Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Like many in Districts 1, 2, and 4, Pyra was born in late summer. September 2nd to be exact. While some parents lacked the luck or forethought to achieve it, mid-July through the autumnal equinox was birthday season in the Career Districts. Those children, over the unfortunate early summer-born, would be advantaged in the arena; a year bigger, a year stronger, a year sharper.

“She’ll be fierce,” Carson said of his new daughter with pride.

“She’ll need to be,” Galatea sighed, knowing what ferocity it took to honor the Capitol, to meet that great city’s demand for blood, spectacle, and power.

The 54th Hunger Games had been slow, boring. After Galatea Lyme’s Victory in the 51st—amidst congratulations from Gamemakers for getting them “back to proper business”—her life changed completely. Although her training had prepared her for the life of a Victor, it was no match for harsh reality. Other Victors warned her that the Capitol’s appetite for flesh must be met, and slow Games meant more attention directed their way. She had lucked out, dodging the feeding frenzy around the 54th by being too pregnant for the worst of it. Naively, she had thought getting married would fix it. Though it hadn’t, the gracious Capitol did allow her half a year respite for a healthy baby who could one day become a glorious Tribute. When Pyra was only a month old, the calls started again with a vengeance.

Like her parents, Pyra was tall and broad-shouldered, even by District 2 standards. She sprang up early and never stopped. At the age of six, she started school, and her parents emphasized that academics must never be ignored, that she should train her brain as any other muscle. “Note the Victors of Three and Five and the Peacekeeper officers and learn from the benefits of their cunning,” they told her. One spring day, she ran home, eager to show them her excellent score on a math test.

“That’s amazing, sweetheart! You dominate your class!” Galatea said, squeezing her in a too-tight hug. When her mother took too long to let go, Pyra pushed her away and looked at her parents’ faces.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, eyebrows connecting in worry.

Galatea and Carson exchanged a glance and ushered Pyra to the living room to sit.

“Nothing is wrong, honey,” Carson started. “Things are just going to change a little bit.”

Pyra’s parents explained that her father would be moving out. It was just something that happened with adults sometimes. They would both always love her. They would both always have love for each other. It just wasn’t the sort of love for living together or being married. Carson was leaving Victors’ Village and moving back to their hometown, Northspire, with the normal people.

“So, you’re gonna go back to being downshaft?” Pyra sneered.

“No, honey,” Galatea explained. “The ex-husband of a Victor, the father of a future Victor”---she smiled and poked Pyra’s arm—“doesn’t belong down in any mine or quarry. I’ll still share some of my winnings with him, and he can take any job he likes.”

“Maybe in weapons, if they’ll have me,” Carson said. “Or I’ll find something else to do if they won’t.”

Pyra was unsure how to feel. She had thought that once you lit the candle, love was forever. It was supposed to be a promise. But her parents didn’t look sad about it. They looked anxious, worried it would make her sad, but happy about the situation. Already, she was learning not to let people down, so she stopped being unsure and decided to be happy, too.

“Ok,” she said acceptingly. “Can I go play with Regina, then?”

Lyme smiled and gave Pyra’s arm a squeeze. “Of course. Have fun.”

Pyra scampered off, down the road to the house of Uncle Brutus the 46th Victor, whose daughter was her best friend. He was not her real uncle, but the Victors of Two were close as family. He had built an elaborate obstacle course in his backyard, and Pyra loved playing in it with Regina. She was happy Regina was a year older and might not try volunteering the same year as her. Even so, the other girl was short and slight of build like her mother. She was good at the obstacles because she could practice any time she wanted, but Pyra could beat her when they wrestled. Sometimes, when she was feeling mean, she thought she could make a better volunteer than Regina, anyway.

As they grew, they welcomed another girl into their club. Daughter of Aunt Cornelia the 53rd Victor, Lapis was two years younger than Pyra and posed little threat as a competing volunteer. That was the same summer Enobaria won the 62nd Hunger Games, moving into the Village the July before Pyra turned eight.

“Aunt Enobaria!” Pyra exclaimed at the welcome party a few weeks after the Games. “Your house is so pretty!” She marveled at the ornate stained-glass windows Enobaria’s mother had installed.

“Thank you,” Enobaria said, careful not to cut herself on newly filed, gold-inlaid fangs. “But I’m too young to be called Aunt. I just turned seventeen.”

Pyra nodded deeply, almost bowing, and apologized for aging her. Whatever Enobaria wanted to be called, Pyra would call her, out of respect for her Victory. Aunt or cousin, she was family now. In a way, it was exciting to be coming closer in age to the new Victors. Soon, it would be Pyra’s turn.

Enobaria’s Games had been glorious. After a dry spell, she brought District 2 fresh pride. The entire week of those Games, Pyra had been glued to Regina’s TV, staying with her and her mother while Galatea and Brutus were in the Capitol, mentoring. Enobaria was ferocious, unrelenting, and bloodthirsty in a fantastically literal sense. She looked beautiful in her parade outfit, stoney heels and shining black armor with rich purple plumes, and in her interview dress of black satin and blood-red gems. But she was even more stunning in her Tribute uniform, which was a thick fur coat over a sleek bodysuit that year, perfect for the arena’s tundra. The final battle between her and the District 9 boy, Dakota, lasted well into the night, and the girls loved that viewing was mandatory, so Regina’s mother couldn’t send them to bed. Enobaria was smaller than Dakota but faster and better trained. Those Games had been primitive, with no weapons at the Cornucopia and high prices for them as Sponsor gifts. He had a makeshift spear, some broken rock lashed to a stick, while she had been gifted a real dagger.

Pyra had clung to every moment, hardly blinking. Dakota thought he gained the upper hand by using his spear’s reach to wound Enobaria’s arm, causing her to drop the dagger. She didn’t waste any time picking it back up. She lunged at him, grabbing the spear shaft with her good arm and shoving it back, knocking him off balance and down to the ground. Until the gift of the dagger, Enobaria had been doing well with her unarmed combat skills. Then, though her arm was gushing red in the light of the full moon, she bested him like her previous prey. They grappled on the ground for mere moments before she dove in. Enobaria sank her teeth into Dakota’s exposed neck. Pyra would never forget the way his dying scream sounded, sharp and afraid until it choked short and gurgled into nothing. Enobaria leaned back, spit out a mouthful of skin, muscle, and trachea, and let out a powerful Victory screech. With that, she had cemented her status as a predator.

Pyra looked up to her with great admiration. The first new Victor of Two in Pyra’s short lifetime, Enobaria showed her what Victory truly meant.

A year later, at age nine, when ambitious students moved to the Training Academy, Pyra was delighted to see Enobaria there as an instructor. When the kids ran laps around their field, she kept an eye on Enobaria, hoping she was watching closely as she left the others to eat her dust. That young Victor’s eyes on her propelled Pyra forward.

Newly inspired, Pyra’s voice came with greater energy when the students sang "Gem of Panem" at the beginning of each school day. The Capitol was a mighty city, and she would be mighty, too, shining anew. She would show all of Panem the might of District 2 and bring honor to her people by honoring the Capitol. The daily song was followed by an oath, and Pyra put her heart into every word.

“For the glory of Panem, I give my power to the Capitol. To keep peace, I am the Capitol’s mighty shield. To control chaos, I am the Capitol’s ruthless sword. To exalt our honor, I am the Capitol’s high pedestal. Panem forever!”

Chapter Text

With a crack and a boom, Pyra’s hand made contact with the ball, and it crashed into the court between diving opponents.

“Yeeeaaah!” she roared, her teammates surrounding her with cheers and whoops. “That’s what I’m talking about! Eat floor, Bears! Kiss my ass!” Pyra turned and gave her behind a comedic smack, bringing out more laughter from her team and the fans in the stands. A solid match point and a proud victory.

It was the beginning of her third year on the Training Academy volleyball team, the Falcons, and they were off to a classically promising start. The Academy team could usually be counted on to win the season, leaving the teams from the small, non-Career school in their village and those of the outer villages—the Centerbase Vipers, the Northspire Bears, Eastwatch Wolves, and Westface Cougars—to vye for second place. If she felt any guilt for dominating the team of her parents’ hometown so thoroughly, that was far outweighed by her Career pride. Those kids weren’t even trying. They were worse than the Tesserans. Marginally. Some might show up next year as Tesserans themselves.

This was the last year the team would be playing together. After that, the others could sort first place out amongst themselves, but the Academy students would turn their focus from such basic sports, which served to condition their muscles and improve coordination, and toward more combat-oriented athletics.

Pyra ran to the stands to meet Regina and Lapis, who congratulated her. Regina had missed the first game of the match for fencing practice, but she was confident Pyra’s performance then had been just as good as the parts she caught. The three walked home together, laughing at those children of Peacekeepers, engineers, merchants, and miners, which included most of their own Academy Falcons. Career or not, they would never hold their own against the children of Victors.

“My team is good. I’ll miss playing with them, but we’ll all keep training together, so it’s whatever,” Pyra remarked on their way back to Victors’ Village. “I am curious to see some Tesserans in training next year.”

“They’re a joke,” Regina scoffed. “The new ones in my class are, at least. I don’t know why the District expects them to perform at the same level as real Careers. Do any of them make it to volunteering, anyway?”

“My mom said she’s seen some decent ones in her class this year,” Lapis said. “Some look like they might go the distance. They must get better over time, like we all do.”

Pyra shrugged. “Well, then they can decently eat my fist when I go out for MMA,” she joked, throwing a few shadow punches.

Real Careers, students who enlisted in training out of a genuine desire to volunteer and win in the Hunger Games, paid a small fee for tuition, though most of the Academy was District-funded. They enjoyed the privileges of better dorms, better food, and better equipment. The Tesserans, students who were obligated to enlist after taking out three or more tesserae per year or more than ten cumulatively by age fifteen, got by, but the support was not the same.

Pyra saw the unfairness in it, how Tesserans came in poor, at least three years behind in training, and did not enjoy the Careers’ perks. But she figured the ones who can’t hack it must get kicked out and figure out their lives on fewer tesserae. Or if they’ve got younger siblings who can take out one or two of their own once they’re Reaping age, they could drop out. And the ones who mean business, if they’re serious, make it work. She was not the best merely because she was a Career. She was the best out of her class of Careers so far because she put in the work and had the determination. If some Tesseran joined the class and beat her out, she would admire them for the effort and skill that would take. As if such a thing would ever happen.

As it was a Friday, kids whose families lived locally in Centerbase were allowed to go home for the weekend, though they had to report to the Academy for Saturday training. Pyra bid Regina and Lapis a good evening and walked up to her house.

“I’m back!” she called to her mother, dropping her gym bag on the floor. It contained her court shoes, knee pads, water bottle, and the warm-up jacket she had not bothered to put back on in the hot weather. “We kicked ass! It was awesome!”

Pyra walked through to the kitchen to pull a snack from the cabinet. As she munched her protein bar, she wondered where her mother was.

“Mom?” she called again. The door to her mother’s home office was ajar, and she heard her talking, presumably on the phone. She stopped chewing and made herself as silent as she could, trying to listen in.

“Are you crazy?” she overheard. “He’s only just turned fifteen! This is ridiculous. Way too far, and you know it!”

Intrigued, Pyra crept around to the hallway phone. Holding her breath, she picked it up and put it to her ear.

“---have to give the people what they want, Lyme,” a man’s voice said. “He’s a goldmine! We’ll keep it quiet for—”

“Shush,” Galatea snapped. She continued in a stern voice, nearly a growl, the one she saved for when she was truly pissed. “Pyra, hang up the phone. Now.”

Damn. Her mother had gotten too good at noticing that subtle click. The office door was pushed shut, and no matter how hard Pyra pressed her ear against it, she could only make out muffles.

An hour later, Galatea emerged from her office. Eyes red and puffy, it sent a chill down Pyra’s spine. She had never seen her mother cry before.

“Mom? What was that about?”

Galatea inhaled sharply through her nose and blinked to clear her eyes. She turned them to her daughter and tried to make her face stone, but the sight of her cracked it into sorrow. If Pyra didn’t know better, she might say she saw her lip quiver.

Her daughter, barely eleven years old, stood in the living room wearing only knee-high socks, skin tight booty shorts, a sports bra cut and styled for a woman but sized to fit the flat nothing of her child chest, and innocence on her face. “Did you walk through the District like that?” she asked, and it came out a little harsher than she meant.

Pyra was shaken, and she opened her hands in confusion. “Yes? What do you mean?”

“You didn’t even put your jacket on?” Galatea pressed. “They don’t give you shirts?”

“It’s hot out! This is the uniform! The fuck are you talking about?” Pyra yelled defensively.

Galatea pressed her lips together, an attempt to conceal potential snarls and quivers both. “We can talk later. Piper will be here soon for dinner. Go shower and get changed.”

“I heard you say something about a just-turned-fifteen-year-old,” Pyra demanded. “Was that call about Finnick Odair?”

“Take a shower.”

Pyra silently rolled her eyes and trudged upstairs to the bathroom. Steam filled the air as she brushed out her dark blonde hair. The showers in the Academy dorms were fine, but they didn’t get quite as hot as she liked. Pyra knew cold showers were healthier, better for the metabolism, hair, and complexion, but she was a bit of a rebel.

Letting the scalding water singe away the grime, she wondered what her mother’s problem was. In that summer’s Hunger Games, young Finnick Odair had been amazing. The Reaping that year was strange, as Four’s sometimes were. Of the Career Districts, it produced strong contenders, but their training program was a decade or so younger than One and Two’s and not quite as developed, or so her mother told her. In especially rare years, like this 65th, they couldn’t scrounge up two volunteers. The female Tribute had volunteered, as expected. Finnick, oddly, had been Reaped, but he never showed any fear. The silence in the square when their escort asked for volunteers had been deafening, only broken when Finnick took the mic and said, “That’s right, don't challenge me! This is my year!” From the Reaping stage to the Victory ceremony, he was confident, bordering on arrogant, saying he would have volunteered in a few years, just got lucky with an early shot. Pyra admired his skills and poise throughout the Games, but once that silver parachute delivered a gleaming trident, she truly understood. The arrogance was justified. Despite being only fourteen, he was spectacular. Now, Four had bragging rights on producing the youngest Victor ever. Though her mother seemed cagey and perturbed about it, it made perfect sense that the Capitol loved him.

Pyra dried off and went to her room to get dressed. She could already hear her mother and Piper chatting downstairs but didn’t bother eavesdropping. They never talked about the Capitol or the Hunger Games. And although they were dating, their conversations always sounded more like friends.

Dinner was fine. Piper put Galatea in a better mood, but a certain tenseness remained in the air.

“How is school, Pyra?” Piper asked.

“It’s good. The academic classes aren’t bad, and training seems off to a good start this year,” Pyra told her. “We won the volleyball game today, as usual.”

“Congratulations!” Piper said, smiling. “And your friends are well?”

Pyra swallowed a bite of her burger and tried to meet her mother’s eyes, but Galatea was focused on her own plate, casually applying ketchup to her bun. “Yeah, they’re good. Regina and Lapis were at the game today, even though Regina had to come late. We’re all very supportive of each other.”

“Good! I’ll have to catch a game one of these days. They sound like fun.”

“That’d be nice. Mom didn’t come today,” Pyra said accusingly. “She used to all the time, but last year, she showed up less and less.”

Piper nodded carefully and looked to Galatea, who was uncharacteristically quiet. “She has a busy schedule,” Piper said to excuse her.

“Not all the time,” Pyra griped, no longer trying to hide her frustrations. “Not like she used to when I was little. And even when she’s home, she hasn’t been to a game since mid-season last year.”

“Pyra,” her mother warned. “We can talk later. It’s rude to argue in front of guests.”

“Sorry.”

After dinner, Piper didn’t linger. She gave Galatea a quick kiss—reaching on her tip-toes and making her partner stoop, as she was just slightly taller than young Pyra in height, what was considered average for an adult in some Districts—and went on her way, back to her own house in town. She left quietly out the back door to avoid attention. Pyra understood that the Capitol wouldn’t want her mother to have a public relationship after divorcing her father. Galatea had explained that they were particular about Victors’ public images in that way.

“So?” Pyra started, arms crossed.

“So what?”

“So, why are you acting weird tonight?” Pyra asked. “Why did you stop coming to games? Why are you suddenly so critical of a simple sport uniform? And why wouldn’t you tell me what that phone call was about?”

Galatea sighed and rubbed her brow. “It’s complicated. Recently…” She hesitated, unsure what her daughter would understand and what would be safe to share. “I’ve just been seeing things in a different light, is all.”

Pyra was stuck by the sense that her mother was being as honest as she could. Given that, her hesitancy and the lack of detail worried her. They moved to sit on the couch. “What do you mean? What sort of things?”

“I get that I am your mom and a Victor and I seem like a strong adult with all my shit together to you,” Galatea said. “But I’m not that old. I’m still learning, too.”

Pyra nodded. “I know.” Of course, at only thirty-three, her mother was not yet as wise as older people, like Rodrig “Gramps” Calloway the 15th Victor.

Galatea’s eyes darted anxiously around the room for a moment before settling on Pyra, and she chose her words carefully. “When you get older, there are certain things that seemed normal when you were young, but then you realize that they are actually a little strange and, maybe, not as nice as you had been told.”

“Yeah?” Pyra wondered, a sinking feeling in her gut. “What things, though?”

Galatea took Pyra’s hand and said, “Sweetheart, I am sorry that I can’t tell you everything right now. But I need you to trust me that you’ll get the truth someday. Since you started training, there have just been a few… elements to it that have made me wonder. It’s not that different from when I was your age, but looking at it from an adult perspective, there are things that aren’t as easy for me as they used to be. And tonight, I was just in a bad mood. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“Ok,” Pyra accepted. “But was that phone call about Finnick or not? Why did you sound angry? And you looked sad after. It was weird.”

Galatea cleared her throat. “I know. And I’m sorry to freak you out with that. It’s ok, though. Capitol business, you know. I can’t share the details right now.”

Pyra understood that the Capitol must be respected. Their decisions and ways of doing things may seem odd to the people of the Districts, but it was only because their lives were so much more advanced and complicated, beyond what simple District folk could grasp. Some Victors got looped in on Capitol matters, but even then, it was strictly Hunger Games business and services for their fans.

“I’ll understand someday,” Pyra said, affirming her mother’s promise of truth in the future. “After my Victory, right?” She grinned and gave her mother’s arm a light punch to revive the mood, but it didn’t help.

“Before then,” Galatea said quietly.

That confused Pyra even more, but she was tired of this. “Well, even if you can’t tell me everything, if the call was about Finnick, the part I heard when I picked up the phone didn’t sound that bad. It sounded like what we could see from the TV: the Capitol loves him. Like they love you.”

Galatea took a deep breath. She rubbed Pyra’s back and gave her a kiss on the head, whispering, “They don’t love us. Not like I love you. Now, go get some sleep.”

Pyra was sent to bed with more questions than before but not the audacity to argue that the Capitol’s business was hers to know.

A week later, Galatea was invited to the Capitol.

As Pyra understood it, when the Victors took those sporadic trips to the Capitol, it was to advise Gamemakers and attend special parties, sometimes large conventions, with their fans. It was a good way to keep the Games relevant the rest of the year, in addition to the Victory Tour, and thank those who had Sponsored or bet on them. Pyra imagined her beautiful mother taking pictures and signing autographs for Capitol citizens or sitting on panels with other Victors to discuss arenas and strategies while enthusiasts asked thought-provoking questions and astute oddsmakers took notes. Sometimes, Victors would spar with each other for fun or with the Training Center staff to keep them sharp. It served to inspire the Gamemakers and ensure training specific to that year’s arena could be incorporated effectively. It was why Galatea sometimes, like that time, came home with bruises.

“Bet I wouldn’t wanna see the other guy,” Pyra joked when Galatea picked her up from Aunt Cornelia’s house. Aunt Cornelia was not as popular in the Capitol as some of the other Victors and could usually be counted on to babysit.

Galatea did not respond. She hardly even smiled. She simply asked if Pyra had already eaten dinner. Upon hearing that Cornelia had indeed fed her, she said goodnight, gave Pyra’s head and firm, loving kiss, and went up to her room.

Chapter Text

The 65th Victory Tour was every bit as exceptional as the Victor it honored. While some of the poorer Districts struggled to drum up much fanfare, Two went all-out. They were one of the last stops on the route, so the decorations in the Centerbase town square were normally left up throughout the Harvest Festival. That year, because Four had earned the glory, the banners and drapes that crossed the stages were colored a deep marine blue.

Finnick Odair smiled and waved to the adoring crowd. He shivered a little in his low-cut suit, not very appropriate for the end of November in Two, especially for someone accustomed to balmy Four, but any discomfort he felt hardly showed on his face. Pyra couldn’t blame him for the fashion choice either. He clearly knew those collarbones were sharp, so why not show them off? The thought brought to mind the conversation she had with her mother two months earlier, which put a pit in her stomach. The man on the phone that evening had said something about keeping things quiet. Pyra was not sure what that had meant, but this Tour was anything but. Seeing him up there, enjoying the attention, made it easier to brush Galatea’s concerns off as motherly over-protection and paranoia. Plus, the bright teal looked lovely with his russet-red hair and sunkissed, golden skin. When he blew kisses and winked at screaming girls in the audience, she admired how he stuck it to anyone who thought he was too young to be flirtatious or own his beauty.

A tug on her pants brought her attention down to a little boy, one of Aunt Cornelia’s nephews. Pyra picked him up and positioned him atop her shoulders for a better view. “Finniiiiiiick! We love you!” the kid screeched, clapping.

Even though Finnick had killed both of Two’s Tributes himself after the Career pack dissolved toward the end of the Games, the District could not help but be proud of him. In beating their tough Tributes at such a young age, he proved his worth and earned their respect.

After Finnick’s time on stage, addressing the people, there was a cocktail party. Along with his mentor, Magnolia “Mags” Flanagan the 11th Victor, who was even older than Gramps Calloway, Finnick was joined by his escort, the mayor of Two, the outer village aldermen, a few business tycoons, and the Victors, who could each bring one spouse, child, or trainee along. Pyra had been invited the past two years, since starting training, and loved it, even if it was just a bunch of adults. She worried, after that troublesome evening, that her mother wouldn’t let her go that year, but Galatea was generous.

The group of District 2 citizens of note mingled around high tables, enjoying salmon puffs and charcuterie skewers. The golden boy’s entourage kept him moving between them to get acquainted with everyone. Pyra noted some barely masked hostility between Mags and Gramps and was surprised they weren’t better friends, being among the oldest living Victors.

Up close and in this setting, some of Finnick’s stage presence faltered, and there was an uneasy undercurrent in his face that Pyra couldn’t pin down. Must be nervous with all those adults. She felt out-of-place herself, as Uncle Brutus brought his wife and Aunt Cornelia brought an eighteen-year-old volunteer candidate. It was a shame that Regina and Lapis were missing out. Finnick was only four years older than her, so when he came to their table, she tried to relate to him as a youth.

“Finnick,” Pyra asked eagerly, “do young people in Four listen to Severn Faber?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so. Who’s that?”

“She’s a pop star from the Capitol, and her music is big here. Really big. At least, for those of us who can afford radios, and they play it at school during cardio sometimes.” Although Finnick had not recognized the name, Pyra loved that he asked about it and pounced on the chance to introduce him to new music, bonding in their way. “I think you’d love her! Oh, as a Victor and celebrity now yourself, you may even get a chance to meet her someday. She’s fun and flirty and sexy and sings about dancing at nightclubs and partying with her friends and breaking hearts left and right. There’s this one song called ‘Medusa Crack’ about how she’s so pretty, people who look at her turn to stone! It’s badass. And when they show her music videos on TV, she always has the hottest outfits, and she dances like, well, like I probably wouldn’t be brave enough to do, if you know what I mean, and—”

“Pyra,” Galatea chastised. “Take a breath and stop running your mouth.”

“Sorry,” Pyra said meekly, shrinking from judgemental eyes. “I’m a hopeless Faberhead.”

Finnick was hardly paying attention, staring blankly at a marble statue by the door. Mags patted his shoulder, and he snapped back to reality. “Sorry,” he said, smiling again. “I don’t know if other kids in Four listen to her, but it doesn’t seem like my style.”

“Oh, ok,” Pyra said kindly. She would try to stay quiet the rest of the night.

Disappointing. Pyra had been sure Severn Faber would be right up Finnick’s alley, what with how he dressed and acted, but maybe the credit for that went to his stylist. Maybe he preferred the heavier stuff some of the older students liked, which was a bit grating on the ears but better music for lifting sessions. Maybe he couldn’t afford a radio, and she had offended him. But no, he didn’t seem like a Tesseran, and surely, they would play music during training at Four’s Academy, too. Pyra realized she actually knew nothing about how the other Districts worked, even the other Careers, or their cultures outside of what she assumed from her experience and what they showed on TV. She didn’t even know where Four was, just that it was warm most of the year and had a coastline. The whole exchange made her feel ignorant and childish.

After a bit of adult conversation, the Victor group was moving on. Galatea set a hand down on Mags’s shoulder and said, “Always a pleasure, Mags.” The short, old woman reached out to embrace Galatea’s other elbow and nodded. “And welcome to the fold, Mr. Odair.” Galatea extended her hand to Finnick. “It is an honor to work with you.”

Finnick shook her hand respectfully. “You as well, Ms. Lyme.”

A few days later, Galatea took Pyra up to Northspire to spend Harvest Festival weekend with her father.

They visited him often enough, but since Pyra got busy in training, those trips to Northspire became less common.

Pyra had met her father’s girlfriend, Echo, a few times before. Since the last visit, she had moved in with him. Pyra felt jealous of that on her mother’s behalf. Galatea had never been able to be seen in public with any of her girlfriends, couldn’t dream of living together. Since the divorce, Piper was the fourth but the longest lasting and first to come into their house. More often than not, Galatea went to her place, like she had with previous girlfriends, either while Pyra was in school or sending her to spend the night at another Victor’s. Pyra wondered if this lack of normal relationship customs was what drove some of them away. But Carson wasn’t a Victor. He had no public image to mind.

For that reason, Pyra held some bitterness for her father and Echo. It was why it surprised her when Galatea immediately moved into a warmer hug with Carson than was typical for her.

“Tough year?” he asked quietly.

Galatea nodded. “He’s a baby. They’re all starting to look like babies to me. It’s fine, though.” She then put on a brave grin and hugged Echo, too. Pyra tried to determine if her support for Carson’s blossoming relationship was genuine, but figuring out how her mother’s mind worked felt like a lost cause.

One thing Echo had going for her was that she could cook. From the smells that emanated from the kitchen, Pyra knew this year’s Harvest Festival feast would be particularly good. She only hoped it wouldn’t be too fatty or carb-heavy, now that she was learning to be more mindful of her protein ratio.

Sure enough, the dinner was delicious, butter-rich and honey-sweet. With food like that popular in the outer villages, Pyra could see why people like Echo, who weren’t downshaft skinny, had softer meat on their bones than the hard muscle she was raised to value.

Pyra loaded her plate up with ham, even if it was covered in a sugary glaze, and roasted vegetables. Cranberries boiled with sugar and orange zest were calling her name, promising to pair so well with that meat, but she had the Academy nutritionist’s voice in the back of her head. A quarter of total calories from protein, but aim for a third. Complex carbs with high fiber only. Fat from healthy, plant-based sources. Diverse fruits and veggies for good vitamins and minerals. Yogurt and other probiotics for gut health. Electrolytes like salt if you worked to sweat that day but not if you sat on your ass in a car all morning. She thought of the dance the Academy held for the older classes each December and knew those girls would be preparing to look good, definitely eating right this Festival and practicing dancing like Severn Faber.

Staring at the cranberries, Pyra tried to decide if the carotenoids were worth the extra sugar that smothered them. She thought of Finnick’s collarbones. On top of the mapley ham, she feared they were not.

While Carson and Echo fetched drinks from the kitchen, Galatea nudged Pyra’s side and said lightly, “One day won’t kill you.”

If an Academy instructor was saying the extra sugar was allowable, that was all Pyra needed.

Chapter Text

The September Pyra turned twelve, training kicked up a notch. Volleyball was for babies and non-Careers. Trainees matured into competitive boxing, mixed martial arts, wrestling, fencing, archery, and shot-put or javelin throwing. Of course, those recreational sports were on top of the staple physical fitness, unarmed combat, and traditional weapons courses. That year, they also had a new course in advanced weapons.

Pyra’s shotgun spat a shell in her face. “Gah! Why do we have to bother with these things?”

