Iman Mackenzie (she/her) is a Scottish writer, avid reader and yapper. She loves fantastical storytelling, her dog and sugar.
‘The Burning’ is inspired by female rage. In Iman’s words, ‘it’s for women who are done dirty in the name of others’ comfort, and forced into heroism. It’s for the oldest daughters who always have to carry the load. It’s for the mixed-race children in a white world who are used for entertainment and then forgotten.’
Summer reminds me of an overly ripe peach. You bite into its flesh without thinking, the juices burst out and run down your chin and now you’re sticky. It’s like the humidity here, it clings to your skin and thickens your hair. No matter what you’re wearing, you can’t help but feel the fabric tighten around your body and every day you awaken to that citrus scent of a new season.
There’s too much fruit here; they thrive on it. Have the kitchen hands make an abundance of tart lemon cakes and overly sweet, glazed pastries. Wines are flowing thick with honey and rare cherries plucked from somewhere there are odes written about. Overly indulgent. That is why my mother scorned the ever-golden kingdom of Elysian.
There is a song being sung about the summer solstice echoing through the cobbled streets. Laughter rings like jingling little bells and the rhythmic beat of clapping hands. Prayers and words of worship croons to Gods who pay their people no heed until they are fed. From my chambers, I can see the delicately painted lanterns strung between the sandstone homes of the nobles who were lucky enough to buy their way into the King’s capital.
No one celebrates harder than these people who have never truly had to work before. Nobody knows how to enjoy life like people who have the hard work done for them.
‘Aeris,’ Kalilah says my name like a promise. Redness swells around her eyes, the only tears shed for the loss of my life. ‘They’re coming for you.’
My torment echoes in her voice.
‘I know.’ I don’t mean to slip out of my perfectly practised accent. So many hours are spent staring at my reflection whilst I enunciate words the way they do. It’s an ugly language, and so hard to articulate. ‘I don’t want you around for the burning; make yourself scarce.’
Yesterday morning, my father’s wife had me escorted towards the pyre I will be burned alive upon today. It’s a cruel thing to do; to make me wait until when the sun has peaked rather than in the morning. It wasn’t what I expected either. Here they adore talking about the gift-giving ceremony, the kept promise between man and Gods. To this day, they sing songs of the last daughter to be sacrificed.
The Promised. How quaint. A poetic term to give the child who was bound to a post of pure gold and burned alive whilst she wailed her prayers.
Like Astoria the Maiden of stars.
On the evening of her sacrifice, darkness was evaded by an eruption of starlight. Burning bright and beautiful, unrelenting even into the early hours of the morning. Cosmic interpreters were said to have read messages written in the dark abyss above our heads and more since. See, every generation when one of us is gifted to the Gods, we gift something back.
‘This is not what your mother was promised when she brought you to these lands.’ There is wrath in Kalilah’s tone. Sometimes I forget she was brought here too against her will. A term my mother negotiated before making the flight from home to here; one of our own will stand to be the girl’s handmaiden. ‘You were to be a princess, not a prized pig being pampered for slaughter.’
Back when she breathed, my mother lamented over how I just had to be born on the longest day of the year. When the air was so hot it burned just to breathe, and the already scarce water was bubbling under the heat. Her labours lasted from dawn till dusk. She would pinch my fat cheeks and tell me it was a sure sign I was born to be tough; no daughter of mine would enter this world without kicking and screaming, and no daughter of mine would come or go silently.
‘She should have known.’ The words whisper out of me. I want to sink my teeth into my tongue for uttering them, for daring to shit on the memory of the only one who ever loved me. Only now I’ve spoken the words, they dance around my mind on repeat. ‘No king cares for a bastard.’
Most of my memories of her have faded; a distant echo of a woman who waged war on an entire kingdom and paid the price for it. Not because she was concerned over the bloodshed of her daughter, but because it was a waste. Daughters are no more than playing pieces on a board. Why sacrifice me when I could be used to forge alliances? Sold in a pretty dress in exchange for a prettier dowry? Made to continue a bloodline that would never truly be mine.
It’s what happened to my older sister; she cried on her wedding day and screamed through the night. Though, what will happen to me isn’t so different. I’m just the same piece in a different kind of game.
There is lore of how the Golden Kingdom came to be and how it has remained standing through every war and storm waged upon the realm.
They call it the Giving Day, and it is the greatest lie ever told. Legend tells us of a God who brokered a deal with a king many ages ago, in a time when Elysian was much like a daughter. Torn through and apart by stronger realms, with no armies to her name and no allies to rally at their sides. Only a king with too many sons and not enough daughters to pay the way for their glory.
The land was dead, the water poisoned and the mines hollow.
