Page 1

Chapter 1

Talking heads on theTV were droning on as I cleaned the coffee cups. Working at the coffee shop wasn’t the best-paying job, but someone like me didn’t have a lot of options.

The news anchors were debating the topic that everyone in the city had beenobsessedwith for the last few months.

The region’s biggest, most powerful Congregation had a new Prophet.

“They call him Ronan Demon-rebuker, and information about his notoriously secretive Congregation is sparse. Our attempts to send surveillance out are dangerous, so speculation rages over what this change in leadership means. Some of our informants say that the smaller Congregations surrounding Ronan’s are restless, seeing an opportunity for expansion. Some are even calling him an Apostate and doubting his devotion to the Allfather. There are even rumors about a holy war to rid the land of his power and control. What does that mean for us in the cities? Stay tuned.”

My coworker Shannon glanced over at me. “You grew up in one of those cults, didn’t you, Thérèse?”

All the other workers turned and looked at me like I had three heads, and I flushed with embarrassment.

“Y-yes,” I said, stumbling over my words as they looked at me like I was a dangerous freak.

Believe me, growing up in one of the Congregations wasnotthe kind of thing you ever forgot.

I braced myself for the endless wave of questions I always got when someone found out I had been raised in the cults.

What was it like?

Are all the stories about them true?

Do they really stone people?

Do they really go into Bloodwrath before battles?

Do you really have to obey the men?

No matter what they say?

Is it really as repressive and frightening as they say it is?

How did you escape?

It was impossible to put into words what my time in the cult had been. A painful mix of fear and subjugation blended with the constant power of an oppressive all-consuming love, twisting my heart until I felt wrung from the inside out.

But suddenly the loud blare of the emergency sirens rang out, saving me from having to answer.

Because the Congregations that control the whole of the PNW are so closed-off and secretive, people in the city know very little about the workings of each Congregation. After I was rescued six years ago in a raid by a group of militant social workers, I was required to do months of official governmental debriefing, and interviews about what life was like in the cult and what insights I could give them about how it worked.

Everyone wanted to know what I could tell them to give the weak cities any ammunition against the more powerful cults.

I told them as much as I could, but the truth was I had been constantly protected and guarded, in a way that meant I was unprepared for life on my own in the cities, to be given a government-funded apartment for six months then left to make my own way.

I had struggled making my own way. The cities were divided starkly into wealthier and poorer sections, constantly at risk from Congregation raids, the governments fragile and the city infrastructure crumbling around us after decades of failing to beat back the cults.

And I hadn’t even told them everything.

It would have been too painful.

Occasionally, I wonder what he’s doing right now.

If someday the sirens will be forhim.

They blare again, a continuous, ear-splitting warning.

“Shit,” my boss said, and I turned around to see maybe a dozen Congregants roll down the street on motorcycles. “Fucking whore runs.”