“Roselle—”
The Census agent shoots me. I choke on pain as the steel dart cracks through my breastplate and spews venom into me. The cartridge sticks out from my chest just above my heart. He fired point-blank. I didn’t even see the gun he drew from behind his back until it was too late.
The agent grins at the sounds I make as I writhe in agony. I can see my reflection in his steel teeth. His hand goes to my shoulder to steady me. He touches my hair. “Don’t talk. Just panic.” He breathes the words near my ear as he embraces me.
My hands reach out for his waist. He thinks I’m holding myself up, but I unfasten his leather belt and slip it from his pants. In one swift motion, I have the strap wrapped around his neck and ratcheted in a noose. The leather cuts into his throat. I use all my strength to pull on it. His eyes bulge and widen. The strength of my grip slackens and I falter. Dizziness upturns me. I drop to my knees, still holding the strap. The agent drops to his knees as well, coughing and wheezing as he loosens the noose.
Soldiers yell and run toward us. The next thing I know I’m on the ground, staring up at the overcast sky. The agent waves away Hawthorne and the other soldiers. They retreat, restraining Hawthorne. On his knees beside me, the agent smiles again. A tear slips over the inky lines near one sapphire-colored eye. “You’re mine now,” he whispers in my ear, scooping me up. The steel dart is still embedded over my heart. My head bobs, and I view the world from upside down as he carries me across the golden threshold into the forest of nightmares.
Chapter 6
In Census
The room is small, rectangular, and unfamiliar—dank—a cell, not a room. The only appointments in it are a small toilet in the corner and a steel sink. A steel door is across from me. I have a strange, tinny taste in my mouth. My back aches. I shift and groan from the cold and lack of movement that have made my muscles stiff. I feel buried. I reach for my sword, but it’s gone—so is my uniform. I’m wearing a snug, midnight-blue long-sleeved shirt and loose, elastic-waisted trousers of the same color and coarse material. My feet are bare. I stretch my legs out from the fetal position. The ground is cold beneath me.
A long tube runs down my leg and out the loose pant leg at the bottom. It’s attached to a urine collection canister, nearly full. How long have I been here? I pull out the catheter tube and shove it aside. Beneath the sleeve of my right arm is an intravenous device that could be feeding me drugs or hydrating me. I don’t know which, but I want it out. I tug, and it stings as I extract it. My stomach growls and feels as if it’s gnawing away at itself. I’ve never felt this kind of hunger before.
I shove myself up to my feet. Stretching my arms, I wince. My fingers brush the area where I was shot by the dart. It’s sore. Lifting my shirt, I investigate a massive bruise above my heart, black and ugly but turning yellow—it’s not fresh. How long was I unconscious?
I move to a moniker identification scanner on a panel beside the door. I glance at my hand. My moniker is still dead. I try to scan it anyway, feeling claustrophobic and desperate to get out. The blue laser runs over it. The door doesn’t budge. I bang on it and yell for help until I’m hoarse, but no one comes.
The cold floor is brutal against my bare feet. I’m shivering. Crossing my arms, I tuck my hands in the crook of my armpits while jumping up and down. For a while, I pace the dingy cell, lunging with an imaginary sword. When I’m tired, I curl into a ball. Waiting. Occasionally, the sounds of feet outside the door make me brace myself, but each time, they keep going. I fall back to sleep at some point, and when I wake again, I’m not alone. My skin prickles.
“I was just wondering what it is you dream about,” says the raspy voice of the Census agent. “Puppies?” He sits in a metal chair, uncrosses his long legs, and leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. The collar of his exquisite white shirt is unbuttoned. Red, angry abrasions stand out on his throat. His steely smile is meant to intimidate, and it works.
I sit up and lean against the wall. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I nod. “I sometimes dream of rainbows, too—puppies and rainbows—just like you, I’d imagine. Where am I?”
He grins. “You sleep soundly. I thought for sure that you were faking it when I first came in.”
I shrug. “Tranquilizers do that to me. It feels as if we’re underground.”
He cocks his head to the side. “As a matter of fact, we are. You are my guest in Census.” He takes off his gloves, pulling each of the black leather fingers until the wrinkles straighten. His moniker shines in a golden circlet from his left hand. Its halo denotes the Fate of Virtues—gold for firstborn or unprocessed. Because he’s around twenty-five, I know he’s firstborn. If he had a golden halo moniker, and he was eighteen or younger, he’d either be firstborn or he may not have been Transitioned to a silver halo of a Virtue-Fated secondborn. That happens on a secondborn’s Transition Day.
My eyes widen. By any stretch of the imagination he should be in the capital right now, catered to by an estate filled with secondborn servants. Most of the firstborns who possess a Virtues moniker are from the aristocracy—or else they’re the judges, legislators, ruling clergy, dignitaries, or supply-chain holders. Plenty of firstborns and secondborns reside in the Fate of Virtues, born to serve the ruling class, but they don’t possess monikers from that Fate. They have stone-or sword-shaped monikers—monikers from other Fates.
My family is Sword aristocracy, on par with firstborns from the Fate of Virtues because my mother is the Clarity, but other firstborn Swords are of lower rank than those with Virtues monikers. I can’t imagine why he’d be a Census agent. Most of them are firstborn, but they’re from lesser Fates—like the Fate of Atoms, the technology caste, or the Fate of Seas, the fishing villages—that notoriously don’t produce the kind of wealth and status as firstborn Virtues.
“What do I call you?” I ask, trying to adopt a serene mien.
“Pardon me for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Agent Kipson Crow, firstborn of the Fate of Virtues. I’m from Lenity.”
Purity is the capital city of Virtues. Lenity is its sister city where most of the largest estates exist. “What are you doing here, Agent Crow? Shouldn’t you be in the capital, passing laws for secondborns to follow and hoarding your wealth?”
The kohl-black lines around his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “I find that I have less interest in passing laws than I do in enforcing them.”
“What do you want from me, Agent Crow?”
“Please, call me Kipson. And what should I call you?”
“You can call me by my name.”
“Which is?”
“You know my name is Roselle St. Sismode.”
“Do I? I’m still trying to establish who you are.”
“No you’re not.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” He’s more incredulous and amused than indignant.
“You believe that I’m Roselle St. Sismode, so what is it that you want from me so badly that you’d keep me locked away at the bottom of the Base?”
“Maybe I want to get to know you better.”
“Why? I’m secondborn. You’re firstborn. There’s no purpose.”
“You intrigue me.”
“How so?” I ask.
“The Roselle I always watched seemed like such a little robot on virtual access,” he replies, speaking of the drone cameras that have followed me for most of my life, streaming video for anyone to view through access channels. I was given some privacy for a few hours a day, but for the most part, my life was an open book that sadistic voyeurs like Agent Kipson Crow frequently studied. “I thought I knew her, but you cannot be her. She’d never attack me. She’d yield to her superior.”
“You shot me in the heart, point-blank. Some instincts cannot be suppressed, like survival.”