Chapter One: Not Under Foreign Skies


Weep not for me, mother.
I am alive in my grave.

- Alina Akhmatova


They couldn't risk a fire. That would be too much light, too much smoke. The Wastelands were an absolute abyss of darkness when the sun went down over the horizon - any single speck of illumination would be as an inferno, undeniable and extinguished as easily as a candle. No, it was agreed, they couldn't risk a fire. So the cold settled into their bones, and they exhaled steam across piles of debris and broken glass, and lit their path by the stars and the thin sliver of moon that had managed to escape the oppressive mantle of the storm clouds above. They stole past the darkened windows of hard-working citizens, loyal to the crown, loyal to kings dead and newly crowned, loyal to the idea of Illéa, and they darted across the railway lines, gone still now with the placidity of deepest night, and they disappeared once more into the utterly dark desolation of the unclaimed hinterlands. Well, that wasn't entirely true - the Wastelands had been claimed by the Kingdom in Exile.

They couldn't risk a fire, but a whispered argument decided that they could risk the dull glow of a broadcast, stripped of colour, on a portable screen that their leader carried on his belt. They always watched the Report. They always had. Didn't matter what they were doing, or who had just died.

They always wanted to see their photos in the Illéa's Most Wanted segment.

The Report only had images of four, though their inner circle numbered seven, and their ranks numbered seven thousand. There was an old mugshot of Wick, when his hair was still long and his cheekbones had yet to sharpen, young and somehow softer than he would become once the Wastelands had begun to whet all his gentler instincts. There was an official portrait of the General, back when he had been a real general and not one of an imagined army, his epaulettes impeccable, his hair parted with a severity, his boots shining. When it appeared, he always kicked up his dusty shoes and cocked his head and said, dismissively, "you can tell they're getting desperate if they're admitting I used to be theirs. Defection isn't meant to be possible." Then it was time for two blurry photos, taken at a distance and in spite of violent motion, only the vague silhouettes of noses and mouths discernable: Uzohola distinguishable by her cloud of brown curls and the wicked line of her jaw, Thiago recognizable as always by the long purple coat he had taken from the corpse of the king.

The government had only sketches of what they thought Täj and Vardi Tayna looked like, based on testimonies and guessworks, but the rebels' mole in the court had smuggled out copies to them some time last year and it was generally agreed that they were very poorly rendered indeed. Those images never appeared on the Report. Demetri said it was because the Crown didn't want to admit how little it knew about the men and women it blamed for the death of its king, and the theft of its first crown prince.

Usually the Report was a more relaxed experience - they would prepare their cold meals in silence, and scuff out a place to sit among the detritus of the war-that-had-been, and they would huddle close to peer at the tiny screen. The signal was poor enough that it wasn't always clear exactly which of the government's glossy propagandists had been trotted out onto the national stage to besmirch their good names and accuse them of all sorts of heinous crimes - most of which they had, in all fairness, committed. Usually there would be a summary of the night's wrongdoings, and the group would see what chaos they and their ilk had wrought on the nation: an exchange of gunfire here, land ceded there, a successful raid or a botched train derailment. Then, the Most Wanted, and the photos - "Wick, are you posing for your mugshot?" - and the solemn warning that all seven could recite by heart - "these men and women should be considered armed and highly dangerous" - and, the only aspect which ever seemed to change, the prize for a tip that led to their arrest, which varied sometimes if they had been particularly productive earlier in the day. It had become a strange competition of whose head was worth the most to the Crown, and it wasn't really the Report until one of the seven had offered that tired observation: "I'll hand the rest of you in tomorrow and live like a king the rest of my life, just wait."

Then there would be an address from the Queen Regent or from the king-that-was-to-be, the boy Demetri still called brother. Those would be short, unmemorable platitudes about holding fast against encroaching darkness and believing in one another, some short epigram Vardi Tayna would invariably find amusing in that wryly ironic of hers, something that would make the General's eyebrows raise and start Wick on a whispered rant about the decadence of the royal court that would have Thiago hissing "not here, not now, be quiet, damn you." These brief speeches would inevitably offered with impeccable enunciation, the speaker impeccably dressed in layers of velvet and silk, their backs steel-straight, every inch the ruler.

