Chapter 1

At the beginning of time, there was nothing. A void existed, one that covered the whole of the earth. Without warning, a tear was made in that void, and through it came a ship, an ark from a distant world. With it came the Creator, who had watched and guided the ship from the dead place it had been made. When he saw the new expanse around him, he formed an idea in his head, and from it shaped the new earth in the form of the old world. That world complete, he gently laid the ship on the new land, and brought forth its passengers, the children of men that had lived and died in the old world, set in sleep for the journey. He guided the now empty ship to a place of safety and awoke the sleepers. They looked around and saw their new world and rejoiced, for a time. After living together for many years, the descendants grew tired of shared happiness, as men often do. They sought their own nguồn of fulfillment, and each found it in their own way.


The son known as Aaron would often take walks bởi the fields when the others were enjoying themselves. As he walked ngày after day, he noticed a sprout that was slowly growing into a tree. Each ngày he walked, the cây grew slowly bigger. For years and years he walked, and enjoyed watching the cây stretch skyward. One tháng it grew its first flowers, and the tiếp theo it gave its first fruit. On that day, Aaron stopped, reached up, and picked a fruit. Looking at that fruit, he realized how much joy he found in its making. He ate it, then took the seeds and planted them in the field, vowing he would devote the rest of his life to growing and waiting. Thus the simple tribe of Ara was founded.


I was sleeping when the news reached our village. We had just harvested, bailed, and stacked the cỏ khô, hay the ngày before, and I was too tired to even eat dinner. A mistake, as I was woken rather rudely bởi the growling of my own stomach the tiếp theo morning. Over breakfast, my father told me that a messenger from the capital had come last night and that he had brought news that the great cây had budded just three days ago. I smiled, that meant the great cây festival would be held in just a few short weeks! Neither my father nor I had ever been to a cây festival, though my great grandfather had when he was very young. He told my father wild stories of the incredible celebration, he and his Những người bạn pulling pranks on every girl in the village, his uncle Martin getting so drunk he fell asleep in the pig pens, the weeks of back breaking work getting ready for the whole thing… My smile fell when I realized the enormous work load that was about to come crashing down on me.

Two weeks later, my hands were blistered, my feet were callused to the point of looking and feeling like leather, and all the summer harvest had been brought in. Included within that span of time were evenings spent preparing the village square for the festivities. The flags were hung, the lanterns were ready; we had even been able to scrape together enough money to hire a team all the way from Tekta to erect a temporary đài phun nước in the middle of the square, tied into the well spring that fed water to the village pump. It was simple, like the rest of the village, with a single basin at the hàng đầu, đầu trang to pour into the pool below, and it was only about as high as my shoulder.
I had heard stories of fountains built in Imo Dana that were bigger than houses, with dozens of layers, sculptures, gardens, and even tunnels bạn could walk through. But even if our temporary little đài phun nước wasn’t fancy, it made the town feel proud, developed, and maybe even a little wealthy. As I sat under a cây in the square đọc one of my mother’s sách (The nineteen spirits of Azhandeer, one of her các sở thích and so, one of mine) I could see scores of people standing around it, admiring the cascading rivulets of water. The pool itself was coated in children, giggling and screaming as they splashed each other with the falling droplets. Today was the last ngày before the festival, and the ngày after the summer harvest, a universal ngày for relaxation and rest before we began preserving the thực phẩm for winter and sending the extra to be sold in Logician Markets. On days like this I like to just close my eyes and stare up at the sky and wish it would never end.
My eyes snapped open when someone snatched the book off of my chest. Sitting up, I saw the face of the town’s oldest son, Malus, hoặc at least I saw the hàng đầu, đầu trang half of his face; the rest was obscured, buried in my book. Standing around him were 3 of his very large “friends”
“Malus!” I yelled. “Give me back my book!”
Malus appeared not to notice. “I thought it was dear old mommy’s book, and bạn can have it back when I’m done.”
I stood to face him, ready to fight if I needed. “Done doing what? You’re not going to get anything out of it…and you’re holding it upside-down.”
Malus looked up with anger in his eyes. He disliked hiển thị weakness in front of his “friends”; most likely the entire reason he came over here was to pretend he could read in front of them. That failing, he tried a different approach. He covered his face in an idiotic smile, crossed his eyes, and scratched his head like a monkey.
“Im sory. Us dum peaples dont allwaes no wuts goin on!” Then his smile vanished, and he tossed the book roughly to one of his cronies.
I panicked and made a wild grab, but ended up shoving the guy (who was twice my size and three times my weight) into the tree. He recovered quickly and punched me in the face. I fell to the ground at Malus’s feet with a bloody nose and the beginnings of black eye.
“You think you’re smarter than us just because bạn know how to spell your own name?” Malus asked, leaning over me. He yanked the book right back out of the large henchman’s hand.
“You think you’re better than us just because your dead mommy taught bạn to read?” he asked again, swinging the book carelessly in front of my face. He then turned and threw my book into the middle of the square.
“Well read that!!!” he shouted, and he and his followers ran off. The book landed in the hàng đầu, đầu trang basin of the fountain, sending the water within spraying out over the crowd. The kids screamed and ran to their mothers, most of whom had been in the inner radius and were now equally wet.
With a yell, I launched myself off the ground and sprinted towards the fountain, pulling my mother’s book out of the basin and trying to shake as much water out of it as possible. When I thought I had gotten most of it, I looked up, meeting the gaze of an angry vòng tròn of wet mothers. I gave a nervous smile, then carefully wrapped the book in my áo khoác and walked with my head down out of the circle, ignoring the tracking stares of the villagers.
When I got home, I built up a ngọn lửa, chữa cháy (even though it was quite early) and spent the rest of my “relaxing” afternoon slowly turning the pages of the book in the heat, drying them with a towel as I went. My father came trang chủ at around page 557, almost to the end. He set a bag down bởi the door, probably supplies for the festival, and kicked off his boots before plopping himself down tiếp theo to me on hearth. We were silent for a while; but he knew exactly the right time to start talking.
“Rumor has it that Malus and bạn were talking when he accidentally mentioned your mother, making bạn so angry bạn threw your book at him (and missed, as Mrs. Dela and her daughter pointed out.)” he đã đưa ý kiến with slight amusement in his voice.
I sighed. “Malus probably started that rumor himself to stay out of trouble.” I never looked away from the pages of “Azhandeer” but I could tell my father was smiling.
“I know Orion, and I told everyone that no force on this earth could compel my son to throw one of Laia’s books, not even at a pig like Malus.” The rest of our evening was spent remembering everything we could about her, good times, bad times, and funny times (like when she had been chased through the village square bởi an angry hen after accidentally sitting on one of her eggs).
After dinner, and after I had my eye taken care of, I went to bed, not even remembering we had a festival to look phía trước, chuyển tiếp to tomorrow.



