I glared at the old digital watch hanging on my bedpost, hours off. Someone had welded the edges shut, so it was perpetually out of sync. Dying slowly, like the rest of us.
My father had placed a note on my bedside table informing me he'd left early to save us some seats. He must have felt guilty for yesterday; he rarely let me sleep in past daybreak. Not with mouths to feed and weeds to pull.
I flung the covers off and scavenged my drawers for any unstained clothes. After a comfort debate, I decided on my only pair of hole-less pants, a clean long-sleeved shirt, and Tom's hand-me-down army boots.
Much to my professors' horror, I refused to wear "female apparel," primarily for practicality reasons. Ranching, fighting, climbing fences—a dress hindered all of that. But even on formal occasions, I still chose pants and boots over anything with ruffles. Not because delicate colors and fabrics repulsed me, but because every time I wore staples of femininity, in flowed the compliments and the special treatment. The hungry eyes summing and subtracting my qualities. I couldn't stand it.
I'd learned early on that men were threatened by women who dressed like them. Who defied expectations, who stared down authority. So I had to rebel in the small ways I knew how. Kicking against the current was the only way to keep from sliding under.
My dad complained. He said that skirts were cheaper than pants, and I wore out my pants faster than my socks. I told him I'd be happy to roam around naked if our budget demanded so, and he let it go.
I ran downstairs, snatched the monkey's fist knot from the back porch, and chucked the rope into the open field. Richard shot after it at the speed of lightning, launching himself off the deck and sending the chickens scrambling in all directions.
I leaned against the door frame, my gaze sweeping over our ranch at the dawn of the harvest season. Beets. Cabbage. Carrots. Greens. Only a few thriving fruit trees left. Guinevere and Ophelia, our dairy cows. It wasn't much, but we helped provide food to the poorer districts of Belgate, and with the growing population, we were never short of consumers.
Just sunlight.
Even after switching to shade-tolerant plants and equipping the gardens with grow lights, we still struggled to produce enough to support ourselves. It was one of the reasons my father was so adamant about marrying me off. With an agricultural crisis on our hands, we'd both need a new source of income. A safety net.
Sighing, I grabbed the pail of feed from the porch and moved for the coop.
Now that it was just the two of us running things, my duties had tripled, and when I wasn't pulling weeds or filling the trough, I was at school, wishing I was pulling weeds or filling the trough. It was easy to envy the boys' after-school sporting events and part-time apprenticeships.
But I had to admit, while I didn't want to tend to this ranch forever, it was far from a bad life. I enjoyed living a few miles outside the city, surrounded by aspens, fringed by a snaking river. When I closed my eyes at the far end of the field, sometimes it even felt like I'd escaped this place.
Colorful decorations festooned our dull town, bright hues on a bleary backdrop. Vendors and craftsmen prepared their stalls along the main streets, and in the distance, children laughed and screamed in startled delight.
I hated it.
I didn't know how to feel festive after yesterday. I didn't want to pretend that everything was okay, that I would simply adjust to a woman's life.
It had only become so intolerable this past year. For most of my childhood, people didn't care that I preferred boys' clothes and boyish hobbies. They'd steered clear of me and my mysterious gloves for years. But the second I'd set foot in the strange realm of womanhood, everything changed.
People started murmuring about marriage, or more accurately, "security contracts"—agreements that matched off individuals with specific industries and talents in order to maintain a healthy society. The Council didn't exactly force people to get married, but if you saw marriage in your future, you had to make reservations early. Otherwise, all of those with the best interest to you would be snatched away by other women. Or war.
Of course, they'd soon realize they'd have to chop my hands off before I signed a contract with Mason Cretin Price.
As I made my way up the hill, the autumn wind brought the scent of honey apple crisps, potato skins, and pretzel cups. It was nostalgic—the smells, the sounds, the enthusiasm. I remembered my parents handing Tom and me a few rounds for snacks, warning us not to spend everything on licorice.
I could almost taste the sugar on my tongue.
Outside the arena, hungry crowds swarmed the food stands, trading coins in exchange for treats and paraphernalia. Off to the side of the main entrance, the boys began lining up at the training gym for check-in.
They all wore the same leather armor around their torsos, forearms, shoulders, and shins—recycled military materials donated to the city. Upon signing in, they received metal helmets, each painted a different color and number. The headgear covered their faces, preventing biased judging. It only worked to a certain degree; body type and skill usually gave people away, but it leveled out the playing field, if but a little.
More importantly, the matching wardrobe engaged the public. At the end of the Tournament, the victors would remove their helmets in something called the Revelation. It served as a sort of guessing game for the audience—who was yellow? Green? Red? It was a dumb tradition, but a tradition nonetheless.
Together, the boys measured near a hundred, and I recognized the familiar faces of those I'd watched train over the years, among those who'd attended other training groups throughout the city. Though I'd found Frost's public sessions the most easily accessible, and extraordinarily convenient after my father signed me up for piano lessons, I'd eavesdropped on other programs and age groups before. Anything to benefit my fighting skills.
My eyes roamed over the boys now, their excited whispers and laughter, and I felt a twinge of pain behind my ribcage. This could have been my year to join the ranks. Had I been a boy, I could have anticipated this moment since childhood. But I couldn't so much as whisper that intention.
Because I had been born into this world as an opposite. A weak link.
A breeder.
An ugly sensation festered at the base of my stomach, an itch begging to be scratched. It was the feeling I got right before I did something stupid, something capricious and dangerous. Something I'd immediately regret upon inception.
Cutting through the line of male competitors, I marched straight for the opposite side of the gym and my backup entry point: the maintenance room. A combination lock barred the public from accessing the storage space, but the lock had never stood a chance against my cursed, naked palm. On one rainy night last year, I'd cracked the code in less than fifteen seconds, and I'd put that memory to use any time I was running late to a training session.
With a furtive glance in either direction, I slipped into the room, leaving the door ajar so I could navigate in the dark. I skirted the cluttered shelves and landscaping equipment and quietly opened a second door, peeking out into the hallway.
At the end of the poorly lit corridor, I spotted a group of boys who'd already donned their helmets. They mingled about in the training area, waiting for the other competitors to complete their check-in.
My gaze landed on the boy in the rear of the room, standing apart from the rest of the group. He fumbled with the straps of his armor, wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers, glancing up and down again repeatedly, as if he were afraid someone would barge in at any moment and announce the commencement ceremony. Even with his helmet shielding his face, he exuded unease.
More boys entered the waiting room behind him, and he backed away to let them pass, stumbling his way down the hallway, yards away from the maintenance room. He started pacing back and forth, shaking his head. Berating himself and his indecision.
You can't, my conscience insisted. You can't rob him of this.
If someone were to take this opportunity from me—steal it right from my fleeting grasp—I could never forgive him. But...I'd also never have this opportunity in the first place.
Because I was a girl. And girls weren't physically capable of fighting on the same level as men. We were a distraction in combat, an endless source of concern and disruption. We couldn't survive the psychology of war.
Our forefathers told us so. And surely, we had no reason to doubt such sound logic. It wasn't like they'd steered us straight into a neverending war or anything...
I smothered my reservations, and just as the boy mustered the courage to return to his peers, I raced forward and slapped my hand over his startled mouth—dragging him into the shadows and far, far away from his fate.