Prologue
When I was old enough, my father, the King, told me about his Selection.
He had no need to tell me the whole story of his Selection, because it had been my lullaby growing up. I knew all about how they met, how they fell in love. It's your typical prince saves the damsel from a life of destitution story. My mother had been a Five growing up in Carolina, and growing up in an artistic family she had learned music as her trade. But even though her family was full of talent, they sometimes wondered if they would be able to make enough money to pay the bills to power their home or feed their family. That had all changed when she had been plucked from obscurity as a contestant in the Selection. They fell in love, he chose her as the One, and their fairy tale was complete... Or so I had previously thought. While ultimately their story ended in a big white wedding, with a little prince and princess born shortly after, there's a much darker side to the tale.
It was the last day of the Selection. It was down to two girls, Mom and another girl named Kriss Ambers. Dad was about to announce his who he had selected as his bride when they were attacked, and everything turned to chaos. Southern rebels had infiltrated the palace dressed as guards, and when they opened fire there had been a moment of confusion before fight-or-flight kicked in. Hundreds of guards were wounded and killed, some stabbed, bleeding out. Others shot at point-blank range. The blood curdling screams and gunshots were the only audible sound.
Girls that had been sent home earlier in the Selection had returned to celebrate, but many never were able to return home again. A girl named Janelle from Likely, Emily from Labrador, Natalie from Bankston, and Emmica from Tammins had all been killed in old blood. Even one of my mother's beloved maids hadn't made it. And my entire family had almost perished with them...
My grandmother had taken a bullet for my grandfather, but he had still been shot multiple times.
Dad had been shot too. A rebel had been aiming for Mom when Dad jumped in front of it, and it hit him below the left shoulder, near his heart. While he was bleeding out all over the floor he had forced a palace guard to leave him behind and get Mom to safety. He had faithfully followed through with his order, and returned to the gory scene to retrieve Dad, somehow still alive.
Even after the guards overcame the rebels, there was still pandemonium. The King and Queen of Illéa were clinging to life in the trauma unit of the hospital wing, and the crown prince was inflicted with a gunshot wound just inches away from his heart. The best doctors and surgeons in Illéa were brought in, and they all predicted that Dad would be fine, but Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't make it. They had done as much as modern medicine would allow, tried replacing all of the blood that they had lost, but none of them gave either of them a chance of survival.
But miraculously they both beat the odds. Grandma woke up first, and recovered well. Grandpa remand in a coma while Dad and Grandma recouped. He took a turn for the worst one night. Grandma, loyal to a fault, never left his side. Everyone was so sure he was going to pass, so the palace was getting ready to hold a special Report saying that the King was dead, along with arrangements for a state funeral and a date for a coronation of the new king.
But somehow he lived.
Dad remained the crown prince, and he and mom married once Grandpa was well enough to attend. Their fairytale complete…
But their story continues with me, and I ended up causing a lot of trouble from the start simply by being born seven minutes before my twin, Ahren. Mom and dad insisted that the law should be changed, making me the rightful heir instead of the outdated tradition of the first born male inheriting everything. But with Grandpa still in control, nothing changed. Ahren was named heir apparent, and I was the spare, only allowed to ascend the throne should anything happen to Ahren.
Things were much more simple back then, before I even knew what heir, or being royal even meant. We were out of the spotlight as children, and while the public loved to eat up pictures of us, we were left alone for the most part. When Dad and Mom weren't busy with engagements we were just like every other normal family... Until mine and Ahren's fifth birthday.
Grandpa had a stroke, a major one. The doctors told him it was because of the damage from the attack, and the stress of being king was becoming too much for his frail body. If he didn't slow down, he was surely going to die. But his old injuries weren't the real threat to his health, it was letting go of the crown. He had roared at the proposal of letting Dad become king, but after tearful pleas from Grandma, he reluctantly agreed.
My father has been king for thirteen years, and has accomplished more than any other leader since Gregory Illéa lead the war against the Russians. He had wanted to dissolve the castes, but with Grandpa and his allies breathing down his neck, threatening to undo all of the other progress, Dad let it go. The only caste that had been eliminated was Eight, or "the untouchables". While it saddened and frustrated my parents that the castes couldn't be completely dismantled, they helped improve many other things such as education, balancing the budget, and foreign policy.
Dad negotiated peace with New Asia, pulling our country out of the war. It's only been in recent years that tensions with New Asia have been rising. The Russian Confederation of New Asia rebelled two years ago, and has been engaged in a polarizing war. It seems like every day another country is dragged into the conflict. New Asia's determination to spread their borders even farther west devastated what used to be Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, and Ukraine. African and European countries have been watching in fear, wondering if the war will spread to their continent. There have been protests in Illéa recently, debating if we should continues to remain neutral. Some think that we can't stand by and watch as atrocities are committed, and some think we need to focus on our own country's problems before getting involved in global conflicts.
Illéa certainly has its own set issues, because for every war protest, there's a dozen more anit-caste protests. Twos, Threes, and Fours pitted against Fives, Sixes, and Sevens. The upper castes want everything to stay the same, the lower ones want equality. I've heard both sides of the argument shouted over family dinners, Grandpa insisting that the castes have helped us thrive and become so orderly, while Mom countered that they oppressed the people. It always ended in slamming doors and a feeling of emptiness. And things have only been getting worse...