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“Yes, if you know how to make it. I was going to drink it cold because I don’t.”
Oh. “You’re in luck, because I do.” I got busy heating the milk for both of us. “I’m Sloane. And, while I don’t know your name, you saved my home years ago. You and your husbands, anyway.”
She smiled at me. “I know who you are. You look like your father but everything about you reminds me of your mother. She and I were servants together in this mess years ago. Your kindness, the way that you rushed to save that woman in the midst of that scary stuff—that was your mother. She saved me once, then took on your father after the disaster he made trying to be a Warrior. I guess she is particularly good with messes.”
I didn’t know the story about my father. Is it appropriate to ask someone else questions about your own family? “Mess?”
“She protected him from you knowing, too. How like her. I wish I could see her again. Really see her, but I never stay anywhere long enough to see anyone in a real way.” I poured her milk into a glass and passed it over to her. “Your father wanted to be a warrior very badly. He fell off a ropes course. It happens a lot, but he insisted he had been pushed. There were many witnesses. It didn’t happen, and it was embarrassing for the family. They thought no one would marry him, but your mother proclaimed her love, and he was restored.”
He claimed he’d been pushed? Why would he do that? It did sound like my father. I knew he didn’t like to be embarrassed.
“Thank you for the kind words about my mother,” I said simply.
She drank her milk. “You’re welcome. I hope, for your sake, you and your sister go home with her tomorrow. I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.”
“Are you lonely?” She looked that way. Maybe no one had asked, and it would help her. “I’m sorry, I still don’t know your name.”
Patting my arm, she rose. “I’m Carissa. And yes, I am. Every group we started with is dead. There is just us left from when we started. We could retire but no one does. They die in battle. Glorious battle to save the realm. Defeat the monsters. Except today, apparently. I don’t know why they all stood there like that, but thank goodness for you.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s a bad omen when those who should protect don’t.”
With those words, Carissa left me in the kitchen, my milk undrunk and my cheek burning from the kiss a strange woman gave me in the middle of the night. Yes, it was a bad omen. I forced myself to drink my milk and climbed back up the stairs to the room I shared with Jayne. Is tonight the last time we’ll share a room?
“Are you okay?” a male voice asked from the darkness as I approached my room.
I froze. Who was there? An old man stood in the darkness, with the moonlight illuminating him until he practically glowed. I’d never seen him before.
“Yes, sir. Thank you. I’m going back to my room now.”
“That’s a good girl. So much danger tonight. We can’t lose all of you. It has to work this time, or all will be lost.” He wandered past me, leaving me to stare after him in the darkness. Who was that strange man?
I stood in the darkness, not feeling any better, and then decided to crawl into bed with Jayne. We slept together for a long time, back when we were children. She was four years my junior, but we always were close. If I was destined to match tomorrow, then I hoped she would go home. In a few years, she could make a good marriage and take care of things until our brother was old enough to do so.
My sister murmured something, and I rolled over to leave her alone in sleep. Just because I couldn’t sleep didn’t mean she shouldn’t.
The next morning, Smythe brushed my hair in relative silence. I didn’t know if the ritual was usually somber, but it was today. As if death’s very shadow hung over all of us.
“Mama and Papa will be there,” Jayne chirped with feigned happiness. “They’re probably already outside.”
I was sure she was right, and she looked beautiful in a white dress they picked for her. I wore a long bluish, greenish dress, so long I would trip on it if I wasn’t careful. All of us had been placed in things the dressers thought suited us. I guessed this was mine. I won’t be running across fields, that’s for sure.
Maybe that had been the point.
“I love you, Jayne,” I said, squeezing her hand.
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I love you, too.”
We didn’t rehearse, and no one even described what would happen, but once fifty of us lined up outside—as directed by the very serious Ritual Keepers—it didn’t matter. The crowd fell silent. I looked for my parents but couldn’t see them.
The Warriors were all lined up. Unlike the night before, they all wore different crests. Even the ones with wives attended, although they stood aside. Judge decided who could be matched, and the ritual must somehow take that into account.
No one matched four years ago. I hung onto that idea.
Hannah stood behind me with Jayne behind her. Caroline was in front of me. A drum beat, and we marched to its time. No one told us to do it, but somehow we knew.
The first girl—I’d never met her—walked inside a small stone cottage. We would enter it one at a time, it seemed.
Hannah whispered in my ear. “She’ll be a no.”
“Did you have a vision?” Did she know the fate of all of us?
