The Mourners

After the American Civil War ends in a stalemate, the southern states become a separate nation and their government is overthrown by Minister Samuel Davis, later known as the Apostate. Over a century later, his followers, the Apolites are thriving in the superstate of Scopus, a seemingly utopian society where a fundamentalist regime has kept their subordinate states in line and more importantly the people themselves, equal. Once a year, all twenty-one-year-old Apolites must take an aptitude test