it was decided that every new Queen when she was ready to took the place of her mother she should be forced to show her submission to the empire.

This year the ritual performed in the spring as Sermonas mother still passed away from a sudden mysterious illness.

The empire himself visited her and he sat in the forbidden for her ancient silver throne of the palace.

She was wearing only her light night dress as the previous queen and took off her sandals which symbolise her old agreement scene.

Sermona stood in front of the main royal hall doors with her bare knees in the smooth wooden floor.

Two soldiers chained her hands and then her bare feet with silver ankle shackles.

The same chain's which used in the previous queen fifteen years ago …

After the king summon her and she walked towards his throne.

She kneels in front of him.

If the emperor is satisfied from her she requested his permission to rule her palace as before as a vassal queen.

After her dismissal from the emperor she returned in her quartets and prepared the funeral of her beloved mother.

She was alone now.



«She is a ray of sunshine . a rain of warm summer . a bright fire of a cold winter's day .»

Imran Shaikh



Chapter 4

The gift of the city

The strange ritual was not the only change which came with the conquest.

Strange new deities demanded human sacrifices became the main religions in the city.

One small forest , oval in shape that located near the eastern gate was the spiritual center of this religion.

It was artificially created and surrounded with a tall brick wall all around its perimeter.

Thick willows was almost the only tree in this mysterious forest .

In the deepest part of the forest there was a cave.

Around her entrance were black sculptures with animals or mythical creatures in different sizes carved in the hard stone hundreds of years before.

This was the holy temple of the city's new deities.

And in front of it another dark opening like a giant well.

It was the Ice spring.

The waters of the spring was shinning this night.

It was a full moon again.

This springs were the life source of the city and her surroundings villages.

There every full moon thirteen white young girls where gathered in silence.

But this time was different.

Something very important was about to take place there.

The girls with purple dresses down until their knees and white ribbons in their heads were waiting in a circle.

They were all barefooted and in their

Ankles silver anklets decorated their elegant skin.

They stood in a tight circle next to the main path waiting in absolutely silence.

Then three of them who had strange black iron bracelet's in their wrists stepped back and sat leg crossed in the grass.

Some men hooded with grey robes appeared from the trees and sat behind them like watchful guard's.

Then as if someone gave an invisible sign to them the rest of he girls started walked with light steps towards the hurt of the forest in a single line.

They sang softly their melodic choir's which was the only sound echoed in this mysterious and forbidden place during the twilight.

They were the priestess of their dark dainties.



The dainties temple was inside a deep cave which entrance was next to the Icy Spring.

There each night they gathered in circles waiting for the white full moon to reappear bleaching in the night sky.

The priestess was divided in two strictly separate classes.

Nine of them are always from noble the families of the city and there were the high priestess.

But dispute their status they usually didn't were more than twenty five years old and never less than nineteenth.

They had to be mature women's to became priestess.

They all chose for their beauty and indeed before most of them were wanted bribes for many rich and powerful persons of the city's Council.

And many of this girls avoided an unpleasant marriage and devoted to their religious duties.

Until at least they reached twenty five years of age.

Then the period of their religious service ended and weren't safe from their admirers any more.

By the rules of the temple they had to leave there place's because other girls was also waiting their turn.

But the second rank of them was four which was always slave girls.

This girls were often kidnapped from the northern borders by the Slave Hunter's or they were from enslaved families who were quite a lot of them in the city now.

But also free young women who travelled with the caravan's and entered the city often disappeared under mysterious sircumstances.

Slave Hunter's this days has started to became more and more bold as the authorities allowed their profitable activities.

The second ranked priestess was also very beautiful and dressed similar with the others but they didn't serve a lot of time like their «sisters» as they call each other.

And that because at times one of them has to scarified to the deities and a new slave girl took her place soon after that.

And that's was something that no foreigner visited the marvellous city knew about …

Two weeks before a slave girl named Selena was chosen.

She was unknown to the most of the other young women there.

And she was from the North.

Selena was graceful with all the elegant characteristics of the girls from her distant nation.

She wasn't tall but slender in body and with long brown hair falling to her white shoulders.

Her large emerald eyes was a rare characteristic in this eastern lands.

Her only garment was a light blue dress which reached down until her lower knees .

Her eyes was shadowed darkly like the eastern women of the dessert tribes.

But looking carefully in her white complexion bruises from rough hand's marked her limb's.

Her eyes only opened sometimes looking emotionally with an perplexed way around.

She was clearly half drugged possible from some kind of strong herbs.

One tall but wan man was white dressed like a priest but he had the hard stern features of a soldier.

He carried the brunette in his arms towards the temple entrance and around them the rest of the priestess with their sad choirs filled the silence of the night.

The girl mouth was gagged with a black cloth .

She souldn't disturb the ritual.

Her bare feet was also restrained .

They tied up tightly her ankles with black leather straps.

This straps kept her feet only few inches close to one another.

They had tied her up and kept her drugged in her bed almost two days.

Now her time came at last.

A thin metal chain wrapped around her waist kept also her hands close to her body.

The man approached the entrance of the cave.

There an oval shaped casket was placed down in front of him.

Blue silk covered the inside of it like a soft blanket.

The casket was opened awaiting quietly the helpless woman to fill the gap inside it like a hungry dark mouth.

The man placed the girl softly inside and tied her again with leather straps across her white shoulders and lower calf's inside the casket.

Then the dark mouth closed slowly and entrapped it's victim.

It was the end.

The hideous deities has gained another servant for them.

The casket was taken by two dark dressed slaves who silently pushed it in the dark waters of the spring.

The water hungrily devoured the cascet and the pale girl gone with it.