Rite of Unity

Prologue

Icrossed my arms over my chest, tucking my hands under my armpits to hide my trembling fingers.

“Get your hands down by your sides,” Mother demanded.

I uncrossed my arms, goosebumps peppering my bare skin.

“Turn.”

I moved in a slow circle, her gaze burning a line across my shoulders, down my back and thighs. When I faced her again, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Your father should have worked harder to ensure you had steak on Fridays.”

“I don’t mind fish, Mother.”

Mother’s footsteps circled me slowly, her gaze a blade dragging over every inch of exposed skin.

“Don’t speak to a man who hasn’t spoken to you first.” She stopped behind me. “Don't be seen alone with any man who isn’t your match or your father.” Her heels scraped the floor as she continued her circuit. “And don’t—ever—seem desperate to be chosen. Nothing repels a man faster.”

I nodded, but her voice had already begun to blur at the edges.

When I was matched, I would finally get to hold a man’s hand. To know him. To kiss him… Once I made it to Trial Five. I would walk into a room on his arm and belong there. Not as my father's daughter. As someone's choice.

Mother’s voice sharpened into focus once more. “You're lucky your education continued until eighteen. Middle girls don’t get that.”

I would have rolled my eyes if my cheek wasn’t still sore.

“That’s exactly what you’ll be if you don’t give your husband a son.”

Those words sobered me.

She saw it. Mother missed nothing. “I’ve spent two years teaching you everything I could about how to be a wife. Now you must be chosen.”

I looked at her.

She held my gaze for a moment, then flicked a finger. Brida darted forward, wrapping a soft pink robe over my shoulders.

“When you get to step two, don’t flinch or hide yourself. They assume you’re covering radiation burns when you’re modest.”

I dipped my chin, knotting the tie tightly around my waist.

“When you’re submerged, don’t come up until the pressure eases.

You’ll feel like you’re suffocating, starved for air.

” Her eyebrow rose as she watched me step down from the pedestal in my dressing room.

“The waste of so much water on one girl is sacrifice enough. Don’t let them think you’re ungrateful. ”

I had heard these words so many times nothing about them should have fazed me anymore. But my hands had gone still on the tie.

“But—”

“Better you drown than come up early.”

I nodded.

“Brida, get her things.”

My lady’s aide raced to my bed, scooping up every stitch of clothing I owned. Hair ribbons in yellow and pink, pastel shaded socks, even my undergarments.

She wobbled toward me, dragging gowns as she went.

I held out my arms, sinking under the weight. “Do we really have to bring them all?”

My mother’s sharp gaze could have cut steel.

“The two most important ceremonies in your life are the Endowment of Purpose and your wedding. If it were ever discovered—” She pressed a hand to her chest. “—that you chose to keep some memento from childhood…” A shudder ran through her. “Come. Your father is already waiting.”

We marched down the stairs, past my brother lounging in a chair. He glanced up, gaze raking over me, and I hugged my armful of clothing closer. “Break a leg, Sis.”

I slid into Father’s car.

He leaned forward, patting my arm. “Ready, Princess?”

I swallowed, glancing at the door as Mother shut it. I had expected her to join us. My pulse thrummed as I glanced back to my father and nodded.

The names of my entire family spun as I repeated each in my mind. I couldn’t mess this up. My family was counting on me.

“Father?”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Will you tell me why our family changed our name to Holt?”

His soft smile vanished and he reached into his pocket, sliding out his tablet. The car jolted forward and we rolled around the long drive in silence.

We had made it halfway across the city before he finally spoke. “We conform to fit the world we live in.”

When we reached our Covenant House, the Center Covenant House, massive white stones rose, ringing its perimeter, its great tower rising above even them.

Though it was summer, a chill skated over my skin.

"John." A steward stepped forward, shaking my father's hand. "Right this way."

He ushered us forward and my stomach clenched. I had walked through these doors every week of my life, past the great Y carved into the stone above the entrance, past the stewards who knew my father by name. But my feet had never felt so heavy on the marble floor.

We stopped outside the first arched door, and my father looked at me for the first time since exiting the car. "Go through. I'll meet you on the other side."

At the center of the room, a great flame rose, dark smoke curling toward the grate above. It did little to dampen the scent of scorched fabric.

I heaved my clothes into the pit, shrugged off the robe, and tossed it in after them.

