She is beautiful in an unconventional way. Everything about her is sharp and hard – her somber eyes, her short hair, her flat smile, her pure skin, her slim jaw. She gives me a feeling of both conversance and abstruseness. My senses tell me to release the Capital fighter at my feet, but I dare not move.

“How many do we have so far?” The Capital leader asks.

The judge answers, “Twenty, sir.”

“You’ve found twenty out of the hundreds that participated?”

The judge bows. He is too arrogant to admit his shame. “This would be the twenty-first. If you were to approve, sir.”

The leader observes me. His face shines with a gentleness I do not often come across, yet I feel I’ve met him before.

“Find me nine more,” he says and turns around. The daughter follows him.

“Including him, sir?” The judge shouts.

“He’s already included,” he answers. I continue to watch the daughter until the judge pushes me off the man.

“Release him,” he orders. “You’ve already won as it is.” He helps the fighter to his feet, and then he scolds him for being beaten. “You aren’t the Capital’s own if you are beaten so easily.”

“But sir,” he objects, “that man was – “

“I’ll talk to your squad leader. Expect a demotion.” The fighter reluctantly leaves the court as the judge faces me. “Do you see that over there?” I look to where he is pointing. I see a small, black door in the far corner of the court. Beside it is a group of competitors who I assume won their battles like I did. “Wait there.”

Immediately following the man’s instructions, I near the men beside the door. They all talk with one another with jolly grins. One man sees me and says, “We are to wait until they find the remaining finalists.”

I neither reply nor nod, but they all fall silent when I train my eyes on him. They shift uncomfortably, and then they move away to make room for me. I lean against the wall and watch the competition while they resume their conversation.

Two hours pass. Within those two hours, it starts to rain. While the others throw up their arms in a futile attempt to protect themselves, I remain in my position against the wall and wait as the rain seeps into my clothes. Once the finalists realize that they won’t escape the rain, something I already knew the minute it started, they simply sink to the floor in misery.

“The last finalist,” one man yells. Through the dim fog, we see a man approach us. The man who had shouted starts to count out loud, and then he exclaims, “Thirty.”

Once the hapless competitors are ushered away, the court is empty. The people begin to disperse until all that is left are two judges, ten Capital workers, and twenty-five of the Capital’s own.

“Congratulations on being the finalists,” one judge says to us beneath the protection of his umbrella, which a Capital worker begrudgingly carries. He is the same judge I met earlier. “Through that door is the heart of the Capital. We take pride in our home and do not allow enemies inside. We trust that you belong to one of our training camps – however, it’s standard procedure to confirm. I would hate to have regrets.” He nods, and each of the Capital’s own takes the arm of a finalist. A surly man grabs my arm. “If we are truly all of the same agenda, then we have the same enemy: the Nights. You all know that the Nights mark themselves in an effort to establish our differences. If any of you are Nights who have covered his mark, the rain will have washed it off. If any of you are part of the Capital Rebellion, you will not pass this inspection. We know what you hide.”

The man who holds me roughly pulls me to the side. Before he can rip my father’s shirt, I warn, “If you want to check if I have the tattoo or not, allow me to show you. I don’t need you frivolously ruining things that are mine.” I pull his hand away from me, and then I take off the shirt. Bare-chested, I stand beneath the rain that continues to spatter me.

“There’s nothing,” he says loudly after a few minutes of examining me. He gives me my shirt. “It isn’t normally our procedure to do this, but there have been too many unresolved acts.”

I slip the shirt over my head. Just then, a fight breaks out between one finalist and one of the Capital’s own. Slowly after that, everyone joins the tangle and battles with each other in a wet flurry of confusion. The fight doesn’t subside until three of the Capital’s own have nailed a finalist to the ground.

“Member of the rebellion, sir,” one of the three says.

“Kill him,” the second judge says. The finalists back away in shock as a Capital fighter drives his knife into the man’s heart.

The finalists murmur in disbelief at the blunt killing. The first judge shakes his head. “I told you. We don’t allow enemies inside.” He opens the door after inserting a silver key into the lock. It creaks open. Half of the Capital fighters pass the door first. “Go on,” the judge says. He steps inside. We follow him.

We walk through a narrow hallway that can only be passed in a single line. Behind me, I hear the murmurs of the finalists whose minds still remain with the dead infiltrator.

“A tattoo,” I hear a person say, “of a star in between his fingers. Small enough to look like a part of the body.”

“How did they see it?”

“This is the Capital. They don’t make mistakes.”

I must be their first.

The hallway widens. Soon we are walking in groups of three or four. I, however, remain alone and closely follow the heels of the men in front of me. We reach a large room made of grey stone. Once the judge makes sure we are all inside, he closes the door to the hallway. Afterwards, he bangs on the only other door in the room, a large wooden one with black handles. The sound of several locks unclicking echoes against the stone, and then the door opens.

