I sift the flour. It falls like snow onto the waiting butter, but there is nothing cold about this place. Brittle husks removed, the powder matches my dress which falls limp from my body, bone white in the glare of the sun, in the glare of the thousands watching.

I haven’t seen real snow since I was five, wearing white as I am now and standing in a line of similarly plump and pretty girls. The Mayor in his thick furs looked down on me and declared, 'You look like a Princess,' and I beamed, and my mother cried so hard her eyes bled, and he seized my arm and took me south to live in a palace and learn only to bake. He is in the crowd now, adorned in rubies, sweating. Perhaps my mother is there, too. But today it is the Queen who will give me away.

 Next, I scatter spices. I dream of their scent every night. The stab of ginger, the betrayal of cinnamon. Will I still dream when this is over? Maybe of a tender love of my own choosing, or of cherries bursting in my mouth.

 I stir gently, praying that the butter won’t curdle in this heat. Then, with an audible crack, I break an egg. The yolk spills golden in the bowl, food for a tiny life unspent.

The Queen hands me a knife on a silken pillow. I slit my already scarred finger. My blood is needed to bind the flour, to bind me to the beast.

The mixture coagulates into a sticky dough. I ease it onto a platter of pure gold. I’m told that after the dish melts, the King’s men will collect every blessed drop to make a new crown, his line secure for another hundred years. I drizzle my raw loaf with honey, because it seems there is never enough gold.

 I walk barefoot, as I have been taught, up stone steps to a rocky outcrop jutting over the glittering blue sea. I do not tremble. I place my as yet unburnt offering onto the awaiting altar, and sit gently beside it, my feet dangling over the edge and my hair whipped in the breeze.

 I have baked a thousand sacrificial cakes. But wish I could eat this one perfect confection, just one last crumbling bite, to replace the taste of ash upon my tongue.

 The sun has almost reached its zenith. I hear the beat of dragon wings.