“In case we become Peacekeepers,” Jasper said, handling his weapon like a natural. Of course, he would think of that. Among the first Tesserans to join Pyra’s class, Jasper came from a long line of stonecutters who saw Peacekeeping as the high life. “Or a war breaks out, and everyone needs to fight.”

“Pfft, no use to me, though. I’ll never go into Peacekeeping, and no great war is gonna happen in our lifetime. Not if you Peacekeepers do your jobs.”

“Fuck you, I’m gonna be a Victor!” Jasper proclaimed, in a bit too much jest for Pyra’s taste.

“Fat chance,” Pyra said, still struggling with the mechanisms and becoming increasingly frustrated. “Downshaft piece of shit like you—”

Jasper shoved Pyra to the side, knocking over her box of shotgun pellets. They clattered to the ground, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room. Embarrassing.

“Look what you did!” Pyra yelled. “And don’t you shove me!”

She yanked his dark hair, and the two descended into a slap fight, struggling not to slip on the scattered pellets. She kicked his shin. He pushed her into the workbench. She clawed at his sleeve.

“Break it up! Break it up!” Brutus’s voice boomed in her ear, but Pyra didn’t stop throwing limbs at Jasper until Brutus got between them and pushed them apart. “You!” he said to Jasper, a thick finger pointed at his face. “I saw you start it. Sticks and stones, boy. We do not resort to pushing and shoving!”

“Sorry, sir,” Jasper huffed, looking away.

Lest Pyra feel immune, Brutus turned to her next. “And you. I thought you were maturing this year, but I must have been mistaken. You’re better than this.”

“Sorry, Uncle Brutus.”

“In this building,” he said, pointing to the ceiling, “I’m not your uncle.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“We’re all from Two, here,” Brutus went on, louder, turning the moment into a lesson for the entire class. “Working to better ourselves to best serve the Capitol and protect all of Panem from falling into chaos. There is no place for chaos in these walls. And as trainees, you are equals. These are your comrades in arms, and you must act like it.”

Pyra took a sophisticated breath and reached her hand out. “Sorry for being mean, Jasper.”

He shook it. “Sorry for shoving you, Pyra.” He helped her gather the fallen shotgun pellets and mentioned, “By the way, I’m not downshaft. My family works in quarries, which makes me opencast.”

Pyra scoffed. This boy had a lot to learn. “Here in Centerbase, we don’t make that distinction. Miners are miners.”

After the day’s training, Pyra and her school friends went for a pre-dinner walk outside. They discussed what new recreational athletics they would try out for. She vented about the pointless advanced weapons course and the day’s drama.

“Look, there’s the idiot, now,” she said when they caught sight of Jasper leaning against the wall and hanging with his own little clique.

He looked up and stood taller, muttered something to his friends, whose eyes followed his, and started sauntering in her direction with a shit-eating smirk. Clearly, this boy had an appetite for knuckle sandwiches.

“What do you want, downshaft?” she said.

“You got a big head for someone with bedrock in her own family’s boots,” he challenged. “Classic overcompensation. People talk. You walk around here like kids don’t gossip. But we all know your dad was a miner, just like his dad and his dad and his dad. That is, until he shacked up with your slut mother, who—”

She truly tried her best to resist decking him. She held back for the comments about her dad’s side of the family. Mostly because it was true, and if it weren’t for the jab at her mother, she might’ve had a good response about rising above.

No chaos within Academy walls. But they were outside those walls now, weren’t they?

No punch had ever felt as satisfying as that one. It was the first one she had thrown with a real intention of injury. Her knuckles met his cheekbone, colliding through weak skin and guaranteeing a pretty bruise at the least. It sent him reeling, stumbling back because he never dreamt she would stoop to his level. First mistake.

“Kick his ass, Pyra!” her friend shouted.

“She started it this time!” one of his added. “Give her the business!”

The fight that ensued drew a crowd of students and other locals, cheering like it was a real ring match or a preview of Hunger Games to come. The twelve-year-olds landed hit after hit. She kicked his shin again, the same spot as before, and the way his knee buckled was delectable. She tried not to show how it hurt when he caught her in the ribs. She spiked his head as she would a volleyball. That was why they played those basic sports in training, after all.

A few punches and kicks later, adult voices shouted for all the students to get back into the Academy and for non-trainee onlookers to go on home.

Pyra was feral, lost in her hatred of the boy in front of her. Enobaria grabbed her arm and dragged her away while another Academy instructor did the same with Jasper.

“Unbelievable!” she scolded. “Your mother is going to have a time talking sense into you, kid!”

“He had it coming!” Pyra insisted. “He was asking for it!”

“And since when do you give lowlives what they ask for? Hm?”

Pyra grumbled to herself and let Enobaria escort her inside to where Galatea was overseeing the weight room. Before stepping in, Enobaria said quietly, “Good form, though,” and winked.

Galatea was spotting a girl for bench-presses, and when Enobaria caught her attention, she called another student to replace her. She looked down at Pyra. “This had better not be because you were involved in that commotion outside.”

“He had it coming!” Pyra said again.

Galatea pushed back her short, blonde hair in irritation. “To my office.”

“You cannot be getting into fights at school, Pyra,” Galatea said, sitting across her desk from her daughter as she would with any student. “Brutus told me what happened in Advanced Weaponry, and I was already prepared to discuss it with you later, but escalating things after class, outside where the whole District can see, is very unbecoming.”

“He insulted you,” Pyra explained. “That downshaft Tesseran called you a slut! I had to defend your honor, Mom.”

Galatea sighed. “Ok. We can talk about how hurtful gossip can be another time. He will surely be punished for insulting an Academy instructor, and I think you know that. First, I am sorry to say that I have a feeling today’s animosity was not just because of that comment. And really, it relates to something I should have discussed with you a long time ago.”

“No. You’ve sacrificed so much for what they think of you. I punched him for what he said!”

“What about what you say, Pyra?” Galatea asked. “I let things slide because you were just a kid, but that was a mistake. I’m more disappointed in myself than in you; I never taught you better values. But this ‘downshaft Tesseran’ stuff needs to stop.”

Pyra crossed her arms and sank into her chair. “What, because Dad’s family were miners? Because it makes me hypocritical?”

“No, because it makes you mean,” Galatea said, leaning forward on the desk. “Callous and haughty and not anything like how a Victor’s child should behave. As Victors, we represent the District, right?”

“Right,” Pyra grumbled.

“Well, part of that is setting an example and acting with honor,” Galatea said. “We’re showing Panem what District 2 is made of. Well, we also need to show our District pride here at home. The District is not just the Victors and their families, not just the business owners with money or the people of Centerbase. District Two is all the villages together. All of Two’s people are your people. We should be proud to provide Panem with the materials to make great buildings, roads, technology, vehicles, and monuments. We built Panem. Take some pride in our industries. And remember that if you don’t go into the Games, you’ll be working somewhere.”

“But I will go to the Games!” Pyra asserted. “That’s been the goal ever since I can remember!”

Galatea’s face wrinkled with a sadness that felt out of place for the subject. Pyra had grown up with dreams of Victory. However, when she thought back on the past few years, her mother was supportive of her successes but rarely mentioned volunteering anymore. Pyra recalled recent memories of praise for her skills and realized that praise for her future as a worthy Tribute felt distant in time. She might’ve been only seven or eight the last time her mother had affectionately referred to her as a future Victor.

“I am going to the Games, right?” she asked, starting to feel worried. Did her mother not think she was good enough?

Galatea was unnervingly slow to answer the question. “The point right now is that you need to find greater respect for the people of your District. If you do volunteer and win, you’ll have even more responsibility to them. They will look to you as a leader. Have some empathy, Pyra. They’re not ‘downshaft Tesserans.’ They’re the backbone of our industry, people who work hard and do not get paid enough, people who struggle to feed their families. That boy, Jasper? He has two little siblings at home who are hungry, so he took tesserae and is doing his duty to repay the District by training to become a quality candidate for Tribute or an effective Peacekeeper. That’s honor I will defend. No matter what he said about me.”

“Ok, I get it,” Pyra said, annoyed by the lecture that had nothing to do with the previous comment. “But you still want me to volunteer, right?”

“I want you to train hard.” Galatea smiled, offering a kinder, more optimistic mood. “I want you to study well. I want my daughter to act like the daughter of a Victor. However things turn out, whether it’s the Hunger Games or another path, strength and smarts will benefit you. More than that, I want you to walk through the world with honor, empathy, and kindness. Sure, I could go punching people in the street, showing off my muscles.” She flexed her bicep and gave it a smack, which put a shine in her daughter’s eyes. “But being a Victor is not about attacking people who are weaker or less privileged than you. It’s about using your power and advantage to defend and support those who rely on you. In fact, when I go to the outer villages, I always carry extra coin or food with me in case I come across someone who needs it. Because that’s what it means to be a Victor. That’s honoring your District.” Galatea’s shoulders fell, and her tone turned again. “And if you don’t understand that… then, no, you are not fit to represent the District as Tribute.”

As impossible as it would have been to hold back that punch, neither could Pyra hold back her tears.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she cried.

Galatea moved to her daughter’s side, crouching beside the chair.

Sobbing, Pyra hugged her mother around the neck. “I’m sorry for embarrassing us by being mean like that. I’m sorry I got into fights today. I’ll be better. I’ll be nicer.”

“Sweetheart,” Galatea said, rubbing Pyra’s back. “Growing up isn’t easy, especially not here. You’re under a lot of pressure, and new students are going to start joining the class. Take a step back from all this”---she gestured around at the finely decorated office—“from the competition and violence, and focus on yourself for a while. Think of who you are independent of the Hunger Games, and the rest will work itself out.”

Pyra sniffled, wiping the tears and snot from her face. “Ok. Thanks, Mom.”

“Now, head up to your dorm,” Galatea said, “take a nice, hot shower, eat a good dinner, and get some rest.” Pyra hugged her mother goodbye and moved for the door. “On your way, can you send Enobaria back in? I just need to check with her about some Capitol business.”

That evening, Pyra wallowed in how hard she had been failing the oath. She had insulted Peacekeepers and was shortsighted enough to ignore how the mighty shield was meant to protect peace for all of Panem. She had caused the very chaos she was supposed to be the ruthless sword to control. She was no high pedestal, not exalting any honor.

The next morning, Pyra gathered her breakfast in the dining hall. Oatmeal today. For Career trainees, there was also a topping bar, and she sprinkled her oats with dried berries and nuts, covertly letting additional helpings fall on her tray.

“This seat taken?” she asked, sitting across from Jasper without waiting for an answer.

“Now, it is,” he said, rolling his eyes. One of them was swollen and purple.

“You want my extra toppings?” She gathered the excess on a napkin and passed it over.

“Thanks.” Jasper stirred the toppings in and took a bite. “The texture adds a lot.”

The unfairness of Tesserans had been scratching at the back of Pyra’s head all night. Careers like her looked down on them for being there for the wrong reasons and not performing as well. Regina was right, how could the District expect them to succeed to the same level if they were only there for the grain and oil? Then again, Pyra wanted a fair fight. Reasons aside, the Tesserans were her fellow trainees and deserved the same opportunities and benefits. A tasty breakfast was an important start to the day, and the Tesserans had a lot of catching up to do.

“I’m sorry I shoved you and said those things about your family yesterday,” Jasper said.

“I’m sorry for calling you downshaft,” Pyra returned. “And for kicking your ass.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that part,” Jasper said with a chuckle. “I was just trying to look tough. I held my own against you well enough that I think it worked. Out in Westface, some kids say it’s smart to pick a fight with the biggest, baddest guy around in your first week of training. That way, people won’t mess with you later.”

“So, I should be flattered?” Pyra wondered, skeptical. “That’s fine, I guess. Makes sense. But you better tell the other Tesserans rolling in to knock that off. If they’ve got something to prove, they can find me in the ring and do it proper. And leave gossip out of it.”

“Deal,” Jasper agreed.

They ate the rest of breakfast in silence. When Pyra started to get up and clear her tray, he said, “Hey. I know some kids are just here because the District makes them, to earn the tesserae, but I want you to know, that’s not me. I care about this. I really do intend to be a Victor.”

Pyra nodded and left him with a smack on the shoulder, as she would a friend.

Chapter Text

A mouse chewed a seed on Pyra’s desk. It looked so small, so fragile, so unaware.

All around her, Pyra’s classmates successfully snapped their mice’s necks. Some, like Jasper, seemed less comfortable with it than others. She gulped. She knew this was coming, but that did not make it easier. Near the end of the year, the day before the Reaping, students of age each had to kill something. It was supposed to help them get used to the idea of taking a life, stamp out any hesitancy they may feel in the arena. Silly, she might have been more comfortable killing a simple mouse when she was younger. Now, it made less sense. The Hunger Games served a purpose, punishing the treacherous Districts and reminding them that, without control, there was only chaos. The mouse had not done anything wrong, though. It was not at risk of rebelling against humankind.

“Pyra,” her teacher goaded, looking down at her. “Your turn.”

“It’s not really fair,” she said. “The mice don’t need to be punished.”

“They’re not being punished,” the teacher sighed, exasperated. “They’re serving a duty by educating you. Surviving the arena means taking life. You must get used to it. Be sure, the Tributes of Ten who slaughter animals every day will not hesitate to slit your throat.” When she remained still, he picked up Pyra’s mouse and swiftly yanked one of its hind legs, breaking the hip. “There, now it is injured and in pain. Put it out of its misery.”

The mouse squealed pathetically on the desk, meekly attempting to crawl away, dragging the limp, injured leg. Pyra couldn’t stand it anymore than she could stand how weak this made her look. She snapped its neck. She was the Capitol’s ruthless sword.

“I’m sorry for hesitating, sir,” she said.

“Not uncommon the first year,” the teached excused, but Pyra knew she would get a bad grade for it.

He passed around breadcrumbs so that the students could thank the mice for their sacrifice before dumping them into the cadaver bin, then addressed the class. “Good luck tomorrow, everyone. And wish your older classmates who may volunteer a glorious Hunger Games.”

In the afternoon, they had final trials. The older classes had theirs earlier in the week and went home early on Reaping Eve. The twelve-year class was given no passes for their age, as the scores were intended to be helpful baselines and reflect their genuine chances at success.

Before a panel of teachers, Pyra used her time to lift weights, sprint around the indoor track, and display her unarmed combat skills on a mannequin before hacking at it with various weapons. To top it off, she recited the names, years, and final kill techniques of as many Victors as she could remember. She scored a five. Not unique enough to earn points for wow-factor. She reassured herself that the Academy had higher standards than the Gamemakers.

Pyra ate dinner with Jasper that night. They didn’t talk, both simply enjoying the company of a fellow hesitater, as shameful as it was.

Following the Treaty of Treason, District 2’s escort, Hadrian, read out the list of Victors, and Pyra smiled proudly. This 67th, she was with the other twelve-year-olds in the back, but she could clearly see her mother, Uncle Brutus, Aunt Enobaria, Aunt Cornelia, Gramps Calloway, and the others lined up in a dazzling display of power. Gathered like that, Reapings showed all of Panem how much better Districts 1, 2, and 4 were than the others, who had mere handfuls. In Twelve’s case, a lone, sad, drunk, worn-out man who had won the year before Galatea, Haymitch Abernathy the 50th Victor. Twelve had another Victor at some point way back in the early Games, but she clearly hadn’t made an impression. Academy teachers never put her in test questions. Even the extremely nerdy students did not know her name.

“May the odds be ever in your favor! Ladies first.” Hadrian drew a girl’s name. “Pyra Lyme!”

Pyra’s jaw dropped, and after a shove from her neighbor, her feet moved toward the stage instinctively. Her guts were in knots, like someone had sucker-punched her. It made no sense. Her name was only in the ball once. She wasn’t ready. This was far too soon. This was not the plan.

But no, it would be ok. This was Two. Someone would go in her place. Even the biggest, baddest, prove-your-toughness-by-fighting-her twelve-year-old was not the best the District had to offer. She had fumbled at killing a mouse and only scored a five, after all.

She barely made it up the last step when the fun began.

“I volunteer as Tribute!” a half-dozen girls near the front of the crowd spewed in synchrony, hands shooting into the air as if they were back in school playing a quiz game and got five in a row. Vinco!

The whole bunch of them marched up to the stage and argued while Hadrian sorted them out. Pyra turned to the Victors sitting behind her and got a few reassuring thumbs-up. Her mother shot her a half-hearted smile, then returned to whispering anxiously with Enobaria. Finally, the designated volunteer beat out those would-be usurpers and claimed her rightful spot.

“Alexandra Plinth, everyone!” Hadrian announced. Pyra and the rejects were dismissed from the stage, heading back to their positions. The sense of relief that flooded Pyra’s chest was uncanny. “Let’s all give Ms. Plinth a round of applause!”

After some cheers and clapping for the glorious Tribute, Hadrian called for everyone to settle. “And now, the boys!”

He drew a paper from the male ball, and a similar course of events ensued, finally resulting in a Tribute. Pyra couldn’t focus. She didn’t catch his name. She was grappling with a very unfamiliar emotion. Her whole body felt cold and distant, like she stood five feet to her left. Were her hands really shaking? Pathetic.

That evening, Pyra and Galatea watched the recap together. They made fun of the escorts’ Capitol accents, as they always did. It felt naughty, and Pyra needed something fun. “Eaver in your favour?” they teased. She was relieved to see that her face did not betray those strange emotions when she walked up to the stage. The boy volunteer’s name was Certman Brown.

“How are you feeling, Pyra?” her mother asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, chewing on the thoughts that had been bouncing off the inside of her skull all day. “Just… weird. I knew someone was going to volunteer, but it was still hard walking up there, passing all the older kids, thinking about the other Districts’ Tributes. I’m strong, smart, and well-trained, but I’m only twelve. I thought about Finnick Odair, how even though Four trains, too, and he was only fourteen, no one volunteered for him. I thought, what if for some crazy reason, no one volunteers for me, doesn't want to challenge me, and I go in so early? If it happened there, it could happen here. I’m not ready yet. It was just… weird. You know?”

“I know,” Galatea said. “I felt the same way today, watching you walk up there. It’s scary. It’s ok to be afraid.”

Afraid? Is that what she was? Pyra had been afraid before. Afraid of losing volleyball games and fighting matches, afraid of not passing her tests, afraid she wouldn’t meet her protein goals, afraid her classmates wouldn’t like her, afraid of looking like a dumb child in front of important adults and touring Victors, afraid she would never get the hang of guns and fail Advanced Weaponry. The Hunger Games, however, had never scared her.

All those fears were put to rest once the matches were won, classes passed, lessons learned, and friends made. “Are the Hunger Games the sort of thing you don’t stop fearing until you win?” she asked.

“No,” Galatea said candidly. “Even Victors get scared. Some of us struggle with what we did or fear the Tributes we mentor will get killed, and that’s natural, too. Brutus gets horrible nightmares, but he wakes up every day and prepares Regina, to make her life easier. When the Capitol filed Enobaria’s teeth to fangs and said she should wear them like a badge of honor, she told me she liked them because it meant she would never be without a weapon. The reason you haven’t spent much time with Uncle Ovid is because he drinks as much as Haymitch, there.” She nodded at the screen, which was on Twelve’s Reaping. “We all cope with it, but the fear sticks around.”

Pyra tried to process this look at her strong family of Victors. “Even though you’re already out? Even when you’ve won?”

“There’s a lot to the Games—to how people think—you don’t know yet, Pyra,” Galatea said over the brassy tune of the closing anthem. “And now that you’re Reaping age, I could start sharing a little more. But it’s complicated, and…” She glanced around the room, as she sometimes did when they discussed sensitive matters. “Well, I’ll tell you more about it as these Games unfold. Time for bed, now. You have training in the morning.” The seal of Panem filled the screen, concluding the presentation.

School and training continued during the Games, as the academic year closed with the exam on their events. During meals, screens in the dining hall showcased recaps of anything of note that had happened during class time. If something particularly exciting was happening, generous teachers would tune in, using it as a lesson.

The parade was a hit. Fair costumes that year, aside from Twelve, who were naked and covered in coal dust. On more muscular Tributes, it might have been hot, but on those skinny things, it simply highlighted what poor nutrition they’d had growing up. They looked like charred skeletons. And with their lack of showmanship and black hair to boot, they faded into the background. Still, better than a boring old miner’s uniform. It made Pyra feel sorry for them, and she ate her meals with greater appreciation.

Alexandra scored a nine, and Certman a ten. In their interviews, they conducted themselves well. Alexandra mentioned something about a great-great-uncle who was close with President Snow around the start of his career, wooing patriotic Sponsors. It was almost funny, since students gossiped that that old branch of the Plinths was not favored by their relatives in Two, who were bitter to be left behind in the District.

Pyra watched the younger ones with eerie empathy. The boy from Ten was only twelve like her and had probably not gotten much practice slaughtering animals yet. He had scored a five like her. In the bloodbath, he took an ax to the gut and perished.

That could have been me.

Although it was Alexandra who held that ax, Pyra surprised herself by relating more to the dead boy than the girl from her own District. Seeing him bleed out on the sandy ground, clutching his stomach in pain before falling deathly still, made Pyra’s blood run cold again, just like at the Reaping. With that, the difference hit her.

All those other fears paled in comparison. They were child’s play, petty worries about success in life. In the Hunger Games, the stakes were higher. Success was life. Failure was death. There was no in-between, no partial credit, no getting it right next time. A single mistake or hesitation could be the end. Until that Reaping, Pyra had never genuinely feared for her life. She hated this feeling.

Pyra spent the rest of the day working extra hard in Traditional Weaponry, finding some comfort with an ax in her own hand, and watching Alexandra and Certman with heightened anxiety. It was not entertainment anymore. It was not some battle happening far away with people she didn’t know. That year, the Games felt more real. She knew Alexandra and Certman. At least, she remembered seeing them around the Academy and their volunteer campaigns. She had voted for them that past winter. Pyra picked up on anxious vibes from her classmates and realized many of them were thinking the same thing. They all channeled that fear into motivation.

On the second day of the 67th Hunger Games, the Career pack fled a band of three mutts, lions with snakes for tails and extra heads that looked like goats and brandished their sharp horns violently. Caesar Flickerman cheerily reported that the Gamemakers called them chimeras, “A classic.”

Most of the pack got away with minor injuries. The boy from Four and the girl from One suffered snake bites that might be survivable; a parachute of antivenom would help. But the chimeras were particularly aggressive toward Alexandra. No matter how she tried to fight them, they would not let up. Her packmates fled. At last, one pounced on her, and it was over. A cannon went off.

That could have been me.

All her training. All her studies and strategy and Sponsors. None of it could save Alexandra.

The boy from Four had already killed one chimera, and after Alexandra was dead, the remaining two slunk back into the forest rather than chase down the other Careers, who must have been out of their territory by then.

Before dinner that day, Pyra made for her mother’s office, where she was reviewing footage. Sounds of Alexandra’s final fight echoed back when Pyra opened the door.

“Mom?”

“Hey, sweetheart,” Galatea said, shutting off her screen. She noted the look on her daughter’s face. “Alexandra?”

Pyra nodded, doing her best to keep it together.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Galatea offered.

They went far. It was not a simple stroll around the Academy but all the way out into the residential neighborhood of Centerbase. Galatea led Pyra through back alleys to a grassy field between some old, empty-looking houses.

“You’re scared of the Hunger Games,” Galatea said plainly, sitting in the center of the lot, not too close to the buildings.

“I know I shouldn’t be,” Pyra admitted. “Or, now, I know that it’s natural but not all that useful. I know it’s an honor to be Tribute, I just…”

“Pyra,” her mother said, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with being scared of the Hunger Games. And I am only going to say this because we’re out here where there aren’t any audio devices or cameras, so you better not repeat this stuff in school or even at home, understand?”

Pyra nodded, suddenly terrified.

“It is not an honor to be Tribute.”

Chapter Text

“What do you mean?” Pyra pleaded, desperate for some explanation for the nonsense that had just come from her mother’s mouth.

“I mean, look at them,” Galatea said. “Look at the Hunger Games, what they do to us, how the audience acts. Bit barbaric, isn’t it?”

Pyra thought of Caesar Flickerman. A classic, he had called the chimeras, smiling and comedically wincing at the snake tails biting Tributes, at Alexandra being mauled to death. In previous years, she might have liked the insight on the mutts and levity in that heavy moment. This year, his smile made her feel queasy, and the Gamemakers sounded monstrous.

“They take pleasure in seeing us die. And it’s our District’s people, too,” she said, the pieces almost coming together in her head. “It was me. It’s our teachers.”

“An honorable sacrifice for the glory of the Capitol?” Galatea challenged.

Pyra picked at a weed. “That’s what they tell us. I don’t remember when you stopped saying it, but it was a while ago. I’ve been questioning it, just a little. Mostly since the Reaping.” She hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face in them before falling back to the ground and looking up at the sky. “I’m so stupid! Why did it take getting Reaped to see how scary the Games are? I’m a terrible person, just like they wanted!”

“Keep your voice down,” Galatea warned. “You can’t let anyone hear you talking like that.”

Pyra sat up in a huff, eyes watering. Strange feelings were welling up in her chest, fighting for attention against everything in which she had been raised. She batted the tears off her face. “I’m scared of the Hunger Games because I’m weak and not confident enough that I can win. Or worse, I believed everything the Academy told me because I’m weak and easily manipulated.”

Galatea hugged Pyra and whispered, “You’re not weak. Just look at everything the Capitol does to make us love the Hunger Games and see them as glorious. They wouldn’t put in the effort if it were easy to do. I gave them my power. I trained and volunteered and killed kids from other Districts because my teachers told me it was the right thing to do. And I didn’t see how wrong it was until much later. You’re already ahead. Don’t give them your power, too.”

“No!” Pyra shoved her mother away. This was too much to accept. “Say you’re joking. Say you’re messing with me.” Galatea was silent. Pyra felt abandoned, her worldview under threat with no alternative to make sense of it. “Why should I trust what you say about the Games? How can I believe that you, a Training Academy instructor, actually think the Hunger Games are bad? You just want me to give up because you don’t believe in me! That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t think I have what it takes!”

“Pyra, wait, listen to me!”

Pyra got up and paced in the unkempt grass, fists and jaw clenched. “Is this because I only scored a five? Because you don’t think I’ll ever do better? I’m right, aren’t I? You think I’m weak! You think I’m stupid! You go and have fun with your fans in the Capitol, teach Gamemakers how we tick so they can design better arenas, train students, and then what? Turn around and say it’s ok that I’m afraid? That I shouldn’t be grateful the Capitol treats us better than the other Districts? You’re just scared I’ll die, so you’re lying to me, telling me it’s all a sham so I’ll be scared, too, and won’t try! You want to keep me at home with you, helpless and never amounting to anything on my own! Do you do the same with your girlfriends? Is that why Piper dumped you?”

Pyra was not like that boy from Ten; she would not die in the bloodbath. She was not like Alexandra, either; she was smarter. She could win the Hunger Games. This confusion was her mother’s fault for losing confidence in her. And she had bought it in that moment of weakness, giving into fear and letting it sway her view of the generous, powerful, glorious Capitol. That was the only explanation that made sense.

“It’s understandable that you’re upset,” Galatea said calmly. “Come back here so I can talk without yelling.”

“What?” Pyra demanded loudly. “What more could there be? You’re already getting weirdly close to treason, and that scares me more than the Reaping did. What am I supposed to do, if not the Games?”

Galatea waited patiently and did not speak again until Pyra sat down and stopped yelling. “I am sorry that you feel that way, Pyra.”

They were silent a moment. Pyra waited for something that made sense. Comforting, albeit discouraging, words of how it was ok to be scared were one thing. Treason was another.

“I’m thinking of those mutts and Alexandra,” Galatea said, finding the cleanest way to the root of matter. “I worry there was a reason they were after her, specifically. We see it now and then, Tributes targeted in the arena for political reasons. The truth is, I worry your Reaping wasn’t completely random, that the Capitol may have been trying to punish me.”

“Pfft, for what?” Pyra sneered, but her heart was pounding. It couldn't be true. “They love you.” Her voice broke. “You’re a good trainer and a great Victor. Or you… you were, until this.”

