The Gilded Ones
SynopsisPlot
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death. Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.
Story
About this book
In Namina Forna's fantasy novel, sixteen-year-old Deka awaits a blood ceremony that every young person in her village must undergo. Red blood means acceptance into the community. Any other color marks the person as impure. Deka, already set apart by an unusual intuitive ability she cannot explain, hopes desperately that the ritual will finally let her belong. When her blood runs gold instead of red, she faces punishment that her society considers fitting for those deemed corrupt.
A stranger arrives with an unexpected offer: Deka can leave her village and join a military force composed entirely of girls whose blood also ran gold. These fighters, called alaki, possess near-immortal bodies and singular abilities. The empire needs them to confront a threat that ordinary soldiers cannot handle. Deka accepts, trading the only home she has known for a walled capital city where she must train alongside other alaki for open warfare.
The story is set in a world shaped by rigid purity codes enforced through biological markers. Forna, who was raised in Sierra Leone, builds a society where color of blood determines social standing, and where the people cast out as impure may turn out to hold power that the existing order cannot account for.
