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CHAPTER ONE
The bell tolls for the dead.
I straighten my back as I follow the Citadel guard to the court. The blue feathers attached to his tall white hat sway back and forth as he leads me through the maze of hallways. A single tear traces a path down my cheek, but no one is there to wipe it away. The solitude amplifies the ache in my chest.
I clutch my mother’s ledger, not wanting to part with her delicate script filling the pages. Everything else she owned has been turned over to the government.
We approach the towering white doors of the Council Room. Its imposing presence is meant to intimidate, entry reserved only for those with the proper credentials or court-ordered purpose.
“Name.” The courtroom guards take over, dismissing the burly man who led me from my apartment in the Vitalis Sector.
My gaze is on his shiny black boots rather than his steely eyes, intent on malice. This will not be a pleasant visit to the court. They hold my fate in their hands.
I swallow back the lump in my throat. “Maribel Nexis Windsong.” I leave off my father’s hyphenated name, no longer identifying him as kin. With my mother’s death, I’m officially an orphan.
“Age.” His harsh voice echoes through the great hall, causing bystanders to stop and stare.
I dare to look up at the man, his chiseled jaw composed of sharp angles, shaved clean with a razor as it is with all men in the city. He wears the white-and-blue uniform of a soldier, the men and women who cleansed the capital city of Avren over three decades ago. Today, they’re more ceremonial, using the most handsome specimens to adorn the streets of the city in their fancy uniforms.
“Seventeen.” I bite down on my lip, my admission punctuated by the subtle taste of copper. It is a capital offense to lie, so I tell the truth. My age will seal my fate. If my mother had waited three more weeks to succumb to the ravaging sickness, things could have been much different. I draw in a deep breath, my mind swirling with self-loathing for holding such thoughts.
The guard points to a stone bench inside the door. Two others are there already. One a teenager and one a man. “Wait here. The Council will call you up when they are ready.”
The bench is cold beneath my skirt. An appointment with the leaders of the city means I’m dressed in my finest garments, tailored for Citizens of Avren: pale green shirt that matches my eyes, along with a white skirt with flowers embroidered throughout the material. The only real flowers we see in Avren are brought in from the wilderness by the Undesirables.
I crack my knuckles in a nervous habit and glance at the two sharing the bench with me. The boy beside me wears dark trousers and a crisp shirt, freshly pressed and laundered. He is a Citizen like me, no more than sixteen. His face is damp with tears.
The other wears brown trousers, a dirty shirt that may have been white at some point in its existence, and a cap. The clothing of an Undesirable. He is well built, with tousled sandy-blond hair. His chiseled jawline and light scruff on his face suggest a man in his mid-twenties. Without warning, his eyes meet mine, and he winks, causing my face to flame.
I scoot closer to the edge of the bench, trying to avoid the sickness that took my mother. Undesirables carry it, but it only transmits by touch.
My mother was too careless. Our house cleaner, Caron, became a good friend to her. She’d even take her to coffee in the neutral zone, a place that shut down once the sickness spread. Caron died two weeks before my mother.
A guard appears in the courtroom’s doorway, a clipboard in his hand. “Grayson Elrod.”
The Undesirable at the other end of the bench stands and follows the guard. The government usually reserves court proceedings for Citizens. Undesirables are shot, not tried.
I don’t talk to the boy beside me. His tears tell me he’s here for the same reason. Orphaned Citizen children not of age have only one destiny.
Instead, I stare at the heavy straps of my heels, clicking the toes together. In three weeks, my eighteenth birthday would have allowed me to move into an apartment of my own. The city requires parents to set aside credits for the children they choose to raise. Many Citizens decided not to have children because of this rule and the arduous process of growing their baby in a test tube.
My mother told me parents used to have babies naturally, when two people fell in love and created a new life together. This process, she said, now belongs to the Unseen, forbidden in our society. If an Undesirable woman becomes with child, she needs to hide it or get rid of the baby. A pregnant woman cannot work in the later stages of her pregnancy. If the child goes to full term, the Council forces the parents to give it away to a Citizen.
The night my mother told me about the way people had babies in the Unseen, I laid on my bed and stared up at the ceiling for hours. As a lady, it is unacceptable to have a man in my bedroom, but something about the idea sent a rush of heat through me. The Citizens of Avren are humane, not forcing their women to carry babies. Growing them in the laboratory makes a lot more sense. The ladies of Avren don’t have to lose their figures and can carry on with their lives. If they choose to have a baby, they can hire an Undesirable nurse to care for it.
“Maribel Windsong.” The guard reads my name as if he is reading a dictionary from Avren’s library.
The weight of the boy’s eyes bears down on me as I stand and follow the guard into the chamber. My heart thuds. My fate is already sealed. This is only a formality.
Five Council members occupy thrones at the front of the room—three men and two women, all adorned in blue ceremonial robes with white embellishment for the solemn occasion.
I walk to the front, propelled by the guard’s insistent hand on my back. The guy with the sandy-blond hair is still in the room, leaning against the wall. His dark eyes flash to mine.
“Maribel Windsong?” the head woman calls out from her prominent position at the center of the dais.
I tip my chin. “Yes, Lady Raven,” I respond, adhering to the proper term of respect for any adult within the city.
Lady Raven peers down at me, her long gray hair braided and wrapped on top of her head. Only those not of age wear their hair down. “Your mother, Celia Windsong, passed to the beyond.”