Usually, the Report would then end with an image of a young boy. About seven years old, his eyes wide, posing somewhat awkwardly in that way that children have, one hand on a piano he would never learn to play, his blonde hair lightly tousled. And beneath it, the starkly printed letters, so that there could be no doubt as to his identity: DEMETRI DUNIN. And beneath that, a running tally of the days since he had been stolen from the castle during a rebel raid.

It was currently at 5470.

In five days, the royal court would mourn the fifteenth year that their crown prince had spent in the hands of the cruel rebels, and the rebels would celebrate his twenty first birthday.

(They had very special plans for this one.)

That was usually how the Report ended, but tonight, that was not to be. For tonight, the screen did not fade out to rapturous applause, and the camera remained fixed on the starkly lit stage. The silence was total. The queen rose from her seat on the raised dais, and after a moment, the prince stood as well. There was not even a murmuring from the assembled crowd. All was still and quiet in Angeles, and all was still and quiet in the Wastelands as well. Thiago had his jaw clenched so tightly, it seemed to be at risk of breaking.

For tonight they numbered just five when they ought to have numbered six.

There was a scuffle just off-screen, and the General was dragged across the stage of the Report, his head slumped down, his entire body limp, a trail of blood tracing his path. They had stripped him of the army coat he always wore, even some twenty years after his defection from the Illéan forces; after only a few hours in their custody, he seemed gaunt, like all of his spirit had fled in anticipation of what was to come. The other five were not surprised to see how quickly all of this had occurred, for the General had always warned them of as much himself. "They know me, because they trained me," he would say when the topic came up. "If they catch you - any of you - they'll torture you until you're ready to tear your heart out of your chest to make them stop. But they'll kill me as soon as they get me."

"Let's make sure they don't get you, then," Demetri had taken to saying, and it was a promise the others had fully intended to keep.

And yet, there he was. And here they were. So far away, and so helpless to stop what was about to happen.

The General was deposited on his knees, centre-stage, and the prince moved - of course they would leave this to the prince, make it seem like vengeance, make it seem righteous - and the camera fixed on the young man's pale, determined face as he descended the steps to walk towards the man accused of murdering his father and his king.

But first, of course, there had to be a speech.

"Subjects of Illéa," he began. As always, his face was scrutinised by the five rebels for some similarity, however faint, between himself and Demetri. They were both blonde and tall, both handsome but in very different ways - Demetri was rugged and square-jawed and broad-shouldered, more like his uncle Set than his late father, who had been lean and classical. Mordred had inherited his mother Ysabel's prettiness, her hollow cheekbones and bee-stung lips, her almond eyes and expressive eyebrows. It always galled a little to see how attractive the royal family were. Fighting them might have been a little easier, Wick sometimes liked to joke, if they looked a little less like supermodels.

"It's the new blood," Uzohola would say. "Those damn Selections. If every generation of your family married the most beautiful woman in the country, you might have ended up a bit less ugly, Wick."

"Subjects of Illéa," Mordred said. He seemed to have learned the entire speech by heart. He did not hesitate, or stutter. He spoke with a confidence and zeal."Kneeling before you is one of the greatest traitors Illéa has ever known. You need not be audience anew to the litany of crimes to which this man has subjected our nation, for we have grieved a thousand thousand times in the aftermath of atrocities he and his insurgents have wrought upon us. He took an oath to defend our nation, our king, and our people, and in response he has cut a swathe through this kingdom, murdered in cold blood my father the king, and abducted my older brother to hold as a hostage in the miserable destitution of the Wastelands. For this, and for the many other crimes he has committed, he may not be rehabilitated. He may never be released. I, the Crown Prince of Illéa, have passed the sentence of death, which shall be carried out immediately."

He did not step back, but held out his hand for a knife, which was handed to him by a court attendant clothed in pink. Mordred stepped forward and seized a handful of the General's hair to wrench back his head, and Vayna Tardi's hand tightened like a noose around Täj's wrist, her dark eyes fixed on the black-and-white image on the Report. Wick leaned in closer, as though searching for some kind of loophole, some trickery or falsity of the light, some way to deny the reality splashed across the screen in front of them. Uzohola turned her face away, and fixed her gaze on a few spent bullet cartridges on the ground a few feet away, though it was obvious by the tension in her shoulders that she was still paying attention to the most minute of sounds emitting from the tinny speakers. And Thiago fixed his gaze on his watch, slowly counting down the seconds, his brow furrowed, his eyes flicking between the screen and the ticking hand.

