The wind tears at Ophelia’s hair, whipping long chestnut strands across her face. Her wrists burn where rough hemp rope bites into her skin, binding her to the ancient stone altar that has drunk the fear of countless girls before her. They’d all struggled. Ophelia doesn’t.
There would be no point. Even if she could free herself, where would she run? The cliff top drops away on three sides into nothing but air and rocks and the churning sea. Behind her stands her entire village, everyone she’s ever known, counting on her to die so that they may live.
The white ceremonial dress they’ve draped over her is thin as spider silk. She feels bare despite being clothed, and she can feel every eye on her. Dozens. Hundreds, perhaps.
The entire village has turned out to watch her be sacrificed to the great dragon. The three village elders stand closest, ancient men draped in ceremonial robes that snap and billow in the wind. “We thank you, Ophelia,” the eldest’s voice carries across the cliff top. “On this day that marks a tradition established by our fathers and their fathers before them.
Through your noble sacrifice, we keep the dragon savages at bay for another year. May your father’s fields run gold with grain. May your mother’s hearth burn warm through winter. ”
He turns to her.
“Speak now your last words upon this earth. ”
The invitation hangs in the air, and shame floods through Ophelia like poison. Ophelia has no voice to offer them. She opens her mouth anyway, not from hope but from habit, from the muscle memory of a lifetime spent trying to make herself heard.
Her throat works. Her lips form shapes. But nothing emerges except silence. She closes her mouth slowly, in shame.
Even now, even at the moment of her death, she cannot do this one simple thing. Cannot speak. Cannot give them the words they want. The eldest elder shifts his weight, clearing his throat.
“Given your condition, we will simply thank you and your family for this sacrifice. ”
Condition. As if her voicelessness is something catching. Ophelia searches the crowd, though she knows she shouldn’t.
It will only hurt more. But she cannot help herself. She needs to see them one last time. Her father stands near the front, tall and weathered from years working their small plot of land.
She watches him, willing him to look at her. Just once. Just one moment of connection before the end. Their eyes meet.
Something flickers across his face. Guilt, perhaps. Then he looks away. Her mother stands beside him, pale and bloodless.
Her eyes are dry. No tears for the daughter she’s losing, just grim acceptance. They made their choice when Celestine’s name was drawn, and her mother has made her peace with it. Her two brothers stand with arms crossed, their young faces tight with something that might pass for sorrow if you didn’t look too closely.
But Ophelia has spent her whole life watching people, reading the truths they don’t speak aloud. She sees what lies beneath their carefully composed expressions. Relief. Pure, shameful relief that it’s her and not Celestine.
She doesn’t blame them. She would feel the same if their positions were reversed. And there, her younger sister. Golden and lovely, even with tears streaming down her perfect face.
Celestine is crying. At least someone is crying. Ophelia doesn’t resent her sister. Celestine didn’t ask for Ophelia to take her place.
Ophelia closes her eyes and feels a single tear slip free, immediately stolen by the wind before anyone can see. And then the bright call of trumpets cuts through the howling wind. Ophelia’s eyes snap open. The crowd parts, confused murmurs rising, as a pure white horse comes cantering through the gap.
On it sits a figure in gleaming armor. Ophelia’s stomach turns to lead. Of course. She should have expected this.
Tradition demands that royalty bless the sacrifice, thank them for their service before the dragon comes. But as the rider dismounts in a fluid, practiced motion, Ophelia sees immediately that something is different. The woman—and she must be nobility, perhaps even the princess herself, given her age and the quality of her armor—isn’t wearing court dress. She’s clad in full battle armor, steel plates that catch what little light filters through the storm clouds.
Her dark hair is braided tight against her skull. A warrior’s braid, not a courtier’s style. Her eyes find Ophelia’s briefly. And horror flashes across her face.
The woman turns to the eldest elder, her voice cutting through the wind. “Untie her. ”
The elder’s face goes slack. “Your Highness?
