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  ‘Yes, thank you Rose,’ the duchess’s voice said snidely, ‘but let’s not coddle the child shall we?’

  ‘It’s Resonah,’ the woman corrected her, still bearing that kindly smile as she straightened to address the duchess.

  ‘Yes well, I apologize… I had you mistaken for the other one.’ The crease between the duchess’s eyebrows was far too deep for anyone her age to bear- deeper than Resonah’s even who had to be at least ten years her senior. The king’s wife must have spent an awful lot of time frowning, to get a line like that! Especially given that her eldest son Karol, was supposed to possess the Nephilim power of healing.

  ‘That’s okay; I know that you are distracted today. But for what it’s worth, the other is named Rosina, not Rose.’ The woman smiled again and stepped back. ‘One of these years you are bound to remember.’

  ‘I am sure she will!’ the king said quickly, stepping between Resonah and his wife, and taking his wife’s hand and lifting it to his lips in order to plant a kiss upon the back of it. She relaxed a little and leaned into him. ‘Hello my love. We’ve just returned.’

  ‘So I see. How did he…?’ she asked, her voice only just above a whisper.

  ‘We’ll discuss that in privacy soon,’ the king said back, turning to kiss her forehead now, and the duchess’s eyes lifted to lock on his. I ached on the inside. I’d never seen my mother and father look into one another’s eyes like that, and when the king wiped one of his wife’s tears away, I prayed that father would do that for mother when she returned home.

  IF she cried, that was. One glance up at her confirmed that her face was as even as it had been all morning, though she did take my hand and pull me back slightly as she whispered: ‘Larkin, it’s not polite to stare…remember what I said about your behaviour?’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mrs Whittaker,’ the king said, smiling sadly at me as he pulled his wife against his chest. ‘Her arrival has, erm, intersected with the departure of one of our own, as I’m sure you know-’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ my mother said quickly, bowing her head slightly. ‘I am sorry for your loss, of course.’

  ‘What loss?’ I asked, and received a sharp look from my mother and a confused look from the king.

  ‘She doesn’t know about Kohl?’ the king asked my mother, and blushing, my mother shook her head. To my surprise, the duchess swallowed hard and turned away from us slightly to blink rapidly out at the commons.

  ‘No, your majesty. I’ve done my duty and restricted her knowledge of the goings-on within the castle since she was old enough to ask the first of many questions.’ My mother glanced down at me, her lips pursed slightly, and I looked back down at my feet, ashamed of my curiosity and twice as curious about Kohl Barachiel now than I had been a minute before. ‘She is, uh, full of questions and rather bright so to prevent her imagination from running away with her…’

  ‘I see,’ the king said, and when I looked up, he was smiling sadly at me. ‘Yes, you do have rather sharp eyes, don’t you little dove?’

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I croaked, and the duchess turned back with wet eyes and arched brows.

  ‘You’re sorry to be curious?’ she asked.

  ‘If it grieves you so, your highness,’ I whispered. ‘I know it has grieved mother.’

  The royals exchanged a look with my mother and she cleared her throat. ‘I was just doing my duty, your highness’s,’ she said softly. ‘But I have encouraged her intelligence by getting her every book that I could get my hands on. She knows many things on many subjects- just not about the kingdom in general so that she wouldn’t…’ she wet her lips. ‘I fear that she is brighter than the other girls so keeping anything a secret from her can be problematic-’

  ‘We understand, and we’d take that into consideration but alas, the choice is not mine to make,’ the king said quickly, and when I looked up again, saw that the duchess was staring so intently at me that I might have caught fire from her gaze and been reduced to ashes. ‘You have done your job well, Mrs Whittaker and if Larkin is taken in today, you can rest assured that we have ways of further encouraging her intelligence without revealing anything that could scare her.’

  My heart started with alarm. What on earth could I learn that would scare me? Being indentured wasn’t supposed to be scary! Joining the Corps was dangerous yes, but I’d never heard of little girls ending up in truly perilous situations! What was to become of me?

