Chapter one

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The first time I saw the fireguards, I was only a year old.

According to my mother, I had been a squalling infant with a bald head and crying constantly. The guard had frowned at me as we stood in line with my older brother and everyone on my street, his red and gold armor flashing like liquid fire in the sunlight. He had made a tick on his scroll to mark my existence, and another guard had stepped forward to put the brand on my shoulder—MM3—and went on his way.

Mother said I screamed for days afterwards as it healed.

The second time I saw the fire guards, I’d been six. I’d started asking questions by then and had heard stories and rumors. Not from my mother, of course, but from the other girls who ran the dirty streets with me. All my mother would say was that the fireguards were doing their duty; every five years they must take a census of all the children in the kingdom. It was for our safety and the overall wellness of our people to know which women were the most beautiful, the most fit, the most likely to bear many children … and which ones weren’t. In addition, they were looking for which boys would make suitable pupils for the Seat, and which ones would be condemned to stay forever in the mud quarter. The girls deemed not good enough had to stay here for the rest of their lives, prey to the fireguards that roamed the alleys and the men who hadn’t been deemed good enough either. Those men were angry and mean, and they liked to grab girls and haul them away to their huts. You had to be quick if you wanted to stay safe from them. The boys weren’t much better: the teenagers who roamed the streets and took in the younger boys who’d also been kicked out of the Seat for a deficiency of some kind. Together, they formed awful gangs that bullied their way into taking what they could from others.

As we raced between the alleys and nooks of the twelve dirty streets that made up the mud quarter, the girls whispered to me about the ones lucky enough to make it out.

The girls were wives of nobles who wore jewels and ate so much that they grew fat and lazy.

The girls served the king himself, and went to sleep each night on a real bed with a warm blanket.

The girls were companions of the queen and got to travel beyond the wall.

...Beyond the wall....

I lifted my eyes to the gargantuan stone and mortar barrier to my left.

The wall went one hundred feet up, and was wide enough at the top to allow the fireguards to patrol at all hours. There was only a small gap above their heads before the great dome started—our enormous shield made of iron, steel, and a newer metal called dragonsbane. It was necessary to keep us safe from the dragon, of course.

“Quick, to the market. It’s almost time for rations.” Shava pointed ahead, easily outstripping the rest of us as the oldest girl with the longest legs. Shava was tough and kept our little gang of girls safe. I’d seen her beat boys and even a grown man bloody once for cornering another girl and trying to touch her.

Most days Shava felt like my real mother. Mothers fought for and protected their kids. They didn’t hide away in a mud hut, huddled into corners. And yet, I couldn’t hate my mother. I knew she was just sad. Like everyone else.

We raced under the large, faded canopies thrown up between each cramped, squashed, little hut. Rain never reached us because of the dome, but water always rose from the ground, occasionally turning the alleys into dangerous cesspits of mud and muck. It covered everyone who lived here in the dirt and grime. Clean water was only accessible from the large communal well, guarded constantly by a fireguard.

“Wait for me!” I cried out, one of the youngest out of our prowling group. If I didn’t get there in time, there wouldn’t be any food. Mother didn’t care to get any for herself or me, so if I wanted something, I had to take it.

Mother had been sad ever since they’d taken my brother. It was up to me to care for her.

Luckily, I made it with time to spare. I was small, but I was fast.

“And what would the little flower want today?” My favorite fireguard stood in front of the crates from the Seat, in charge of distribution for today. He was older, but he was always kind to me and called me ‘flower.’ It made me feel special. And he always snuck me an extra bit for my mother.

I gazed up at him hopefully, my eyes darting between the bread and fruit. Mud girls weren’t allowed to talk to the fireguards. I’d seen a girl whipped for doing so before.

A gray eyebrow rose. “No meat today?” he asked quietly so that no one around us heard.

I shrugged. If I asked for meat, I wouldn’t be able to get as much of the other foods. Bread filled you up the best, after all.

“One chicken, a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and two pieces of fruit,” he proclaimed loudly, and a younger fireguard handed them down to me, wrapped in a cloth.

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