[center][color=f26522]THE NEXT DAY[/color]
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The morning brought a rude awakening as the carriage jolted to a stop. The door opened and a black gloved hand reached in to snag the arm she had thrown up to defend herself.

"She's the last to arrive?"
"Yes. Tiny thing huh?" The black clothed guard who currently held her arm commented to another, eyeing her up and down. The gaze was not lustful, more judgmental. "This whole second batch is on the small side."
"How long do you think most of them will last?"
"Considering how many bodies they have been carrying out this morning, not long. The Gems are getting smaller and more delicate every year."

To be talked about and manhandled like a piece of furniture was demeaning and humiliating. Amalia tried to keep her head high and ignore the words spoken, pretending they were not about her.
She was taken to a group of other females, all shivering and shaking, most weeping and several still as statues, their faces blank and their eyes empty of life. Amalia's heart clenched in her chest and she felt like weeping herself. Was she to end up like these girls, empty shells?
No. She refused to be that way. Amalia felt a great calm over her. The fear was still there, but also a sense of quiet dignity she knew had to be from the Great Mother herself. She was blessing her servant with the strength of mind to face this atrocity and maintain her composure.
As children did with a mother the other girls clung to Amalia, her calm drawing them to her as a beacon. There was nothing she could do to protect them or herself, but still they clung to her in the hope that some of her mental and emotional composure would rub off on them, give them the strength needed.

From the guards speaking around them Amalia learned that the choosing ceremony had actually happened the day before. Her group had been brought in as backups, replacements for the women who had not survived their wedding night. They were to be paraded around, leered at, appraised and then claimed to perhaps share the same fate as their now dead countrywomen.

Amalia kept picturing the Great Mother in her mind, trying to project outward. Her face was passive, her eyes fearful but reserved, her hands shaking but firmly wrapped around the girls that clung to her, her heart beat erratic but strong, her breathing shaky but deep.
Once the creatures, she refused to call them men, wandered into the hall where they were standing, many looked at her. Her white hair made her stand out. Several of the creatures even wandered over to touch her hair and she had to struggle not to gag at their smell.
They laughed at the girls they scared and the younger ones were taken quickly. It sickened Amalia, making her want to throw up even though her stomach was empty. Apparently it was their 'husband/masters' that decided whether or not they were fed.

The waiting was terrifying. She wished they would get on with it. Knowing what was coming but having to wait and agonize over it was worse than anything.