Chapter 1 - Ginger

The visceral sound of scrubbing filled the small farmhouse. Ginger desperately scraped dishes clean until she felt her hands might bleed, wishing the scalding water could wash away the terror of the last few hours. 

Her brother’s final words to her repeated on a constant loop in her head. She remembered the way he’d looked over to her when the pounding at the door started, resolve etched onto his features as he prepared to face his fate. 

“Listen to me, Ginger,” Kestrel had said, voice low and resolute, “It’s not you they’re after. Stay quiet and hide. I promise you’ll be okay.”

She had obeyed like the dutiful sister she was, slipping out the back door as the shouting became unbearable. As she heard her brother call upon his sword, revealing himself as a rogue Ascendant, she stumbled into a run. Her feet pounded against the earth as she bolted into the forest.

Not for the first time, Ginger wished the two of them had been born human. She loved being a Warrior Ascendant, loved the thrum of power in her veins as she swung her divine weapon with all the strength of the Goddess who blessed her. Yet her existence was a crime: any Ascendant not in the service of the Queen was committing treason and deserved nothing less than the harshest punishment. She refused to think about what that might entail, now that Kestrel had been taken.

The wind stung her cheeks as she sprinted over the rocks and underbrush, making her way up the ridge overlooking their small farmstead. She’d always known this was a possibility, that the Queen’s army might come for them. But accepting it and living it were two different things, and Ginger didn’t know how she’d survive without Kestrel.

She hadn’t known where she was running to, not really, but eventually found herself staring at a dense thicket. Its leaves had gone from green to ruddy gold and red in the autumn air. Once, it had been Kestrel’s favorite hiding spot, the two of them spending hours gazing out at the forest below. Swallowing back a sob, she crawled her way inside, ignoring the way her linen shirt caught on the branches. Wedging her angular body inside, she peered back down the hill desperately for one last glance at her brother. 

She regretted it immediately. Despite the distance between them, she could see the blood on his face and arms, intense as the leaves she’d surrounded herself with. Thick metal cuffs enveloped his wrists, shoulders sagging with the weight as he allowed himself to be chained by three soldiers in crimson uniforms. She could see his eyes: the glowing golden fractures snaking across his gray irises, a telltale sign of the Goddess’s favor.

A rivulet of blood began to trickle down his nose, creating a sickening pattern on his freckled skin. Her blood turned to ice. If one of those soldiers was human, Kestrel might not survive the journey to his own execution. Their mere presence caused a Warrior to sicken: it was the curse to combat the strength of their blessing. 

Ginger tore her gaze away and drove her face into her knees, curling her body inward and repeating his words like a prayer.

“Stay quiet and hide. I promise you’ll be okay.” 

After what felt like days she allowed herself to move, unfurling her limbs and shaking twigs out of her long, loose curls. As her boots crunched over moss and fallen leaves, she tried to make sense of the events of the morning. One moment, her brother had been laughing with her as they prepared for the day ahead, and the next he was gone. Tears welled in her eyes, and she willed them away. How would she go on without him? Kestrel was a crutch she hadn’t realized was keeping her upright until he was ripped from her grasp. 

“Stay quiet and hide. I promise you’ll be okay.” 

Now here she was, back at her empty home, scrubbing away as if she could find her brother in the shine of a clean plate if she worked hard enough. 

What would her mother think? She could only imagine her disappointment: her only daughter, falling apart over something like this. She tried to picture her mouth curling into a disapproving sneer, but the few memories she had of the woman were too hazy. Ginger had been too young when she had left, kissing her children goodbye and choosing to fight against the Queen. Her mother had died fighting against the unjust rules placed on their people. Ginger couldn’t even fight for one person. 

 A sob--or maybe a laugh at her own expense, she couldn’t tell the difference-- threatened to bubble out from her throat. She swallowed it down and began to dry the dishes, surveying the room for any other tasks she could complete. She’d swept the hearth, washed her brother’s clothes and set them out to dry. She’d even straightened the faded quilts on their mother’s bed nestled in the corner of the room, despite the fact nobody used it. Both Ginger and her brother preferred to sleep in the attic, blankets piled into soft nests on the floor. For years, she’d used the sound of his steady, even breathing to fall asleep. She didn’t want to imagine what tonight would be like, silent and unsettling without him. 

Her gaze caught on the mirror hanging above their mother’s bed, on the girl staring back at her. She looked the same as always, yet now Ginger’s eyes fixated on the features she shared with her brother. Her brown, wavy hair, the slope of her nose, the hundreds of freckles blanketing her skin. The golden sheen to her eyes, the mark of a Warrior Ascendant. 

Shaking away her thoughts, she wandered toward the window and looked out at her home. Their small garden was bountiful, and what they didn’t grow they could find out in the vast expanse of wilderness isolating them from the rest of the world. Although Kestrel had always been the better hunter between the two of them, lithe, powerful and deadly. And he’d been the one to teach her which plants were poisonous and which were safe to eat, patiently teaching her how to survive on her own. She wondered if he’d been trying to prepare her for this moment.

As she gazed at the garden, she noticed something odd next to the squash patch, red and glistening in the afternoon light. She squinted, looking closer, and gasped. With a wave of horrified revulsion, she realized it was a scrap of fabric from her brother’s tunic, soaked in blood from the fight. The plate she was drying slipped from her freckled hands, shattering upon impact with the freshly-swept brick floor. 

“Stay quiet and hide. I promise you’ll be okay.” 

It was only then, standing in a pile of sharp fragments and shattered pieces, that Ginger allowed herself to cry.