Chapter one

I hate First Friday. It makes the village crowded, and now in the heat of high summer, that's the last thing anyone wants. From my place in the shade it isn't so bad, but the stink of bodies, all sweating with the morning work, is enough to make milk curdle. The air shimmers with heat and humidity, and even the puddles from yesterday's storm are hot, swirling with rainbow streaks of oil and grease.

The market deflates, with everyone closing up their stalls for the day. The merchants are distracted, careless, and it's easy for me to take whatever I want from their wares. By the time I'm done, my pockets bulge with trinkets and I got an apple for the road. Not bad for a few minutes' work. As the throng of people moves, I let myself be taken away by the human current.

My hand dart in and out, always in fleeting touches. Some paper bills from a man's pocket, a bracelet from a woman's wrist-nothing too big. Villagers are too busy shuffling along to notice a pickpocket in their midst. The high, stilt buildings for which the village is named (the Stilts, very original) rise all around us, ten feet above the muddy ground. In the spring the lower bank is underwater, but right now it's August, when dehydration and sun sickness stalk the village.

Almost everyone looks forward to the first Friday of each month, when work and school end early. But not me. No, I'd rather be in school, learning nothing in a classroom full of children. Not that I'll be in school much longer. My eighteenth birthday is coming, and with it, conscription.

I'm not apprenticed, I don't have a job, so I'm going to be sent to the war like all the other idle ones. It's no wonder there's no work left, what with every man, woman, and child trying to stay out of the army. My brothers went to war when they turned eighteen, all three of them dent to fight Lakelanders. Only Shade can write worth a lick, and he sends me letters when he can. I haven't heard from my other brothers, Bree and Tramy, in over a year.

But no news is good news. Families can go years without hearing a thing, only to find their sons and daughters waiting on the front doorstep, home on leave or sometimes blissfully discharged. But usually you receive a letter made of heavy paper, stamped with the king's crown seal below a short thank-you for your child's life. Maybe you even get a few buttons from their torn, obliterated uniforms. I was thirteen when Bree left...