Prologue
“Peonies haven’t been around here in ages,” I say to myself, picking through the flowers in the woods, the forbidden woods that nobody is really supposed to enter. I’m armed with knives, as if that would do anything against the various creatures the Monarchy lets loose here.
My mother, Maria, has been on the brink of death for ages and nobody except those within our family care. We live in a poor village, which didn’t used to be when my father was alive.
He was an apothecary for the king, but he died for unknown reasons on the palace grounds. I believe, and so does Sam, my twin brother, that he was killed out of a jealous rage from someone of another village.
I gather various medicinal mushrooms, stuffing them in my pockets as rays of sunshine peak through the leafy trees, barely hitting the forest floor. I walk through the mossy, plant dense ground before arriving at the cleanest stream that the village has, then take a seat. I toss a few pebbles into the water, watching it ripples before sticking my fingers into it, dirt clouds forming from the dirt under my fingernails.
I let out a sigh then raise my head towards the sky, the sunshine warming it. Why did Dad have to die? We used to live so good. The villagers who were doing worse off than us now mock us, telling us that riches are always vain even though they’ve never seen a gold coin in their life.
I pull the few coppers that Sam gave me to spend at the baker and toss one into the water. I don’t want to live my life this way.
Not only is our father dead, but Sam and I have been avoiding the Trials for a year and a half now. Sam and I have baby faces, making us seem younger than we are, and since nobody has actual records of Sam and I’s birthday, we could say whatever age we want.
Last year, when we turned eighteen, we claimed we were sixteen to buy us two years to save our mother. Now going on nineteen, puberty had kicked in for the both of us and things have been growing in places on me, which is absolute shit.
And now you may be wondering, almost nineteen and just hit puberty?
Yes.
That’s what poverty will do to you.
I grab the copper from the water and stuff them back into my pocket, then whip my dragon braid over my shoulder before trekking back to the fence, carefully slipping under the electrified chain-links.
Sam, my guard, stands with a disappointed look on his face.
“You’re going to get caught one day,” he gripes before taking a rough grip of my forearm.
“Ouch!” I yelp, slapping his hand off me.
“The King has sent out sentries,” he murmurs. “They are collecting young adults again.”
I gulp before walking with Sam to the baker, who always leaves his front door unlocked as if there aren’t thieves in our village.
The baker’s house is as run down as the rest of us—used to be white wooden siding aged and faded to a light gray by the wind, rain and sun; stairs that creak and crack when you walk up them; faded red door with windows that aren’t ever clean; roof that sometimes has a leak…the list goes on and on. If there was a house that didn’t have a bucket sitting in the middle of the floor, you were considered to be living high.
“Twins,” Lou greets us as Sam walks up to the counter, scanning the dry bread sitting on the plate.
“Which is oldest?” his usual question as he knows Lou gives the oldest for a slight discount.
“The far left,” Lou wipes his hands on his faded cotton apron which read, “Greatest Cook” but the letters are faded, so it says, “eat ook”.
“The usual? Two coppers?” Sam says, his eyes begging to the old man who closes his eyes and lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Sam, I can’t keep letting you get bread for two coppers when everyone else pays three.”
“But they’re old,” Sam says, kicking at the old wooden floor with a worn shoe.
“Clearly old enough to eat,” the old man says, his bushy eyebrows raising. “Y’know, there’s other ways you can pay.”
Sam gives him a look. “How do you mean?”
“Your sister is coming of age, and I could use some help here,” Lou looks at me, but I shake my head.
“I need to continue to take care of the villagers,” I say, then fish out three coppers and set them on the counter. “You do this every time I come in here. Even if I was of age, you know that I’d be at the Trials, not working for you.”
“No one from this village has ever passed the Trials,” Lou snorts. “What makes you think a pawny girl like you could ever pass it? You’re better off taking an occupation here and living to take care of your mother than trying something foolish.”
“Don’t talk about my sister like that,” Sam grabs the bread we paid for and escorts me out.
The silence on the walk home is absolutely deafening.
“He might be right, you know, Skye,” Sam’s voice suddenly breaks the ice as we near our front porch, which is leaning to one side.
“You don’t think I’d make it?” I turn to face him. “What makes you think you could? Is it just because you’re male?”
“No female has ever bonded,” he remarks. “That’s not the Trials being picky, that’s the dragons.”
“We will have no further discussion of this,” I announce, then push open the front door. “As far as I’m concerned, they still think we’re only seventeen. There’s no need for us to even discuss this.”
Sam takes off upstairs as I head to the kitchen, pulling the mushrooms out of my pocket.
Sam comes back downstairs shortly after I finish cooking up the mushrooms in lard. I spread the mixture onto some bread and hand it to him.
“I think I’m going to go,” he says, not looking at me.
“Go where?” I say, a sinking feeling in my gut telling me exactly what he’s talking about.
“The Trials,” he says.
“Sam, no.”
“It’s our only option of saving her,” he says, tears in his eyes. “You’re a bit shorter than me, so you should be able to get away with staying another year.”
“SAM NO.”
Sam sets the bread down, heading to the front door just as the Monarch’s sentries come to the door, requesting an age verification of the two of us.
I scream as Sam tells them his age and they immediately escort him, holding me back as I cry out for him, knowing I’ll never see him again.
