Sophie swore colorfully enough that a passing Decker gasped on her way past us and further into the kitchen.
“Hey, girls!” A familiar cheery voice called out above the crowd.
I huffed in annoyance before I even glanced up. Juniper, another Third Ringer, strode directly toward us, gap-toothed smile on full display as she weaved around the bustling caterers to reach us. She embraced us each before we could dart away, and I couldn’t help the look of pure irritation on my face as Sophie grinned.
“Hey, June,” Sophie said, attempting to be friendly because she knew I wouldn’t.
“Isn’t this so exciting!” Juniper squealed, and my gaze narrowed into a full glare. She couldn’t be serious. “The annual traditions starting over again. So many fancy celebrations, so many chances for work, and everything is so beautiful, isn’t it?”
I opened my mouth, but Sophie cut in before I could respond.
“It’s magnificent, as always,” she said, linking her arm through mine and steering me away from the overly optimistic ThirdRinger before I could say something she would regret. “But if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got work to do.”
Juniper nodded and Sophie pulled me toward the serving platters piled high with ridiculous little appetizers, snorting to hold back her laughter as we made our escape.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered as we leaned down to gather a tray each. We hoisted them onto our shoulders and strode for the swinging doors.
The faint trill of stringed instruments rolled through the ballroom on the other side.
“Are you going to enter?” she asked, her voice low as we passed through the doors and entered the glittering ballroom beyond. “I mean, you’ve still got a week to decide but—”
“My mom will absolutely kill me when she finds out, but I promised Darius we would enter together. He thinks we have a real shot at being paired as partners.”
“He’s a legacy at this point. My money would be on you two if you made it past the first Trial.”
Sophie raised a brow, nodding forward. I followed her gaze. Darius milled about behind his sister as she made her rounds, engaging in the pretentious preening expected of her, the sparkling new jewel in the House of Valin’s pocket.
Dahlia and her partner, Cyrus, were the first pair in twenty years to pass the third Trial. They’d become the miracle of the Second Ring, an inspiration, and the hope of a new generation. But the further she progressed, the more likely she was to be culled. And nobody ever passed all ten Trials, not in a millennium. So maybe it was self destructive to enter the Trials at all, knowing you were ultimately doomed to fail. But Darius’s eyes had always gleamed with heroic daydreams whenever he spoke about the year he would turn twenty-one and be allowed to enter.
“I could be a hero,” he’d told me once, years ago when we sat on the creaking floor of my dusty bedroom back in my mother’s house, his voice a breathy whisper. “Like the ones of legend. I could make it, Adrian. I know I could.”
Darius was my best friend. I wouldn’t extinguish what little light he found for himself in this dark corner of our world. So I kept my thoughts to myself. And when he begged me to join him, when he claimed that our partnership could become our best chance of success, I couldn’t say no.
But aspiring to defeat the Trials, craving a victory which no one had claimed in a thousand years, coveting the adoration of thousands, these were the dreams of a child. And as a child, I’d been tempted. I’d listened to the tales of Rainier and Alosia, Chasina and Harlowe. I’d stared in reverent awe at the statues of our ancient candidates in the Hall of Heroes. But there was something about growing older. Youth gives way to a morbid awareness of the world around you. You become cynical or, in Maurice’s case, bitter. And you doubt. You doubt everything.
We didn’t have to make it through all ten, though. Just four. Succeed in four, and I would earn mine and my family’s way to the Second Ring where we would never have to work for the rich again, where we would be given our own wealth and a home that wasn’t falling apart at the seams, and food would become readily available. Even if I got culled after, it would be worth it. Because they would have those things. They would be safe. So I didn’t share Darius’s dreams, but I shared his hope. And that was why I had every intention of keeping my promise.
I weaved throughout the crowd in the elegant ballroom, offering hors d’oeuvres to anyone who appeared interested and ignoring the faces Darius made whenever I glanced his way. After food and beverage service ended, I retired to the kitchen with Sophie, where we hid ourselves away and hoped the guests would get the hint and leave sooner rather than later.
I didn’t remember much of the night after that courtesy of the House of Valin’s rule that no food or drink should ever go to waste. Which also included alcohol. Sophie handed me my first glass of wine as the last of the guests departed. We sat, leaning against the shelves in the pantry, and drank bottle after bottle until we were so giggly and off balance, Darius and Graham, Sophie’s boyfriend, had to carry us home.
A crash woke me the next morning. Rolling out of bed, I blinked to clear my bleary eyes. My mind raced to take stock of my surroundings, to remember where I was and what had happened. I stumbled out into the hallway.
“Shit,” Darius shouted.
Another crash echoed through the apartment and I padded barefoot across the carpet, head pounding and hair a nest around my face. I blinked in the oppressive light of the morning sun, eyes sweeping from the kitchen to the living room, where he’d already shattered a lamp and was pacing, running his hands through his disheveled hair.
“Darius?” I asked. “What happened?”
He was breathing hard, his eyes wide and frenzied as he looked up at me—and I saw it. A thick black bar was tattooed in the center of his forehead.
“It shouldn’t be possible.” He shook his head quickly, violently. My jaw dropped as he muttered another string of curses, fingers again raking through his hair. “I don’t know how. I-I didn’t even think—”
My knees hit the carpet so hard, my teeth clacked together, but the pain that shot up my legs was nothing compared to what that mark meant. Darius didn’t need to say it, but he did anyway, and my gut twisted.
“I’m being culled.”
Chapter Two
