Chapter One #2
My heart beats faster at the title. The pre-unification era—when Dascenia was divided into what they call states instead of provinces. When borders were more permeable and rights more universal.
“So,” a feminine voice begins, breaking into my thoughts, “what were you saying about this new Enforcer group, Pierce?”
He shrugs. “Not much more to tell. The postings mentioned special assignments outside regular Enforcer duties.”
“Outside the perimeter, maybe?” Lachlan suggests in a passive tone. “There have been rumors among the traders about activity beyond the border.”
“Escapees?” Mother’s voice drops to a whisper, though no one outside can hear us.
“Possibly.” Father’s expression darkens. “The Syndicate wouldn’t mobilize a special unit for nothing.”
Glancing between the three of them, I catalog their expressions.
The tension in their shoulders, the careful way they choose their words even in the privacy of our home.
This is what the Syndicate has done to us—made us afraid in our own sanctuary, trained us to speak in half-truths and implications.
My thoughts stray to the women in the breeding facilities. About the powers they do not carry to fight back, and the laws that bind them to the men who purchase them like cattle. About my mother, who was lucky enough to be bought by a good man, but who still cannot leave this house without him.
And then I think about myself.
I shouldn’t exist. An undocumented woman who grew up outside the three facilities. A woman with powers she should not possess. Only men have powers, so why am I different?
My eyes roll before I can stop them. Lachlan is always the answer to anything strange that happens to me—sharing a womb will do that. Sometimes the weight of such knowledge feels like bloated pressure in my chest, pushing against my ribs, begging for release.
“Did you see the market in the city?” mother asks Lach, steering the conversation to safer waters—though I’m not certain our wonderful city of Pyrem is a much safer topic. “Were there fresh vegetables yet?”
He nods, settling his spoon in the now-empty bowl. “Some early greens,” he answers. “Prices are high, though. The Syndicate’s taking a larger percentage this season.”
Discussion continues while my attention turns back to the history book. Its pages are thin and delicate beneath my fingers, containing truths the Syndicate doesn’t want remembered. The layers of dust between pages are evidence enough.
I read about a time when the territory now called Dascenia was part of something larger, something called the United States of America.
How its states formed a loose coalition with their own governments but united under central principles.
How people—all people, including their women—could travel freely between them.
Like I said, it may as well be classified as a fantasy book.
I suck in deep, calming breaths as I skim through the pages. The book describes vehicles called commercial airplanes that carried people through the sky, metal beasts that somehow defied gravity.
Creases pinch my forehead as I recall what our flying contraptions are called—drones, I think, but as far as I know, they cannot even carry one person.
The text discusses democratic voting, where people chose their leaders instead of submitting to those who stole power. It speaks of women who owned property, ran businesses, and led governments.
It truly sounds like the best fiction. A beautiful, impossible dream.
The conversation flows as I absorb these scraps of history. Eventually, the dishes clear, and I’ve waited the appropriate amount of time after dinner before I can reasonably excuse myself. I do not want to be disrespectful, but I’m aching to dive further into these pages.
“I think I’ll head to my room,” I announce to no one in particular, gathering the thick stack of books.
Father nods, reaching to muss my hair, smiling when I groan and pull away. “Don’t stay up too late, dove.”
“I won’t,” I promise, already calculating how much reading I can fit in before sleep claims me.
The hallway to my bedroom—our bedroom—is short and narrow.
The house isn’t large, but it’s been home my entire life.
Sometimes I wonder if I should feel more confined, more desperate to escape.
But how can you miss what you’ve never known?
Still, there are moments when the walls contract, when I find myself staring at the ceiling and imagining what lies beyond our small corner in Pyrem.
The door to the room I share with Lachlan pushes open easily. Two narrow beds against opposite walls, a small dresser between them, a bookshelf crammed with volumes I’ve read and reread until their spines have cracked. It’s not much, but it’s mine.
Ours.
Sometimes I wish for my own space. Not because I mind sharing with my twin brother—he’s my closest friend, the keeper of my existence—but because privacy feels like a luxury I’ve never tasted. Even on the nights he’s away, traveling for his job.
In this world where I must remain hidden, where my very presence is a crime punishable by death for my entire family, having a corner that’s just mine seems like an unattainable indulgence.
But I understand the necessity. If Enforcers were to raid our house, having a single bedroom for the only child makes our deception more believable. And in the grand calculation of risks versus comforts, this small sacrifice hardly registers.
I grunt as my body settles on the bed before scooting back against the wall and revealing the insides of the history book with reverent hands. The soft crack of the spine reminds me once again to be careful—this book doesn’t belong to me and must return undamaged.
Well, time has damaged it enough. But wear from hands is far different than that of darkness and gravity.
The pages reveal more wonders from the past: structures called movie theaters, where people gathered to watch stories projected on walls larger than our entire house.
My head tilts as I try to imagine it—sitting in darkness with strangers, all facing the same enormous image, sharing laughter or tears of fear.
Our small television, one of my father’s prized finds, seems pitiful in comparison.
“Remember that,” I whisper to myself, employing the technique I discovered as a child.
When I concentrate on a piece of information and instruct myself to remember it, it dwells in my mind with perfect clarity.
Not just the information itself, but the context—where I was sitting, what the page looked like, how the light fell across each word.
It’s as if my mind takes a photograph and files it away where I can access it whenever it’s needed.
Technically, my brain stores everything it processes, but I utter those two words to myself when I want them to remain in my active memory, instead of stored to only be recalled when the topic presents itself.
This ability has been both a blessing and a curse.
I never forget a chess move, a conversation, a pattern.
