Chapter 1
The air stinks of sour heat and burnt plastic as I sit on the rusted tub’s edge, legs swinging, the metal biting into the backs of my thighs. Cassie kneels in front of me, combing my mess of hair with fingers slicked in leftover grease from the meal rations—she says it makes the strands behave. I don’t believe her. Nothing about me ever behaves.
“You gotta stop squinting like that,” Cassie says, tugging gently at a knot. “Makes your eyes look even smaller.”
I press my lips together. She means well. She always does. But her words land like little cracks in my reflection. I stare at the oil-slick puddle by my feet, warped with rainbow sheen and floating ash. I squint harder, just to spite her.
Cassie is everything I’m not. Tall, graceful, skin like porcelain and sunstone, with hair that glows gold even under the bio-lamps. Solarian hair, the kind they make shampoo ads about. They call girls like her “radiant,” and it doesn’t feel like a metaphor. When she smiles, even the Reaper ease up on their patrols. She makes the world want to be gentler.
Me? I’m all elbows and sharp bones and wrong angles. My curls coil rebelliously no matter how long she works at them. My frame’s too sinewy—wiry, like one of the stray cats that live in the steam vents. And my eyes? Too wide, too dark. Mama says they make me look “beyond my years.” I think they just make people uncomfortable.
“I’m gonna mess this up,” I whisper. “They’ll laugh me right out the pavilion.”
Cassie pauses, fingers warm against my cheek as she lifts my chin. “You only get one first Assessment, Missy. You gotta believe in it, even if they don’t. Especially if they don’t.”
Her face is so close, I can count the tiny freckles across her nose. She smells like lemon powder and the floral gel they give girls in their final year. It’s her last chance this cycle. After sixteen, no more Radiance Assessments. No more dreams of sunlight and silks. Just waste work and maybe a baby or five to replace the ones they take.
I don’t think the Solarians know how lucky they are.
Here in Colony 14 we are the bottom of the barrel, the end of the line. Everything broken or burned or deemed too disgusting ends up here—including us. We sort it, melt it, bury it, inhale it. The rest of the colonies whisper about us like we’re ghosts. But the Radiance still comes once a year, and we still line up in our stitched-together best, pretending we matter.
Cassie believes we do.
I believe in her.
Mama groans from the corner mattress, swollen belly rising like a balloon about to pop. She’s having twins. I hope they’re girls. Pretty girls. The kind with flaxen hair and symmetrical cheeks. Girls who’ll grow up soft and glowing, who won’t smell like rot and ozone. Girls who’ll get picked.
I glance at the curtain fluttering in the breeze from the air grate. Behind it, the street glows with a sick orange hue. Another waste fire. Another chemical bloom. That’s our sky. Always burning. Always beautiful in the wrong ways.
“Do you think the Solarians are real?” I ask.
Cassie smiles, but it’s sad at the edges. “Course they’re real. I’ve seen them.”
“You have not.”
“I have,” she insists, teasing now. “In the Dome. Once. When I was twelve, and I ranked top ten in the regionals. They brought us in for a tour. I saw girls in glass slippers and men with metal bones. Gardens that grew fruit just from singing to it.”
“Liar.”
She winks. “Maybe. But isn’t it better to dream it than never see it at all?”
I nod, even though I don’t really understand. I’m only ten, and today is the biggest day of my life. Maybe the only one that matters. I’m not radiant. I’m not graceful. But maybe, just maybe, if I stand still enough and smile sweet enough and pretend hard enough, they’ll see something. Something beautiful. Something Solarian.
Cassie finishes with my hair in a high twist that’s supposed to look “elegant,” but I think it just makes my ears stick out more. She smooths the stray curls with the last of the gel she’s been rationing for weeks, but it’s no use. My hair resists Solarian ideals the way our colony resists beauty—loudly and without apology.
