Do gods really exist?
Huo Yue couldn't help but wonder as she was crucified, staring at the group of tribal women dancing and praying.
The rough timber of the cross bit brutally into the skin of her back, the fibrous ropes soaked in some acrid, sticky botanical resin that burned against her wrists and ankles like creeping lye.
Above her, the sky hung bruised and purple, swollen with stagnant monsoon clouds that seemed to smother the very breath in her throat.
Around the sacrificial altar, the rhythmic, hypnotic pounding of hollow-log drums vibrated straight through the bedrock, matching the frantic, irregular hammering of her own heart.
The tribal women moved like living shadows beneath the flickering torchlight.
Their dark skin was painted with intricate, spiraling talismans traced in crushed luminescent bone-meal and ochre ash.
