The Lottery (A SHADE OF HADES, Book One) **TEASER**

Chapter One. A STROKE OF FATE

I nearly met my death as a babe. The scythes of the farmers are sharp as sin, and they cut the stalks of the ripened wheat without mercy. I was saved through a stroke of fate.

The old man who found me said I glowed with an ethereal light and he saw me through the curtain of grain before he swung his blade. Only for a moment, I shone like gossamer stars. He believed me Olympus-kissed. That gleam has never returned to me. I believe the old man was mistaken. He didn't see a light at all.

I am so very ordinary.

A girl with no parents. A girl with no past.

"Kore, get yeeself into the eatin' or ye'll slumber wi' naught bit an ache in yer middling." Kind Woman's voice carried over the golden wheat, finding me where I rested against the ground. Hiding in the growing things gave me peace. It was peace. Kind
Woman talked differently than anyone else in the village. She'd fled her homeland so long ago that she says she cannot close her eyes and see her nurturing place any longer. She cannot see the faces of the ones who raised her. But the truth in her words has stayed, like rolling hills meeting lakes which erode the shores but cannot destroy them completely.

"Lass, urr ye hearin' me?" Her voice grew no closer. She'd not come searching for me. She had her busy ways, and sparing a thought for me was all she typically had time for in a day. It wasn't ignoring me out of mean-spiritedness. It was just the truth of things. Kind Woman and Kind Husband were older, as much silver in their hair as any color now. I knew I should be better to them, more grateful for their love.

She says often that she was lucky to find Kind Husband, lucky to come to our small village with his promise of happiness. It made me sad, at times, that they could not have children of their own. I should feel more important, that I am one of three they adopted into their home—their first wanted child. When no one else wanted the baby from the wheat field who never cried, yet only stared at the world around her with unbridled curiosity, the Kind couple wrapped me in their arms.

"Hae it yer way," Kind Woman yelled again, "tis yer belly!"

I heard the heavy wooden door to our rounded home set deep into the hillside swing closed. She and Kind Husband have watched over me all these years, since the night I was found abandoned by the old man. They'd had no children before me, well past the age'n of birthing. Yet, they'd created a family for themselves, takin' in the cast-offs and the orphans.

I held my hand up, watching the way my paleness glowed in the fading sunlight. No matter how much time I spent in the sunlight, I didn't get the Earth-kissed skin of my sister or brother. We are all shades of different in hidden village, but I have always been the only one so pale.

Really, I had nothing in common with my adoptive family. Kind Woman and Kind Husband were tall and broad of shoulders. Hair that was once dark and ink pools for eyes. They are brown as the Earth when it is wet, and just as sweet smelling as soil after a storm. Good Brother and Good Sister are similarly-formed, though Good Sister is shorter than the rest and goes to great lengths to smell of grapes, because they are such a rare and desirable food.

Our village was buried between mountains, tucked away from the world. The only way in and out, aside from the treacherous journey over the peaks, was the deep blue river that had worn down a narrow passageway between the guardian rocks. We were different here, cut off from society. We lived in peace with nature, growing and taking only what was needed. A wise person would not want more than the simple life our people offer.

I often wished it fulfilled me.

I must have laid there in the crop for an hour past the time Kind Woman called for me. It was easy to lose track of time out in nature. My body seemed to sink into the soil and send its own brand of magick into the roots of everything around me. I closed my eyes, digging my fingers into the black earth. Kind Woman would have a fit if she saw my nails later, though she should be used to my wildling unkemptness.