Sapient Salvation 1: The Selection (Sapient Salvation Series) Read online

  I let out a big breath and gave him as broad a smile as I could muster. I was in no mood for a party, but I was not going to hide away at home while Court was out living it up. “Yes.” I nodded firmly. “I would love that.”

  The look on Rand’s face nearly broke my heart. His features seemed to be battling between expressing elation about my answer and sympathy over my predicament.

  I knew he’d been in love with me for years. Why hadn’t I chosen Rand instead of Court long ago?

  Rand was handsome, kind, intelligent . . . and he would never betray me the way Court had. It was only beginning to dawn on me how horribly foolish I’d been.

  I’d ignored Court’s extraneous flirtations, telling myself it didn’t matter who he smiled at as long as he kept meeting me in our nest. As long as he kept saying that we’d be married after the Selection.

  With a fresh flash of humiliation, I realized how stupid I’d been. Court had never proposed. He’d talked about marriage, yes, but never made the slightest move to secure my hand. I suppose I’d always assumed he would do it after the Selection. That evening. Yes, I’d always been so sure that we would become engaged at the Fete, the rowdy celebration that began as soon as the Selection ceremony ended.

  But we’d never made any plans for a life together. We’d never talked about whether we would live in my family’s home or his. When we’d petition to have a child. How we’d save for a home of our own.

  I pulled my collection bags from my shoulders and began passing them to the man who set them on a scale.

  “It’s half of my favorite matched set,” he greeted me—us, me and Lana.

  “Good evening, sir,” I said.

  When he turned, the spinal implant at the base of his skull caught the light, glinting like a brief wink of a robotic eye.

  I watched the scale. Eight bags heavy with bergamines equaled one-eighth of a pound over quota. The man gave a satisfied grunt and entered the weight next to my name with a few taps of his fingers on his tablet. He held out the thin, transparent device so I could sign my name with the tip of my index finger. The tablet flashed green.

  Then I moved aside and Lana took my place. She smiled and nodded, but kept her head down as she handed over her collection bags. It was better if she acted shy and avoided trying to make eye contact.

  Despite our charade, the man who weighed our bags had to know Lana couldn’t see. But we felt it was safer to carry on our act because it enabled him to carry on his act, too. He was an Earthen, but a direct underling of the overlords and could, if he desired, report Lana for her disability. He could report me for helping her hide it.

  When it came time for Lana to sign, she held her finger out. The man positioned the tablet under it so that when she lowered her finger to sign it hit the right spot. The tablet flashed green again, and she sidestepped toward me.

  I slipped my fingers around her elbow and guided her away while Rand turned in his bags.

  “Where are they?” Lana whispered, her eyes flashing.

  I cast a glance at the line. “About a dozen back.”

  “Do you want to wait for Court? I imagine there are more than a few things you’d like to say to him.”

  “No. I’ll speak to him later.” I paused, my teeth pulling at my bottom lip for a moment. “And I’ll need some of your cobalt.”

  Lana smirked. “Good girl.”

  We waited for Rand and then set off toward Southside Borough.

  This time of day had always felt bitter as Court and I were forced to part ways. Not anymore. I sent up a prayer of thanks to the stars that Court lived in a different neighborhood.

  I stood up as tall as I could and pushed out a long breath, wishing I could expel Court from my mind and my heart as easily as the air from my lungs. Despite the crushing ache around my heart, Lana and I had a busy night ahead. Preparations for the Selection Ceremony, the Fete for which Rand would be my escort, and some blue-tinged revenge to exact on Court and Farrah.

  2

  Maya

  SLICES OF BERGAMINE and petals from Mother’s ginger lilies floated around me in our hammered copper soaking tub. It was one of many tubs that had been passed down through the ages for rituals such as the Selection Day cleansing. Across the Ten Protected Zones, many other young men and women were sitting in similar tubs.

