The gods lived among humans at the beginning. It was during this era a girl was born. A girl rumored to be more beautiful than the goddess of beauty herself.

The goddess was furious with the stories. What lowly human could dare to claim to even have a shred of the goddess' beauty?

She whispered to her lover, the god of strife, "If you love me, find her and bring her to me."

She had a few plans of what to do with that silly little mortal.

So the god sought out this girl as a gift to his lover. The human girl was as beautiful as rumored. And her outward beauty was mirrored within her soul. The foolish god of strife fell in love with a simple glance.

The god disguised himself as a wounded traveler. And the foolish woman took him into her home to nurse him back to health.

The woman resisted the god. She could not be enticed by things like power or money. She had no desire to entangle herself with a god. So the god of strife did what he did best, he took what he wanted, regardless of who it hurt and left nothing but destruction in his wake.

The goddess of beauty was infuriated. How dare a human covet what was hers?

It did not matter that the human did not want it. It didn't matter that the human girl was left broken, only a husk of herself. It didn't matter that the girl had already felt such despair from having the only thing that was truly hers stolen from her. The goddess decided she needed to be punished.

To gods, humans were nothing more than entertainment, so when the goddess of beauty asked for help, the others did not even think of the human girl.

First, the god of strife killed the girl's family. The girl was left heartbroken, wondering what she did to deserve the gods' wrath. But still she gave a sacrifice to the god of death and prayed for him to allow her family warmly, despite what the gods thought of her.

Then the god of storms destroyed her home, leaving her begging on the streets. Again, the girl sacrificed to the god of death, praying for the people who did not survive the storm. The goddess of friendship made her town chase her out, leaving her an outcast without a town to call her own. Again, the girl sacrificed to the god of death to mourn the loss of her home.

That's when the goddess of beauty realized she was a fool.

The girl was too kind. She gave away all she had, getting and expecting nothing in return. Every night she prayed to the god of death, remembering each body she passed during her travels.

The human girl became ill and malnourished, still she did not complain. She did not pray to the gods for mercy. She believed that if the gods were punishing her, she must've done something to deserve it. She simply prayed for mercy for those around her.

Finally the goddess came when the poor foolish woman was nothing more than skin and bones, without a thing to her name. The goddess sobbed. She was blind, you see, as she told the woman, and her son had been born. She wanted nothing more than to be able to see him. And the foolish woman, moved to tears, gave the goddess her eyes.

The goddess, now satisfied that she had taken everything from the poor girl, told her that she would give a gift in return for her sacrifice.

The girl sobbed. It had been so long since anyone had shown her such kindness. The goddess gifted her a letter, calling the human girl every foul curse in human language, detailing everything the goddess had done to her. But the girl had no way to read it. She simply thought it was a letter of gratitude.

The goddess left her on the street to die, but the woman was so overwhelmed by the gift to care. She prayed to the god of death, the only god who listened to her anymore, for the safety of the woman's child. The foolish human girl died, cradling the goddess' letter to her chest.

The god of death had grown fond of the poor child. The only foolish human to ever pray to him. He had been touched by the woman's kindness, touched that she would even bother praising a god like him that every other human feared.

He decided to reward the poor human girl for all the suffering she had to go through. After all, her only crime was being beautiful.

But the god's wrath was equal to his love. His reward doubled as a punishment to all the gods who had tortured the poor girl over nothing.

He reincarnated the girl, trapping the powers of all the other gods inside her. She would become a prison to them while having enough power that she would never have to live a miserable life again.

He promised her, each time they would meet again, he would create a new life for her to live, so that she could experience all of the good in the world before finally coming to rest in the underworld by his side.

The gods, now without their power, learned the cruelty of human nature. And thus, they locked themselves away in the heavens and walked along the humans no longer.

Because of this myth, every hundred years, the year of the god of death, a child born during his year was sacrificed. Each year, a clan was selected by the archbishop.

The duke's son was born late, he was supposed to be born in the winter of the year of the goddess of souls. Instead, he was born the first day the year of death.

The parents panicked. They could not sacrifice the duke's one and only son. A son they had achieved after so long.

No one got pregnant within the year of death. Anyone who did got rid of the child, any child born in the year of death, sacrifice or no, was cursed.

To the public, the duke's son was born in the year of souls. The duke desperately searched brothels, any hope for a woman that might be pregnant. And then some hope.

There was a servant that worked in his home. He had a greed and a hunger for power that was insatiable. He made a trade. For the servant and his wife to have a child and he would let their existing daughter be engaged to his son.

It was well known that the servant heavily favored his daughter. She was rumored to be the best beauty in the entire clan. He had always bragged that she would marry someone of high status.

The servant leapt at the opportunity. His wife gave birth to a daughter. The last week of the year.

The damned child was meant to die.

Only sacrificed, we assumed they meant die.

Get rid of it. I don't want it.

We cannot anger the gods