Until one summer solstice, a messenger came in the form of a seer, with words from the Gods.
‘Give that which you hold dearest to your heart and receive all it is worth.’
King Aetos was the first born after several generations of queens. The books were burned some time ago, but I’ve heard whispers among the historians that those queens were offered the same deal. None of them took it; even the Queen Mother warned her kingly son of the risks surrounding a bargain hatched with a God.
Desperation is what drove him to it, a burning fear for his people. Or perhaps a luxurious life crumbling around him and the threat of being no better than a commoner. King Aetos was said to be a man of his people, but his heart only belonged to one: his daughter. Princess Aurelia, a blazing beauty, who could have ended the war with her hand, if her father would bear the thought of parting with her.
Born on the balmiest day of the year when the scorching kiss of the sun was the first thing she ever knew.
A babe who only knew the love of a father rather than the rule of a king was gifted. A girl who would never become a woman, who would burn before she bled. Ever since, Elysian has flourished with mines heavy with gemstones. Seas full of fat fish who seemingly sail into waiting nets. Fertile lands which blossom and bloom with more bounties every year. There is no starvation, there is no homelessness, there is no suffering.
Unimaginable glory for the price of one life every generation. Maybe that’s the reason I fought so hard not to be born.
‘We do not go gentle. This is not our way.’ Kalilah regards me, dark eyes smouldering. It’s the dress; very virginal is the white silk dress. A bride for their Gods to eat whole. A light layer of creamy gold paint glittering under the falling sunlight. ‘If we were to do it now, take all the jewels you have, we could pay for passage on a ship!’
‘No one would risk their comforts for the Bronze Bitch.’ There was a time when I shared my handmaiden’s passion. When I viciously fought against a fate decided for me, but those days are dead and soon I will be too. ‘Take what you can carry and leave before they come for me.’
Closer and closer drew the hour. Before my eyes the skies were beginning to bleed. Once they turned ruby like a bloody wound it would be time to set me alight. Adorning this finely made dress with fabric that sings to the flames to catch it. Brown skin glazed in a shimmery golden paint, like one of the performers who captivate the stage in the summer fayre. I’m going to smell my own flesh burning. I’ve known what awaited me since I was a child and yet, I still cannot make peace with it.
‘I hope when they burn you, you burn down this entire realm with you.’ Kalilah’s voice is the last one I want to hear. Her long fingers clasp my chin, forcing my head to lift and my eyes meet her glaring ones. ‘When you meet their precious God, use this to cut their throat.’
Strange is the sight of the blade forged in our homeland. I never thought I’d ever touch one again. Ferocian steel melded into the shape of a flame, the runes of victory and wrath etched into its glinting bronze surface. Oiled with love and determination over the years. Its serpent-like handle fits well into my hand when I take it from Kalilah with an elated sense of hope.
Can a mere mortal slay a God?
*
Unimaginable glory for the price of one life every generation. Maybe that’s the reason I fought so hard not to be born.
*
Nothing could have prepared me for the scale of celebratory euphoria when they began to burn me. They did not scream in horror when the oil was lashed at me by the hooded priestesses. They did not silence themselves at my screams but rather revelled in them. They did not gag at the stench of my flesh cooking before their very eyes.
Until the darkness came for me. Until the crackling of the flames in my ears deafened. Until all that was left was the sound of my own fury echoing in this quiet. Only even in this, I am not truly alone.
There are many Gods the Elysians worship; primarily Aurum, God of Prosperity. It was He who forged the deal for the daughters of kings. Father of the ever golden, of the golden glory and the golden flame. Generous giver of the wealth and wonder which captivates all of Elysian and her lovers.
He was who I expected to meet in this everlasting space after death; he is who I wanted to curse out and cut the throat of. Not whoever stood before me, draped under a crimson veil that clung to her tall figure with a wet shine. All I can feel is the remnants of the agony it took to burn, how it dragged by like endless hours. All I can taste is smoke and flesh.
‘You are exactly where you are meant to be.’ A wince tears through me at the stinging lash of the voice. Not like any you would hear in the mortal realm; it echoes through my ears and rings like shattering bells. ‘You are everything I hoped you would be.’
Only I am not supposed to be here. I am meant to be in the ever-golden where I can finally find my peace. It is what I am due for the price of my life. To be unravelled into the world once again, to be the voice echoing in the winds and the warmth on Kalilah’s skin when she finally finds freedom. To become nothing that can be bargained, taken, or sold ever again. Not here in this place where the wetness soaks into my skin, creating a grimy film mixed in with the ashes.
‘What are you?’ I don’t even think the words come from my mouth. Every time I open my mouth my throat stings from the touch of air, but I take no breaths. It’s senseless but the veiled figure hears me. ‘What now?’
