Prologue
District One, The Victor's Village : One Week before the reaping.
The rain was coming down in sheets outside the window from where Andromeda was sat in her living room in the Victor's Village house she shared with her sisters. She was warm under her blanket with her dog, Silver, curled in her lap and her younger sisters, Bellatrix and Narcissa, home early from school each in a chintz armchair of their own. The comfortable warmth however did not stretch to her mood as she sat in wait in front of the government-issued television awaiting a broadcast from president Snow. Since her victory three years prior, Andromeda had learnt far more truths about Panem, the Capitol and the Games that previous to her traumatised state of heightened awareness she would have never even considered. This meant that as she sat in her chair approaching the twenty-fifth annual hunger games she fidgeted anxiously, filled with a sense of uncomfortable and all-consuming dread. The president had reminded Panem at his last nation-wide compulsory broadcast that to celebrate a quarter centenary of the Games, this years anniversary games would be a glorified version to make fresh the memory of those killed by the district's rebellion. A Quarter Quell.
She looked across to her sisters, both careers in training as she herself had been, but blissfully unaware of the true tragedy of the games and the lifetime of suffering that came with the burden of winning them. She had begged them to remove themselves from the programme and to not volunteer, but they had merely snarled at her that she was trying to claim sole family glory and was fearful that her legacy would be forgotten once they won their games. Andromeda knew not to fight it, she knew the kind of punishment that would warrant from Snow by actively withdrawing her sisters from the programme and thereby opposing the games, and so existed with them in what was mostly icy silence. She lived in constant fear that they too would be people that these games would cause her to loose.
The national anthem of Panem drew Andromeda from her thoughts as President Snow walked up to his pulpit in the capitol that two years ago she had been stood in front of dressed as a glittering sapphire on a chariot preparing to fight to the death for eternal glory, within her district at least.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the twenty-fifth year of the hunger games.' His voice rang out cold across the grounds of the capitol being met with the cheers that made her gut twist subconsciously.
"And it was written in the charter of the games that this year, there would be a special edition, a Quarter Quell, in order to help us remember the tragedy we faced as a nation together in the uprising against the Capitol."
Andromeda scoffed.
"A Quarter Quell is distinguished by games of a special significance and this the twenty-fifth anniversary of the defeat of the rebellion we celebrate the First Quarter Quell as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol. On this the First Quarter Quell, the tributes from each district will be reaped as siblings."
Andromeda's whole body went numb.
"Due to the nature of families within Panem, the rule for one male and one female tribute from each district will be temporarily suspended."
She knew what President Snow was capable of, however this had never crossed her mind. Her mind raced back to his last point about the rule for one male and one female tribute, she knew exactly how this was calculated. President Snow was not a man to let the Games run uncorrupted as they should be, he was a cunning man.
A man who had gone after her sisters.
Looking across to Bella and Ciccy, she saw the matching expressions of greed that only confirmed her worst nightmares. She was confident that regardless of who was reaped on Sunday next week, both of her sisters would be going to the capitol together. She only prayed that she would not be one of the Victor's receiving a letter from the president instructing her that she was to mentor that year.
Andromeda stood on shaky legs, that carried her out of the room and the house where she stood mutely on the porch with the realisation that she didn't know where she was supposed to be going. Before her brain had finished catching its way up to her body, she found herself crossing the drive between her house and that of her mentor's before her fist was aching from pounding on the hard-wood door.
"Jesus, Dromeda. You'll give a man a heart attack."
"Flint." She replied and of course with no need for further explanation he ushered her inside.
This man was the only person who knew how she was feeling, the only other person who also had to face the Games and what came after them. They sat at her kitchen table in silence, Flint knew there was nothing for him to say.
Andromeda cried.