The Sun Dwellers

A

Slowly, she raises her hands above her head, expecting her fingers to be blown off at any second. No one shoots, so she stands up, seeing only red and black. At least thirty red-uniformed soldiers move in on her, their black guns trained on her head and chest. “There’s one other with me,” A

Maia rises up slowly, follows A

Surrounded, A

A

One foot in the past and one in the middle of a war, A

“Nothing to say? Good. That makes things quicker. Shoot them,” the man says.

Feet scuffle nearby as her executioners step into position. She waits for the bang! and the burn of hot metal in her body, but instead there’s a crackle of static and then a voice.

“Ceasefire!” the voice says. “Under order of President Nailin, ceasefire!”

A

THE END

~*~

A SNEAK PEEK

:

FIRE COUNTRY

BOOK 1 OF THE COUNTRY SAGA

Available anywhere e-books are sold March 1, 2013!

Chapter One

When I’m sixteen and reach the midpoint of my life I will have my first child. Not because I want to, or because I made a silly decision with a strapping young boy after sneaking a few sips of my father’s fire juice, but because I must. It is the law of my people; a law that has kept us alive and thriving for many years. A law I fear.

I learned all about the ways of the world when I turned seven: the bleeding time, what I would have to do with a man when I turned sixteen, and how the baby—my baby—would grow inside me for nine months. Even though it all seemed like a hundred years distant at the time, I cried for two days. Now that it’s less than a year away, I’m too scared to cry.

Veeva told me all about the pain. She’s seventeen, and her baby’s five months old and “uglier than one of the hairy ol’ warts on the Medicine Man’s feet.” Or at least that’s how she describes Polk. Me, I think he’s sort of cute, in a scrunched up, fat-cheeked kind of way. Well, anyway, she said to me, “Siena, you never felt pain so burnin’ fierce. I screamed and screamed…and then screamed some more. And then this ugly tug of a baby comes out all red-faced and oozy. And now I’m stuck with it.” I didn’t remind her Polk’s a him not an it.

I already knew about her screaming. Everyone in the village knew about Veeva’s screaming. She sounded like a three ton tug stuck in a bog hole. Veeva’s always cursing, too, throwing around words like burnin’ and searin’ and blaze—words that would draw my father’s hand across my face like lightning if I ever let them slip out of my mouth—like they’re nothing more than common language.

In any case, everything she tells me about turning sixteen just makes me wish I didn’t have to get older, could stay fifteen for the next seventeen or so years, until the Fire takes me.

It’s not fair, really, the boys get to wait until they’re eighteen before their names get put in the Call. I would kill for an extra two years of no baby.

Veeva told me something else, too, something they didn’t teach us when I was seven. She told me the only good part of it all was when she got to lie with her Call, a guy named Grunt, who everyone thinks is a bit of a shanker. I’ve personally never seen him do a lick of work, and he’s always coming up with some excuse or another to avoid the tug hunts. Well, Veeva told me that he makes up for all of that in the tent. Most of what she told me made my stomach curl, but she swore on the sun goddess that it was the best day of her life. To her, shanky old Grunt is a real stallion.

But even if there was something good about turning sixteen, there’s still no guy in the village that I’d want to be my Call. I mean, most of them are so old and crusty, well on their ways to thirty, and even the youngest eligible men—the eighteen-year-olds—include guys like Grunt, who will also be eligible for my Call because Veeva has to wait another two years before she can get preggers again. No matter how much of a stallion Veeva claims Grunt is, I don’t want to get close enough to him to even smell his fire juice reekin’ breath, much less lie with him in a tent.

“Siena!” a voice whispers in my ear.

I flinch, startled to hear my name, snapping away from my thoughts like a dung beetle scurrying from a scorpion. Laughter crowds around me and I cringe. Not again. My daydreaming’s likely cost me another day on Shovel Duty, which we like to call Blaze Craze when our parents aren’t listening.

“Youngling Siena,” Teacher Mas says, “I asked you a question. Will you please grace us with an answer?” One of the only good things about turning sixteen will be not being called “Youngling” anymore.

I feel twenty sets of eyes on me, and suddenly a speck of durt on my tugskin shoes catches my attention. “Can you please repeat the question, Teacher?” I mumble to my feet, trying to sound as respectful as possible.

“Repeating the question will result in Shovel Duty, Siena, which will bring your total to four days, I believe.”

I stare at my feet, lips closed. I wonder if Teacher not repeating the question is an option, but I’m smart enough not to ask.

“The question I asked you was: What is the average life expectancy for a male in fire country?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s a question that any four-year-old Totter with half a brain could answer. It’s blaze that’s been shoveled into all our heads for the last eleven years. “Thirty years old,” I say, finally looking up. I keep my eyes trained forward, on Teacher Mas, ignoring the stares and the whispers from the other Younglings.

Teacher’s black hair is twisted into two braids, one on either side, hanging in front of his ears. His eyes are dark and slitted and although I can’t tell whether he’s looking at me, I know he is. “And females?” he asks.

“Thirty two,” I answer without hesitation. I take a deep breath and hold it, still feeling the stares and smirks on me, hoping Teacher will move on to someone else. The fierceness of the fiery noonday sun presses down on my forehead so hard it squeezes sweat out of my pores and into my eyes. It’s days like this I wish the Learning house had a roof, and not just three wobbly walls made from the logs of some tree the Greynotes, the elders of our village, bartered from the Icers. I blink rapidly, flinching when the perspiration burns my retinas like acid. Someone laughs but I don’t know who.