Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
But only me and my friends come from down-city. Only the five of us understand how special this really is. As well as well as how fleeting it will be.
It was planned this way because we are a team and we are not here to relish in luxury as we giggle our way to the God’s Tower stage to be Chosen. We are here to work.
That’s why Auntie Bell was so cross with me this morning during the tour. That’s why she gave me that infamous stink-eye of hers. “You have a purpose, Jasina.” She looked down her nose at me when these words came out earlier. “You all have a purpose. The entire Rebellion is counting on you and your team to do this right. We won’t ever get a better opportunity. Not even in a hundred years. This is our only chance and you had better take it seriously.” She was shaking her finger at me by the end.
Of course I nodded dutifully, assuring her that all was under control.
And it is. I’m very serious about my job here.
Buuuuuut… this is the biggest moment of my life. She’s a crazy old bat if she thinks I’m not gonna enjoy it.
This is it for me. Full stop.
There is no chance of me being one of the Chosen at the end of the Choosing because there will be no more Chosen.
The Extraction will die with us.
As will this god.
Ceela, Britley, Harlow, Lucindy, and I are here to make damn sure of it.
CHAPTER THREE
An hour later I’m dressed and alone, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of my bedroom. If one were standing in the God’s Tower looking down the central canal of Tau City, the Maiden Tower would be on the right bank and the Extraction Tower would be on the left.
So my view, looking out my windows, is of the canal and the Extraction District on the other side of it. Of course, the Extraction Tower dominates that view. But everything behind the tower is just as gorgeous because that’s where you’ll find all the many terraced neighborhoods built up along the sides of the rocky, desert cliffs.
Most of the buildings along the slope have square or rectangle-shaped main levels and a dome on top—which are decorative and a point of pride for everyone in the city. Especially when you’re walking the wall and get a good look at them all. Tau City is exquisite from all angles, even down-city. But from the wall, from the air, from the bird’s eye view—it’s like looking down on perfection.
Some of the domes are deep and tall, while others are shallow or nearly flat, more like caps. Some of them are the color of the plaster—bone, or buff, or sand. But most are dull, sun-bleached shades of light blue. A few domes are trimmed in fancy hand-painted tiles, but most are ringed with thin, gold circles.
Not all the buildings are this shape though. Some are tall cones, almost obelisk-like, and mimic the shape of the sandstone formations that poke up from the desert landscape on the other side of the city walls, beyond our sheltered valley between the hills.
Even if I tried, I doubt I could dream up a more beautiful city. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to since the world beyond our walls ceased to exist more than a thousand years ago, after the wind took over the world and covered it in sand.
We call that event the Great Sweep, a time of extreme chaos that necessitated building protective walls around the city. First, to prevent the sands from covering us all up. But then, after the winds died down, it was to protect us from the predators that seemed to be everywhere, all at once. Very dangerous creatures that wanted to eat us.
That’s why we needed the wall.
But no one thinks about that story very much anymore. It was so long ago. And not a single person, myself included, has ever seen anything on the other side of the wall but sand dunes and far-off mountains.
There are no monsters who want to eat us.
But no reason to go beyond the wall, either. Because we’re all that’s left. The last city standing after the Great Sweep covered the world in sand.
In school—before I pledged myself to the god in the tower and my life turned into one long stream of lessons in etiquette, and culture, and tradition, and spark—I learned a little bit about why the Great Sweep happened. It had something to do with the speed of rotation of far-off planetary bodies and how they interacted with our planet and moons. I don’t remember all the details, but I do know there were five moons before the Great Sweep and now there are only three.
A fascinating fact, in and of itself, but the historical bits that always piqued my interest the most were how my ancestors were able to harness the spark inside us and use it to make fantastic things. Like trains. There used to be train stations and trains where there is now desert. But all that old spark tech is in ruins and mostly covered by the dunes, which covers just about everything outside the walls of our little oasis.