  My mother narrowed her eyes at the king. ‘I am sure that is true,’ she said, in a way that didn’t sound convincing at all. ‘But it would probably benefit everyone if she were not.’

  ‘Again, that is not my decision to make,’ the king said, his answering tone as frosty as mother’s had been and now I was scared. Was my mother poking at the king? Why? ‘And I must apologize in advance, for I’ve just learned from a source that our Kohén has run off and hidden himself away somewhere and so, unfortunately, young Larkin here will have to wait until he is found to learn of where she will be placed from hereon.’

  ‘Oh?’ surprise coloured my mother’s tone, and when she looked down at me finally, her face betrayed a hint of sorrow. ‘Oh, well I…’ she bit her lip, which she’d painted burgundy. ‘I assumed the decision with Lark would be made rather quickly…’

  I wiped at my nose. Something had changed, apparently, but I didn’t understand what only that Prince Kohén having gone missing had something to do with my future.

  What has happened to Prince Kohl? What is going ON? Someone tell me something before I explode!

  ‘I know it’s a deviation from the tradition, Mrs Whittaker but as we’ve already explained, my sons and I are also grieving and so, these sort of things must be pardoned. Besides, it’s taken him up to three days to make some of his decisions this year, so who knows what he’ll be like if he’s in a mood today as well?’ He glanced at his wife, then at mother. ‘We’ll let you know when it has been made as soon as we can, but until then…?’

  ‘Yes Rose is a fine escort,’ the duchess turned back to the woman in white, and I understood that she knew she had spoken the wrong name, and intentionally so. ‘Would you please take Larkin to the Collection room? She can wait for the prince there. You recall the way, I presume?’

  The Collection room? Oh, that sounds like a shipping depot! How many of us are there, to be referred to as a collection? Are we to be packaged in brown paper and stamped as well?

  Resonah frowned, but stepped forward and took my hand. ‘Yes, Duchess,’ she said, and my heart tripped in panic when her arm wrapped around my right arm, and my mother’s cooler hand released my left hand. I was being traded so quickly!

  ‘So soon?’ my mother asked. ‘I was hoping to…’ she pressed her hand to her heart and I saw it- a flash of panic in her own eyes. ‘I…’

  ‘Dear, perhaps Mrs Whittaker could wait with-’ the king began, but his wife cut him off, staring down my mother with a loaded look.

  ‘Believe me when I say that dragging out goodbyes does not dilute the pain of a farewell,’ the duchess said icily. ‘And you will suffer less if the ties are severed quickly.’

  My mother looked protestant. ‘I may suffer less, but Larkin-’

  ‘Has to begin her new life without the weight of her own holding her back,’ the duchess said, and then smiled grimly at the king, whose eyes had brightened to a hue of blue that was angelic in colour and yet tarnished with anger. ‘Is that not the advice you gave me just one hour ago, darling? Please help me comfort the Whittaker’s with your reason now, for I am not strong enough to do it today.’ She wrinkled her nose at me. ‘Though, Mrs Whittaker, by the looks of her I’m sure it’s suffice to assume, as you said, that she will be put to work as a-’

  ‘Of course I’ll help,’ the king said quickly, interrupting his wife before she could finish what she was saying, and then nodded- first to Resonah, then to my mother, indicating to me. For the briefest moment, I thought I saw a spark shimmer at the tip of his large index finger, but he was wearin
g so much gold that it may have been a trick of light. He even had gold threaded into his dark beard! In fact, only the winged ring on his right thumb, which matched his wife’s, was pewter. ‘As my wife has said: We will let you know when a verdict has been reached, and then inform you when she is eligible for a visit home.’

  I was crying too hard to see, for hearing my family name used so often was reminding me that soon enough, I’d lose my rights to that name too and become just Larkin. I was hurting God but in that moment I did not care! He was hurting me by doing nothing! And everything about the palace was so bright and sparkling that my eyes felt buzzy and heavy.