  I caught a bergamine circle in my palm and lifted it to my nose. My mouth watered at the sweet citrus smell, but the sudden memory of squeezing fruit juice onto Court’s lips and then licking it off made my eyes sting. The ache in my chest expanded as I let a few tears fall and mingle with the bath water.

  In my self-pity, I almost regretted that I wouldn’t be the one from my clan who would go to Calisto and compete for Lord Toric’s favor, just to escape Court and Farrah. But my family and the others in our clan had made the customary tithes to Belinda’s parents to pay for her coaching, compensate her family for the loss of their daughter, and provide money in place of her work ration while she trained to compete as our clan’s Obligate.

  And I knew I should count myself lucky. In some clans, the Obligate was chosen on Selection Day by random drawing. There was no time for preparation and no compensation for the family. I did not understand that approach, as those Obligates rarely fared well in the competition and many of them didn’t even survive it. An Obligate entering the competition with no training was walking into almost certain death.

  The families of Obligates who perished in the competition never knew exactly how their son or daughter died, and the bodies of the deceased were never returned to Earthenfell. I’d attended a few Obligate funerals, and the mourning families always had the same haunted look in their eyes.

  “Maya?” came my mother’s voice through the bathroom door. “Five more minutes.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I answered, my thoughts returning to the day, to Court.

  I sank low in the water, submerging my entire body from the neck down. If only I could hide there forever.

  *

  I watched my reflection in the narrow, full-length mirror leaning against the wall of my mother’s bedroom. The sides of my dark hair were pulled back in gentle swoops, and the ends of my hair curled over my shoulders.

  “Arms up.”

  I obeyed as Mother bent to pull the ceremonial cord around my waist, passing it around three times. She moved around in front of me to secure the rope in a complex knot, leaving the ends to hang down the front of my white ceremonial gown.

  The silken cord woven by my sister displayed the colors of our clan: cobalt, aubergine, and sage. All of the clansmen and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty—the Obligate Elects—would wear white garb and clan cords for the Selection Ceremony at dusk.

  Mother straightened and stepped back, her appraising gaze taking me in from head to foot.

  “You girls are so beautiful.” Her eyes crinkled in a tired smile as she looked from me to Lana, who was perched on the edge of Mother’s bed. “I’m so relieved this is your last Selection. Even with our clan’s pre-arranged Obligate—”

  Mother’s words cut off as she pressed her fingers to her lips and a rattling cough wracked her body. I guided her to the chair in the corner.

  “We should let you rest before the ceremony,” Lana said. She stood and moved to the foot of the bed, feeling her way with a light touch of her fingertips over the bed.

  “We’ll wake you in plenty of time, Mother.” I waited until her coughing calmed, and then helped her stand and go to the bed.

  Lana went to the doorway and waited while I tucked Mother in and poured water from the pitcher into the heavy ceramic mug on her bedside table.

  “She’s getting worse again,” Lana whispered after I closed the bedroom door.

  We moved quietly into to the tiny room that served as kitchen, dining room, and sitting room. Lana pulled her arm from my grasp and went to the chair that was once the color of bergamine skin but had faded to a dusty orange-beige. She could move around our small house with
out worry of stumbling or running into anything, as we’d had it arranged exactly the same way for years so she could navigate it without help.

  “She’s just tired,” I said. “Selection preparations.” Mother had spent the past three days baking rolls to contribute to the Fete and Feast Day.

  I stifled a sigh, put on an apron, and turned to the dishes in the sink. In spite of my words, I suspected Lana was right, that Mother was on the verge of another flare-up. With every exacerbation, she became a bit weaker.

  A rap on the small window over the sink pulled me from my worries. My hands froze in the suds at the sight of Court’s drawn face peering at me.

  “I need to talk to you, Maya,” he said.

  His stance was somber, his hands clasped in front of him. His forehead lined in a contrite expression. He was dressed in his Selection whites and ceremonial cord. The garb accentuated his tan face and the pure whites of his eyes.

