Iron & Ice #ONC2024

Chapter I

 The testing room is unnaturally silent. My footsteps sound too loud on the tile floor. My breath is too loud in my lungs. The air is cold and still and stale. There is ice forming in the corners from the condensation of several hundred children breathing.

Aside from the vaulted windows that overlook all of London Town, it reminds me of home.

Except, here, the children aren't miners' brats being watched over by the elders. Here, they are Patricians' children, their darlings, their heirs, their progeny, their legacy. These children wear silks and velvets and furs. They wear enough jewelry between them to pay off the debt of a small nation.

The proctors have seated us at desks in orderly rows, two people at a desk. They make sure no one sits next to someone they know. This isn't a problem for me, but for some of these kids... Well, Patricians only mingle with their own kind. It prevents social mobility, which I have learned is their worst fear.

Everything has a place, and everything in its place.

That was the philosophy that Britannia was built on. That was the pillar that held it all up. Or so my Teacher told me.

Some of these children have been studying for this test since they were old enough to speak. I have had a mere six months to prepare. But the playing field is as level as it'll ever be.

Remember the conditions. The Allmother's voice echoes in my ears. That's what her people call her; to me, she is the viper that hides in the shadows, waiting to strike. But her venom isn't aimed at me.

I remember. I remember our deal. I will hold up my end.

The testing room is still silent, apart from the rustle of fabric and the squeak of shoes on the tile. The proctors move between the desks, handing out test packets. If we so much as touch ours before the test begins, we will fail and be thrown out in shame. They've already explained the rules to us, and no one flouts them.

The test is too important.

If we fail, we shame our families–or so we have been told. I have no family to shame, not anymore.

If you succeed, the Allmother's voice is clear in my thoughts, you will see your sister again.

I don't even touch my pen. I don't dare touch anything. I keep my hands flat against the top of my desk, where the proctors can see them, and I focus on my breathing, the way Teacher taught me. I wasn't told his name; in our line of work, names are dangerous things. When I write mine on the front of my test booklet, it will not be my true name. It will be a fabrication.

At least they let me keep my first name.

Daphne is a perfectly acceptable name for a Patrician, the Allmother said. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps–Grecian names haven't been popular since the last century–but acceptable. The Patricians of lower rank have always favored flower names, I was told.

I didn't even know that there was a flower called a daphne.

The big clock at the front of the room strikes the hour. It has been placed where we can all see the hands creeping through the minutes.

"You may begin... now," says a proctor at the front of the room. I think she is female, but with Patricians, it can sometimes be hard to tell. Androgynous fashions are de-rigueur, or so I was informed by the maid who had attended me and tutored me for the past six months. She'd told me her name was Alice, after the late princess who'd been the king's favorite daughter. I figure there's a fifty percent chance she gave me a fake name. Maybe higher. The princess only died a few years ago, after all, and she is older than me.