Sacrifice – Chapter 1: The Truest Form of Freedom

GamingWolf

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Aperio hummed happily as she placed another leather-bound tome on an old shelf. She glared at it as the ageing wood creaked slightly under the weight of the book, daring it to break. A few lashes for destroying Imperial property wouldn't be so bad, she thought, but a sigh escaped her as the wood held firm. Giving the shelf one last glance she went further down the aisle to retrieve a scroll for one of her ‘esteemed noble masters’.

It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Standing in front of the neatly stacked pile of scrolls, Aperio briefly considered swapping the requested scroll with something else. As soon as she extended her arm to grab one that would definitely not fulfil the desired purpose, a sharp pain in her head, followed by a soft yellow glow from the collar around her neck, announced the interference of the Empire's ‘greatest’ invention.

Cursing the people who invented the contraption that had been with her for as long as she can remember, she watched helplessly as her body acted on its own accord, picking up the desired object before quickly turning around and heading for the reception desk. The only relief she could find in all of this was that being tasked with running errands in the library was definitely better than being chained to a table, getting stabbed with who knows what for hours – sometimes days – on end.

Once she reached the desk, a woman clad in an overly-gaudy dress turned to face her with barely concealed disgust flaring in her eyes before snatching the scroll from Aperio’s hands. “Give that to me before you dirty it any further, Elf.” She spat before walking away. 

Oh yes, the dirty Elves! They don't enslave others! So dirty! I wish I could voice my opinion, but as usual, my body just isn't my own right now. Even if I could voice my thoughts, they wouldn't change much. She might have gone as far as hitting me. I would shiver in fright if I could! ...Ridiculous, anything she could do wouldn’t be comparable to what a true imperial torturer can do.

Aperio stood rooted in place for several minutes, only regaining control over her own body when she could no longer hear the woman’s shoes clacking on the tiled marble floor. Even though she could move on her own again, she had learned years ago that there was no point in walking away if she was liable to get a headache and be forced to walk right back. She stayed where she was.

A small smile formed on her lips nonetheless as she recalled what the guards had told her that morning: she was to be sacrificed tonight. One might think that being told that you only had a day left to live would be sad news, but for her, it was the best thing she had heard in years. It ranked right up there with the death of the Emperor’s second son. 

Stabbed in the back by his own wife! That had truly been a magnificent day for her.

Aperio had almost died too, but it was not to be. She had never learned why the royal guard had prevented that lovely little irate widow from carrying out her right of vengeance. After all, the bastard son had used the Elven slave as a companion for the night. Not that she wanted to indulge the man, but you no longer had the option of choice once that contraption was around your neck.

Her smile widened as she heard the telltale clanking of the guard’s mithril armour. A quick glance through the glass dome looming above her confirmed that the sun was beginning to set. It was time for her to leave this wretched place.

Finally! How long I have waited for this day!

The lead guard gave the smiling Elf a confused glare before he brought his gloved hand to his chest where it touched a small yellow glowing pendant. “Your duties here have ended, follow me. Do not speak unless spoken to. Understood?” After the words had left his mouth, her collar flared briefly and she felt the orders at the back of her mind change, no longer forcing her to stay but to follow.

Another – more forceful – glow from the collar forced her to bow, and manipulated her vocal cords to answer with a quiet "Yes." The guards formed up around her as if to ensure she couldn’t escape. Useless, she thought. It’s not like I can run away with this stupid thing on. Soon they had left the library and were moving down a brightly lit, stone-walled corridor. One of the guards gave her a surprised look as she practically glided down the hall. 

The inherent lightness of her steps had come at the price of bleeding and burned feet after being forced to walk on crystal shards and hot coals for months on end, and as much as she hated to admit it, she actually enjoyed being able to move in such a manner.

A few of the passing servants – mostly slaves like herself – stopped to give Aperio a pitying look before hurriedly moving on. The Elf herself didn’t care about the others. To her, it made little difference if they hated or pitied her. It wouldn’t change anything about her life, past or present.

There was one person she had cared about: an elderly woman that had been more of a mother to her then the actual one could ever have been. While that may not be a hard bar to pass – you really only had to not sell your daughter into slavery at the age of three so you could afford more alcohol – it still meant something to her. 

She had taught Aperio many things – even the language of her people, though she never got to use it as she was ordered not to speak it ever again. A wave of sadness overcame her as she remembered the day her only friend had died, forced to fight in the Arena against a knight from the Emperor’s personal guard. Not a fair fight by any stretch but good entertainment for the ‘noble’ guests.

In the end, she had been forced to sit and smile as she watched her friend getting torn limb from limb by a laughing knight clad in shining gold plated armour. The only relief, small as it may have been, was the knowledge that her friend had moved on to a better place.

Maybe I will meet her soon? Who knows what happens when you die.

Aperio mentally shook off the weight of her memories as she was given a new task. After being led to a small room containing a shallow pool, she was told to clean herself. Under the watchful eyes of everyone around her she approached the water, hesitating briefly as she caught sight of her reflection. 

Ugh.

Her clipped ears were – despite being one of the less painful ‘treatments’ – by far the thing she hated the most about what she saw. She wasn’t the only one they had done it to either. Every Elven slave they had would have their ears cut to be ‘closer to perfection’, as the Emperor put it.

