Chapter 17- Gilded Masks
*all rights to Kiera Cass*
BlissfulBillie- Ugh SAME! Also thank you sweetie-100% a filler/my writings have a mind of their own (lol) but happy you liked it!
KMLovesfanfics- I always write these things right as I'm about to post the next chapter (so I've already written it) but I just read this again and it's such a good idea? Love that girl! It's going to someone else for sure. Also thanks for reading again :)
DBZFanLou- I know, I'm sorry! I'll explain in a sec ahaha- but thank u
Bluebelles112- I wouldn't call him fickle necessarily… more like realizing the weight of his love for America and being a lil bit scared of that bc she almost didn't wake up :))
Virtue01- THANK YOU! Felt a lot of like "true love is usually the most inconvenient kind" vibes on my re-read and was pretty happy with it so… glad you liked it too!
Sk8rgirl- that's so sweet! The finale is still a ways off (especially with my writing/posting schedule lol) so you have some time :)
K12- my best friends are also writers and one of them once called me Lauren Darkness (my last name is Douglas) because my characters suffer so much lol. But thank you, happy you liked it!
Riley- babe that is ridiculously nice. Imma big write what you want to read bitch, so that's what this story is for me and i'm just happy other people like it to 3
Guest- whoever you are that said it doesn't mean that much to me-YES IT FREAKING DOES. i do such a happy dance reading all my reviews because i love sharing my love for this book series with y'all. thank you thank you thank you
aaksupertrooper- I did in fact use le google translate. Good to know that it does in fact work lol
To all my loves that read, liked, followed, favorited, or reviewed BC thank you forever and ever. I love y'all so much and i'm so incredibly thankful that you guys like this story as much as i have fun writing it
Ok y'all for real though, lil status update. So my computer broke because of zoom/overuse in quarantine. I finally got my old computer so I could finish this chapter and post and do all the other shit a rising senior has to do over the summer lol. It's crazy though because it's such an annoying dinosaur with a broken period key (esp when compared to my normal laptop), but it's also so much fun writing on this computer again because it's what I first started writing this story on. The memories. The nostalgia. Worth it for real. But that is why this chapter has taken almost a month to post-it would have been up sooner I promise! Anyway this was such a fun chapter for me to write and reference the books and it's been a chapter I've ached to write since the beginning. Also speaking of the beginning, I reread the whole thing to write my next chapter to ensure ~continuity~ after I made a big mistake one time wayyyyy back. And Y'ALL. Just an even bigger thank you for reading that dumpster fire. It was terrible and when I finish it all, I will go back and fix that steaming pile of shit. It'll be fun lol. Alrighty, i'm on the east coast and it's 1:20 am right now, so I'm gonna go to bed but enjoy this chapter, loves. Stay safe, healthy, and kind. Here if y'all want to talk!
Without further ado, Chapter 17- Gilded Masks
Maxon tugged his ear at dinner the next night. I didn't return it. I carefully avoided his eyes in the hallways. He knocked on my door that night too. I burrowed under the covers and told my maids to tell him I went to sleep early. Even if he heard me through the door, Maxon couldn't very well protest that I was resting when that's what he had asked me to do for weeks.
There was a pit in my stomach when I woke up. I took a deep breath, trying to focus on anything but Maxon. After everything, after I said I loved him, after he said it back, after he asked me to marry him at the end, after all of it, now he didn't know. He knew when I didn't and now I do and his father agrees and Maxon doesn't know. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was dangerous to love this much. Maybe I should leave instead of watching him fall in love with someone else.
I swallowed hard and swung open the door to the Women's Room. Marlee sat by the windows and Natalie lounged on the couch in front of the TV, mindlessly flipping through the channels mindlessly. My mind summoned an image of her blonde hair mirroring Maxon's on the bench in the gardens so many weeks ago. Maybe he already did love someone else.
