Aspirante



The Aspirante are an elite Hierban caste, one of the few in which both male and females have equal status. Cáliz Katherine bucks tradition to choose 24 aspirante from a pool of a hundred twelve year old candidates to be trained for four years at the National University. Previously, aspirante were only selected in pools of three sixteen year olds and trained for a minimum of two years at the Royal Lodge in Lakeside.

Aspirante are sworn to the Cáliz with the option for dismissal or voluntary departure before they are tapped to join the caballerista, who serve for life. The critera for being chosen for aspirante includes basic literacy, excellent health, high charisma, common sense, intuition, intelligence, physical attractiveness, pansexuality and adherence to the sacred virtues. Matriarchs also secretly seek candidates with strong empassion in natural males and psychic powers in natural females. Around 20% of aspirante are transexual, strong on males expressing as females.

The 7th generation of aspirante officially begins with Dionn, Estelle, Natali, Billie and their twenty classmates who train from January to the end of March on the university campus. When the others (and the other cabllerista mentors besides Baroc) are lost to the bombings at the university during their 13th year, the main characters are transferred to Lakeside, along with Baroc and Zaira. They spend another year there, reaching their 14th birthdays before the deaths of two additional caballerista and the war with Perdition lead Katherine and Cameron to bring all of them (except Zaira) to the capital city itself.

When Baroc is assassinated along with Noah, Natali (and secretly Billie) take the caballerista oath to Katherine. Dionn is released from it and Estelle is sequestered to High Temple to begin formal training as Katherine's successor. Dionn, Natali, Billie and Natali's adopted brother the soldado Kyle are sent with Eastern Delamaizen delegation (Cameron and Alexis) to Des Moines at the end of book one. Kyle and Dionn's friend Jakob become aspirante at fourteen.