҉ ҉ ҉



As one of the sons, who was named Ian, was walking in the forest, he found, lying directly on the forest floor, a gemstone the size of a fist. He was struck bởi its breathtaking beauty, and picked it up carefully, keeping it for his own. When he returned to the trang chủ of the sons and daughters of old, all were asleep but the daughter named Donna. He showed her the miraculous stone, and her eyes glimmered with wonder in the firelight. Ian slept that night with his arm around the stone, but when he awoke the tiếp theo morning, he could not find it. Searching desperately around for the precious object, he found it in the hands of the daughter Donna outside his sleeping area. He ran to her and tried to wrench the jewel from her hands. She pulled back, and as they pulled back in forth, the stone cracked, then splintered, then shattered completely. They watched in horror and wonder as a rain of crystal fragments fell to the ground. They chim bồ câu, bồ câu and gathered as many as they could before the others awoke, and when the first of them began to rise, they ran with what they had managed to collect of their treasures and hid. Sitting in the forest, they realized how much joy the stone had brought them, and how it had torn them apart. They vowed that, together, they would tìm kiếm and find every gem and jewel on the earth. They searched for many days and did find thêm gems, but when they returned they were hungry and tired. With no energy to get their own food, they could only sit and admire their finds. Some of the sons and daughters noticed their jewels and told them of the small crystals they had found littering the floor of the camp the ngày that they left. Desiring them greatly, they offered food, water, supplies, and even services for thêm pieces. So Ian and Donna bought a life of ease, one ngày desiring the most beautiful land they could find. When such a land could not be found, they paid the sons and daughters to shape and change the land they had as they saw fit. In their new home, the two lived happily and wealthily, supplying the sons and daughters with treasures for the rest of their days. Thus the wealthy tribe of Imo Dana was born.


I was woken up the afternoon of the festival bởi Nevo, our butler, speaking through the call-pipe tiếp theo to my bed.
“Madam, your mother and father have a message for you.”
I groaned, then reached over and groped for the mouthpiece, pulling it across the giường to my face.
“Fine, what is it?”
I heard him clear his throat on the other side of the pipe. “Your mother has asked me to “tell that lazy child to get something presentable on and hurry her lazy feet down to the dining room!!!”, madam.”
Without responding, I let go of the mouthpiece, letting it fall past its hook and onto the floor.
“Lazy?” I chuckled, “Like she’s ever actually done anything in her whole life.” That being said, I knew I probably should get up, so I slid out of giường onto the heated marble floor, ignoring the fallen mouthpiece tiếp theo to me, and pulled on a light morning robe, (Imo Danans do not like the cold). I walked across the marble path through the planted pools on either side of my quarters, not even glancing out the wall-to-wall windows beyond them. They always held the same view, the same lake, the same manicured trees, the same tended paths and tamed forests I saw every morning. The same “Stylish” things bạn would see anywhere in Palacia, hoặc in the rest of Imo Dana for that matter.
On the other end of the path, I passed through the ornate door into my closet, one of the smallest in the house, about ten feet bởi ten feet with a twenty foot ceiling rounded bởi windows for natural lighting (also very stylish these days). In this room, though the windows were too high up to see out of, I did look around, smiling as I did so, for the interesting các lượt xem were the ones pinned onto the Baieiblan Pine walls. Very few places actually showed the expensive wood, most of it was hidden beneath layers and layers of pictures. My sketches, my drawings, my life, but I guess none of it was really my life. Covering the walls were drawings of people, interesting people, not the flat, boring ones I saw every day. There were brothers Đhorn and Eðth (spelled using ancient letters I came across in a history book once), ma sói who were on the run from demon hunters in medieval Corona. Here was Trevor, myself as I would look if I were a man. (If I told my mother about that one she would have a tim, trái tim attack.) All of them done in an interesting Jovian style called manga, which made them look angular, effeminate, skinny, and wonderfully unreal. There were also landscapes, something I never used to be able to draw, but was encouraged to learn bởi him and which were now among my yêu thích sketches to look at. Massive Aran forests; vibrant Philian valleys; and the sea, the deep blue waves and bright sands of a Nauan coastline (One of the few pictures I had actually colored, with so much garish and expensive color painted onto my outside world, it was nice to get a break in this room every day.) My yêu thích was a sketch of a gritty Nauan waterfront, with warehouses, taverns, and docks lined with ships, legitimate hoặc otherwise. A single figure stood with his back to the observer in the middle of this lively and dangerous place, it was him of course; all of these places were described to me bởi him, I had never seen them. For me, they only existed in this room, but looking at that picture, I could almost feel the cold, salty, night air, hear the shouts of pain and anger and the offers from drug dealers and minor magicians.
“AMANDA! MOTHER SAYS TO GET DOWN TO BREAKFAST BEFORE SHE HAS NEVO COME UPSTAIRS AND DRAG bạn THERE HIMSELF!!!” That wasn’t a drug dealer; at least I didn’t think my sister sold drugs, though that did give a great idea for a picture. If mother was willing to send Vakeer up to tell me that, she must have had something important to say. So I reached to the right of the docks drawing, seized a recessed handle, and pulled the entire section of the tường out. It glided on wheels and rails, a series of racks and shelves and hangers following behind, until the whole of my wardrobe lay stretched across the middle of the closet. (Vakeer’s collection of clothes was even bigger, these shelves might be enough to hold her shoes, and she swapped the whole thing out every few months for the latest in higher fashion.) I threw on one of my generic outfits without any of the “fashionable” accessories hoặc cosmetics that my sisters spent hours putting on in the morning and hours thêm touching up throughout the day. Then I pushed the shelves away, letting them glide easily back into their compartment, and strolled past the now vacant middle of the room, reaching up to the handle that opened the doors (also plastered in paper) into the hall beyond.

