Prologue

When we were younger everyone ran down to the river at the end of Seminar. We would stain our eyes and tell everyone what the things we imagined we saw in the upper districts, each more fantastical than the one before. I doubt any of them ever saw anything, I know I didn’t, but we could imagine it.

We saw fancy buildings and shiny people with no worries, and more importantly we saw ourselves thrown into that world. We saw ourselves scoring so high on our exam that we never had to work until our fingers bled; never had to go onto the generator where the air was so hot and charged your skin was charred and burned at the end of your shift.

I never thought I would be standing on the other side of the river wishing I could be back. I never could have guessed that working hard until I couldn’t anymore would be preferred to life in the upper city. I guess the air over the river tricked us all though because that is what I was wishing for.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. This story started back when I still stared to the north with everyone else, back before I took the exam, before I met Cara Capitol, or her brother, before any of it, back when the world made sense.