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Luke and I managed to sneak a little alone time at the edge of the hedge maze, in the spot I’d first found him. Not often, but sometimes. I was mostly there with Harlow, and I didn’t want her to think I was just using her for access to Luke, so I didn’t get weird and start making out with him in front of her or anything.
The month of September moved quickly, and we sailed through October until we were near the end. The night of Halloween was the autumn dance in the Great Hall, where Alexander and Grace would perform their first dance as a kind of informal king and queen of Crimson Academy.
It was just for that one dance, I’d been told, but Grace didn’t act like it. Of course, she took the title of queen to heart and ran with it, making every insufferable class even worse than it had to be.
The only one that I was any good at and actually enjoyed was swordplay, which still made zero sense to me, but I sailed past Victoria in no time. It wasn’t surprising since everybody still insisted I’d already reached the next level in training before the accident.
“Why sword fighting, though,” I asked Henri during class. I’d just managed to defend myself against his onslaught of sword strokes and dancing foot moves. We were both breathing heavy, and he took a moment to reply.
“Because of the uprising,” he said at last. “The uprising left its mark even though it happened so long ago. Didn’t you learn about it in school?”
“I’m sure we did, but I have trouble with my memories,” I told him. We were practicing alone in a room off the side of the gymnasium, and I don’t know what came over me to tell him this. Something compelled me to share my darkest secret with the man, the standoffish jerk who had just tried to slap me with the flat side of his thin weapon.
“I was wondering that,” he replied, still panting lightly. His grey hair was damp at the temples, and he fixed his gaze on me when he continued. “You’re different. I’m sure you’ve heard that from other people about your personality, but my job is to notice the physical form. Your body is different.”
“I was in a pretty bad accident,” I replied. “Maybe that twisted me up or something.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “You have more muscle. You’re a stronger person. Unless they had you hooked up to weights and you were lifting the whole time you were in the hospital, it doesn’t make sense.”
His dark eyes glittered with unspoken curiosity. He wanted to say more, offer his opinion perhaps, but I wasn’t ready for that. As much as I had wanted to share my hidden secret with Henri, being exposed like this was just too much.
“I’ve been working out in my room,” I said quickly and swung my sword around. “Now finish the origin story, or meet your maker.”
I laughed as I held the sword tip towards his throat, and he merely smiled and shook his head.
“The uprising was about forty years ago now. There was a surge of Lowers who were tired of the positions they held in society, so they decided to do something about it. They waited until the men were at work, and they attacked the women. As you can imagine, it was a disastrous situation.”
“What happened?” I asked. Somewhere somehow, it seemed familiar, as if I’d heard about it before.
“Women and children were killed in their homes, and we vowed as a nation to never leave our women vulnerable again.”
“Why not just buy them guns?” I asked.
“Guns aren’t a woman’s weapon,” Henri replied with a curl of disgust raising his lip. “Women wouldn’t be able to handle them under pressure, either. In the wrong hands, they could do more harm than good.”
“So you go off to work and leave your Upper women alone in the house with swords. Makes perfect sense,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my words. It was a terrible idea, and I wasn’t even somebody who liked guns. But why, in a nation that worshipped them, would you relegate your women to defending themselves with outdated weapons?
Chalk it up to another thing that made no sense about this culture of ours.
Henri wasn’t in the mood to argue with me, and I was still feeling vulnerable about spontaneously opening up to him, so I backed off and let it die out. He finished up our session by showing me some movements to cool down overworked muscles and kept me thinking about the uprising. Not that it happened, that part made sense. But the fact that the women were slaughtered while the men were off at work.
Why hadn’t they been at work, or at least given the option? And what would my life look like when I was married to Alexander? Would I wind up trapped in a beautiful prison?
* * *
“The Great Hallis going to be packed,” Victoria told me at dinner a few days before the dance. The dining hall was busy, and the entire room was buzzing with excitement about the upcoming event. “Everybody who means anything will be there. Students, Crimson grads, parents, Remington’s research team, everybody will be there.”
“I’ve heard,” I said and pushed at a slice of ham with my fork. I still hated the food at Crimson. It all felt overindulgent, outdated, and too full of fat and salt and the kinds of things I didn’t want in my body. But everybody ate it
CHAPTER21
“This one is perfection for you,”Victoria said, holding up a silvery shiny gown that would cling to my curves and most likely show off the scars I still had where I’d been injured in the accident.
I didn’t like the idea of my scars being enhanced by the fabric, so I shook my head.
“I think that would suit a blonde, maybe you or one of the girls,” I said. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t look good on you,” she agreed. “But this one would.”
