Read Children of the Gods - A Chosen Novel Online
Authors: Monica Millard
Tags: #romance, #young adult, #aliens, #alien, #sci fi, #sci fi romance, #young adult sci fi, #host
Children of the Gods - A Chosen Novel
Children of the Gods
A Chosen Novel
By Monica Millard
Smashwords Edition
Children of the Gods
Copyright 2011 Monica Millard
All rights reserved.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of
Contents
~ For Mom,
who read to me and made me believe. Thanks for feeding my
imagination.~
Chapter 1
Helena’s
long skirt brushed the ground as she fell into line, stopping
directly in front of me. She was the last of the girls. It was the
boys’ turn now and I watched as they filed out, finding their place
in line. My breath caught as Niko headed for his position in the
front line. I sent up a silent offer of gratitude for Niko and a
plea that he would be spared.
Niko was nearly nineteen and this was likely
the last Choosing he would have to endure. This stirred mixed
emotions in me. I was hopeful he would not be Chosen, but fearful
he would not wait the year for me. Once he turned nineteen it would
be a full year before I was no longer of Choosing age. A year was
an eternity once you were free of the Choosing. Pairing was nearly
immediate. The reasons that seemed so obvious, love or lust, to me
were less likely than the reality. Like everything in our lives, it
is fear that is the true driving factor.
I had offered congratulations at many pairing
ceremonies only to watch a husband or wife’s misery months or years
later as the one they truly wanted was free of the Choosing and
available, but not to them. Pairing was a life-long commitment even
if it brought the pair misery.
Everyone was afraid to wait, though. Fearing
that they might draw the attention of one of the Haloran, who would
be so tempted they might raise the age limit again.
It was not an irrational fear. When the
Halorans first came, they only selected from those who were
seventeen. Now the choice fell on those who were sixteen and ended
on our nineteenth birthday.
Niko and I were born on the same day, one
year apart. There was never a question that we were meant to be
together. It was understood but never spoken. That kind of talk was
forbidden.
To even think it was foolish and could lead
to destruction, because though we were The Children of the Gods and
were supposed to live a life of luxury and indulgence, wanting for
nothing. The thing we wanted most – freedom – we could never
have.
It may seem from the outside that we, the
Chosen ones, were really living a perfect life, but inside The City
of the Gods was a life of fear. Even if you were not Chosen it was
this fear that led to irrational and unwise pairings.
Every Unchosen remained in the City living
out a life of fear. Fear of the ever changing rules. We never knew
when something normal, something we took for granted would be taken
away, like what music we could listen to, certain foods, or who we
could associate with before we became an Unchosen. Though there was
one delicate safety that prompted unwise pairings. No one who had
been paired was ever Chosen.
Niko settled into his place in line across
the courtyard from me. He glanced up, his dark eyes searching mine.
“Reka.” My name was on his lips.
I felt heat flood my cheeks. I was not
normally so irresponsible, but as I watched him the previous night,
weaving through the tangle of bodies surrounding the fire, it was
not fear of being Chosen that drove me. It was fear of not being
chosen by him.
With his nineteenth birthday just over two
months away, I had little time to secure a place in his heart that
would sustain him when the fear of drawing unwanted attention set
in. Once he became an Unchosen, the Haloran were free to interact
with him on a personal level. He was, however, forbidden to see
those of us still available for selection, except on Choosing days
and only then, from a distance, as a spectator. At least until he
was paired.
So the night before, I did what I swore I
would never do.
I could tell he knew I was watching him
making his rounds. It was safer in the forest. The Halorans would
not venture there in the dark, not even with their guards but it
still was not safe.
There were those who gained the favor of the
Gods by snitching. Being favored meant never being Chosen, or
saving a child from the Choosing.
There were secret ways to talk without
speaking, skin language, it was called. I was not any good at it so
I rarely tried, but watching Niko move, always remaining in my
vision, his dark hair kissing his neck just above where his
shoulders met it. I knew this would be my only chance.
He finally looked up and his gaze connected
with mine. I felt it then, the tingle against my skin, his body
feeling mine. I thought of all the things I wanted to say to him.
He took a step forward and I dropped my head so I was looking at
him through my hair. I smiled at him then, blinking to break the
connection.
It was only a fraction of a second exchange,
but it was enough to arouse suspicion. I turned and walked toward a
woman passing out flowers. I reached for a white one, a lily. They
were my favorite, so fragrant, so pure.
