The Priestess must perform the blood sacrifice twice a year

The Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, the Eaten One, is bound by an ancient and unvarying ritual obligation: twice each year, at the full moon nearest the spring and autumn equinoxes, she must perform a blood sacrifice before the Throne and then pour out the offering at the foot of the standing black stone and over one of the fallen stones within the Tomb Wall. This rite is the central act of her service to the Nameless Ones, the powers that ruled before the world of men, and it marks the rhythm of her life at the Place of the Tombs.

The Ritual and Its Setting

The sacrifice takes place after a ceremony in the Hall of the Throne, where the Priestess emerges from the low back door carrying a great brass basin full of smoking goat's blood. She must pour half of it at the foot of the standing black stone, a monolith that rises eighteen or twenty feet high, smooth and glossy, untouched by lichen. The other half she pours over one of the fallen stones, which lies embedded in the rocky dirt, its surface stained by centuries of such offerings. The nine stones that form the Tombs are ancient beyond memory, said to have been planted when the lands were raised from the ocean's depths, and they are the tombs of those who ruled before the world of men came to be. The Priestess alone may enter this ground; no one else ever sets foot within the rock wall that encircles the hilltop behind the Hall.

The Priestess's Role and the Meaning of the Sacrifice

The twice-yearly blood offering is not merely a ceremonial duty but a fundamental expression of the Priestess's identity. She is the Eaten One, the nameless servant of the Nameless Ones, and her life is given to them until her death, which is also theirs. The sacrifice renews this bond, acknowledging that the Priestess belongs wholly to the powers that dwell in the Tombs. The act of pouring the blood—warm, smoking, and fresh—over the ancient stones is a direct, physical communion with the earth and the forces that lie beneath it. It is a moment when the sacred and the profane meet, when the Priestess stands as the intermediary between the living community of the Place and the silent, demanding powers of the underworld.

The Place and Its Significance

The Tombs themselves are the most ancient and sacred of all places in the Kargad Empire, older than the Godkings and the Twin Gods. The nine stones, some standing straight, others leaning or fallen, are crusted with grey and orange lichen, save for the one black stone that is smooth and glossy. Vague carvings can be felt on the others under the lichen—shapes and signs that hint at meanings lost to time. The ground within the Tomb Wall is cold and dreary, even in the heat of noon, and the wind sometimes whistles between the two stones that lean together as if telling secrets. Yet no secret is told. The Priestess goes there not for revelation but for duty, and the silence of the stones is the silence of the Nameless Ones themselves.

The Priestess's Life and the Weight of the Ritual

The twice-yearly sacrifice is one of the few times the Priestess enters the Tombs, but it shapes her entire existence. She is set apart from the other girls and women of the Place, living alone in the Small House, and her days are filled with the rites and disciplines that prepare her for this and other sacred duties. The blood offering is a reminder of her unique and terrible role: she is the one who has been eaten, whose name and former self have been consumed by the Nameless Ones. The ritual is both a privilege and a burden, a moment of power and of submission. It is the axis around which her life turns, the fixed point in the cycle of the year that confirms her identity as the One Priestess, the Eaten One, forever bound to the stones and the darkness they guard.