After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

champion once or twice, but I am afraid it is unlikely to happen. Women have to volunteer, and very few do.”

“I think it’s men,” Rosamond whispered.

It was hard to know. She really had not met many people, and it was not as if anyone would have responded to her desire if she had felt it. She was not meant to want anyone. Even the idea of desiring someone seemed like murdering them.

What she wanted was to run to the Hall of Mirrors and do the forbidden, do what no other Rosamond had done before—fight.

“Isn’t that nice,” said the First Minister. “So who do you think will win you, Your Majesty: one of those dedicated knights, or perhaps a more worldly city man?”

What did it matter? Either way, she was what she was: a Rosamond. The goal, the prize, the symbol.

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, more to the table and the list than to the First Minister.

“Ah,” said the First Minister. “My guess is that it will probably be one of the Temple boys again. Most suitable. It’s what they’re raised for, of course. To win, not to question—and to make you happy, Your Majesty, of course.”

“Of course,” Roz said.

“More important, are you word perfect in your speech?”

More important than Roz’s happiness or her desires, or who would win her. The most important thing was that she be perfect.

“That’s what everything’s based on, isn’t it?” Miri asked later, as Roz raged and Miri brushed her hair. “For the Court. What things look like.”

“Especially,” Roz snapped, “when things look like me.”

“And when you look perfect,” said Miri. “When you stay perfectly within the rules. When the Court proclaims you to the whole city as perfect, that’s your opening.”

Like the way Miri took an opening when Dareus was distracted.

But what opening was there if she could not stop the Trials? Roz heard the First Minister’s voice in her head, saying, Who do you think will win you, Your Majesty?

She was a prize to be won. She did not know how to fight that.

The first day of the Trials, the day when Tor would see her, the sky was a deep particular blue. The color of Rosamond’s eyes, he thought, or perhaps a few shades lighter.

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: