Cassia: Know My Name

By Juliet Pierce

A powerful class of people were taken captive from the concrete city of Regenesis. A small remnant survives in captivity in the Balka dungeon. No one knows they are there. It’s been twenty four years.

In this dystopian saga, sixteen-year-old Cassia is part of that remnant. Disguised as a boy, she bears the brand of the Balka seal as proof that she belongs to them.

But her true identity is revealed in the concrete city where she travels as a prisoner. Here, she discovers secrets and plots that threaten to overthrow generations of monarchy.

In the midst of her plight, she finds herself torn between two boys, each from a different world: Gildon, the handsome prince of the Balka kingdom, and Dolph, a mysterious boy whose eyes can see into her soul.

Author Juliet Pierce introduces us to the first book in The Cassia series--dystopian thrillers with unexpected twists, heartbreaking choices, and an ultimate romance that will leave you breathless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Juliet Pierce
• Release date: May 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311871916

Juliet Pierce

I'm a lover of words--always have been since I learned to read in kindergarten. At the tender age of 10, I decided to write a novel with my oldest sister. I wrote the first paragraph and she told me I had copied it out of a book (but I hadn't!) and refused to write with me anymore. That was pretty discouraging and the last time I thought about writing a novel until a couple of years ago. Now I can't stop!I've been writing screenplays for the past 13 years. Hello?! You would have thought writing novels would be a natural jump. A couple of my short scripts were filmed and produced. Now, I write full-time. I don't want to limit myself to one genre, although YA dystopian, sic-fi novels interest me the most.I'm a wife to the most amazing man on earth, a mother to some lovely children, and very blessed to pursue my love of writing full time. We have a dog who is a golden Labrador Retriever--and he's amazing! I'm also dedicated to eating organic and clean. Except when we go to Cheesecake Factory. All clean eating takes a backseat to Godiva chocolate cheesecake!

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is unintentional and purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Catch Cloud

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1499545319

There is One,


Who captured my heart when I beheld His glory

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 ------------------------------- 1

CHAPTER 2 ------------------------------- 17

CHAPTER 3 ------------------------------- 35

CHAPTER 4 ------------------------------- 43

CHAPTER 5 ------------------------------- 56

CHAPTER 6 ------------------------------- 65

CHAPTER 7 ------------------------------- 77

CHAPTER 8 ------------------------------- 104

CHAPTER 9 ------------------------------- 119

CHAPTER 10 ------------------------------- 132

CHAPTER 11 ------------------------------- 147

CHAPTER 12 ------------------------------- 157

CHAPTER 13 ------------------------------- 166

CHAPTER 14 ------------------------------- 180

CHAPTER 15 ------------------------------- 192

CHAPTER 16 ------------------------------- 205

CHAPTER 17 ------------------------------- 215

CHAPTER 18 ------------------------------- 232

CHAPTER 19 ------------------------------- 250

CHAPTER 20 ------------------------------- 264

CHAPTER 21 ------------------------------- 276

CHAPTER 22 ------------------------------- 300

I SIT IN my dark corner, clutching the thick wool in my hand to feed into the spindle. I hear the whispers of the adults in various parts of the dark room. The king is preparing for battle. I ignore the knots in my stomach at the news. All boys must go to battle. My mother knew the risk of chopping off my hair to disguise me as one so that I would not be taken from her.

But that was two years ago when the king’s palace was living in peace. Now, the rumors of war are circulating in our ears. We are the last to receive any news in the palace dungeon. We are not prepared.

Watch the wheel, Cassia, my mother whispers to me.

I slow the spinning wheel and wipe the sweat off my forehead. I shouldn’t be sweating. It’s cold in the dungeon—my home.

I was born here sixteen years ago. My people had been taken captive twenty-four years earlier. My father had been part of the ruling class of my people. He was already in his fifties when he married my young mother of eighteen. Once a strong, very cruel man, now he is old and feeble—beaten down and humbled at the captive life he’s been forced to live in his old age.

My mother is no longer beautiful. Her wrinkled hands look ancient as she spins wool beside me. I have never seen her smile. She had married my father because she sought a protector. And he was her protector for the first five years of their childless marriage.

Until the Balkas came. I know the story by heart. The newly appointed Balka king riding among thousands of an elite cavalry, all with their swords drawn and of one mind to seize the concrete city in the middle of the night.

The concrete city is called Regenesis. It’s where my people are from. It takes many weeks traveling by horse and ship to reach it. It is a different way of life than the Balkas. The clothes are different, the food is different, the transportation is different. When I was eight years old, my older sister, Meliah, showed me a picture our mother had given to her of the concrete city. There were vehicles of iron on paved roads and tall buildings that stretched to the sky covered with glass windows. My people weren’t prepared for the archaic battle strategy. The Balkas attacked the power plant that provided electricity to the concrete city. The darkness confused my people and they lost the battle and all that was precious to them.

Hundreds of my people were forced to board large ships to be transported to the Balka kingdom. Most lost their lives to sickness and disease before they arrived.

There is a small remnant of us left. Fifty-three to be exact. I am one of seventeen children eligible to fight for the Balka army. No adult speaks of the matter to us. Now it is just a matter of waiting to be summoned.

I barely get any sleep for the fear that has settled in my soul. So I rise from my straw cot that I share with seven-year old, Suriah. She’s not my sister, but she is part of my people.

For most of my day, I live in the darkness of the dungeon. This is the home the Balkas gave to my people when they arrived at the large castle. Our lives consist of serving them. The females spin cloth in the darkness and wash the laundry of the Balkas. The males tend the pigs and sheep. Since my mother keeps my hair chopped off, I can pass for a boy. Sometimes my father lets me see the early morning light when he feeds the pigs.

I creep past the sleeping figure of my father. He is an old man with long straggly hair that has become gray with age. The beatings he received when the Balkas initially captured him has taken effect on his body. It was his own fault. His great pride and anger had to be driven out of him.

The pigs live right outside the dungeon entrance. I have caught glimpses of the Balka soldiers passing by and holding their noses from the stench. The pigs’ stench is all I’ve known. Of course, I realize the pigs are unclean animals. My people never eat their flesh, which is what makes us the ideal servants to tend the pigs. The Balkas know we would never steal their meat, no matter how hungry we are.

The sun is just beginning to dawn. I take a minute to close my eyes and imagine feeling its warmth on my skin. But a sound inside the large barn arrests my attention. Arian is already preparing the grain to feed the pigs.

Arian is younger than me, by a year. He’s a frail, painfully thin boy who struggles under the weight of the buckets he has filled with the pig’s food. I move to him to help.

We don’t say a word, but I can tell he’s grateful for my assistance. The grain is mixed with large buckets of scraps from the trash of the kingdom. The pigs eat better than we do. We are given portions of flour to make bread in the clay oven outside the dungeon. If we’re fortunate, we receive some veal to eat once every couple of months. It’s usually old meat that has become tainted and we eat it at our own risk. Any vegetables we get are salvaged from the scraps we feed to the pigs.

Are you scared? Arian whispers to me inside the barn.

I nod my head and move to the water barrel to draw out some buckets to pour into the pigs’ trough. I stare at my reflection in the water. I am plain. My brown chopped hair is short like the boys. My gray eyes look huge in my very thin face. I am as skinny as Arian. None of us have ever known a full belly. We live on the brink of starvation.

Arian stuffs a handful of the pigs’ grain into a small sack sewn on the inside hem of his pants. He holds a handful out to me. We all have the secret sacks sewn in our pants and fill them with the pigs’ grain whenever we can. Sometimes, it’s the only thing we have to eat for an entire day.

I heard that we leave tomorrow, Arian whispers again.

I freeze. Arian would leave with me to fight and I can tell he is as frightened as I am. All my people know I am disguised as a boy so I won’t be taken from my mother like my sister had been two years ago. She was taken to the king’s kitchen to serve in the main palace. Only my mother sees her from a distance a couple of times a year when she delivers the laundry to the main floor of the castle.