But I also never forget the pain in my mother’s eyes when she speaks of the facility where she grew up—Riverton—or the too close sounds of Enforcers’ boots on our street that forced my father to build the hatch when I was seven.
I reach for my notebook, hidden between the mattress and wall.
It’s not that I need to write things down to remember them—I don’t—but there’s something satisfying about creating a physical record of the things I find most interesting.
I enjoy knowing that even when I’m gone, unknown by the entire world outside the three people in my family, there will be a piece of me left here.
It makes me feel like my existence isn’t completely worthless.
The notebook is worn, its pages filled with my small, neat handwriting documenting lost things from the past. I add a new entry:
Movie theater. Large public building where people watched films on screens as big as walls.
Strangers sat together in darkness, sharing the experience collectively.
Imagine our television, but twenty times larger.
Everyone could attend, regardless of gender or status.
Admission price was small. Early versions opened in the 1900s and lasted until the Collapse.
My fingers run along the indented words, my mind wondering what it would be like to sit in such a place, surrounded by others as we all focus on the same story.
To exist without fear.
The door creaks open, and I slide the notebook back into hiding with practiced speed. But it’s only Lachlan, brunette hair damp and mussed.
“Still awake?” he asks in a quiet voice, dropping onto his own bed. The frame squeaks beneath his weight.
“Just reading.” I gesture to the book, tapping the edge.
He nods, watching me with careful attention, a habit I hate he’s formed. “How are you doing, Cass? We haven’t talked in a bit, with how busy work is.”
The question lingers between us, heavier than its simple words suggest. He asks this often, especially after returning from his travels—as if checking whether my confinement has finally broken me in his absence.
“I’m fine,” I mumble, offering the automatic response. Then, because it’s Lachlan and he deserves more, I add, “Restless. Curious. The usual.”
He smiles, the expression so similar to my own it’s like looking in a mirror.
We share the same dark hair, though his rests just below his shoulders while mine falls to waist-level.
The same observant eyes and pointed chin.
If I cut my hair and wore his clothes, we’d be nearly indistinguishable—a fact that has crossed my mind more than once over the years.
“Brought you something.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small package wrapped in cloth.
My heart lifts along with my brows. This is our ritual—Lachlan bringing back small treasures from his trips, tangible pieces of the world I cannot see. I’ve never been able to truly express just how much these little gifts mean to me.
I unwrap it carefully. Inside is a small, carved figure of a mountain cat, its body graceful even in stillness. The wood is dark and smooth. Polished by experienced hands.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, fingers caressing the soft curves.
“Made by a craftsman in Ailridge. Said the mountain cats used to roam freely through the terrain before the Syndicate’s hunting parties decimated them.” His voice drops lower. “They’re making a comeback, though. Breeding in the high valleys where Enforcers don’t patrol.”
I understand the subtle subtext: nature finding a way despite oppression. Life persisting in hidden places. Something that made Lachlan think of his sister.
A small smile graces my face in offering. “Thank you,” I say, placing the figure on my small shelf alongside the other gifts he’s brought me over the years—a polished stone from a river in Ofin, a tiny glass vial of red sand from the deserts of Belken, a dried flower from Vinford.
My collection of the mysterious world.
Lachlan yawns, stretching his long frame. “I should sleep. The journey back was long.”
“Of course,” I reply, adjusting my position to something more comfortable. “Thanks again for the cat.” He nods, already drifting away beneath his blanket. Within minutes, his breathing deepens and slows.
I watch him for a moment, this brother who is my mirror and my shield.
Without him, I would have been confiscated at birth like all female infants—removed from my mother’s arms and shipped to a breeding facility, raised to accept submission as natural.
I would either be breeding stock by now, bearing children for the greater order of the Syndicate, or some man’s property, used for whatever he desires.
Instead, I snuck into this world undetected as my mother birthed only a son before the midwives could arrive, according to the official records. And I’m still here. Hidden. Free, in a limited sense.
Alive in ways other women could never hope to be.
It’s a blessing I try never to take for granted; I know just how lucky I am. And yet…
Sometimes I hate myself for the restlessness that gnaws at me; the selfish desire to see more, do more, be more.
My mother and father have sacrificed everything to keep me safe.
Even Lachlan has given much of himself for my welfare.
I should be grateful for the small freedoms I have—to read, learn, and exist without a man’s ownership.
But I have knowledge. And power—my Empath ability. I could be helping others instead of hiding. I could be making a difference instead of playing chess and reading about a time of the past that only exists in the minds of the oldest in our society.
Lachlan’s soft snores fill the room as his brows twitch.
Out of habit, I free my power to check that he’s not having a nightmare.
Only excited, impatient emotions drift from him, and I chuckle to myself as I slip from bed and crack the door, allowing a sliver of light from the hallway to illuminate my book.
My parents are in their bedroom by now, and the house will be quiet until morning.
I settle back on my bed, the history volume heavy in my lap. For now, this is my rebellion—learning what the Syndicate doesn’t want known. Preserving the memory of freedoms lost. My chest squeezes.
One day, perhaps, I’ll find a way to do more.
But for tonight, I read by the thin line of light, absorbing the knowledge of when women walked freely under open skies. I turn each page with care, mindful of my father’s warning.
There’s a small, gleeful resistance in these actions—in learning what I’m not supposed to know. Developing the mind they would have stunted, and honing abilities they would have suppressed.
The words blur as my eyes grow heavy. I fight the drowsiness, determined to finish at least one more chapter before sleep steals my mind away.
But eventually the book slips to rest against my chest, and I drift into dreams of a place where my existence isn’t a capital crime.
Where I can walk beside my brother in the sunlight instead of hiding in his shadow.
In my dreams, I’m free. And that will have to be enough until I can find a way to make those dreams a reality.