  “Please?” he said.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard Court say that word.

  I nodded once and dried my hands on the front of my apron.

  “Don’t you dare take him back,” Lana said heatedly.

  Her weaving was jumbled in her lap. She turned her head, following the sound of my movement as I took off my apron and left it on a hook by the door.

  “I can handle him,” I said.

  Lana had never approved of my relationship with Court. I’d always told myself it was because she was overly protective, but that had probably just been my way of rationalizing her misgivings. And, I realized, it was also my way of ignoring what I didn’t want to see.

  I lifted my chin, drew a deep breath, and opened the door.

  Court offered a tentative smile when he came around the corner of the house.

  Why hadn’t he gone to the door and knocked like a normal person instead of creeping around looking for me in the windows? Coward.

  I crossed my arms and regarded him in stony silence.

  His gaze roamed my body. His smile widened and heat grew in his eyes. “You look . . . you’re beautiful, Maya.”

  Yes, I know. My mother already told me.

  When I didn’t respond to his compliment, his smile faltered a bit. He ran one hand up and down the other arm as if to ward off a chill, though it was still muggy and hot. I rather enjoyed seeing him squirm a bit.

  He cleared his throat and looked off to the side. “Farrah was . . . she isn’t . . . she doesn’t mean to me what you do,” he said haltingly.

  “You had sex with her, Court. Often, by the familiarity between the two of you. And with the obvious expectation that you’d be doing it many more times in the future.” My heart raced with anger and hurt.

  “No, no, you’re not seeing it right. I had—I did that with her because I don’t care for her the way I care for you. With you I wanted to wait. Just like you always said, so it would be special.”

  My pulse surged even more at his admission and the feeble reasoning for his betrayal. “In the meantime you were simply using her to satisfy your needs?” I asked.

  He brightened and started to nod. Then his eyes widened, and he drew back a little as he took in my horrified reaction. “I don’t . . . um . . .”

  “So you would have stopped after we were married? Because then you wouldn’t need her anymore?” I softened my voice and gave him a completely fabricated look of hope. “You’d be completely faithful to me and never touch another woman again? You’d be with me and only me until the end of your days?”

  His mouth pulled down in a sour look before he could manage to stretch it into a too-wide smile. “Uh, yes, of course.”

  Lifting a hand, he stepped toward me. When I didn’t back away, he moved closer and brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers.

  For a moment I felt myself weaken, felt the pull of Court’s beautiful face cloud my mind. A spark of desire lit up deep inside me.

  “I’m saving you because you’re special. You’re the best of all of them, Maya.” His voice actually trembled a little.

  Any desire I’d felt fled from my body. Of all of them? Exactly how many were there? I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I leaned toward him and looked up from under my lowered lashes. “If you really mean that, meet me here tonight after the Selection. Late, after our parents have gone to sleep,” I purred.

  He grinned broadly. “I will. I would love that.”

  He stooped for a kiss, and it was all I could do to keep my fists firmly clamped under my elbows. I sidestepped and gave him a playfully admonishing look. “Not until tonight.”

  I turned to the door and, after one last coquettish glance at Court over my shoulder, went inside.

  Lana wore a sly grin. “Whatever you have planned, he deserves it ten times over.” She tipped her head innocently toward her basket of cord dyes.

  I allowed myself a chuckle and knelt for the cobalt. Later, I’d offer Court a special glass of wine.

  My heart still ached, but a new energy surged through me. I felt as if I’d started to expand beyond my old self, as if the too-small cocoon that had encased me for as long as I could remember had suddenly become noticeably tight, and I’d begun the process of emerging, raw and tender, into something new.

  *

  The ceremony pavilion was nestled on a plateau tucked against a range of foothills at the edge of town not far from our house. Rand’s family owned a tiny rattleclap car, and Rand had given up his seat to my mother so she wouldn’t have to walk the mile or so uphill to the pavilion.