‘I am the wrath of the Gods; I am the blade on the back of kings’ necks.’ The veiled figure’s voice is haunting. Dances through one ear and out of the other, like the quick slice of steel across the tender skin between your fingers. ‘Your father has broken the bargain. You are not the promised. You are scraps thrown to us like we are dogs.’
Of course, a bastard would never be good enough for the Gods. All at once it made too much sense and I could almost howl with laughter. Throw my head back and bloody my throat with the absurdness of it all. They demanded a princess, not the creation of desperation to pay a price too steep for a greedy man. All of that life for nothing, all of that pain for nothing.
‘I am not scraps. I was a person, is what comes out instead. And I was; I had desires and dreams. They made me crawl through broken glass to get to this moment, to be taken by the Gods as a gift and I sang their songs and whispered their prayers and it wasn’t enough. ‘I’m what they promised.’
A daughter born on the longest day of summer, untouched by any man and sworn to devote my entire world to the Gods I didn’t even know. Groomed with oils in my hair and dried saffron in my bathwater. Made to kiss the hand that beat me when I stumbled over the verses in the temple, taunted by the children who wouldn’t be burned for their kingdom, despised by the woman who helped rip me from my own mother’s arms.
And I did take it all because I had nothing else. Listened to every mockery uttered in my mother’s name. Gritted my teeth with every slap that seared across my cheek. Watched the ships my mother sent in my name burn in the ocean.
‘You are not the promised, you are the forsaken.’ There is a whimsical note in her tone. From where she stands on the altar, light flickers from the flames burning on either side, catching a shine that looks wet and drips. Only then are my eyes drawn to the stone she stands on. ‘And it is I who takes that which is forsaken. Your King betrayed the Gods, and he will pay for that in bloodshed.’
*
‘Your father has broken the bargain. You are not the promised. You are scraps thrown to us like we are dogs.’
*
There is no rapid beating of my heart or blood rushing through my ears but there is blood. It stains and swells on the Gods’ altar. Drips from the veil she is shrouded in. Glints off the edges of the sharpened swords rested at her feet, soaks the tips of the curved blades laid in offering, clots around the still hearts laid at her feet and I know her name. Only I didn’t think the Elysians would open their door to such a deity, never thought Azar would meet me.
Goddess of Wrath and Bloodshed: the last name whispered by the warriors of Feroce. Here I am kneeling before her in ashes and agony of what they did to me. Did she meet my mother when she was burned too?
‘Give that which you hold dearest to your heart,’ I echo those ancient words heralded by the nameless seer aeons ago. Maybe it wasn’t an offering he brought to the ears of a desperate king at all, but a demand. A warning heeded by all before my father. ‘And receive all it is worth.’
All he had to do was love me. In hindsight, it’s so simple. All the legends were of beloved daughters who have been mourned to this day. They stepped onto the pyres willingly because they were saving the souls of those they loved. Losing them wasn’t something simple and organised, it was cruel and destroying. Their fathers were devastated to give up someone so beloved. Whereas my father eagerly pushed me towards this fate with relief it wouldn’t be his true daughter.
‘But she wasn’t born on the solstice,’ I whisper. It had to be me even if he did love her truly.
‘All myths are made by men. We never demanded anything more than the dearest daughter.’ Firelight catches Azar, and I see the wink of armour beneath her bloody veil. The twist of a snake slithering around her neck and down her chest. ‘The first daughter was delivered on the first day, not born.’
It was a lie. All of it was a lie. Just a truth manipulated by time to justify the death of who knows how many daughters. How many of them were bastards put on the pyre just to get rid of? There was no way I could be the first. All of it was folklore at best dressed up as something sacred and celestial between man and the Gods.
‘Where are the others?’ I whisper, desperate, head swinging around only to find myself in a soulless cavern of stone that echoes all around me. The thick and steady drip of what I don’t think is water. The stone beneath my feet cold. I can feel them, feel the reaches of fury and vengeance in the air. Why are they still here?’
‘Because there has to be balance. As many given, as many forsaken.’ Azar’s voice boldens, and thickens with bloodlust. I hear the clink of her armour and the hiss of her snakes when she strides down the steps of her altar. ‘They always forget the second half of the bargain.’
Azar moves fluidly by me; her mere presence stills the air and I find myself leaping away from her, scared to be bitten by one of the snakes that swirl and wind themselves across her lithe body, follow the tips of her shadow to where they all wait. Burnt and bloody are the forsaken daughters taken to the pyre to be burned for lies twisted and told to benefit the will of kings.
‘If you do not give that which you hold dearest to your heart, it will be torn from your bloody, begging hands.’