Kyteline, Chapter One: Part One

Kimber held her Ma tightly, with her cheek pressed into the sage colored silk of her Ma's dress. She was only fourteen, but she was old enough to understand the picture stretched upon the brick wall. The shimmering image depicted a small grave with a headstone painted with red letters. It read “This is how small our graves have become.” Kimber felt sick to her stomach. The scene was not overly dramatic, but it scared her more than the others had. It had a certain feeling of fatality darting beneath the red letters.

The magic clung to the wall, eating away into the bricks like acid. Her Ma called it graffiti, but Kimber called it art. Each drab of color seemed to slither across the wall, an illusion placed over the conjured picture to make it seem alive. Kimber was awed by the magic of it. Looking up at her Ma, she saw that the woman's eyes were wide with terror. Kimber could not understand that terror, only the curiosity that came with the name scribbled at the bottom of the image. The same name written on all the others. Always NOVA.

Nobody really knew who she was because nobody had ever met her. She was only ever a figment, an image mirroring the ones she conjured on walls. NOVA had always been talked about as if she were a ghost, and might or might not exist. Kimber would hear the name whispered here or alluded to there and she would wonder why those whispers were never well-meant. Peeking out at the crowd that was growing near the wall, Kimber could see her Ma's same terror sketched on everyone else's face. She couldn't comprehend why they felt that way, when all she felt was respect. No one else in the city had the guts to create something so radically against the law.

At least not in the First District.

Kimber knew better than to hint at the respect she felt for NOVA. The name was supposed to be feared, not respected. Wanted posters were a daily occurrence, hung on lampposts around the First District and on store windows in the Market District. She had even taken one down and stashed it inside her room. NOVA was like a God to Kimber. She stood for equality and bravery and everything that Kimber's people lacked.

An older lady in a puce colored dress walked up to them, with the same expression of terror etched on her face.

“Oh, Lady LaStell, why do you let the child look? She doesn't need to see this hideous graffiti. Her eyes are too young for it,” the woman exclaimed with the corners of her mouth down turned with disapproval.

“She was not meant to see it,” Kimber's Ma shot back as she grabbed her daughters hand and led her away from the beautifully terrifying image.

Kimber smoothed her plaited skirt and tucked in her blouse. With her pack over her shoulder, Kimber tried to keep up. A block from the school, Kimber tugged her hand away from the taller woman whose palms were soft but sweaty. With a quick glance upwards, Kimber noticed that her Ma's hair appeared more oily than normal. The strands were a white-blond color and they were hanging in long double braids rather than her usual loose waves.

“Behave yourself, today,” her Ma said without a glance in her direction.

“Bye,” Kimber rolled her eyes as she turned and sprinted towards the brick school building, four floors high.

Kimber LaStell came from a wealthy and powerful family, so the rumors were only whispered behind her back. The other kids thought she didn't know but she would hear them whispering. She would catch words like freak, abnormal and ugly. For a long time, she hadn't known what they meant, but now that she did she hated them. She hated the words and the kids that said them. She would have hated them less if they had the decency to call her names to her face instead of behind her back.

Kimber had no friends, not even acquaintances. Her teachers regarded her with the same look that everyone else did. One eye pity, the other, repulsiveness.

She pushed her way through the nauseating mustard-colored hall and into the classroom. The teacher was a stout, fat man, and when he came to her name on the list, he hesitated, his eyes flickering up at Kimber and the scar on her face. He called her name, treating it as one would a young child, softly and gingerly. Kimber glared at him.

“Here,” she called out loudly, unafraid of the amused looks her classmates shot her, or the grimace that crossed over the substitutes pudgy facial features.

They began with the Pledge, where the students stood and recited the oath to their city, Kyteline. The memorized words came easily to Kimber, and she mumbled through them as usual. When it was time to sit, a group of older kids passed the doorway, peeking into the room as they passed. One of them grinned when he looked in and threw a fist in the air. His wild eyed excitement leaked into the classroom, making the kids around Kimber talk and misbehave. A boy slipped from his chair and started laughing when he hit the floor.

“I'm gonna pass The Test today!” the boy at the door yelled just before his teacher ushered him away from the doorway and apologized for the disruption.

The substitute shut the door loudly. He shouted twice before the class managed to quiet down. Returning to the front of the room, the heavyset man swept the room with his eyes peeking over his thin glasses.

“You kids excited to take the Test?” he began. “Four years, that's all most of you have to wait.”

“How hard is it, sir?” a girl asked in the back of the room.

“I'm not allowed to talk about it. I will say this though, it will change your life. If you fail, you all know what happens. But if you pass, no more school. That Test is what we prepare you for, and if you pass, there is no longer a need to school you. Of course, you must pay attention now in order to learn what you must, instead of cramming for it later. Would you all like to get started?”

A continuous moan filled the room. Kimber rolled her eyes at the laziness of her classmates. She wanted to pass the Test, and she did not want to do any cramming the week before.

“Yes,” she said over the whining. With her permission, the substitute began to write on the board and Kimber followed along with her eyes.

Outside on the school grounds, Kimber liked to sit by the iron fence, with her back to the cold metal bars. She would unfold her sheet of parchment paper and use her tiny charcoal stick to draw various younger kids playing on the playground. It was a fairly small school, but it was only for the First District. Second District got their own school that was just past the fence on the other side.