“I told you before,” Galatea reminded her, “they don’t love the Victors. Not really. They make it look like they do, but when I go there, it’s not all fun and games.” Deciphering Galatea’s strained tone and expression was difficult for Pyra. Her mother did not often show desperation. “Bad things happen. Things I hope I will never have to tell you the details of. The ways they hurt us is one of the biggest secrets in Panem. You want no part in it. We can't trust them.” Galatea calmed with a breath and spoke more gently, but a vein of fire wove through her tone. “A couple years ago, I caused a bit of trouble. I wasn’t as compliant as they wanted. I worry they tried taking it out on you. It only failed because we get such volunteers here, which was either short-sighted of them or means it was intended as a warning.”

It didn't make sense. The Capitol loved the Victors.

The Capitol loved the Districts. The Capitol loved them. It made too much sense. The Capitol controlled the Districts to keep peace. To control chaos and maintain the social contract for everyone’s benefit. People couldn’t be trusted not to burn the world. The Capitol protected them from their own bestial natures. The Districts betrayed the Capitol because they had forgotten the pain of chaos. Still, the Capitol loved them. They reminded the Districts every year with the Hunger Games, who they were without order. It made too much sense. The Capitol loved those who struggled and offered tesserae to ease their hunger. The Capitol loved the Career Districts most deeply. They let their children train, let the Academy slide under the guise of pre-Peacekeeper training. The Capitol loved the Victors, the ones whose loyalty shined the brightest, who used the Capitol’s favor to achieve greatness, who exalted them as high pedestals. It made too much sense. The Victors were the best Tributes the Districts could offer, and the Careers offered those of the highest quality. The Capitol had no reason to hurt them.

“Pyra? Say something.”

The Capitol gave the Victors big, warm houses in their own little Village. They gave the Victors riches, gave their Districts food. They paraded them through the country, showing off their power. They dressed them in crowns and beautiful clothes and showcased their talents. The Capitol loved them.

The Capitol loved the Victors and the Districts too much to rig their Reaping as a way to scare her on purpose.

“Pyra, honey?”

Her mother must be going insane. It was the only thing that made sense.

“I need to go back to school,” Pyra said stiffly. “I don’t feel well. I’ll miss dinner if I’m not back soon.”

“Let’s just go home,” Galatea offered. “I can write you a note excusing you from classes tomorrow, say you’re ill. You can take some time to rest without all that—”

“I’m going back to school. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Pyra turned away, unable to look at her mother. They walked back to the Training Academy, and Pyra went inside without another word. Galatea could go home, rest, and think treasonous things, but Pyra would not be part of it.

Even if her mother was crazy, even if she was descending into treason and lost all confidence that Pyra could be Victorious—or even if she wasn't crazy and the glory was a lie—Pyra’s fear was real. And she knew one person who might have information that could shed light on the situation.

Instead of going to the dining hall for a last chance at dinner, Pyra found her feet carrying her to Aunt Enobaria’s office.

Her mother had said not to talk about it at school, referencing audio devices and cameras. She had said not to talk about it at home either for the same reason, which seemed a bit paranoid. Pyra tried to be careful, just in case.

“Hey, Enobaria,” Pyra started, shutting the door behind her.

“Hey, kid,” she said, sharpening a set of throwing knives. “How’s it going? I heard you missed the afternoon recap. Nothing too crazy happened, but you could get yourself a demerit that way.”

“I was with my mother.” Pyra took a seat. “She said some things that… well, I don’t know what to make of it. So I wanted to check with you.”

“Oh?”

“What exactly happens when you guys go to the Capitol?” she asked. “My mother said some of it was bad, but she didn’t say in what way.”

Enobaria set the knives down and glanced around, the same way Galatea did at home. “Your mother is sensitive. She’s gotten weak and anxious, and your getting Reaped didn’t help. It’s why the Academy moved her to part-time instruction a couple years ago. Don’t want her spreading that anxiety to the trainees. I’m sorry you got caught in it.”

“It didn’t seem too bad at first,” Pyra told her. “After the Reaping, she just told me it was ok to be scared, that even Victors stay a little scared, and it’s natural. She told me what you said about your teeth. Today, though… I don’t know. I think Alexandra’s death affected her.”

Enobaria nodded slowly. “Makes sense. She worked closely with her. I wouldn’t read too much into it. She’s just been having a hard time, maybe bitter that the Capitol doesn’t invite her as often as they used to. As for me, I don’t know what exactly she told you, but I love my teeth. They’re a symbol of my ferocity, and I wear them with pride. And when we go to the Capitol, it’s because they love us.”

This kind of talk sounded more like what Pyra was used to. It was comforting, hearing something that made sense.

“We owe the Capitol,” Enobaria went on. “You’ll learn more about winning Sponsors later, but we owe our fans our lives. Without Sponsors, even a great Tribute can fail. What we do in the Capitol is our way of thanking them. There’s nothing bad about it.”

“Ok, thank you, Enobaria,” Pyra said. Her words, too, must be taken with a grain of salt. She was more popular in the Capitol than some Victors, but she never went as frequently as Galatea had at the height of her fame. “I won’t waste any more of your time. And I should go try to catch the evening broadcast. Avoid that demerit, right?”

“Smart girl.” Enobaria winked at her, and Pyra felt better for a moment, having cleared that up.

Still, she couldn’t shake the sense of urgency in what her mother had said or how close she had been to agreeing that day. The 67th Hunger Games lasted nearly two weeks, and every day, Pyra tried to look at things from both perspectives, seeing how something might be the Capitol manipulating her and then applying the skills she had been taught for counteracting faulty rebel logic. The only hard part was reconciling that faulty rebel logic with the person saying it.

One morning, Brutus caught Pyra before class and said he had heard from Enobaria that Galatea was not feeling well. “Other instructors have mentioned it, too. They say she’s taking this year a little hard,” he said, full of care and concern, a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Did she say something that upset you?”

Brutus was like her uncle. Her favorite uncle. Yet in that moment, the part of her mother’s crazed ramblings that stood out to her most was how she could not trust the Capitol, and her gut told her that included him. Her mother was unwell, but she couldn’t take the chance. “Just a little bit of nonsense. Enobaria cleared it up for me. My mother simply said it was ok to be scared when I was Reaped. Nothing else I would take too seriously. She was rattled about me and Alexandra is all.”

“Good to hear,” Brutus concluded. “Tell her to take care. All hard.”

The girl from District 7, a skilled climber and ax-wielder, ambushed Certman in the forest. She had lost weight, looked weak. She had some Sponsors, but not like him. Well-fed and clear of mind, Certman dodged her initial attack. The fight did not take too long after that. She had given a decent performance, but he had his fans to thank for the edge. The final cannon sounded, and Certman was Victorious.

That could have been me.

The thought applied to both of them.

At his Victory ceremony, Certman thanked his Sponsors and quoted the oath, saying he was honored to give his power to the Capitol, to be their ruthless sword and take out undeserving, unenthusiastic, weak Tributes in their name. Though she knew her mother was not in her right mind, that she had only spoken out of concern for her safety, Pyra’s stomach turned.

For the first Hunger Games of her life, Pyra’s view of the Victor was torn between jealousy and fear. That fear was what scared her most.

Chapter Text

“Oh, baby baby baby, I know how you look at me. I see you watchin’ me, wishin’ you could have it. My body is your weakness, makin’ me a habit. Daddy daddy daddy, know I turn you into stone. Get hard for Medusa, crack me like he used to…”

The spicy verses and dreamy voice of Severn Faber pulsed through Certman’s living room. The windows let in a chilly spring breeze that Saturday night. He had just returned from a trip to the Capitol and invited his friends over for company. Or rather, those old training buddies, the few who had gone into weapons engineering and not left the District for work as Peacekeepers, had noticed he often came home with treats and made themselves available. He had invited Regina and Pyra this time, wanting to include them in the fun as Victor’s kids. Lapis was still too young to party, he’d said. Pyra, at fourteen, got the sense she was barely old enough to hang with the cool crowd, who were around twenty like their most recent Victor.

“Can we turn the radio to something else?” one of Certman’s friends asked. “I want to listen to Deathscurge, not this kid shit.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” another one said. “Deathscurge is too heavy for medima. If Cert’s got any, that is.” They all immediately fixed their eyes on Certman expectantly.

Certman took a bag from his pocket, laughing and soaking up the attention. “Come on, you know I don’t disappoint! One of my adoring fans sent this home with me, likes to take care of us.”

In the twenty-one months since his Victory, Certman had been invited to the Capitol a handful of times. Usually, he came home happy. Once, his second visit, not so much. That time, he had shooed away his friends, and Pyra could hear him blasting Deathscurge in his house across the road. Thinking about what could have happened to put him in such a bad mood had made her angry. As her mother’s words grew in her head, they were not that much easier to accept, but she did find herself less resistant to the idea that the Capitol sometimes hurt the Victors and more angry at them for it. If it were true. Capitol or not, Victors were supposed to be untouchable. How dare they put him in such a state?

Times like these, it seemed more normal. Having fun with his fans, being gifted bags of illegal drugs, it made more sense.

“Just one each,” Certman warned as he let his friends pick small, purple pills from the bag. “Don’t get greedy, now. I want to make it last.”

“Could I try?” Regina asked.

Certaman hesitated. “You sure? Do you even drink?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” she said defensively. “I’m an upperclassman, I’m tough.”

He shook the bag in her direction, “Ok, fine, knock yourself out.”

“What about me?” Pyra ventured, hoping a year didn’t make too much difference.

“Sorry, kid,” Certaman said. “Maybe next year. You’re welcome to my booze, though.” Pyra was disappointed, but she understood. She went to his kitchen to pour herself a drink. “Bring us a round of waters while you’re at it!” Certman called after her.

Though alcohol was seriously illegal in the outer Districts, where citizens relied on risky moonshine, the Capitol was a little more lenient with places like Two. They provided a selection to the Victors, who were known to share, and though you couldn’t sell it out in the open, no one ever got arrested for moonshining if they kept it reasonably quiet. Pyra liked a drink, but only on special occasions and never more than one. Too much carb, bad for the liver and figure both.

She mixed herself a glass of whiskey in juice and assembled a serving tray with five glasses of water for the rest of them.

“Thanks, doll,” Certman said when he took a glass from the tray. Capitol turns of phrase like that stuck in his vocabulary for a minute after those trips. No one in Two called anyone “doll.”

Pyra sipped her whiskey drink and watched the others chat while they waited for the medima to take effect. It was not long before their words started to sound funny and their eyes grew wide.

“Woah,” Regina said, gazing around the room like it was her first time seeing it. “This is fun!”

Certman and his friends laughed at her. Or with her. It was hard for Pyra to tell with how loose their behavior became.

“What’s it like?” Pyra asked her.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” Regina said. “It’s just fun! I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Look.” Pyra was looking, and Regina was indeed smiling. “When did you get pretty?”

“Huh?” Pyra didn’t think she looked bad, but “strong” was a more frequently heard compliment than “pretty.”

“You just look really good tonight, is all. Like if you put a little more effort in, you could be one of the pretty ones Sponsors like,” Regina said. She stretched back over the chair. “This is fun! We should dance!”

Regina sprang up and started grooving, rolling her body, arms in the air and knees dropping at opportune lyrics and hits of the beat. She was one of the pretty ones Sponsors would like, the only edge she had over Pyra.

A couple of Certman’s friends started dancing, too. Pyra wanted to join them, but her drink was running through her.

In the bathroom, Pyra spent a while staring at her face in the mirror. She was a little pretty. For years, she had been hoping she would grow into a face more like her mother’s, but as adolescence rolled on, she worried she was stuck with her father’s big nose. The rest was not so bad. Maybe, if she won the Games, they could fix her nose in the Capitol. They could bleach her hair lighter, platinum like her mother’s and One’s Tributes’. Galatea called Pyra’s hair color “honey,” but she thought it looked like a dirty rock. Here eyes were the color of mud. If Certman let her try the medima, maybe she would see what Regina saw and feel better.

By the time Pyra returned to the group, Regina and Certman’s friend, Julian, were dancing very closely. He stood behind her, hands on her hips and hers on his shoulders.

“Is this what the winter dance is like?” Pyra wondered, sitting down because she was not yet brave enough to dance like that.

“Nah, that thing is super stuffy,” Certman said, waving his hand dismissively. “I keep forgetting how young you are, but you’ll see at your first one next year. They say those dances are practice for parties in the Capitol, but I think we’re even more formal here. The big galas are formal like that, so it’s good that they teach us. The afterparties, though, and the smaller ones with… with fans, they’re more like this. People cut loose a little more than they say in training.”

“Oh.” Pyra decided to keep a little quieter, not wanting to say anything else too childish.

She finished her drink and considered making another, feeling odd as the most sober person in the room, but the alcohol was not worth the calories. “I’m going to make myself another drink,” she announced. “Anyone else need something from the kitchen?” No one did. She went and poured herself a glass of plain juice. She could pretend it had liquor in it to look cooler and excuse any other embarrassing questions.

She sat on the couch and sipped her juice, smiling and laughing even when she didn’t get the jokes, trying to pepper in behaviors she thought would make her look drunker.

Pyra did not like the way Julian looked at Regina. She didn’t like how he touched her. But she seemed to be having fun, so Pyra held her tongue. Julian lifted Regina onto his back and showed off how many squats he could do carrying her. She squealed in delight, clutching his shoulders and locking her legs around his waist to keep from falling. Certman and his other two friends cheered and counted.

After the final squat—which did not impress Pyra, because Regina wasn’t all that heavy to begin with—Julian smacked Regina’s thigh and said, “Hey, Cert, we can go use one of your bedrooms for some alone time, right?”

“Sure, man,” Certman said, fishing another medima pill from his baggie.

“Wait!” Pyra spoke up when Julian headed for the stairs, Regina still smiling on his back. “Regina, what are you doing? This is weird.”

Regina rolled her eyes. So did the rest of them. “Ugh, Pyra, it’s not a big deal. All the upperclassmen fool around. It’s fine.”

“But he’s… isn’t he a bit old for you?” Pyra pressed.

“Come on, Pyra,” Regina groaned down to her. “Let me have my fun! Tonight’s been amazing, and you’re being a downer. If you can’t keep up, go hang with Lapis.”

That stung.

Frozen, Pyra watched Julian carry Regina up Certman’s stairs and knew there was nothing she could do.

“Leave them be, Pyra,” Certman said, gently hammering the point in. Reluctantly, she did, returning to the couch. “Good that she’s getting some experience in now. If she’s serious about volunteering, it could come in handy.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Certman shook his head, as if clearing out unhelpful thoughts. “Nothing. Forget I said that. I shouldn’t be talking about it; I’m just high.”

It didn’t make sense.

“They let you fuck in the arena, Cert?” one of his friends asked. He spread his arms out across the back of the couch, his hand grazing Pyra’s shoulder. He was sweaty, a side effect of the medima. “I mean, I know they probably couldn’t show it, but you get any off-screen action?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Certman told him. “For one, most Tributes are more focused on the surviving part, right? I’m sure it was on some of the guys’ minds, but none of the girls seemed to be thinking about it at all.”

“Well,” his friend drew the word out suggestively, cocking his head to the side, “it is a death match, right? You’re all killing each other, anyway. Do they really have to be thinking about it for it to be an option? I mean…”

“Stop,” Certman said sternly. “Have some class, Argo. I’m trying to have a good time here; I don’t want any of that talk. They’d give you the old Titus treatment, for sure. Yeah, they send us in there to kill each other, but the Capitol has standards.”

Argo put his hands up defensively. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend, oh, great Victor. Just thinking about that chick from Twelve you killed.” He returned his arms to their place across the couch back, and Pyra’s skin crawled, hairs erecting in goosebumps. Sitting so close, she could feel the way his hips subtly rocked as he spoke. “Skinny as a twig, but that was one bold parade outfit. Could’ve had some fun before—”

“Seriously, quit it.” Certman frowned at his friend, the time for smiles passed. “You’re killing the vibe, and I’m this close to throwing you out.”

Pyra was strong, well-muscled. She was tough. She had trained her entire life to be able to fight and kill people. She had caused plenty of girls to need stitches after ring matches, even broke a nose last month. And yet, she was suddenly very aware of being a lone, fourteen-year-old girl in a room with three twenty-year-old men who had grown up with the same robust combat training and were currently high on drugs that seemed to increase certain kinds of thoughts.

Her eyes darted between Certman, Argo, and his other friend who had been suspiciously quiet. Though not as concerning as Argo, she didn’t like the look in his eyes or the way he was anxiously bouncing his leg.

“It’s getting a little late.” She tried to keep her voice even. “I think I’m gonna head out.”

“See, Argo? Look what you did.” Certman scolded his friend. He put his hand on Pyra’s knee. “Don’t worry about him, he’s the one who can leave.”

She stared at him. He stared back. Argo didn’t move, neither did the quiet one, and Pyra was having trouble discerning Certman’s motives. Since his Victory, he had become like a cousin to her. But he was not her cousin, especially not while still cooling down from a trip to the Capitol.

She gulped. She gently removed his hand and stood, slowly. “No, you guys do your thing. Have fun with the medima. I’ll just…” Pyra walked around to the stairs, considering checking on Regina. Was it worth it to go upstairs? To interrupt what possibly shouldn’t be interrupted or get herself cornered? It didn’t feel right leaving without her. But if something unpleasant were happening up there, they would have heard a commotion. Right? “I’ll just be on my way.”

Pyra fled through the front door and paused. Her heart was racing. She could hear Certman chewing out Argo inside and could tell it wouldn’t be long before the guy was tossed out behind her. Her house stood in front of her, just across the way. She could spend the night and Sunday at home, but she was too restless to simply curl up in her childhood bed. She wanted to punch something.

Before the argument could move outside, Pyra turned and ran into town, back to the Training Academy.

The gym was off the front hall. Pyra kept an eye on the door, hoping to catch Regina on her way back to the dorms if she didn’t go home either. The radio was already set to the station that played Deathscurge and similarly heavy music, which was perfect. Sweet little Severn was losing her charm. Her body vibrated with rage. She let it all out on the punching bag, not caring when her knuckles started to crack because she had not bothered to wrap her hands. Any sensation to drown out the fear.

With every bit of abuse she gave the punching bag, Pyra’s rage grew. Clearly, something was up with the Victors, and she worried about Certman. She did not want to think about her mother. More than that, the Hunger Games were making less sense.

The Capitol had standards. Cannibalism was distasteful in a Victor and could earn you a convenient avalanche. She gathered sexual assault was similarly off the table, yet Certman’s comments sent suspicious shivers through her. She should have stood more strongly against Julian whisking Regina away. She should have killed Argo for what he was suggesting. She wished she had been brave enough to say something for herself, at least, not been so frozen into silence, letting Certman be the only one telling him off. On top of that, the barbarism of sending twenty-four teenagers to kill each other in a pit—however finely curated that pit was—was perfectly within those standards, lauded even. It had all been presented to her as so normal, but it wasn’t. The fear she had felt at that 67th Reaping, in Certman’s living room, was what was normal. It was shared by every District child, every Tribute who met a grisly end, every Victor who came back scarred. She hated that fear. She hated how vulnerable it made her feel. She hated her confusion. She hated being manipulated. She hated that all this power that flourished inside her was meant not for herself, only for them, for the Capitol and their audience, to be used in their eternal battle for control. They fed her fire, but every part of the system was designed to keep it contained and directed only at the Capitol’s chosen enemies.

Treasonously, she hated the Capitol.

Regina came back, seeming calm but annoyed. She shut off the music. She said she and Julian had heard Certman arguing with Argo, and she was worried about Pyra.

“Can you stop beating that for a second and talk to me?” she insisted. Pyra was too in the zone for that. Stopping her punches and kicks meant stopping the cogs turning in her head, and it was all just coming together. “You’re getting blood on it! Stop!”

“What?!” Pyra yelled, using her strikes on the bag as punctuation. “Certman’s friends are dicks, Regina! Everyone in the District, they’re all just a bunch of dicks! And I sat there like an idiot and did nothing! I ran away and left you with them! Because we’re taught to fight but not to stand up to shit that’s normal but shouldn’t be! Because the only ones who deserve to die are randomly selected strangers? Is that what we're meant to believe?”

Regina shoved Pyra, who was so tired that it sent her stumbling to the floor. She took a seat next to her, watching Pyra pull at her hair and beat the ground in frustration. “What’s gotten into you?”

Pyra took a breath and huffed. “I don’t know.” She turned to her friend. “Are you okay? Did Julian hurt you?”

Regina looked at the floor and shook her head. “It was fine. He was fine. It wasn’t a big deal. We were just having fun. Barely got anywhere before Cert and Argo started yelling, which killed the whole medima experience, but… here, let me get you some bandages.”

Pyra stood and waved Regina off. “No, it’s whatever. I’ll take care of my knuckles myself.”

“Ugh, whatever, Pyra,” Regina groaned. “I know you don’t get it, but I’m fine. Just wanted to check on you. Look, I can feel a headache coming on, so if you want to stew in your weird rage, go ahead. I’m going to bed.”

“Fine. Goodnight.”

More than ever, Pyra was alone.

Chapter Text

The day before the 69th Reaping, Pyra killed a cat. It was harder to catch and put up more of a fight than the previous year’s rabbit or that first mouse. Some of her classmates came away with gnarly scratches and bites, earning antibiotics and poor grades. She did it quick, cleanly. She showed no emotion. She acted as the Academy expected of a Victor’s daughter and took the high grade, playing her role to hide the rebellious feelings brewing inside her.

Those Games were like all the others. Two’s Tributes scored well, praised the Capitol, fought viciously, and came home in coffins. Both of them that year. For all their pride in the Career status, Pyra felt her District conveniently ignored that they only brought home a Victor less than a fifth of the time, that one of their Tributes was always destined to die. It pissed her off, how blind they all were.

As an upperclassman in the fifteen-year class, she started hearing comments from instructors about her plans for a volunteer campaign.

“You’re a shoo-in if you run right,” one teaching assistant noted as he took her measurements. The students were preparing for the winter dance, and there was a stock of dresses and suits to choose from at the Academy. So-called real Careers had first pick and could have them altered to fit more flatteringly. Some of the wealthier ones, like Pyra, could afford to commission new attire. Tesserans made due with the leftovers if they went to the dance at all. “You know, being a legacy trainee and all. Better to focus on your fighting and weapons skills, but I can give you a hand with the image side.”

“Right,” Pyra said. She had known as much her whole life.

The assistant jotted down her bust measurement. “Might improve naturally in the next year or two, but if you do win the Games, Capitol surgeons can help you out.”

“Kind of pointless by then, right?” Pyra snarked, even if a small part of her held out hope for her nose.

“Hey, lot of life after Victory, you know. And Sponsors aren’t the only ones who care,” he told her casually. “Till then, I’ll put in an order for push-ups. These kids won’t vote for you if they don’t believe you’ll get Sponsors.”

“Right,” she said again, rolling her eyes. It was annoying how people talked to her like she hadn’t been considering these things for years. Like she still wanted to volunteer.

As far as anyone could know, she did, but as her moment drew closer, it was getting harder to pretend. Volunteering was still an option for her, one she was almost tempted to take. If things went well, she could use the platform of Victory to make some sort of statement about Victors receiving the honor and respect they were promised, uncover what the Capitol was hiding, expose how the only thing the Capitol seemed to genuinely love about the Districts was how easy they were to exploit. Galatea was afraid of something, but Pyra could be the one to shatter the illusion. If she were brave enough.

The two sides of her mind battled endlessly, tearing her apart. Some nights, Pyra could hardly sleep. The glorious Victor who would honor the Capitol was dying. What was left of her was torn between the smart, defiant Victor who could hold the Capitol accountable from her own high pedestal and the gritty, angry rebel who could knock the whole thing to the ground.

In Sponsors class one day, Aunt Cornelia assigned seats at tables of two, and Pyra was happy to be placed with one of her MMA friends, Juni. They trained together, pushed each other, and enjoyed a friendly rivalry as the best two fighters in their year, better even than some in the year ahead.

“Look to the person next to you,” Cornelia ordered. Easy, that was her buddy. “This person is your enemy.” Crap. “I have paired you up with your direct competition, trainees with similar strengths and weaknesses, who will work the same angles in their volunteer campaigns and for Sponsors. Take the next few minutes to list their faults compared to yourself and how you could present yourself as better than them.”

Pyra struggled with the assignment. She did not want to insult her friend, but that was training. Pyra was not particularly pretty but confident enough that she was a little prettier than Juni. On that note, the scar on Juni’s temple had been Pyra’s doing. She had her mother, which meant she could work the legacy Victor angle with Sponsors who had supported Galatea. Meanwhile, Juni was downshaft, a Tesseran, a nobody. Despite how Juni had proven her dedication to training for the Hunger Games, Pyra wrote about how her loyalties were suspect, she was only ever in it for the food, she wasn’t raised for it. With few exceptions, Pyra got better grades than Juni, too.

They went around the room, each student berating their deskmate for faults real and exaggerated.

“Pyra Lyme,” Juni read aloud, “pulls her punches. I, personally, have seen her hesitate and go easy on opponents in the ring once she is confident she will win; she does not follow through with more aggressive attacks unless absolutely necessary and may fail to take opportunities in the arena. Her greatest weakness, however, is her heritage. Her mother, Galatea Lyme the 51st Victor, honored the Capitol and the District, and Pyra grew up with an expectation of excellence that stopped her from trying as hard as those of us who have had to fight for every ounce of pride we have. Her strengths have been handed to her. Moreover, Galatea is too well liked in poor communities of the District, and Pyra’s father was a miner himself. Galatea’s behavior in recent years has shown greater loyalty to her District than to the Capitol, and I wonder how much of that attitude was passed to her daughter, potentially leading her to have difficulty relating to the Capitol audience and possibly even going so far as failing to kill her District partner if it came to it.”

Ouch. Pyra knew some of that was embellished for the assignment, but the part about her mother unsettled her. Her mother was beloved by the District. Before training, Pyra might have wondered how that could be a bad thing. With more education, she learned that as honorable as District loyalty may be, one’s District should never come before the Capitol, who acted for the good of all of Panem. With new maturity, she saw the manipulation for what it was. And she knew she had lost some of her old zeal, but she thought she had been better at hiding that. Was her inner conflict so obvious?

After reading her piece, Pyra looked to Juni for some reassurance that neither of them meant anything personal by it; it was just school. Juni didn’t spare her a glance, eyes front and focused on Cornelia.

The next exercise involved people with opposing strengths. Pyra emphasized what everyone already knew about physical advantage, bragged about her intellect and academic performance—not just a dumb jock—and did her best not to take it personally when the pretty girls pointed out her inadequacies in that department. Still, she knew her calves and overall definition could use work. She served herself a smaller dinner that evening and stayed up late running around the track.

When the 69th Victory Tour came to Two, Pyra watched her mother closely. Her warmth that year with the mentor, Cecilia the 61st Victor, threw her cool professionalism with others, like Gloss the 63rd who had mentored the 68th, into sharp contrast. Pyra had met Gloss at his Tour years before, the first year she had been invited to the party. She had been so young then, so naive. At the 68th Tour, Gloss had seemed to be taking to the celebrity lifestyle well enough. Or he was good at playing roles, too. What exactly that lifestyle included, Pyra still couldn’t know. She watched Hank the 69th Victor, looking for signs of trouble between him and the Capitol. At least for now, this boy from Eight seemed a little on edge but nothing outside of what she would expect of a teenager in his situation. It was so hard to tell. None of it felt normal anymore.

Soon, the winter dance was upon them. Pyra shifted uncomfortably in her padded but otherwise bespoke dress.

“May I have this dance?” Jasper asked, bowing.

“You may.”

The two had gotten off with a rocky start, but ever since, Jasper was not so bad. Pyra noticed how he continued to take opportunities to look tough, how he had been the gypsum calling the alabaster soft when he accused her of overcompensating. In front of his classmates, he usually acted like the sort of boy that grew into the Argos of the world. But when she caught him alone, he was perfectly pleasant. Once, he had said in a peculiar way that he trusted her.

“Are you announcing a campaign tonight?” he asked.

“Not this year. Maybe next year to go to the 72nd at seventeen. You?”

He shrugged, glancing around the dance floor. “Might go traditional at eighteen, but I don't know. There are some fierce up-and-comers in the years behind us, and younger Victors seem to be in style. I don't want to miss my shot if they get picked.”

“True. Some of them are already strategizing volunteer years around the Quell, but that sounds like a big gamble to me,” Pyra said.

