Chapter one

GIRLS WITH STOLEN DESTINIES

The Law of Primogeniture dictates that only the First Daughter of each family may volunteer to serve the Viper Court. Should she die during her lifetime, that family may not offer another candidate. If the firstborn daughter is stillborn, however, the Law of Primogeniture passes to the Second Daughter.

Entry One, Wild Rose Retinue Brochure

My mother used to say that, in the old days, brides felt special on their wedding day. Unique. The center of a memorable occasion. I cannot help thinking how far removed we are from those times. The bun pinned atop my head, with a few strands falling over my right shoulder, is no different from those worn by the dozens of young women around me. Behind me stands another girl from the Wild Rose Retinue in the same dress and the same hairstyle. Apart from the impossibly long nails—which I refused to wear—we are a line of girls arranged to look exactly alike.

Girls with stolen destinies. Their parents or guardians will lead them to the altar and hand them over to the Serpentarians assigned to them. The name of the Serpentarian assigned to me is tucked safely inside my pocket. I have not bothered to read it. It is one more small act of defiance committed in the name of freedom. As long as I do not know his name, he is not real. And as long as he is not real, my destiny still belongs to me.

"Stay in line."

A Viper Court attendant shifts me a few inches to the left. They say Serpentarians are so exacting because of their eyes. They also say our mistakes are unbearable to their kind. It is an effect of viper vision, which makes human imperfections even easier to see. That, in turn, leaves them ever more convinced that we are an inferior species.

The human race might have been wiped out centuries ago. Their inability to reproduce saved us.

Or condemned us. It depends on your point of view.

There may be countless hybrids of different ranks and functions, but there is not a single female Serpentarian. Inferior or not, they depend on us—the Wild Roses—to bear their children and preserve their legacy. A legacy that, ironically enough, reinforces the colonization of our people.

The only way to earn a more dignified life is to send a daughter to the Serpentarian Mating Ceremony. Usually the firstborn. The law permits each family to send only one daughter.

And that gives me peace. In truth, it is the only thing that gives me peace. As long as I am here, my sisters will be safe.

Unlike me, the attendant arranging the line of brides appears to have no reason whatsoever to find being here worthwhile. With slick hands, he adjusts my position again, moving me only a few inches from where I stood before.

"There," he corrects in a drawn-out voice that sends a shiver through me.

As if half an inch could possibly make a difference.

I draw a deep breath and resist the urge to pull away from his arms. Then something catches my attention at the edge of my vision. A familiar silhouette, crowned by a mass of hair reaching toward the ceiling, tries to catch my eye through the stained-glass window of the hall where we have been placed. I picture his eyes: brown like tree trunks, or like our knees after a punishing day of labor—those days of too much earth and too little reward. A warm brown, nothing like the cold, greenish swamp of the Serpentarians' eyes. Brown like the eyes of most of us.

Simple. Common. Ordinary.

But only because you have never seen the intensity in Fausto's eyes.

Terrified that a court attendant might spot him and have him punished, I decide to meet him outside. That is when an idea comes to me.

"I need to use the bathroom," I announce to no one in particular.

The attendant snaps his head around farther than any human could manage. I would give myself a stiff neck just attempting the movement. The gesture, so natural to the reptilians, only reminds me that they will always catch us if we try to run.

We cannot match their speed. Even this hybrid—less serpentine than most of those pictured in advertisements and brochures—has better reflexes than we do. His expression makes it obvious that he considers himself superior. Though his shape is more human than that of the creatures destined to become our husbands, the sight of him still fills me with unease.

His tail, covered in greenish scales, stretches at least six feet across the floor, trailing farther than any bridal train before rising into a torso marked by the same scaly pattern up to the middle of his chest. Above that, he resembles a human, except for the green cast of his skin. A few scales mark his arms and the side of his face. His narrow pupils betray his origins. Without those features, if I looked only at his upper body, I would swear he was a human on the verge of vomiting.

Well... judging by his response to my request, he does look disgusted.

The hybrid sighs and fixes me with a murderous glare, probably wondering how many more years he must endure preparations for the Viper Mating Ritual before climbing to a higher position in the Viper Hierarchy.

"Are you certain?" he barks, visibly annoyed.

"Positive," I reply in the most matter-of-fact tone I can manage.

I nearly scream in frustration. Does he truly believe I cannot even identify my own bodily needs? Of course, in this particular case, I am lying.

I hold his gaze. Around us, no one dares breathe too loudly.

Not even me.

"The corridor on the left. Go," the attendant says at last, turning his back on me.

I stop myself from running. Fausto would not be here unless something urgent had happened.

I fear it concerns my sisters. Even though I am only minutes away from leaving the human world forever and entering the world of vipers with every part of myself, I need to know.

I need to know what I am leaving behind.

Summoning patience I do not truly possess, I step around the attendant's tail, cross the hall, and head toward the corridor he indicated. Once there, I keep my gaze fixed on the floor rather than the figures moving through the passages ahead. Dozens of hybrids—these carrying more Serpentarian blood—come and go in pairs, hissing with lengthened s sounds and slow, dragging voices that raise the hair on the back of my neck.

To spare myself a few more seconds of the nightmare, I slip into the bathroom, make certain it is empty, and open the outer window.

"How did you get past the guards?" I ask as I help Fausto climb inside.

His unruly hair is almost a symbol of his optimism. A dangerous optimism. For as long as I have known him, Fausto has always found a way around the rules—whether by climbing a fence to steal flowers from a neighbor's garden or finding some method of avoiding the taxes imposed by the vipers, as we affectionately call them.

But this rule—the one that placed me here—is beyond even him and his optimism.

