Excerpt: The Summer King

The Legend of the Summer King
Sometimes fate asks us to show what we are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve what we desire. In the river of life, these points represent the forks in the stream, the places where one small point creates two separate rivers that go in completely different directions.
Sometimes fate decides to ask us through a drought.
Sometimes fate decides to ask us through a flood.
Sometimes it is a wild fire, or a sick relative, or a plague.
Fate doesn’t ask everyone, or anyone. Kanachia has always been selective. Sometimes the person who is asked responds with a no, but almost always the person knows that it is coming, and they know that they should respond yes. So they do.
Once upon a time, those who were brave and were ready to say yes, would go to the summer tree. The summer tree wasn’t always a tree, sometimes it wasn’t even wood. Once they were there, a priest would tie them to the structure. Somehow they had to last for three days. Three days without food.
Three days without water.
Three days without companionship.
On the third day, Kanachia would appear, and she would ask what they had come for. Somehow, that poor sod, the jerk that fate chose to torment, he had to lift his head up and ask for an exchange. His life to stop the drought. To end the flood. To replace the life of his sick relative.
If she deemed him worthy, Kanachia would summon her sister, Erten. Then the two would take him to Pater, to the underworld. His wish would be granted, and his life would be the forfeit.
If he was deemed unworthy than he was cut free. She just cut him loose and then disappeared. This is worse. Not only is his suffering for nothing, but he’s still not had anything to drink in three days. Most of the time this poor deluded man dies from thirst, left there like refuse.

“Have you ever heard of anyone going to the summer tree?” Cally asked, surprised by the sudden outburst of emotion that had started to creep into Barin’s voice toward the end.
“Yes, but it’s just a legend for a reason. Three days of suffering, and in the end he was just cut loose like a pile of garbage.”
“But what if it’s not just a legend?” Sullata’s beautiful eyes were close together, her brows furrowed.
“It is, and it’s a dangerous one to boot.”
“Dangerous?” Cally associated danger with bears and falling, not stories.
“If it encourages innocent folks to give up their life for nothing in return? Yeah, I’d call that dangerous.”