Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

He was going to see her today for the first, and perhaps the last, time.

She would give her speech, and then the trainees would go through the maze below the city, fight the monster that was kept underground, and try to work out the riddle—all the while keeping on guard against their fellow competitors.

Only one of them would re-emerge into the light and see the queen again.

Tor might die in the Trials. He was prepared for that—to not be worthy of her, to fail her even though he would try his best.

He would have the sight of her, once, to call up as a last image before he died.

He should try to remember every moment of this day. He should hold every second sacred.

Tor put his uniform on, not slowly—because wasting time would be letting Rosamond down, since his every second was consigned to her—but with deliberation. He did his last practice exercises in calm and measured movements, not listening to the whispering all around him, the wondering and the betting on his chances.

He marched out of the temple with his head held high, in step with his brethren, a black-clad regiment dedicated to perfect love and beauty. Ready to kill for Rosamond.

The other contestants were already ranged in the square. Tor saw his own face on the huge screens set in the skyscrapers, reproduced a hundred times larger for the city’s view. He was startled by the look in his own eyes, as if he were watching a tragedy, when this was the happiest day of his life.

The cameras left him and showed a swooping view of the crowd, then the other contestants, in their colorful disarray. Some were in restraints and some wore bruises.

Tor turned his face away, a tremor of disgust running through him at the idea that someone would need to be forced to serve Rosamond.

His eyes fell on another crowd of contestants, among whom stood the tall flame-haired thief of the week before. Tor’s lip curled back from his teeth, and the thief spotted him, looked massively and spitefully delighted, and blew him a kiss.

Tor looked steadfastly away from him, and toward the dais.

It stood empty, but there was music rising in the air. She was coming. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest like a child frantically thumping at a door to get out.

She came shining, her dark hair like a cloud behind her.

It was almost a shock to see her, real, the size of a woman. Almost like an ordinary woman, almost as if she were someone who could be approached without fear or reverence.

But not quite. Tor had the curve of that mouth memorized, the exact shape of her brilliant eyes.

It should have been enough simply to behold her—real love is love that asks for nothing and does everything; real love should not even ask for a look—but he did want her to look at him, to have looked at him, just once before he died.

She gazed down as she passed the Order, her eyelashes shadows on her cheeks. Tor had not thought about her as having eyelashes, but of course she did.

Rosamond , he thought, and wanted to say her name just once so she would hear it.

When she reached the dais and began to speak, he stopped thinking about himself and all the things she was in relation to him.

Sheer shock wiped away all of that.

Queen Rosamond, the eternal rose, undid the top button of her robe.

He looked at the pale hollow of her throat—he had not thought, should not think, about Rosamond’s skin or her body—and saw her swallow, and felt not the familiar awe but a rush of the stupid tenderness that always had him betraying himself and running back at a cry for help.

Rosamond was a scared girl.

They did not have to beat Yvain or restrain him on the day of the Trials. He woke up with the Nests wrapped in cloud and smoke, and went quietly down into a clear morning below.

Fighting was no use, and he didn’t need to go through the Trials wounded already. That would be pointless and ridiculous.

Besides, he was—curious.

He wanted to see her—Rosamond—whose face was supposed to be worth dying for. He wanted her to see him, and see that he was not impressed. That all there was to her was gold, and it was not worth enough.

He saw others around him who had fought against being dragged here, though. Men with black eyes and bloody noses. Some of them gave him a friendly look, comrades in misfortune, and some looked at him coldly as if the Trials had begun and they were enemies already.

Some of them looked as rapt as the Order Knights, waiting for the queen. There was a thrum and a murmur in the air. Rosamond, Rosamond, and Yvain felt a thrill of anticipation and disgust.

He saw the knight from the rooftops standing with his regiment, eyes black and accusing, and was grateful, for a moment. Yvain was able to laugh and blow the idiot a kiss. He was never going to be one of the Order, trembling and waiting.

He tried to catch the knight’s eye again, but he was turned toward the dais. Yvain gave up and looked there too.

She was just as he’d expected, more gold than girl.

What girl there was, was pretty, but also so familiar. Girls in the Nests, just like other girls in the City, all straightened and darkened their hair, tried to make their eyes look light, tried to look like Rosamond and the ideal of beauty. It was why Yvain had always perversely liked curls.

He looked at Rosamond’s still, perfect face, and wished he could tell her, tried to send the thought to her: I’m bored.

The glitter of gold was distracting. They had done that on purpose, of course, wrapped her up with a promise of luxury, making you think of always waking up warm and well fed, of jewels brighter than Rosamond’s eyes.

He let himself look, and covet. If she saw him looking, he wanted her to know that that was all he saw of her, all she was.

Gold melting, and Persie dead.

Rosamond had buttons of chased mother-of-pearl and gold, each one probably worth more than a sovereign.

The buttons rose and fell as she breathed, and Yvain wished they would be still, that he could look at her like the statue he’d stolen and reduced to nothing but gold.

She didn’t let him. She put up her hands to the buttons and slid them out one by one.

All the gold fell away, and there was a girl underneath.

The day of the Trials was blinding. Roz had never been outside the palace walls before, but she had been in the gardens and the courtyards and on the balconies: she had not thought she would be dazzled by the sun. Yet she was, and she felt almost blind every step of the bright way to the square at the heart of the city.

Appearances were all that mattered to the Court, Miri had told her, as if it were very important.

Roz thought about it every step of the way, and by the time she reached the square, her vision was clear.

So this is the city they tell me is mine, she thought, and looked at the tall steel-and-silver skyscrapers. The cobblestones of the square looked freshly washed, but there were dark lines etched between them. Dirt or blood, Roz did not know.

She glanced behind her to see Dareus—who had taught her, against the rules, to fight for herself—and met his steady gaze. It let her walk across the stones, blood and all.

When she neared the dais, every screen set in the towers reflected her face. It was like the Hall of Mirrors writ large, like all her past selves whispering their name in her ear: Rosamond, Rosamond, Rosamond —the weight of their expectations, of everybody’s expectations, forming her into what they wanted. The face on the screen, lapis lazuli eyes set in an idol’s face.