Along the dirt track, I pass a few Harvesters, their heads bowed with the weight of drudgery. Dust blends with the beige and browns of their clothing and many of them carry gourds of water.
I rub my throat and gulp. Water, not food, is the currency in our Echelon. Echelon’s are levels of society that define a person’s caste, social status, access to resources, and freedom. Harvesters are at the bottom of Phangloria’s Echelon system, even though we’re the ones who grow the food and tend to the livestock.
Phangloria is the largest country in the continent of North America, separated from the desert by the Great Wall. Harvesters live in a dry region closer to the outskirts and miles away from the Oasis, the country’s only source of water.
My tongue darts out to moisten my dry lips. With more water, Harvesters won’t feel so beaten down. More water also means we can grow more food at home and on our window sills. I fan myself, but the effort is futile.
At the end of the cornfield, dust drifts off a hundred-foot-long stretch of parched earth that marks the beginning of Rugosa, a mishmash of pale houses built from the earth and arranged around a public square. Rugosa isn’t a city like the Oasis, and the word village would imply that we have a community. We don’t. Toil and hunger and thirst keeps us too weary of doing anything but surviving and biding our time for the revolution.
My foot catches on a deep crack in the earth, and the ear-piercing shriek of a royal raptor overhead reminds me of the dangers of standing still for too long in the sun. Shuddering, I quicken my pace and try not to think why such a dangerous bird of prey has escaped the notice of the Great Wall’s riflemen.
Like most Harvesters, we live in an earth house. It’s white with curved walls, and a huge roof sloped to catch every drop of water during the rainy season. At the window, Flint and Yoseph wave and jump up and down. Squinting up at the cloudless sky for signs of the royal raptor, I wave back at my little brothers.
As I step into the shade of the veranda, Mom opens the door and steps aside. “What did you do?”
I enter the welcoming cool of the house and mutter, “Krim sent me home with sunstroke.”
Her brows rise. I’m not the best of liars, but Mom knows my mannerisms well enough to tell that I’m hiding something. The twins rush out from the family room and wrap their arms around my waist. They’re five, identical, with the same front tooth missing on the bottom left. Flint pats down my pocket for tomatoes, and Yoseph pulls out a poisoned dart.
“Careful.” I wrap my hand around Yoseph’s wrist. “Don’t touch.”
“Did you bring us something from work?” asks Yoseph, his hazel eyes dancing with excitement.
I ruffle his hair. “How about a story before bedtime?”
“Now!” Flint grabs my arm and jumps.
Mom ushers them back into the family room, which doubles as a classroom during the day. “You took your blowgun to the tomato field?”
With a sigh, I follow her into the kitchen. It’s a space as large as the family room with wall-width windows and raised beds running along both sides of the back door. It’s where we grow food from all the spoiled fruit we’re allowed to keep. Because of her childhood, Mom’s the blowgun expert. She taught me how to use it when I was little, saying it was a useful skill to have during lean times. Now, I can tell she regrets introducing me to the weapon.
While Mom tends to the pile of dragon fruit on the kitchen counter, I sit at the bed’s low wall and give her the highlights about the guard. Throughout my tale, she scoops white, speckled flesh from the cerise-colored fruit with increasingly jerky movements.
She asks, “Was there a camera on his helmet?”
My brow furrows. “No.”
“How can you be sure?” Mom slams her spoon on the counter.
“He wouldn’t have wanted his superiors seeing what he’d come to do.”
Mom’s hand claps over her mouth, and she stares at me with wide, glistening eyes. “He was—”
“Dragging her to his jeep.” I snatch my gaze away from Mom’s. That’s the look she used to give me when I would scream awake from nightmares of the other time. The other time I hid in a tree while a different guard assaulted a Harvester girl. My throat thickens, and I let my shoulders droop. “My dart hit him before the girl got hurt.”
“Zea,” she says, her voice soft.
“It’s fine.” I stand and turn to the glass door that leads to our yard.
“You’re sixteen,” Mom says to my back. “They won’t just whip you.”
“I know.”
“Zea,” her voice sharpens.
I turn around and meet Mom’s worried, aquamarine eyes. They’re a shade lighter than mine, and it’s the only physical trait we have in common. Where Mom is short and curvy for a Harvester woman, I’m all angles and elbows with dark brown hair. She clasps her hands over the full-length, white apron that covers her beige dress, and over the long, blonde braids that frame her delicate features.
My heart softens. I wish I could tell her that we’re the ones that will cause the guards to worry. “I’ll stay low until Carolina—”
“Are you still associating with that lunatic?”
I flinch. “Mom?”
She rounds the counter, advancing on me with her eyes blazing. “The Guardians block every uprising before they even start and execute the ringleaders. I don’t see Carolina or her associates risking themselves to save the virtue of Harvester girls. Why should you?”
I press my lips together to suppress a rant. In Rugosa, words have a way of reaching the wrong ears and getting innocent people detained.
Mom disagrees because she spent her childhood in the Barrens—the buffer between the desert and our Echelon. The people who live there are Foundlings, who survived the wilderness and approached the Great Wall. They remain in the Barrens for decades, generations sometimes, until they prove themselves genetically fit to join Phangloria.
We should all be grateful, Mom always says. She doesn’t mind that the Harvesters work in harsh conditions to grow food for the other Echelons—according to her, it’s better to live at the bottom of an ordered society than in the dry wilderness.
An exasperated breath slips from my lips. “It’s not like—”
“If you want to change Phangloria, join the Princess Trials!” She balls her hands into fists. “At least then, you’ll have the opportunity to become the queen and make some changes.”
I step back, a laugh huffing from my chest. The Princess Trials is a centuries-old tradition where the king and queen of Phangloria invite girls from every Echelon to compete to marry the crown prince.
All the girls in the tomato fields won’t stop talking about the handsome Prince Kevon and their big chance to visit the palace. I can’t believe anyone would subject themselves to such scrutiny, particularly because no prince has ever chosen a Harvester to be his bride.
“That beauty pageant?” I say.
“Why not?” Mom raises her chin and levels me with her stare. “You’re healthy, beautiful, and full of ideas. Time at the Oasis with the future king might make him and the Nobles more sympathetic to your cause.”
I turn away from her determined gaze. When I go to the Oasis, it will be with the Red Runners. We’ll defeat the Guardians with our armory, tear King Arias off his throne, and make water available for everyone. Why would I want a pampered prince when I could have a revolution?