  Rand, Lana, and I walked slowly, trying not to kick up dust on the road, and the deliberate pace gave the long line of citizens and white-clad Obligate Elects a somber, processional feel.

  Lana and I strode with our elbows linked, and drew many glances. People’s eyes often seemed to want to linger on us when we were together, especially when we were dressed alike. Seeing a matched pair seemed to strike people as interesting or odd, I supposed. And for the ceremony we were a perfectly matched pair, dressed alike and made up with the same hairstyle.

  In moments like these, I almost felt as if my twin and I were of one spirit, moving through the world in separate bodies but synchronized with each other on some ethereal plane.

  Rand walked on my other side, moving nearer to me when we spotted Court and his family join the procession. Court twisted, and out of the corners of my eyes, I saw him spot me and felt his gaze linger. I turned toward Lana and mumbled something inconsequential to her, pretending I didn’t see Court’s searching look.

  With Rand close enough that the back of his wrist occasionally brushed mine, I couldn’t help comparing him to Court again. The past year and a half it could have been me and Rand getting to know each other, talking and laughing.

  But I’d had eyes only for Court.

  I looked up at Rand, waited until he turned to me, and then held his gaze. “Thank you for giving my mother your ride to the pavilion, for walking with us, and for offering to escort me tonight.”

  Thank you for always being there . . . even while I was a girlish idiot.

  The look on his face was like the sun bursting out after a day of rain. “Of course.” He glanced at my sister. “I’d be glad to escort both of you, that is if Lana isn’t already taken.”

  I elbowed my sister. “She always refuses escort.”

  Lana turned a soft smile toward Rand. “I just didn’t want to get attached before my final Selection Ceremony. It always seemed bad luck . . .” she trailed off with a guilty grimace, realizing what she’d said.

  An awkward silence grew between the three of us.

  I heaved a deep sigh. “Lana, you’ve always been the smarter of the two of us. From now on, you are in charge of all of my important decisions.” There was no bitterness in my voice, but a pinprick of pain pierced my heart and I couldn’t help a glance at Court.

  Lana’s tinkling laugh broke the tension. “I’m just cautious. You’re far more courageous than I am.”

  I tipped my
head toward hers until our temples touched, and squeezed her arm. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could survive without a twin.

  As the slope of the road steepened, the purples and blues of the evening sky colored the hills. The alabaster ceremony pavilion—a circular structure with tiered seating surrounded by tall columns—stood out starkly against the darker backdrop of the foothills.

  A hush seemed to descend over the thick line of people moving up the road.

  My thoughts turned to Belinda, the Obligate who would be offered to the Selection from our clan. She’d been born during the same half-year as me and Lana, and though I didn’t know her well I could picture her heart-shaped face, pale blonde curls, and delicate hands.

  This would have been Belinda’s last Selection ceremony before she was free to marry and build a life of her own. Instead, she would be entering the competition in the overlords’ city of Calisto. If she survived the competition, she would be rewarded with a slave position on some other world—not much of a reward, but certainly better than death during one of the competition’s challenges. If she emerged the overall victor, she would join Lord Toric’s harem and live out the rest of her life in luxury and service to the Lord. But no matter what the outcome, she would never return home.

  I sent up a prayer to the overlords and the stars above, asking that Belinda be filled with strength and courage. And another prayer for her family, for making such a profound sacrifice.

  There were many bowed heads around me, and I guessed that others were silently reciting similar prayers.

  As if those battling far overhead had sensed our prayers, a silent explosion lit high in the sky. I stiffened as I watched fiery debris streak through the atmosphere.

  My heart jolted at the sight of the flames streaking toward land, even though I knew any debris that didn’t burn up would hit the protective shield and bounce away or slide to the ground outside the protected zones.

  The invocation went up around the crowd. “Praise the overlords, praise Lord Toric.”

  I joined in, repeating the phrase three times.