From there to the dining room I had to take seventeen right turns, eleven left turns, twelve hallways, a fancy staircase, thirteen doors, three not so fancy staircases, and one of those new Rodan inventions called an elevator that my parents had bought (along with the services of an Aran to drive the four donkeys on the lower level whose efforts powered the thing.) My bedroom was the furthest from the core of the house, which included the dining room, and if I didn’t have to walk so far to get to the food, I’d probably be huge bởi now. For that reason, and for the extreme isolation that the distance afforded me, I didn’t really mind it too much.
Having finally covered the distance, I had the attendants push open the massive ceiling high doors and walked coolly into the long dining room. I was met with disdainful looks from my parents; mother’s bleached blonde hair at the moment being attended to bởi three hand maidens with brushes, scissors, and nebulizer bottles filled with the latest Philian hair care products. My six sisters also sat, Vakeer, the oldest of us and my parents favorite, sat closest to them with a snidely dominant look on her face, my five younger sisters sat in order of age from Nycole to Mat on the other side of Vakeer, all of them averting their eyes. I took up a ghế, chỗ ngồi tiếp theo to Alexander, my adopted Philian brother (adopting exotic children was very “in” right now) who sat across from Mat. My parents treated him a lot like they treated me, (except when we had company, then they would dress him up and hiển thị him off like a new accessory and tell me to go draw hoặc something until the visitors left) our mutual state of unwant gave us a special bond. We sat in silence for a few phút until mother’s hair was perfect and the stylists were dismissed.
“Amanda, today is not a good ngày for bạn to be doing such things as this.”
I looked up from the pattern I was tracing on my embroidered and monogrammed napkin, “Such as what?”
My mother put her two fingers on her forehead as if to say I was impossible. “Such as… such as… Harold, bạn explain it.”
My father turned angrily towards me. “S-“
“Such as lying in your giường till the latest morning like some sort of Tebran!” My mother shouted before father could get out a single sound. She shuddered at the thought of having a Tebran for a daughter.
Vakeer’s joyful sneer widened and mother began again,
“Your father has graciously agreed to host the Great cây ball tonight,”
I sighed at that, this was the thirty-fourth time she had mentioned his “gracious agreement” in the last two weeks (I had a tally running on a sheet in my closet.)
“-and it would be absolutely dreadful if not all of our family were there to receive the guests.” My mother addressed all of us now.
“You are all to look your best, act your best, and above all, portray the image of the perfect, modern, Imo Danan family.”
I grunted an acknowledgement, the side of my face resting against my fist. Mother held her hand over her face
“Oh, so help me Creator…” just then, the broth arrived, and the painfully slow process of the morning meal began.

I eat a lot. I eat a lot for a member of any of the other tribes, and Imo Danans eat tiếp theo to nothing compared to them. A side effect of which being that we usually only need to do what other tribes call “going to the bathroom” once hoặc twice a month. Therefore, our home, large as it is, was built with twenty-three "bath” rooms, but only one "toilet" room, which, due to my excessive eating habit, was usually occupied bởi me, much to my sister’s dismay. The other house fixture that was usually occupied bởi me was the table. Everyone else had long cách đây finished what counts as a well balanced meal in Imo Dana: a small bowl of light broth that was just barely spiced, a few fancy and highly plaited biscuits, and maybe a piece of fruit, but I was still at the table, a platter, đĩa, plate of every spice in the phòng bếp, nhà bếp lay before me, and an array of multicultural foods in front of that.
Rich Coronan beef stew, eye-wateringly spicy Tebran curry, rustic Nauan style rotisserie, lò quay chicken, and for dessert: a decorative “Jovian sunrise ice” made of something called “Ice cream”, flavored like simple but wonderful Aran vanilla, and topped with arranged slices of fruit, berries, and edible “Paradise” flowers, all of it held in a crystal wine glass with a fine smoke drifting off from the cold treat. It was a perfect balance between sweet and sour, simple and ornate. This was about the only place other than my closet where I could get away from Imo Dana for a while, imagining myself sitting on a distant Nauan beach, lifting pieces of that chicken from a basket; hoặc on the moonlit balcony of a restaurant in Celadon City, eating this Ice cream and watching the blossoming fireworks. Suddenly a hand reached from beyond my field of vision and removed my Ice cream from the picture. I turned to face the thief, leaving Jovia’s capital behind as I did so. Vakeer’s ugly mug replaced it. She was looking with disgust at the delicious (and quickly melting) dish.
“How can bạn eat this stuff, it looks like the glue they use to hang wall-paper.” I set my spoon down solidly.
“I suppose bạn must have a lot of experience eating glue.” I retorted coolly. She ignored the insult, twisting the cup in her hand and watching the small lump of cream in the middle slide around.
“I know why bạn slept in so late this morning.” There were a few moments of silence, she had caught my full attention and she knew it. Her face leaned in really close to mine, as if she were going to tell me a secret.
“You snuck out last night to see him,” I tensed, she knew. Seeing my slight reaction, Vakeer’s smile widened again.
“The Nauan boy bạn met that one ngày at Garden Mall.”
I remembered full well that day, almost a năm ago. I stared at her, considering what response would be most appropriate. I ended up choosing the most direct route,
“You’d better not tell mother hoặc father.” I gave her a moment to let this sink in. She looked at me like I was an idiot, (something she did often) and half-spoke, half-laughed an answer back to me.
“Of course I’m going to tell them!”
“If bạn do, I’ll tell them you’ve been sneaking trang chủ boxes of that “chocolate” stuff every time we’ve visited Garden Mall.” Her eyes widened to the size of bữa tối, bữa ăn tối plates.
“You know!”
“You bet I do, “Vakuum”.”
“Y-…you eat thêm than I do!”
“Our parents already know that, but if I tell them this…” She placed her hand over her mouth in a half-gasp.
“They’ll think I’m like you! bạn can’t tell them! bạn won’t tell them! bạn wouldn’t!” I raised my eyebrows threateningly. She held a small hissy-fit, featuring the sourest face I had ever seen, then slammed my ice cream down on the bàn and stormed off, motioning the servants to open the doors with a snap of her fingers. When her thundering steps disappeared down the hall, I turned and looked into the dish of dessert.
“Melted.” I đã đưa ý kiến with disgust, and then motioned the staff over to remove the empty dishes. I stood up and walked out of the dining room, intending to squeeze maybe a half-hour in of drawing before my parents forced me through the same, painful rhetoric they always did before a party. On the way, I thought of him again, and of the ngày Vakeer had mentioned, the ngày he and I first met...

