Page 74 of A Dance of Shadows

The godlen told them that they must tend to their offspring as they would a garden and the children would bear their own kind of “fruit.” When she returned in a few years’ time, she found that some families had taken her advice to heart and flourished with the skills their children had learned and the help they could provide.

Others had continued to neglect the youngsters, keeping all they could for themselves. Prospira took those children from their selfish parents and finished their raising herself.

When the parents saw what lucrative trades and callings their offspring had taken up, they clamored for them to share the wealth. But Prospira informed them that they’d abandoned their gardens, and now their children would put all their plenty toward cultivating the families of their choice, not their birth.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the tale, not least because it isn’t as if one’s children’s future careers help all that much while you have five barely out of swaddling clothes to feed. I can’t see how it would figure into any test Linus would present, though.

I shouldn’t be surprised that he could twist even a seemingly innocent myth to some awful end. His eyes gleam as he gathers himself for the announcement.

“I intend to spur your children on toward great things just as Prospira did! Today, they’ll learn the value of fighting for their empire while proving the depth of their loyalties.”

At a gesture, two servants scurry forward. One sets a low, narrow table at the edge of the platform in front of us. Another hands a clinking sack to Linus.

He digs into the burlap bag and holds up a small velvet pouch. More clinking sounds ring out at his shake.

“Each of these pouches holds ten gold coins. I have ten pouches to offer you today. The children who can claim them first and protect them best shall have those riches for their families.”

As he sets the ten pouches out in a row on the table, my stomach lurches. My lips part with the urge to say something that’ll set him off course, but no words that I can imagine working come to me. The last thing I want is to provoke him into demanding something even worse.

Before my scrambling mind can find an answer, Linus claps his hands over his head. “Come and get your reward from the empire!”

The soldiers who were keeping the kids herded at the far end of the ring draw back. The children stare at the pouches of gold, some with eyes widened and others narrowed with a hint of skepticism.

They start forward cautiously. For a few seconds, I think this challenge might not be a total catastrophe. They’ll simply race for the table or see it as some other sort of childish game?—

Then one of the more richly dressed boys dashes from the pack. A nearby girl shrieks in protest and hurls herself at him.

As she knocks him to the ground, the entire throng of children erupts into the chaos Linus predicted.

The girl who tackled the first boy scrambles past him, but another girl snatches at her braid and snaps back her head. More kids surge past them, elbowing and smacking each other, tripping over their own feet or legs whipped out to topple them.

One boy’s fingernails rake across another’s face as he shoves his rival to the side. A girl snatches another boy’s collar and punches him right in the nose, only to have him knee her in the gut.

Fabric rips. Feet and knees bang against the cobblestones. Cries and grunts reverberate through the air.

The smallest kids crumple first, bashed and battered by the larger children who overwhelm them. Along the edges of the cleared space, several adult voices cry out.

A few figures push at the soldiers who are ringing the makeshift area. Parents of the victims?

“Mina!” one woman calls frantically, trying to shove right between two of the soldiers.

I don’t even see the uniformed figures move. There’s a crackle in the air from some sort of magical gift, and the woman crumples in an instant.

“Stay back!” one of the soldiers snaps.

The distraught figures nearby pause in their jostling. They can’t risk defying the powers of the empire.

But an empress can.

I spot a little boy huddled farther back, blood streaking from beneath the hand he’s pressed to his temple, and the pained hitch of my pulse propels me into action.

“All the children must be tended to as they need it, as Prospira would see to it!” I shout out, hoping the translators will convey my words as well, and dash off the platform with grunts of protest from my personal guards hustling close behind me.

Please, let Linus see me as playing into the story he established rather than undermining it.

Noticing me coming, the soldiers along the edge of the ring shout to each other and press the crowd aside. “Your Imperial Highness—” one manages to sputter out as I shoulder past him. He snatches at my arm but releases me when I aim a hard look his way.

Linus hasn’t objected yet. That’s something.

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