I tried to work on my proposal for my philanthropy as Queen. If I become Queen, my mind corrected. I sighed. My best idea was abolishing the castes. But Maxon said-rightly so-that it was too dangerous. I didn't need to give him more reasons not to choose me at the end. My head throbbed. Maybe I could still do something for the lower castes. I thought of Gerad. If he wasn't a five, he would be a scientist or a soccer star. I smiled slightly. Maybe instead of abolishing them, I could create a program for kids in the lower castes to explore fields outside of their castes. Maybe it could allow them to change their castes if they did well. I smiled at that. Gerad should have been able to do anything his mind could dream up. But I saw Maxon's pale face again. I shook my head, crumpling the paper in my hand. It felt like wiping a hand through a still pond and erasing the peace. I hated that I couldn't change the castes. I hated it more than almost anything.
A clean sheet of paper stared back at me. I sighed again and pressed a finger to my temples. Maybe it would help to know what other Queens did during their reigns. I stood and walked to the library.
It still surprised me when I went to the Palace library. It was massive. In one room, there were more books than I had almost seen in my entire life. The shelves lined the room in neat rows and the colored spines caught my eye across the room. I smiled unconsciously.
My hands ran along the spines as I walked through the rows until I reached the section with the Illean history books. I opened one about the queens to the table of contents and ran a finger down the page until I saw a chapter about philanthropy.
Queen Abby, Maxon's grandmother, created an organization that rescued abandoned animals and placed them in wealthy families of Twos and Threes that could afford to take care of them. I almost scoffed. It didn't surprise me that Clarkson's mother cared more about abandoned animals than starving children. Queen Amberly created a program to train families of those with mental and physical disabilities on how to care for them. It drastically reduced the number of Eights since she became the Princess.
More than anything, I wanted to be a queen like Amberly. She grew up like me-in the lower castes. She fell in love but more than that she became the serene power in the Palace. Queen Amberly saw the problems in Illea and tried to help: at least a little. I had seen more than my fair share hardship. Even months removed and two castes higher, I couldn't get the memories of cold houses in the winter and hungry bellies at night out of my head. I couldn't stop seeing the lights turned off or children being whipped in the market square for a piece of bread. I couldn't forget the Sevens that were injured from heavy labor and had to become Eights when they lost their jobs or the girls that wandered the streets before just curfew because they had nowhere else to go but a lonely man's bed. Each of those memories struck me like a knife in the heart. The castes killed people every day. It wasn't right. But I couldn't do anything about it.
I sighed and collapsed to the floor, leaning my back against the shelf. What was I passionate about? What could I do that could help something or someone? I tried to make a list in my mind: family, kindness, justice, music. I couldn't help my family much more than I already was simply from the checks they sent home for me to stay. You can't legislate kindness either. And the only idea I could think of for justice was abolishing the castes and Maxon shot that down before I had barely mentioned it.
But music… In every horrible, happy, painful, hilarious moment of the Selection, music was my safe place. Music was my therapy in every way. It was the one reason I loved being a Five. My entire life was music before the Selection. I nodded, tracing a treble clef in my palm. Music. I could create a program that would teach children in all castes how to play music. I could teach them how to use music as a way of coping with the good times and the bad times and all of it in between. I could show them how music brings us together even if the castes divide us.
I smiled at that. In my small way, I could help tear down the castes. Maybe my children would be the ones to do it. Maybe music would show Illea that no one is so different.
The door to the library creaked open before slamming shut. My head jerked up. I couldn't see the door from where I was sitting among the shelves, but it sounded like someone was crying. I stood quietly, padding over to where the noise was coming from.
Celeste was slumped in an armchair with a magazine open in her lap and her hands on her face. Dark brown curls fell in front of her face. I cleared my throat. Her head snapped up.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She snorted, wiping away her tears quickly. "Why wouldn't I be?"
I raised a brow. "Maybe because it looks like you're crying?"
Celeste sniffed and leaned back in her chair. "Just leave me alone, America. You're perfect. You wouldn't get it anyway."
I took a step back. She said it almost like an insult, but they were the nicest words Celeste had said to me since I meant her at the airport months ago. "I'm not perfect, believe me. And you look like you could use a friend."
She threw up her hands as if my very words proved her point. "I've been terrible to you. I tried to steal your dress literally off your body. I've been terrible to everyone but the worst to you and you are being nice to me."
I huffed a laugh, "Bygones and all. Besides, I asked Maxon to send you home enough that I'd call it even."