---The city of Garden Mall was the place to go for everyone who was anyone, but to my knowledge, none of those “anyone”s actually lived there. It was just very fashionable to take ngày trips there. Built at the spot where the Vitae and Celadon Rivers joined to become the Artemide, it was a city of gondolas, bridges, waterfalls, and marble, the true face of Imo Dana. But as with the rest of the tribe, there was darkness hidden beneath that face. Past the shops and the gardens, the fancy boats and well dressed rich folk, were the alleys and back rooms that housed the essential mechanisms of the city. Where all the work was put in to make the city presentable; and as Garden Mall was of great importance to the transport of goods and people up and down the rivers, much of what my parents would call “the filth of the world” passed through those alleys at one point hoặc another. Our family, not one to be caught refusing something fashionable, took trips to this city very often, one of the few family activities I actually enjoyed. There were so many different people in those streets; Jovians, Arans, Nauans, even Deiadans (I laughed when I saw my first Deiadan, I knew they were đã đưa ý kiến to be very small, but this man couldn’t have been thêm than four feet tall!), and I swear I even saw a Tebran once, wrapped from head to toe in a thick black fabric. But no matter how interesting the over-city was, it was a veneer. I wanted to take a peak beneath it, to see some reality for once in my life. So, on one of our trips, a chilly ngày that forced all visitors to dress warmly, I waited for a moment when my sisters were going gaga at shoe stores, dress stores, hat stores, jewelry stores, cái ví, ví tiền stores, and cosmetics stores (in that order) and my mother was “talking” with the owner of a lawn care service she switched to mysteriously last summer. They were leaning very close to each other and mother looked like she was going to faint into his arms, so I was fairly certain she didn't even remember she had children right now. I inched away, passed through the foot traffic of the street, and emerged, facing the gap between two vendor’s stalls, the tall buildings on either side holding the whole area in perpetual shade. I took a deep breath (filling my nostrils with a scent reminiscent of rotting pumpkins) and took my first few confidant steps into the real world.
The deeper I went, the darker it got, and I started seeing people. Mất tích people, hopeless people, those the world forgot. Some wore ragged clothes, dissolved to almost nothing, others wore very nice clothes, only dirty and worn as if they were the last remnants of a lifestyle lived long ago. In my head I began to weave stories, imaginary origins for each one. Had I any experience with situations like this, I would have known it’s a bad idea to walk through a dark alleyway full of drug dealers, drug junkies, and men “down on their luck” with a Mất tích expression on your face. Especially not if you’re wearing expensive (if oddly unfashionable) Imo Danan clothes. When I came out of my imaginings, I was surrounded bởi five of the biggest and meanest looking Nauan men I had ever seen.
“Thoser’ some nice clothes you’re wearing.” One said, taking a step forward.
“Look expensive.” Another commented, also taking a step forward. In fact, all of them were drawing closer, surrounding me as I looked around fearfully, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once. Suddenly a voice spoke from directly over my shoulder.
“I wonder what’s beneath’em.” I tried to run forward, but a hand gripped the back of my shirt, holding me there. Not knowing what else to do, I screamed. Then someone from beyond the vòng tròn shouted above my cries “HEY!” The burly men all turned. Having not been let go, I had no choice but to turn with them. Standing further down the dark path, with the light of Garden Mall shining in from behind, was another Nauan, but he was much different than the Nauans I had seen. He was shorter than most, for one thing, though that might be explained bởi his youth; his figure was thêm slender then muscular, and his typically Nauan dirty blonde hair was carefully spiked up, unlike most Nauans who just let it hang and rot. Perhaps the most striking difference was that his clothes and face still had life in them, he stood out in the alley because bạn could tell he still might have a future. Meeting silence, the Nauan boy looked around a little, then repeated himself,
“I đã đưa ý kiến “HEY!”
“Yeah, we got that.”
…
“So, are bạn going to do anything?” he asked slowly.
“Depends on what ya want.”
“I want to help.”
“Well then, go right ahead.” The leader cleared a path from him to me.
I cringed as much as was possible in my current position. The Nauan boy groaned and rubbed his temples.
“I want to help the girl bạn idiots!” The leader just stared stupidly.
“Oh, right.” “I mean, No!” he stepped in front of me again. The Nauan standing in the light smirked, his hair billowing in a sudden wind that rushed through the alley way, carrying the scents and sounds of the city beyond him,
“Well then I think we have a problem.” He reached to his thắt lưng, vành đai and drew out a foot long traveler’s dagger, holding it in an attack position. The muggers all pulled out full length swords and held them identically. The Nauan boy’s smile fell as he looked down at his dagger and then back up to their swords.
