For some girls, age eighteen is the magical age of freedom and independence. For Aerys, turning eighteen means an arranged marriage to a man she's never met before, leaving the only home she's ever known, and accidentally discovering things she never knew about the world, about her family, and about herself, things that have been lurking beneath the surface all along. However, each new discovery brings new questions with it, and the answers could lead in some very dangerous directions. She and her fiancé, Dmitri, must decide whether or not to find the answers to these questions and what to do with the knowledge they gain. To change the game instead of living by others' rules, they must look beyond what they see.

Look Beyond What You See

<p>Flash of sword, clash of metal on metal. Smoke in the air. Gun goes off. Drop and roll as Giacomo sidesteps. Jump up behind him, dagger against his throat while holding his arms down. He does a reverse grip trick so that he s holding my arms and spins around, away from my dagger, to try to trap me, but I slide out of his grip like an eel. It gets easier every time.</p>

<p>"I didn t know we could do that," Giacomo mutters as we return to hand-to-hand combat. Dmitri is somewhere else in the room; smoke obscures most of it. His job is to simulate a real battle environment. Why we re doing hand-to-hand sword fighting, when now most warfare is done with guns and other explosive things, I don t know, but my all-knowing tutor made it clear that I am not to question his methods.</p>

Chapter 38 Weapons