In five years, Panem would have their third Quarter Quell. For the first, each District had to elect their Tributes. The Career programs were still young then, but compared to how Two’s training functioned currently, it was not too different. The complication was getting elected by the whole District, not just the Academy, as well as the lack of volunteering to correct bad choices. For the second, the Capitol took twice as many Tributes. While it revealed whose parents lacked faith in them, many students had enjoyed the promise of more chances at glory. In her foolish youth, Galatea had been disappointed that she didn’t make it that year and had to wait another. For the third, anything was possible.

“What do you keep looking at?” Pyra wondered. Jasper was not a bad dancer, but he was failing at leading and seemed distracted.

“Nothing.”

Pyra turned and followed Jasper’s eyes. When she looked back, he was attempting to hide a blush. “What, Regina? Sorry, but I don’t think you’re her type.”

“No, she’s not my type either,” Jasper chuckled and gave Pyra a look, swallowing a secret he dare not say aloud. But she got it.

“Ooooh. The boy she’s dancing with, Petro?” Pyra asked. Petro was a strong candidate for volunteer in the seventeen-year class, intending to go to the 70th that summer.

Jasper grinned and let the flush take his face. “It’s stupid, I know. More likely she’s his type than me.”

“People can surprise you,” Pyra said. “Shoot your shot before he goes. What’s the harm?”

“Eh, we’ll see. You have an eye for anyone?” Jasper asked.

Pyra shook her head. In truth, her fear and confusion around the Hunger Games and training the past few years had been too distracting. She could not look at most boys at school without thinking about how willing they were to kill or die for the Capitol, how unaware they were of the secrets in a Victor’s life, secrets she was still trying to figure out. “I don’t know. Just been focused on school, I guess.”

“Heard some kids think we’re a couple,” Jasper said. “Which might not be a bad thing for me, but I hope it isn’t dissuading any of the guys from approaching you.”

“Oh, you know they just find me intimidating,” she said sarcastically.

Dinner—baked chicken with rice and carrots—was served. The wait staff consisted of Tesseran upperclassmen who had performed so poorly they had no hope of qualifying as volunteers. Rather than be allowed to drop out, they were demoted from trainees to support staff, and regarding them, the Academy had been sending mixed messages. Officially, the stance was that all students were comrades in arms, acting as one to honor the Capitol, each performing their designated role for the communal effort of producing a glorious Tribute. In practice, even the academic teachers clearly favored the more successful trainees, and that attitude was passed on. Tesserans still putting on a decent show made a point to distinguish themselves against those who fell into the low-effort stereotype.

During the meal, volunteer candidates made speeches. It started with new hopefuls in the fifteen-year class, including a couple intentions for the 72nd. Pyra was surprised to see Juni running for the 71st. It was a long-shot, but it looked good to start early. She would have better chances in the next two if she was not chosen that year. It moved up through the classes, students announcing or updating campaigns for the 71st. That included Regina, though Pyra knew she barely qualified and would not be taken seriously.

To qualify for volunteering, there was a complicated system of personal and physical requirements. These included running a sub-six minute mile, passing a mock interview, receiving decent grades, and scoring an 8 at the final trial. Weightlifting standards were set at various levels for different exercises, but the 100 clubs were what really mattered. To qualify, students had to be in the T100 club, which meant being able to bench press and squat 100 pounds. The candidates with real shots at success were C-weight, able to lift their own bodyweight, for both. Elite students were V100, performing at body weight plus 100, in at least one of those exercises. In the Academy’s decades of operation, only a handful of students made V100 in both. Pyra knew Regina had been C-weight in squatting for months but still struggled with the bench. Pyra herself was nearly V100 in squatting, C-weight in both, and met all of the minimum standards except for the trial score and mile time, which was the most realistic part for her to fail if she wanted to throw something and disqualify herself. But that would be cowardly.

Finally, the few who were still competing for a spot in the 70th made their cases. As Petro spoke of his advantages over the competitors, Pyra whispered to Jasper, “Would you vote for him?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“I mean, if we’re talking types, why condemn him to possibly getting killed or… or whatever shit happens to Victors?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jasper whispered, a little annoyed. “I think he could do it, and Victors’ lives are sweet. You would know, right? Now, shhh, I’m trying to pay attention.”

Over dessert—fruit and granola in yogurt—the students completed their ballots. “Voting for your friends?” Jasper asked.

“I don’t know,” Pyra admitted, her pen hovering over the line. She knew Petro was the best choice for the 70th, and she voted for him and the female front-runner. For the initial round of votes for the 71st, she hesitated. “I don’t think either Regina or Juni are ready. Juni would do better physically, but I’m not sure volunteering at sixteen is the best choice for her. And I don’t know how Brutus would… I don’t know. I’m just gonna vote for one of the others.”

“Wow,” Jasper scoffed, “that’s cold. No support for your girls?”

Pyra shrugged. “We do what we can. It’s not like this round matters much, anyway.” There was no way she could tell him the truth, not there. She had skirted dangerously close to it already. There was no way she could tell anyone, not even Jasper who trusted her, that she was afraid of watching her friends die or that there was something suspicious and malicious going on between the Capitol and popular Victors.

“Well, if they don’t go to the 71st, remember they’ll run against you for the 72nd,” Jasper said.

“True. Juni might beat me there, but I’m not too worried about Regina. She doesn’t have the upper body strength, might never make the full C-weight club. And I’m a better fighter. Got a better grade in Wilderness Survival, too.” It hurt to think about how few challengers she would honestly have by then. Every year, the pool narrowed. “Or who knows? Maybe someone younger will take that one, after all.”

It was a good excuse, a comfort. And yet, if Pyra did not run for Tribute, if she let her mile stay slow or botched the trial or mock-interview, some other girl would go in her place. If she truly was the best option that year, whoever went instead would have a harder time winning. When she had such a good shot at Victory, was it wrong of her to let someone else go, struggle, and die? However minute the differences may be, the guilt was there.

A week later, the votes of the lower classes were counted, and the Academy chose designated volunteers. The election was a large factor in that, but the board also considered each student’s record as an individual and how they may fare as District teammates. Petro was elected and chosen. The female designated Tribute, Vala, had lost the election by a sliver, but they picked her for her exemplary training history and chemistry with him. They made a good team. Over the next six months, they and their understudies would train extra hard and receive special attention. All the District’s honor for the pair. If they were lucky, one would come home Victorious. One or both were sure to come home dead.

Chapter Text

It was a long drive down the mountain. They had left the Academy at dawn, and Pyra wished she had eaten a bigger breakfast first. Aunt Cornelia sped down the curving road expertly, rattling off tips like they were back in Vehicular Skills class. When the sun was high, the van reached the bottom of the road, downhill from Eastwatch.

“All hard, trainees!” Aunt Cornelia cheered. “May the odds be ever in your favor. See you up there.”

The group of six fifteen-year class students and Vala, the female designated volunteer for the 70th Hunger Games, filed out of the van and watched Cornelia loop around, leaving them in the dense forest. Pyra swatted a fly. It was turning out to be a warm, damp, buggy April. Awful weather for a Wilderness Survival excursion.

“Ok, pebbles,” Vala began with peppy zeal. “Welcome to Point 1. First, we’ll start south and set up camp at Point 2. Follow me.”

As she led them south through the valley, Vala lectured the trainees on local plants, how to move quietly in rough terrain, and the importance of teamwork. She took her role as a Junior Mentor very seriously. “In the arena, your pack is vital. When Petro and I team up with the Tributes of One and Four, we will set District divisions aside. Alliances can save your life. Remember, you all share the same goal, to honor the Capitol. For the majority of the Games, that means working together to beat out the weaker ones. On this excursion, I will be judging your survival skills, and that includes functioning as a team under stress. If you cannot work together, you will not be an asset to the pack.”

The break from hyper-competition was refreshing. Pyra walked with Juni, who had been in a good mood since the dance. Juni saw her early eligibility for Tribute and the announcement of her campaign as a significant advantage over Pyra. And it was, but half of Pyra knew she could present herself as a stronger competitor for the 72nd if it came to it. The other half worried for her friend.

At Point 2, a small clearing with an old fire scar, Vala directed the trainees to gather water from a nearby stream, material for a shelter, and firewood.

Wilderness Survival excursions allowed the students to start with a basic cache of supplies and weapons, the sorts of things they may find at the Cornucopia. Otherwise, it was meant to simulate a Sponsorless experience. One of the boys in their group, Gaius, was an excellent shot with a bow and was sent to find dinner. Pyra almost regretted not developing her archery skills more, but at the end of the day, true proficiency in the art required sacrifice of time and effort in other areas, and bows were not as common in the Cornucopia as other weapons.

The group got their fire going and shelter built just in time for sunset. Gaius returned with a selection of rabbits, which they skinned and roasted. Pyra relished the juicy meat in her empty stomach. It would be a long trek back up the mountain.

Around the fire, the trainees told old ghost stories, sagas of Tributes past. Their eyes sparkled with the glory of it all.

Pyra wished she could return to that innocence. She wished she could laugh about Two’s girl a few years back being clever enough to poison an alliance that had sprung up between Seven and Nine. She wished she saw the beauty in the boy a decade before who had rigged a trap that rivaled the skills of those from Three, using his superior strength to put the required tension on a line. She wished she still felt about Enobaria’s Victory the way she had when she was young. She wished she still saw the Tributes of lesser Districts as beneath her, closer to animals, easy to kill.

It was simpler that way; to believe in honor, for glory to be the only goal. It had made sense.

Now, life was more complicated. She saw how her mother no longer pretended to be ok when she returned from trips to the Capitol. She saw how her mother let herself show her relief as they became less frequent. She understood how bad it must be if her mother still thought the details were too grisly to share. She felt no excitement at the stories of gore, only fear. As she continued to excel in training, the fear of being the object of gore was slowly losing ground to the fear of being the one dishing it out. Victory no longer looked so glamorous. It was starting to weigh on her to have to maintain her image as the glorious future Victor she was born to be while worrying what it would feel like to kill another person, or what life after the arena entailed.

The night brought a chill, and Pyra pulled her light jacket tighter around herself.

“Hey, you ok?” Juni asked, offering another rabbit leg.

“I’m fine,” Pyra said. The leg was a warm comfort. “Just a little eerie out here, isn’t it?”

Juni laughed, that hearty laugh that so often came with a solid clap on Pyra’s back. “Oh, Pyra. You’re too sweet. You think this is eerie? Just imagine the arena cameras watching you take a shit.”

“Right, that will feel creepier,” Pyra said with a genuine smile.

The next morning, the pack disassembled their shelter and saved what they could carry for the next night.

The planned trail was steep. Although each group followed roughly the same route, the wear on the earth was minimal. Most of the climb was rocky, and trainees moved single-file, helping each other navigate unsure footing up precarious ledges. An exposed tree root Pyra had used for leverage pulled free from the rock, but her packmate Juni was there to catch her.

In more peaceful stretches slanting up the mountainside, Pyra admired the view. From the eastern face, the rising sun eased the morning’s work.

The pack gathered edible plants along their way—wild onion, burdock leaves and roots, nettle root, miner’s lettuce—to cook when they next made camp. Gaius shot a squirrel, and then Vala told him to pass the bow, giving another trainee a chance to support the group with meat and show off their skills.

By evening, they made it to Point 3, another relatively flat spot near an uphill portion of the same stream.

When the group refilled their pair of water jugs, Vala warned them to enjoy it while they were there. “After we leave here tomorrow morning, we won’t encounter the stream again. If we keep pace, we should make it up to Eastwatch by tomorrow night.”

Dinner was small. The woodland salad and small portion of squirrel did not fill Pyra’s stomach like she had hoped it would. After the arduous hike, the group was more inclined to falling straight to sleep than staying up telling campfire stories. Pyra and Juni took the first watch, feeding the fire and keeping an eye out for predators that were known to roam the mountains.

“I wish Vala hadn’t made Gaius pass the bow,” Juni complained when they were the last two awake. “He’s the best shot in the class, and we’re lucky to have him in our group. Seems silly not to take advantage of that. Doesn’t teamwork mean putting people in the correct roles? I get what Vala was going for, but it wasn’t very smart if you ask me.”

“I hear you,” Pyra said. She looked out between the dark trees, imagining a predator lunging through them. Her hand tightened around her knife. She knew the next Reaping Eve’s dog would have nothing on a wolf or mountain lion, but it was the same basic idea. She was meant to be able to fight off a mutt. If it came to it, if she were braver and a better hunter, maybe the woods would not seem like such a threat. “Funny that they do these excursions at all, isn’t it?”

“I know. It’s not the most accurate, since there aren’t other humans out there trying to kill us. Good practice for arena hunger, I guess. Especially if Sponsor prices are high,” Juni said, mulling over the idea behind the exercise.

“That, too. But I mean… it’s the only time we’re allowed outside the fence. What if one of us just… snuck off? Nicked a water jug and a few weapons and slipped away while the others slept?”

Juni snorted, laughing so hard Pyra worried she would wake the others. “That’s insane! Would be a total asshole move, for one, since I doubt the rest of us would make it back with only one jug’s worth of water. They’d also have nowhere to go. If the rest of the pack did make it back up, they’d report the deserter, and Peacekeepers would be after them like that.” She snapped for effect. “But also… why? What would be the point of doing something so reckless? I don’t think the Academy is worried about any of us being that stupid. Or ungrateful.” She shot Pyra a suspicious look. “Probably die in a day or two, anyway.”

“No, yeah,” Pyra agreed. “My thoughts exactly. Maybe it’s nice that they trust us like that. To be smart enough not to try. Just curious, imagining weird scenarios like what if we had to live in the woods for real, if something happened and there were no District 2.”

“You’ve got a strong imagination, I’ll give you that,” Juni said, tossing another log on the fire. “I think, if something happened to the District, we could make it. All that training would pay off for sure. But don’t worry, the District isn’t going anywhere.”

The next morning, the pack broke down the camp, chugged water and refilled the jugs for the final time, then set on the trail.

Hunger was getting to them all. Vala emphasized that the scarcity of food for those few days was part of the point. “Even with Sponsors, the arena is harsh. Every bit of food must be treated carefully. A successful Tribute is one who can stay focused on the task at hand even in an extreme caloric deficit.”

A straight vertical climb took every bit of Pyra’s focus. Vala reached the top of the ridge first and secured a rope to a large tree. She threw it down for the students to use as a handhold. Pyra’s mouth was dry. Her stomach was growling. Her instincts told her to save her energy, but they had to press on.

“Rope is a very useful Cornucopia grab. Don’t neglect it if you see it. While weapons are normally placed near the center, grabbing a length of rope on your way in is both useful to you and means a weak Tribute, who may pick something from the periphery and run, can’t make off with it. Those first few seconds require multitasking—”

Vala’s lecture was cut off by a blood-curdling scream. Pyra looked down and saw Gaius on the ground beneath her. He was curled onto his side, one leg tucked beneath him, and clutching the other one, which extended straight out. She could see blood around the ankle and knee of it.

“Fuck!” he screamed. “My leg! My leg is broken!”

He had been in the back of the pack, and the rest of them looked down at him from the ridge. He was just behind the last one a moment ago, and Pyra calculated he must have taken a thirty foot fall onto the rocks. He was lucky it wasn’t worse, only a broken leg.

In the woods around Two, only a broken leg could mean dying out there. They all knew it.

“We can help him,” Pyra suggested. She dropped her pack and grabbed the rope to lower herself back down, taking only the knife on her belt.

“How?” Juni asked, her face serious and sad. Even she did not want to say it out loud.

“We’ll figure something out,” Pyra said before starting her descent. “This is a teamwork challenge, right?” It was unsteady, felt riskier than on the way up. She wished they had rappel devices like in school.

At the base of the cliff, she found Gaius barely keeping it together. He was putting on a brave face, like a good Career, but it was covered in tears. When their eyes met, she knew he was already coming to terms with never making it back to Two alive.

“Hey, Gaius,” she said. “I’m gonna try to get you out of here.”

“It hurts. I can’t go on,” he said, desperation soaking his voice.

“Without you, we’d only have had onions and gross-tasting forest plants the past two days,” she reminded him. “You’re an asset to the pack, and I’m going to make sure you stay with us. Let me see it.”

Gingerly, he shifted to show her his knee. The whole joint was busted. It would hurt too much to try bending it, might not be possible, and Pyra knew why. His pant leg was soaked in blood that kept coming, and shards of bone ripped through the fabric. Tibia in the front, and the patella bulged up from an incorrect position. The fibula was piercing out from too high. The ankle was similarly shattered, blood climbing into the white of his sock.

“Part of my tibia is up inside my femur, isn’t it?” Gaius panted, tears streaming.

“Not necessarily,” Pyra tried. “The femur is strong.”

“Stop! Stop! Stop! Don’t touch it!”

There was too much swelling and broken pieces for her to tell, but it did not look good. The ligaments were done for. Personal first aid was taught in school, but severe injuries like this didn’t quite make the curriculum.

“In any case, we have to stop the bleeding and stabilize it,” Pyra said, still hoping there was something she could do. She untied her jacket from her waist and tried wrapping Gaius’s knee. He seethed, biting back screams, but allowed her to try. She cut some of the hanging rope and tied two large sticks into a brace. “Can you stand on your other leg, you think?”

Gaius grimaced but nodded, willing to try.

Pyra slung Gaius’s arm over her shoulder, let him grab the rocks for more support, and hauled him up to lean on his good leg. “There, see? You’ll be ok. I can carry you up this.”

“Are you sure? You could fall, too, and then we’d both be dead.”

Pyra looked up. The rest of the pack was staring down at them, horror barely masked by pity. “Can we make a pulley or something?” she called up to them.

“Not enough rope,” Vala said. She shook her head. “He’s not making it.”

“It’s… it’s a teamwork challenge,” Pyra said, her voice breaking. “We’re a pack.”

“Packs dissolve. Allies die. There is only one Victor,” Vala said coldly. “And teamwork means acting for the good of the entire pack. We need to keep moving if we’re going to make it back by nightfall.”

“Shit.” Pyra turned to Gaius and whispered, “You know, I think the road must only be a few miles north of us. If we can make it there, it’ll be a longer, winding path up to Eastwatch, but it’ll be smoother.”

He looked at her with a face that paled by the moment, wincing in pain and eyebrows tilted like he did not believe that would work any more than she did. “Come on, Pyra,” he said quietly, defeated. “We can’t split from the group for anything. We aren’t even sure where the road is. You know how this ends.”

“I do,” she asserted. “It ends with my ally living to fight another day.”

Determined, she helped Gaius position himself on her back, good leg hooked around her waist and arms over her shoulders. “Don’t let go of me,” she instructed. “Just support yourself, and I’ll get us up there.”

It was a high compliment that Gaius trusted her to attempt this, but it was not like he had many options. As she pulled herself and Gaius up, she thanked the Academy weight room and dining hall for the strength. Her hands screamed against the rough rope, but handholds were slim and slippery. Where angles in the cliff face almost formed a chimney, she worked her way up by pushing off the sides.

Gaius was not the biggest boy in their class. Like many, he was a bit shorter than Pyra. But he was heavy. All of the trainees were made of dense muscle. For its benefits, it added up to dead weight in a rescue situation.

She was halfway up when her foot faltered. She caught herself on blistering hands, but Gaius lost his grip. She felt him grasping at her arms, his good leg desperately trying to catch something before slipping to the side, but she could do nothing from her position. He landed with a snap.

Pyra almost couldn’t bear to look down at him, but she had to. He was back on the ground, one arm bent under his head from when he tried to protect himself. It was bleeding, clearly broken. He didn’t move, but he was breathing. No more screams escaped his mouth, only pained groans and whimpers.

She couldn’t breathe. She clutched the rope and hoped her legs would stay steady enough to hold herself, lest she join him.

“Pyra.” Vala’s face was tight. She gave a short shake of her head. “You know what you need to do. Take care of it.”

The other trainees showed a mix of fear, pity, sadness, and impatience. None looked too eager to take Pyra’s place, and she couldn’t blame them.

“He’s our ally,” she reasoned.

“And he’s done.”

Pyra lowered herself back down.

“Gaius?”

He wheezed. His eyes were fixed on the sky, but they darted to her face a couple times. “Do it,” he choked out.

His body was limp, probably a broken spine. No matter what she tried, she was not getting him back to the Academy.

“I’m sorry. You fought well.”

Gaius closed his eyes, ready for it to just be over. If it was a spinal injury, it was likely he couldn’t feel much. Still, she hoped he went quickly. She slit his throat and watched the blood pulse out of his body, a red stream sliding down the mountain. She added a stab to the heart for good measure.

She pulled his body to the side of the cliff face and folded his arms over his chest. They didn’t have any breadcrumbs. She hoped whoever was sent to recover him for a funeral could do it quickly, before the animals got him.

The rest of the journey was quiet. The pack barely made it up to Point 4 outside Eastwatch an hour after sunset. In the dark, all Pyra could see was Gaius’s face, how he had looked at her when he knew he was not going to make it.

In the van, Aunt Cornelia passed out water and protein bars, which the trainees devoured hungrily. Pyra was starving, but she gave her bar to Juni, afraid having anything solid in her stomach would make her puke.

“You did the right thing,” Juni said. “At least, we have off of training tomorrow. Go rest, sleep in, and it’ll all be ok.”

Cornelia, Vala, and the others gave the same advice, the same assurances. Pyra told them she would, knowing a restful sleep was not what awaited her.

The way they talked about Gaius was sickening. The group mourned the bright future he might have had, how he could have put those archery skills to good use in the arena. They spoke of what a glorious Victor he could have been. They lamented his wasted potential. Pyra had not known him very well, but she hoped, if she died, someone would mourn her for who she was outside of the Games.

When the van arrived back at the Academy, she walked home to Victors’ Village.

“Mom?” she called when she opened the door.

“Hey,” Galatea greeted her, still up at that hour because she knew the Wilderness Survival group would be back late. She had not known if Pyra would come home that night or spend it at the Academy. Her daughter’s choice was a comfort. “How was the excursion?”

After holding herself together like a good Career all day and night, Pyra burst into tears. She told her mother everything. She knew it was a mercy kill. She was afraid her hesitancy had made her look weak. She was afraid of what it meant that she cared about that. She was afraid the arena meant embracing being a cold-blooded killer or being taken out by one. And through that, she was angry.

“I’ve been afraid and angry for years!” she cried. “Ever since the things you said after Alexandra, I’ve been so confused. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know what I can do! I feel useless! I can’t fight the people who actually need fighting. I can’t save anyone either. I’m so stupid and useless!”

Galatea did what she could to comfort her. It wasn’t enough. Nothing could be.

Chapter Text

Petro and Vala made a good pair. They stood tall and strong on the Reaping stage, basking in the camera’s gaze. Both of them projected such confidence that District 2 would bring home the 70th Victory.

After the visitations, Pyra caught Jasper blushing. “How’d that go?”

He looked like he could skip up into the clouds from how happy he was. “Amazing! I wasn’t letting myself hope too hard, was totally ready to be shot down, maybe even hated. But Petro’s cool. He was surprised to see me there, but I told him I liked him, and he didn’t react as bad as I feared. He was into it. He said, when he gets back, we can talk!”

“That’s great! Congratulations!” For Jasper’s sake, Pyra hoped Petro would come back. Selfishly, she wondered if his Victory would provide her any more insight on the mystery of Capitol business.

The arena was dry, rocky. Most of it consisted of a deep, craggy canyon that had a slim river running through the center. Its banks were a killing ground with the Career pack prowling for thirsty weaklings. Some lucky Tributes found pools of water elsewhere. On one end, a gigantic dam held off a treasure trove of hydration. Few Tributes attempted to scale the cliffs near it, trying to reach the reservoir, but none made it. The girl from Six almost did, but the boy from One caught sight of her just ten feet from the top, and his arrow reached her back.

“Gotta be a natural canyon,” one student said, and all the rest agreed. Everyone in Two admired the layers of stone species and the erosion-carved curves of the caverns. If this were a purely fabricated arena, the Gamemakers had done a fantastic job.

On the fifth day, a small rumbling sent a formation crumbling. It blocked off an entire region of the arena, slowly herding the Tributes into a more confined space. Still on the fence about the arena’s nature, students were torn between anger at the destruction of such beautiful, ancient formations and impressed that a fabricated, malleable arena could look so natural.

On the seventh day, the Career pack grew tense. They were in the top ten. Just two more left until top eight and dangerously nearing the top six. Class was interrupted to tune into what was shaping up to be a critical moment. Petro and Vala were eyeing the pair from Four, who were tracking human prey.

“No,” Jasper breathed, white-knuckled fists on his desk. “Not from behind.”

Petro snuck behind Four’s Tributes, sword drawn. Stealthier than one would expect for a boy his size, he brought the sword down on the other boy’s neck. His head fell away, a spray of blood hitting his District partner, who screamed wildly.

“What a wuss!” the girl beside Pyra remarked, and other students laughed along. She almost thought they meant Petro for the unsportsmanlike sneak attack on his ally, but it was about the screaming one.

The girl from Four scrambled, narrowly dodging Petro and Vala’s attacks. Her partner’s blood on her face dripped down and back as she sprinted along the river.

Behind her, those from One hesitated, unsure if they should stay joined with Two against Four or flee for themselves. Vala let the screaming girl run and turned to them. In the fight between One and Two, Vala was killed. The boy from One was injured, and his own partner finished him off. Pyra’s classmates applauded her performance compared to that other shameful display. The skirmish concluded with Petro and the girl from One allying as a pair.

Pyra tasted bile in her throat, but she knew it made sense. After the injury, One’s boy was done for, anyway. Continuing from this point as a pair was more manageable than the full six-pack and safer than being alone.

The screaming girl from Four was impressively fast. The lingering camera focus felt wrong, veering on obscene, but Pyra could still appreciate how deftly she navigated the shoreline. She did not stop running, dark brown hair flying behind her the whole way across the arena. At the far end, she hid in a cave and cried, wailing about her partner, Cyrus.

“Stun and sever, stun and sever, heads off, guts out… skin it well… guts out…” she stammered to herself. Her whole body was shaking. Deep in a cave, the once great and vicious Career was clearly losing her mind. Pyra wondered if the song-like thing she kept repeating was about humans or fish. She had not seen Tributes skin each other in the Games, but far be it from her to guess what they taught in Four.

“Damn, if I turn out like that, just send a mutt in, for real,” another student sneered.

“Sever, heads off… guts… b-blood… It doesn’t make sense.”

The words of the girl, shocked into lunacy, pricked Pyra’s ears. She sounded right in a scary way.

“...doesn’t make sense. Cyrus. Cyrus! Heads off, skin it well, filet…” She pressed her hands to her ears and screamed. “They played us! None of it was real! Makes no sense! Lies! Lies! Lies!”

Abruptly, the screen switched to the view of another camera. Petro and One’s girl were doing just fine, leisurely making their way down the stream.

“All hard,” the teacher said as she shut off the program. “Exciting stuff this afternoon! But the rest can surely wait for the recap.”

The class discussed the strategy of pack dissolution. They briefly mourned Vala, commended her bravery and strength. Lucky it had not come down to her and Petro. No one wanted to kill their District partner. It was smart of the girl from One to do so, securing a lasting alliance with Petro.

Pyra was in a daze. Four’s girl, Annie, was hitting too close to home.

That could be me.

The next two days, there were no more kills. Another small rumbling closed off more area. Interviews with the families of the top seven began. The recaps featured Annie hiding, looking more like the fearful Tribute of an outer District than the Career she had entered as. She found the best hiding spots, still smart enough for that. Her Sponsors dried up, and all of the trainees could see why. She was a joke, a failure, pathetic. Pyra looked at her cracked lips, wide eyes, and hollow face and was less disturbed by her cowardly behavior than by how much sense it made.

On the tenth day, an earthquake shook the arena. Class was paused once again for live viewing of the climax of the Games. The dam burst.

Tributes near the initial rush of water, millions of gallons pouring down, were crushed instantly. Others fled and were washed away.

As soon as that rumbling started, Annie began to climb. She continued muttering to herself about heads and blood. The crazed look in her eye never faded. Yet, she navigated the canyon wall with impeccable sharpness and speed.

Eventually, the water reached her. Being from Four, of course, she was a strong swimmer. But the water was heavy, moved quickly, and slammed in waves against the rocky walls and pinnacles. She kept herself afloat, and that alone was impressive. Especially for a girl gone mad.

Other Tributes broke bones on rocks. They gasped desperately and grabbed at nothing, slipping below the surface one by one. Pyra could hardly hear the cannons over the water. Petro was nowhere to be seen.

At last, the water calmed and slowly lowered to a moderate level. Annie secured herself on the top of a ledge and fell on her back, panting. A fanfare sounded.