“Well that’s embarrassing.” He đã đưa ý kiến casually, then with a quick movement, threw the dagger straight as an Mũi tên xanh into the lead man’s right shoulder. He dropped to his knees with a yell and clutched the handle with his other hand. In the time it took him to do that, the boy had run all the way up to where he stood; he pushed off the ground with his right foot, then off the bleeding man’s head with his left, launching himself into the air above me. The man furthest behind us held up his sword to skewer the airborne fighter, but the flying boy kicked his sword out of his hand, caught it, and then landed hard on the mugger’s chest. He leapt off, spinning in mid-air, then jumped back into the group, the stolen sword held in front of him. I was shoved to the dirty and garbage-strewn ground as the man holding me deflected a sword blow. I tried to crawl out from under the fray, yelping as a large and heavy body fell in front of me. Eventually I was left huddled on the ground, with my head on my knees, waiting for something to happen. Then I realized the sounds of swordplay had stopped. I was listening hard for something, anything, when someone grabbed my shoulder; I yelped again and whacked that someone in the side of the head. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that person was the boy who had just saved my life.
“Sorry! Sorry! I thought bạn were one of them!” I said, getting up and walking over to where he stood rubbing the left side of his skull.
“It’s okay, are bạn alright?”
I nodded, looking around at the aftermath of the battle; three people lay around us, either dead hoặc seriously injured, I couldn’t tell, the other two were hobbling around the corner, deeper into the darkness. I turned back to my rescuer,
“Thanks for tha-AUGH!!” I clutched him around the chest as someone else popped up beside us. He looked dazed,
“Whoa, did bạn guys see that, he was like, “LET ’ER GO!” and they were like, “NO!”. Totally epic…” He looked around in a confused fashion, “I gotta go find somethin’ to smoke.” He said, and then wandered on down the alley. After he too disappeared around the corner, the boy cleared his throat loudly,
“I think bạn can let go now.”
I yanked my arms off of him, “Right, um, thank bạn again…”
He smiled.
“Vincent, my name’s Vincent.”
I smiled back. “Amanda.”
He offered an arm in a very polite manner, and led me back in the direction of the light. When I emerged into the ngày of Imo Dana once more, Vakeer was passing bởi unconcernedly. She spotted me out of the corner of her eye and turned, probably to say something insulting, when she noticed I wasn’t alone. She stood dumbstruck for a second, then ran off through the crowds in the direction of mother and her “conversation”. I leaned in close to Vincent (I suddenly realized that was my yêu thích name ever) and told him that was my sister, and to prepare himself to meet my mother.
“Already?” he joked. Over the sounds of the crowds, we heard a womanly voice shriek
“She went where?! SHE’S WITH A WHAT!!?” then scores of startled shoppers were shoved to the ground. In their place stood my mother,
“Amanda!” she shouted. “What on the Creator’s earth compelled bạn to go down that alley!?”
I could swear I saw steam coming out her nostrils with every breath, and that surprised me: was she hiển thị actual concern, for me? She started in again,
“If anyone saw bạn down there- I… I can’t even imagine the scandal!” I sighed away that brief and wishful thought. In that small pause she seemed to remember we weren’t alone.
“Oh, hello there…boy.” she đã đưa ý kiến awkwardly.
I pointed at him, proudly and, unbeknownst to me, rudely (Imo Danan children are taught an entirely different set of manners than the rest of the kingdom), “He saved me, I was almost mugged.” Mother looked cautiously over her shoulders and saw the majority of the displaced crowd was still standing there, gawking at the highly unusual sight of an Imo Danan and a Nauan standing arm in arm. Her face cycled into its award-winning smile and she quickly and gracefully slid beside me and pulled me away from Vincent.
“Well, thank bạn for your assistance boy; we’ll just be going now.” I was being pushed along, sliding across the marble đường phố, street against the will of my dug-in heels.
“Mom! I don’t want to go yet! Can’t I at least talk with him?”
She didn’t stop smiling, but leaned very close to my ear and hissed through her teeth,
“Talk to him?! bạn are never going to see that hoặc any other Nauan ever again! And don’t bạn respond that he saved your life.” she added, noticing my mouth opening in protest.
“You wouldn’t have needed saving if bạn had just stayed away from the places he and his kind inhabit!” We emerged on the other side of the street, our carriage waiting. Mother was distracted bởi the grounds-keeper again as we approached, and I was able to look back and see Vincent, still standing bởi the alley where we met. He waved, his face filled with that same smile. I started to wave too, but stopped in the middle, having suddenly been stuck bởi an idea. I held up a finger to tell him this, and he craned his neck curiously as I turned and rummaged through the coach-bag. I finally found what I was looking for, a certificate verifying that we were indeed members of Imo Dana’s “Johnston” family. Mother always took them with us on these ngày trips, “In case someone needs proof.” No one ever did. The certificate included the address of our mansion, and as we had the original as well as several other copies at home, I didn’t think anyone would care if I borrowed it. I threw it as hard as I could in Vincent's direction (it didn’t even make it half-way, he had to sprint over the heads of five unfortunate Deiadans to catch it) then pulled my arms back into a casual position as quickly as possible. When I turned around, my butler Nevo was standing right there, staring at me, he looked at the open coach-bag (Crap! I had forgotten to close that.), then up at Vincent who was looking over the scroll from that bag, finally returning his gaze to me. He smiled and put a finger over his lips, swearing himself to silence. I gave him a quiet grin as thanks. When we finally boarded the coach, I looked out the window, back at where Vincent still stood. He watched us as the ngựa lurched forward, and after a few thêm moments, he turned and walked off, back into the dark of the alleyway.----

