Page 5
For six days on the shuttle, people talked about the Adjudicators whenever there was nothing else to say. Sons of the most powerful Houses in the Reach. Young, rich, and untouchable.
There are nine of them. Tall, broad through the shoulders, dressed in black gear with storm cloaks falling to their boots. Their dark visors curve across the upper halves of their faces, black mirrored glass hiding their eyes while leaving their hair, mouths, and jaws exposed. Nine unreadable faces looking down at the hall below.
Something climbs my spine that I refuse to name, so I bury it with the other thing.
Fear.
“The mirrors work both ways.” The man keeps his eyes on his paperwork. “You can’t tell which one is looking back, so you assume they all are.”
“Are they the Adjudicators?”
He nods. “Every one of them represents a House. They watch us out there and decide who’s worth a contract and who isn’t. They can pull you from the Hunt whenever they want.”
Not referees, then.
The Houses shop. These men decide what we’re worth.
Where do you go?
One visor in the center of the railing tilts toward the intake line. Toward me, or so every nerve I own insists.
I look away first.
“The gates open in forty minutes,” the ceiling says.
The queue tightens and the line moves.
The intake desks line a wide row across the hall, with a uniformed attendant behind each one. A glass scanner plate is set into every counter, and beside each desk a waist-high gate opens for the cleared and stays shut for everyone else.
Past the gates, the far wall is a single sheet of glass, floor to ceiling. Behind it, Tempest waits. Black pines climb into the gray weather. Glass above us. Glass ahead of us.
The only way out of this box is deeper in.
A scanner flashes green, and a gate slides open. The queue shuffles forward, one person at a time. The man with the paperwork goes through, glances back at me once, and then he’s gone toward the glass.
“Welcome, Candidate.” The attendant looks up at me. “Please confirm that you understand participation in the Hunt is voluntary.”
“I understand.”
“Please confirm you have read and accepted the terms of your invitation.”
“I have.” My voice needs another try. “I have.”
The invitation with my brother’s name on it.
Come back.
“Place your hand on the panel.”
I wipe my palm on my trousers, like that will help anything, and place my hand on the scanner.
The screen beside it says ONYX MERCER.
Please. Just let me be him for seven days.
The panel flares amber.
A shrill alarm tears through the hall.