  ‘Thank you. And… I understand.’ My mother stepped forward, knelt before me and then wrapped her arms around me to hold me tightly- more tightly than she’d ever held me before. Resonah released my hand so that I could hug her back and I instantly began to cry anew. The duchess’s skirts swirled behind her as she turned on her heel and promptly walked back inside saying to her husband:

  ‘Give them privacy, dear.’

  ‘Yes, Duchess,’ King Elijah said, smiling sadly at me over my mother’s shoulder before he followed his wife through the grand palace doors. ‘Farewell, Mrs Whittaker. I shall perhaps see you in the winter…?’

  ‘I’m almost as certain as your wife is that you will be,’ my mother said quietly before kneeling before me, and then I was viewing the world as though from behind a waterfall. Why was she only almost certain that she’d see me in the winter? She’d told me that she would! Panic and uncertainty made me shiver as a hot sweat broke out down the back of my neck. People had been complaining that it was time to eradicate the third-born rule for years, protesting that the kingdom could sustain three-child families now without stressing the environment or angering God, and I suddenly hated those who had not joined in with the chorus of voices- mother especially!

  ‘Be a good girl, Larkin,’ my mother whispered, her voice strained and her eyes alive with all sorts of emotions that I could not name in my distress. ‘Remember all I have taught you, work hard and… and be happy, my child. Find happiness wherever you can find it!’ I felt something warm on my shoulder, understood that it was her tears and began to sob as it dawned on me that this was really happening. My heart screamed for her to pick me up and carry me away, but as soon as her first true motherly embrace had begun, it ended. She released me and turned away saying: ‘Go with God,’ which terrified me.

  That was what she had apparently said to father, on his deathbed. He’d returned, but I suddenly wasn’t so sure that I was expected to.

  3.

  Resonah led me through the castle, walking a peculiar too-slow walk that seemed to use more hip than feet, and I spent the first ten steps looking back and wailing for my mother, until the gated doors were closed between us and her retreating back my last memory of the woman who had raised me.

  I knew, from pictures, that the palace of Eden had been built in the shape of a cross with four, three-tiered wings, with courtyards between each, like webbing between the spokes of the cross. But instead of sitting square, the cross had been angled so that the largest courtyard was positioned at the very front of the river curling around it, and served as the main entrance, leaving the wings to angle off to either side of the rising land so that the king in his chamber could see the tidal fall from his window.

  The palace was perched on the tip of a great cliff and the city of Arcadia spilled out beneath it like a teardrop surrounded by water rings, with a neighbourhood for each caste ringing the business district of that village in the centre, starting with the Blue Collar circles on the outer circle and then circling inwards by caste, so that the nobility were on the inner one facing every common. The Blue Collar and Artisan houses were small stone cottages and had a green common dividing them from the Academics’, whose houses were slightly bigger again. The buildings increased in size by caste, until they peaked with the two-story houses of the nobility in the centre, so from above, the Arcadian neighbourhoods looked like cones made of ivy, grey stone and grass. I had to admit that it was pretty from a birds’ eye view, especially with all of the solar panels gleaming in the morning sun, but I avoided looking over at my own village to the left for fear that I’d break for real.

  An assortment of farms, barracks and factories circled the outskirts of the city, fields flanked the left hand side of Eden’s grounds behind the stone wall, and beyond that, a ten-foot electric fence lassoed everything together. We had farms on the other side of that fence of course, for farming was Arcadia’s primary trade, but those property owners had been permitted guns and had built smaller electric fences of their own to protect themselves with. Not that there was much to guard, for the land surrounding the farming district was still as barren as it had been since the bomb had been dropped on the city of Seattle, pulverising it. A plume of smoke on the horizon alerted me to the fact that Arcadia’s sister city, Rachiel was already in full swing for the day despite the early hour and I squinted out at it, wondering if I’d end up out there. They didn’t have many kids living in Rachiel, but where there were factories, there were Given kids toiling away.