Her own hair? Perfect. Coiled into twin braids that wrap like a halo around her crown, gleaming with threads of copper she scavenged from discarded festival lights. She even found a tiny shard of mirrorglass to tuck into the back of her braid like a jewel. When she turns her head, it catches the light, and for a second, she looks like she belongs in those glittering magazines from the Dome.
“Come on,” she says. “We’ve got time for food, if we call it that.”
We shuffle toward the kitchen, which is just a rusted metal panel propped over two crates and a heat plate. The ceiling drips from a busted steam pipe above us. I duck, but a drop still splashes onto my shoulder. It sizzles faintly before cooling into a sticky smear.
Cassie sets out our portions—today, it’s nutrient paste dyed a sickly mauve, served with a single slab of protein cake that jiggles when you poke it. I try not to look directly at it. Last time I did, I lost my appetite and my breakfast.
“Chew slow,” she says, taking a cautious bite. “Helps it stay down.”
It tastes like sadness and something faintly metallic. Like licking the inside of a battery. My tongue curls, but I eat anyway. My stomach is too knotted to hold much, but I don’t want to faint in front of the Solarians. Cassie says fainting makes you look fragile in the wrong way.
Mama groans from the mattress, eyes half-lidded, one hand splayed over her belly like a net. She looks like she’s about to burst open and spill babies all over the floor. Cassie gave her our extra water rations this week, and now we’re both dry-mouthed and dizzy, but we don’t complain.
We never complain.
“Tell her we’ll bring back good news,” Cassie says softly. She tucks the fraying sheet around Mama and kisses her temple. “Two of us gone from Colony Fourteen, maybe three more coming up. She’ll be proud.”
I swallow that hope like it’s another bite of paste—difficult, chalky, but necessary.
We change into our Assessment dresses, pulled from the closet like offerings to some hungry god.
Cassie’s is the color of spoiled cream but fits her like it was tailored from a dream. It hugs her waist and falls in precise pleats that almost disguise the burn-stains at the hem. She’s added embroidery made from a month ago’s sanctioned Market Day, stitched into shapes that resemble birds or maybe flames.
Mine’s too big in the shoulders and too short in the skirt. It used to be Cassie’s before she “blossomed,” as she put it. The fabric itches, and I’ve got one sleeve pinned to keep it from falling off. Cassie painted the buttons gold with a strip of dust from the plating mines she bargained for. It flakes when I move, but for a moment, I look almost… not dull.
We step out into the alley behind our rowhouse, the big fan kicking up dust and the smell of sulfur. It’s a long walk to the town square—down three flights of uneven stairs carved from old landfill layers, past broken screens blaring propaganda that was supposed to make us hopeful, through the tunnel with flickering lights and flickering men. The kind who stare too long.
Cassie takes my hand the whole way.
We pass girls in groups, each one dressed like they’ve already been chosen. Their hair shellacked into sleek domes or piled high with bottle caps and shimmer dust. Their dresses brighter, fuller. Some even have shoes that match. I try to keep my chin up like Cassie told me.
They’ll never pick girls from Colony Fourteen.
But here we are.
The square opens before us, lined with silver-cloaked Enforcers and glowing blue drones that scan every girl as she enters. In the center, three Solarian officials stand beneath a floating emblem of the Dome—a sun with a thousand rays. Their faces are pale and perfect and cold.
Judging eyes, measuring smiles. Cassie steps forward like a queen. I follow her like a shadow. Let them see us. Let them try not to.
We stand at the edge of the square, just outside the circle of Solarian officials, who glide like wraiths in their shining coats. There’s an eerie stillness that settles over me the moment I take in their faces. The skin of their necks is almost too smooth, their eyes a shade too bright—like they’ve been plucked from the sun itself and dropped into our dirt-streaked world. I can almost feel their gaze on me, cold and thorough, as if they’re measuring every inch of me before even giving me a chance.
I try to swallow the knot in my throat.
Cassie stands tall, her shoulders square. She looks perfect, doesn’t she? And I… I’m trying, so hard, to breathe. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m the wrong kind of girl here.
