CHAPTER ONE
My mother might have named me Noah, but she called me her little miracle more often than she did that.
She used to tell me that I'd earned the nickname, through the fighting I'd done to survive as a baby. The doctor had told her it wasn't likely she'd ever be able to carry me to full term without killing us both, but then she did. I was severely undersized and undernourished, but somehow that didn't matter. Somehow, I lived.
However miraculous that fact was, it left my mother and I with a serious dent in our income. Her labor left her unable to have kids after me, and though the doctor might have been wrong about me, my mom didn't want to risk him being right about this. Another pregnancy would have killed her, and she didn't want to leave a little girl behind.
Sixes depended on family to survive—sure, it meant more mouths to feed, but it meant more workers, too. I had yet to meet another family of Sixes with less than three children, and most had even more than that. We'd lost my dad only two years after I was born, and our family of three was reduced to two.
I'd started working the day I turned sixteen, but even after that, my mom and I practically lived off of scrapes. Before that, it'd been hard. Harder than hard.
The job that I'd gotten was far from ideal, but jobs themselves were hard to come by these days, especially for sixes. In the beginning, I'd felt like a rat, reduced to mopping the floors and cleaning the rooms of people who thought they were superior to me, but I'd gotten used to it pretty quick.
Now, I worked for a family of Three's that lived at the other end of town, alongside a woman who was twice my age; Miss Marion. Despite our behind hired as equals, she'd developed a habit of bossing me around as if I was her own servant close to the beginning of my employment. In reality, my only bosses were the Kings, and Miss Marion had no hold over me, but that didn't mean I wasn't afraid of her, in a way. The Kings might have looked at me in a way that made me hate them, as though I was the same as the dirt I scrubbed off their floors, but Miss Marion had an attitude that made me hate her so much more.
My mother had the same kind of job that I did, but she worked for a family of a caste higher. Usually those who were more experienced in a job worked for higher castes, as those families tended to be a lot more particular about the work that got done, but I'd been an exception. My mother had had my job before me, and she'd begged the family to let me take her place when she was offered a new one. It was unusual for someone who was just barely seventeen to be serving Three's.
"Do you like it?" My mom said, coming up behind me in my room. I jumped, not having expected to hear her voice.
My eyes darted down to the dress and shoes that'd been laid out on my bed, and I could feel my mother's eyes on me while I did. I sighed, imagining how many paychecks she must have halved to pay for the new clothes, which I didn't deem necessary. I felt guilt prick at me—I really was spoilt, and it was a curse as much as it was a blessing.
I had never been the type of person to like dress up games, but whether that was because I didn't enjoy it, or we'd never been able to pay for fancy things to dress-up in, I didn't know.
I ran my fingers along the light fabric of the clothing, feeling it's softness against my finger tips. It was nice, for something a Six could own. It was nothing in comparison to the dresses I'd picked up off of Sharron King's floors, but compared to the ripped hand-me-down shirt and trousers that I wore on my back, it was beautiful, and obviously not out of a second-hand shop. In my mind, I imagined my mother looking through price tags in the mall, being watched by store clerks who probably thought her a thief. My guilt only grew.
The dress wasn't much on it's own—it was mostly amber colored, aside from the black lace that lined the hemmed edges of it. I figured it would hang somewhere around my knee's, if an inch or two above them.
I didn't have to ask my mother what the occasion was, because I knew. Sometimes I might have sworn that my parents had planned me according to the announcement of the birth of Prince Roman, if only so that I would have the misfortune of a chance of participating in the Selection. This year, the Crowned Prince had turned nineteen years old, and the games would begin. Every woman between the ages of 16 and 20 were eligible to apply to be one of the 35 girls that would participate in the selection, hoping to become his bride in the end.
The idea of the Selection disgusted me. I was not the kind of girl to believe in love, in all of it's romantic and overrated glory, but that didn't mean I thought the Selection was right. The fact that the Prince's wife was a position to be applied for was probably what hit me the most—they treated it like a prize. As if he was the thing the girls of this country should want the most in the world.
My mother wanted a good life for me, and every time I saw the way she looked at me, I knew she wanted nothing more than for me to be as happy and as privileged as the Queen she saw on T.V. every other day. My mother had applied to be a part of the King's Selection when she was my age, but she hadn't been chosen, Queen Rhea had. My mother had gone to school with her when they were only children. Back when both of them had been fours.
But then Rhea married into the crown and became a One, and my mother married my father and became a Six.