A hand reached for it at the same time and we
touched. I looked up into Niko’s soft brown eyes. What I saw there
was everything I wanted, desire, defiance, fear but most of all
hope.
He took the lily between his fingers. “May
I?” he asked with a shy smile.
“
If you would be so kind.”
Tilting my head so that my ear was exposed, I
held my breath. He brushed the hair away, softly laying a hand on
my neck and slipped the flower behind my ear. My skin tingled under
his touch. He stepped back.
“
Beautiful.”
I let out my breath finally. “What do you
think?” I asked the woman.
“
The gentleman did not do you justice with
his reserve.”
I flushed and curtsied, nearly forgetting
myself. “Thank you.” I turned to him. “Thank you.”
Finding myself lost again in his eyes, the
woman cleared her throat. I flushed again, curtsied and stepped
away, hoping he would follow. I was not disappointed.
Musicians always gathered in the forest. In
the City music was strictly monitored. It promoted impure thoughts.
That is what the Halorans told us.
As the flute was joined by low drumming, I
felt something building in me. I turned to face Niko. He froze. In
his eyes I thought I could see something building also. In that
moment, I thought, this one time the Gods might be right.
There were those of us that lived in the City
who had gained special gifts. Unnatural abilities we attributed to
living so close to the Gods. Most were as simple as having
exceptional culinary skills or always knowing which seeds would
bring the most flavorful crops. Some could see the truth of things
even when you, yourself could not. Rarer still were the gifts such
as my own and my mother’s.
My mother’s gift was the ability to influence
a person’s will through simple gestures and eye contact made while
dancing, bending their will to her own. It was similar to skin
language, only instead of sharing thoughts and desires, she was
able to plant them. Planted ones were more powerful than a person’s
own thoughts or desires. Mother believed it was the mix of music
and her gift that allowed it. Music opened the mind to suggestion.
I often wondered if the Gods agreed with her. My gift was the same,
only stronger.
“
Dance with me Niko.” I only mouthed the
words, but that was not what I knew he would respond to. Looking
him in the eyes, seeing what I had done, I almost wished I could
take it back as his hips began to sway in time with mine, his will
bending to my own.
“
Reka?” he mouthed my name. There was
uncertainty in his eyes.
He gingerly took my hand in his, leading me
to an open space where others, those who were paired, already
danced. Turning to face me, he rested his hands against the rise of
my hips. His eyes were hesitant, his touch questioning.
I looked up through the golden-brown veil my
hair created and smiled. His grip firmed, there were no longer
questions in his touch, only answers.
A hush fell over the crowd, but that was not
what jarred me back into the present. I felt it when the Halorans
stepped from their glowing pedestal onto our soil. It was like the
earth was warning me, sending a current of energy up through my
feet. It had never happened before.
I wiped this and all other thoughts from my
mind. I imagined dried corn, sterile fields, and barren deserts.
Then I tried to become one; unwelcoming and inhospitable as I could
be.
The Halorans had come to us hundreds of years
before, when our City was just a village. They promised life free
of hunger and poverty to a starving people. In exchange, the
offering of a few healthy teens every twenty or thirty years, so a
God might inhabit and co-exist inside their body, did not seem such
a high price. Back then, they thought starvation was the worst
thing anyone ever had to endure.
In the years before the first Choosing, under
the protection and care of the Halorans, our meager village
blossomed into a thriving city, their city. It became known to all
as The City of the Gods, and anyone who lived within came to be
known as The Children of the Gods.
After the first Choosing, the Halorans closed
our borders. Generations later, we are captives of a choice we
ourselves did not get to make.
I am not sure who I was more angry with, our
elders for bartering their children’s and our lives so easily or
the Halorans themselves.
Quickly, I forced my mind to return to the
images of the desert and my skin being covered over by the hostile
winds of my own private sand storm. No one would choose such an
unfavorable host body. I hoped.
I looked at my bare toes as they approached.
After a long moment, I could feel the tension of every held breath.
Not even the wind seemed to be blowing. I looked up to see that the
Halorans were stopped in front of my row, the Sari looking
expectant. A smile teased the corners of his lips as he made eye
contact. In anyone else, his actions might seem flirtatious. But he
was not anyone else.
With his guards not standing next to him, I
was struck by just how tall this Sari really was. His young
features belied his extensive years. If I did not know better, I
could believe he belonged in line next to Niko. The innocence
associated with their perpetually youthful appearance may also have
been what led to our ancestor’s easy trust of them.