The wrong kind of everything.
As we step closer, my legs feel like lead, each step slower than the last. I tell myself it’s just the weight of the dust in the air. It’s not fear, right? Just the weight of the city, the weight of this moment.
Cassie squeezes my hand once, hard enough to make me snap out of my spiral of doubt.
“Don’t blink,” she whispers, her voice steady, but I can hear the tremor beneath it. “You blink, they see weakness. Don’t give them an inch, Missy.”
I nod, but inside, I feel like I’m already falling apart.
The Solarian officials stand in a perfect row, their heads tilted in that unnerving way, as though they’re absorbing every aspect of us with a glance. The way they look at us—at me—isn’t like they’re seeing a person, but rather an object. Something to be appraised, examined, picked apart.
One of them steps forward. Her hair is platinum blonde, perfectly straight, so sharp it almost gleams. She’s holding a thin silver rod in her hand, twisting it like she’s weighing the air.
“Step forward,” she says, her voice a melody of clipped words, soft but edged with authority. It’s the kind of voice you would hear in a courtroom—detached, cold.
Cassie steps forward immediately, chin high, her hands clasped together in front of her waist as though she’s been trained for this moment since birth. I watch her go, my stomach clenching. How does she do it? How does she make it look effortless?
I should be more like her. I want to be more like her. But all I can feel is the weight of the world pressing on my chest.
I’m so focused on Cassie that I almost miss it—when the official’s gaze shifts to me. The brief flicker of interest, the faintest hint of a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She doesn’t look impressed. She doesn’t look anything, really.
I take a step forward, but my knees feel like they’re going to give out at any moment. The ground is hard beneath my feet, the grime of the square sticking to the soles of my shoes. My heart pounds in my chest like a drumbeat, loud enough that I wonder if they can hear it.
The platinum-haired woman looks me over, eyes narrowing as she takes in my dress, the too-big sleeves, the mismatched buttons. She doesn’t even wait before raising a hand, the rod in her grip flicking once to the side.
“Next,” she says, dismissing me with a single word.
My breath catches. I freeze, still standing there, like some child left out in the rain, waiting for someone to see me.
I glance at Cassie. Her back is straight as a line, but her eyes… her eyes are already searching the crowd. Searching for a way out. I can tell—she knows what I’ve been feeling all along. She knows they won’t pick me.
And I know it too.
But I can’t let go of the last piece of hope I have left. I can’t. Not yet.
The Solarian official shifts her weight, clearly losing interest, and motions for me to step aside.
I do, my legs moving without my permission. My body obeys where my mind rebels. I feel the cold, stony gaze of the crowd on me as I step into the shadows, watching as Cassie’s turn draws near.
She steps forward, and the contrast is stark. The Solarian officials seem to breathe her in, the way they angle their heads and step closer, their eyes lighting up like she’s the answer they’ve been waiting for. They touch her cheek gently, almost reverently, as though she’s a rare flower they’ve found after a long drought.
They don’t touch me. No one even looks my way.
And then, it happens.
One of the officials, a man with a neatly trimmed beard and eyes like polished steel, looks up, breaking the trance around Cassie for just a moment. He meets my gaze.
His eyes flicker—flicker, like there’s something there, some strange little spark that isn’t supposed to be there. His lips twitch, like he might say something. But then he doesn’t. He looks back at Cassie and motions for her to step forward again, fully enveloped in her presence. Her brilliance.
“Cassiopeia Aldermen,” the platinum-haired woman calls, her voice ringing through the air like a bell.
But I stay in the shadows, waiting, waiting for a moment that will never come.
The weight of the world doesn’t sink in all at once—it creeps, like a shadow creeping in the corner of your vision. The Solarian official dismisses me without a second glance, and I step back, feeling like I’m evaporating into the gray. Cassie’s still at the center, still under their scrutiny, but I can barely look at her anymore.
