“No, we don’t.” I rise to my feet, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m not going without meeting Taurance’s child. That baby will need their aunties. Taur will need us.”
Delicate fingers wrap around my wrist. “I need you alive. If not for my sake, then for Gem’s. Once the baby is here, we won’t be allowed in the same cabin anymore. You’re going, even if Gem has to drag you all the way to Deor.”
The twins share a loaded look, and Gem swallows hard before dipping her chin.
“I’ll join you.” Taurance glances at her stomach. “As soon as she or he is born and we’re both recovered from birth.”
I droop back onto the cot, shoulders hunching forward. “What about the father? Won’t he want you to stay here?”
Taurance fidgets with the shorn hem of her sleeping gown. “I’m not entirely sure who the father is.”
The space between Gem’s brows creases. “How many contenders are there?”
“Two,” Taurance says, head down as she picks at a loose thread.
“Shit, T. You really want to follow in Ma’s footsteps?”
I stiffen. The twins rarely speak of their mother, though I’ve gleaned enough to know she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock after sleeping her way into the beds of several male suitors and placed the blame of her disheveled life on her daughters, as if they’d chosen to be born into the lower rungs of society.
Taurance meets her sister’s scolding gaze. “I will never be like Ma. You think you’re so superior because you’re a virgin, but at least I won’t die alone.”
“Woah there, Taur.” I rest a palm on her leg, but she brushes it off. “I doubt she meant it like that.”
Gem shakes her head. “That’sexactlyhow I meant it.”
“Go piss yourself above,” Taurance spits back.
I insert myself between the galling green gazes of the twins.
“Enough! You know Taur is nothing like your Ma. She’s gonna spoil that baby every single day of its life. Smother it in far too much love, the way she smothers us.” I shift my glower from Gem to Taurance. “And just because Gem has no interest in sleeping with anyone does not mean she’ll die alone. We’re her family: me, you, and a niece or nephew who honestly might prefer their Auntie Gem over their own mother sometimes. So, let’s not waste our last couple hours together exchanging low blows, hm? You’re making my brain hurt.”
I kick off my sandals and scoot further onto the cot, releasing a heavy exhale.
Taurance is the first to surrender. She scoots closer to me, patting at the space on her other side. “Truce?”
It’s a few tense seconds before Gem breaks. “Truce.”
The cot’s thin mattress deflates as she joins us, but I don’t mind. This might be the last time the three of us are together, at least for a while.
Or for good.
I shoo away the thought.
Soon, Gem and I will sneak up to the transport tunnels while the city’s sleeping. We’ll slip past the guards by taking the utility stairwell instead of the main path. And we’ll make it to Deor right before sunset.
Our planwillwork.
Because if it doesn’t, my name will be chosen for the Hunt.
There’s no way of knowing that with absolute certainty, yet the knot that’s been festering in my chest doesn’t doubt it’s true. It’s that same intuition that haunted me in the days prior to the divorce—a deep knowing that something’s about to change.
I pull out the blade of marram grass from my pocket, desperately praying that change will be for the better this time, not the worse.
CHAPTER THREE
A beadof sweat streams down my temple as I reach for the next rung and question all the recent choices that led me here. Maybe sticking around for the Hunt wouldn’t be so bad; preferable, even, to climbing the utility staircase that’s more of a slanted steel ladder than true stairs.
I rub the back of my hand against my forehead and frown at the dark gray smudge staining my ashen skin. Gem spent her past few kitchen shifts scrounging up a pail of soot from the oven, so we could dye my hair. We’d hoped the ashes would darken my conspicuous tawny curls to a shade closer to the twins’ raven locks. The actual result is more of a lifeless gray, but it should suffice as a temporary disguise long enough to get us into Deor.
