Apocalypto (Omnibus Edition) by L.K. Rigel

Author:L.K. Rigel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Sanguibahd Press
Published: 2011-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

The Queen Clause

Every girl in Red City had decided the bistro was the best place to have a meal. The outside court was flooded with pink and white and yapping dogs. Mal and her four hubmates navigated to the center of the court around the extra chairs sticking out from every table.

Girls thirteen and under wore white. Every year a greater number of bleeders were found, but seeing so many whites together in one spot was a little shocking. There must be fifty out here. Near the hydroponics glass wall, they were doubled up.

“Great gods,” Roh said. “If they all make it, contract prices are going down.”

“Roh, your lack of feeling for the sacred nature of the mission is appalling.” Nothing escaped Kim’s dry humor. She tilted her head toward five whites at the courtyard center and jerked her thumb toward hydroponics. “Double up over there.”

The whites didn’t argue. Mal’s hub was Prime Hub.

Kim was the shortest of the hubbies and the most athletic, blonde and blue-eyed – though Mal couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Kim’s eyes. Kim didn’t hate her shades like Roh did. Kim and Roh swung their chairs around and straddled them backwards while Mal and Nin sat down and stashed their backpacks under the table.

Kairo settled like a feather floating down to a satin cushion.

A breeze fluttered the leaves of the shade trees. Fountains of hot pink and bright orange nasturtiums overflowed the waist-high pots interspersed through the court. There were roses everywhere, but Mal’s favorite flowers were the peonies that bloomed this time of year.

The time of the Rites.

“Did anybody get any sleep last night?” Roh lifted her shades for just enough time to rub her eyes. “When I find out who took forty minutes to dock at two o’clock in the morning, I’m not playing with him.”

She had dark brown eyes and brown-black skin. She wore her hair in a mass of thin braids like Pala, Mal’s friend at the settlement, except Pala liked to put decorations in his hair. Roh called herself a purist and refused ornaments, but she worked her braids into elaborate artistic configurations.

“It took shibbing forever for that pilot to tie down. I’ll play.” Kim smiled wickedly. “But it’ll be rough.”

The Rites served a two-fold purpose: to sanctify the year’s release of chalices to the queue, and to qualify princes to bid on Triune Contracts. They were the culminating event in a prince’s guest-host journey, a week in Corcovado filled with seminars and sex.

Princes were banned from the square, but they were allowed in hydroponics, and the younger girls crammed around the tables near the glass wall hoping for a good glimpse. The ones Kim had chased off were over there sitting on other girls’ laps.

Mostly, the girls just wanted to laugh and be silly together. Before your Rites, that was life in Red City: learn and work out and play with your dog and be adored.

“I miss Beastie,” Mal said. Her little pug had been with the groomer since yesterday morning, and she wouldn’t get to see him again until this evening.

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