Chapter 1 #3
“Don’t I always.” I smile. And it’s real. “Have you seen Miss Omon?” I ask him before he hurries off.
“She’s over there, somewhere.” Ferdin points toward the census line where there is a group of Mercyenforcers evaluating people one by one. “Serafina was having a problem or something, so they let her skip ahead.”
“What kind of problem?” She has a bad cough that won’t go away.
Ferdy shrugs before being absorbed by the crowd.
My mind races, but it’s my turn. I step forward.
The Mercyenforcer’s face is angular and wind-burnt, jaw square and unshaven beneath a steel half mask hooked over his mouth.
What little skin shows is sun-leathered like old bark.
He smells like the person who brought me here.
All law enforcement smell the same, like acrid bile buried in roses.
I think I recognize him. But all of them dress in the same black-plate regalia over weather-beaten leather.
He shines a light into my eyes before noting something on a paper.
“Axira Merreri,” he says.
I nod. Someone somewhere shrieks, then grunts before hitting the ground with a thud.
The crowd chatters on, not missing a beat.
The Mercyenforcer grips the handle of his light in his bare hand to look into my other eye.
Once he’s done, he studies the gloves covering my arms and the chain hooked on my mouth.
“Open.”
I part my lips, and he inspects the metal attached to their corners, strung between my teeth.
“Purse.”
I inhale through my nostrils before pushing my lips out in a kissing motion. The bite of pain at the corners of the chain makes my eyes water. But I’m ready for it.
“She’s compliant.” He motions at me to the guard behind him, who is fishing a narrow, coral-faceted crystal from a bucket.
It’s the length of his hand and sparkles in the sunlight.
The bucket is full of every type of Heartfiller.
Pale blue ones for sleep, more coral ones for hallucination—letting you relive past memories, bright yellow ones for euphoria.
I stiffen. I hate the strange way they make me feel.
Like all my feelings are muffled music playing underwater, not erased, but quieter, harder to reach.
Like an itch I can’t scratch. Like trying to cry in a dream.
My real feelings don’t leave; they’re just drowned by a rush of other Heartfiller-induced good feelings.
And the better people feel, the less they complain.
The less they complain, the fewer whispers there are of rebellion.
Years ago, the Grainfolk district tried overthrowing the Benevolent by poisoning the crops they sent into the palace each day.
But the only thing that came of it was a dozen dead palace Mercyenforcers and the district’s children being force-fed the poisoned food while their parents watched.
The Mercyenforcer holds the Heartfiller in his fist, motioning me closer. I cross my arms over my chest, signaling illness, hoping the lie works on Census Day the way it has for the last two weeks. I like having my wits about me for smuggling.
“How many days have you been sick?”
“Three.” I cough. I never visit the same checkpoint place twice in one week. It’s become my survival rule the last several days. The guards rotate weekly. Visiting different checkpoints meant my sickness excuse worked on each of them.
His eyes narrow on me. He and another Mercyenforcer share a gaze.
My heart slams into my ribs. Having the cold crystal shoved into my chest is the worst feeling.
I sometimes wonder if death would be gentler.
It feels like a thousand shards of ice clawing their way into my ribs then slowly dissolving into my body, racing through me in a rush of icy heat.
The coral memory one is the worst. It causes hallucinations.
They are a favorite here. But the last time I had to take one, I kept seeing myself getting dressed the day my parents died, over and over again.
“No skipping your Heartfiller tomorrow.” The guard stamps my name before shoving a copy of the week’s pamphlet in my hand. “Am I understood?”
I nod, eyes glued to his boots.
He excuses me and I exhale, pretending to skim the back of the pamphlet, before stuffing the Benevolent’s regular reminders into my clothes and dashing to the census line. I hold tight to the gold in my pocket so it doesn’t clink.
The Heartfillers the Benevolent made to bury in our chests are the same ones I steal and smuggle to the highborn: an illegal sport of pleasure the rich pay well for. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. Perhaps I should feel bad. Perhaps I should feel a lot of things.
But before the guilt sets, I spot a familiar head of dark curly hair in the fist of a Mercyenforcer. The newest and youngest face at our orphanage, Serafina, writhes in his grip with an apple in her tiny hands. An apple we didn’t have at the orphanage. An apple she must have stolen.
Miss Omon stands beside her, watching, silent and numb.