Mother didn’t take us back to Garden Mall for several months. She đã đưa ý kiến it was getting too cold to go, and true enough, our mansion had just experienced its first blanketing of snow. But I knew the real reason was to give “that Nauan boy” plenty of time to di chuyển onward with the crew of a shipping boat, something I realized was a possibility, even if he had my address. It wasn’t until tiếp theo spring, while taking a walk around the edge of our “forest”, if bạn could call it that, when I spotted him napping in the sun under an oak tree. Our relationship blossomed over the tiếp theo six months and, as Vakeer said, I had been sneaking out to see him almost every night since. He had found a place to stay in the gardener’s lều, cabin in the woods, abandoned since mother had become interested in this new service. That lều, cabin became a nightly trang chủ to me, and the third and final place through which I could escape Imo Dana.

As the staff were finishing the preparations for the ball, I was forced to sit through two and a half grueling hours of having my hair tortured into submission, my face sanded off and painted back on in unnatural colors, and my nails essentially hacked down to a painfully narrow size (the stylist called it “pruning”). I had a fancy and very tight ball áo choàng shoved over my head, had my hair attacked again (the stylist called it “repairs”), and was finally deposited tiếp theo to my equally adorned but considerably happier sisters and less than happy brother in the entry hall. My parents joined us, also dressed up, followed bởi the attendants, servants, waiters and waitresses, the band, the touch-up hairdressers, the coat-taker, the hat-taker, the announcer, and the Jovian entertainers (including ngọn lửa, chữa cháy dancers; balancers on oversized wooden spheres; and beastwalkers, costumed to the point of looking like real animals, at least until they stood on two legs and spoke cleverly to the guests.) Not to mention the people behind the doors who also toiled to put this together: the chefs, the stable masters, the hair-stylists, the makeup artists, the fashion experts and tailors, the florists, the gardeners, the coordinators, and of course Nevo, who, though he had worked harder than anybody on this ball, had not been invited, and most likely was sitting in his small room, drinking a single glass of wine and đọc a newspaper. Oh, how I envied him. We saw the bobbing lights of the first carriage coming up the lane to our mansion, and another behind it, and another behind it. The horn-players lining the front steps began trumpeting their refrain to the ears of the people arriving; people whom the trumpeters knew full well would not bother to compliment them, greet them, hoặc even look at them while they stood out in the biting night air.
Our parents hurried us along the hallways marked with human fence-posts that lead to the ball room, herded us down the steps (not easy for me in high-heeled shoes), lined us up in order of age (eighteen through adopted) and stood us erect. The first family marched through the door and the announcer belted out in a needlessly loud voice, “LORD AND LADY REMUS AND THEIR CHILDREN, OF EASTWALL, PALACIA!” The lord and lady’s family descended slowly, their no doubt highly Imo Danan faces obscured bởi masks, (the great cây ball is traditionally a masquerade; only the hosts remain unmasked, allowing the guests to identify them.) They were only halfway to the ballroom floor when the announcer named the tiếp theo guest. “SIR ARTHUR MALLIAN OF SOUTHGARDEN, PALACIA!” The first group reached us and was greeted with my father’s regal bow, mother and Vakeer’s graceful curtsies, my clumsy curtsy, my five sisters’ thêm girlish curtsies, and a final, inexperienced bow from Alexander as they passed us, each of them returning the same, gender-defined shows of shared high-breeding. We then bowed in Sir Mallian, Vakeer taking a noticeable interest in the young gentleman. I thought his face looked like something a horse might spit up, then eat again, but following Mother’s training, Vakeer was looking at his money, worn all over his body in the form of a suit worth several thousand crowns at least. For the tiếp theo hour, the rich and prodigal of Imo Dana were added to the crowd; the band was in full strength, and everyone was trying to outdo the others in dance, pulling out the latest and most stylish steps they had acquired; the result being that almost everyone in the room was dancing with identical movements, the groups of partners falling naturally into a crystalline pattern across the floor. There were also crowds clustered around the entertainers. The light-footed and light-hearted Jovians, leaping back and forth between black and white globes that were twice as tall as I was, were pulling off moves that would probably have killed me had I attempted them. When the last family had arrived, signaled bởi the announcer walking away from his position to go and sooth his throat, my mother looked out at the crowd with hungry and determined eyes.
“Time to mingle.” She said, as both a statement and a command. My family followed the order, and dispersed through the masses of wealth and celebrity. All across the humongous ballroom were walls of mirrors, even the floor itself was one big mirror, covered in places with expensive carpeting. Reflected within in them was the crowd, wearing a spread of every color imaginable, reds and oranges standing out garishly against blues, purples, and greens, and all these màu sắc were turning in indecipherable patterns to the tune of the loud and complex music. Those spinning màu sắc were reflected infinitely in the opposing mirrors of the walls and floor. Foolishly, I tried to make my way through the dancers, but was quickly overwhelmed bởi the painful collage of inhuman masks, loud music, loud colors, loud scents from the trays of thực phẩm making their way through the scores of whirling clothing, and possibly bởi the lack of oxygen (I think my dress was shrinking). Eventually I was forced to simply remain in the middle of this noxious display of Imo Dana, my head spinning and my stomach trying to do back-flips in the now limited không gian of my torso. Just when I felt my brain was about to explode from the sensory overload, a masked figure emerged from the crowd and gripped my hand. He hoặc she pulled me quickly along through the brief passages made bởi the pattern of the dance, guiding me out of the ballroom, down several corridors and finally to the back room of the phòng bếp, nhà bếp commonly called a scullery. I often used this room, hoặc thêm specifically its exit, to sneak out at night. Though I was grateful to be away from the party, I was also curious as to who had rescued me. To my surprise, when I turned to confront him (his suit made him obviously male) he had removed his mask, revealing the face of our butler.
“Nevo!” I whispered.
“What are you-” He shushed me with his finger over his lips, just like he did the ngày I met Vincent.
“Go on now madam, I’m sure he’s waiting for you.” I stared at him for a while, unsure of what to say, and then I surprised him with a quick hug. I kicked off my shoes (by now my feet were ready to crawl into a hole and die), and ran out the door.
I continued up the đồi núi, hill behind the scullery and found Vincent already there. We ran into each other’s arms and hugged for a long time. When we separated, the only thing he could say was “Nice look.” I unabashedly reached up and wiped the layers of color from my mouth, leaving five trailing smears across my face. He tried his hardest not to let out so much as a chuckle, but in the end we were both lying on the cold grass, laughing our heads off.