Just two days ago, we'd gotten a letter from the Royal Family themselves, as had every other girl in the nation in the acceptable age range. My mother had not-so-subtly left it on the kitchen table, propped up by a banana that was bordering on brown. I knew she wanted me to apply and at least get my name in the lottery, but I didn't believe in that. I was sure my reaction upon seeing the letter had not been what she expected.
Where every other girl in Illéa must have been jumping for joy, I was sighing with malcontent.
I didn't think I could be selected, not in a million years, but something about the possibility still terrified me. I didn't want to get caught up in a world of fancy dresses and royalty, and a boy who was probably so pampered he didn't know how to tie his own shoes.
"Noah?" My mom said when I still hadn't responded. I spun around to face her, forcing a smile, despite the nerves that had settled into my stomach. I had the Selection on my brain now, and that made it hard to act happy.
Compared to me, my mother was short and plump, but she was gorgeous. Those were my first clues that I'd gotten my appearance from my father. Photo's could only tell me so much, but they told me that my tall figure and dark brown hair had come from him for sure. The only physical things that I got from my mother were my green eyes, and a set of boobs smaller than a prepubescent boy.
She smiled, "Do you like it?"
"Yeah, mom, I love it. Thank you." I said, nodding.
"Anything for you," She said, her smile only brightening. "I thought maybe you could wear it to the Provincial Services Office? Maybe today?"
I sighed, biting my teeth down on my bottom lip. I turned back to the dress, only now seeing the letter that had been placed on my bed just above it. It was open, now, and the application was a single paper placed over top of the envelope. I hadn't filled it out—a small part of me was hoping she would forget I'd ever agreed to—but I knew that I had to. I nodded, "Yeah, I'll fill out the form this morning and we can go in the afternoon."
"Oh, good," she said, letting out a sigh of relief. She grinned, "I'm so excited for you, just because your such a beautiful girl and—"
"Mom," I said, rolling my eyes. I couldn't hold back the smile that came at her words, or stop the red tinge from coming onto my cheeks.
She wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me into half of a hug, "and you're sure to be picked."
"It's a lottery, mom," I said, picking the dress up and holding it out in front of me, "I have as much of a shot as everyone else who's entering."
She didn't say anything to that, but her smile never faltered. Her arm dropped from my waist and she turned to leave me to change, closing the door to my room behind her.
I dropped the dress back onto the bed and closed the distance between me and my dresser in only two short steps. I pulled a pen from the container that sat on top of it before moving to grab the papers and envelope from my bed. My thumb ran over the wax seal that had enclosed it, careful not to crack it in anyway. It seemed to fancy and expensive to break.
I'd only skimmed over the papers before, not having cared enough to waste time reading it. Right then, I took the time to read over every word.
The recent census has confirmed that a single woman between the ages of sixteen and twenty currently resides in your home. We would like to make you aware of an upcoming opportunity to honor the great nation of Illéa. Our beloved Prince, Roman Séear, is coming of age this month. As he ventures into this new part of his life, he hopes to move forwards with a partner, to marry a true Daughter of Illéa. If your eligible daughter, sister, or charge is interested in possibly becoming the bride of Prince Roman and the adored Princess of Illéa, please fill out the enclosed form and return it to your local Provincial Services Office. One woman from each province will be drawn at random to meet the prince.
My fingers ran over the script like feathers, feeling the texture of the ink that was thick enough to be felt. My eyes had never seen something so pretty, and likely expensive. I flipped it over to get a look at the application on the back, setting the page on the top of my dresser so that I could write on it.
The questions were easy, but I didn't understand why they needed to know things as specific as my weight and hair color if it was supposed to be a draw. Still, I wrote my responses honestly onto it. Suddenly I felt a prickle of nerves in my stomach as I thought that they might not be completely random with the lottery. If they were narrowing the applicants down according to the answers they wrote down here, I wondered if mine would be trashed for something as simple as my eye color or height? Or even Caste?
I listed my abilities with pride, mentioning the fact that I could speak three languages, even if my Russian was rusty at best. Still, I could hold up conversations with my mother long enough whenever she edged me on to practise. Sixes weren't given much education, and so my mother had taken it upon herself to teach me languages and maths. Science had been something I'd learnt on my own. I might have been a six, but my aspirations lied in the world of the three's. I'd wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid, and it seemed that dream had yet to fade.
