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Jayne looked over at her and nodded. “It’s easy to love Sloane. She takes care of everyone in our life. Our parents. Our little brother. Me. The entire city-state comes to her for advice if they need it, and she remembers everything about them.”
“Ladies.” I just met Hannah, and I wasn’t ready to get all mushy with her yet. “Enough. We’re supposed to be checking out the Warriors while they check us out, too. I don’t know how to do that but…”
As though we’d summoned him, a young man appeared in front of us, followed immediately by three others, all about my age.
“Ladies, welcome to the party. Isn’t this nonsense really something?” He bowed in front of us. “I’m Pascal. This is Alex, Chris, and Matthew. Can we escort you inside? That’s what we’re supposed to do, and since Judge is my godfather, it wouldn’t do for me not to behave tonight. I would never hear the end of it.”
He shot us a charming, large smile, and I answered it fast. Something about him looked very familiar. What is it? I took his arm as his friends took Hannah’s and Jayne’s. Blowing out a breath, I allowed him to lead me to my destiny.
Chapter Three
Iwasn’t the kind of little girl who imagined attending a garden party someday, yet there I found myself, surrounded by Warrior groups and their possible wives. Strange and awkward? Yes. Maybe the point was for us to get a look at our future partners, like checking out the cattle before the auction.
Then again, that wasn’t exactly fair. The men had no say about their partners either, because all of it would be left to some unknown ritual. I gritted my teeth again in frustration.
Caroline chatted with everyone. She captured Pascal’s group’s attention the second she walked over, and I couldn’t blame them. Not only was she beautiful, it would have been impossible not to notice her polish and wealth. Jayne, Hannah, and I didn’t say much to anyone. Pascal was particularly chatty, and so were his fellow Warriors.
“How does it work?” I asked Hannah as I watched the four guys fawn over Caroline. “I mean…did they all decide to be together or were they paired like we are?”
Jayne turned to listen, as curious as me. We really didn’t know enough about any of it, but I was starting to think it might be because Mama didn’t, either. She spent so much time serving others, she never acquired enough information to have anything to tell us.
“There are trials. They try out, and in the end, they’re matched with a team. It’s all very secret. Unlike this, non-nobility can try out, too. Like, for example…” She nodded toward the group I encountered twice so far, the older Warriors who did not want a wife. “Truett was nobility. In fact, he came from so far up the noble chain of command, he’s a cousin to Judge or something. Okay, so maybe I don’t know how they’re related.” She laughed at her own joke. “That’s what I’ve heard. But the other three were peasants. Now, however, there is no difference between them. They all live like nobility.”
Jayne shook her head. “Most nobility don’t have to do what they have to do.”
“True.” Hannah grinned. “And you know who Pascal is, don’t you?”
I pointed at him, hopefully discreetly. “I know that’s him.”
She laughed. “I’m so happy to have found you. Yes, that’s him, but he is the son of one of those guys. Truett or Oliver? One of them is his father. I doubt he knows for sure which one fathered him, but it doesn’t matter. He’s theirs, and now he’s passed the trials, too, so he’s also a Warrior.”
How interesting. I loved family histories and dynamics. Truthfully, I would have been happy to make family trees at home for all the peasants in our city-state then come home at the end of the day to eat cheese pie. I glanced around, wondering if it might be possible. I could sneak out the back.
“He seems so full of himself.” Jayne shook her head.
I answered her quickly. “Well, I mean they’ve had years of fighting.” I didn’t think it was fair to necessarily judge them. How would she know anyway? “They’re…”
Jayne took my hand. “Not Truett’s group. No, his son. I mean, he just became a Warrior. All four of them Pascal, Alex, Chris, and Matthew haven’t done anything yet, but you would think they were the greatest Warriors ever, based on how they act.”
“Really?” Jayne never responded to someone like that before. She was almost seventeen, and those guys were eighteen—that much, I’d learned—which made them two years younger than me. All of them were starting out, so what had rubbed her the wrong way about them?
She never got to answer because a crack of thunder reverberated from the sky. We all looked up. While it had rained earlier, it had been clear for hours since then.
Pascal grabbed his coat, and before the rain could fall, he covered Caroline with it. No Warrior waited to cover the rest of us. Instead, the rain poured down in a sheet, and we all turned to run for the manor.
“Wait!” A commanding voice caught everyone’s attention. It was Charles, from Truett’s group, pointing at the sky. “Don’t run inside. They’ll just burn it down with you in there.”
Gasps sounded from all around me. I tilted my head back to look and saw in the sky, dancing between the rain clouds, two flying monsters. I’d forgotten some versions of monsters could do that. I caught my breath as Jayne grabbed onto me, holding on as if I could keep her upright.
Everyone screamed, and Truett said something to Charles. He wasn’t trying to be overheard. The two of them spoke as though they discussed the weather, but I noticed Oliver and Frederick joined them. They all pointed.
“Let’s get it,” Pascal shouted as he and his group all pulled out their swords.
That seemed ridiculous to me, so I shook my head. They had swords and the flying monsters were in the sky. Surely, they couldn’t think that was a good idea?
The flying monster swept down toward us, knocking over a table before it shot back into the sky with a powerful flap of its wings. I couldn’t believe it. Was the thing…taunting us?
“Pascal, put down the sword,” Charles called from the hill. “Do you think you can reach it in the sky with that sword?”
