Previously in The Road Most Traveled: Ingrid Kolster falls in love with Jacob Everdeen, but eventually follows her family's advice to turn him down. She marries Phillip Mellark the same day Jacob marries another woman. Ingrid and Phillip are incredibly happy together, but are shaken by the brutality of the Games. They're amongst the newlyweds who start families. An existing family stays whole when Jacob's brother survives the arena.

Chapter

August 18th was a good day for District Twelve. A Capitol train returned bearing a victor. It also carried a dead body, horrible enough, but one of those was better than two, and living in the districts hammered down one's expectations and kept them there. As the train pulled into our station, most of the district mobbed the platform, but his family gathered around at the front of the crowd. I heard the first car echo with a loud triumphant sound. Daniel and Haymitch were a small crowd, but what they lacked for in quantity, they made up in volume. However, the second car was silent. We listened close, but couldn't hear anything. It must contain Apple's coffin, a body no longer able to speak or cheer.

Daniel had killed the boy from District Two to assure his victory, and they had a victor only last year. However, the girl from District Ten hadn't been far behind, so this would be particularly hard to watch there. To make it home, Daniel had to extend their sorrow to a quarter century. Yet if Annie Hickok had made it home, our hopes would have been just as cruelly dashed. I only hope they recognized who was truly at fault.

Someone from the Capitol media team asked Daniel "So how do you feel about moving to Victors Village?"

"I left The Seam, but The Seam hasn't left me," he answered. He wouldn't forget the harsh reality of where he came from – how could you? I was shaken enough by a few months' incidental exposure. He wouldn't forget the people who were still there.

I was one of many gawkers as they actually moved into Victors Village, but I was one of the few allowed a good look. The dozen identical mansions made the Mellark bakery look like a Seam shack. The Everdeens, who actually knew those hovels, looked a mixture of shocked and vindicated.

The waste sickened me, although not the Everdeens' spacious new quarters in and of themselves. Nine of the palaces had never been used. One more currently wasn't being used – it had been occupied by our first victor, who had met an early death. It seems our second victor was well on his way to one.

Lily and Haymitch both won Quarter Quells, which were especially twisted versions of the Games held every twenty-five years.

The districts had to choose their tributes to the 25th Games. My parents and Phillip's were slightly past reaping age then. However, Andrew and Sarah Everdeen were amongst the older children in that year's reaping, and Sarah had once told me how it went. She was Sarah Nielsen then, but her and Andrew were already lovers. The two of them were amongst those who chose Lily, thinking she had the best chance. They were right about that, but unaware that it would be a false victory. The lower districts always did this with their volunteers, so the odds hadn't been skewed as far in their favor that year.

The Capitol chose twice as many for the 50th Games, and Maysilee had been the 2nd District Twelve female. The deaths were always senseless, but this circumstance made her loss especially painful. Supposedly two rebels had died for every Capitol citizen, now innocents died for the amusement of Capitol citizens. They warned that even more would die if we became rebels again. The best of us remained rebels in spirit yet recognized there was no real possibility to put that into action – we wouldn't let them break us, yet we realized it was foolish to simply add our bodies to the pile.

I half-remembered some lines from Phillip's book, the same one in which he had found the name for our daughter. Do you think it better to suffer through horrible misfortune, or to rise up against it and by that opposition end it?

My attention snapped back to more mundane concerns when one of the cameramen tapped my shoulder, wanting me to move as his lens followed Daniel's move-in. I wonder how these exquisite District residences compared to average Capitol ones. The media crew didn't let on, probably out of professionalism as well as being experienced with this procedure. Other Capitol agents had already brought in the heavy furnishings; at this point Daniel and his relatives brought mainly their bodies and a few meager personal effects.

Monthly food shipments were part of the cruel bargain the Capitol offered when it set up the Games. Many of the slightly older children were instantly drawn to the snacks that came with the first batch. To those used to rough grain paste if that, this was unimaginably beautiful, a rainbow in the dark of our lives. I think I recognized the Hawthorne boy in the crowd. He looked new to solid food, sucking on that sugar cube as if it was one of Hazelle's teats. I didn't dwell much on the candies - they reminded me too much of Maysilee and the sweets shop run by her family. My own Ceres was still at the breast, and would be for some time. Andrew 2 was similar in that regard. Besides, I was too busy helping Phillip with the sacks of flour and other baking staples. For once District Twelve would eat well; that would make all of the food merchants even busier, but we had a role to play and we knew how important it was.

A few weeks after Daniel's victory, he was summoned back to the Capitol on some sort of Victor business. He secured a berth on one of the trains the Capitol used to transport resources stolen from the Districts. When he returned, like when he returned from the Games, I joined the Everdeens at the station.

"Snow just wanted me to sleep with some Capitol women…and men," Daniel said easily upon this return from the Capitol. "I'm more flexible than I thought," he added nervously.

"Doesn't change the fact that you're my brother," Jacob said calmly.

Adam slapped him on the back and cheerfully said "I knew you'd be getting laid plenty and soon enough!"

"You can't complain either," Daniel parried. "I bet that Townie is barely eighteen," he added while watching Angela cling to Adam.

"Yeah, we had to wait for her birthday," Adam agreed.

"It was worth it, though," Angela said. "These Seam guys seem like far better men than the average Town jerk."

"Tell me about it!" I piped in. "It seems Melody Donner and I married two of the few decent men in the Merchant Section."

"Yeah, I don't know how I ended up with that loser Fergus. We rush to the Justice Building when he got me pregnant – this turned out to be a bad idea, though how I love baby Bridget. I'd been tempted by you folks, thought I 'knew better', Danny's victory encouraged me to give you guys a chance."

"I thought the fountain of gold was more than enough, let alone this fountain of beauty," Adam said while gesturing at Angela.

Angela laughed and added "Bridget likes it too. Adam already seems like more of a father in one month than Fergus did in several."

"Daniel was the one to emerge from the arena, but it seems all of the Everdeens were victors."