I snorted when I leaned out my door to talk to my mother, who sat on the couch just outside my room, "Hey, should I list my talents as a maid under the 'abilities' section?"
She chuckled, "Definitely not. Royals tell other people what to clean, they don't clean things themselves."
"Right, okay," I said, nodding. "So I'm guessing saying I'm bossy is an okay choice, then?"
"If I find out you put anything other than beautiful and smart, I'll disown you." She said, and I laughed.
I finished off the last of the form and folded it back up into the way it'd been before. I quickly changed out of my jeans and the partially wet shirt that I'd worn to work that day, slipping the dress on after. I turned around to look at the finished look in the mirror, slipping the black shoes my mother had gotten onto my feet while I did.
More than satisfied with what I saw, I took the form in my hand and left my room, standing just outside my doorway, waiting for my mom to look up at me. When she did, she smiled, her lips pursing in a way that suggested she was trying, and failing, to hold it back.
"Oh, Noah," She said, shaking her head, "You look beautiful."
"Mom," I said, watching her stand and walk over, reaching up into my hair to take the pin out of it. The strands of brown fell to my shoulders and I frowned, "I don't like my hair down."
"Oh hush," she said, winking. "They take a photo when you get there."
"Oh, great," I said, frowning. She took the form from my hands and slipped it into her purse.
Not a minute later, we were standing outside of our apartment, me waiting for her to lock the door behind us. We lived in a small apartment complex, with only two floors to the whole thing, and six tenants. Most of the people who lived there were Sixes, aside from the family of sevens that lived on the bottom floor.
When she put the keys back into her bag, I slipped my arm through her own and we made out way down the staircase, barely able to fit between the walls while walking side by side. When we got to the front door, we both paused, looking out at the weather that lied just on the other side of the glass.
The aftereffects of the rain that had been coming down all night were present in puddles and wet pavement, and trickling's of water that fell from the roof. It wasn't raining anymore, but the clouds that occupied the sky told me that it was likely to happen again.
"Oh, it's a horrible day to be doing such a good thing," my mom said, frowning. My mother was beaming, even as we left the building and dodged puddles on our way to the Provincial Services Office.
Just a few paces ahead of us, another mother daughter pair were walking, and I would have bet money they had the same destination. The letters had come only yesterday, and I was sure that whatever girls hadn't made it to the office before it closed then were on their way there today.
"Wow," my mom said when we came up the the office and saw the line that stood outside it. The Provincial Services Office itself wasn't a big place, but seeing a line standing outside it doors still made me frown. There had to be tens of girls lined up there, waiting to drop of their applications and get their photo snapped in front of a screen.
"This might take a while," I said, whistling.
"I'll say," my mom laughed, just as the group of us took one long stride forwards as one girl stepped into the building. She sighed, "Oh, I remember when King Leon's selection happened, way back when."
"Do you?" I said, smiling. "Was it hectic like this?"
"Oh, yes," She said, pausing, "and if it hadn't been a draw, I would have won the whole darned thing. You could have been a princess, Noah, can you imagine?"
I smiled, looking over at her, "Well, technically, I still could."
She smiled at that, "Very true. Have you seen that boy on T.V.? He's very handsome. A little young for me, maybe, but I think you'd look good together."
I rolled my eyes. Prince Roman and his family were regular T.V. personalities, it'd be next to impossible to have not seen him. He'd grown up on camera, with a nation of people watching his every move, and every time I'd seen him on our pixilated screen at home, he'd oozed charm and confidence. I admired the Prince and the life he lived, though I would never see myself liking him.
I could never see myself marrying him.
In only ten minutes, if that, we were at the front of the line, inside the doors of the office. I handed my form over to a woman who waited just inside, watching as she set it in box of forms just like it. She pointed towards a stool that was set up just in front of a camera, and I slid onto the wooden seat, setting my hands on my lap.
My mom reached forwards and fixed a lock of my hair, but I frowned and pushed her hands away, "Mom."
"Sorry, sorry," She said, stepping back with her hands up in a show of surrender.
The woman who manned the camera gave me a thumb's up, and I nodded. My mom stood just behind her, making a face that was surely just there to make me laugh, and it worked. When the camera clicked, I was sure my mouth had been hanging open and the photo would be absurd, but I wasn't given the option to look it over.
We were out of there as fast as we were in, and I found myself feeling anxious on the way home. I'd been worried before we'd gone in, but now that my entry was in and there was, in fact, a possibility that I could be chosen, I felt sick.