“I’m sorry, Jasper,” Pyra said after class.

He shrugged and cleared his throat. “We knew it could happen. Just hoped it wouldn’t.”

In the months that followed, students insisted the Training Academy invest in a pool. They did not have the budget. Maybe if they earned it with another Victor, the board would consider it.

In November, Pyra met Annie Cresta the 70th Victor at her Tour. Like Finnick, she was beautifully styled, but for her, the crowd hardly clapped. In her, they saw no glory to celebrate. Her win was a disgrace.

At the party after her speech—quiet, barely audible words of thanks read from shaky notecards—Annie did not make eye contact with anyone.

“Hey, you know, I think you did pretty well,” Pyra said to the Victor everyone was already referring to as the Mad Girl. Pyra hated that. No matter how they won, Victors deserved the respect and honor they had been promised. If they could not expect that, the bare minimum, then the whole thing really was a lie. “Don’t listen to the critics. Easy to have opinions from the other side of the screen, right? I think… I think you make sense.”

Annie looked up and met Pyra’s eyes. They held them, captivating. Bright green, intense, and tired, Annie’s eyes looked straight through Pyra’s. She felt her heart quicken, stunned and unable to look away. She felt seen and, at the same time, put in her place. Her opinion was no more welcome than the others.

“You can’t trust anyone,” Annie murmured, lips barely moving, so quietly Pyra strained to hear it. “Not your allies, or your friends, or…” She turned to her Mentor, Cambar the 57th Victor. “I’d like to go to bed soon,” she said firmly.

Cambar smiled and nodded. “Of course, Annie, we’ll be done here shortly. You can take a nice rest on the train.”

Before they left, Galatea handed Cambar a small, gift-wrapped package. “For Mags,” she said. “A token from a fellow Victor who knows of loyalty. Tell her I say to get well soon, and I’m very proud of Annie.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the gift. Something in the air about him shifted. About her mother, too, and Pyra felt like she was missing something. “The stroke set her back, but she’s on the mend. She’ll get there. Support from fellow Victors means a lot to her. Beetee is sending us home with some new gadget that’s meant to help with her embroidery, easier on arthritic old hands.”

“What a kind gift. Glad to hear he is well. And still so loyal,” Galatea said. The two older Victors grinned politely, and Pyra saw her mother breathe easier, years of tension falling from her face in seconds. The rest of the night, she was more relaxed than she had been in years.

Pyra asked about it, and Galatea told her, “Like Capitol business but not. Keep those keen eyes looking, and you’ll see.”

That December, Pyra reluctantly announced her intention to volunteer for the 73rd at eighteen. So far ahead, she did not yet have to make speeches or run in a preliminary election, just get her name out there. The Academy was confused and disappointed that she had no intention for the 72nd.

“Why not just run for it? Even if you don’t think you’ll get chosen? You’ve got a really good shot.” Regina asked the weekend after the dance. Like the good old days, Pyra, Regina, and Lapis were staying up late at Regina’s house. She was sour about her campaign struggles, knowing the announcement of designated volunteers later that week would most likely not include her name.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Pyra said. “Wouldn’t want to run against you if you try again. And I don’t know… you know I’ve been feeling weird the past few years. Gotta get my head in the game.”

“That’s for sure,” Regina laughed. “But I’m happy you’re still trying. You were starting to scare us for a second, there.”

“Careful, though,” Lapis added. “By the 73rd, I’ll be sixteen and might give you a run for your money.”

“Shut up, pebble,” Pyra joked. When she played that role, acted like she was on track to be the 73rd shining beacon of the Capitol’s power, life was easy.

Pyra played pretend all through spring. She fought hard in competitive matches, shutting down gossip of pulled punches. She was aggressive. After her mother’s mention of “like Capitol business but not,” she had a feeling something was brewing. She hated that she was still so in the dark about the lives of the Victors, but this side of it felt different. The mystery energized her, like something big was coming and she had to be ready. She would train hard and study well.

In May, Carson and Echo got married. The ceremony in Northspire was lovely, and Pyra accepted that adult relationships did not always work out, people moved on. Galatea and Carson’s relationship had been more complicated than Pyra could know in her youth. With greater understanding, she accepted Echo as part of the family just like her mother did. When they lit their candle, facing the last light of a setting sun, Pyra hoped they would be happy together for many years.

She did not know the volunteers for the 71st personally, but she had voted for them.

When it came down to the final eight, there were only three Careers left in the pack, both from Four and Two’s girl. When they interviewed the families, students were surprised to see a gaggle from Seven cheering on their girl, Johanna.

“Who?” a boy at Pyra’s table wondered comically when the interviews aired during lunch.

“That little wily one,” someone else said. “She’s just been hiding. Not very impressive, but she seems sorta smart.”

Everyone expected that nobody to be dead by the next day. “If she’s going for the Annie strategy, I think she forgot the part about starting strong,” a student joked.

The boy from Eight had an ax. When he wandered near Johanna’s hiding place, she emerged, and they fought. Johanna showed more skill than the audience had expected, but Eight’s Tributes were not often great challenges. He died with a knife in his chest, and Johanna left it there, letting the hovercraft take it. She held his pretty ax up to the sky, looking ecstatic.

For another day, she continued to hide and collected her first small Sponsor gift. When it was down to the top five, Johanna surprised them again. Class was paused that afternoon when the three Careers were hunting Johanna and looked like they were about to find her. Unfortunately, she found them first.

“Crag of quartz! Did you see that?!” Jasper exclaimed.

No one in the arena or the audience expected her to fly out of the trees behind her hunters and take out Four’s girl with hardly a sound. Only the crack of her ax through her skull alerted the other two.

“This is like how that other one tried to get Certman!” someone noted.

“But she’s better,” Pyra said in admiration. “She played them.” Back in the 67th, Seven’s girl had been so tired by the end. She had started out looking stronger than Johanna and had spent days fleeing and fighting other Tributes. More conservative with her energy, Johanna had presented herself perfectly as a non-threat and holed up, biding her time. No one had bothered hunting her until there were so few left.

It was a hard fight, but Johanna managed to take out the remaining two Careers as well. She only had one competitor remaining, and the Sponsors showed up in droves. Pyra watched her scarf down bowls of food and apply medicine to her wounds. Hitherto, she owed her saved-up strength to lying low and gathering. Now, she would owe her strength for the final stretch to her Sponsors.

At last, a mutt encounter drove the boy from Eleven out into the open, where an armed lumberjack awaited him. Their battle was long and rough. When both of them were staggering and wounded, her ax caught him in the chest. For all her Sponsor food the last couple days, the effort was catching up with Johanna. She was spent. She fell back onto the stoney ground while he bled and wheezed against a collapsing lung. Soon enough, he stopped, and the Victory fanfare rang out.

Pyra no longer knew what to expect from Victory Tours, after Annie. Her class was split between admiring Johanna’s strategy and turning up their noses at her weak start. Cowardly, they called it. Still, better than her predecessor.

Johanna Mason the 71st Victor did not look happy. On the stage, in front of the cameras and the crowd, she faked a smile and delivered an adequate speech. At the party, her escort and her Mentor, Salisa the 36th Victor, frequently reminded her to keep up the act. Pyra had seen Salisa on TV before and always thought she was beautiful. She had olive skin and silver-streaked black hair like Haymitch from Twelve. Many from Seven had that look about them. Johanna almost did, just a bit lighter.

Looking up to every Victor that came through, Pyra had always been the kid in the room. Now, she was a few months into being seventeen. Johanna was a few shy of eighteen, a true peer. The closeness only added to Pyra’s unease.

At her Victory ceremony, Johanna had dropped the harmless little girl of her Interview and leaned into the deadly Victor: a little shaken but confident, relieved to be going home, and happy her strategy worked out for her. At the Tour party, she seemed somewhere in the middle or something else entirely. She did not look meek and cowardly, but she was no longer so proud, either. She looked distracted, unsettled, and beneath that, incredibly angry. The heat of her rage radiated from her body, almost palpable. Pyra felt a connection in that anger.

“Congratulations, Johanna,” she said. Feeling brave, she attempted to speak like her mother had to Cambar the previous year. “Call me sometime. If you ever want to talk to someone who knows Victors and… who knows about loyalty.” She raised an eyebrow and lilted her voice suggestively on the last word, sure it was some kind of code.

If it were, Johanna was not in on it. Or didn’t trust her. Or didn’t care. “Bite me,” she scoffed.

Crestfallen, Pyra kicked herself for looking foolish chasing a hunch. She felt better when Salisa caught her eye curiously and then looked to Galatea, who smiled back at Pyra. Maybe she was onto something, after all.

“Take care of yourself, Salisa,” Galatea said with solemn sincerity when the Victor’s entourage moved on. “We’ll get there.”

Salisa, stone-faced, looked away. “It has been an honor to work with you, Galatea. Don’t worry about me. She’s the loyal one.”

Chapter Text

The Centerbase town square was hot, a particularly bright 72nd Reaping Day sun beating down on Pyra’s head. Every year, she moved closer to the stage, earning a better view of the Victors and Hadrian and a shorter walk up.

“May the odds be ever in your favor!” Hadrian called.

Pyra thanked the stone beneath her feet that the name he read was never hers. Not since the first time. The Capitol could consider that warning heard loud and clear: obey or we’ll Reap your daughter before her time. Except, Pyra’s time was almost there. The relief came even stronger, because if they did Reap her, there was a growing chance those designated volunteers would chicken out and let her take it. Going in a year early was no big deal. At seventeen? Volunteers and their understudies would catch some heat and be teased by their comrades, but they would live. The Academy would understand. She would probably not even get those last-minute challengers. Let Pyra go, they would all think, she can handle it just as well, better maybe. She tried her best not to think about the next year. Even now, she wondered if that girl would die because her odds were just a touch worse than her own might be, if she would die because Pyra was too afraid to win.

Should that be me?

She watched the volunteers receive their applause. Regina had been the girl’s understudy, and now, she was out of the Reaping for good.

When the Tributes moved into the Justice Building for their goodbyes and the crowd began to disperse, Galatea beckoned Pyra over to the side of the stage.

“We have a meeting in the Justice Building,” she said, doing her best not to let her anxiety show.

“What about?”

“Capitol business,” Galatea told her as they walked. “Nothing good.”

In the large, imposing building, the splendor of the architecture and decorative carvings was overshadowed by the growing sense of dread in Pyra’s gut. She followed her mother down the hall, past where families and friends lined up for Tribute visitations, to another room. Two armed Peacekeepers stood in the corners beside the door. A stout man with a coiffed pile of artificially white hair got up from the desk to greet them.

“Ah, you must be dear Pyra,” he sang, taking her hand. Her skin crawled. Meeting a Hunger Games professional from the Capitol had once been a dream, part of her glorious Victory. Now, it was more like a nightmare. “My name is Claudius Templesmith.”

Pyra pulled away as politely as she could. “Yes, sir, hello. I recognize you from TV.”

“Wonderful. I’m also the Assistant Director of Victor Affairs,” he said, looking up at her with that toad-like face of his. “Now, let’s get to business.” Pyra and Galatea sat across the desk from Claudius, who casually removed a hair accessory and started polishing it with his handkerchief. “Pyra, has your mother told you anything about her time in the Capitol?”

“She said she worked with Gamemakers, made appearances for fans at parties and conventions, trained the trainers, that sort of thing,” Pyra said, delivering the stock answer she knew most District folk would have if asked. “Showing her gratitude to the Sponsors, of course.”

“Right, right,” Claudius said. Pyra tried to figure out if he could tell she no longer believed that, if he thought she had figured out the whole truth, if it were better that she had not. “I’ll make this quick. The Capitol has had their eyes on you. Even for a Victor’s child, you’ve shown great promise. We have been curious why you would wait so long to volunteer. You qualify, you would surely have great success with Sponsors, and it would be a damn good show. What has you waiting for eighteen?”

“Better chances,” she replied. “To be the very best Tribute we can offer. I want to get my mile time down; it’s inconsistent and barely qualifies on my best days.”

Claudius sucked his teeth and looked at her sympathetically. “Come, now, Pyra. We both know you’re stalling. Enobaria has told me you’re a great runner. She’s seen you meet the mark routinely when you’re alone, yet you’ll fall short of your Academy’s standards on officially timed runs. She’s also seen anxiety in you, hesitancy. Although, her reports were simply the cherry on top.” He placed a speaker on the desk and hit a button.

Pyra’s fifteen-year-old voice played from its mouth. “I’ve been afraid and angry for years! Ever since the things you said after Alexandra, I’ve been so confused. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know what I can do! I feel useless! I can’t fight the people who actually need fighting. I can’t save anyone either. I’m so stupid and useless!”

Claudius pressed the button again and looked at Pyra patronizingly. “So, the truth now, why would you say a thing like that?”

Pyra looked to her mother, who was staring daggers at Claudius, a snarl starting at the corners of her nose and the muscles of her neck tensing.

“I’m not sure,” Pyra said. “We all have bad days.”

“Dear, sweet Pyra. Even if I believed that, the Capitol has concerns. Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a valid reason for you to put off volunteering this long, and my colleagues fear you may fail to do so next year.” Claudius replaced his hair accessory and examined it in a mirror. So casual. “We fear you may have gotten the wrong idea about the Capitol. Perhaps from your mother, here. Perhaps she said something slanderous about us ‘after Alexandra.’ If that is true, if she or any other Victor has been sowing disrespect, stoking any rebellious fires, something must be done.”

“I haven’t told her anything,” Galatea interjected. “It is not uncommon at all for volunteers to wait until they’re eighteen. I know we’ve had our disagreements, but I’ve left her out of it completely. If the Capitol is dissatisfied with me, let me make it up to them. But this is not her fault.”

“Pyra,” Claudius said, ignoring Galatea, “your mother has disrespected the Capitol on multiple occasions, and we do believe she has been influencing you against us. But the Capitol is generous. She has not done anything so overtly treasonous as to warrant the public punishment of a Victor, and we do not want to give anyone the wrong impression. So, we leave it up to you to make it up to us. Because you have not done anything treasonous yourself, we will give you a choice. Next year, you can volunteer and play to win. If you are Victorious, we can promise to accept your efforts as Tribute and let you live the rest of your life in wealth and peace, just like a Victor should. Alternatively, if you do not qualify by your Academy’s standards at whatever final test they put you through, if you do not volunteer for any reason within your control or not, then we will invite you to the Capitol for one year.”

“Claudius!” Galatea yelled, rising from her seat.

He continued to ignore her, keeping his eyes on Pyra. “After that, you will spend at least five years training students in your Academy. If your performance in that role is unsatisfactory or any whiff of rebellion comes out of your students, we will revisit this agreement.”

“This isn’t fair. None of it is her fault. I’ve been a thorn in your side since she was just a child,” Galatea spat. “She’s had nothing to do with it. She’s a good student. She would never do anything to betray the Capitol. Let me go. Let me atone for all the dissent you’ve heard from me, for what happened after the 65th, for all of it. It was my doing and mine alone.”

“Ms. Lyme,” he boomed, that same voice Pyra always heard making announcements in the arena. If she thought back very hard, his might have been the voice on the phone that evening nearly seven years before. “Calm yourself, please. I don’t want to do this the hard way.”

Pyra glanced behind her at the Peacekeepers, who held their guns at the ready. She eyed the knives at their hips. Close quarters, a Victor and her strong daughter against a couple of grunts and a dopey little TV man, maybe they could take them…

“Pyra.” Claudius broke her out of fantasizing. “The Capitol cannot force anyone to volunteer. Do you understand your options?”

“The invitation would be for a full year?” she asked. “Straight or open for visits like the Victors do?”

“A straight year in the Capitol,” Claudius said. “I know you would miss your friends, but you could make such great new ones. See our culture. See what great things we do with the resources your District provides. See that famous glory for yourself and come home with beautiful stories to inspire new trainees.”

“I see,” Pyra said. She feigned confusion, giving it a little more sass than was wise, beyond caring if Claudius bought any of it. “If it’s all so great, what is the appeal of being left alone after my Victory? ‘In wealth and peace just like a Victor should?’ Do the Victors not live like that already? Would my mother be right to say there are darker things afoot that I don’t yet know of?”

Claudius’s grin turned sour. “I’ll leave that up to you.”

“Who would be in charge of her?” Galatea asked.

“Should dear Ms. Lyme the Younger choose not to volunteer, she would be in the custody of Plutarch Heavensbee, but Hadrian will manage her day-to-day,” Claudius said pleasantly, happy to see Galatea cooperating. He stood. “Take the year to think about it. I have a train to catch.”

Claudius left first, and the Peacekeepers escorted Pyra and her mother out of the Justice Building.

“He’s a Gamemaker,” Galatea said outside. “Plutarch. I don’t know what game Claudius is playing with that, what he knows. No, he can’t. He…”

“Mom, this doesn’t make sense,” Pyra insisted.

“I know.”

Pyra stopped in her tracks. “No, I’m sick of this. I’m done with the secrets. You need to tell me the details. At least, so that I know what I might be getting into and can make a proper decision. Give me the whole truth. What did you mean about the 65th? Was it that business with Finnick?”

Galatea did not want to share the whole truth, but she knew her daughter was right. She led her back to the old empty lot between abandoned houses. Renovations had begun in the neighborhood, and there was construction happening on one side of it. That was good, as Galatea knew the sound would interfere with any new surveillance equipment that might be nearby.

Pyra would have thought that by this point, they had little left to lose by the Capitol discovering how they spoke.

“I’ll start with Finnick,” Galatea said when they sat in the field. He was easier to talk about than herself. “You know how he looks, how they present him. Handsome in that District 4 way, charming… vulnerable. The Capitol loved how young he was. And they see Four as exotic, interesting, a little dangerous but not in a seriously threatening way.”

Pyra understood that. Four’s Tributes had that aquatic mystique, the way Two was of the mountains. Distinct from One and Two, she had gathered that Four was also further away in both geography and culture. Their Tributes spoke with strange accents and sometimes referenced odd customs. The District, as it was presented on TV, had a certain romanticism about it. The Capitol clearly enjoyed their flavor.

“Because he was younger, Finnick made an especially easy and appealing target,” Galatea continued. “I disputed their claim to invite him so soon after his Games, when he was still… just a kid. His trips weren’t public knowledge until over a year later. Keeping it tasteful, they said. I argued with Claudius, and you overheard a bit of that. But when all is said and done, we’re powerless. If I were any more disagreeable, they could have hurt you. Or Carson or Piper. I did what I could to keep my girlfriends secret from them, but the Capitol always has their ways. I tried to keep you out of it and protect you.”

“So, after that phone call,” Pyra said with a deep, shaky breath, “I remember you went to the Capitol pretty soon. And when you came back, it looked like you had fought with someone. It wasn’t just a spar with another Victor, was it?”

Galatea shook her head. “I got a little hot-headed. Shutting up over the phone is easier than letting it happen in person. They had asked me to show him the ropes, guide him through the first one to make it seem like it wasn’t such a big deal, keep it casual and… and so fucking normal.”

“So you fought someone about it?”

“I tried,” Galatea said. “It was not a smart move. I didn’t get far and may have only made it worse for him. I knew it would be trouble, I just couldn’t hold myself back any more.”

“I get that,” Pyra chuckled half-heartedly. Serious again, she cut to the point, “But you were trying to protect him. From what? From how you said the Capitol hurts Victors? Tell me what that is.”

Galatea sighed and looked away, up at the mountains. “What do you think, Pyra?”

She thought of Certman, that night in his living room after a “fan” had sent him home with a bag of medima, a drug that had made Regina so happy for no reason, made everything just so much fun, made her wonder when Pyra got pretty, made her feel like dancing, may have contributed to her getting into bed with a guy she had just met and was five years older, and what Certman had said about that. She thought of why Sponsors would care how pretty a Tribute is in the first place. How boys were more encouraged to make the V100 club than girls, with Academy instructors saying the Capitol does not like their girls so bulky.

“It’s a sex thing, isn’t it?” Pyra said.

Galatea nodded, face blank.

“So, what should I do?”

Galatea shook her head, sighing again. “I don’t know. I don’t trust them. There’s no guarantee that they’ll keep their word about it being only a year or about leaving you alone if you volunteer and win. No guarantee they wouldn’t just kill you in the arena. But I know how Snow works. He’ll honor the agreement if you’re very compliant, in either scenario. But if they think you’ll cause trouble, they may take the reason to cause it right back. I can’t tell you what to do, because if I’m honest…”

“If you’re honest?” Pyra pressed, ice in her chest and mind five feet to the left again. The mention of the president told her this secret went all the way to the top. It was bigger than she had imagined.

“I don’t want…” Galatea swallowed hard. “I don’t want you to get hurt. For Victors who smell like rebellion, the Capitol can make life pretty damn hard. There were nights I thought… I thought even if he has a gun, just run.”

Pyra’s only response was a slow, knowing nod. The silence hung heavy in the air.

Before they left the grassy lot, Galatea added one more thing. “The only bit that gives me the smallest crumb of hope is that you’d be with Plutarch. He’s not as active as we would like, but he’s an ally. He’s been kind before, and I know he’s in touch with Victors like Mags, Beetee, Salisa, and Cecilia, even though they don’t get invited.”

“Loyal,” Pyra said, and Galatea almost smiled.

When they arrived back in Victor’s Village, Enobaria was waiting on their front stoop. Galatea charged toward her, fists clenched.

“Gal! Gal, wait!” Enobaria begged. Galatea punched her in the face. Pyra was stunned.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Baria!” Galatea roared.

“Really? Out here in the street?” Enobaria complained, wiping blood from her nose. Galatea kicked her in the hip, and Enobaria punched her side in return. “I’m sorry, Gal!”

“Mom, stop!” Pyra tried to hold her mother back before the fight could turn any uglier.

“Sorry doesn’t fucking cover it!” Galatea yelled.

“They would have hurt me!” Enobaria reasoned. “I did what I had to do! And either way, I did what was right. You haven’t been yourself in years. You’ve been saying things like, like I don’t know where your head’s at anymore. It’s worrying. I could tell you were holding Pyra back, and that’s suspicious as shit! I only told them the truth.”

“You take your suspicions to me, not to them. You fucking treacherous, sneaky, manipulative, Capitol’s pet bitch!” Galatea punched at Enobaria again, but she blocked it. “You were scared they’d hurt you? All hard, Baria, I’m gonna fucking hurt you!”

Galatea and Enobaria exchanged a few more blows, shouting about honor and secrets and duty while Pyra watched, frozen. Gramps Calloway, looking feeble of stature compared to the younger Victors but invigorated by the situation, came to break them up. Pyra noticed Certman shut his curtains.

“Calm down, both of you!” Gramps yelled. “Let’s all calm down. Gal, we should take this inside. Let her explain.”

Begrudgingly, Galatea opened her door. “I’ll hear her out, but don’t expect me to understand. It’s my kid they’re gonna hurt now, Baria. My kid! But at least, it won’t be you, right?”

“Inside, Gal, inside,” Gramps repeated. “Pyra, you coming?”

“No,” she said. “You all sort out your shit. I want to talk to Certman.”

She pounded on Certman’s door until he allowed her inside.

“Can you believe old Ovid is back to mentoring?” he said, detached from the commotion outside. “Hope Cornelia can keep him focused. Maybe Brutus will end up helping out, even though he’s only there for fun this year.”

“Certman, I need to talk to you about something important. And I know our houses are bugged, but I don’t care anymore, because they already know I know the secret,” Pyra said.

“Oh.” Certman’s face fell. “I didn’t know we were bugged.”

She explained her situation, everything Claudius had said to her and most of what her mother had discussed in the field minus the bit about Plutarch. “So, should I do it? Or take my chances in the arena? My mom wouldn’t go into the gritty details, but I need to make this choice correctly.”

Certman, sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, looked up and took a pad of paper off the side table. “You think they got cameras in here, too?”

“Not sure.”

He led Pyra out to his backyard, pulled two chairs over to the fire pit, and started writing on the pad. “We’ll burn them after, anyway. Even if they know you know,” he said softly, “it’s easier than saying it out loud.”

Pyra nodded. “Thank you. I just want to understand my options as completely as possible.”

As Certman wrote the first page, Pyra started a fire in his pit. Each time he filled a page, she read it and tossed it in. Some of it didn’t seem so bad. It sounded like living in one long Severn Faber music video. Some sounded like the sort of thing Regina could handle just fine. Most of it was harder to stomach. Pyra was surprised he had only returned in a bad mood once in those first couple years. Since then, he was invited less often, and it looked more like a mixed bag. His friends moved on, coming prowling for treats less often after he started coming back in worse states. And Pyra could see why he did. There were pages of absolutely horrifying experiences. She had no question about why he would use drugs like morphling and medima after, or during. When he exhausted his personal tales, he wrote of things he had heard from other Victors.

“That’s all I got. Does it answer your question?” he finished.

“It helps,” she said. “Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy.”

He shrugged. “You may not get it so bad. They’ll try to impress you.”

“And I’ve got a year to think about it.” She turned to Certman, who was watching his stories burn. “I’m sorry to ask, but… I’m being sort of clearly threatened about it. I imagine my mother got threats against my father or me. And I know it’s different because I’m not a Victor, but how did they convince you to agree to this stuff?”

“They didn’t have to,” he said flatly. “It started simpler and got worse, the worst happening once I was in so deep I didn’t think about fighting back like I might have at the start. I just wanted to do my duty. And your mother started before she got married. She thought that would stop it, just like she thought having you would. But that sort of shit doesn’t stop it, just gives them more to threaten you with. But I- we all started out not really needing convincing. Or threats. It’s in our training. If your mom had never said anything to make you question the glory or generosity of the Capitol, if you went into the Games with the same mindset you had before she said anything like that, wouldn’t you be ready and willing to show your appreciation?”

Pyra pondered that for a moment. She didn’t like to think she would have needed no convincing, but he had a point.

“Well, you’ve had a terrible day,” Certman said, cracking a smile. “And thanks to you, so have I. You need a little pick-me-up?” He took a bag of medima from his pocket and popped a pill.

“No, thanks, Cert. I’m good.”

When Pyra came home, Enobaria and Gramps had left. Galatea looked like she had been crying. Pyra said goodnight and headed back to the Academy, where she blasted the heavy station on the radio, punched the old bag until her knuckles bled, and then ran around the track until she passed out.

Chapter Text

For the glory of Panem, I hold my power as my own. To seek peace, I am Panem’s mighty shield. To wield chaos, I am Panem’s ruthless sword. To topple the Capitol, I am Panem’s blazing voice. Panem forever!

Though Pyra’s mouth spoke the standard oath in class every morning, in her head, different words were forming.

The trees changed at a glacial pace compared to Pyra’s mind about what to do. At the same time, the snow was falling too quickly. Her year was running by. The only thing she was certain of was that the Capitol lied. Everything she had grown up loving and aspiring to had been a lie. After years of confusion, it all made perfect sense. One way or another, the Capitol must fall.

In early November, a crowd raved for Pyra and Juni. It was the match of the year, two promising candidates for female volunteer in the eighteen-year class. This would be their final battle. Soon, the recreational athletics would take a back seat to seasonal events like the Victory Tour, Harvest Festival, winter dance, and all-important volunteer designation, and then, the eighteen-year class no longer competed in sports.

“You ready?” Juni asked when they met in the middle of the ring, bumping fists.

“Born for it.” Pyra winked. The catchphrase had become a part of her signature, a little spice to her fighting persona that everyone expected her to use as Tribute. Juni knew her friend meant nothing seriously classist by it, even making a point to set it up every fight. When Pyra fought against other trainees, Juni would shout the question from her corner and let her answer. The people loved it.

The referee signalled for the fight to begin.

With the two of them, the audience could count on a good show. Over the years, their records were phenomenal, winning the vast majority of fights against others and splitting wins of their matches near perfectly in half. Pyra took a selfish sort of pride in the scar she had given Juni when they were fourteen. Juni would never forget the time she had Pyra pinned in under a minute. It was an off day, Pyra told herself.

This fight, the stakes were higher. At the ref’s signal, that friendly banter left to wait at the door. This was for all the marble, the last shot for each of them to impress the Academy before the conclusion of their volunteer campaigns.

Deep down, Pyra knew Juni was simultaneously her toughest competition and greatest hope.

She fought well, just like she had been trained, a creature that never tired. The same could be said for Juni. Pyra knew what she was thinking and was almost jealous of how much simpler it was than what plagued her. If Juni won this fight, she would probably be chosen to volunteer. Pyra would have a harder time making it up to the 73rd Reaping stage, if that were what she wanted. If Pyra won the fight, she would be expected to volunteer. And if she came to the decision that she should not, it would be that much harder to decline.

