Chapter 1
"Emerald! How was your Grængrat? I heard that He attended."
Those rumors happened every time someone had a Grængrat. Previous to this she even secretly believed that He would come, but of course he did not. He had much more important needs than to attend a regular Grængrat.
"It was great, thanks." Emerald replied trying to sound enthusiastic. In reality Emerald thought that the ceremony was awful and just wished that Sav would leave. The Grængrat ceremony was first made as an introduction into adulthood but, now was only being held for tradition, and because if any child did not have a Grængrat before the Changes, they were believed to be damned. Most families only held it to show off there wealth and power.
"Aww Emerald, it couldn't have been as bad as Sebastion's."
Emerald wasn't so sure, less than half of her invites showed up, even less than that actually stayed the whole time and none of them participated in the trials. Even the men did not try to gain honor today. All proof that her Grængrat was the worst in history.
Her family was extremely poor and most people thought it an insult to even be in the same room as one of the Ores. The Ores barely had enough land to grow any food and The War caused taxes to be extremely high and all men between 15 and 30 winters were forced to take part in the lottery. The lottery was supposed to be an even way to choose men from all backgrounds to "stand up and make there country proud" by going off to fight in The War. When this war started, all of the Ups bribed the Drawers to put the name back in if the were drawn. So instead of it being about a 1 in 10 chance of being chosen to fight, the odds were now 1 to 3. Emerald's older brother Diamond was drawn and forced to fight. Now, the next lottery was coming up and Emerald was convinced that she needed to get drawn so she could fight and find her brother.