”
“I said untie her. ” The princess strides toward the altar, hand resting on the hilt of her sword. “This sacrifice ends now. ”
Murmurs ripple through the crowd.
The elders cluster together, whispering frantically. The eldest steps forward, trembling. “Your Highness, the tradition—our fathers and their fathers before them—the dragon will not be appeased without its offering. ”
“The dragon was never appeased by blood,” the princess says.
“It was fed by it. ”
She turns to face the gathered village, raising her voice. “How many of you have lost daughters to this altar? How many have stood here and watched your children die, believing it would save you?
”
Silence. Then, from somewhere in the crowd, a woman begins to cry. The princess continues, her voice steady and cold. “I have walked the length of the coast.
I have seen the ruins of a dozen villages who made the same bargain. The dragon does not spare them. It grows fat on their fear and returns hungrier each year. And every year, they offer another girl to feed it.
”
She looks at Ophelia, and her gaze softens. “There is another way. ”
The elders erupt in protest. “Blasphemy!
She will doom us all! ”
“She will doom you,” the princess says quietly. “But not the village. ”
She draws her sword.
The blade gleams in the pale light. “I am the Princess Aelith, daughter of King Theron. And I am here to kill the dragon. ”
The crowd erupts.
Voices clash—some shouting in anger, others in desperate hope. The elders try to raise their hands, to calm the chaos, but the damage is done. The princess slices through Ophelia’s bonds. The rope falls away, and Ophelia’s wrists throb with sudden, aching freedom.
“Can you ride? ” the princess asks. Ophelia stares at her. She opens her mouth, but no words come.
She shakes her head. The princess studies her for a moment. “Then you’ll ride with me. ”
She grips Ophelia’s waist and lifts her onto the horse, then swings up behind her.
The crowd parts as the horse wheels around. “Wait! ” Ophelia’s mother pushes through the crowd, face twisted with fury and grief. “You cannot take her!
She is ours! She owes this to the village! ”
The princess looks down at her. “She owes you nothing.
You were the ones who chose to send a girl to her death instead of standing up to the beast. ”
She turns the horse toward the cliff’s edge. “I am going to the mountain. Anyone who wishes to fight the dragon with me is welcome.
Anyone who wishes to stay and wait for their daughters to be drawn next year… that is their choice. ”
The horse breaks into a canter, and the crowd falls away behind them. Ophelia clings to the saddle, her heart pounding.
She has never been this close to another person. She can smell the leather of the armor, the faint tang of sweat and steel. The princess rides hard, leaving the village far behind. When they reach the base of the mountain, the princess reins in the horse and dismounts.
She helps Ophelia down, then looks at her with an unreadable expression. “I could not leave another girl to die there,” she says quietly. “Not when I know what I know. ”
Ophelia signs with her hands, slowly, carefully.
“What do you know? ”
The princess’s eyes widen. “You can speak with your hands? ”
Ophelia nods.
“Then we will speak like this,” the princess says, and she signs back, clumsily but intentionally. “I have killed dragons before. And I have never had to sacrifice anyone to do it. ”
She gestures toward the mountain.
“There is a cave at the summit. The dragon sleeps there by day. If we move quietly, we can catch it before it wakes. ”
Ophelia stares at her.
For the first time since the ropes were tied around her wrists, she feels something other than fear. She signs, “Why? ”
The princess looks at her, and there is a weariness in her eyes that speaks of battles fought and friends lost. “Because someone should have done this years ago,” she says.
“And because you deserve to live a life that is yours. ”
She turns and begins climbing the mountain path, her hand resting on her sword. Ophelia follows. The ascent takes the rest of the day.
The path winds between rocks and thorny shrubs, steep and unforgiving. The princess moves with practiced ease, checking their trail, pausing to listen. Ophelia stumbles more than once, her thin dress catching on branches, tearing at the hem. At dusk, they reach the summit.
A dark opening gapes in the rock face—the mouth of the cave. A low, rumbling sound issues from within, like distant thunder. The sleeper’s breath. The princess presses a finger to her lips.
