by Jayne Faith
The Selection
SAPIENT SALVATION BOOK 1
JAYNE FAITH
with Christine Castle
Copyright
The Selection
Copyright © 2015 by Jayne Faith
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors.
The selection / a novel by Jayne Faith
Ebook Edition ISBN: 978-0-9905639-8-3
Edited by: Tia Silverthorne Bach of Indie Books Gone Wild
Published in the United States of America
Also by Jayne Faith and Christine Castle
The Seas of Time
The Laws of Attraction
1
Maya
IT WAS A day like any other in that Lana was down below singing and weaving ceremonial rope with her nimble fingers, and I was up in the trees filling collection bags with yellow-orange bergamine fruits. But it wasn’t any other day, and my mind wasn’t on my work. How could it be? It was the most important day of my nearly twenty years.
The singing below went silent mid-verse. “Maya?” Lana called.
I started and looked around guiltily, realizing I’d stopped picking as I’d let Lana’s song and my own thoughts distract me from my duties.
“All’s well,” I called to my sister, hoping I sounded calm. Not that I expected to fool Lana. She knew me better than I knew myself.
Instead of pressing me about why I’d paused my work, she took up her song again. She didn’t have to ask what was on my mind. It was the same thing that was on everyone’s mind: the Selection. At dusk, Lana and I would represent our clan by entering the Selection along with the other young men and women of Obligate Elect age.
And after the Selection, everything would be different.
I lifted my bag, checking its heft. I’d already reached the day’s quota for myself, but I couldn’t stop until I had enough to turn in for Lana, too.
I climbed higher, going for the bergamines in the highest branches where most of the pickers were too afraid to climb. It was dangerous—the canopy branches were too long and slender to support a person’s weight—but Court and I had figured out how to pull them through and around each other to create stronger boughs to climb on.
We’d even created a suspended platform, a spot where we frequently met. Our nest, Court called it. I didn’t really have any spare time, but I longed for a few moments alone with Court before the Selection.
I checked the angle of the sun, and a point low in my core warmed and stirred with anticipation. “I’m going up to the canopy,” I called down to Lana. Court would be up there.
I quickly climbed up through the branches, looking for the notches that told me where it was safe to put my hands and feet.
The air up there felt lighter and just more free somehow. I breathed deeply, pulling myself up the last few feet. When my head rose over the edge of the nest, I gasped with delight at the sight of Court’s smiling face.
He lounged on his side, and my gaze dropped to where the hem of his shirt had pulled up to reveal a stripe of tanned, muscled stomach just above the waistband of his shorts. His blonde hair was darkened with sweat around his temples and his gray-green eyes sparkled when he saw me.
Court was the most gorgeous, perfect man I’d ever known. From the dimple in his left cheek to the warm timbre of his voice to how he caressed my cheek with a gentle touch of his index finger . . .
My pulse raced in anticipation of his hands on my skin. I hung my bergamine collection bags on a stump of a branch that jutted out from the nearest trunk and crawled across the swinging intertwined branches and into Court’s arms.
He pulled me against his chest and turned onto his back, and our nest swayed gently. Our lips met, and his hands slid down my sides, over the curve of my lower back, and down to grip my backside. I kissed him more deeply, and he lifted his hips, grinding his arousal into me and bringing a moan to my throat.
“I can hardly wait to have you, to truly make you mine,” Court growled. His lips moved to a spot just under my jaw.
“After the Selection, I will be yours forever,” I whispered. “And it will be that much sweeter because we waited.”
Even though we’d been together for a year and a half, I was still a virgin. We were waiting until we were married. Our hearts were already joined, but I wanted our bodies to couple only after it was safe. After we knew we could be together forever.
His lips trailed down my neck. Then we half rolled so we were on our sides with our chests pressed into one another.
“Mmm . . .” I moaned my pleasure, opening my eyes to look up at the pieces of blue sky peeking through the canopy overhead. In the light of day I couldn’t see the fiery battles raging beyond the shield, the invisible bubble that enclosed the Ten Protected Zones of Earthenfell.
“Maya,” he said, his lips moving against my throat. “The scent of bergamine blossoms will forever turn me on.”
“I need to continue collecting,” I murmured, his mention of the fruit blossoms reminding me of my duties. “I don’t have enough for Lana’s quota yet.”
He groaned his dissent and planted one last kiss on my lips.
We never had much time for each other, but each time that we met and brought a few minutes of pleasure into our lives I counted as a victory. It was a victory for the freedom inherent in the love between two people, a victory over the suppression of humans by the alien races that battled for Earthenfell.
Just before I turned to reach for my bergamine bags, something caught my eye. On all fours, I reached out and plucked at Court’s climbing shorts and came away with a long, red-orange hair that waved at perfect intervals. With the hair pinched between my thumb and forefinger, I sat back on my heels.