Even sitting alone, Kimber could see how much nicer her school was than the Second District's school. Hers was made of brick and had four floors. Healthy grass dotted the field behind the building, and the playground was large and newly painted blue. Through the fence she could see the graffiti on the side of the other school, not the kind NOVA did but normal graffiti with real paint. The playground was practically non-existent and the grass was a pathetic excuse for hiding the hard, dry soil. The fence was iron and it rose twenty or so feet into the air, maybe higher. There were no footholds, no way to climb up its side. The top of each bar had a spike, along with a small wire that would electrocute anyone who touched it. It was an ominous fence and what it stood for angered Kimber, but she was used to it being there, always in the corner of her eye.

While inspecting the two school, Kimber noticed a boy named Chakal standing at the fence with his usual horde of followers. From where she was sitting, Kimber could see that Chakal had his hand through the bars, locked on a thin, pale girls arm. She was from the Second District school, and the embarrassed blush that was creeping into her cheeks had become all too familiar to Kimber. She stood and made her way over to Chakal.

“Let go of her, Chakal,” Kimber said as she shoved past some of the other boys and came to stand beside Chakal. His black hair was greasy and his skin was covered in pimples but a vicious smile was employed by his chapped lips.

“Why would I do that?” he sneered.

“Because I told you to,” Kimber said with edge of threat in her voice.

“Sorry, but we're not done talking to the skeleton yet,” he said with a nod in the Second District girls direction. Kimber now noticed just how skinny and pale she was. The girls arm was red where Chakal was gripping it. Kimber could see that he was hurting her as well as embarrassing her.

“Let her go now,” her voice came out as a low growl.

“Aw, Scar girl thinks she's scaring me,” Chakal laughed. The boys surrounding him and Kimber joined in the laughing.

Kimber slammed her curled fist into Chakal's pimply face. He let go of the girls arm as he stumbled back a few feet. From across the playground, Kimber could hear a teacher yelling for her to stand down. Ignoring the yelling, Kimber started after Chakal. She was taken aback at the contrast between her peach skin and the pale hand that suddenly appeared on her arm and held her back. For being such a thin and frail looking girl, she was surprisingly strong. Kimber glared at her. She wanted to go after Chakal and keep punching him but this random girl was holding her back. Even still, Kimber had enough wisdom to not try and pull away. She knew she would lose control if she succeeded. The pale girl thanked her and stepped back from the fence just before the teacher reached them and grabbed Kimber. The teacher tried to hold on to her but Kimber broke free and willingly went to the Headmasters office.

The Headmaster was a cold and logical woman; one that didn't care much for children. Kimber liked the woman, because there were a lot of similarities between the way they thought. Kimber was invited into the Headmaster's office, which was painted a stale beige color, with a black and white checkered pattern decorating everything. The sneer on the towering woman's face seemed a brighter than the last time Kimber had visited. Her olive skin had a little more glow to it and her hair was in a perfect bun.

“Aren't you looking nice today, Ma'am,” Kimber smiled, half meaning her words and half trying to sweeten up to the older woman.

“I'm tired of this game,” the woman replied, her tone deep and threatening.

“What game?” Kimber asked, faking innocence.

“You need to stop lashing out at other kids.”

“I'm not just going to sit around when they treat me and other people like shit. That's a game I'm tired of. You expel kids when they disrespect you, I lash out at them. Its the only way I can have even a shred of respect in this school,” Kimber tried to explain.

“You speak so much better than the other kids your age. You're smarter too. I'm starting to think you're older than you look,” the Headmaster spun off topic.

“What else can I do to pass my time? I have no friends, so I read and I write. Is that really so hard for you to understand, Ma'am?” Kimber snapped at the woman, who leaned back in her chair and rubbed her forehead.

“The point is, I'm getting impatient with you,” she sighed.

Kimber smirked and placed her right palm down in the table. On the back of her hand was a coin sized scar. The Headmaster stared at it, the prepared argument that had been on her tongue fading rapidly. It was the crest of the LaStell family that had been branded onto Kimber's hand a few years back, just as it had to her Ma when she had married into the family. Every one of the seven ruling families had a crest and had it branded onto their wrists at ten years of age.

It was their identification mark, just as the people that passed The Test get a 1 branded into their arm, and the ones that fail got a 2. The one stood for living in the First District, the two if you live in the Second. It didn't matter whether you wanted to leave your home or not, if you grew up in the First district and failed you had to move to the Second. If you grew up in the Second and passed you had to move to the First. Inter-District marriages were illegal, as were Inter-District schooling and most jobs. Few First District citizens wanted to work in the Second District, so the Second ended up having dirtier living quarters and less effective schooling, which caused more kids to fail the test.

The way Kyteline was run infuriated Kimber, because it was not equal and she didn't understand why no one else could see that. She had begun to wonder if it was because they didn't want to. It didn't directly effect her much, because ruling families didn't have to take The Test. Kimber was in school because her parents wanted her to be educated, and they didn't want to do it themselves. Her Ma was forcing her to take the test, even though she wouldn't have to move whether she failed or not.