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Lion does not smile back.

“You are the bravest of our people. You do not hold weapons. You do not fight. But you carry the banner of liberty.” She looks at Freckles. The girl can’t meet her gaze. “You carry the bloodline of our people. Without women, without wives, what are a people but a doomed matchstick? To blaze and glare light, and then to die.” She looks at me. It is the hardest thing I have ever done to hold her gaze and nod, but I do. “But you are the wildfire. The fire that spreads. Without guns, without ships, you are the soldiers that bring us the future. You are the wives of Red! I envy you.” She nods so convincingly. “I envy you. If I could still bring life into this world, I would not need this.” She rests her hand on her pistol. “But we all have our duty. Mine is to protect you. If your husband beats you. If he is cruel to you…come to me, or any of the women you see here today. And we will sort it.”

Duncan takes a swig from his flask and stares at the ground in the line of Red Hand militia. But the Red Hand women with Harmony nod, brainwashed, pathetic, or evil. I hate them so much more than the men.

Many of the girls, especially the newcomers, find themselves nodding too. Either they buy the bullshit or are drunk, or afraid, or wanting the approval of the older women. Most of my lot stand rigid or shake with fear, not because they’re smarter than the other girls, but because we have a plan. And once they’ve grasped the wheel, tiny as it may be, they feel they have control. They have a chance.

I know because it wasn’t Victra who saved me from the Ascomanni or from getting sucked out her ship. Volga and I did that. It made me feel alive in a way I never had.

“One day you may hold a weapon,” Harmony promises, “but today, your duty to your people is to bear the seed of your husband to fruition. To grow our union with new blood and foster boys that will become warriors, girls that will become wives and one day warriors as well. I salute you. You are the best of our kind. May the Vale wait for you, and may the blood of our people flow strong!”

THE SOUND OF ZITHERS wails through the concrete halls as we’re led in a line down to the township common, where several hundred bearded men and boys with smears for whiskers laugh and drink at long tables.

Some few fighter women join them, hair done short like the men. Oil fires burn in metal barrels. Boys race men to see the bottom of their mugs. The stolen wealth of other races decorates their coats. Gold sigils clatter as they laugh. Obsidian arm torcs encircle the necks of their childwives. The richer they are, the less the women can move. They look like birds sitting at their tables set back from the fighters, gossiping or staring at the cups before them, wishing what’s inside would numb them faster.

The men cheer as we’re brought in, but it’s short-lived. It all becomes solemn as we’re lined up in another row of dolls. Girls stare at their feet. Some brave ones like Freckles look on ahead like they’re at the gallows. Harmony takes her place of honor at the head table. Mugs are slammed in unison making a mockery of the Fading Dirge until she raises her hands and quiets all.

I scan the township levels, trying to piece it all together and figure where they keep Victra and Volga.

“Hail the children!” she says. “Hail the wives. But above all, hail the fighters!” Harmony calls. “Coran O’Boetia!” The men roar and slam their mugs. “For the killing of five Obsidian barbarians, and the taking of forty torcs in the highlands, you are a boy no more. It’s time a wife made a man of you! The prime pick is yours.”

A drunken man-boy, uncommonly tall and handsome except for the case of childhood pox, manages to stand straight under a barrage of backslaps and jeering. With a shy grin, he makes his way down the line, glancing at each of our faces, passing mine without pausing until he comes to Freckles. She almost cracks her tooth then and there. He bows unsteadily and extends a crumpled haemanthus. I wince as she glances back at me.

One of the hens comes behind her and, pinching the small of her back so the men can’t see, whispers in her ear. Freckles takes the haemanthus, hands shaking so bad she nearly drops it. The fighters roar in approval as Coran takes her hand and they walk to an empty table and sit. He pours her ale and downs half a mug himself.

Sixteen times the choosing ritual is repeated, until Duncan tucks a flask away and whispers to Picker. Picker cackles and shoves him forward.

“Duncan O’Cyros has finally dropped his balls! He wants a lass! What do you say, Mother?”

Harmony snorts. “He waited long enough. Go on, lad.”

Only three of us remain—old hag me, Lion, and a plump newcomer. Duncan takes a haemanthus from the barrel, walks straight up to me, and offers it. I almost forget to take it.

Lion is picked last by a man of fifty. Even some of the Red Hands watch him with disdain as he leads his childwife away.

The farce of a ceremony is a blur. Whatever they gave us in the wine took a bit to start. It numbed me at first, but now it creeps up on little cat feet as we stand together between the braziers and some man babbles on about duty or somesuch. Many of the words are the same I heard when my sister married. Feel a little sick hearing them now. My hand’s clutching

dirt with Duncan’s, both wrapped together by a bloodstained cloth woven by the wifeslaves. He’s shifting nervously foot to foot, his early confidence in shambles for some reason. I watch the acrid black smoke from the braziers weave upward to the roof of the mine. All this is a lie. All this pretending the world ain’t changing. I was jealous of my sister, but I never wanted a husband, not me. Maybe I thought I wanted one. But that was just because it said something that I didn’t have one. That I got skipped over at wedAge.

I feel sick inside that it happens like this.

I repeat some words that I can’t remember even as my mouth’s saying them. That wine’s something fierce. The other girls are like warm dolls. Wavering there with all the steadiness of riverside cattails. I’m wondering if it was a good idea to give them the teeth. How many will yellow out? How many will rat on me soon as they get their wits? Tails can’t be the only coward. Maybe the wine’s good. Makes them slow and easy, instead of twitchy and fearful.

I still gotta find the big girls.

Fortunately, the men are nearly as drunk as we are, especially Duncan. For courage? For fear? For weakness? Fuck knows. Maybe they’re just tired of getting butchered by Obsidians. Some swill and new cunny must be the Vale itself after fighting Sefi’s beasts. The few amongst the Hand who ain’t drunk are the old boys. Grizzly lechers who are corner-looking out their eyes at their wives. I want to retch knowing what Lion’s old man is thinking. Did any of them rape my sister? Did Duncan? I look over at him. He’s so young. So handsome. So vile.

I know the marriage is done when there’s a cheer. For all his smiles and earlier politeness, Duncan gives me about two seconds before I feel his cold tongue probing between my clamped lips. I let him in and he sticks it almost to the back of my throat, cupping my ass with his hands. He smells of shit tobacco and bitter swill and body odor and mint. He sighs into me, hungry.

That was quick.

Then it’s celebration. Women hug me. Men hug me. I’m passed about like one of the clan. Like I’m not a sow whore they stole from her people. Then there’s dancing. Duncan is popular with the men. He twirls me and probes my body like he owns it. Nausea comes in a tide. Fearing I’ll retch, I pat Duncan on the chest and stumble over to a table and sit hunched and feeling the world swooping around me. A blur of faces flicker past. All laughing and gay. I want to crawl under the table. I want to hide until the world doesn’t feel like some spinning kaleidoscope of horror. But a stone-cold realization sets on me that if I do that, if I curl up, if I stay seated, I’ll end up waking in a tangle of sheets in a stone home like the one I grew tall in, except I won’t be hearing my mother in the morning. I’ll be hearing Duncan snoring drunkenly and feeling the taste of stale liquor in my mouth like old plums and the sore ache of my maidenhead split.

It ain’t the parasite telling me I gotta move. I gotta be smart. I gotta find Volga and Victra. The parasite is quiet, though no longer contained to just my head. I feel its tendrils inside me, like roots along my bones. What does it want? If it weren’t damaged, what could it do?

Wondering that won’t save me here.

What would Ephraim do? How would he find the big girls?