The next doors were heavy. Four stewards in navy ceremonial robes stood in a circle around the pedestal—the exact one my mother had replicated at home. I stepped up onto it, back straight, hair bound behind my shoulders, and stared at my feet.

A man shuffled forward and I bit down on my tongue. The pain was enough of a distraction that my stomach settled a little.

Father whispered to someone across the room and I exhaled.

“Turn,” the man before me commanded.

I did. Slowly.

Shoes scraped over concrete as another man came to stand beside him. “Good work, John.”

My stomach churned.

Father chuckled. “You said the same of Leyah.”

The thought of my sister going through this very act three years ago should have calmed me, but a stone weighed down my stomach. She’d been excited for this day, looked forward to it since we were little, but it hadn’t changed her fate.

“Bend your knees.”

I did, stretching my fingers wide to resist the urge to flinch away from the hand that skimmed over my skin as my braid was lifted to expose my neck.

“Tilt your head forward.”

I did and my braid was raised higher.

The pad of a thumb drew a line along my collarbone, then lower. Clinical. Unhurried. I counted the folds in the curtain. Someone behind me said something about symmetry, and I stared at the wall, forcing all my focus onto the curtains drawn over windows to give me the illusion of privacy.

“We’re good here,” the voice beside me said.

“Clear of radiation,” another man said.

“You may step down.”

I lifted my chin, avoiding eye contact with any of the men, just as Mother had drilled into me, and stepped off the pedestal.

“Through the next set of doors,” someone said.

I bit down on my tongue to shock my legs into motion. Not too fast. Not a run.

A row of white gowns hung in the closet to my right. I reached for the smallest.

The doors on the other side were heavier. The cold air bit into my cheeks as they swung wide. I took a seat beside a row of girls in white. At the other end of the bench, a girl stood when her name was called.

“Vera Holt, daughter of John Holt.”

I stood, marched up a set of steps and peered down at the clear liquid at my feet.

Mother said no one had ever drowned, but I’d heard from the other girls that they had older sisters who never returned from the Endowment of Purpose. The thought surfaced before I could stop it. I pressed it back down, curling my toes against the floor.

Small flecks of dirt lined the bottom of the pool. The scent of stale earth and mold reached me as I leaned closer. Hands touched my shoulders, the top of my head. I flinched, then stilled and sucked in a final life-giving gulp of air before I was pressed beneath the surface.

Muffled words were chanted overhead. Words I couldn’t make out. I couldn’t think about them. My focus was stolen by the fingers digging into my shoulders through thin fabric, holding me in place. Had it been a minute? Two? How long could a person hold their breath?

Tightness strained across my chest. My heart beat wildly in my ears, my gaze darting around. Every thought centered on pushing off the floor, fighting the hands holding me under—surviving.

But if I did, I would be ineligible.

My fingers squeezed into fists. My head pounded. Had it been three minutes? Had they seen something on my skin? Some mark that made me unworthy? Was this it? Would I sit meekly at the bottom of this pool and allow them to end me?

Stars swam in my vision, and my nails cut into my palms.

My thoughts were growing fuzzy, but one circled my mind. Not good enough. I wasn’t eligible for marriage. Just as I’d always suspected.

The pressure on my shoulders disappeared and I shot up.

My head broke the surface as I inhaled a great heaving breath, lunging out of the water.

The steward at my side staggered back. Ice speared my middle. Too fast, too frightened. I would be punished for that.

I blinked, clearing my vision and staring out at the citizens who had gathered to witness my entry into the marriage pool.

Young men, yes, but mothers and fathers too.

Many with raised eyebrows. I knew from the looks on several faces that my hope for an early selection had been lost the moment I burst from the water.

All I had left was my family’s legacy.

“Recite your heritage,” a cold voice commanded. The steward I had startled.

“Vera Holt, daughter of John Holt, living. Son of Ren Holt, died 2068. Son of Tyler Hirota, died 2040. Son of Ken Hirota, died 2027. Son of Hirota Daichi, died 2026. Son of Hirota Kenji, died 2019.”

I gasped in a breath, holding perfectly still.

My fingers flexed at my sides. I had done it. I had done it all in one breath even after my lungs felt as though they would explode moments before.

I stared straight ahead, not meeting the eyes of the audience.

“Vera Holt…”

My fingers splayed wide under the long sleeve of my white gown.

“Welcome to the age of eligibility. May you find a happy match before your twenty-eighth birthday.”