SERINA

INSTEAD OF TAKING the prisoners to cells, as Serina expected, the guards led them outside. Then they opened the prison gates with a tooth-rattling shriek. The sun had fallen to just above the horizon, swollen and sickly red. For the first time since she’d left Lanos, Serina longed for its cold, jagged mountains and smokestacked factories.

She spotted Jacana’s small form and headed to her side. “Where are they taking us?”

Jacana wrapped her arms around herself. “One of the guards said this building is just for processing. That we live… out there.” She nodded toward the desolate rock outside the gate.

“Out there?” Serina echoed, horrified. The Hotel, the Cave… were those other prison buildings? Beyond the fences and barbed wire?

Anika came up beside them. “What’d you do to end up here?” Her gaze raked Serina from head to foot. “They’ll eat you alive.”

Serina knew she looked different from the others—her skin buffed and polished, her body soft. “I stole something,” she said calmly, burying her fear so deep it didn’t show. “Something from the palace.” No one needed to know the truth.

Anika narrowed her eyes.

“What did you do?” Serina asked.

“I killed someone,” Anika said, her voice hard. But a shadow passed across her face so fleeting Serina almost missed it.

A guard by the gate yelled, “Everyone assigned to the Hotel, come forward.”

Anika left the compound with four other women.

Serina watched until the girl was out of sight. “Where’d they put you?” she asked Jacana, who still huddled nearby.

“The Cave,” Jacana said to her toes.

“Me too,” Serina said, relieved. “At least we’ll be in the same place.”

Jacana straightened a little. Serina wondered what had brought her here. What crime could this tiny, terrified girl possibly have committed?

“The Southern Cliffs, come forward!” the guard yelled. Another group of women disappeared.

Then, “The Cave!”

They followed two other girls through the tall gate. In whispers, the girls introduced themselves as Gia and Theodora. The guard pointed to a couple of women waiting outside, backlit by the last dregs of the setting sun. “Follow them,” he said.

Somehow, Serina found herself leading the way through the gate.

The women watched them approach. The shorter of the two was maybe forty, with a wide plain face, sun-reddened skin, and heavy brows. “I’m Cliff,” she said when Serina and the others reached her. “This is Oracle. She’s in charge of the Cave.”

Serina’s breath hitched in her throat. A fellow prisoner was in charge? A woman? How was that possible?

Oracle regarded the small group of girls in silence. One of her eyes was brown, the other a strange, filmy white. She was a little younger than Cliff but no less intimidating.

“Follow close. We won’t wait for you,” Oracle said. Without another word, she turned and led them down a rocky trail along the cliffs. They followed in the footsteps of the other groups, the distant flicker of torchlight guiding them. Oracle hiked quickly, Cliff following with ease.

Serina tripped, her flimsy shoes catching against the rough volcanic rock. “Shouldn’t there be a guard with us?” Serina hazarded. “Isn’t there—”

Cliff’s barking laughter cut her off.

“Please,” Gia mumbled, swiping at the sweat coating her forehead, “could we have a sip of water? They didn’t give us any food, or—”

“You won’t want to eat before,” Cliff said. “Probably not after either.”

Before? After? What was about to happen?

Serina trudged next to Jacana, her mouth dry with fear. They followed the winking torches, down along the headland to the beaches and behind a broken building with the sprawling memory of grandeur. Lights glowed from glassless windows. A cracked marble fountain stood in the center of the courtyard, the blind eyes of its female dancers staring toward the volcano.

Cliff nodded toward the building. “Hotel Misery.”

A shiver crawled down Serina’s spine.

The rumble of voices rose over the roar of waves. Serina could at last see their destination, out beyond the hotel. A massive semicircle of stone, ridged into seats, faced a stage with a tall building behind it. Lava rock spilled over one entire side. A half-destroyed amphitheater.

Serina thought of the hours she’d spent practicing the harp, waiting for the day when she’d perform in front of the Heir. She couldn’t guess what was performed on this stage.

More than a hundred women filled the stone benches or sat on the swaths of frozen lava. Serina stared at face after face, but she didn’t see a single smile. Her chest tightened.

Oracle led them to a section of seating in the center, where twenty or thirty women clustered. Then she went on alone, gripping a couple of women by the shoulder as she made her way to the stage. Around its edge, ten women gradually assembled. Oracle stood next to a tall woman with a strip of bright red hair down the center of her head, the rest of her skull shaved clean.

Serina stared fixedly at the woman’s head. In Lanos, girls were not permitted to wear their hair shorter than their shoulders, but most preferred to keep it waist length or longer, as a point of pride. Such a stupid thing to think about now. Serina swallowed.

Guards crowded onto the balcony of the building behind the stage. She couldn’t tell how many, as some disappeared into the shadows, but she suspected there were forty or so, far fewer than the women filling the amphitheater.

Cliff eyed Serina and the other new girls, her thick brows drawing low over her eyes. “Whatever happens, don’t cry,” she ordered. “The guards will watch for weakness. They’ll use it to their advantage. Don’t give them any power over you. Do you hear me?”

“What exactly is happening?” Serina asked, trying to keep her voice steady. The tension in the air pressed against her, making it hard to breathe.

Cliff stared down at the stage. “The first time, it is better not to be prepared.”

Commander Ricci stepped onto the stage. The amphitheater quieted in an instant. The man’s body language was relaxed, authoritative, but his hand didn’t leave his firearm. All along the balcony above him, guards drew their weapons and pointed them into the crowd.

“Fighters, take your positions,” Ricci ordered.

Fighters?

Five women stepped onto the stage, including the woman with the red hair who’d been talking to Oracle. Commander Ricci disappeared into a stairwell that led to the balcony.

No one moved. No one spoke.

Serina watched with wide eyes, uncomprehending.

A few moments later, Ricci reappeared at the edge of the balcony. He was holding a wooden crate. He let it drop as he shouted, “Begin!” When it hit the ground, the wood cracked apart with a sound like an ax hewing firewood. A coil of thick black tubing flopped out. Only… it wasn’t tubing. It didn’t stop moving, slowly uncurling over the shattered scraps of wood. Serina gaped as the snake’s head lifted, testing the air.

One of the girls tried to stomp on it, but she missed its head. It twisted and struck her on the ankle. She screamed. Time seemed to slow. One second. Two seconds. She crumpled, her leg swollen, as the rest of her twitched sickeningly. Another woman grabbed the tail of the snake and swung its head down against the hard floor, again and again, until it hung limp and unmoving from her hands. The other women met in the center of the stage, their fists and knees and elbows flying.

Serina’s heart went into freefall. Women didn’t fight. Ever. Not against men, not against each other. Violence always earned the strictest punishment. Serina knew stories of women who’d tried to defend themselves—a distant cousin who’d fought back against an abusive husband, a girl in the textile factory who’d slapped a man when he tried to kiss her. Those women had been severely punished. Flogged, imprisoned. Sent to Mount Ruin or a prison like it. How was this allowed in the very place that was meant to contain such behavior?

Another woman groaned as someone kicked her in the knee. Serina closed her eyes. She covered her ears. She curled into herself. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.

The thuds and shouts were muffled, the darkness behind her closed eyes absolute. For a few minutes, she let herself recede. She lived in the thud of her heartbeat and shush of her breath.

Then a sharp, pain-filled scream carved a hole into the black, rising from beyond her cocoon. Serina’s breath froze. The sound slid into an agonized moan and petered out. For a second, there was silence. Then she heard the unmistakable, horrifying sound of applause.