She matched my small laugh this time. Celeste glanced down and handed me the magazine in her lap. Pictures of the Elite with Maxon stared back at us. They were the pictures from our interviews with Maxon right after the rebel attack. The words "FORGET MAXON-WHO HAS WON ILLEA'S HEART?" were plastered at the top. Small quotes were listed under each of our pictures with a number. A bar graph in the corner showed the results. Elise was the lowest, quickly followed by Tiny. Natalie was next with a sizable score. It was dwarfed by Marlee's though, and Celeste's just barely missed Marlee's. I frowned.
Celeste was the only Two left. Marlee, Elise, and Natalie were all born Fours and I was obviously a Five. Even Tiny was only a Three. Celeste was loved by a lot of people simply for being a Two. Then I saw my own bar, leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else. The number beneath my picture said that 63% of Illean respondents favored me over the other Elite. I didn't understand. I was the graceless Five that wasn't supposed to make it past the first day. If it wasn't for our semi-illicit meeting in the gardens on the first night, I likely wouldn't be here. Of everyone, I was the least cut out to be queen. I loved my country, of course, but I didn't think they loved me.
But when I read the quotes under our pictures, it hit me.
"Lady America reminds me that even as a lower caste, I can find happiness and I am worthy of fighting for myself," said one. Another claimed that I inspired her to live fearlessly. Over and over, the people called me brave and kind and articulate and selfless. They called me all the things I'd only dreamed of being. They called me things I never thought I could be.
I looked back at Celeste. Her eyes were still rimmed with red. It wasn't hard to see how much of a betrayal this must seem to her. The country loved her… until they didn't.
"I don't understand," I shook my head. "I'm not any of these things, but you're beautiful and charming and a Two. They love you for real."
She stared at me. "You took a bullet for the King of Illea on national television. You almost died. You almost died for someone that didn't even like you-that actively disliked you. And now you're in here trying to comfort me after I was terrible when we all know that you could be off with Maxon." Celeste ticked off her fingers like she had a mental list prepared solely to tell me how much better I was than I thought. "You have encouraged the people to fight over and over when the rebels threatened to kill all of them. You aren't scared. And you're a Five that believes you can marry the next King of Illea-and you're not wrong. And even more than that, you see Illea. You see Illea more than any of the rest of us ever could. I don't know how you're surprised."
I gaped at her, blinking. "Thank you," I whispered finally.
She waved a hand like it was nothing. Like it wasn't both the longest and the nicest thing she had ever said to me. "You'll be a good queen, America."
"You would have been too." I said, but something in me almost knew that it wasn't true.
Celeste shook her head. "No I wouldn't have."
I waited for her to say more but she didn't. She thought less of herself than I did. I frowned. "But look on the bright side, after this is all over, you'll have lines of men trying to marry you miles long."
An echo of a smile flashed on her face. "Yeah, I guess. But that's not the point. They'll forget me. They already are."
"Is that so bad?" I asked. "I would do anything to be out of the spotlight."
"You don't get it." Celeste paused. "My fame is the only thing I have. My beauty will fade and then I won't be able to model anymore, I can't sing, I can't act, and I'm mean. I'll be nothing but a royal left-over at the end."
"What?" The question sprang unbidden from my lips.
She laughed darkly. "I kept trying to sabotage all of you to get the crown. Not even Maxon-I couldn't care less about him at the beginning of this all. I wanted to be Queen Celeste. I even tried to get him to have sex with me. I figured if I were pregnant he wouldn't be able to say no. He just needed to love me."
I blushed and tried to keep the image of Maxon and Celeste in bed together out of my head. "What about you?"
"What about me? I would be queen."
"Didn't you want to love him too?" I swallowed. I couldn't imagine marrying someone I didn't love.
"I figured I would grow to," she sighed, "but even if I didn't I thought I would be okay. Oh God, but America. We all see how he looks at you. So I've given up even that idea."
"Celeste," I breathed. "You deserve so much more than idle happiness. You deserve to be loved completely, wholly, entirely and you deserve to love the same way back. I'm so sorry you ever thought you weren't."
She stood and I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "I'm sorry for being such a bitch."
"It's okay," I whispered back. "I forgive you. Take off your mask. Let them see the real you."