“Tonight you finally did something yourselves. You beat a baby just like you. But that’s worth about as much as a Pinkwhore’s fart. Our little Society balances on the tip of a needle. The other Colors would rip your gorydamn hearts out given the chance. And then there’s the Silvers. The Coppers. The Blues. You think they’d be loyal to a bunch of babies? You think the Obsidians will follow little turds like you? Those babystranglers would make you their little cuddleslaves if they saw weakness. So you must show none.”

“So, what, the Institute is supposed to make us tough?” huge Titus grunts.

“No, you colossal oaf. It’s supposed to make you smart, cruel, wise, hard. It’s supposed to age you fifty years in ten months and show you what your ancestors did to give you this empire. May I continue?”

He blows a gumbubble.

“Now, House Mars.” His thin hand scratches his belly. “Yeah. We’ve got a proud House that could maybe even match some of the Elder Families. We’ve got Politicos, Praetors, and Judiciars. The current ArchGovernors of Mercury and Europa, a Tribune, dozens of Praetors, two Justices, an Imperator of a fleet. Even Lorn au Arcos of the Family Arcos, third most powerful family on Mars, for those not keeping track, maintains his bonds with us.

“All of those highUps are looking for new talent. They picked you from the other candidates to fill the roster. Impress these important men and women and you’ll have an apprenticeship after this. Win and you’ll have your pick of apprenticeships within the House or an Elder Family; maybe even Arcos himself will want you. If that happens, you’ll be on the fast track to position, fame, and power.”

I lean forward.

“But win?” I ask. “What is there to win?”

He smiles.

“At this moment, you are in a remote terraformed valley in the southernmost part of Valles Marineris. In this valley, there are twelve Houses in twelve castles. After orientation tomorrow, you will go to war with your fellow students to dominate the valley by any means at your disposal. Consider it a case study in gaining and ruling an empire.”

There are murmurs of excitement. It is a game. And here I thought I would have to study something in a classroom.

“And what if you are Primus of the winning House?” Antonia asks. She twirls a finger through her golden curls.

“Then welcome to glory, darling. Welcome to fame and power.”

So, I must be Primus.

We eat a plain dinner. When Fitchner leaves, Cassius stirs, his voice coming cold and filled with dark humor.

“Let us all play a game, my friends. We will each say whom we killed. I will start. Nexus au Celintus. I knew him when we were children, as I know some of you. I broke his trachea with my fingers.” No one speaks. “Come now. Families should not keep secrets.”

Still, no one answers.

Sevro is the first to leave, making his derision for Cassius’s game clear. First to eat. First to sleep. I want to follow. Instead, I make small talk with peaceful Roque and massive Titus after Cassius gives up on his game and retires as well. Titus is impossible to like. He’s not funny, but everything is a joke to him. It’s like he’s sneering at me, at everyone, even though he is smiling. I want to hit him, but he doesn’t give me a reason. Everything he says is perfectly innocuous. Yet I hate him. It’s like he doesn’t think me a human; instead I’m just a chess piece and he’s waiting to move me around. No. Shove me around. He somehow forgot to be seventeen or eighteen like the rest. He is a man. Taller than two meters, easy. Maybe nearing two and a half meters. Lithe Roque, on the other hand, reminds me so much of my brother Kieran, if Kieran could kill. His smiles are kind. His words patient and wistful and wise, just as they had been earlier. Lea, the girl who looks like a limping baby deer, follows him everywhere. He’s patient with her in a way I couldn’t be.

Late in the night, I look for the places where the students died. I cannot find them. The stairs no longer exist. The castle has swallowed them. I find rest in a long dormitory filled with thin matresses. Wolves howl from the shifting mists that cloak the highlands beyond our castle. I find sleep quickly.

21

Our Dominion

Fitchner wakes us from the long dormitories in the dark of morning. Grumbling, we roll out of double bunk beds and set out from the keep to the castle’s square, where we stretch, then set off at a run. We lope easily in the .37grav.

Clouds drop soft showers. The canyon walls fifty kilometers west and forty kilometers east of our little valley tower six kilometers high. Between them is an ecosystem of mountains, forests, rivers, and plains. Our battlefield.

Ours is a highland territory. There rise mossy hills and craggy peaks that dip into U-shaped, grassy glens. Mist blankets all, even the thick forests that lie like homespun quilts over the foothills. Our castle stands on a hill just north of a river in the middle of a bowl-like glen—half grass, half woods. Greater hills cup the glen in a semicircle to the north and south. I should like it here. Eo would have. But without her, I feel as lonely as our castle looks on its high, removed hill. I reach for the locket, for our haemanthus. Neither is with me. I feel empty in this paradise.

Three walls of our hill castle stand atop eighty-meter stone cliffs. The castle itself is huge. Its walls rise thirty meters. The gatehouse swells out from the walls as a fortress with turrets. Inside the walls, our square keep is part of the northwestern wall and rises fifty meters. A gentle slope leads up from the glen’s floor to the castle’s western gate, opposite the keep. We run down this slope along a lonely dirt road. Mist embraces us. I relish the cold air. It purifies me after hours of fitful sleep.

The mist burns away as the summer day dawns. Deerling, thinner and faster than the creatures of Earth, graze in the fir woods. Birds circle above. A single raven promises eerie things. Sheep litter the field and goats wander the high rocky hills we run up in a line of fifty and one. Others of my House may see animals of Earth, or curious creatures the Carvers decided to make for fun. But I see only food and clothing.

The sacred animals of Mars make their home in our territory. Woodpeckers hammer oak and fir. At night, wolves howl across the highlands and stalk during the day through the woodlands of our territory. There are snakes near the river. Vultures in the quiet gulches. Killers running beside me. What friends I have. If only Loran or Kieran or Matteo were here to watch my back. Someone I could trust. I’m a sheep wearing wolves clothing in a pack of wolves.