The morning they came for me, I was scrubbing blood from the butcher's floor.
My knees ached against the cold stone, hands raw and red from lye soap. Most girls in Ashenvale would consider this work beneath them, but most girls in Ashenvale had families who wanted them. I had Mrs. Kellan's begrudging charity and a straw pallet in the storage room that smelled of old meat.
"Ava Goodchild!" The voice echoed through the shop, formal and sharp.
I froze, brush still in hand. No one used my full name. Here, I was just "the Goodchild girl" or "that orphan" or, when Mrs. Kellan was in a mood, "useless mouth to feed."
The brush clattered to the floor as I stood, wiping my hands on my already filthy apron. Through the doorway, I could see them—three figures in ceremonial robes , The Village Olders.
My stomach dropped.
No. Not yet. I'm only nineteen. The Choosing isn't for another month.
But the look on Elder Moira's face told me everything. The lottery had been held early this year. And somehow, impossibly, my name had been drawn.
"Ava Goodchild," Elder Moira repeated, stepping into the shop. Her eyes held something that might have been pity if she were capable of such softness. "You have been selected for the Sacred Sacrifice. You will come with us. Now."
Mrs. Kellan appeared from the back room, wiping her hands on her apron. For once, she didn't look annoyed—she looked relieved. Of course she did. One less mouth to feed.
"I need to—" I started, looking around the shop that had been my prison for three years. "My things—"
"You need nothing from your old life," Elder Thomas cut in, his voice cold. "Everything you require will be provided."
Provided. As if I were a bride being prepared for a wedding instead of a lamb dressed for slaughter.
"The ceremony is in three days," Elder Moira continued. "You will be cleansed, prepared, and educated on what is expected of you."
Expected. Such a polite word for what would happen in that mountain fortress. For what the Beast would do to me.
Every two hundred years, like clockwork. A virgin sacrifice. Breeding stock for a monster who had terrorized these lands for over a millennium. And in all that time, no offspring had ever been produced. No child had ever been born.
They said only a true mate could give the Beast an heir. They said he killed the ones who failed.
I'd spent my entire life being unwanted. Now I would die the same way.
"Come," Elder Moira extended her hand, and I saw the iron bracelet dangling from her fingers. Once that locked around my wrist, I would be marked. Claimed. There would be no escape.
I looked back at Mrs. Kellan one last time, hoping for... what? Comfort? Protest? Some sign that my life here had mattered?
She just nodded toward the door.
I took a step forward, then another. The bracelet clicked shut around my wrist, cold and final.
"There's a good girl," Elder Moira murmured, as if I'd had any choice at all.
As they led me out into the grey morning, I caught sight of my reflection in the shop window—thin, pale, forgettable. The kind of girl a village would sacrifice without losing sleep.
I'd been unwanted all my life.
Now I belonged to a monster.
What I didn't know, as the Elders guided me toward the preparation house on the hill, was that there wasn't just one Beast waiting in that mountain fortress.
There were four.
And I wouldn't just be a sacrifice.
___
The preparation house sat on the highest hill in Ashenvale, a stone building that overlooked the village like a silent sentinel. I'd passed it countless times, never thinking I'd be the one walking through its heavy wooden doors.
Inside, the air smelled of lavender and something else—something medicinal that made my throat tight. The Elders led me through a narrow corridor into a circular room where a fire crackled in an enormous hearth. Steam rose from a copper tub in the center, and three women I didn't recognize waited beside it.
"Strip," one of them said, not unkindly. She was older, with silver threading through her dark hair. "Everything."
My hands trembled as I unlaced my filthy dress. The fabric fell away, and I stood there in nothing but my thin chemise .
"That too," the woman instructed.
Heat flooded my cheeks. I'd never been naked in front of anyone, never been touched by a man. That was the whole point, wasn't it? Twenty-two years of careful preservation, all for this.
All my life, I have never been touched by a man. I've remained clean and chaste.
The words from the old texts echoed in my mind as I pulled the chemise over my head. The women's faces remained impassive as they guided me into the tub. The water was almost too hot, but I bit back any complaint.
"Three days," the silver-haired woman said as she poured something floral into the water. "Three days to prepare you for the Convergence."
"Convergence?" The word slipped out before I could stop it.
The three women exchanged glances. Finally, the youngest one—barely older than me—spoke. "You don't know?"
"Know what?"
Elder Moira's voice cut through the room like a blade. I hadn't heard her enter. "That is enough, attendants. Speak only of what concerns the ritual."
But the damage was done. My mind was racing now, latching onto that single word.
Convergence implied... what? Multiple things coming together?
The attendants worked in silence after that, scrubbing my skin until it was pink and raw, washing my hair with oils that smelled of night-blooming flowers. When they finally pulled me from the tub, they wrapped me in robes softer than anything I'd ever worn.
"Tomorrow, you'll begin your education," Elder Moira said, studying me with those cold, calculating eyes. "Tonight, you rest. Eat. Regain your strength."
"And if I refuse?" The question came out quieter than I intended, but it still echoed in the stone chamber.
Elder Moira's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Then the Beast—the Beasts—will come down from the mountain and take what they need from this village by force. Every virgin daughter. Every young woman. They will tear through Ashenvale until their needs are satisfied, and the blood of hundreds will be on your hands."
My blood turned to ice. "Beasts? You said—"
"I said what you needed to hear to come quietly." She stepped closer, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. "The truth is far more complicated, girl. And far more dangerous than you can imagine."
She turned and swept from the room, leaving me standing there in borrowed silk, dripping water onto stone floors, my mind reeling.
Beasts. Plural.
They left me in a room at the top of the tower—a space more luxurious than anywhere I'd ever slept. A real bed with thick blankets. A table laden with food: roasted meat, fresh bread, fruits I'd only seen at the market. A window that overlooked the village below and, in the distance, the dark shape of the mountain.
I couldn't eat.
Instead, I stood at the window as the sun set, painting the sky in shades of blood and amber. Somewhere up in that mountain, they were waiting. Not one Beast, but multiple.
How many?
What did they want from me?
And why had no sacrifice ever produced an heir?
A soft knock interrupted my spiraling thoughts. The young attendant from earlier slipped inside, glancing nervously over her shoulder before closing the door.
"I shouldn't be here," she whispered. "But I can't—you should know what you're walking into."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Tell me."
She crossed to me quickly, her voice barely audible. "There are four of them. Brothers, bound by an ancient curse. They can't be together without their magic tearing everything apart—unless their mate is present."
"Mate?" The word felt foreign on my tongue.
"You're not just a sacrifice, Ava. You're meant to be their anchor. Their balance. The one who can give them what they've been denied for a thousand years."
"An heir," I breathed.
She nodded. "But it's not just one you have to—" She faltered, cheeks flushing. "All four must claim you. Bond with you. Only then can the curse break. Only then can a child be conceived."
"I can't," I whispered. "I can't possibly—"
"You have to." Her grip on my arm tightened. "Because if you fail, if you reject even one of them, the curse strengthens. And the next sacrifice won't happen in two hundred years, Ava. It'll happen in twenty. Then two. Until they're taking girls every year, every month, desperately searching for the one who can save them."
She released me and moved toward the door. "My sister was supposed to be chosen twenty years ago. The lottery was rigged—they chose an orphan instead. She lived. I've carried that guilt every day since."
The door opened, then closed, and I was alone again.
I sank onto the bed, my mind unable to process what I'd just learned.
Four of them.
Four monsters waiting in the mountain.
And I was supposed to be their salvation.
If I survived long enough to try.