All she had to do in return was to please the Queen any way the Queen wanted to be pleased. It was an easy trade.To win such a privilege, though, she ...must win a fighting tournament and beat out the other three girls the Queen had chosen to battle for the spot. It was a celebrated ritual, a trial every girl who had just turned eighteen, as Namini and her opponent had, wished they could be chosen for. Now all the Queen's court and much of the Royal staff surrounded the ten foot square hard sand. The minister’s wife was busy tending her four growing sons and her toddler daughter that she purposely conceived with the Butcher because of his reputation of siring fine young daughters and not boys. The butcher was blackmailing the minister’s wife for her indiscretion but she really didn’t mind all that much because her husband was so caught up in the needs of his flock that he had little time left for his spouse’s needs at home.When the butcher suggested to her that she might consider. "I said no, ' she whispered. "Don't make me hurt you," she threatened."Little girl you can't hurt me. Hows about you and me, we go to my room and have a good time?" he slurred and tried to pull her close to him."Not a chance," she hissed and bent his hand back at a painful angle, forcing him to his knees. Amy released his wrist before she broke it and stalked off the dance floor, leaving him on his knees with no partner."Come on Sam, we are going somewhere else," Amy said as she approached the. The nations on the antipode of the elevator are harsh and bitter, but they are the bread basket of Torei and they have the same pride in their agricultural life as you'd find in any agrarian world.Each of the neighboring "ringdoms", as they're sometimes called, has erected a tower of its own next to the space elevator. The value of land next to the Way Up is so high that it would be wasteful not to. You explore the towers idly, tourist districts showing you exactly the forced sort of "local.