Page 5 of The Heart Trials

The sooner I get a ship, the sooner this is over for all of us.

Every second of Census Day is so painfully slow, I am relieved when it is over. Near the end with only a few in line in front of us, the crowd has thinned and the square is now only littered with discarded pamphlets. I pass the time flipping through one of them. It’s the usual: the Benevolent’s portrait, a historical recollection of the last fifteen years since the Redwake rebellion, “The Echo of the Allegiant” lyrics, and an entire section about the importance of Census Day.

Stats are in big letters along the top: Heartfillers reduced crime by 42 percent from last solstice; 95 percent of lowborns report improved sleep satisfaction; citizens with no memory of loss or longing: 61 percent and rising; 72 percent of Stonebounds describe improved focus and lower emotional interference; overall Ethyrian productivity up by 40 percent.

I flip it over. On the back is an announcement.

Tournament of Hearts

Mercy guards the masses,

but love tests the few.

A once-in-a-decennium chance to become

a Skyborn citizen and experience true love.

The Benevolent makes his final call for entrants to all lowborn districts, graciously extending the deadline. Join in celebrating the love-matching competition that’s brought us fifty years of peace and satisfaction across the districts.

I toss it and spend every second waiting for the census to end, staring at the loose stone at the foot of the statue, wondering how much my next smuggling run will bring me.

By the time the Mercyenforcers are loading up to leave, the sun is blazing hot in the center of the sky and Serafina’s raspy cough has gotten worse.

The chaos of morning morphs into a typical day, the square livening with its usual chorus. With half the day gone, it’s too late to start deliveries. Several people wander in a fogged daze, chests glowing. They dart in and out of the square’s stalls for bread, jars of honey, and sanitation rags. I hear a pair who pass mention they’re on their way to Ferdy’s.

Others—who like to double up on Heartfiller doses to get the fleeting intense feeling—loiter. Several of them stand still, uninterested in moving, staring at nothing, gleeful, living a thousand fake moments over and over in their heads. Some bounce down the road, giddy. Some stumble toward their homes, heavy with fatigue.

Miss Omon gathers Nichol and Sam as I fish out another gold. “Get some bread on the way,” I tell her.

She pauses, eyes flicking to the coin, then to the street.

“Go on,” I say. “Take it.”

She glances over her shoulder before grabbing it. She and the others keep walking with the square at their back. I drift from the group toward the stone statue. Serafina sticks to my heels.

“Where are you going?” Miss Omon asks, eyeing me warily, her hard gray eyes more gloom than steel. I’ve lived with her since my parents died. She lied to get me out of the mothers’ tenement, saying that she was my aunt. In truth, she knew my parents, and she was upset by what happened to them. She took me to her shack, where there were two other children, both younger than me. Saltbloods survive by relying on one another. I hate relying on anyone.

She had two rules: Never call her Mother, and never lie to her. In exchange, she’d keep me safe, well, and fed. When she’d gotten me healthy and strong enough to yoke a pair of buckets across my shoulders, she took me to the icy stream that runs under our hovel and had me try to catch fish by hand. My arms were purple all winter. I fished in every one of the streams that runs through the district, climbing anything, finding the hardest-to-reach spots to anchor myself stealthily to take a fish by surprise. I became quicker than anyone and quieter than anything, determined that the Skyborn would never hurt me. When I was old enough to work the docks, she put me to work selling clamshells. She kept her word, and I followed her rules.

Until Nichol and Sam got violently sick.

We were out of medicine, and she told me they would die by morning. She told me to prepare the funeral sacks. Instead, I snuck out that night and robbed a young family of their medicine rations. Scared she’d make me return it, I lied and secretly gave it to Nichol and Sam. When they made it through the night, Miss Omon knew what I’d done. She never mentioned it. And she’s never asked me once since the last solstice how I bring home so much gold.

But she knows. If Serafina knows, Miss Omon knows. And she doesn’t approve.

“I’ll be there soon, I promise,” I tell her.

“Serafina, with me,” Miss Omon says.

Serafina’s big brown eyes plead with me. They’re red rimmed and low; her skin is a sickly pallor. More pale than she was this morning.

“Go home. I won’t be long. Besides, you need another dose of medicine.”

She hacks into her sleeve and does as I ask, begrudgingly.

When Miss Omon and the others are completely out of sight, I start making my way to the statue. A woman stumbles into me; she tips sideways but catches herself without a glance my way.

“Careful,” I say. But she hardly blinks, transfixed by the Heartfillers pumping through her body. She teeters away, and I take another look around. There’s a single Mercyenforcer on duty by a lamppost, but he’s far enough away that I’m going to take my chances.