My sister looks nothing like me. I remember her as beautiful with long flowing locks of blonde hair. The king’s court found her beautiful, as well. She was given to one of the Balka soldiers as a reward for his bravery a year ago. The last time my mother saw Meliah, she was pregnant. That was about seven months ago.

Arian’s father quietly joins us in the barn. He throws a look of sympathy my way and silently places his hand on Arian’s shoulder. Then he turns away, but not before I see the tears fill his eyes. My parents will not cry for me.

I slip back inside the dungeon as more boys file out to help with the feeding and butchering. My father lets a moan of pain escape his lips as he pulls himself up from his cot. His thin hair hangs in greasy strands over his face. He doesn’t even have the energy to swipe it out of his eyes.

The other men try to hide my father’s condition from the Balka guards. If they feel we are unable to work, they cast us out of the castle. Most are elderly so they die outside the castle’s thick walls.

I have no feelings for my father. He has never said a kind word to me nor shown me any affection my entire life. My mother moves to him to smooth his hair back. There is no affection between them either. My father has let her down. He did not protect her as he had promised.

I sit at the spinning wheel and carefully eat the grain. I have to make sure I leave no trace of it on the floor for the guards to see. Stealing the grain is a crime, punishable by death.

Your hair has grown too long. I need to cut it before you go, my mother says quietly.

She moves behind me with a knife. I sit very still while she takes the knife and hacks off the ends. I can never let it be known that I am a girl or my parents will be killed for trying to hide me from serving in the king’s palace.

We leave tomorrow, I tell my mother and she nods her head. Her eyes are void of expression and I realize she has already counted me dead in her heart.

I spend the day beside my mother at the spinning wheel. She should be doing laundry, but I can tell she wants to spend my last night with her. We don’t talk; as a matter of fact, none of my people talk out loud. We only whisper or communicate through our expressions. The Balkas had killed several of the early captives for being too loud in the dungeon as the royals threw parties above us. That served as a lesson for all generations to come.

Sleep eludes me once again when it is time to rest for the night. I lay in the darkness and listen to Suriah’s soft breathing. She is pressed against my back to keep warm.

It is still dark outside when the dungeon doors open. I know that because I can see when it is day from a crack in the dungeon’s foundation. I lay very still until I feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder.

It’s time, she whispers.

The other kids are rising too. There is one other girl disguised as a boy like me—Gemma. Unlike me, she has developed large breasts so she has to wrap them every day. I have small breasts and am so thin that I have no problem disguising myself as a boy.

Go to your father for a blessing, Mother orders softly.

I cross to my father’s cot. He is still asleep. I gently shake his arm and he opens his eyes. We look at each other in the dimness of the room without talking. Finally, he sighs and struggles to sit up. I don’t help him. He would slap me if I move to pull him to a sitting position.

I am leaving soon, I whisper.

My father nods and places a gnarled hand on my forehead. May strength and wisdom guide you into the afterlife, he mutters.

It’s not really a blessing. It’s an affirmation that this is the last time we will see each other. He will probably die before I get back or I will die in the battle. The chances are that I will die in the battle first. He doesn’t say this, but we both know it’s true.

I start to move from him, but his hand snakes out and grabs my wrist in a surprisingly tight clasp. He pulls a dull knife from under his cot and raises a finger to his lips.

Is my father going to kill me so that I don’t have to be sacrificed in the battle for a kingdom to which I don’t belong?

Gritting his teeth, my father releases his grip and digs the knife into a scar on his arm. I had often wondered how he got the gnarled scar but never asked about it.

I watch with bated breath as the blood spurts onto the cot as he digs into his flesh. He uses the tip of the knife to pry something—a very thin piece of metal—from his arm and motions me closer.

I don’t want this discovered here. Best it is buried with you.

Again, my wrist is grabbed in a tight clasp, and without warning, my father plunges the knife into my forearm. My breath catches in my throat, but I don’t make a sound as my father cuts into my skin. He slides the thin piece of metal into my arm and motions me to go to my mother. Dazed, I watch him fall back to the cot, exhausted by what he has done.

