The Daughter Who Refused To Die

By the time the cathedral bells tolled Matins, the city was already dressing for her death.

From the narrow window of her tower cell, Ysara watched ribbons of white and gold flutter across the crooked streets. Vendors hung garlands; banners of the radiant sun — her god’s eye — draped from balconies. Children ran below wearing paper crowns, carrying little wooden dolls painted to resemble her.

They’d never seen her face. They didn’t need to. They knew what she was: a sacrifice.

“Blessed Daughter,” came Sister Mael’s voice at the door. “Your bath is ready.”

Ysara didn’t turn from the window. A boy in the square pretended to stab himself with a stick, his friends cheering.

She wondered if they’d cheer tomorrow when they watched her die.

“Blessed Daughter,” Mael said, firmer.

“You could stop calling me that,” Ysara murmured.

Sister Mael, veiled and austere, stepped inside. She had raised Ysara from infancy — teaching her obedience, ritual, and the hollow comfort of inevitability.

“Names are not ours to choose,” Mael said. “They are given by the god.”

“The god, or the Council?” Ysara asked.

A stiff silence.

“That kind of talk will not ease your soul.”

“Nothing will ease my soul,” Ysara said. “You saw to that long ago.”

Her gaze slid to the tapestry that consumed an entire wall: twelve past Blessed Daughters woven in gold and red, each shown kneeling in flames at the moment of her death. Their expressions were serene, too serene. A lie of thread.

The thirteenth outline waited, chalk faint on linen.

Her outline.

“Do you ever wonder,” Ysara asked quietly, “if they wanted to die?”

“They chose obedience,” Mael said. “As you will.”

Ysara almost laughed. “The first Blessed Daughter was five. The second was nine. The third tried to run.”

Mael stiffened.

“I read the annals,” Ysara said. “Behind the locked door you assumed I couldn’t open.”

Fear flickered across the older woman’s face.

“The archivist will be punished,” Mael whispered.

“He already has been,” Ysara said. “They took his tongue.”

The silence that followed was a wound.

“You told me the god gave the prophecy,” Ysara continued. “But the original document isn’t prophecy — it’s decree. Written by Chancellor Arren. It begins: Let it be decreed…”

The slap cracked across her cheek so fast she barely registered it. Her head snapped sideways, breath catching.

Mael’s hand trembled.

“You should not have read that,” she whispered. “The weight of such knowledge—”

“Belongs only to the men who kill us?” Ysara spat.

She stepped closer, lowering her voice.

“Your prophecy keeps the people obedient. It keeps girls like me dying quietly. It keeps them in power.”

Sister Mael closed her eyes, as if in pain. “You think I haven’t questioned? Haven’t doubted?” Her voice cracked. “But the world is cruel, Ysara. The drought during the Ninth Daughter, the pestilence—”

“Both began before the ritual,” Ysara cut in. “You call every hardship divine punishment. But it’s just life. Chaos. Weather.” She gestured toward the tapestry. “This was never about god. It was politics.”

Mael’s face crumpled — not with anger, but with something like despair.

“You sound like her,” she whispered.

“Like who?”

“The Third Daughter. The one who ran.”

Ysara felt a cold twist in her stomach. “What happened to her?”

“What happens to all who defy,” Mael said. “They dragged her back. The god did not intervene.”

“Maybe the soldiers got there faster,” Ysara said.

Mael looked away.

“You have one night,” she said finally. “The Rite begins at dawn.”

“I’m not going,” Ysara said.

“You have no choice.”

“I’ll make one.”

Mael stared at her as though seeing her properly for the first time. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible.

“You will damn us all.”

“I thought my death was supposed to save you.”

Mael left without another word.

***

The bathwater cooled untouched. Ysara sat beside it, fingers wrapped around the iron key hidden in her sandal — stolen from the archivist two weeks before, pressed into her palm with trembling urgency.

Under the altar, he had mouthed. A door.

She’d found it: a small iron hatch beneath the ceremonial cloth, leading into the ancient catacombs and then the river tunnels — an escape carved centuries ago, unnoticed or forgotten.

Her plan had been simple: slip into the sanctuary at night, open the hatch, vanish into the dark, and live a life no one had written for her.

But tonight, everything felt sharper. Clearer. The lie was too enormous to ignore.

