Maiden's Den
By Monica Lyrehart
The icy breath of Llullaillaco volcano rattles her headdress’ bones. Drums punctuate her palanquined ascent and beat away the howls of the long wolves. Their legs bend through the forest like walking trees, heads hunched and maws smiling. They track the procession with yolk-yellow eyes, her only moons on this starless night.
They don’t look real. More like people in another skin. She smiles at them. Forgives them for their hunger and for cowering from the lilting torches.
Her mouth becomes a royal cup, filled with sweet chicha again, again. Coca leaves swim in her gums, speaking for her when her tongue still moves. A promised one must indulge. She watches the priestesses paint the way ahead with bells and red ribbons that glide from tall sticks. How many times will they make this march?
She does not regret. Priestess would have been a sorry life.
A gentle brush of skin, fingers to wrist. Her lover. His voice is full of smoke, like the night his people claimed hers. She need not know what he says. She is Apu’s maiden now.
Her palanquin melts into many hands. A final warmth as she is lifted.
They arrange her inside the ruined apacheta, neatly restacking the frozen stones until she no longer feels Llullaillaco’s breath.
The drums roll down the mountain, as soft and distant as her heart. The cold is the first to claim her. Next, comes the hungry scraping and the rattling of stones.
Monica Lyrehart is a speculative fiction author, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever” according to her tiny army of three.