҉ ҉ ҉

As the warm autumn sun began to set over the horizon, everyone in our village gathered in the square around the đài phun nước to watch. My great grandfather had told my father about this tradition, practiced for every great cây festival. There was total silence as we stood basking in the golden light, our faces warmed bởi the heated rays and bởi the anticipation of what was to come. The great disk unhurriedly slid off the sky, into whatever lay beyond the vast kingdom and even vaster sea; we waited with bated breath as the very last section vanished into the earth, and at that exact moment, the first pipe began to play, followed bởi another, and another, then a fiddle, and a drum, and finally bởi joyous shouts of the villagers as the festival began. The women all had their best dresses on, the men had all combed their hair, and together they danced through the middle of the village. The dances weren’t fancy hoặc modern; they were hand-me-downs, pieces of our ancestors’ hearts and souls passed on through generations. They were badly executed (though everyone had found time to practice), clumsy, and full of laughter, at our own mistakes and from the enormous joy that only comes from being with our Những người bạn and neighbors. The littler children chased each other in and out of the dancer’s legs, causing many of the larger falls and biggest bouts of laughter. One little girl ran out into the crowds and hugged her parents around the kneecaps in the middle of a step. They wind-milled backwards onto the ground, carrying their child with them, and only laid there giggling, the father hoisting their daughter into the air where she too giggled profusely. I watched as he let her down into his and his wife’s arms and I smiled as the small family simply laid there, consumed bởi the pure happiness of being alive and together. Then I looked over to where my father sat, alone, watching the same scene with a similar smile on his face. I was so proud of him; he had taken my mother’s death just as hard as I had and yet I relied on him so much to help me through it. He felt my gaze and turned to wave, so I waved back, making sure no trace of those memories showed on my face. He stood and walked over to me, gave me a quick hug, and joined me in watching the celebration, one arm around my shoulders.
“You know your mother wouldn’t want bạn to get wrapped up in missing her when bạn could be enjoying yourself.” I will always be amazed at my father’s ability to tell exactly what I’m thinking at any được trao moment.
“I know, but that’s not the only reason I’m standing here; bạn know I’ve never been very social.”
“You know all these people. Just try talking to someone, like Malus is doing.”
Looking up, I saw Malus with a dazed look and unsteady footing trying to talk to Gloria Dela, a very pretty young girl who looked thoroughly disgusted with him. There was a bottle of malt in his hand and a slur in his tongue. The slur and the distance made it impossible to tell exactly what he was saying, but whatever his words were, they earned him a slap so hard he was spun around, collapsing onto the ground. My father’s smile faltered slightly.
“Oh. I think he’s drunk.”
“Shhhh. I want to burn this moment into my memory forever.”

The dances and the âm nhạc and the thực phẩm and the laughter lasted for hours more, until a deep, loud horn announced that the time had come. Everyone stopped celebrations and crowded around the stage at the edge of the square. In the old days of Coronan occupation it had been used as a pillory for punishments, but the necessary equipment had been dismantled and used as firewood ages ago. People found the stage it had been built upon quite useful for announcements and declarations however, so it had remained in place. We were incredibly silent as we stood bởi the converted structure; we were about to see two things that no one in this village had ever seen. The whole crowd was suddenly transfixed bởi the sight of one of those things walking up the pillory’s steps: the official informant for this village, sent bởi the authority of the High Queen herself, specifically for this village. Our interest in him was spawned bởi several things, not the least of which was the fact that he was Coronan, our necks were stretched as far as they could possibly be, trying to catch a glimpse of his ears, searching for the tell-tale connected lobes signature of Coronans, and his back, attempting to spot the absence of an Aran trait, the bony extensions of our vertebrae that protrude through the skin of our backs. (Many people of other tribes react very strangely when they learn of our spines. Most Aran children react similarly when they learn the other tribes lack them) When he reached the hàng đầu, đầu trang of the stairs, he faced the crowd, waiting patiently for the tension to build.
“By the authority of High Queen Miranda, the Tree-Tenders, and the procession of Orderlies, I have been sent to announce the blossoming of the great guardian tree!” We all cheered, following the energy of the moment. A select few lucky villagers chosen bởi the messenger walked up the steps, each bearing something, something covered bởi a cloth and perched on a pillar. There were ten of them, though we knew that was not indicative of anything, it only built thêm tension bởi hiding the real number from us, a number about to be announced bởi the Coronan in front of them.
“This year..,” he began.
“There are five blooms!”
All the villagers on the stage pulled off the cloth coverings; beneath five of them were enormous hoa buds made of paper. The rest had pieces of exotic trái cây beneath, these were tossed into the crowd and the now empty pillars were carried off bởi their bearers. I separated myself from my father to find a better view of the stage, which I located in the uppermost branches of the cây under which I had earlier been harrased. I was now staring at the five identical paper hoa buds on the remaining pillars. The result of a rare collaboration between Jovian artists and Rodan engineers, the buds were made to be perfect representations of the blooms that now graced the great cây in Corona (within reason, it was đã đưa ý kiến they had a thêm angular appearance than the real thing.) When a string in their pillar was pulled, the spring-green but otherwise nondescript bud would spin open in an explosion of color and form, all of it guided bởi the folds and attachments of the paper construction. The informant looked out at the cheering crowds with a smile and walked over to the string of the first pillar.
“The first flower…” he began again.
“Has bloomed for Imo Dana!”
He yanked the string, and the hoa bud burst open and folded out to twice its size, a resplendent bloom of purest white, tinted with pale purples and pinks, structured with tiers of extravagant petals, whorls of stamens and pistils, over-arching petals meeting in multiple levels, and spotted “beards” like bạn might find on an iris. To hàng đầu, đầu trang it off, an incredibly sumptuous scent began to drift over the crowd, a perfume produced to mimic the overbearingly sweet smell of the real thing. We were so amazed at the hoa that it took a few giây for us to begin clapping. Not too hard mind you, Imo Dana was not our yêu thích tribe. Right now we knew its richest families would be hearing the same news in some fancy ball room the likes of which we would never see.