She waited until the cathedral quieted, until the last hymn faded and the novices returned to dormitories. Then she slipped her key into the tower door, eased it open, and crept down the spiraling stair.

The sanctuary was empty, moonlight spilling through stained glass. The altar rose before her: white marble veined red, waiting for her blood.

She reached beneath the cloth, found the hatch handle, pulled—

It didn’t move.

She pulled harder. Still nothing.

“Looking for something, child?”

Ysara froze.

High Chancellor Corren stood in the doorway, flanked by six robed priests. His smile was thin as parchment.

“We trusted your faith,” Corren said. “A foolish decision.”

“You blocked it,” Ysara said.

“Of course. Did you think you could crawl away like a frightened rat? You misunderstand your role.”

“It isn’t prophecy,” she said. “It’s a political tool.”

Corren approached, hands clasped behind his back.

“Fear is a crude tool,” he said. “Belief is finer. Your death is the hinge upon which our empire rests.”

“No,” Ysara said. “My death is the lie you built your power on.”

His gaze hardened. “The people need sacrifice. They need symbols. Without them, they rot.”

“Then why lie? Why pretend it came from the god?”

He tilted his head. “Truth is not for everyone. Chaos is a crueler god than ours.”

“You destroy anyone who questions you,” Ysara said. “Even children.”

“You were raised for this,” Corren replied. “It is all you’ve ever known.”

“And that makes it right?”

He seized her chin.

“You do not walk away from this,” he whispered. “Symbols do not get to choose.”

“Then why are you afraid?” she asked.

The moment stretched. Corren released her.

“Take her.”

Hands seized her arms.

Instinct burst through her. She ripped free a sandal strap, grabbed the hidden key, and drove it into a priest’s cheek. He screamed, staggered. The others recoiled. Ysara wrenched free and bolted.

She ran through dark corridors, heart pounding, torches blurring. The cathedral’s alarm bells erupted, shrill and panicked.

She burst into the processional courtyard. Novices carrying buckets of oil froze, staring.

The outer gate stood open, watchmen blinking in confusion.

Bootsteps thundered behind her.

She grabbed a bucket from a stunned novice, ran to the carved sanctuary doors, and hurled oil across them.

“Ysara!” Mael’s voice rang from the arcade. She looked terrified, veil slipping.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

Ysara met her eyes.

“You said the god didn’t save the Third Daughter,” Ysara said. “Maybe he was waiting for someone to save herself.”

She seized a torch from a festival bracket and slammed it into the oil.

Flame roared up the doors.

The novices gasped. The watchmen stumbled back. Smoke billowed into the sky.

Corren and his priests burst into the courtyard.

“What have you done?” he shouted.

“They told you my death keeps you safe,” Ysara cried to the crowd. “They lied. They control you by killing girls.”

“You’ll doom us all,” Corren snarled.

“No,” Ysara said. “You will.”

The crowd wavered — caught between awe and fear.

Then Mael stepped forward.

“The prophecy was a decree,” she said, voice shaking but clear. “I knew. I obeyed. I told myself it was necessary. But it was never divine — just convenient.”

Corren’s eyes widened in fury.

Mael lifted her veil, shadow falling from her scarred face.

“I am done lying,” she said.

The fresco above the doors cracked and crashed down in a shower of sparks. Someone screamed. Someone laughed.

“You think your fields grow because we burn a girl?” Ysara called. “Tomorrow, do not drink the ash wine. See if the sun rises anyway.”

A murmur rippled through the courtyard.

Corren shouted, “Seize them!”

No one moved.

Ysara climbed onto the fountain rim, smoke curling around her, flames reflecting in her eyes.

“If you’re done dying for their stories,” she said, “come with me.”

For a heartbeat, nothing.

Then the youngest novice, the girl who’d held the oil bucket, stepped to her side.

“I don’t want to drink ash anymore,” she whispered.

Others followed — hesitant, trembling, but moving. Mael joined them, veil discarded. One guard lowered his spear, then let it fall and walked toward them.

Corren screamed himself hoarse, unheard.

The cathedral, once the heart of their ordered world, collapsed inward with a roar, flames devouring centuries.

The sky above glowed red.

Ysara took the first step toward the open gate, her hand in Mael’s, the novice girl clutching her sleeve.

Behind them, prophecy burned.

Ahead, the city waited — chaotic, dangerous, alive.

Ysara didn’t look back.

She stepped into a future no longer written for her.