Rise Read Free

where the wall met the earth. Two of the soldiers were arguing with an older woman dressed in a crisp white shirt and black pants—the uniform worn by workers in the City center.
    â€œWe can’t help you,” a soldier with a red, oval birthmark on her cheek said to the woman. One of the other soldiers, a woman in her midthirties with thin eyebrows and a small, beaklike nose, ordered the person on the other end of her radio to hold off.
    The worker had her back toward us, but I recognized the thin gold band she wore on her finger, with a simple green stone in the center. They were the same hands that had held mine when I’d first arrived in the Palace, the ones that had worked the washcloth over my dirt-caked skin and carefully untangled the knots in my wet hair. “Beatrice,” I called out. “How did you get here?”
    She turned around to face me. Though only two months had passed, she looked older, the deep lines framing her mouth like parentheses. The skin beneath her eyes was thin and gray. “It’s so good to see you, Eve,” she said, stepping forward.
    â€œPrincess Genevieve,” Charles corrected, holding up a hand to stop her.
    I pushed past, ignoring him. After I was discovered missing the morning of the wedding, Beatrice had confessed to helping me leave the Palace. The King had threatened her and her daughter, who’d been in one of the Schools since she was a baby. Afraid for her daughter’s life, Beatrice had told him where I was meeting Caleb, revealing the location of the first of three tunnels the rebels had built beneath the wall. She was the reason they’d found us that morning, the reason we’d been caught and Caleb killed. I hadn’t seen her since.
    â€œThere was a rumor at the center,” Beatrice went on, her voice nearly a whisper. “I saw some of the trucks coming through and followed them. They’re the girls from the Schools?” She pointed back at the building, at the windows that were covered with plywood, her hand unsteady. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
    The soldier with the birthmark stepped forward. “You have to leave, or I’ll have to arrest you for being out past curfew.”
    â€œYou’re right,” I interrupted. They’d ultimately cleared Beatrice of any involvement with the dissidents, after I argued her case to my father, insisting she knew little about Caleb, just that we were planning on leaving the City together. They’d moved her to the adoption center, where she now worked, caring for some of the youngest children from the birthing initiative. “That’s why we’re here, too.” I turned to the soldier. “I wanted to see my friends from the School.”
    The woman shook her head. “We can’t permit that.” Her words were clipped, her eyes never leaving mine. Despite efforts to keep the story contained, it felt as though all the soldiers knew what had happened: I had tried to escape with one of the dissidents. I knew of a tunnel being built beneath the wall, and I’d kept that information from my father, despite the risk it posed to security. None of them trusted me.
    She pointed behind me at Charles and the male soldier who’d escorted us to the hospital. “Especially not with them here. You have to go.”
    â€œThey won’t come with us,” I insisted.
    A shorter soldier with a chipped front tooth kept pressing her thumb down on her radio, filling the air with static. On the other end of the connection were the low murmurings of a woman’s voice, asking if they were ready for her to pull another Jeep around for unloading. “We already know about the Graduates,” I said loudly, nodding to Beatrice. “Both of us. I’ve visited the girls in the Schools before, with my father’s permission. There’s no security risk here.”
    The woman with the birthmark rubbed the back of her neck, as if