"I told them I was one of the brides' brothers," he says, pulling a suspicious canvas sack in through the window.

My chest tightens. Before Fausto can explain anything else, his face—flushed from hard labor beneath the colony's punishing heat—already tells me everything I need to know.

He wants me to run.

"I found a way out of here."

"Of course you did," I reply, carefully closing the window as he empties part of the sack onto the sink. My lips press into a hard line when I recognize its contents: men's clothing. "You must have swallowed venom..."

"Listen to me first, Cora," he interrupts.

I drag a hand over my head, almost forgetting that my nervous fingers are one careless movement away from ruining my makeup and hairstyle.

"I got passage to another colony," he continues. "They are starting a new crop there, and apparently it will sell for a fortune next year. It is called coffee."

I frown and take the document he offers me. A smiling Cora with short hair claims her name is Otto.

"How exactly do you plan to fool half these hybrids into believing I am Otto?"

"All you have to do is change and come with me. The boys are waiting."

I want to ask how he and the boys—whoever they may be—intend to evade a squad of hybrids while crossing the border. Cutting my hair and dressing as a man on an ordinary day is one thing. A bride fleeing minutes before the Mating Ceremony, at the exact moment a group of young men is crossing the bridge into the colony, is something else entirely.

This is not a lucky break. It is madness.

And even if we make it out this way... even if his companions help us slip past Serpentarian security... how does he expect me to leave my family behind?

"You know my father made this arrangement a long time ago," I remind him, my voice already thick with emotion.

"I thought you were tired of having no control over your own destiny."

I exhale sharply and clasp his hands between mine.

"I am," I assure him. "I truly am. But this is not destiny, Fausto. You are asking me to flee under another identity, to the middle of nowhere, and leave my family alone to bear the consequences of my absence. To leave my sisters..."

"When are you going to start thinking about yourself, Cora? When are you going to pay the price of freedom?"

"If I were the only one paying it, that would be fine. But I would not be free of the guilt."

"Guilt? What guilt? Cora, they handed you over to a Serpentarian when you were fifteen."

"I know. That is one of the problems with being the Firstborn," I say bitterly. "But by doing this, I know my sisters will be free. My family will be safe."

I know immediately that I have said something wrong. Fausto stares at me with a tortured expression, as though he wants to tell me something but cannot force the words out.

"What is it? What happened?" I ask.

He shakes his head.

"You are going to think I am saying this only to convince you to come with me, but I am not. They are already making arrangements for your sisters too."

My head spins, and not for a second do I believe it has anything to do with my empty stomach or the anxiety of the day.

"What do you mean?" My voice comes out far too loud for our situation. "No. That cannot be true. The Law of Primogeniture—"

"It is being debated. They could repeal it at any moment."

I hear the words, but I want to pretend I do not. I think of Clara struggling through her piano lessons and of Lia's promise as a chess player. Escalverna is not an easy place to live, but at least they will have more opportunities than I did.

Or they would have.

That is what I believed.

They are the reason I am doing this.

"No... They would have contacted me. They would have told me."

"Your parents planned to speak with you after the wedding, during the Serpentarians' dinner."

I think it through once. Twice. The reflection in the mirror begs me to reach out and accept this bright new destiny—the destiny that should never have belonged to me. Part of me wants to turn its back on everything and run. Until now, I had not realized how large that part of me had become.

In that sense, the Law of Primogeniture protected me. It kept me from discovering the true extent of my own selfishness.

"No. I cannot." I watch myself refuse, but the reflection is fragmented.

A very large part of me is furious.

It calls for rebellion. It demands that I march into the hall and announce the proposed law to every other bride. I picture us tearing off our white dresses, pulling down our buns, wiping away our makeup, and refusing to perform the ritual.

They will probably kill us all, an indifferent voice echoes through my bones.

Then they will send for more girls from the colony, like sacks of potatoes.

"Why not?"

Before I can repeat my reasons, my heart freezes. The hissing outside is growing louder. Without thinking, I drag Fausto into one of the stalls and close the door. Then I press one eye to the gap and try to see what is happening.

A second later, the bathroom door opens and two Serpentarians enter. What are they doing here? Something is wrong... Are they looking for me?

"We cannot stay here," the first says in a rough voice, the s in every word sharply pronounced. He must hold a high rank. He is more serpent than man.

"It is the last place anyone will expect us to be," the other replies in a more human voice.

I exhale in relief. They have problems of their own.

"Here is what I promised you."

The first—the higher-ranking of the two—hands something to the second, but I cannot see what it is. The more human-looking Serpentarian examines the contents.

"Why are you paying for this? What do you gain by preserving the Law of Primogeniture? They have been trying to abolish it for quite some time," he says, a trace of mockery in his voice.

"I have my reasons," the other replies. "Besides, I thought those coins would purchase your silence... What is that?"

His gaze fixes on a particular spot beside the sink.

My eyes follow his, and I curse both of us when I realize the mistake we made.

"Looks like one of the humans' bags," the second Serpentarian says, deliberately drawing out the s the way hybrids do when they want to provoke us. His voice turns predatory, inspiring equal measures of fear and rage. "One of those bitches is trying to run. Perhaps she will leave something behind for me."

The first Serpentarian sighs.

"Do not concern yourself with it. I will handle this."

"But I have to inform the supervisor—"

"No," the first says with authority. "You should not be here at all. It would draw suspicion."

"As you wish. Less work for me... And give Eldris my regards. I doubt he has any idea what his dear brother has been doing," he adds with a mocking edge before leaving the bathroom.

I hear his tail drag across the floor, followed by the slam of the door. For a moment, hope rises that the first Serpentarian has left as well.

It vanishes the moment I hear his next words.

"I know you are in there. You can come out now."