We step through and find ourselves in a wide corridor. All along the walls are the Capital’s own as well as a few well-dressed Capital workers. The judges leave us, and the Capital fighters who had accompanied us push us toward the waiting Capital workers.

“I’ll lead you to your room,” the man I have been assigned says to me. He leads me out of the corridor as other finalists meet a similar fate. We disappear down three hallways and up one stairs, a route I remember in case I ever need to refer to it for a later time. We stop in front of a two panel mahogany door with sculpted door handles. “This is where you’ll be living,” he tells me. “The finalists are on this entire floor. In two hours is the interview. We have provided several types of clothing for you to choose. After the interview is the dinner, and the winner will be chosen there.”

“The clothes might not fit,” I say before he leaves.

He bows. “Then please ring for us.” He then walks away. I stare at the high arch of the door before I turn the knob and step inside.

It’s extravagant like I expected. The capacious room overflows with decorations. The floors and furniture are made of the same wood as the door. The walls are a creamy white, which match the blankets on the large bed. The square pillows are decorated with gold-red tassels, which also hang from the curtains that drape the tall windows. There is a wardrobe, a desk, three chairs, a table, and a bathroom. The bathroom has a perfectly white tub surrounded in marble. Mirrors stick against the wall like two large teardrops above a white stone sink. The faucet is made of gold. Abstract paintings hang in both the bathroom and the main room. Not a single part of the room is in disarray or covered in a speck of dust.

Inside the wardrobe are clothes just like the man said. There are colors of red, purple, yellow, black and green. I take the black open tunic and pants, which is trimmed with gold thread and embellished with gold buttons, and set them on the bed. I walk into the bathroom and turn on the faucet in the tub. As the tub begins to fill with warm water, I find the soap in one of the bathroom cupboards and pour it into the tub. Then, I take a bath.

After wiping myself dry with a towel that smells like roses, I change into the clothes I found. I wear beneath the tunic my father’s shirt, which is still slightly wet. I fold the sleeves to my elbows, and then I straighten the collar. I look at my reflection in the mirror. I have never looked so suave or prim. I consider myself handsome, yet I’m uneasy with the man I see in the reflective glass. It’s only my father’s shirt that keeps me rooted to my origin.

I explore the room to find books about the Capital’s history beneath the bed. I flip through the dated pictures until I get bored, and then I lie in the plush bed and wait for the hour to pass.

A knock hits my door. I stand to open it, and I see the same Capital worker again. He bows. “Did they fit you?” He asks.

“Oh. Yes,” I reply, forgetting what I am wearing.

“That isn’t ours,” he says about my father’s shirt.

“No. But I’m sure individuality is encouraged.”

He clears his throat, and I know he won’t push me to change. “They are ready for your interview. Please follow me.”

We walk together once more through a series of hallways. We stop in front of a door two times larger than mine, and then he commands me to wait outside. He leaves, and I patiently stand in the hallway with my hands in my pockets.

The door slowly opens. A man with brass hair welcomes me with a smile. I step forward and find two other men sitting at a long table. The man who opened the door joins them, and then he asks me to sit in the one other chair in the room.

The chair is uncomfortable, but I hide my dissatisfaction as they straighten their papers and prepare their pens.

“This won’t take very long,” the man says. “We only have a few questions. What is your name?”

After a pause, I answer, “Zitao.”

“I understand you are from Haw, correct?”

“Yes.” He stares at me. “Sir,” I add.

“Are you aware that you are the only applicant from Haw?”

“Yes sir.”

“We rarely get news from Haw because of the distance. They are very secluded, and we don’t know much about them, so I’m surprised you decided to compete. Why did you want to compete, Zitao?”

“I want the Capital to benefit from the skills I have to offer,” I respond. “And those skills are to protect the Capital daughter.”

“You have the skills,” he says, “but why do you want to be here? Why a bodyguard for the daughter? I’m not sure if you know much of Capital news seeing as you are from Haw, but the daughter rarely goes out. She doesn’t necessarily need a bodyguard, yet her father demanded that she have one. Why would you want such a boring job?”

If it were such a pointless job, they wouldn’t have held a competition. “I didn’t get that impression when I competed, sir.”

“It was a little unorganized,” he admits. “This is the first time we have let anyone compete for a Capital position. But the daughter insisted it be that way. Why be a bodyguard to a hermit of a woman when you could be something else?”

He’s demeaning her in order to test my loyalties. I return, “Safety is important regardless of the location. Most things are unpredictable. It’s my job and my desire to make sure I can stop the things that cannot be predicted.”

“That takes a lot of talent.”

“I have that talent.”

He smiles. “There are many proud young finalists that will be at the dinner. You will be dining with the Capital family. I suggest you use your best manners if you want to be noticed. A bodyguard will not always fight. A bodyguard is expected to be tame, as well.”

“I understand. Sir.”

He writes several things down on his stack of papers. “You may go.”

I stand up and, for the first time in my life, I bow. After leaving a portion of my pride on the floor, I turn and walk out of the room.