Chapter 25: The Etiquette of Survival — Province Twelve's Train Home

The official result of the Grand Ascension's seventy-fourth cycle was delivered at eleven o'clock in the morning, in the Gilded Court's Grand Ceremonial Salon, before an assembly of judges, sponsors, functionaries, Court officials, and the six remaining tributes arranged in a line of studied composure that fooled, Honoria estimated, approximately none of the people in the room.

Countess Eugenia Thrall conducted the announcement with the warm precision of someone who had rehearsed it thirty times and believed every word regardless. She wore ivory and gold. Her posture was impeccable. The broadcast cameras tracked her with the practised devotion of long acquaintance, and she received their attention as her natural due, which it had been for thirty years and showed no sign of ceasing to be.

"The Grand Ascension," the Countess began, her voice carrying to every corner of the Salon with the effortlessness of long practice, "exists to demonstrate, with each passing year, the finest qualities our great nation can produce. Courage. Elegance. Grace under examination. The qualities that distinguish civilisation from its absence."