Mother has no expression on her face. She is accustomed to wearing an emotionless mask. I put on the mask, too, despite the searing pain in my arm. I watch her tightly bind my arm with some dirty linen strips. Then she moves to bandage my father.

Hurry, one of the elders’ whisper. They’re waiting for the boys.

Mother walks back to me and holds up a pair of large sandals the soldiers have provided for us. I have never worn shoes, so I am unsure how to strap them on. Calmly, she places my dirty feet into them and wraps the leather strap around them tightly to secure my feet. They are too large, but I don’t complain.

We are also provided a scarlet cape made of thick wool—the Balka kingdom’s color. I have never worn any clothing with color. My whole life, we have worn homemade clothes from the old sheets or clothes given to us by the king. The material is already so old and thin by the time we get it that it doesn’t last long before we need to make more clothes. It’s also dingy gray—like grave clothes, my mother told me. That was a very fitting description for today as we say our final farewells to our families.

I look into my mother’s face for one last time and try to memorize her features. I want her face to be the last one in my mind when I die.

You have the wisdom of your father, Cassia, she says softly. I wish your life could have been different.

I let her slip the thick wool fabric over my shoulders. The capes are too large for our thin bodies. We keep having to adjust the hood as it falls over our eyes when we move.

I step behind Arian to file out of the dungeon. I want to look at the main level of the palace because I have never seen it before. But the stone-faced guard keeps us moving down the hall.

We pause inside a great room glowing with candles. It is the first time I have seen light inside a room. Large pictures of past kings adorn the walls. A few people are gathered to say goodbye.

I recognize Meliah holding an infant. She still looks beautiful in a long blue silk gown. But her eyes reflect her sadness when she looks at me. I want to run to her and feel her arms hug me once again, but it is unacceptable. Meliah is the only person to hug me my whole life. My mother had sunk into a depression after giving birth to me, so she wanted nothing to do with me. But Meliah had a lot of love to share. My life has been void of love for the two years she was taken out of the dungeon. Looking at her now, I realize the infant had replaced me.

Move! the guard orders.

I hear a couple of sniffles as some of the other kids try not to cry. I do not cry. I am not leaving anything of value behind.

So we trudge out of the castle into the early morning frost. The capes are a welcomed relief from the cold. Our feet are freezing, but no one says a word.

The castle gates are lowered for us to leave. Hundreds of Balka soldiers file out, wearing vests made of the same scarlet material that our capes are. They sit proudly on their large beasts with scarlet banners bearing the Balka crest flying high above them.

Following the soldiers are the watchmen and the cooks for the soldiers. They travel on tall wagons where they have men posted at the top to spy out the land. Food supplies with sheep and pigs in pens are contained in the wagons below. We walk behind this caravan.

I keep my head down and watch the feet in front of me so that I don’t stumble on the rocky terrain. I don’t know who the king’s soldiers are fighting. None of us do. It’s probably best that we don’t know so that fear cannot grip us and make us immobile.

We walk for many hours. The shoes are hurting my feet. I can feel the skin rubbing off where the leather straps are biting into my flesh. I want to take them off, but it is not allowed.

Dusk is setting before the soldiers stop by a running stream. I look at the other sixteen kids. They are as exhausted and thirsty and hungry as I feel. My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth from all the dust that the horses kick up in front of us.

The soldiers drink water and then lead their horses in for refreshment. It isn’t until the horses are satisfied that we are allowed to drink. I push the cape back and greedily dip my hands in the freezing water to draw the liquid to my lips. I don’t stop until the guards order us to leave the stream.

We take a seat on large boulders at the outskirts of the Balka soldiers’ camp. The smell of food cooking on crackling fires makes my stomach gnaw. I lay my head on my knees and close my eyes to pretend I am eating food. Now that we are still, I can feel my arm throbbing from the incision my father gave me.

Do you have grain?

I