Juni could make it. If Juni were the volunteer, it was clear that she would have a better chance at Victory than anyone else Pyra knew. With Juni in the arena, Pyra might feel less guilty, not sending a weaker girl to her death. But that was terrible. If Juni died in the arena, or if she were subjected to the sorts of things Certman had written about, Pyra would struggle to forgive herself.

Juni sweeped Pyra’s legs, and Pyra absorbed the motion, rolling around and up into another attack. She got a hold of Juni’s arm and cranked her shoulder, which Juni returned with fierce punches from the other side. Equally matched, equally motivated, the fight lasted longer than any of their previous ones.

“You had enough yet?” Juni taunted, as if to flaunt what energy she still had in the tank.

Pyra did not waste hers talking. Her response was a hard hit to the gut.

Juni caught Pyra in a lock and started beating on her. Pyra looked into the crowd and caught sight of the Victors, watching together from their special seats. Her mother looked worried, knowing exactly what Pyra was thinking. Certman was beside her. Uncle Brutus and Aunt Enobaria were calling for blood. Aunt Cornelia was watching closely but quietly, calculating what she could take from the fight into training the next batch of killers. Uncle Ovid snuck a sip from a flask and passed it to old Uncle Machon and Aunt Sandra, those who typically stayed tucked away at home. Even Gramps was there to watch. Her whole family, there to support her. Ghosts of Victors no longer with them breathed into Pyra’s lungs, and something of her younger self took over.

She faced her choice: rise with their glory or suffer in her cowardice.

At the opportune moment, Pyra channeled the power of all those Victors into her leg and drove her knee into Juni’s side, striking swift and sharp. There was a loud crack, which everyone seemed to register except for Pyra.

Juni collapsed, struggling to breathe. Pyra was seeing red, the glorious blood of a thousand Tributes. The ref’s whistle sounded in her ear, but she still waited for Juni to get back up.

“Is that it?” she yelled. “You done?”

Juni groaned, her breath catching in her throat.

“Yes, yes, she’s done,” the ref said quietly, pulling Pyra away. She was confused. He should have been congratulating her for the win. Instead, he left her and helped make way for the medical team.

Though Juni resisted, weakly insisting she still had a chance, they loaded her into a stretcher.

The ref returned and held Pyra’s hand in the air, announcing her the winner. Pyra saw the people clapping, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was under water, cold, and distant. She watched Juni being taken away. They still had a month, but the campaign was good as won. She did not know what had come over her.

Later that night, Pyra heard from others that she had broken three of Juni’s ribs.

“She’s gotta be out of the running,” Lapis said over dinner. “Congratulations, Tribute!”

Pyra’s steak took forever to chew. She was not in her body. She was thinking about her friend, laid up in the Academy infirmary, hopes of glory dashed in an instant. Pyra knew she had to keep the option of volunteering in her hands, but she could have killed Juni that day.

“Hey.” A girl approached with her tray. “Can I sit with you?”

“Totally!” Lapis welcomed, patting the spot beside her. “Pyra, this is Clove. She’s in the class behind me and wicked with the knives.”

“Pleasure to meet you!” Clove extended her hand to Pyra, who did not shake it. “Um, well, I just wanted to say, that was one crazy match! Like Lapis so kindly said, I’m pretty good with weapons, but I know I’ll need help with unarmed combat if I’m going to volunteer. Can you train me?”

Pyra swallowed an uncomfortable mass of meat and started picking at her rice. “Maybe. Are you strong?”

Clove sat up straighter. “Yes, ma’am, I may look on the slim side, but I’ve been working the weights, and I’m almost in the C-weight club.”

“And you’re in the fifteen-year class now?”

“Correct,” Clove said, nodding, smiling because any attention from Pyra, even if she was in a funky mood, was an honor. “I intend to volunteer for the 74th.”

“That’s very soon,” Pyra noted. “You’re gonna have to put in a lot of work if you aren’t even full C-weight yet. I was only a few months older than you when I made V100 squatting. You don’t want to try for the Quell? Or at eighteen in the 76th?”

“I know,” Clove said. “But I am confident my knife skills will make up for any shortcomings in strength that I can’t overcome in the next year. The Quell is a gamble, and I don’t want to wait. Ma’am.”

“Fuck off with the ‘ma’am,’” Pyra snapped. “I’m still Reaping age. But, sure, I’ll be in the weight room at five tomorrow morning. If you want to get a jump on things, come meet me.” Pyra gave up on dinner and left to clear her tray, Clove and Lapis squealing excitedly behind her.

Pyra thought about visiting Juni in the infirmary, but she was too ashamed. No one would accuse her of going easy now. Juni’s other points from that day in Sponsors class three years before rang in her head. It was true that she was no longer loyal to the Capitol; she was loyal to the people of Panem. More worrying was how Juni had been right that Pyra could struggle to kill, especially if it came down to her and her District partner. None of the Tributes deserved to die. Not even the other Careers who would be going in with the thirst for blood that was expected of them. She walked the halls and dreaded which boy would go in with her, whom she might have to take out. If it came to it.

She taught Clove a thing or two, emphasising the benefits of strength aside from the obvious answer of unarmed combat. But her mind was six months ahead. She feared she would not be able to put on a good enough show. The Capitol would see right through her and kill her in the arena. She could not tell if that would be worse than her other option.

At the 72nd Victory Tour, Theo Alumi and his Mentor, Cashmere the 64th Victor, were cold. They did not speak to Pyra or Galatea.

At the winter dance, Juni made an appearance, but she did not speak to Pyra. Clove and another kid from the fifteen-year class, Cato, announced campaigns for the 74th. Pyra knew younger Victors had their appeal, but some of these kids might be getting ahead of themselves. When she gave her speech, promoting herself as the female volunteer, Juni left the room.

While the students voted, Pyra went to look for her. She found Juni sitting against the hallway wall.

“Hey, Juni,” she tried. “How are your ribs?”

“Healing,” she grunted. “Not fast enough. Can’t do much for ribs, you know. Not with minor breaks like these. Surgery wouldn’t be worth it, they said, so I get rest and pain meds. Morphling ain’t half bad, but… it doesn’t fix anything. They won’t let me go back to training until March, which is complete overkill. Pointless by then, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Pyra said, sitting beside her. “I… I really am sorry for going so hard. I could have killed you.”

Juni scoffed, “You should have. Out of training for months. In my last year with a chance. I’m never making it to the Hunger Games. What’s left for me now?”

To that, Pyra had little, nothing of substance, to say. She had no concrete plans for another life, either. “Weapons, maybe?”

“Pfft. I’d rather die in the arena than just be some regular citizen, producing guns, working on busted hovercraft… a nobody.” Juni took a deep breath and winced. “Well, you got what you wanted. What you were born for. I hope it’s worth it, Tribute.”

A week after the dance, Pyra was officially named the designated volunteer. The boy was Jasper, which boiled her guts. They had good understudies. Hers was a seventeen-year-old who excelled at archery, Brecka. Pyra could only hope she would have Jasper’s back if she decided not to volunteer.

Galatea spent time helping Pyra prepare for the arena. They studied strategies, edible and medicinal plants of different regions, and techniques for handling various terrains. She would make a great Mentor, if Pyra chose that option, just as she had been for Enobaria. Galatea held out hope that the Gamemakers would give her a fair shot, but Pyra wondered if that was wishful thinking. Sometimes Jasper joined them, and they practiced interview angles. They trained together, spotting and pushing each other to achieve greater.

In April, Pyra led a pack of fifteen-year-olds through the woods downhill from Eastwatch on a Wilderness Survival excursion. As a Junior Mentor that spring, time for training younger students replaced competitive fights in her schedule. It was meant to inspire her, get her to think about technique more closely, and practice her teamwork. All of her underlings, especially Clove, looked up to her, just as she had once admired Vala’s abilities and knowledge.

When the group came to the cliff, Pyra looped the rope into her belt. Before she started leading the climb, she said to the students, “A boy died here my year. He busted his knee in a fall. I tried to help him, and he fell again and broke his back. I had to kill him so that we could all get home safely. Please, use the rope as much as you need to. There is no shame in it. Our priority right now is keeping the whole pack alive and moving. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the group confirmed.

At the top of the cliff, Pyra secured the rope and went to toss it down. Behind her, Cato, who had been a total show-off the past two days, rolled up onto the ridge. “Wow, that was a challenge!”

“You should have waited for the rope.” She tossed it down for the others to use. “Didn’t I make it clear this was dangerous?”

“Hey, no point if I’m not the best,” he said with a winning grin. “Careers live and breathe danger. If the designated volunteer can make this climb, I have to match it. If I’ve got any hope for the 74th, that is.”

“You’re an ambitious bunch,” she remarked while they watched the others make their way up. “Or afraid of the Quell.”

“Brutus won at fifteen,” he said. “He’s my idol. I already feel behind not going this year.”

“Fuck it. Volunteer and see what happens,” Pyra said, mostly joking. She did not want to see Cato die, but if Hadrian accepted him over Jasper, that was a win in her book. No matter how it went down, kids were dying that summer.

With summer fast approaching, Pyra hated how unsure she still was about what to do at the Reaping. The more she thought on it, the more important surviving was to her. The Capitol wanted to see kids die. Therefore, the only way to fight them was to stay alive.

Peace for all of Panem, breaking the Capitol’s control, toppling their system of exploitative entertainment… Those grand ideas all felt such a long way off, so far out of her reach, but somehow, she had to get there. No longer giving them her power, Pyra was not the Capitol’s high pedestal or anything else. She did not yet have the power of her own to be Panem’s shield, sword, and voice, but someday, she could. All she needed was a someday.

On July 1st, the eighteen-year class left the Academy for an Advanced Weaponry field trip. Brutus drove the bus across Centerbase and up a mountain road to the Peacekeeping headquarters. Before entering, they each had to sign a form saying they would not tell anyone about what they saw inside the base.

“Welcome, trainees,” a middle-aged man in a white uniform greeted them. “My name is Officer Thread. I command the troops in this base. The entire District is controlled by Head Peacekeeper Harrington. Until now, you have been training for entry in the Hunger Games. That is a very noble pursuit. When you age out of the Reaping this year, there are many other such pursuits available to you. Historically, most trainees who do not volunteer go into Peacekeeping. I hope our tour today will give you a taste of what that entails.”

The class followed Officer Thread through the cavernous base, listening to him speak about the honorable profession. He went into the history of the base, telling them it had once been a mine. “We adapted it decades ago to act as our headquarters in Two. Now, it is the pride of Peacekeeping bases across Panem. The structure built into the mountain makes it impenetrable to rebel attacks.”

In addition to training and housing Peacekeepers, the base had a large hovercraft hangar. The students looked on in awe as one took off at the direction of Peacekeepers in a control center.

“Where is that one going?” a boy asked.

“To hunt down deserters,” Officer Thread said. “As your Academy oath states, we are the mighty shield that keeps peace across the nation. When necessary, we are also the ruthless sword. When citizens rebel against Panem and flee into the wilds, they invite chaos into our lands. Roaming bandits in the spaces between Districts were once a serious security concern. Now, we have the technology to catch them wherever they may go and bring them to justice.”

Pyra looked to Juni, whose mood was lightened by the field trip. For the first time in over half a year, she was actually smiling. She would not be caught calling the mechanics who serviced those hovercraft “nobodies.” Peacekeeping was not such a bad life, either. Pyra hoped Juni might find some contentment in it, even if she would be fighting for the wrong side. Hoping her friend would turn coat and support a rebellion was a pipe dream.

Officer Thread continued with the tour, showing off their armory, training field, and dining hall. “Peacekeepers in outer Districts often complain about the food quality,” he said. “So if any of you are skilled chefs, they may be after you. Here in Two, we are lucky to have some of the best, and our meals match those of your Academy in quality.”

It did smell delicious. Pyra thought if she were any good at cooking, she would keep that to herself, lest she get stuck in an outer District working the kitchen all day. Then again, for those with no other skills or great fear of violence, maybe that was an appealing offer.

The class stopped there for lunch and mingled with the Peacekeepers. They had come from all over Panem, knowing Two was the best place to be stationed. Unfortunately, citizens born in Two were not stationed there unless they served twenty years in another District first. Cannot have them policing their own, not before they proved themselves. That would be a conflict of interest. Citizens of Two did work on the local Peacekeeping bases as engineers and technicians but not full-fledged Peacekeepers.

“Four is also good,” one of the older ones told the students. “If you like water. They’ve even got a navy with patrol ships and escorts for the fishing vessels. Eleven is the hardest. I started there, and the work is intense, to say the least. Twelve is easy but a bit of a shithole.”

One of the students asked if Officer Thread was from Eight. “With a name like that, right?” A Peacekeeper explained that Thread was actually from the Capitol. It was rare that District folk had the aptitude for command positions.

After lunch, Officer Thread led the students outside to the training field and passed out rifles and ammunition. Targets were scattered on the far end. The field was much larger than the Academy range, and the students were eager for the greater challenge.

Brutus addressed the class, “I hope you have all learned a thing or two about the Peacekeeping lifestyle and our fine facilities. Now, this is an Advanced Weaponry trip, so we’re going to be doing some target practice. Show Officer Thread how well I’ve taught you.”

Along with the other students, Pyra expertly assembled, loaded, aimed, and shot her rifle. She had come a long way since the course began. Amidst whispers of loyalty between only select Victors, some of that effort was fueled by the growing hunch that she might have actual need for the skill some day. A great war breaking out in her lifetime, unless those Peacekeepers did their jobs, was starting to feel possible.

After each student landed several shots on targets, Officer Thread called for all fire to cease. The students set their guns at ease, and a large gate in the fence started to open automatically. Beyond it, the mountain sloped steeply downward. From behind them, Peacekeepers escorted a line of prisoners from the building. The prisoners’ heads were covered in burlap sacks, and their hands were shackled. The Peacekeepers brought them out to line up in front of the students and started removing the sacks one by one. Some of them looked afraid to see where they were. Others were more stoic. None of them spoke.

“These prisoners are Avoxes,” Officer Thread explained. “That is, they are citizens who committed crimes against Panem. As punishment, their tongues were cut out, and they were given jobs in the Capitol as laborers, servants, and the like. This group, rather than accept the Capitol’s generosity and live out their silent lives in peace, all turned to crime once again. Some were violent. Some even murdered their bosses. And today, you all are their lucky executioners.”

Pyra realized the purpose of the field trip. She had killed a mouse, a rabbit, a cat, a few dogs of increasing size and ferocity, even a crazed boar. It was two days till Reaping Eve, but this was the eighteen-year class’s final kill. Humans.

She had never heard of Avoxes before. None of the students had. A good trainee would believe Thread about it being generous, another chance at a kind of life. It was also brutal. Slaving away, voiceless. Punishing criminals in this way fit right in with the Capitol’s standards for savagery.

Officer Thread was eyeing her. Pyra was confident she could hide her anxiety, slow her pounding pulse and calm her rapid breaths. She wondered what he knew. Was he watching for signs of hesitation, of rebellion to report back to the Capitol? Or was he simply paying attention to a designated volunteer? Or a fan of her mother’s Victory, seeing her as a celebrity student? She was five feet to her left, but she forced herself to focus on the Avox in front of her. Like a good Career.

“They will have a sixty second head start,” Officer Thread announced. “After which, you may all shoot to kill.” He took out a stop watch and looked at the Avox prisoners who might know nothing of the harsh environment beyond the fence, who might think they had a chance of surviving out there, who may run regardless, just out of instinct. “Go.”

The Avoxes took off, sprinting for the gate in the fence. The seconds ticked down in Pyra’s head as she took aim, tracking hers in the mix. She wondered what he had done to end up there. She wondered if she might find herself in the same position some day.

“...three, two, one. Fire!”

Pyra shot, and her target fell. Other students took out the rest of them. One Avox made it to the gate. When the bullet hit her skull, she fell forward, and her body tumbled out of sight. Pyra wondered how many skeletons were in that valley.

She spent the next two days thinking about her decision. At the final trial, she scored a ten. She was perfectly set up to be the glorious Tribute she was always meant to be. But the Capitol saw her differently now. They were watching for signs that her mother had turned her against them, needed her to prove herself as a good little killer. She had killed Gaius because she had to. She had given her best effort, but the situation had been futile. He was dead the moment he fell the first time, and they had all known it. She killed the Avox prisoner because she had to. She could not risk making any sort of statement by abstaining. He was dead the moment he rebelled for the second time, and he had to have known where that would lead.

In the arena, would she kill District kids like herself because she had to? Would she be a good Career and tell the audience it was in honor of the Capitol, tell herself it was the only way to make it out alive so she could sleep at night? Or would one of them kill her first? Would the Gamemakers smell rebellion on her and send an avalanche, a mutt, a collapsing dam? Withhold Sponsor gifts? Tell her allies to reject her? If she did win, what would that mean? Even if they did leave her alone, that could never last. As soon as those loyal Victors started acting up, she would be swept into it.

Reaping Eve afternoon, Pyra knocked on Certman’s door.

“I need to survive,” she told him. “And I need a favor.”

“To win the Games?” he wondered. They sat on his living room couch. “You’ll want a better mentor than me for that. I haven’t brought anyone home yet, only tried twice.”

“I don’t trust that they’ll let me.”

“So… you’re taking the other option?” Certman looked at Pyra skeptically. “That’s commitment. You gotta have a really strong will to live to roll those dice.”

Pyra took a deep breath and looked at Certman. He was a sort of handsome. He had let his brown hair grow to his chin, showing its waves. He had kind, blue eyes. He was a friend, a better one in recent years than in the beginning. He might understand.

He looked back at her, trying to read her. “What’s the favor, then?” She pursed her lips, suddenly ashamed for coming there. She couldn’t. Worry crept into his face. “What’s the favor, Pyra?”

She blinked back tears and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here today. It’s stupid. After everything you’ve been through… This is wrong of me. I’ll just go home.”

She got up to leave, but Certman said, “Wait, Pyra. It’s ok. I get it.”

“Do you?” She looked at him, composing herself. “I’m just as bad as them. I was going to ask… I’m just scared.”

“So was I,” he said. “Come on, I need a drink. And it looks like you do, too.”

In his kitchen, Certman poured them each a shot of whiskey.

“You were scared?” she asked.

“A little. The first time, when I wanted to show my gratitude and do the right thing but it still felt a little weird. And later, when it got worse, I was scared, too.” He pushed his hair back and poured another pair of shots. “I do get it. It got fucking bad, don’t get me wrong, but it helped that I wasn’t totally naive going into it.”

“Oh?”

Certman nodded as they both took their second shots. “My first time was with my girlfriend back in training. Darcy. We were fifteen, excited to be upperclassmen and all that. It was sweet, fun, romantic. She broke up with me the next year.” He let out a heavy breath. “I just mean, I didn’t go into it… uninitiated, as they say. And it was very very different, but having a bit of honest experience helped get me through it.”

“Exactly,” Pyra said. “I just don’t want the Capitol to be that initiation.”

“And you came here, hoping I could help. Would that be what you actually want?” Certman asked seriously.

Pyra nodded. “Yes. I want to know how it’s supposed to be. The good kind. I don’t want to go to the Capitol uninitiated, naive, have that be the way I think of sex the rest of my life.”

Certman nodded and let himself relax. “Ok, if you’re sure. Don’t worry, you aren’t like them. It’s a favor for a friend.”

Pyra felt herself leaning closer to him. In his eyes, she caught a glimpse of the real Certman, the one buried by Career training and Victory, the one she sometimes saw on late nights around the fire pit where no one brought up the Hunger Games or Capitol business.

He took her hand. “Just don’t tell your mom; she might punch me to death.”

Pyra laughed with relief. She kissed him, and it was warm, soft, and bittersweet. Before her year of everything wrong, she wanted one simple day that felt something akin to right.

Chapter Text

Regina did Pyra’s makeup for the Reaping. She wore her best dress and lined up in the square with the other eighteen-year-olds, right in front of the stage. Juni stood beside her, still simmering with disappointment but supportive in her acceptance of the way things shook out. Pyra’s understudy, Brecka, was back with the other seventeen-year-olds. Lapis behind her. Clove behind her.

Up on the stage, Pyra’s family took their seats. Her mother was sitting with Gramps on the opposite end of the line from Enobaria. She looked down at Pyra, worried about how she would decide. Certman did the same, knowing what her plan had been as of the day before. As Pyra’s gaze lingered on each of them, her proud, valiant, glorious family of Victors, a storm was raging in her mind. She was prepared for the year. A year of terrible things, then five of raising more fodder for the death machine. Or rebellion. Or loyalty to the people of Panem. Survival, a chance to be Panem’s power. And yet, how wonderful would it be to join them? To be brave enough to volunteer, win the Games, and come home the Victor of her dreams? Maybe the Gamemakers would let her win…

“Gloria Irones!” Hadrian announced, holding up the paper from the female Reaping ball.

A fourteen-year-old girl began walking down the aisle. She smiled at Pyra as she passed and stepped up to the stage. Pyra could feel the cameras on her, watching, waiting for her to announce herself. Her breaths quickened. Sweat dewed on her brow. Her chest was cold, and she couldn’t feel her limbs. She was five feet to her left.

Gloria crossed the stage to Hadrian. Juni bumped Pyra’s side and gave her a look. It was not often that Hadrian actually got the chance to ask, “Any volunteers?” Pyra hesitated. The words were on the tip of her tongue, trembling lips ready to set them free. She was choking.

“I volunteer as Tribute!” Brecka called.

“I volunteer as Tribute!”

Juni raised her arm and rushed up to the stage with Brecka close behind her.

Pyra could not make sense of anything happening around her. Hadrian spoke with the volunteers and sent Juni back to her place, announcing Brecka the female Tribute. After he drew a boy’s name, Jasper volunteered with Cato challenging, and Hadrian took Jasper. Pyra looked at the ground. She could not meet the betrayal in Jasper’s eyes. She could not take the judgement and disappointment in Cato’s. In everyone’s.

In the Justice Building, Pyra visited Brecka briefly.

“Can’t believe you chickened out like a damn pebble,” Brecka said, shaking her head. “When I get back—”

“Just keep Jasper safe,” Pyra requested. “I know I let everyone down today. Him most of all. Be the ally I should have been for him and watch his back. That’s it. All hard.” She left, unable to stand any more time with the girl who would die in her place.

She said goodbye to Jasper, too. She could not justify her inaction. She knew she was leaving him high and dry. He didn’t have the chemistry with Brecka, and she wouldn’t have Pyra’s legacy advantage with Sponsors. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t get it,” he said. “All through training, I looked up to you. As a Tesseran, I thought you were the standard I should be meeting to improve our reputation compared to the real Careers. You set the bar.”

Pyra shook her head. “Juni was just as good as me, and she was Tesseran. I know we were all assholes when we were twelve, and as upperclassmen, people looked down on the ones who got demoted, but every class has their successful Tesserans by the end.”

“Yeah, so maybe if you hadn’t injured Juni like that, if she were going with me, we could’ve worked something out. We could’ve been two Tesserans standing proud, showing how the Academy uplifted us. I hardly know Brecka! And she’s a real Career, so we won’t even have that story to work. I’ll be alone!”

“I’m sorry.” It was all Pyra could say. “I asked Brecka to look out for you. And with Brutus and Cornelia as your Mentors… you’ll be fine.”

“I thought your mom was going to mentor this year,” Jasper said. “What? If it isn’t you, she won’t bother?”

“It’s not like that,” Pyra told him. “It’s more complicated than you know. Trust me, my mom is going to have other things on her mind. Cornelia will be more focused, and she’s been working with Brecka.”

“What other things?” Jasper asked, then more genuinely curious than angry.

“Capitol business.”

Jasper pursed his lips and nodded. “Fine. Not for me to know. It’s whatever.” He took a deep breath. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you. I am happy we got over that bullshit as kids and became friends. Maybe I’ll be back.”

“I hope you will,” Pyra said. “Good luck in there. You really are a strong Tribute. They’re going to call you a Career, and it’ll be true. I believe in you.”

“Eh, we’ll see.” Jasper shrugged.

“Fuck you,” Pyra teased, “you’re gonna be a Victor.”

Jasper laughed, the callback clearing out his resentment of her cowardice. For the moment. They shared a goodbye hug, smacked each other on the shoulder, and parted.

In the main hall of the Justice Building, Claudius and Galatea were waiting. Pyra looked at her mother, both of them at a loss for words.

“Ready to go, Ms. Lyme the Younger?” Claudius asked, smiling like this was all perfectly normal.

“Too late for my other option, now,” Pyra said wryly. She hugged her mother hard, absorbing those last bits of strength from a legendary Victor. “Where does Dad think I’ll be?” she whispered into her shoulder.

Galatea stroked Pyra’s hair. “I haven’t thought of a good explanation yet,” she said. “Peacekeeper training, maybe.”

Pyra nodded, letting her mother’s shirt absorb a tear or two. “I’ll be ok. I’ll be back in a year, and it’ll be ok.” She pulled away and looked her mother in the eyes. “When I get back, we’ll all show the Capitol how loyal we are.”

Galatea nodded with a sad smile. “Be fierce. Stay safe.”

“‘All hard’ and all that,” Claudius quipped. “You know escorts, Hadrian will be sour if we’re late for the train. Good day, Ms. Lyme the Elder.”

Steeling herself, Pyra followed Claudius out of the Justice Building to the train station. The cameras ignored them, focusing on the Tributes, but Pyra still kept her head down. Claudius led her to a car a few links back from the Tributes’ and told her to settle in. Enobaria was there, sitting in a cushy leather seat by the window and sipping dark wine.

“I thought Cornelia was mentoring,” Pyra said as she took a seat across the car.

Enobaria rolled her eyes. “She is. I’m going because I was invited.” She shot Pyra a sharp, gold-fanged grin.

As much as Pyra would have liked to pick Enobaria’s brain about how she dealt with that, how she maintained that idealized glorification of the Capitol despite how they treated her, she said nothing. It was not the time, and Claudius was right there, reading a book.

“What about school?” she asked him.

“What about it?” Claudius responded, not looking up from his page.

“I mean, we have a test at the end of the Games. Will I graduate?”

Claudius turned a page. “Don’t worry, it’ll be taken care of.” He looked up for a moment. “I doubt the last weeks of a District education are very critical.”

The train pierced the mountain with such speed Pyra would have thought the Capitol was even closer to Centerbase than the outer villages. For all she knew, it could have been. When they broke through the tunnel into the city, the train glided past cheering spectators, and Pyra pulled down her shade. When the train stopped, the Tributes were escorted to their Training Center, and Enobaria got into a beautiful car with a purple-haired woman.

“Here’s your ride. Ta-ta,” Claudius said when a car pulled up for Pyra.

The driver of the car got out and opened Pyra’s door. She thanked him, and he nodded silently. The Avox drove her to a gorgeous estate, sprawling and perfectly manicured, even for the Capitol. He escorted her to the door, rang the bell, and then returned to the car.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Lyme,” the man who opened the door said. He was almost as tall as her, heavy-set with graying blonde hair, dressed in the fine purple robes of a Gamemaker. “My name is Plutarch, and I’ll be taking care of you during your stay here in the Capitol. Cocktail?”

Plutarch moved back into his house. Pyra closed the door behind her and followed him to the living room, where he began mixing something from behind an ornate bar counter. “Oh, no, thank you,” she said. “So, I’m going to live here for the next year?”

“Correct. And this one’s for me.” He carried the drink with him and showed her through the house. There was a kitchen where Avox servants could prepare anything she desired. “But you might consider this cutting season, as you athletic types put it. You’ve got enough bulk, and we want to see those muscles pop!”

There was a beautiful library, complete with a gleaming spiral staircase. “Loads of good volumes in here, if you’re into reading. But I think our next stop will be your favorite.”

He showed her to a small personal gym. What it lacked in size, it made up for in technology, with machines more versatile and complex than even the Training Academy. “I don’t give this room much use, myself. I hope you’ll find it to your liking.”

Finally, they went upstairs to her bedroom. It was decorated in royal purple, just like his robes. The window overlooked the city, shining buildings nestled between austere mountains that looked like home. It was impressive, she had to admit. But built on District blood, and she no longer saw that as glorious.

“For the duration of the Games,” Plutarch explained, “I’ll be fairly busy. As will Hadrian. Once they’re over, we’ll be able to give you more attention. Tomorrow, I’ll have my assistant get you to Remake, and you’ll be with me during the Parade.” He looked at his watch and added, “All right, I’ve got a big meeting. You can relax here. There are some clothes for exercising or sleeping in the closet, that TV gets all the channels, and the recap will air at seven. Ta-ta!”