I held the strand up in front of my eyes. My focus switched to Court’s face. “What’s this?”
He frowned at my hand and then quickly smoothed his face. “Looks like a strand from a Selection ceremony rope. Probably picked it up when I passed Lana and her weaving.”
With an impish upturn of one corner of his mouth, Court crawled toward me. He slipped a hand around the back of my neck and drew me into another long kiss, leaving me breathless when he pulled away.
Then he was over the side of the nest and shimmying down the nearest trunk. I slung my collection bags across my body and followed.
The glow of being with Court faded, and I needed to push to get Lana’s quota. No time to linger in the groves after the horn. We’d need to get home, bathe, and ready ourselves for the Selection ceremony at dusk.
I moved down, just under the canopy of the spindly top-most boughs, to continue picking.
Far below, Lana had taken up her song again. The sweet sound of her clear voice made its way up to me like a gentle updraft. I wished I could sing so beautifully, but I didn’t begrudge her talent. Ever since the fever had taken Lana’s sight, Mother reminded us that my sister’s voice was the gift she’d received in place of her sight. When I was a child, I’d insisted that the fever had only changed Lana’s eyes and that her throat and my throat were still identical. But try as I might, I couldn�
��t produce those lovely sounds. Maybe there was some truth to what Mother said.
My skin glistened with sweat as I worked to fill Lana’s collection bags. I got into a rhythm of plucking and climbing, plucking and climbing, methodically moving from tree to tree.
When the horn sounded, I quickly reached for one more bergamine to top off the last bag.
My picking had taken me so far from where Lana sat under a shady tree, with her skeins of colored floss and her dented water canteen, I couldn’t even hear her voice.
Back on the ground, I turned to orient myself and then set off in the direction of the setting sun.
At the sound of voices, I paused. When I recognized Court’s low laugh, a warm bloom of happiness lifted my heart. On light feet, I headed his direction.
Another voice, a female voice, answered his laugh with a trilling giggle. My shoes scraped to a halt.
As I watched, Farrah emerged from a thick stand of saplings, tugging her shirt down over the ivory skin of her stomach. She giggled again and cast a coquettish look over her shoulder, her waves of red-orange hair swinging as she turned her head.
Waves of red-orange hair . . . The thread on Court’s shorts . . . He wouldn’t . . .
Court came running up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her hair. She playfully tried to pull out of his grasp, and one of his hands slid up to squeeze her breast. She slapped it away and turned, taking slow backward steps away from him as if trying to entice him to chase her.
My heart iced over. The chill crept outward to freeze my limbs.
“You’re insatiable,” Farrah said, looking at him from under her eyelashes.
He ran at her again and caught her in his arms, again from behind. Then, he slid a hand down over her shorts between her legs.
She pushed his arm away and turned to face him, pressing her body into his. “Tonight,” she said. “Find me after the Selection and fill me again. Twice if you can manage it.”
I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth, pressing against the bile rising up my throat.
At the sound, Court’s head jerked around.
Our eyes met, and irritation flashed across his face, followed quickly by dismay.
The heat of anger and humiliation fueled my muscles, melting the freeze of a moment ago in one hot surge. I was off like a shot through the trees, my bags bouncing against my back and hips.
Court followed for a bit, calling after me, but gave up after a minute or so—all too quickly, considering.
When I neared the vicinity of Lana’s tree, I stopped and bent over, my hands planted on my knees. The collection bags slid off my shoulders and bumped to the ground, spilling bergamines.
I retched, but nothing came up.
After a few ragged breaths, I straightened and swiped my fingers across the dampness under my eyes.
I slowly picked up the scattered fruits and tried to focus on collecting myself as well before I walked the last several yards to my sister.
Two thoughts fought like feral cats in my mind. How could Court do such a thing to me? And how could I not have known?
Around and around, the two questions clawed at each other, slicing flesh and drawing blood that seemed to stream straight from my heart.
Dazed, I set the collection bags next to the ones I’d left with Lana throughout the day.
“What is it, Maya?” Lana had already wound her skeins in neat bundles. She held the cord she’d been working on all week, woven of the three colors of our clan’s seal.
There were no red-orange strands in Lana’s skeins. I’d known that. I just hadn’t wanted to know it.
“Just a bit tired,” I said.
I bent to pile her skeins into her weaving case, and she held out the finished cord for me to add.
“I can tell by the way you’re breathing that something’s wrong.”
A faint smile cut through my shock and anger. “I’ll tell you about it after the Selection is over.”
She lowered her eyelids partway and smiled with a sly stretch of her lips. “No you won’t, you’ll be too busy celebrating with Court.”
I winced.
“Never too busy for you, sister.” The sudden pressure of tears swelled around my throat, and I clamped my teeth hard onto my lips.
Damn Court.