The officials aren’t even pretending to hide their interest in her now. Their heads tilt like vultures circling. They discuss something with the sharp woman, the platinum-haired official, and she smiles—a cold, practiced curve of her lips. I look away, not wanting to see the moment they make their decision.
And then it happens.
Cassie’s face changes. Her shoulders drop, the stiff posture she’s perfected for years faltering. She’s heard it—the word they’ve whispered to her, the thing that tells her she’s not enough. Not quite perfect enough for them.
Cassie was supposed to be chosen. She was supposed to be picked.
But she isn’t.
Georgia, or Gia as everyone calls her, steps up, her face beaming with the kind of unearned confidence that’s always rubbed me wrong. I can’t help it—Gia’s pretty, sure, but her beauty is too polished, too clean. Her cheeks flush like they’ve been painted that way, and her hair is too perfect, falling in rippling waves of almost unnatural gold. The officials, their sharp eyes lingering on her like she’s some kind of treasure, clap and cheer. She’s it. Gia’s the one.
Cassie stands frozen, her lips pressed tightly together, but there’s something in her eyes—something broken, something I recognize all too well.
And that’s when I realize: It’s not about beauty. It’s not about radiance or grace. It’s about what they need. And right now, they need Gia. Not Cassie.
Cassie’s hand tightens around mine, the nails digging into my skin like she’s grounding herself in the only thing left that she can control. She doesn’t cry. Cassie never cries. But I can feel the shift, the coldness creeping into her posture, the way she takes a step back from the circle, away from the officials. She’s fallen from grace. The fall is slow, like gravity taking its time to win.
The night after the Radiance Assessment, the tension lingers between us, heavy and thick like the scent of burnt-out fires and sweat that fills the air.
We still attend the party, though—because it’s tradition. The girls who didn’t make it and the ones who did gather in the town square, under the flickering lights, to celebrate the few that were chosen to become “Radiants.” Their faces gleam, their hair a cascade of glittering waves, and their dresses swish as they dance in circles. A loud, thumping beat fills the air, and moonshine is passed around in jars like it’s the only thing worth living for.
I watch them, the Radiants, their feet stomping against the dust-covered ground, the makeshift crowns perched on their heads, all laughter and defiance, like the weight of the world couldn’t touch them. They wear their crowns proudly, made of tinfoil, glitter, and scraps of fabric scavenged from the remnants of the Dome’s advertisements. The music is so loud it shakes my ribcage, and the dance, a call-and-response song, echoes through the night, a mocking anthem to the idea of beauty they all just bought into.
Gia stands in the middle of it all, a crown perched atop her blonde curls, spinning in a circle with a dizzying, almost reckless energy. Her smile is too wide, too radiant for this moment. She’s the epitome of Solarian beauty now, accepted, chosen. Her eyes find mine across the firelight, and I can almost see the satisfaction in them.
Cassie’s standing at the edge of the circle, her face unreadable. She’s trying so hard not to look like she’s bothered. She’s trying so hard to fit into the space she’s been given. But I see the twitch in her jaw, the flicker of hurt in her eyes when Gia laughs too loudly, when the other girls praise her too much.
I’m still holding her hand, and for a moment, I wonder if she’ll slip through my fingers.
But then the song changes, and the girls sing a new refrain, their voices ringing out in harmony:
“Oh, Radiant lights, the world you will own,
The golden crown, forever our throne,
Dance, Radiant, dance, let no one stand still,
For the world’s your stage, and we live to fulfill.”
I don’t know what they’re celebrating. I don’t know what Gia is celebrating.
But Cassie… Cassie just watches them with the kind of quiet, controlled fury that makes my heart ache.
“I didn’t want it,” she says, barely above a whisper, her voice carrying the weight of something she doesn’t know how to express. “Not like this. Not the way they want it.”
I want to say something, anything, but I can’t.
