The Choosing (The Arcadia Trilogy Book 1) by James Bella & Hanna Rachel

Author:James, Bella & Hanna, Rachel [James, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-28T18:30:00+00:00

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"There's an old myth from Before Times, of a king who ruled a kingdom beset by a wild beast. It roamed the catacombs under his palace, and took servants, which the king didn't care about, and nobles, which he did. It had the head of a bull with razor sharp horns and the body of a man, a huge, strong, blue man."

She'd laughed at blue and started making a daisy chain as she listened. In her mind she named the parts of the flower and the medicinal purposes her mother had taught her, and so the story was fragmented, but she remembered he'd said the king would take an even number of boys and girls from neighboring kingdoms and set them loose in the maze beneath the palace, sport for the creature to kill, to satisfy its blood lust and slake its hunger.

"And the children?" she'd asked when his voice had faltered and run down.

"If they survived, they would inherit his kingdom."

She'd been a wise child. Looking up from the flower, she'd said, "But none ever did."

Her grandfather had repeated it. "But none ever did."

And then, in hushed tones, fast and with a feeling of apprehension, he told her about the Culling, about the times the Centurions came into villages, sent by the Plutarch himself with orders to bring every sixteen-year-old youth in the commonwealth, taking them to the domed city of Arcadia.

She'd stopped fiddling with the flower then, her heart beating unaccountably quicker. They'd passed from myth to history and near history at that. She'd felt afraid.

"Why? Why do they take them?"

And in a rush, he'd told her. Once a generation, so far apart that people forgot or died without telling their descendants, the Plutarch and his government, sent for those children on the brink of adulthood and an entire year's worth of children went away. They learned, he told her, and for some life didn't turn out so poorly. They learned arts and government, and for those things were all right. Others were drafted into the service of the land by way of the ranks of Centurion and though life was bleak and dark for them, still they were usually martial in aspect, children of violent temperament or cold steal reason who would rise within the ranks.

She'd asked about those from Pastoreum, but he simply didn't know, and she'd asked about those children taken who were not quick and bright and sometimes not even beautiful, and he hadn't known that either, though something in his eyes told Livy he did, and simply didn't want to tell her.

Well, she was here now. She'd forgotten that beautiful day's story until it was too late. Now her grandfather's tales had proved not only true, but prophetic. Now she would find out all of it.

And live to tell the tale.

Somehow.

Now the director of the institute stood before them. He was old, his face lined like Grandfather Bane's but possessing none of Grandfather's patience.

"You are here at the will of the Plutarch," he addressed them, surveying the mess hall with cold, reptilian eyes.

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