I helped her stand and then hooked half of the collection bags over her thin shoulders. I carried her case as well as the rest of the bergamine bags. With her hand on the crook of my elbow, we started toward the drop station.
Lana had no trouble keeping up with me, and there was no hesitation in her steps. She always said that she trusted me to lead her down the safest path, and the way she moved always reminded me of her confidence in my protection. I kept her from tripping over roots. I made sure her quotas were fulfilled so she would receive her full ration. I helped masked the true extent of her debility so she could remain at home with me and Mother.
I didn’t resent any of it, not for one second. But I worried. What would become of her if something happened to me?
Someone came up beside me. “How was your day’s collection?” Rand’s soft but deep voice pulled me from my thoughts.
I managed a smile for him. “It went well, two quotas filled,” I said.
He nodded and a chunk of hair the color of strong coffee fell across his forehead. “I have more than I need, but if you don’t need them, then today I will turn in a few extra bergamines for the overlords’ pleasure.”
Rand often picked more than his quota, and nearly every day checked with me and Lana to make sure we had enough. I never wanted to assume he would help me fulfill my and my sister’s daily collections, but it was nice to know he was there to help all the same.
I’d seen others try to take advantage of his generosity, lazing or socializing for part of the day and then going to Rand to ask for his surplus. He would always give it once at least to someone who claimed need, but Lana and I were the only ones he offered it to regularly.
“I imagine you’re looking forward to the completion of this Selection cycle with great anticipation,” he said, tilting his face to look down at me.
I skirted a glance in his direction, but didn’t raise my eyes to his. I knew what he was hinting at. That after the Selection, Court and I would finally be married. That’s what I’d thought up until I’d seen him grabbing at Farrah, until I’d heard her say—I squeezed my eyes closed, silencing her voice in my head.
“I . . . Um . . . not as much as you might think . . .” I trailed off, unable to fake any enthusiasm.
Lana turned to me, and I could feel the question on her face, poised on the tip of her tongue.
A trilling giggle spilled through the late afternoon heat.
I knew who it was. I should have kept my eyes ahead. But a dozen heated emotions boiled up through me and gathered behind my eyes and around the center of my chest.
I turned.
Farrah was poking at Court’s ribs. He was trying to ignore her, but she persisted in touching him, tickling him, bumping against him, preening with her fingers in her wavy hair when he looked her way.
Rand saw, of course.
“Farrah, stop grabbing me,” Court hissed, loud enough for the three of us to hear.
Surprise passed over Lana’s face, and then disbelief. Anger came last. She’d probably just displayed the exact expressions I had when I’d come upon Court and Farrah in the orchard.
Lana half-turned her head toward me, her eyes flashing. “That snake,” she spat. Her cheeks flushed.
I nearly smiled in spite of the humiliation that burned on my own face. That Lana could piece together my off mood and one sentence from Court and come up with what was probably close enough to the truth, well, it was a testament to our bond as twins. And even more so it was a tribute to her ability to read people without the benefit of actually seeing their expressions, actions, and body language.
I ground my teeth and fought to keep angry tears from spilli
ng over. “The worst kind of snake,” I said. “The kind of snake who allows his little snake to lead him around.”
Out of the corners of my eyes, I flicked a glance up at Rand. His lips were parted and a frown furrowed his brow. I saw the exact moment that the truth clicked. His deep brown eyes widened just a hair, and something lit in them. I knew what it was—hope. But to Rand’s credit, he shook his head and shot a look of outrage at Rand and Farrah.
“Maya, I’m sorry.” Rand shook his head again. “That man is the worst kind of snake. And an utter idiot. He does not deserve you.”
I took a shaking breath. My bones felt too fragile, my head too light, and my feet too heavy. But with Lana on my left and Rand on my right, I somehow stayed upright and kept moving one foot in front of the other.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Lana was fuming, waves of anger practically buffeting me like a desert wind. She cursed under her breath, which I’d only heard her do maybe twice ever.
“I’m going to spike his brew with cobalt tonight. Hers too,” she said, her voice carrying over the chatter of pickers walking to the drop station.
Several heads swiveled our way.
“Shh,” I cautioned.
But it wasn’t a half-bad idea. Cobalt was the dye she used for the blue strands of her ceremonial cords. If ingested, it had horrible digestive effects. I wouldn’t mind seeing Court and Farrah sick from both ends for the entirety of the Selection Fete that evening and Feast Day the following day. No, I wouldn’t mind that at all. In fact, I just might take some of Lana’s cobalt and spike their mugs myself.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Court and Farrah slow. They were letting us get ahead so we would have our backs to them in the drop line.
“Maya,” Rand said. He cleared his throat. “I imagine that some of your plans for the night have now been, um, spoiled. I hate the thought of that. Tonight, I would be honored if—if you would . . . Will you allow me to escort you to the Fete?”
