Death comes to those who yearn for life.
In Belagora, even children knew this irony. The colour of death wasn’t the pitch black of nothingness but the sheer blinding white of winter, the kind of brilliance that chased away even a starless night. Winter was beautiful, but in the way a wild animal inspired awe—too much too close to the flesh yielded only misfortune.
Winter didn’t end, not without sacrifice.
Every five years, the god of life demanded his tithe: a maiden willing to forsake the earthly in favour of the divine. Girls clamoured for the opportunity, but the community was small, remote, surrounded by craggy cliffsides and dense forests that swallowed the light. A village of no more than a hundred people, Belagora trapped those born in its wintry cradle. If life began on the mountain, it would end there too.
When a young woman was marked for the altar, her life in Belagora ended, and every person who remained discarded a little piece of themselves.
They celebrated spring’s advent, yet the loss left a little hole behind. At first, it wasn’t noticeable to Senka. It was just a tiny hole, after all—a cavity like any other in nature. Yet over time, the emptiness yawned open, its edges chafing against the soul. So, Senka learned not to grow attached, to guard those pieces of her she had yet to lose.
Any of them could be next.
“They’re with Vuyadin, basking in an eternal spring,” Nada, the village crone, said when Senka asked after the tributes. The fire was waning, so she tossed another log into the stove, prodding the flames to life.
Vuyadin, the god of life, took as much as he gave. The next Betrothal was soon, and Nada was busy weaving a shawl for the maiden. Yarn dyed in boiled tarragon for a rich green colour—a longing for spring.
“Are they dead?” Senka pressed, to which Nada laughed airily.
“Of course not, child. Gone and dead are not the same. Do birds die when they fly past the horizon? No, they are simply somewhere else.”
“They fly south where it’s warm,” Parvaneh chimed in, her smile bright despite her chapped lips. Their straw bed mats were frigid, but the wool quilts and body heat made them bearable.
Belagora was a smattering of cottages built from wood, stone, and mud scattered along a flat nook in the mountain. The severe slope of the thatched roofs kept the snow from caving into the homes, and pathways through the village were little more than tunnels made by endless boot prints between ever-growing white walls.
The sisters had lost their parents young, and Nada had sheltered them when the rest of the village had little love for two hungry mouths to feed. Fever took the girls’ parents only weeks before Senka’s first Betrothal, when she was barely two years old. It was an intolerable winter, with snow piling high enough to bury homes and wind that could ice over tears. That Senka survived her infancy in such conditions struck Nada as a miracle, so she raised the girls as her own when a younger couple would’ve been more suitable for the job.
But the year of the Betrothal had a way of chilling people’s hearts. When starvation crept too close to Belagora, compassion ran dry, and fervour for sacrifice intensified. Of course, Senka didn’t remember anything of her first Betrothal, but Parvaneh had been old enough to harbour some lingering impression—not that she shared it with Senka.
“It’s best you experience it for yourself,” she said when Senka asked. Senka was only seven, Parvaneh two years the elder.
“What happens if we skip it?”
“People of old tried that. It ended in disaster,” Nada tutted.
Endless winter. Missed harvests. Strange tragedies. The sacrifice only yielded five springs before the cycle began anew.
And every five years, a single cluster of blue hyacinths grew from the snow-covered grounds in front of the chosen maiden’s home. It was uncanny as it was miraculous; hyacinths bloomed in spring, but it was like someone had parted the snow and nursed life into the frost-bitten ground.
And the flowers remained through the rest of winter, into spring, and past summer. They only withered with the first autumn after the Betrothal.
“Has anyone ever seen the god?” Senka asked.
Both Nada and Parvaneh shook their heads.
“Only the maiden sees the god,” Nada explained. “Once the offering is made, the villagers are oath bound to turn their backs to the altar. We are forbidden from returning until the five-year respite is over, and the next sacrifice is due.”
“So, you don’t know if the maiden enjoys an eternal spring with Vuyadin,” Senka ventured.
“The stories come from somewhere, don’t they?” Parvaneh held her hands over the stove and rubbed them together.
“Stories can be made up,” Senka shot back, “and if no one ever looks back, how do they know the truth?” The maiden could’ve been turned into a vila—a vengeful forest spirit that lured men into a circle dance that didn’t stop until they dropped dead from exhaustion.
Parvaneh’s cheeks puffed up in irritation. She hated when Senka dug her heels in, her contrarian nature rattling the elder sister’s hard-earned serenity.
“Now, now.” Nada severed the path of Senka’s glare with a weathered hand. She tucked a lock of loose dark hair behind the girl’s ear and smiled. “Does it matter where the stories come from if they bear fruit? The Betrothal works. Once the tithe is paid, the snow melts, the rain comes, and the earth sprouts new life. We do not stray from the road we know leads home.”
“And if we wish to go somewhere else?” asked Senka.
Nada’s smile faltered, her grey eyes fleeing downward. She squeezed Senka’s hand. “Only wanton girls wade through dark waters.”
A folk monster horror romance novella for fans of Meg Smitherman’s Swallow, Fervor, and Keri Lake’s Anathema.
Every five years, the god of life demands his tithe.
A bride.
A beloved for the eternal spring.
An end to winter’s grasp on Belagora.
Senka was raised watching the solemn parade to the altar, the maiden in red laying herself down in supplication. In submission.
But when blue hyacinth blooms in the snow outside Senka’s home, she knows she’s next. Defying the god’s call means dooming Belagora to eternal winter, and in a village built on faith, the roots of fear run deep.
Don’t ask questions. Obey. Revere. All prices Senka is unwilling to pay.
But as the god’s hold on Senka tightens, the line between desire and dread cuts paper thin. A wicked hunger blooms inside her, threatening everything she’s ever believed about herself.
But Senka made a promise.
She will not submit—not even to a ravening god.
