The Duty

COPYRIGHTThe DutySin of Duty Series Book 1 Published by Claire ValeCopyright © 2023 by Claire ValeThis ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or resold in any form or by any means without permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations for non-commercial uses. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author.All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to people, living or otherwise, is purely coincidental. If real, names, places and characters are used fictitiously. First they named it: The Fertility Plague.Next they categorized it: An extinction level event.The last naturally conceived child was born over a century ago. The Fertility Plague stripped us of the ability to conceive. Then it stripped our freedom.Born inside the walls of Capra, I’ve spent my life preparing to be a wife, homemaker and mother. Graduation means marriage and fulfilling my role in society.Girls who don’t graduate are removed.Life isn’t perfect, but the alternative is unacceptable.This is the Eastern Coalition.This is what’s left of civilization and the future of the human race.This is me, a girl trapped between duty and rebellion and a darkly beautiful boy.But I’m also a Sister of Capra, and when we rise in rebellion, we will light this world on fire.The Sin of Duty series is a post-apocalyptic romance and adventure with some disturbing themes set in a dark, dystopian world. Perfect for fans who love romance with intrigue and danger and an arrogant anti-hero who may just turn out to be a hero after all. 1Thoughts of the Sisterhood and tomorrow’s graduation consumed me as I cycled along the lakeside path to our picnic spot.If the Sisters of Capra had a mission statement, I obviously hadn’t yet earned the privilege to hear it. All I had were my mother’s vague and very occasional references to things like ‘removing women from untenable situations’ and ‘adjusting the balance of power.’Mom had inducted me into the underground network on my sixteenth birthday and although I still knew practically nothing about the Sisterhood two years later, it had been the best birthday present ever.My perfectly constructed black and white life had exploded into a chaotic rainbow of colors.I would be everything I was raised to be, but I could also be so much more.Mom had always been adamantly clear about one thing, though. My first priority was, and always would be, my duty to society—to marry well and provide a happy, loving home for my husband and children.Without future generations to fight for, there’d be no point to anything at all.No one disputed the principles on which the society of Capra were based, even if we were divided over the reason for our downfall.Back then, women were more interested in their careers and pursuing selfish agendas than procreating. They abused all kinds of contraceptives and hormone medications for convenience. They froze their eggs so they could put off marriage and children until their forties, sometimes even later.The Puritans believed God sent the plague to punish women and warn the men. Repent your wicked ways before it’s too late. After all, He had created man in his likeness to walk the earth freely and rule. He’d created women as a companion to man and to procreate. Apparently we’d been on a downward spiral since the Garden of Eden and our day of reckoning had come in the form of the Fertility Plague.I was personally more inclined toward the evolution school of thought. If you don’t use it, you lose it. That’s how evolution worked, it snuck up on you over hundreds and hundreds of years. Our reproduction system gradually weakened, an organ tricked into believing it was no longer required, and then the plague came to finish it off altogether.But whether you blamed God or evolution, the fact remained.The Eastern Coalition couldn’t survive forever on stores of frozen ovarian eggs. They were still researching a cure, but even if they found one, we would still be compromised, vulnerable to future attacks.We had to fix nature. Fix what our ancestors had broken. We had to remind our bodies that procreation was our primary purpose.That was our duty. Marry. Look after our husbands and raise our children.That was our responsibility. Otherwise one day there’d simply not be a ‘next generation.’I had no argument with that philosophy, but we had no freedom and virtually no choices either. We were nothing without our fathers or husbands. Complete obedience and subservience was mandated. We couldn’t even wander outside after curfew unless accompanied by our male legal guardian.I knew what the council was afraid of.We’d learnt all about it in Social Conscience.They were afraid women would fall back into their old ways if given too much leeway…any leeway at all. We had proved ourselves unworthy custodians of the life-giving role God and/or Mother Nature had blessed us with and now the men were taking charge.What a load of crap.Our ancestors had made mistakes, sure, but we’d all learnt our lesson from the fatal consequences. That’s exactly why even the Sisters of Capra believed our duty to society was more important than their cause. We weren’t complete idiots with a mass death wish for all mankind.We just wanted—well, I wasn’t trusted enough to know what exactly the Sisters of Capra wanted, but I knew what I wanted.A little autonomy and respect.A voice.I just wanted one freaking hand on the wheel steering me into my own future.The path wound around a clump of trees, cutting the lake from view. A patrolling guard stepped off the path to allow me to pass. I felt his stern, watchful eyes following as I pedaled slightly faster. Even out here, on a path winding between the lake and back gardens, there was no privacy, no relief from the eternal watchfulness.To my right, lush gardens stretched up to spacious homes. A flock of birds swept overhead, the formation so large it