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“Oliver, Charlie, Frederick,” My father addressed them all. “I’m glad to see you’re all still here. We don’t get word about such things where we live.”
I didn’t know their names still, but the one in the back answered him. “Be glad for that. Yes, we’re here. Maybe one of your daughters will be paired with our boy, Pascal. Then again, maybe they’ll go home and not have to live this life.”
“Be well,” Truett said before they all took off again to trot past us. I lifted my head to watch them exit; since their backs were turned toward us, they wouldn’t have any idea I looked.
After a moment, I asked my father, “You knew them?”
“I wanted to be them.” He shook his head. “I forgot they had a son. Looks like he made it through the trial, too, but that’s not surprising. They eat and breathe all things Warrior. I didn’t even
know they were still alive. The last I heard anything, it was about their wife.”
He stopped speaking then, so I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I had to ask,“What happened to their wife?”
“She died.”
I had so many questions. Did she die in childbirth, or did something related to their being warriors kill her? This is going to be my life.
But I didn’t ask any of the questions swirling around in my thoughts. There was always a line with my father, and I didn’t want to cross it. If he wasn’t sharing more, he wouldn’t, and asking for more would only make him angry. I didn’t need to go through the week and the ritual with an annoyed father the whole time. Besides, his eyes were distant and pained in a way I’d never seen them before. If talking about those guys caused him to look like that, I would drop it. Answers would come when they came or not.
It isn’t like my powers are on at this point. Maybe I imagined having them. I doubted it, but wouldn’t that be convenient? Maybe I could go back home, have visions there to help others, and not have them anywhere else.
My mother led us until we reached the point marked with the words the sorting. It was where they would take the names of the women who arrived for the Judge’s test. Technically, we got invited to come, but there wasn’t really an option to say no. If the Judge said to arrive, we did.
The line was long, filled with women of all shapes and sizes within Jayne’s and my age groups. My mother handed us our bags. We barely brought anything with us because the manor would provide everything we needed for the ritual. Our small bags held enough to get us to the ritual and home afterward, assuming we left.
I wondered what I would do in terms of clothes if I had to leave with a Warrior group.
Jayne remained quiet, looking around and twisting her fingers together, a clear sign of nerves in my sister. I left her alone. Nothing I could say to her would make it better.
She was probably going home anyway.
“It’s exciting, right.” A voice from behind me caught my attention, and I turned around. A girl stood there, brown-haired, blue-eyed and gorgeous. Her smile was infectious, so I found myself returning it.
“I…I don’t know. I’m nervous. I’m not sure what to expect.”
She nodded. “I figured. You’re from far away, right? You must be, or I would know you. If you grew up here, you’d know everyone and see this ritual every four years. It’s always quite the scene. Even those not participating have parties to celebrate it. Besides, most of us are going home. Last time, all of the women did.”
Was that true? I allowed hope to fill me. It was possible I wouldn’t pass the ritual and I would go home.
She put out her hand. “I’m Caroline, and I’m from here. Just down the road, actually. You probably passed my house.”
Caroline came across as totally guileless, just chatty and happy. What would that be like? Maybe it was possible if you grew up in a house down the street. Maybe there was nothing to worry about then.
“I’m Sloane, and this is my sister Jayne.”
“Lovely to meet you. I want friends from everywhere, don’t you?”
What a funny creature she is.
Chapter Two
There were fifty of us signed up to be tested during the ritual, which meant about one quarter of the houses who qualified sent daughters to the event. Many more would be observing, and that meant we had to look the right way. After we checked in and servants collected our bags, we were ushered into a huge ballroom where two tables had been set up for us.
The long runner across the center of the tables looked familiar, and it made sense. Even I recognized the emblem for the Judge’s family—a woman with a blindfold over her eyes, because justice should be blind. It was an old theory of law that survived when very little else made it past the changes. Nowadays, the Judge and his family ruled with an iron fist over our lands to keep us safe. Otherwise, we might fall to any other civilization or even to the barbarians. In that case, the monsters without a doubt would come for all of us. My father was the Judge’s representative at home, but if the Judge disagreed with a ruling, my father would be usurped. He had never, that I knew of, interfered in our home city-state, though. Why would he? We were very small, we paid our taxes, and we stayed out of trouble.
I doubted he really even knew who my father was.
I’d never met the Judge—no one who lived near us saw him in person, except my dad, who came to Hawkseye to swear in when his father died and he took the position. He’d been among five others at the time, from what he told us.