Not when the stars in the sky seem so far away. Not when the weight of the party’s laughter presses down on me. Not when I feel the empty spaces inside me growing larger by the second.
I look at Gia, spinning under the harsh lights. And in that moment, I understand something dark and deep. Something I didn’t want to admit.
They all belong to them. And we’re just here to watch.
The morning after the party tastes like ash.
The bonfires have all but died out, and the songs of the Radiants linger like ghosts in the corners of our ramshackle home. I wake up to the sound of our mother retching again. She’s not far from her next delivery, and the twins twist in her belly like they already know they’re being born into a life of rot. The sour smell of bile mixes with the metal tang of the waste vats outside our windows, over flow from the processing center where mom used to work before she was too pregnant to. I pull the blanket up over my nose to stop myself from gagging.
Cassie doesn’t speak much that morning.
She sits on the edge of her cot, staring at her reflection in a shard of glass propped against the wall. The curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips, the way her bronze skin catches the pale light—all of it still flawless. But she touches her face like it’s unfamiliar. Like maybe the rejection changed her features overnight.
I want to tell her she’s still beautiful. That they made a mistake.
But I think it would only make things worse.
Outside, the colony is stirring, and the whispers are everywhere. Today’s the day the chosen girls leave.
Cassie doesn’t cry. Not when Mama sighs and tells us to take care walking to the lift. Not when we pass neighbors who won’t meet our eyes. Not even when we spot Georgia—Gia now, she insists—wearing her departure dress: a stiff, shining thing made of synthetic white linen, embroidered with little golden sunbursts. It fits her like it was made for her, and I hate how perfect she looks in it.
Gia stands in the center of the plaza near the Grand Elevator, surrounded by the other Radiants from the outskirt colonies. They’ve been gathered together like ornaments, arranged by height, beauty, and purity, or whatever twisted scale the Solarians use. They shimmer beneath the morning light, and the rest of us watch from behind the ropes like moths pressing against glass.
Cassie and I stand in the crowd.
She’s in her plainest dress, the brown one with the worn seams. Her crown from last night—twisted foil and faded ribbons—was left in a pile on our floor. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, but her fingers twitch, like she’s holding herself together through sheer will.
Gia sees us.
Her gaze flits across the crowd, and when her eyes meet Cassie’s, something passes between them. It isn’t warmth. It isn’t even anger. It’s something quieter, crueler. Regret, maybe. Or worse—pity.
Gia lifts her chin and gives Cassie a small, graceful wave.
Cassie doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. She just watches as if Gia’s already halfway gone.
Then the sirens sound. The Grand Elevator hums to life.
It rises out of the pit like something divine, all golden mesh and Solarian emblems, pulsing faintly with borrowed light. The officials guide the girls forward with gloved hands and tight, polite smiles, each one stepping into the elevator with practiced precision. They’re not ours anymore. They belong to them now.
Gia is the last to enter.
And before she disappears behind the mesh gates, she turns.
For a second, she looks like the girl who used to braid Cassie’s hair under the hanging lamps in our kitchen. The girl who used to laugh until she snorted, who stole sugar packets from the black market to share between their fingers. I see that version of her in the tilt of her head, the sadness in her mouth.
But then the elevator doors close.
And she is gone.
Cassie stays at the edge of the plaza long after the crowd disperses. Her fingers are clenched so tightly at her sides, I can see the bloodless strain in her knuckles.
“You should’ve gone instead,” I say before I can stop myself.
Cassie looks at me, and for the first time, there’s no softness in her eyes. Just sharp, dark glass.
“I know.” Her voice is low and cracked.
I take her hand, even though she doesn’t offer it.
The elevator is still visible, rising slowly toward the Dome. Toward Upper New Elysia—that gilded cage in the sky. That no matter how much dust we swallow or how hard we dream, the world up there wasn’t made for us.
But I still look up, eyes burning.
One day, I tell myself, I’ll see what it looks like up there. Not because I want to belong there.
But because I do belong up there.
