Chapter 58
December, 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
PAREESA
Pareesa felt numb as she watched the warriors interweave branches from the sacred cedar with date-palm trunks to build a bonfire large enough to fight back the darkness on this longest night of the year. Once upon a time their people had believed the nights grew darker because the sun was in its death throes and that, if they did not hold a vigil, the sunlight would never rise again. Once upon a time their village had believed that they needed to make sacrifice to fortify the sun gods, a human sacrifice, and that whoever cast themselves upon the fire could plead with those gods to make the sun return.
Nobody believed in such things anymore. The festival of Narduğan had taken on a different meaning during her lifetime; the l
