I sat on the steps outside the arena, lacing my boots with fingers that still trembled.

The light was fading in the late evening. Shadows ran long and deep from the low buildings that clustered around outside the walls. There was no Order here. No electric lights, not engines or motors.

I watched a woman washing clothes in a half barrel of what must have been cold water. It was late, she carried the fatigue of a long day on her. I watched her hands, tired, the knuckles red and sore looking. It was a time when a person should be resting surely, not slaving on. In my Father’s house, even the maids had machines to deal with tasks like this. I wondered at the fairness of it.

My eyes drifted over and settled on the graceful form of Lauren as she approached her carriage. Forgive the hormonal goggles, but I can’t forget how her form obsessed me. She was more like a drawing than a real person. The way her hips flared, the curves of her body.

She turned as she mounted the steps to the carriage and I was started, caught in the act of ogling her. But she held my gaze a moment, without accusation. Her eyes glittered and she smiled. Again, it was barely a thing at all, but it made my heart leap.

Then she continued into her carriage and was gone.

I stared into space, a little dreamy-eyed. It hadn’t been so bad a day by the time it ended.

Then a shadow fell over me from behind, above me on the steps. My heart lurched at the sudden presence. I remembered the hatred in Olaf’s eyes and I imagined the big man standing above me, consumed by revenge. It was a stupid thought. Zeb lurked nearby. Zeb was always lurking and watching. If a threat had approached me it would have been put down before it even considered me a target.

I turned and found the curious form of Katya looking down at me. She stared openly, inspecting me like a science project. Her ways were strange. I understood people had different customs in her far-flung land, but it was still difficult to reconcile her manners.

In a bygone era, Miami and Boston were part of one huge nation, and it is my dream and hope that by the time you read this, that will be the reality again. In this time, Miami and much of the southern extremities—New Orleans, Atlanta—were part of a noticeably different culture. The western cities were similarly alien to the northeastern cluster of city-states. Miami, in particular, was a strange place. Their leadership was hereditary, the city always led by a Queen, a queen that was treated not only as though her rule was divinely sanctioned by the Oracle, but that she herself carried a touch of the divine.

Katya stood staring down at me, her head slightly cocked, unabashedly inspecting me in a way even Lance would have been embarrassed by. "H-hey," I said shakily.

"Hey," she replied.

As I looked back at her fixed gaze, I couldn't fail to appreciate her appealing looks. At the time, I was a lad in my late teens, so maybe it might be fair to say I found almost every appropriately aged female to have appealing looks. But as I looked up at Katya, I realized that I hadn't appreciated her as I'd basked in the radiance of Lauren's glowing obvious beauty. Katya didn't possess the pronounced shapeliness to her contours that Lauren displayed so proudly. She was skinny, very slight, her feminine curves quite underpronounced. But she was lithe, her eyes deep and burrowing in a different way to Lauren's—not huge deep pools, but rather aching planets that spoke of faraway places. And she was odd, in a very good way, different from the girls I'd grown up around. She was not dressed as a lady at all, sporting tight jeans and a riding cloak.

"Is there something I should do?" I asked.

Katya said, "Tell me how you did it."

"How I did what?" I trailed off, rising slightly from my stage fright. "Oh, the beam. You mean the beam."

"I've studied the history of the Choosing in this city very carefully," Katya said. "Nobody has ever gained an attribute so quickly, and you suck, which makes it even harder to understand."

I tried not to show myself being taken aback by her comment. She said it matter-of-factly, with no insult or intent. After a moment, I realized she was right. I had easily been the worst suit wielder of the class, but for my miraculous acquisition of the beam, it would be me and not Olaf who had trudged home defeated that day.

"I focused on improving the beam," I said. "That's why I struggled so much, but it paid off, didn't it?"

"How did you work on the beam?" Katya asked.

"I just did what the voice said."

"The voice?" Katya's eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, the voice, the one that talks to you in the suit..." I had started to believe this was a feature of the Boston Sword Suit and that everyone had been experiencing it, gaining guidance from it. Her expression gave the lie to my presumption.

"Oh," she said, looking disappointed. "You're a crazy person, I see..."

I rushed to cover myself up. "Not the voice! Not like an actual voice, I mean... the feeling of the suit, the sensory feedback... One of my tutors said I should listen to the voice... Oracle's sake, that must have sounded strange..."

I waited, bated breath, to see how she received my shaky lies. She inspected me a little more and then said, "I want you to teach me how you did it."

I said, shaky, trying to stay fixed on my goal of becoming a Griidlord but also not wanting to deter the attention of this alluring female human, "Katya, I don't think that's really how it works. I mean, we're competing with each other. I don't want to—I can't help you get better."

Katya responded, "But you suck anyway, and you probably won't win." Again, no insult, just matter of fact.

"I might win," I said, trying to assert myself. "I have the beam now."

"Not all of the competitions will be combats with each other," she said, her tone pragmatic. "You can barely walk in your suit."

"Well, why should I help you gain an advantage over me, or anyone else for that matter?" I asked, feeling a little angry.

Katya's expression softened into one of consideration. "We could have an alliance."

I blinked, taken aback. "What, if we win, we both share the suit?"

She examined me for another moment, then burst out in a strange, fast melody of laughter. "Oh, you're joking. Your humor here is strange, but that was amusing. No, of course not, but we could make an arrangement that benefits both of us in the case that one of us is the victor."

"Oh?" I said, intrigued despite myself.

"I am the seventh daughter of Her Glory of Miami, and have no obvious path to a place in the city save as a piece of court furniture, which is terribly boring. I need a place to call my own, away from my mother and my tedious sisters. That is why I am here—to make my own glory. I intend to win the suit. In the event that I don't, my chances of finding another Choosing while I am still in my prime may be quite slim, so I could marry you."

Startled, I stammered, "What?"

"Your family has terrific wealth, and if you win, you will be a Griidlord. There would be great prestige for me to be the wife of such a man and be the mother to generations of future Griidlords."

I blushed, imagining the physical acts that would be entailed in fathering children with her. She paused, seeming to admire my blush, somewhat satisfied. Then she said, "But in all possible outcomes, that seems the least likely. Your failure to master any other aspect of the suit means you are unlikely to emerge the victor. I, however, armed with the strange knowledge you have at gaining attributes, could very possibly win the suit. If you married me, you could join my noble house, possibly satisfying your father's desire to make his family part of the established nobility here."

I juggled for words, speechless.

"You're flustered, I understand," she said. "I would like to start as soon as possible, but sadly I have no time for you this evening. Think on my offer, and we can speak again tomorrow. But be warned, if you are ejected tomorrow, I will need to narrow the terms of the proposal somewhat. I would still have need of your knowledge, but you would no longer be in a position to offer me the opportunity to marry you as a Griidlord, however unlikely that might be, and the arrangement would need to be adjusted accordingly."

I stared, still scrambling for a response. She ducked down like a bird and kissed my cheek, then straightened, seeming to enjoy my uncontrollable embarrassment for another moment before striding away briskly. I can't say my eyes didn't linger on her posterior in those tight jeans as she walked away.