  The duchess had ‘welcomed’ me on the steps before the grand doors of Eden, but instead of being taken inside the building when I passed through them myself, Resonah led me through the front most courtyard on a path carpeted in thick, emerald grass that was spongy, despite the fact that it must have been trodden on constantly. Obviously, that was a Nephilim trick of some sort- rumour had it that Arcadia was in possession of at least six of the angelic offspring, and used them as often as they were able to without exhausting them and I could see that there was an elfish-looking girl in the corner with hair a brighter blue than the duchess’s eyes, tickling her fingers to make rain fall upon a couple who had an umbrella up and were laughing in delight. The sight made me frown in concern, for though the grass was pretty, I prayed that it had been grown naturally and that the salvaged Soul in the corner was there for a special occasion, such as a marriage- because the Nephilim were far too important to be drained for surface beauty! Surely, being one himself, the king knew that?

  Or perhaps it’s kept so healthy for it’s watered with tears of the third born children like you monthly… you’ve certainly shed enough today to sustain an elm for one hundred years!

  It was warm inside the garden due to the glass ceiling above us, but lush and fragrant and even audibly lovely, for there were little ponds with waterfalls placed everywhere around us. I looked around in wonder at first, my mouth agape at the sight of flowers twice the size of the ones that I’d been growing in my little garden back in the village, but then another set of doors were opening in front of us and just like that, the world became a dull, gloomy place once more. My eyes wanted to adjust, but I wept instead.

  Mother hadn’t even kissed me good-bye! Oh, I wished that my father or siblings had come, for they had at least touched their lips to my head when I’d left the house. I hated the duchess for making us hurry so, and I hated my mother for allowing herself to be pushed around by someone who’d already taken everything from her! What would she have had to lose, by insisting that she wait with me?

  What have you to gain by asking yourself any of this? Your family is no longer your family, Larkin! Do as the duchess said and let go of the weight of your past before you grow weary from lugging it about! You have no other option!

  We travelled through one long hall full of rooms that I knew were the most commonly used and public ones, and then turned left at the intersection of the cross, which was full of light from the glass domed ceiling. I knew it was the throne room for I’d seen that in pictures, and recognised it for its bright green sheen alone. The stained glass in the dome had been painted with swirls of green foliage as an homage to the original Eden and was stunning to behold, especially the throne itself which had been sculpted into gold branches and padded with thick moss- another Nephilim trick no, doubt. All four walls held yawning fireplaces taller than my home, and were
covered by moulded carvings of barely clad people in white and gold-flecked stone writhing about amidst vines, shaped so that stray arms, feet and cold-stone tendrils of hair jutted out to bake in front of the fire and were dusted by smoke burn. Some of the sculptures were beautiful- some made me duck my eyes to the ground in embarrassment. I tried to imagine the heads of the castes meeting here with the king and getting any work done with marble breasts peeking out at them, and almost giggled, knowing I’d last about ten seconds.

  The throne room was where I’d assumed that I would be taken for judgement and yet, I’d been deposited on the castle steps like a newborn baby in a wicker basket, which was something that happened often with third-born children and something I’d feared might have happened to me if Finch hadn’t liked me so much. We had lived in the city, and my mother had had to work after my father’s accident, so there had never been any hope of concealing her swollen belly or my presence after.

  But some of the people in the kingdom lived further out on the farms or in one of the more isolated communities, like Nitika, and had managed to hide their contribution to over-population until they had the child and then abandoned it, choosing to live without it rather than raise it for only five years and take food out of their legal children's’ mouths. I supposed that I was lucky to not be one of those children but still... I didn’t feel like we differed much in that moment.

  If God trusted the Barachiel family with shepherding us all, then this must be okay with him too. You may not love the duchess, and your mother may not love you… but you love God so dry your tears for each one will cause him anguish!

  Resonah began to talk to me, quietly and urgently as soon as she began to lead me up a flight of stairs. ‘I can’t stay long… I’m not supposed to be seen in this wing and the Duchess will surely have people come to check that I haven’t lingered so…’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s just how it is done,’ she said.