Once she had been deemed clean enough by her guards she was lead to a massive engraved door. With a wave of their hand, one of her captors signalled the two slaves at either side of the door who quickly went to complete their only task. With a low groan it slowly slid open revealing a great many people – both mages in fancy robes and guards in heavy mail – arranged in neat formations covering the entirety of a truly enormous hall.

Inside, the guard that had spoken to her previously lead her to a circle that was ringed with runes in the centre of the hall, handed her an unnaturally sharp but featureless dagger, and with an unpleasant tone to his voice that Aperio found all too familiar told her to kneel and disrobe. 

Under the openly lecherous gaze of her guard, she did as she was told, long past the point of being able to care about such situations. When she had removed the last piece of clothing from her person, the guard took one last long glance over her naked body, picked up the discarded dress and told her to wait until told otherwise. 

With nothing left to do, she turned her attention to the runes around her. Though she had been forced to help in various rites and rituals, she couldn’t seem to recall any runes that looked like the ones here. Not even the crueller experiments – where, after receiving her orders, she watched helplessly as her own hands carved runes onto the living body of the sacrifice – had used anything similar. Neither did the ones she had learned from books she shouldn’t have read remind her of these. In the end, it mattered little to her. She would die today and finally be free.

A few minutes passed and a man by the door cleared his throat before yelling, “His Imperial Highness! Emperor Jenario Xenthis!” Following the announcement a man in his late fifties, wearing a gaudy crown and holding a golden sceptre, confidently strode into the hall. It didn’t take him long to reach the empty rune-framed square opposite of Aperio, and once there he banged his sceptre against the floor. After the last hushed voices quieted down he began to speak.

“We have strived for this moment for years! Trying and failing to find a way to ascend and rid ourselves of the lower races. Tonight our torment ends, and we only need to sacrifice this lowly Elf! A small price to pay for my ascension to godhood! A truly glorious day for the entire Inaru Empire! Now let us start a new era: an era of righteous conquest!” 

With his speech at an end, he spread his arms wide and twirled the sceptre around once before slamming it into the floor, prompting the mages to begin their chant. In response to their discordant voices, the formation on the floor started to emit a white light that soon burst into a flame that snaked its way across the entire hall, inching ever closer to the centre.

The runes around Aperio briefly flashed blue as the white flames drew near, only to flare angrily one more time before submitting to the fire. Only once the entire formation was set ablaze did the Emperor lift his sceptre, point at Aperio and command her:

“Take the dagger and carve out your heart; offer it in sacrifice so your betters may ascend.”

Aperio shivered with anticipation as she lifted the dagger and slowly traced the edge of the blade with her finger, earning her a small cut. A small smile crept onto her face as she looked at the little droplets of blood falling onto the perfectly white floor; her smile only grew wider with each drop. Ever so slowly did she move the dagger towards her chest until the blade sunk itself into her. With full knowledge of what she was doing, she manoeuvred the sharp edge of the blade within her body, effortlessly cutting skin and bone while circling around her heart.

There was no pain as she had expected, and neither could she feel the compulsion of the collar; she was in full control. A small laugh escaped her lips, something was off but she didn’t care, what she was doing felt right. Letting the dagger fall to the floor she looked up and gave the Emperor her best smile; this one genuine and not an imitation like the rest. 

Lifting her arm she buried it up to her wrist in her chest where she had previously cut herself open. A little river of blood flowed from the newly-formed cavity and pooled under her as she wrenched her own heart free. 

For a moment she stared at the unbeating heart, her unbeating heart. 

After letting out a final breath she slumped forwards, falling into the white flames as whatever had kept the pain away simply vanished. The last thing she felt was a gentle warmth emanating from the fire where it touched her scarred skin.

The flames that tried to consume the fresh Elven corpse shimmered where they made contact, changing from white to blue. The body itself faded, slowly dissolving into a cloud of silvery dust that drifted towards the ceiling where it gathered into a loose, seemingly incorporeal, sphere. It lingered there, pulsing softly with blue light.

The triumphant smile on the Emperors face faded as the blue flames seemed to turn on its former masters, quickly taking over the formation and latching onto the chanting mages. It didn't take long for the ones attacked by the flame to run and scream, ceasing their chants in their desperate attempts to escape the burning. In the chaos, the fire was able to make the leap over to the guards as well. 

In mere minutes the entire hall was on fire, burning each and every person alive. With each soul that died in the blue hell, the gathering of silver dust hovering just under the ceiling shone brighter and more solid, slowly shedding its ethereal qualities.

Soon everyone but Emperor Xenthis himself had been burned away, and he had to shield his eyes from the bright light that floated high above him. Through his fingers he kept watch of the thing, trusting in the safety of the runic formation he stood in. His trust, however, was sadly misplaced. A burning sensation reached his feet and quickly spread over his entire body; he screamed in agony and dropped to the floor desperately trying to extinguish the flames.

But it was for nought. After a minute of excruciating pain his body crumbled and the now very solid-looking silver sphere pulsed once, breaking through the ceiling and sending the flames below through the windows into the open darkness beyond. 

The fire spread horrifically fast over the continent ruled by the Inaru Empire, their ruthlessness lasting only a few hours. Not a single living thing was spared, neither the wildlife nor the other empires and kingdoms – not even those that had allied themselves against the Empire and its mad Emperor.

The only things showing that civilization had once prospered here were the empty cities, burned clean of all traces of life. What a great many creatures once called home was now nothing more than a barren wasteland illuminated by a false sun.

Soon that sun vanished as well, disappearing into thin thin air and leaving nothing behind that might have hinted as to what had happened.