Only the Worthy by Morgan Rice

with dread, was filling up.
    Royce stood and
saw the water down here was a few feet deep, sloshing around. He saw something
float past and felt it bump against his leg, and he looked down and saw it was
a dead body, one of the many boys who had died below. He surveyed the hold and
saw, to his horror, the water was filled with floating corpses. The chances of
survival down here were slim, too, he realized. Yet up above it was impossible.
    The waters rose
higher and higher, soon up to his waist. Royce knew that when they reached the
top, he would be floating back on deck, and his life would be over.
    He reached out,
grabbed onto a peg on the wall and onto the rope of an old hammock, bracing
himself, while Mark did the same. They stood there and waited, watching the
waters rise, and as Royce saw death all around him, he wondered just how he
would die.

CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    Genevieve felt
the tears slide down her cheeks as her new handmaidens, encircling her, fitted
her into her wedding dress. She looked down at it in despair: it might as well
have been a funeral gown. With each pull of the cord, tying the corset tighter
around her waist, she felt as if another string of her life were being pulled,
cutting her off from the future she had imagined with Royce, and sentencing her
to a marriage that would be her death.
    “Do not cry now,
it is unbecoming of a bride,” came a voice.
    Genevieve was
only dimly aware of the girls attending her, a half dozen of them, all busy
preparing as she sat on a bench in the stone chamber in this fort. Some worked
on her shoes—tall, leather things that strapped to her knees—while others fixed
her hair, trimmed her dress, rubbed oils into her skin, and applied makeup. It
was the girl wiping her cheeks with the cool rag, wiping away her tears, that
had spoken to her.
    Genevieve looked
over and saw the girl staring back at her, a few years older, with long, curly
black hair, green eyes, and a kind face. She was surprised at her look of
compassion, the first she had seen since entering this fort. She covered up Genevieve’s
tears with a dab of makeup, treating Genevieve as if she were a doll. For these
people, Genevieve knew, it was all about appearances.
    “It’s not as bad
as you think, you know,” the girl went on. “After all, you’re marrying into
nobility; it could be worse.”
    Genevieve closed
her eyes and shook her head.
    “I am not marrying him,” Genevieve insisted, her voice sounding far off to her.
    The girl gave
her a confused look.
    “He may be
marrying me,” Genevieve clarified, “and there is nothing I can do about it. Yet
I shall not consider myself wed to him.”
    The girls all
giggled around her.
    Genevieve
frowned, determined to express her seriousness.
    “My heart
belongs to another,” she added, to cement her point.
    Finally the
girls’ expressions turned serious, giving each other worried glances.
    The girl
attending Genevieve’s makeup turned to the other girls and shooed them off.
They all left, concern etched across their faces. Genevieve wondered who they
would run and tell. She did not care.
    Soon they were
alone, just Genevieve and the girl, and the room fell silent. The girl
continued to look at Genevieve with wise and understanding eyes.
    “My name is
Moira,” she said. “I am wife to Ned, the youngest brother of the man you will
wed. I guess that shall make us sisters?” She smiled weakly. “I’ve always
wanted a sister.”
    Genevieve did
not know how to reply; Moira seemed kind enough, yet she did not wish anyone in
this fort to be her family.
    Moira took a
deep breath as she came around behind her and began tying up her hair.
    “Allow me to
give you a word of advice, having lived in this family for too many years,” she
added. “They will do whatever they have to, to stay in power. They do not
choose brides meaninglessly. And to marry them is like a small death.”
    Genevieve turned
to her, struck by her honesty, and for the first time, she