She slides her sword free, the blade whispering from its scabbard. She positions herself at the cave’s entrance, waiting, listening. Then she glances back at Ophelia and speaks in a low voice. “When the dragon wakes, I will draw its attention.
There is a weak point beneath its wing—a patch of scales that never fully hardened. If I fall, you can run. No one will hold it against you. ”
Ophelia shakes her head.
She signs, “I will not run. ”
The princess almost smiles. “Good. ”
She steps into the darkness.
A roar splits the night. The ground shakes. Ophelia presses herself against the rock wall as the princess disappears into the depths of the cave, her sword raised. The sound of battle erupts—the clash of steel, the shriek of the beast, the princess’s sharp cry.
Ophelia’s heart hammers. She wants to move, to help, but her legs will not obey. And then the cave falls silent. A long moment passes.
Then the princess stumbles out of the darkness, her armor slick with blood, her sword still in her hand. “It’s done,” she says hoarsely. “The dragon is dead. ”
She collapses to her knees.
Ophelia rushes to her side. The princess’s eyes are barely open. Her breath is shallow, ragged. “You came back,” Ophelia signs, her hands shaking.
“You came back out. ”
The princess coughs, a thin line of blood running from the corner of her mouth. “Couldn’t leave you alone on this mountain,” she whispers. She reaches up, gripping Ophelia’s wrist.
“Go back to the village. Tell them the dragon is dead. Tell them no one else will ever be tied to that altar again. ”
Ophelia shakes her head firmly.
She signs, “I will not leave you here. ”
The princess smiles weakly. “Stubborn,” she says. “I like that in a person.
”
Her grip loosens. Her eyes flutter closed. And then, from somewhere in the night, the sound of hooves. Many of them.
The villagers have come. They crest the ridge in a flood of torches, farmers and fishermen armed with pitchforks and axes, led by Ophelia’s own father. They stop at the sight of the two figures on the mountain—the princess bleeding in the dirt and the girl in the torn white dress kneeling beside her. Ophelia’s father steps forward.
His face is unreadable. “Is it dead? ”
Ophelia signs slowly, her hands trembling. “Yes.
The dragon is dead. ”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. Some of them weep. Others begin to shout, uncertain whether this is triumph or disaster.
Her father kneels beside her, looking at the princess. “She saved you. ”
Ophelia nods. “Then we owe her everything,” he says quietly.
He turns to the villagers behind him. “Bring blankets. Bring water. We must get this woman to the village and tend her wounds.
”
They move as a single body, lifting the princess onto a makeshift stretcher. Kind hands wrap her in cloth, and the procession begins the long descent toward the village. Ophelia walks beside the stretcher, her hand resting on the princess’s armored gauntlet. She does not let go.
By morning, the princess is still breathing. The village healer works through the night, stitching wounds and setting bones. By noon, she opens her eyes. “Did I die?
” she asks weakly. The healer laughs. “Not yet, Your Highness. Though you gave us quite the fright.
”
The princess’s gaze finds Ophelia standing in the doorway. She smiles. “You stayed,” she says. Ophelia signs, “I told you I would not leave.
”
The princess’s smile grows wider. “I am glad. ”
In the days that follow, the truth spreads across the region. The dragon is dead.
The village no longer needs to offer sacrifices. The elders, shamed by their cowardice, retire to the margins of village life, their authority gone. And when the princess is well enough to ride again, she stands at the edge of the village with Ophelia beside her. “Come with me,” she says.
“There are other villages still living under the shadow of the beast. Other girls who might be saved. ”
Ophelia looks back at her family. Her mother is crying now, openly, tears streaming down her face.
Her father looks old, worn, but something in his eyes has softened. “The sea steals my words,” Ophelia signs. “But not my will. ”
The princess reaches out a gloved hand.
“Then let us go and make the world quieter, one story at a time. ”
Ophelia takes her hand. The horse moves forward, carrying them both away from the cliffs, away from the altar that still stands hollow on the edge of the sea, away from the girl who once had no voice and no choice.
She does not look back.