҉ ҉ ҉

Miles and miles away, Vincent and I still lay in the grass. The laughing had stopped, and now we just watched the stars and moons, happy because we were together. I shivered, my dress not being designed for early autumn nights. Vincent held me closer to lend me some of his warmth.
“You know, they’re probably announcing the hoa about now, are bạn sure bạn don’t want to head back in?”
“Not even a tiny bit interested.”
We held each other, oblivious to the single most important event in the kingdom, and we didn’t care in the slightest; why would we need anything but us.

Inside, the ball’s informant pulled the string on the một giây pillar.
“The một giây hoa blooms for Tebra!”
The bud opened slowly and in a strange manner, as if each part of the covering couldn’t figure out exactly which way to go. The hoa within was of the deepest onyx color, but that was about all the crowd could be certain of. The shape was almost incomprehensible, something like a vượt qua, cross between a rhinoceros beetle and an ugly wig. A scent that was both cloying and not actually unpleasant drifted off the unusual blossom. Several people nearest the steps where the pillars stood began to feel dizzy, and a servant who walked close behind the distorted black shape snorted, then began to giggle, and finally had to be carried off in a fit of uncontrollable and vaguely maniacal laughter bởi several other servants, all of whom held wet cloths over their mouths and noses. The informant waited for them to leave, and then casually moved to the tiếp theo column, again yanking on the string beneath it.
“The third hoa blooms for Imo Dana!”
At the flourished opening of the complex structure of white petals, the crowd applauded loudly. There would be no obnoxious cheering at a formal ball, not like one might be hearing in the uncouth towns and villages of Ara.

҉ ҉ ҉

Back in my village, a few people were still laughing from the effect of the Tebran hoa (which had to be carried off the pillory before crowd members started to faint) but most of us were preoccupied with the fact that Imo Dana received two blooms; it would have two eggs, two guardians on the council, and two thêm excuses to look down on us. There was no cheering for that một giây blossom, only applause; none of us were willing to honor that tribe with so much as a shout (except Malus, who was too drunk to even know what was going on, and who, at the loss of oxygen caused bởi his shout, immediately returned to the ground.) The informant moved to the tiếp theo stand, and placed his hand on the string.
“The fourth flower…” he paused for dramatic effect.
“Blooms for Ara!” he shouted.
Our village exploded, the shouts quickly drowned out all other sounds, birds on trees outside the village were woken and jumped out of their nests in frightened droves. The bloom on the pedestal opened slowly but directly, revealing a simple, pale màu hồng, hồng blossom of five petals, with five cheerful stamens ringing the inner rim. A sweet scent filled the air, nowhere near as dominating and overdone as the Imo Danan perfume, it was gentler and thêm natural. The scent seemed to calm the crowd, the sounds of voices and hands replaced bởi the sounds of deep breathing. Using the break in noise, the informant hurried to the tiếp theo pillar.
“The fifth and final flower…” he shouted quickly.
“Blooms for Ara!”
The crowd was totally silent, even the sounds of breathing ceased. Did we hear right? A một giây hoa for Ara! The paper hoa slowly opened, revealing an identical bloom to the one on the column directly beside it. Everyone stared for a few moments, and then applause and cheering louder than any ever heard in this village hoặc any other rang out from us, here and everywhere in Ara, rebounding off mountains and filling the forests. We shouted to every spirit in the kingdom, to every spirit in the world, to the great Creator himself, “we are not inferior.”
To my knowledge, not once in all of recorded history had Ara been chosen twice in the same hatching. This was a night to remember, and it would be a century to remember as well. We danced and ate and laughed till the very earliest hours of the morning, and each of us went slowly to bed, content, peaceful, and united bởi righteous pride, (Except Malus, who spent the night snoring in the square.)
I was filled with excitement, this process wasn’t over yet, and who knew what would happen next. One thing was sure; this tiếp theo council was going to be the most interesting the kingdom had seen in a long, long time.

҉ ҉ ҉

In the city of Palacia, Vincent and I had long cách đây đã đưa ý kiến our reluctant goodnights, and I had snuck back inside. Nevo was waiting for me with a warm blanket, a cup filled with a Jovian drink called simply “Hot Chocolate”, and his assurances that my parents were both preoccupied with undressing, and would not bother to ask why they had seen so little of me at the ball. He guided me upstairs to where my stylist was waiting impatiently, đã đưa ý kiến his goodnights, and left to tend to his evening duties.
After an giờ of having things pulled off, things rearranged, things cut, things snapped, and things peeled back like củ hành, hành tây skins, I was finally out of the dress and makeup. My hair was allowed to fall back down to where it belonged, and it lay there, limp and tired; I felt the same. I shuffled through the halls and stairs of my massive house (not my home, never my home) through my paper-lined closet, across my water-lined pathway, and finally collapsed into my silk-lined bed, thoroughly spent. I never even thought about what had occurred that night, what had caused this ball to come about. I didn’t think about the flowers, the eggs they would become, hoặc what those eggs would mean for me. For now, all I wanted to do was sleep until tiếp theo week, and dream of everywhere I hoped I would someday see.