Pyra watched Plutarch disappear down the hall. “Ta-ta,” she mocked under her breath before collapsing on the bed. It was soft. Softer than the Academy dorms, for sure. Softer than her bed at home. She missed her home. She wondered if Juni, Regina, and Lapis would wonder where she had gone. She wondered how Jasper and Brecka were doing and who was missing them.

She washed Regina’s work from her face and ordered dinner from the kitchen; she had never had fresh fish before, only canned. At seven, the TV lit up and began the Reaping recap. Pyra’s stomach sank when they showed her in the square. She had failed. She had trained perfectly, was chosen to be Tribute, and threw all that glory into the dirt. As much as she could see that the glory was already dirt, just with a nice coat of makeup, it was hard to let go of the old dream. She would never be a Victor.

The next morning, she woke early out of habit. For a brief, beautiful moment, Pyra forgot where she was. Then, she opened her eyes.

She gathered an eggy breakfast from the kitchen, and for a few hours, flipped through the TV channels until settling on some sort of athletic competition. Capitol athletes attempted to cross harrowing obstacles and fell into a pit of slime when they failed. All in good fun. Easier to recover from than an arena.

“Knock knock!” a voice chimed from her door. There was a woman with dyed blue skin studded with rainbow gemstones. “Welcome to the Capitol! I’m Iris, Plurach’s assistant. Let’s get you to Remake!”

On the way to Remake, Iris explained that the real Games stylists and prep teams were working on the Tributes, but there were still loads of capable workers available to make her look her best.

“I was so disappointed when Plutarch said no surgeries for you! He says you’re just a guest. On Tributes, it’s a waste before the arena, but some of our doctors have worked miracles on Victors. I bet you would’ve loved some new tits! We did your mother’s nose wonderfully when she was your age. You sure you don’t want a little something? Just there, just a little shave off the front?” Iris grazed Pyra’s nose with a finger that was quickly batted away.

“No, thank you.” With this new information, Pyra found a greater appreciation for her nose. The hooked thing she had always blamed on her father was not for the Capitol to correct. Not this time. She would wear her mother’s old nose with pride and loyalty.

In the Remake wards, Iris introduced Pyra to a prep team and left her there. Passed to the next set of hands, Pyra was dutifully quiet as the workers stripped, scrubbed, measured, and examined her. They pierced her ears with purple gem studs. They trimmed her hair and waxed from her eyebrows to her ankles, making her feel even more naked. They gave her long, black fingernails. One of them held out a tray of sharp, goat-like horns to the others.

“I forget, which color did he pick?” he asked them, and they shrugged.

“Gold, Quintus, I said we’d do the gold,” a man said, walking into the room. As Quintus set the tray down and took the gold horns out of sight, the man turned to Pyra. “Hello, Pyra. My name is Cinna, and I’ll be your stylist this year.”

“I’m not supposed to get anything surgical. I’m just a guest,” she said, thinking of Iris’s gems and other Capitolites she had seen with horns, feathers, pearls, and more stuck into their skin.

“Don’t worry,” Cinna assured her. “We won’t be implanting those, just sewing them into your hair. People used to call your mother the Mountain Goat, and since you can’t wear the crown, I thought these would make a nice alternative accessory.”

A ray of nostalgic pride ran through Pyra, remembering reruns of her mother’s Games, how she had escaped a competitor’s grasp by slamming her forehead into his, how she wowed the Capitol with her rock-climbing skills. In the portrait of her that hung in the Justice Building, she wore black horns with her golden crown and a beautifully draped cloak of white fur. Pyra used to wonder what her signature would become, once she had something of her own to be proud of, once being a Victor’s daughter was no longer her greatest achievement.

Quintus returned and asked Pyra to tip her head this way and that as he pulled strands through the bases of the golden horns. Cinna asked Pyra what colors she preferred in her wardrobe, what fabrics. He flipped through a sketchbook of garments, deep in thought. “I want you to feel good about how you look. While also actually looking good, of course. And you have to be able to move; that’s a must. If I do well with you this year, they’ll let me pick my District when I become a real Games stylist for the 74th.”

“Happy to be of service,” Pyra said, wincing at Quintus’s yanks and prodding. Once the horns were secure, he wove the rest of her frontal hair into tight, thin braids around the horn bases. Another prep team member asked her to hold still for makeup.

“I am sorry you’re here, Pyra,” Cinna said. “I’ve heard a bit about why. And while I know the official explanation is to show you that the Capitol is not your enemy, I also understand your hesitancy to believe that. Pretenses aside, I’m not here to be your enemy. Genuinely.”

“Thanks.” Pyra did not trust him. He could put on the not-like-other-Capitolites act, but that gold eyeliner screamed status-seeker.

For that evening’s Parade, they dressed her in a slinky, shimmering, bright red dress that felt entirely too short. The team told Pyra one of them would always be around for daily styling, and they would see her back there every two weeks for more thorough touch-ups.

Despite her height, Pyra was still instructed to wear heels. “For emphasis,” Quintus said. “Everyone else will be wearing them.”

At the Parade, Pyra was more lavishly styled than ever in her life, and yet, she felt underdressed. Next to Gamemakers and their guests, her dress might be called subdued. They all loved her horns.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t get any funny ideas,” one of the Gamemakers said to the man she was with, who had been touching a horn and then blushed and turned away.

The Tributes looked powerful and polished as they rode down the lane in their chariots. From the Gamemaker box, Pyra got a clear view of Jasper and Brecka, and she shielded her face until they passed.

Looking at the concrete road, Pyra pondered the stone that made it, whose hands had rent it from the earth. Her grandparents’? Jasper’s or Juni’s grandparents’? With every passing District, their Tributes called to mind what they provided for the Capitol, what luxuries she would be shown in the coming year that were brought to the city by District hands. Four asked who had caught the fish she enjoyed. It was thanks to Five that the Circle was lit and to Six that any of them were there at all. Watching Eight ride past, she pondered who had picked the cotton, beaten the linen, and spun the wool and silks of the Tributes’ and audience’s attire. The post-Parade banquet would be delivered on the backs of Nine, Ten, and Eleven. While Pyra felt like a prisoner raised for sport and slaughter, the Parade reminded her of the big picture, the fight for Panem’s freedom.

President Snow met them from his balcony, thanking the Tributes for their bravery and sacrifice in honor of the vital tradition.

“Fine show!” Plutarch said. “Time for a party!”

The afterparty of the Parade was in President Snow’s mansion, and Pyra felt thrust down from her lofty ideas of a Panem without the Capitol’s rule and back to the hard earth of her present circumstance. She did her best to look happy to be there. Just a simple District girl, star-struck by the beautiful paintings on the walls, the intricate pattern of the carpet, the guests’ sophisticated jokes. With every person she met, she could feel her chest chilling, tightening, her mind moving inch by inch away from her body. These Capitol people were a pack of wolves, smiling and drinking, circling and eyeing her like a tasty little goat.

“Good evening, Ms. Lyme the Younger. My name is Seneca Crane, Head Gamemaker.” Pyra shook the man’s hand and tried not to think about what else he was hoping to do with it. She liked beards on men, but his looked ridiculous. “My, you look nervous. I hope this isn’t too overwhelming for you.”

“Just a very beautiful mansion,” Pyra said.

“Yes.” Seneca gave his drink a contemplative swirl. “Shame about your mother. I heard she has become quite resentful of the Capitol, a bit misguided. I hope it isn’t her mental health taking a turn, like Salisa. And all after how well we treated her, too. In any case, I’m sure you’ll make it up to us. I hope we can rectify some of that and show you our good side.”

“Salisa from Seven?” Pyra wondered. “Did something happen to her?”

Seneca was about to answer when his eyes caught someone over Pyra’s shoulder. “Speak of the bird…”

“...and the bird shall come calling.” Johanna Mason stepped beside Pyra, a crown of golden leaves on her head, near-empty cocktail glass in her hand, and fake smile on her face. “You’re not gossiping about my dear Mentor, are you, Seneca?”

He shook his head in theatrical apology and placed a hand over his heart. “No, of course not, no gossip here. Just lamenting our tragic loss of a Victor. My condolences.”

“Thank you,” Johanna said. She turned to Pyra. “And yes, something happened to her this spring. She killed eight Tributes in her arena. What’s one more, right?” Johanna downed the last dregs of her drink and set it on the tray of a passing servant. “What are you doing here, anyway, Mountain Kid?”

“I was invited,” Pyra said. So, Salisa had killed herself, she figured. Pyra felt confident this left Johanna as one of the main potential rebels in Seven. “And I am sorry to hear that. Salisa was always so loy–”

“You didn’t know her,” Johanna interrupted coldly. Pyra felt Plutarch tense beside her. “And I don’t know you. Now, I need to find another drink and some Sponsors for my Tributes. Good evening, Gamemakers.”

Plutarch directed Pyra through the crowd, mingling with people who looked at her like a piece of meat. The Capitol was formal, but with respect to Pyra, they had no concept of boundaries. Everyone they met seemed incapable of not caressing her arms, giving the muscle a squeeze and gawking. “Just like Galatea back in the day!” they sang. It was not a comfort. A short woman had her man take a photo of her standing in front of Pyra, laughing at how her head barely made it up to her breasts.

Someone asked Pyra how she was liking the Capitol, and she gave the polite, expected answer. “Only been a day, but it’s amazing!”

“You sure do fit right in,” a woman said.

“Positively born for it,” Plutarch remarked. Someone must have told him that was her thing, and now, she regretted ever using that catchphrase. It disgusted her.

At last, Pyra caught a break. Plutarch left her in a corner while he dealt with some business, and she watched the crowd. Rainbow and glittering and opulent beyond compare. They rattled around like snakes, ready to sink their teeth into her.

“I met Severn Faber three years ago.”

Pyra turned and saw Finnick Odair wearing a crown like Johanna’s and holding a plate of hors d'oeuvres, offering her a bite. She took one that looked like cheese and meat folded into a flower covered in a dark green sauce. “I’m sorry. I haven’t listened to her music in a long time.”

Surprisingly, Finnick laughed. “She’s not bad. We had a bit in common, actually.” He pulled two cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “Fancy a smoke?”

Pyra followed Finnick out to the balcony where other guests were smoking and talking amongst themselves, too drunk or distracted to pay the Victor and his friend any mind.

“I was so naive,” Pyra breathed as Finnick lit her cigarette. She coughed hard, and he laughed at her. With her. Pyra took another drag and kept better control of herself. “I was a fool. My mom tried to help me see, and it only got us in trouble.”

“True, it’s a bit fucked. But we’ll get there,” Finnick said quietly. He kept every word under his breath. To an outsider, the way he leaned in to whisper might have looked like hushed flirting. “Speaking of your mother… she did what she could. A bit of a temper, but she’s proud, and we need that. Man, I can’t believe you nearly mentioned loyalty in front of Crane. I could’ve died when Johanna told me. Reckless, you girls from Two, aren’t you?” He was laughing again, and Pyra gave his arm a smack. It was uncanny, the way Finnick could find her in a kaleidoscope of threats and put her at ease. “And I want to help if I can. It’ll be an honor to work with you.” He handed Pyra a paper card with two phone numbers, one embossed in metallic blue and one scrawled in messy handwriting. “Those go to my house in Four and the apartment I use here.”

“Thank you.” Pyra filed the card in her tiny, gold handbag. “So, is it as bad as they say?”

Finnick did not laugh that time. “It’s a job.” He finished his cigarette and put the butt out on a planter. “I’m needed elsewhere, but I’ll see you around.”

Pyra nodded and watched Finnick leave. Even in this city of predators, she might have found an ally.

Chapter Text

The morning after the Parade, Plutarch confirmed what Galatea had said about him being an ally in the Capitol and taught Pyra more of the code. They met in his library, and he pulled an old book from a shelf in a dimly lit corner.

“We never all got together and decided on the rules, exactly,” he said. “It came about organically. I only have a moment before I need to head to a Gamemaker meeting, but if you’re going to try talking to people like you did last night, you need to understand what you’re saying. How much of the code do you know already? Did your mother tell you about it?”

“She didn’t tell me outright, just confirmed a little bit,” Pyra said. “I know ‘loyal’ means ‘rebel.’ Sorry for halfway dropping it in front of Seneca, by the way. Just didn’t want to miss a chance to connect with Johanna.”

Plutarch waved a hand. “Seneca is oblivious. Probably the safest person you could have slipped like that in front of. But do try to be more mindful in the future. Overuse draws critical ears. Never mention a code phrase unless you’re sure about someone. And on that note, if someone hints to you with a phrase, don’t confirm that you understand unless you trust them.”

“Got it.” Of course, for all Johanna knew, Pyra was an agent from a Capitol-aligned District sent to infiltrate underground rebel spaces. Pyra glanced around the room. “You sure you’re not bugged?”

“Please, Pyra, I’m a Heavensbee,” he grinned. “The phone is still tapped for District calls, though. And mind the servants. Iris is away this morning, and the Avoxes don’t talk, but they can hear.”

“Is ‘we’ll get there’ something?”

Plutarch tilted his head back and forth. “Almost. It’s a vague call for hope, a subtle hint at the cause that can be used in other contexts. For example, if a Tribute is struggling, you might say to his Mentor, ‘We’ll get there,’ and it would sound to outsiders like innocent commentary on the Games. To the trained ear, that word choice over something like, ‘He’ll be ok,’ is a signal of your allegiance.”

“Ok. Well, that’s about all I’ve got, I think,” Pyra admitted.

From the book, Plutarch pulled a few handwritten pages. “Normally, you need to burn rebel letters as soon as you read them. I’ve saved a handful for posterity. Here’s a simple one.” He handed her a letter dated near the end of the 67th Hunger Games. “Any verbs in the first or last lines of a paragraph could have their tenses or meanings reversed. You can gather which from context.”

On the page, Pyra found her mother’s bold handwriting. She focused on the paragraph about her getting Reaped at age twelve. It sounded innocent enough.

Proud that I will see Pyra on that stage again someday.
She’s so tough. Stronger than I was at her age. She has it, the spark of a proud Victor. I hope she takes up the mantle and follows me in loyalty to our generous Capitol.
Hard to believe I ever feared she would not earn her own crown. She was always a bright and Capitol-praising child.

“Does ‘proud’ have a double meaning, too?” Pyra asked.

“Good guess,” Plutarch said. “That one was coined by Lander, a Victor from District 10.”

“The 27th,” Pyra blurted, surprising herself with the compulsion.

“Right… It’s like ‘loyal’ but a step further. ‘Proud’ means activated, ready to fight for the cause. Similarly, ‘fear’ and ‘hope’ could be switched at any point, but that’s more context-dependent. Here’s another easy one, from Salisa.”

Pyra took the page he handed her and read carefully. It was dated the March before the 72nd. Clearly, Johanna had been through a gauntlet, lost almost everyone she cared about, and was feeling very “proud.” One excerpt stood out as ominous.

Galatea says we’ll get there, but I no longer feel the same pride.
I had hoped this golden crown would help.

Plutarch explained. “The crown is a reference to District 1. We use Districts to denote time, either the name outright or their industries, but not Victors. Usually years, unless there are other indicators. When I got this letter, I knew we were about to lose one of the greats, and my interpretation proved correct, unfortunately.”

“She feared one more year would hurt?” Pyra guessed.

“Couldn’t take it anymore,” Plutarch sighed. “She watched too many of Seven’s kids die. And what happened with Johanna.” He gathered the letters back into the book and replaced it at a different position on the shelf, then rearranged some others. “You’re off to a good start. Some of it can get complicated, and I’ll try to share more when I can.”

Pyra spent her morning exercising in Plutarch’s under-used gym and thinking of her mother’s letter. Ashamed, she had been a good little Career, a true Capitol-praising child. And yet, even when she had resisted the claim that the Games were barbaric and refused to believe the Capitol treated the Victors with anything less than honor, Galatea had seen that Pyra could become a Capitol-fighting woman. She wished she could call her, but Plutarch had said letting her use the phone so soon was a risk.

Hadrian was buzzing around like a bee. Fitting, with his yellow hair and black, floral tattoos. Between the Tributes and Pyra, he had a packed schedule.

“They’re training today, and I’m meant to take you to lunch,” he said when he found her. “Oh, and you’re just a mess. Damn Plutarch for not telling you. Take a quick shower, and we’ll see what we can salvage.”

After a shower, Hadrian had Quintus style Pyra’s hair and throw her into a vibrant blue sundress. They dropped her off for lunch with a man named Necator.

“Call me Tory,” he requested.

Lunch was fine. Tory made no inappropriate moves on Pyra. He paid for a delicious meal, took her on a stroll around a park, and saw her off with a chaste kiss on her hand when the car came to retrieve her.

Many of Pyra’s activities before and during the 73rd Hunger Games were like that. The Capitol people were kind to her, bought her jewelry, asked about her life. They were curious about Two’s culture, especially the Training Academy. “Simply marvelous,” they called it.

For the Interviews, Pyra was invited to sit in the live audience as the guest of a young woman named Helen, who dressed in bright orange. Pyra watched the Tributes banter with Caesar. He was so friendly, as saccharine as anyone she had met there. Brecka and Jasper had both scored nines, and Helen whispered questions to Pyra, looking for the inside scoop.

Jasper told Caesar about growing up poor. “‘Downshaft,’ they call us in Two. No one expects much from the poor miner kids, looking down on us like we’re from Twelve or something, but I put in the work. I am so grateful to the Capitol and the District for supporting our mining community and the opportunity to make something more of myself.”

“Is that true?” Helen asked quietly. “He was poor? He looks so fit!”

Recognizing an opportunity for sponsorship when she saw one, Pyra leaned in. “Oh, yes, he was dirt poor. But we went to school together, and I always looked up to him. The District takes good care of kids who might make worthy Tributes, no matter their background. He was chosen to volunteer over dozens of other hopeful young students, and it was clearly a smart move. I’m sure he’ll win this year.”

“But you didn’t want to give it a go?” Helen whispered.

“Oh, Brecka will be wonderful in the arena, too,” Pyra said, side-stepping the question.

“I see. He’s handsome. Sort of like that Certman, isn’t he? No girlfriend back home?”

Pyra shrugged. “I couldn’t say for sure. Some people keep those things close to the vest. But I never heard any gossip.”

The answer gave Helen much to consider. Later in the program, she got up, and when she returned, she proudly showed Pyra her receipts for a Sponsor gift and a sizable bet on Jasper. “We love a good rags to riches story,” she said.

When the Games began, Pyra watched with anxiety for the Career pack. Every year, it grew more personal, and this was the pinnacle.

At home, students would cheer on Two’s Tributes, be disappointed and briefly mourn when they died, and analyze every death for strategy. It was training, all a key to how one of them might avoid those mistakes. In the Capitol, it was different. Pyra watched the Games at parties with those who were well-to-do but not so involved as to be too busy for fun. They found more humor in the quieter moments and sloppier deaths or near-misses. And they cheered for everyone. Even in the long-shots whom Pyra’s classmates would ignore, the Capitol audience was invested. One man fell to his knees in tears when a little boy was killed. Because he had bet on him.

“Big pay-out from Johanna, but when I put my neck out for another cute underdog: disappointment!”

A few times, Pyra crossed paths with Brutus, Cornelia, and Enobaria. Brutus and Cornelia were focused on finding Sponsors. When they were not talking to rich fans, their eyes were glued to screens, watching carefully. From the window of a luxury apartment, Pyra saw Cornelia down in the street, passing out flyers to a large crowd in front of a band that played the Victory fanfare. Someone was singing, but the words did not carry enough for her to make them out. Enobaria had time enough to attend parties, occasionally mingling with a similar crowd to Pyra. Her company looked to be on the rougher side, sporting metallic implants and decorative scars, dressing in severely cut black leather. Pyra gathered that Enobaria was not strolling through parks. When they found themselves in the same room, Enobaria managed to become too busy to spare a word, dashing off with someone before Pyra could even wave.

When she bumped elbows with other Victors, she was careful. She never tried to drop code words, still unsure of who among them was in the loyalty club and always surrounded by rich Capitolites. She saw Finnick a handful of times, juggling his Mentor duties from his place on someone’s arm or being pulled into a closet by the collar.

Once, she almost dared to approach likely suspects. She met a man as old as her father at a bustling bar for dinner, and while he rambled on about his kids, she spotted Haymitch the 50th and Chaff the 45th knocking back shots. She caught Chaff’s eye, and he nodded at her. That prompted Haymitch to turn her way and give a friendly wave. As if they knew who she was. Did they? She had not met any other Victors from their Districts, not that there were many from Eleven recently. Or any from Twelve. Chaff said something to Haymitch and gestured over his forehead, using an index and pinky finger like he was mocking her horns.

Pyra turned her attention back to the man she was with and sipped her drink politely. On the Victors’ way out, Chaff tripped into their table in a faux-accidental way, spilling the man’s soup.

“Oh, Dr. Belfan, I am so sorry! Clumsy me, you know.” He gave his stumped arm a wave. “Here, let me help you get cleaned up.”

When Chaff accompanied Dr. Belfan to the restroom, Haymitch took his seat. “You Gal’s daughter? I heard you were in town.”

“Guilty as charged,” Pyra said. Curious, the likely suspects chose to approach her.

“I’ve met your ma a few times over the decades,” Haymitch said. “Heard she’s not feeling so well these days.”

“Bit of a bug going around, I’m afraid.”

Haymitch nodded and bit a lip. His eyes darted to the other bargoers, checking that they were not drawing attention. “Yeah, that pesky loyalty bug. Terminal, in some cases. Catches the good ones eventually, don’t it?”

“I fear it may spread,” Pyra replied, a smile unfolding. “I just hope it won’t affect too many in Two.”

“Well put,” Haymitch said. For a man whose public persona was the stumbling drunk of a small, backwater District, he was calculated, every laugh and gesture perfectly timed, a tailored performance. “Exciting Games this year; day four and one of mine is still alive! Haven’t brought home a Victor yet, and my District is running low on pride, but I’m optimistic that we’ll get there one of these years.” As Chaff and Dr. Belfan made their way back, he rapped his knuckles on the table and stood. “Good luck to your friends in the arena. And tell our mountain goat to get well soon.”

The interaction set Pyra’s heart racing. Thankfully, Haymitch had kept it simple. If there were anything more to his words that she did not yet understand, it must have been minor, because the message she did receive was perfect. And he had seemed impressed with her use of the code.

To topple the Capitol, I am Panem’s blazing voice.

Pyra was walking on air, like she could be part of something, catching a seat at the table of secret loyalty. She wished she could tell her mother about it.

For a time, Two’s Tributes were holding their own, delivering exactly what the Capitol craved. The arena got colder every day, and they were more used to that than some. Four’s pair said they had never been so cold in their lives. One’s said it was rare there, too, and only in certain regions of the District. The ponds that dotted the arena froze over.

A week in, a heavy layer of snow fell. The Career pack was huddled in a shelter, one that Jasper and Brecka had put most of the work into building. Sponsors sent money for blankets. People commented on how similar this arena was to Enobaria’s tundra and praised the Gamemakers for putting plenty of weapons in the Cornucopia this time. Blood was much more exciting than hypothermia. Warmed and fed, the Careers picked off Tributes who came out of their hiding places in search of food. There was hardly anything to gather, and what meager options the arena had provided were buried in snow.

One evening, the cameras honed in on Jasper and Brecka. The whole party quieted to listen in on their cloud-breathed words.

“Cozy in here, isn’t it?” Jasper joked.

Brecka readjusted their blanket and snuggled up closer to him, earning a resounding, “Aw!” from the audience.

“Never thought I’d be sharing body heat with a downshaft boy,” she said. “I hope my boyfriend isn’t watching. Who would you have here to snuggle with, if you could have anyone?”

Jasper blushed, which the audience ate up like candy. “Oh, I don’t know… I don’t have any sweetheart back home. Wouldn’t want them in a blizzarding arena in the first place.”

“Oh, he’s sweet on her!” the spectators remarked. “Poor boy is down bad! How quaint.”

Pyra had to laugh. At how they did not know how far Brecka was from Jasper’s type. At how they thought anyone with a brain could have romance on it in that situation. At how this fantasy pulled at their heartstrings enough to send more money but not enough to see the horror in Jasper and Brecka’s position. Laughing was easier than screaming, in any case.

“Doll, you’re laughing like you know Meddy,” Helen said to her, resting her hand on Pyra’s shoulder.

“Who?”

Helen laughed then. “Oh, you’re a card. Here, it’s time we introduced you.” She led Pyra into the powder room and pulled a small velvet pouch from her purse. “I know some people just do it out in the open, but I’m a little more careful with the legally dubious fun.” She shook a few purple pills into her hand. “Meddy is slang for medima, which is already slang for some long chemical name no one cares about. Here, try one!” She placed a pill in Pyra’s hand, caressing her fingers.

“Oh, I’ve heard of this,” Pyra said. She was not sure if she should try it. Four years ago, it had looked like a good time. However, she felt like it was smarter to keep her head on straight. “I don’t know… is a Hunger Games watch party the place? I heard it’s better with a lighter mood.”

“Aw, come on, Pyra,” Helen moaned playfully. “No one lightens a mood like Meddy! And the Hunger Games are a blast. Do it for me?”

The Hunger Games did not seem like such a blast, watching Jasper and his allies shiver, less fortunate Tributes starve and freeze and bleed. They used to be. Pyra felt herself longing for her old ability to see the Games as fun. Anything to take the sharp and bleeding edge off.

“Oh, sure. Fuck it.” She popped the purple pill into her mouth and swallowed.

Chapter Text

The arena sky was dark. Tributes slumbered or silently kept watch over their allies. The audience turned up their own volume, and the watch party shifted into something brighter.

Pyra could not pinpoint the moment the medima took effect, but Helen’s makeup looked fantastic. Her smile lit up the room more than the flickering rainbow lights, and her laugh was more beautiful than the music that filled the air. She pulled Pyra to the center of the crowd and took her hands in a dance.

Helen spun herself under Pyra’s fingers, drawing attention. Pyra rolled with it, feeling a lightness and warmth in her chest, an incredible surge of energy. Everyone was enjoying themselves. It glowed with a refreshing simplicity. Gathered to share in that annual spectacle as a community, they rejoiced with glamor, drama, and celebration. Pyra scooped Helen up into her arms and flung her around, earning raucous cheers and whoops. They loved her. It made such glorious sense.

“Double down, lovely!” Helen said, passing Pyra a second pill. Without thinking, she took it. Regina was right; it was simply fun, simply happy.

Like something out of a forest tale, the large TV screen began to glow warmly, and everyone turned their eyes toward it. No one turned down the music, and Pyra found herself laughing at the impossibly upbeat soundtrack backing a bright orange fire engulfing the Careers’ hut. They ran from it, screaming and diving into the snow. If cannons went off, they were drowned out by all the other sounds flooding Pyra’s ears.

“Yeah! Go get those fuckers!” some people cheered, watching three Careers with raw burns attempt to pursue the Tributes of Three, who carried torches and hooted at their victory.

“No, Three is going to take it this year!” others challenged. “Betting on brains!”

Pyra heard chatter of ideas on how Three had achieved such a high and quick-burning fire on the snow-dampened wood.

The flaming hut collapsed in on itself, smoke rising to form intoxicating patterns. Entranced by its beauty, Pyra felt odd, like she was forgetting something important…

“Oh, shame about your friends!” Helen pouted. “And I’m out a trainload of coin.”

Right, Jasper. And Brecka. How could Pyra have forgotten them? Suddenly, she was acutely aware of how sweaty she was, how her outfit clung to her damp skin uncomfortably, how her hair frizzed around the horns, how thirsty she was. She veered further away from herself. “Yes,” she said. “A terrible shame…”

Helen batted Pyra’s arm. “Oh, well. It’s not the first time I’ve lost money betting on the handsome one. Maybe you can make it up to me, since I was only following your advice…”

Pyra could only nod, unable to process what was happening. “I… sure, yeah. I just need some water, I-I think. And some air…”

“Oh, of course! Of course, come along, darling. Let’s take care of you.”

Helen led Pyra out to a balcony and snapped her fingers at a servant, requesting waters. Pyra leaned on the railing and caught her breath. She was shaking. Despite the heat of medima and warm July night, she shivered as the sweat cooled on her skin. When the Avox arrived with two glasses of water—complete with crystal clear ice, slices of lemon, and mint leaves—she gulped it greedily. It helped. The fresh air helped. The cigarette Helen offered, saying it would settle the experience, helped.

