Rafferty looked at the girl with the sandy brown ponytail. She guessed the girl was 12 or 13, which was neither particularly old or particularly young. The girl wore a tight burgundy dress, with a high collar that stopped just under her chin.

You won't be able to Hunt in that.

The girl was standing next to a blonde woman. Rafferty assumed that was her mother. Behind them was a man, who Rafferty thought she recognized as the captain over in Affirm. That man was talking to Max, and he was positively beaming.

"Did anybody catch her name?" Rafferty asked.

"Nah, we're too far away," said Blaspheme.

Rafferty was standing with the rest of J Hall, as she always did during a Crucible. Pretty much everybody showed up to these, all packed around the Oven. It wouldn't do not to.

"So what do you think?" asked Blaspheme.

"Hard to say." said Sheridan.

"I'm sure it will be fine," said Cody.

"I'm not so sure," said Blaspheme.

"Why do you say that?" asked Rafferty.

"See how Mom keeps looking back at that guy. That's not her dad. He wants this, so that Affirm can say it has a Hunter, or whatever. This isn't about whateverhernameis, it's about him. That girl is a seven at best. A weak seven," said Blaspheme.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The other girls gave Blaspheme looks that suggesting strong distaste.

"What? I didn't say I was rooting for it," she said defensively.

Blaspheme decided she needed to change the subject.

"Hey DeCarlo, what was your number? I never asked."

"Nine," said Cody, with a small smile on her face. Nine was the most common number for girls who went through. "What about you?"

"Ten. A strong ten," said Blaspheme, her chest puffed out. "Fawkes?"

"Eleven," said Sheridan.

"Of course," Cody and Blaspheme said together.

Sheridan shrugged. She kept her face straight, but couldn't quite hide the competitive sparkle in her eye.

"What about you, Rafferty?" Cody asked.

Rafferty's mother, a tall woman with long, flowing black curls, knelt to speak to her daughter. "I need you to be brave for one hundred heartbeats. Can you do that for me darling? I don't care what anyone else says, I've known you were special since before you were born, and when you get to one hundred, they'll know it too. Can you do it? Can you do it for me?"

Rafferty pulled herself out of the memory to answer the question.

"Four," she said, barely above a whisper.

The other girls looked at her as if she had just told them that she was born at the bottom of a lake and her parents were actually fish. Cody looked concerned, as if she were worried that the Oven might be able to hear Rafferty, and reach out to correct its mistake.

Rafferty's hallmates clearly had follow-up questions, but they were interrupted by the start of the ceremony.

Max was talking quietly to the girl. When he finished, she nodded. Max stepped back, and Harker, from D Hall, stepped forward, and placed a necklace of blue shells over the girl's head. The girl turned, and squeezed her mother's hand before turning to face the Oven.

Nobody said anything as the engineers opened the big doors, and the girl walked through them.

Nothing happened for a moment. The crowd was tense, like it always was. Rafferty heard Cody gasp, and then felt the wave of pain twist through her head and settle in her stomach. She felt Blaspheme's hand on her shoulder as her friend struggled to keep her feet.

The screams started soon after.

The girl hadn't made it to a hundred.

The Blue had rejected her.

Rafferty still didn't know her name.

The girl's mother was on the ground, sobbing. The captain held her. His face seemed appropriately horrified, but Rafferty thought it looked practiced. She thought what he was really feeling was disappointment.

It was always difficult after a failed Crucible. No one wanted to be the first to leave, but all you wanted to do was crawl into bed and wait for the wave of rejection to pass. Eventually, someone would be brave enough to peel away, and others would follow.

Rafferty looked again at the sobbing mother, and thought of her squeezing her daughter's hand, and of the pile of ashes that was now spread across the Oven floor. Later, after the Oven settled down, one lucky girl would get to go in and shovel out those ashes. Rafferty hoped it wouldn't be her.

Gus said that the Hunters were the only thing that made people feel safe from the Gods. He said that if they didn't feel safe, they'd never be able to work together, and build cities, and make the world more like it was Before. He said the world needed the Hunters, maybe more than it needed anything.

There was a price for that.

There was a price for everything.