Page 36 of The Villains of Winter

“Here. Don’t starve yourself.” James lent a handful of venison cuts into his palm. When did he have time to go hunting?

Down below, crammed among the rest of the orphans and foster children, Kitty’s eyes were glossed with tears, and her mouth was wet with vomit. She looked sickened as she gazed up at James with heartache.

As if it were the very last time she would ever lay eyes on him.

Elliott wished he could sprint down the steps to reassure her that James would be fine. However, Mrs. Ledgerman would slap him across the mouth for it. Mrs. Ledgerman stood right beside Kitty in the cold and she would not tolerate any disregard of tradition from him. It was unbecoming of a young man.

Elliott tried to nod at Kitty in solace, but she only cried harder.

James had worn his most formal attire, excessively handsome in full black. A lick of his moon-white hair fell in his eyes and Elliott held back the urge to run his fingers through the strand to set it back into place.

Instead, James kept the errant strand. With his right hand, he held his tailored coat over his right shoulder and he stared ahead at the ceremony procession in restless boredom. After an hour, he blurted, “How long do these last?”

It occurred to Elliott that James had not attended any services or ceremonies in years. That might’ve been his very first sacrificial ceremony in almost a decade. Perhaps ever.

“Two hours.”

“Two hours? You’re taking the piss,” James gasped out loud. “You stand here for two hours every winter?”

“It rained gruesomely last year.”

“You didn’t retreat to the dormitory after twenty minutes?” James pointed out, gesturing to the crowds. “No one would’ve known you were gone; everyone is here.”

That was exactly the reason Elliott faithfully attended. There was a young person that was sent to die and they needed the comfort of everyone. How could the entire town not show up to support them? He couldn’t turn his back on them and head to sleep while they headed to death, it felt compassionless. The chosen honorarium willingly went to burial on behalf of their tributary gift to the Crucian deity.

Elliott couldn’t be trusted with his thoughts on the mornings after the ceremony. He often spiraled into despair. The guilt weighed on him and he drank for several nights afterwards. All he could think of was Mr. Newton. He couldn’t stomach the provisions. He didn’t partake at all in the honorarium feasts where everyone devoured the roasted rams, seasoned bull meat, and spiced oxen.

He merely drank himself to sleep in his bed.

Elliott participated in their death, and thus, he held himself accountable to attend their final ceremony. However, James was past the point of restless after thirty more minutes, which distracted Elliott from his prayers to God.

“Surely we can’t stand here for all two hours. When is the damn killing announcement?” James glanced at the woodsmen who knelt at the base of the platform beneath them. Not one huntsman moved from their position.

Elliott whispered, “At the very end.”

James rolled his eyes. “This ceremony is absurd. It’s a bastardization of the Anglo-Saxons, anyway.”

Elliott held his tongue as the practitioners delivered their panegyric, reiterating the necessity of self sacrifice to the winter deity and praising the profound bravery of contributing to the rites. The provost sat furthest behind, too far for Elliott to see, even if he squinted.

James checked his wristwatch.

At last, the two hours had passed. 1:59 AM.

The pale sun wouldn’t peek through the blanched-white sky, seeping light over the mountain range that enveloped Banebury until after seven. In the crude, early dark, the woodsmen rose from the weathered earth. It was time.

A few of the senior electors shot back a thimbleful of bracers and drams, preparing themselves for the moment. Callum Han’s hand quavered with regret, and he refused to meet Elliott’s eyes, nearly spilling the libation on himself. Elliott had never seen him that unraveled before.

Elliott narrowed his eyes on him. We have an agreement.

Callum kept his eyes fused on his feet.

The rector was in attendance with the provost’s bident.

His electors were swathed in obsidian robes behind him as he finally ascended the stage to extend the provost’s terse gratitude to the dutiful masses of Banebury.

Elliott’s breath stopped as the rector handed the bident to the smirking Lucien Montclair. Wreathed upon Lucien’s head were broad, forked stag antlers for the winter forest ritual. “By the merit of their peers, the Æscwulf College trust of electors have selected their chosen honorarium for this year’s hibernal ceremony. May Winterfylleþ be merciful.”

“May Winterfylleþ be merciful,” Elliott muttered with the rest of the breathless students. Who would it be this year?