Jasper was beyond help.

“You feeling better?” Helen asked, stroking Pyra’s back.

She nodded. “I think so. Thank you. Which of the Careers made it out of that?”

“Hmm, looked like both from One and Marisol,” Helen said.

“Ok… ok…” Pyra kept breathing, coming back to herself, coming away from the shock of losing both Jasper and Brecka in that instant, feeling the ease of medima carrying her back to the party. “I know Sponsors just give money and don’t get to pick the exact gifts, but if you could… if One or Four’s Mentors could send them our District bread? That would feel right.”

Helen smiled comfortingly. “Sure, doll. I’ll see about that. You District folk and your breads. The customs are just adorable! Now then, if I send more money for that, it brings us back to the point about you making it up to me…” She cupped the side of Pyra’s face, her thumb gliding across her jawline, her lip. “Plutarch said not yet, but I think this can count as showing you a good time, don’t you?”

Before Pyra could form a coherent thought, Helen pulled her into a kiss. It was a more aggressive kiss than any she had gotten from Certman that Reaping Eve, and her hands clutched at Pyra’s waist and neck roughly. But she was smaller, daintier. It was hard for Pyra to perceive Helen as any kind of threat, someone who could take advantage if she tried. She was sweet, just hungry.

Maybe it was the medima, but Pyra did not dislike kissing Helen. She had never looked at women that way before, but in that moment, it was easy. It wasn’t dying in a fire, at least.

The rest of that night was a blast. As much as such a night could ever be. The next morning, Pyra awoke with a raging headache and fuzzy memory. What she did remember was being in awe of how much fun everyone was having, how free they were. And Jasper dying. That hurt, but she tried to get over it. They knew it could happen, just hoped it wouldn’t.

For the rest of the Games, Pyra was shuttled from party to party, dancing and drinking with the Capitol rich, being waited on by tongueless criminals. She tried not to think about that.

The boy from Three, Niko, became the 73rd Victor. He went home, and the Mentors and visiting Victors left the city along with him. Pyra stayed, still a guest of the Capitol.

Hadrian got her to where she needed to go. Helen and other new friends shared illicit substances that helped her party night after night away and distracted her from darker thoughts, that left her sleeping away the mornings. At those parties, they played all kinds of music, but it was mostly pop and electronic beats, heavier remixes of songs by Severn Faber and similar. Pyra danced like she had never been brave enough to before, and her fans loved it.

Sometimes, they kissed her, but never anything more. It made the things Certman had written about sound like terrible outliers. Pyra caught herself almost wishing for just a touch more, worried that it meant they did not want her. In drug-misted nights, she wondered if she was not good enough, a let-down compared to her mother or other true Victors, a cheap substitute. Outside of Plutarch’s kitchen, it was difficult to maintain the healthy diet she had in Two, especially with all the alcohol. Once someone introduced her to a tonic that helped purge those less thoughtful indulgences, she felt better, back in control. Cinna dressed her beautifully, taking in her clothes bit by bit as she dropped weight. He expressed concern, but she insisted it was fine. The Capitol did not like their girls so bulky. It was cutting season. She had Quintus lighten her hair at a Remake appointment.

On her birthday, Pyra attended a party in her “birthday suit,” as Cinna said Hadrian had requested. That and jewelry made of flat gray stones draped over her shoulders and hips. Though she was uncomfortable and unsettled by the idea, her fans loved it, and that made it easier. The night she turned nineteen, Pyra felt genuinely beautiful, desirable, for the first time in her life. For that, she felt stupid, shallow, guilty, but she pushed those feelings aside. The party guests fed her lavender lemon cake and shots of liquor.

A couple weeks after that, Cinna dropped a tentative, “I think… I want a chance to show my true feelings, to do something meaningful with my work. Everything is easier with allies, but I haven’t found them yet.” Pyra decided to trust him, but there was not much she could say and nothing he could do besides dress her well. Only ever seeing him in the surely bugged Remake Center, she tried to be subtle when pointing him in Plutarch’s direction and mentioning Victors she knew to be loyal to Panem.

In October, Pyra was part of a performance, one of many sequin-clad people showcasing their talents in an amphitheater. She was nervous, having never performed in front of a crowd greater than the Academy board, but those nerves slipped away when the people started cheering at her entrance. They loved her. For her act, Pyra was expecting to display her knife-throwing skills, and that would have been fun. What she had not expected was the girl strapped into the target board. She did her best, but the audience kept calling for more, for her to hit the targets closer to the trapped girl. Pyra did not know who she was or how she got there, but the situation was unsettling no matter what. The girl came away unscathed, but it left Pyra feeling disturbed; by the risk the Capitol was willing to take with that girl’s life and with the value of her skills. She would never have known how to throw a knife if it were not for the Academy. Everything that was great about her came from her Career training, which meant it came, by extension, from the Capitol. It was all for the Capitol, and because it was all she had, it was inescapable. As much as she dreamed of a future as Pyra the rebel, Pyra the Career would always be there in the shadows, taking credit. At least, as nerve-wracking a position as it was, she was still the one throwing the knives and not the one with her limbs wound between targets. If she thought about it too hard, she would fall apart, so she tried not to.

Plutarch shared more tips about the rebel code language and showed her where he kept his phone. She tried calling the handwritten number on Finnick’s card.

“Ahoy? Plutarch?” an old woman’s voice answered in a heavy accent.

“Sorry, it’s Pyra. Galatea Lyme’s daughter? I’m looking for Finnick?”

“Oh, girl. Up in the city,” Mags told her. Pyra had to strain to make out the words and wondered if she was keeping them short and simple for her on purpose. It did sound like she was over-annunciating to make it as clear as she could. “You ok?”

“I’m fine,” she said, hardly believing it herself. “The Capitol has been very generous. Thank you. I’ll try his other number.”

“Take care, hon.”

With the blue-embossed number, Pyra got Finnick’s voicemail. “Hey, Finnick. It’s Pyra. I know it’s been a few months, but I thought I’d try you. Heard you were in town. Could we talk sometime? It’s all been great here so far, but I could use a District friend. Thanks. Bye.”

She thought of calling her mother, but the Capitol was becoming a confusing place. She no longer knew what she would say. She did not feel like herself anymore.

The next evening, Hadrian escorted Pyra to a party. She was dressed athletically, in something reminiscent of her old volleyball uniform. It gave her a sense of understanding about her mother’s distress that time long ago, with Finnick on her mind. Excited guests descended on Pyra and pulled her over to a weight rack. They cheered as she lifted increasing amounts. She was happy that she maintained her routine in the afternoons, catching those moments between rough wakings and evening events to focus on her physique. She would be lost without her strength. It was all she had going for herself, and it felt good to be praised in this way, to show off.

Even if her power, like her skills with weapons, was a privilege courtesy of the Capitol, she was the one who had put in the work to build it. Privileges were not bad in and of themselves. Her strength was an object of envy. Should she not be appreciative of the Capitol allowing her the means to build it? Should she not be grateful that her District was better off than places like Twelve, where people barely had enough to get by, much less gain muscle?

After the warm-up, Avoxes screwed two small chairs into either side of the bar.

“Come on, Cerese, join me!” Helen dragged a friend over and hopped up onto one of the chairs.

Neither Cerese nor Helen were particularly heavy women. Pyra did not know how much weight she had lost since arriving in the Capitol, but together, they added up to less than fifty pounds more than her old body weight. Yet, when she squatted both of them with ease, the crowd went wild. Ecstatic, they applauded like they had never seen a Career before.

To exalt our honor, I am the Capitol’s high pedestal.

The Capitol had a knack for referring to certain drugs like they were people. One they called Britni, which came in the form of white powdery rocks to be crushed and snorted, gave her the energy and motivation to lift heavier pairs of fans. The partygoers were beside themselves, feeding her ravenous ego. Pyra leapt from the weight rack and swept Helen onto her back. She ran around the room, chasing more applause as Helen clung to her and squealed in delight. From the floor, Helen made her body a plank and let Pyra lift her like a bench press. They loved her.

She arm-wrestled Tory, who was as gracious a loser as all her other challengers. She claimed extra doses of Britni as rewards, raking it in until a very brawny man stepped up to the plate. She gave him a good fight, but she was tiring. He was a kind winner and said she need not share any prize with him that night.

“But I call first dibs once the rules let up!” he called to the room. “And don’t feel too bad, doll,” he said to her. “We all know you’ve got the gams over me.”

“Hey, now, Euphrates,” Dr. Belfan spoke up. “Technically, I’m first in line, but you can haggle with Claudius for second.”

Pyra did not have the mind to read into what the men were saying. She was busy chopping up more brit with Helen and Cerese. They gabbed about Capitol gossip, and by then, Pyra actually recognized most of the names they dropped. “Octavia said what at your cousin’s cat’s graduation? Oh, she’s the worst. And her hair clashes with her skin!”

With a line in her nose, Pyra heard the party excitedly welcome a new guest and turned to see Finnick entering with a young woman with red-orange hair. They greeted people politely, and then made their way to Pyra. Helen and Cerese quickly gathered the brit tray and tucked it away, muttering about how that spoiled brat never saw a thing that wasn’t hers.

“Charisma, this is Pyra, daughter of the Victor Galatea Lyme,” Finnick said to the woman on his arm. “She’s been a guest of the Capitol since this summer’s Games. Pyra, this is Charisma Blake. Her father, Vulcan, is one of President Snow’s advisors.”

“Good evening, Pyra.” Charisma smiled and gave Pyra a quick kiss on either cheek. “I’ve heard of you, and my father was a big fan of your mother. Seems you’re taking the Capitol by storm.”

Pyra attempted to keep her sniffles subtle. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Blake.”

“Darling,” Finnick said to Charisma, sugar in his voice, “might I have a moment alone with my friend? I’ll make it up to you later, I promise.”

“Oh, anything for my Golden Boy,” Charisma said. She kissed Finnick passionately and stroked his cheek.

Meanwhile, Pyra asked Helen and Cerese if they would give her and Finnick a minute, and they were eager enough to avoid Charisma, dashing away before she could try talking to them.

When Charisma left to catch up with her own friends, Finnick turned to Pyra, and his face was significantly less jovial. “I got your voicemail. Convenient that Charisma would bring me to your party tonight. Are you ok?”

Pyra gave her brit nostril a hard sniff. “Yeah, I’m fine. Was just feeling a little anxious and insecure. Capitol recklessness is taking some getting used to. And I know I could trim down a little more, just need to figure out balancing that with maintaining my strength. Watch me lift these skinny Capitol ladies!”

Finnick caught Pyra’s hand before she could run off. “Hey. Don’t lose sight. I know how easy it can be to get swept up in the glamor.”

“It’s fine.” Pyra pulled her hand back. “I know it isn’t right. But nights like these, I just… It’s almost everything I ever dreamt of.” She looked at Finnick’s crown. “Almost. They love me.”

“Do they?” Finnick sounded like her mother. She should really call her.

“They act like it,” she conceded. “But less than you and the other Victors.” Pyra looked at the floor. Her thoughts were racing. Her heart was pounding. Tears pricked at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t get what they’re going for here. They haven’t even hurt me yet. Not really.”

Finnick sighed. “I need to get back to Charisma.” He stepped closer and continued in a whisper. “But honestly, and in every possible meaning of the words, I hope you’ll see their true colors soon. I fear what it will do to your pride.”

Chapter Text

The Capitol continued to show Pyra their good side, showering her in praise and attention, sharing their substances.

As the last leaves were falling, she tried one that went by the name of a-drop and came in the form of green squares of paper that dissolved on her tongue. She spent that entire day in a dream, mesmerized by the rainbow trees and neon buildings, the dancing mountains. Moreso than even medima, it took her to another world. She forgot where she was entirely. Very nearly forgot who she was, especially in the early hours. Watching the branches sway from Tory’s apartment window, she thought it felt sort of like when she moved five feet to her left, but sweeter; not watching herself in terror, but dissolving out of her mind like she did not exist at all, like sugar in rain. Was she Pyra, a girl from Two? Or the Mountain Kid, a golden-horned Capitol mutt made of myths and glitter? Tory whispered something about “our little secret” that she barely registered. He was touching all over her body, and she could not remember if that was supposed to happen or not. He was another identity-less entity of color, someone who hardly existed.

The next day, bits and pieces of memory came back to her. In her room in Plutarch’s mansion, she felt cold. He found her buried in blankets on the floor.

“Rough night?” Plutarch asked.

She groaned. “Well, I spent all day with Necator tripping on a-drop, and before I could get my brain back right, Hadrian took me to another party, where I might’ve drank too much, especially on an empty stomach.” Pyra remembered appreciating how the a-drop had, even more than other Capitol drugs, annihilated her appetite. It helped her achieve that slim, Capitol-favored look. “But it’s fine. What’s going on now?”

“Claudius Templesmith is downstairs in my office. Make yourself presentable and come talk.”

Pyra dragged herself up from the floor and found something soft to throw on. She did not have the energy to brush her hair very well, but she did what she could and tied it back. In Plutarch’s office, Claudius waited patiently.

“Ah, Ms. Lyme the Younger,” he greeted her warmly. “Please, take a seat. I have heard you have been enjoying the city quite a bit.”

It was nearly noon but still too early in the morning for mind games. “Yes, the people have definitely been showing me a good time. Maybe too good. To be honest, it’s getting to be a lot. I like it, but between all these parties, it’s becoming a little tough to keep up.”

“Excellent,” Claudius beamed. “I am sure your fans appreciate that effort, and they are eager for more. After the Victory Tour next week, things will pick up.”

“How so?”

Claudius did not answer the question. “Pyra, has your view of the Capitol changed in your time here?”

“I suppose,” she said. “I had heard it was a little more wild at times, less formal than they tell us. I don’t think I was prepared for the extent of it.”

Claudius nodded thoughtfully. “Right. And given all the fun you’ve had, you would never entertain treason, would you? Not like your mother. Have you spoken to her since you’ve been here?”

“No, I haven’t contacted anyone from home,” she admitted, a growing pit in her stomach. She was ashamed to say it.

“Why not?” he asked innocently. “No desire to report on our kindness and generosity?”

“Bit embarrassed to talk about the activities I’ve been in,” Pyra told him. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but there’s been quite a bit of drugs, which I don’t think are legal, at the parties I go to. I was thinking of maybe taking a break from that part of it. I don’t want to tell her about those, and I would be embarrassed to share how I’ve been doing otherwise.” Pyra did not know why she was being so honest with Claudius. She just didn’t have the energy to lie.

“Oh, come now, Pyra,” he cooed. “‘Taking a break?’ That’s not the Career attitude, is it? To quit when it gets hard to keep up? Maybe you made the right choice, coming here. You would not have lasted in the arena if you’re not willing to do what it takes.”

“No, I guess not.” Was recognizing her limits with drugs the same as giving up in a survival situation? Pyra did not understand.

Claudius wrung his hands. “In any case, the past four months have done their job. You’ve seen the Capitol at our best, and we’ve treated you well. Your fans, though, they grow impatient. I must now determine if you are willing to do everything the Capitol asks, if your loyalty is unwavering, or if you are one to turn against us and forget that the Districts exist for no other purpose than to serve the Capitol. And while many of your future activities may well be as enjoyable as they have been up till now, some might get harder. Some might show you a more… sinister side of the Capitol. And it is my hope that those tougher asks will not inspire rebellion in you. Rather, if you experience anything painful, you will take that as a small taste of what fate awaits rebels. What is it your Academy oath says? ‘I give my power to the Capitol?’ Show me that you can do that, that you can serve the Capitol like a good District citizen, or prepare for the worst of it to never end.”

If Pyra had a brain, her mind was not in it. It was far to the left of her body, watching the interaction, watching herself remain painfully frozen. “Yes, sir. I know I am here to prove that you have nothing to worry about from me. I am not a threat of treason.”

“Wonderful!” Claudius stood, and made to leave, but he stopped at Pyra’s side. “And you should call your mother. Embarrassed or not, you must share these experiences. This year is as much for her sake as yours. When Victors stray like she has, we show them where treason leads. I want her in the loop.”

Pyra nodded, and Claudius did not move, waiting. “Yes, sir,” she added.

He patted her on the shoulder and left.

After a shower, Pyra found Plutarch’s phone and dialed her home number. “Hey, Mom. I’m sorry I haven’t called yet.”

“That’s ok!” Galatea assured her. “I’m happy to hear from you at all.” She did not ask how those months had been. She told Pyra about life back home. Regina was enjoying her new job in town, working with the mayor. Lapis was excelling in school. Cornelia’s nieces and nephews were also well. The weather was cold, snowy. Her dad wished her the best in Peacekeeper training, still acting like he bought the lie, which Galatea knew he did not.

“...Mom,” Pyra finally said, “I’m sorry. Things here have been confusing. But it’s good to hear Two is still good old Two. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. I’m sorry my less wise moments got you into this. I know it’s all meant to punish me.”

Pyra nodded, although her mother couldn’t see. “I’ve wanted to call you, but I wasn’t sure what to say. And today, Claudius came by. He told me to tell you what was happening, like he wants… like it’s my job to rub it in your face.”

“It’s ok. I understand. That’s how they work. If you have to tell me something, just pick one thing that isn’t so bad.”

“Most of it hasn’t been terrible so far,” Pyra said. “I guess… I’ve got horns in my hair. They like referencing you, the Mountain Goat.”

Galatea let out a short laugh before sighing grimly. “Oh, it’s been a long time since I heard that name. Take care of yourself, Pyra. Stay fierce, but keep it smart. Come home in one piece.”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

At the end of his Tour, Niko returned to the Capitol. Pyra was not invited to his gala, but she was a guest at the afterparty. It was an intense one. The Avox servants were dressed very provocatively, and some guests’ outfits rivaled them, including hers. People eyed her with greater hunger. She pushed all that away from her mind with several rounds of shots, medima, and brit.

A few days later, Plutarch solemnly let her know of an appointment with Dr. Belfan. “I’m sorry I can’t keep it so harmless forever. Don’t worry, I’m still able to protect you from the cosmetic surgeries. And the rest of the year won’t last forever, either.”

Hadrian took Pyra to Dr. Belfan’s clinic. It was a real medical appointment, or at least had the appearance of one. He explained that visiting Victors and other guests of the Capitol received routine preventative medicine and treatments when warranted. “For your protection,” the doctor said.

Lying on his table in a thin hospital gown, Pyra had her doubts, but she needed to be a good District citizen, ready to play her role and serve the Capitol. A nurse placed a mask over her nose and instructed her to breathe deeply. It smelled like oranges.

For the glory of Panem, I give my power to the Capitol.

The world faded away, and when it returned, it was like no time had passed. Pyra felt a sharp pain in her abdomen like a bad period, and the nurse offered her morphling from a light blue dropper bottle. The liquid tasted bitter, but it did the trick.

The following evening, Pyra was driven to her next activity. They picked up Finnick on the way.

“So, Euphrates Sickle tonight,” he said glumly. “Hadrian and my escort suggested I accompany you.”

“I see.” Pyra nodded, feeling a sinking dread that even medima could not cure.

“As much as I might have admired it, I’m too smart to try anything like what your mother pulled. I’m sorry.”

Pyra understood. “What exactly did she do? I know she got into a fight.”

Finnick’s smile was wider than Panem. “She was a beast. Broke the face of one of Vulcan Blake’s guards so bad I thought he would die.”

That warmed Pyra’s heart. She was so proud of her mother, wielding chaos. A shame it did not pay off.

When they got to Euphrates’s house, Finnick became a different person, and Pyra understood that, too. Euphrates was thrilled to get two for one, and the Golden Boy, no less. It was rough, watching how he treated Finnick, but Pyra was prepared. She had braced herself for experiences like the pages of Certman’s stories, and yet, watching it happen was different. She did not know if she was strong enough. Finnick shook it off like no big deal.

When Euphrades turned to Pyra, excited for her to join in, he put on an understanding, sympathetic mask. “I know this is all new to you,” he said, and under that mask, Pyra could see he got off on her paradoxical helplessness and naivete. He gestured to a small shelf with an array of rainbow jars. “You want a little something? Meddy, Britni, morphling? Get a little more adventurous with a-drop or psilia? No, never mind them; take too long to kick in and would last you all night. I’ve got Kelly and princeptus, too.”

“Kelly?” Pyra wondered.

“Kertigo is the full name,” Euphrates explained, picking up a lavender jar of yellow pills. “Haven’t met yet? You’d love her.”

Finnick lit a cigarette. “Try the kertigo with brit. They call it skydiving.” He shared a puff with Pyra while Euphrates arranged the goods.

The names made sense. Kertigo like vertigo. Skydiving like a rush through nothing, suspended, adrenalized. She was a jump ahead of herself, and nothing about her body was real. It didn’t feel like her body, anyway; it was someone else’s.

Britni faded before Kelly, and additional doses gave gusts to Pyra’s flight. After Euphrates had his fun, when his time was up, she made a rough landing, scrambling for the lawn from an unwieldy parachute.

As soon as the car door shut, Pyra burst into tears. She felt dirty. She felt wanted. She felt guilty. She felt powerless. She was infuriated. She was lost. Finnick offered words of advice, knowing they only went so far. Assurances that it would get easier sounded like bold-faced lies but better than nothing.

“Don’t tell anyone else about this,” she asked Finnick. “I mean, people who saw me here during the Games, if they don’t know already, don’t tell them how long I stuck around or why.”

“Sure, no problem,” he promised.

The worsening of the Capitol experience continued. People Pyra knew from the parties bought her time, from as short as an hour to as long as a week. She did not know who took the money. She did not know what she cost, and her rational mind did not want to. A sick part of her hoped she was expensive and feared she was not. Definitely cheaper than any Victor.

She tried to come up with a Capitol persona like Finnick did, drawing on what she had learned in Sponsors class and leaning into how they saw her, an animal. If she could pretend to be someone else, push her feelings down and get the job done, she could survive it. When they touched her, she imagined them dying gruesomely; it helped her smiles pass as real. When they shared their drugs and told her she was attractive, they were. She burned their touches from her skin in Plutarch’s hot shower, scalding them with rose-scented foam.

Necator became a regular. He told Pyra once, “Oh, baby, I’m weak for you. You’re like a bad habit.” It made her wonder how Severn Faber was doing, what she and Finnick had in common.

One night, Cashmere was there, dressed in silver. From her high seat next to some rich man, she watched Pyra suffer. Cashmere and her man disappeared together later, and Pyra knew she suffered just the same.

When it wasn’t sex, it was fighting.

The audience beat the cage rabidly, thirsting for blood year round. Those fights were not to the death like the Hunger Games, but they came close. There were no strict rules, and the only way to end a fight was to surrender. Occasionally, someone died before they got the chance. And this game was between adults, trained adults with brit or princeptus in their systems for an edge. Pyra liked princeptus. It pulled her out of her head and filled her body with otherworldly strength, like hot steel in her veins. With princeptus, Pyra was gone, and in her place stood the Mountain Kid, a fiery ex-Career ready to play her role. But even drugs did not ignite her as strongly as the audience’s adoration. That was everything.

She beat challengers to bloody pulps. Some of them were Avoxes.

I am the Capitol’s ruthless sword.

A kernel in her heart wanted her to remember Panem, her people, people who struggled under the Capitol’s tyranny to uphold the lifestyle of glory, to feel guilty for the victories. But the victories were all she had. If she was not a fighter, a winner, a monster, she was nothing. She shook off the defeats, or tried to. Failing at the one thing she was supposed to be good at made her feel worthless. Remake fixed the scars.

Every few weeks, she called her mother. She tried to keep it vague and focus on the less awful parts. Galatea tried to comfort her about the lost matches, reminding Pyra that it was a different game than ones she had trained for.

After a time, Claudius called. “You are aware I know everything that gets said in those calls. All communication between the Capitol and the Districts is monitored,” he said, talking down to her. “Stop holding back. Tell her all the gory details. Tell her what happens to traitors and their loved ones.”

Galatea already knew what happened to traitors. It had happened to her, and it had happened to other Victors, even the Capitol-praising ones. Treacherous Victors heard the worst of it from their daughters’ own mouths.

Pyra was looking forward to a weekend with Helen, the one new Capitol friend who might have just been that. Yet, skinny little Helen was changing her tune. Far from a physical threat, Pyra could have picked her up and thrown her all the way to Twelve if she had a mind for it. But she could not afford to be so hot-headed. She could do nothing but take it as Helen whipped welts into her back and legs.

“You’re sexy when you get knocked down a peg,” Helen teased, holding Pyra’s head up by a horn.

Remake fixed the scars.

One terrible night in May, after the cage match announcer introduced Pyra in her corner, a loud roar sounded over the speakers. The lights dimmed. Spotlights circled the room. Dramatic music rose, and the audience started pounding their chests and stomping to the hastening beat, chanting in a low growl, “Cat-a-mount. Cat-a-mount. Cat-a-mount…”

Between the sensational introduction and the acrid sense that the bell that nickname rang heralded death, Pyra’s heart sank.

“Fuck,” she whispered around clenched teeth.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer called. “She prowls the night in search of prey. She’ll charm your heart and eat it beating. Succulent kisses that leave your tongue bleeding!” The lights settled on the corner of Pyra’s opponent. “The great Catamount herself! Victor of the 62nd Hunger Games! Enobariaaaa!”

When the gate hiked open, Enobaria pounced from it on all fours and rushed up to Pyra, standing to face her menacingly. She licked her teeth. “I’ll chew you up and spit you out, Kid.”

Pyra’s blood was ice. Her lungs felt so small. She had over six inches and twenty pounds on Enobaria, but she was in a different league. Just as Finnick became a different person with Capitol company, this was not the Enobaria she had known. Pyra took a breath and made herself look brave, letting the princeptus guide her from trainee to champion.

“Mountain lions don’t even roar like that. They purr,” she said, earning a smug eye roll from Enobaria. Then louder, her own roar to the crowd, “And I was born for this!”

The audience erupted in cheers, whistles, and hollers. The announcer signalled the beginning of the fight. Pyra started by getting out of biting range, dodging gracefully as Enobaria gnashed her teeth with Capitol theatrics. Pyra responded by swiping her horns in her direction and tried not to think about the day someone would yank one out along with a quarter of her scalp. They danced around each other, taunting, playing a little game to amp up their crowd. Enobaria’s eyes darkened, focusing on Pyra’s throat, and things turned serious.

It was the fight of Pyra’s life. She was strong, fast, an excellent fighter, but she was no match for the Catamount. Pyra could tell she was holding back, and that enraged her. Landing hits on the person she had once idolized—still idolized in some respects—hurt her heart, but it also filled her with overwhelming pride. Given Enobaria’s history with loyalty, that match felt like her own small rebellion. She drew on her Career training, using the Capitol’s generosity against them.

For the glory of Panem, I hold my power as my own!

Enobaria missed, and Pyra thought she saw genuine disappointment on her face. Maybe she was not holding back as much as it had seemed.

To wield chaos, I am Panem’s ruthless sword!

Pyra knocked Enobaria down with a kick to the chest, and the way she wheezed hitting the hard floor was electrifying. Pyra pounced on her, punching away, not caring about the damage. Remake would fix it. For a moment, she thought she might actually win. She screamed a savage cry of glory.

I am Panem’s blazing voice!

The Victor could be me!

Enobaria caught Pyra’s wrist mid-strike. She lunged up and sank her teeth into Pyra’s bare shoulder. Pyra screamed, and it was not the blazing voice; it was the weak and breaking wail of the defeated. Even after months of the Capitol’s bad side, she was not prepared for the pain of that. Flesh tearing. Princeptus’s dissociative blanket fading.

The Victor was done holding back. She took the advantage and flipped Pyra off of her, spitting a flap of skin to the side. Audience members stuck their fingers through the cage, as if they could reach it. Pyra tried to fight on, but her shoulder was soaking. It hurt to move. Before she lost any more of herself, she surrendered.

Cocky, Enobaria pranced around the cage and absorbed all the audience’s praise, blowing them bloody kisses. She picked up the bit of Pyra’s shoulder skin and teased the audience about if she should toss it to them or eat it. Pyra almost thought she would be crazy enough to do it, but cannibalism was unbecoming. Enobaria flung it back in Pyra’s face and sauntered out her gate with a passing, “See you.”

Remake fixed it.

Before Pyra left the Capitol, she had another appointment with Dr. Belfan. It was exactly the same as the first.