Page 9 of The Heart Trials

Lowborn service workers move like shadows through the slick city streets, making and sorting deliveries, admiring the majesty of everything as they work. I cut through statues of lovers posing at every turn, keeping my head down and resisting glaring at Skyborn’s flaunted freedom. A freedom I don’t need or want. Little glass plaques are staked throughout the Gardens, glinting like dew in the grass. Each one bears a scripted blessing for “permitted affection,” etched in looping gold script: To Feel Is to Be Chosen. Love, When Permitted, Is Sacred.

I skirt benches shaped like crescent moons that are placed precisely to frame the Citadel spires in the distance. Harp music drifts from nowhere. Vines coil around crystal trellises. Big flowers bloom in every bush. It’s hard to not reach for them and try to smell.

Children of the elite dash in my path chasing butterflies, while doves flit in and out of the soft, pink leaves of white birch trees, an experience Serafina will never have.

But she will have better ones…we will make better ones.

I detour to the outer path around the Gardens. But it is no better, crowded with pairs of lovers strolling. I maneuver in and around and past them, orienting myself well to my surroundings. It’s good to know how to get out of a place quickly.

Every shop has been draped in signs announcing the tournament, offering keepsakes and festive wear. It starts in three days. These are big, decorated signs, not to be missed—painted with gold letters, some are glass, others are carved metal, a few twinkle with flickering lights using a magic I don’t understand. They’re all wreathed in bunches of flowers of every size and color.

Except red.

There is no red in Skyhaven.

No fabric, no threads, no buttons, no florals or jewels.

There is no red allowed on the island.

Red is the color of love. Even for Skyborns, the Benevolent ruled the color goes too far. Warm pinks and purples get close. But wearing bold red, the color of blood, is punishable, highborn or not.

The rebels wore red. That’s the real reason, I bet.

When I reach the center of the park, the Citadel looms, not far in the distance. On either side of it are defense towers and two smaller buildings: an arsenal and a shrine. A series of smaller palatial buildings disappear beyond them. I feel the edge of the note in my pocket. I’ve never visited Citadel Hill specifically before, but it has to be near the Citadel, given the street name.

Swim with the current or drown. My pulse ticks faster. This is a risk. But the greater one is not taking this chance at all, ending up too sick for anyone to care, wrapped in a dusty old rug and thrown into the sea, not worthy of anything, even dead.

I pass another banner, this one inside the park, slung between lampposts, announcing the Tournament of Hearts in silver letters. Beside it stands an oversized, gleaming Heartfiller on a raised pedestal, catching the light like cut glass. The crystal seems to shimmer more as I near, humming softly, waiting to be touched. A gold plaque beneath it reads Entries. At the base of the pedestal is a handwritten sign, leaning against the pillar.

Deadline for entries extended.

Seven days extra rations provided for each entrant’s family.

Touch to enter.

More rations. I swallow a dry breath. Our hunger is a weapon the Benevolent brandishes against us. Someone slams into the back of me, knocking me forward.

“Out of the street.” The Skyborn pinches his nose before digging his elbow into the ribs of the girl he’s with. She laughs. They disappear inside the park, connected by their bare hands. As if one of them is part of the other. As if there is something special about their touch. When his mouth closes in on hers, I look away.

A fellow lowborn girl—Grainfolk by the looks of her clothes: apron wrapped around her trousers, burlap gloves—tagged with a blue tie on her arm as well, approaches the pedestal, eyeing the rations sign. She lingers, pulling at her clothes, and we meet eyes. With Mercyenforcers standing sentry at the Citadel gate, I shake my head imperceptibly. The Benevolent’s stupid games are not worth our self-respect.

The girl’s gaze shifts from me to the ground as she straightens the tie on her tattered tunic, waiting for me to pass by. It feels like a dagger through the heart. It shouldn’t. She has to eat. I can’t judge her choices. But when I pass her, I realize I’m white-knuckling my wagon.

A vanguard of iron spikes to the receiving line of the Citadel is only paces away once I clear the Gardens. Mercyenforcers oversee an unloading dock. There is another tourney banner encouraging people to get their tickets to the opening ceremony hanging behind them. When it is my turn, I approach the tallest of the guards and show him the address on the slip of paper. His stare darts from the rag tied on my arm to the seal on the paper, where it lingers.

“Identification.”

“Axira Merreri. Saltblood.”

“Another dozen blocks, that way.” He points to a narrow road running along the Citadel gate. I hurry in that direction.

“Get your tourney seats right here!” a merchant shouts, and several answer his call. I avoid their eyes, shrinking into the crowd, which buzzes with people in and out of pleasure parlors and sensory shops. There are Skyborns everywhere, milling about, constantly touching one another, as if expressing love keeps gold in their pockets. An odd cinch bites between my ribs.

Petite tables outside of a bakery are full; two women sip from the same cup at the same time, talking, laughing—not one of their expressions is hollow. Not one of them looks like a shell of a human. I try to picture Serafina’s face when she’s not on a Heartfiller or trying to shake some leeching sickness. I try to picture her dancing under a cloudless sky, laughing when she wants to, crying when she needs to, but the image doesn’t come together. I don’t know what that kind of freedom looks like.

But maybe freedom isn’t a dream of a certain place—maybe it’s just any life without chains.

Out from underneath the Benevolent’s watchful eyes is an entirely new life. I keep walking, looking for number eleven, when the stately residence appears like the answer to a prayer at the end of the road. I hand the address to its guard.