The Coalition Episodes 1-4 Read Online Free Page A

Shai stared at her friend.
    "Who were you expecting? Aliah?" The girl trudged into the room past Shai, then slumped into a chair by the fire and kicked off her boots. "There's a storm coming."
    She yawned and stretched her slender arms abo ve her head. "Can I stay here? Maire's at the house tonight since Eliana was assigned to you here." Sileas's forehead wrinkled in a grimace. "Nice place."
    Shai closed the door and moved to the kitchen. "I'm on twenty-fours of solitude you know."
    She snatched a sooty kettle from its hook in the kitchen and cranked the water tap open and filled the kettle. It was going to be a long night.
    "You s'posed to be meditating or something?” Sileas had a lilting voice, her features delicate and bird-like. "I mean, why twenty-four hours?"
    "To observe the Law of Gratitude, Sil." Shai hung the kettle over the fire.
    "Gratitude hmm? Well, are you? Grateful? I mean, I know you've never wanted to be a Watcher so this is better right? You -the mother of the next Gracious Leader! I'm nearly sixteen, almost past the point of being eligible. I have to get recruited this round!"
    Shai stood in front of the fire facing her friend. She crossed her arms and frowned. "Sil, why would anyone want to be recruited? You’d work for our Leader, who…" She caught herself before she broke the Law of Respect. A chill ran through her as she remembered the young girl whose tongue had been snipped. She'd been close enough to see the piece of skin that clung to the scissors after the Mother had cut it off. It gleamed ghostly-white like it was shocked.
    Sileas grinned. "I just want to get recruited before it’s too late. I'd even break a Law just to get noticed. I can’t go to the Camps and be a baby-maker. Aside from recruitment what choice do we have?" She looked at Shai, her eyes shining. "If I wasn't so afraid of punishment I would do something that no one else has ever done, like break the big Law. But my only hope is Recruitment. There's no way I could stay here and become a Mother. Ugh, and I couldn't stand being forced to give birth in one of those Camps..."
    Sileas's voice trailed off as she began to twist the silver chain around her neck. She rubbed a small wooden pendant across her lips, staring into the fire.
    Shai's heart sunk, her stomach churning. How easy it was to forget that those Camps were where every one of them was from. And returning to Lael, after giving birth, to become a Community Mother was a far better fate than being recruited as a Watcher of Lael.
    I’d rather go to the Camps than collect my reward.

CHAPTER 7
    Aliah
     
    When Ellersly left, Aliah ran across the bridge and cut through the woods behind the rows of Girls' Houses. When he was out of sight he pulled his hood up and zigzagged through the thick trees. He made sure to take a different path than last time so no one would follow him.
    A wire fence with wooden posts marked the end of Lael's boundary and the beginning of the Borderless: no-man's land. He found a spot where the wire had been cut and continued running until the trees grew so close together the branches slapped his face. He covered his face with one arm and pushed through the trees to the other side. A large, two-story stone house came into view. Thunder Manor.
    He opened the heavy wooden front door and clenched his teeth at the sharp bite of the cold steel door-knob against his palm.  He leaned his forehead against the doorjamb, inhaling Thunder Manor's stale air until his nostrils burned.
    The smell of privacy.
    He closed the door then fumbled in the dark to find the small table he'd placed near the door, with an oil lantern and a few matches. A scrrch penetrated the darkness and the sulfuric match odor filled the entrance. The small face of a young man was revealed in the sudden halo of lantern light.
    Aliah jumped. "Who are you?"
    "I’m Zev. I... I followed you here." The boy’s voice was surprisingly low and rough. His grey eyes held a hint of amber that