I hate them, but I hear them.
Win. Bear the guilt. Reign.
They want me pitiless. They want my memory short.
But I was raised differently.
All my people sing of are memories. And so I will remember this death. It will burden me as it does not burden my fellow students—I must not let that change. I must not become like them. I’ll remember that every sin, every death, every sacrifice, is for freedom.
Yet now I’m afraid.
Can I bear the next lesson?
Can I pretend to be as cold as Augustus? I now know why he did not flinch in hanging my wife. And I am beginning to understand why Golds rule. They can do what I cannot.
Though I am alone, I know I will soon find others. They want me to soak in the guilt for now. They want me lonely, mournful, so that when I meet the others, the winners, I will be relieved. The murders will bind us, and I’ll find the company of the winners a salve to my guilt. I do not love my fellow students, but I will think I do. I will want their comfort, their reassurances that I am not evil. And they will want the same. This is meant to make us a family—one with cruel secrets.
I am right.
My tunnel leads me to the others. I see Roque, the poet, first. He bleeds from the back of his head. Blood is slick on his right elbow. I didn’t think him capable of killing. Whose blood? His eyes are red from crying. We find Antonia next. Like us, she is naked; she moves like a golden ship, drifting along, quiet and aloof. Her feet leave bloody footprints where she walks.
I dread finding Cassius. I hope he is dead, because I’m afraid of him. He reminds me of Dancer—handsome, laughing, yet a dragon just beneath the surface. But that’s not why I’m afraid. I’m afraid because he has a reason to hate me, to want to kill me. No one in my life has had just cause before. No one has ever hated me. He will if he finds out. Then I realize it. How could the House ever be knit tightly with such secrets? It can’t. Cassius will know someone here killed his brother. Others will have lost friends, and so the House will devour itself. The Society did this on purpose; they want chaos. It will be our second test. Tribal strife.
The three of us find the other survivors in a cavernous stone dining hall dominated by a long wooden table. Torches light the room. Night’s mist slithers through open windows. It is like something from the old tales. The times they call Medieval. Toward the far end of the long room is a plinth. A giant stone towers there; embedded in its center is a golden Primus hand. Golden and black tapestries flank the stone. A wolf howls upon the tapestries, as though calling out a warning. It is the Primus hand that will tear this House apart. Each one of these little princes and princesses will think themselves deserved of the honor of leading the House. Yet only one can.
I move like a ghost with the other students, drifting around the stone halls of what seems to be a giant castle. There is a room in which we are to clean ourselves.
A trough runs icy water along the cold floor. Now blood runs with the water to the right and disappears into the stone. I feel like some sort of specter in a land of fog and rock.
Black and gold fatigues are laid out for us in a relatively barren armory. Each student finds the fatigue bundle tagged with his or her name. A golden symbol of a howling wolf marks the high collars and sleeves of our clothing. I take my clothing with me and dress alone in some storage room. There, I fall into the corner and cry, not because of Julian, but because this place is so cold and quiet. It is so far from home.
Roque finds me. He’s striking in his uniform—lean like a strand of golden summer wheat, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, but his face is pale. He sits on his haunches across from me for several minutes before he reaches over to clasp my hands. I draw back, but he holds on till I look at him.
“If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown,” he says, and raises his thin eyebrows. “So keep swimming, right?”
I wipe away my silent tears and force a chuckle.
“A poet’s logic.”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t count for much. So I’ll give you facts, brotherman. This is the system. The lower Colors have their children by use of catalysts. Fast births, sometimes only five months of gestation before labor is induced. Except for the Obsidians, only we wait nine months to be born. Our mothers receive no catalysts, no sedatives, no nucleics. Have you asked yourself why?”
“So the product can be pure.”
“And so that nature is given a chance to kill us. The Board of Quality Control is firmly convinced that 13.6213 percent of all Gold children should die before one year of age. Sometimes they make reality fit this number.” He splays out his thin hands. “Why? Because they believe civilization weakens natural selection. They do nature’s work so that we do not become a soft race. The Passage, it seems, is a continuation of that policy. Only we were the tools they used. My … victim … was, bless his soul, a fool. He was from a family of no worth, and he had no wits, no intelligence, no ambition,” he frowns at the words before sighing, “he had nothing the Board values. There is a reason he was to die.”
Was there a reason Julian was to die?
Roque knows what he does because his mother is on the Board. He loathes his mother, and only then do I realize I should like him. Not only that, I take refuge in his words. He disagrees with the rules, but he follows them. It is possible. I can do the same until I have power enough to change them.
“We should join the others.” I say, standing.
In the dining hall, our names float above the chairs in golden letters. Our test scores are gone. Our names have also appeared beneath the Primus hand in the black stone. They float, golden, upward toward the golden hand. I’m closest, though there’s still much distance to cover.
Some of the students cry together in small groups by the long wooden table. Others sit against the wall, heads in their hands. A limping girl looks for her friend. Antonia glares over at the table where small Sevro sits eating. Of course he’s the only one with an appetite. Frankly, I’m surprised he survived. He is tiny and was our ninety-ninth and last draft pick. By Roque’s proposed rules, he should be dead.
Titus, the giant, is alive and bruised. Those knuckles of his look like a dirty butcher’s block. He stands arrogantly apart from the rest, grinning like this is all splendid fun. Roque speaks quietly with the limping girl, Lea. She falls down crying and throws her ring. She looks like a deer, eyes wide and glistening. He sits with her and holds her hand. There’s a peacefulness to him that is unique in the room. Wonder how peaceful he seemed when strangling some other kid to death. I roll my ring on and off my finger.