The Mayaware's reign has to end.
In a world of demonic beings with a hunger for human flesh, and thirst for blood, Hesi Renen knows it well. When her siblings are taken to the harvesting farms, she must do everything she can to get them out, even if...
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Hesi stared at the ceiling, running her gaze at the mural painted into it. For uncivilized creatures such as the Mayaware, it was certainly interesting. Yellow and orange blended in a colorful mirage depicting a demon warrior aboard a golden chariot pulled by growling, spotted cats. The warrior's face was frozen mid-scream, his arm pointing forward as if leading the charge towards a battle that never happened.
Around the warrior sat the other personas each bearing different animal heads to represent the gods the Mayaware had concocted for themselves. There was Haqtep, with his snake head rearing back with his frills wide open. The god of nature and the divine representation of the reptilian race of the Mayaware. Feretu, the goddess of the moon and death, spread her wings and soared above the battlefield, her long beak opened wide as if issuing a war cry. Then, for some reason, Opkher, the sun god, sped through the scene as a giant ball of puru.
She could have rolled her eyes at the sight of such a tacky imitation of a better mural in the temples of Ser-Djare before the city was razed to the ground when the Mayaware were still on their non-sentient days. She could have called the demons out for trying to replace the holy gods with beings who only reminded her of the carnage they brought upon her kind but judging from the pointed look the lecturer in the front was giving her, it's not the time for her sentiments to show on her face.
Instead, she leveled her chin to the ground and smiled as sweetly as she could. "I was just admiring the ceiling," she said, swallowing every bit of acid from her tone. "The artists did a good job."
The Mayaware lecturer nodded and waved his hand at the mural. "Ah yes," he said in perfect Birejyet, which shocked Hesi the first time she heard it. Now, she was just annoyed at his reedy and unnecessarily shrill voice. "The humans have outdone themselves and even succeeded in making an excellent dinner for the Demon King that night."
A painful twinge rolled inside Hesi's gut. If it was a normal banquet, "making an excellent dinner" would have meant a wholly harmless experience of cooking and serving the host. But with the Mayaware involved...
She didn't even get to finish that thought when the lecturer clapped his hands, the loud sound making her flinch as it echoed across the hall's empty stone walls. She stuck her lip out, dropping her chin into her palm, leaning against the low table the lecture hall sported. The day had started early, with Hesi being fed from a literary spoon what it meant to be a Mayaware in the empire before the sun was even out in its full glory. Most of the information passed through her brain, but there were things that stuck out like bleeding stumps.
Like the time when Uzare raised a hand around two hours in and asked, "Why does the Mayaware need human women in the first place? What's the need for this competition and the trials?"
The lecturer's eyes bulged, as if the question caught him off guard. They'd just been talking about the nature of Mayawares and how they evolved from beings of pitless hunger to creatures who had learned to exercise some type of control. Maybe his little demon brain couldn't understand the connection Uzare made, or if the bride ever meant for the question to connect at all.