It was time.

Prince Mordred went to bring down the knife, and then the Report abruptly cut out, and the screen was filled with buzzing white noise and flickering static. The disruption lasted only a few seconds - the Report reappeared intermittently, brief flashes of blood and violence, but the only sound was a single voice layered over it all, a strong baritone with the slightest vestige of an Angeles accent. The General's last will and testimony, recorded days ago, before he had been captured, before he had been killed. The rebels focused on it closely. If their eyes shone with grief, then, in the dark, no one could see.

"Subjects of Illéa," the General said. "Speaking to you now is one of the greatest traitors Illéa has ever known. That is what your black widow queen would have you believe. And I will not deny the crimes I have committed. But what wrong I have done, I have done in the name of my nation, which is as dear to me as my own liver. Your kingdom has been denied to you by means of deceit; your king has been denied to you by means of arsenic. In a hundred years, maybe you will call us heroes. Some of us, perhaps, martyrs. Today you call us rebels in the Wasteland. Tomorrow, you shall call us citizens of the Kingdom in Exile, subjects of the Lost King himself. For you have been deprived of your true state, your true ruler, and true justice for too long. And as long as you subject yourself to the unjust laws of the despots you call the false queen Ysabel and her bastard son, Mordred, you will forever mourn the memory of the Illéa that once was and that once again could be."

They cut him off early. The government must have been trying to reassert the status quo, to impose the Report back on the airwaves, to trace the source of the disruption. The General's voice was abruptly cut off, as was the shuddering static, and replaced by the serenely calm visage of Demetri Dunin himself, his hair pushed back out of his face, only a small cut under his eye betraying the conditions to which he had been subjected during his time with the rebels.

"Good evening, everyone." His voice was as rich and smooth as honey. Captivity was a good look for him. "Sorry to interrupt your evening like this - but really, you're not missing much. My half-brother is about to behead my Administer for War, but such is the nature of war, and General Klahan would have been the first to acknowledge that. It was his voice you just heard - I think he did a rather marvelous job outlining it all, don't you?" The background of Demetri's broadcast could not be made out in any great detail - it was a plain concrete wall, splashed with a few graffiti slogans from a group of younger rebels who had been bored and restless and armed with enough spray-paint to do damage. Only one could be made out with any great clarity: We could be kings.

"He told the truth." Demetri smiled, and the resemblance to the dead king was striking in that moment. "My name is Demetri Dunin. I was rescued from the palace fifteen years ago. I am proud to say that I am the true king of Illéa, and my Counsel the true government of Illéa, and my people the whole citizenry of this great nation. In time, we will liberate you all. For now, we shall begin the business of healing and governing in the land we have reclaimed from my stepmother, the black widow Ysabel. We shall welcome any and all who wish to join, in glory, the Kingdom in Exile. Already, we have been recognised as the true government of Illéa by the United Sultanates of the Mashriq, and by the Saharan Federation. They are the first among what is sure to be many."

This little fragment of optimism was enough to bring a slight smile back to Uzohola's face. "I don't think that's as impressive as he thinks it is," she murmured, her words barely breathed into the air. She turned back to the screen, and her smile widened to see the young man the rebels still called little Dimi acting every inch the aristocrat on an insurgent broadcast. "He must have a very poor Administer for Overseas."

She was speaking, of course, about herself. Most of these positions were to be held by some rebel commander or another, men so poorly educated they could barely read their own newly penned constitution, women more accustomed to the weight of a gun in their arms than the weight of fiscal responsibility on their shoulders. Wick was to be Administer for Social Matters. Thiago was to be Administer for Intelligence and Security. Vardi Tayna had yet to be offered a role, for there was no such title as Administer for Cynicism and Cyanide. Yet, she always reminded the Lost King dryly. No such title yet.

And he would reply, "And here I thought you wanted to be the queen."

"Can't a girl be both?"

On the screen, Demetri continued calmly. "I know, as surely as I know my own name, how dearly you all crave peace. That is what I offer you now. I offer it not to my stepmother, or to her bastard son, the false king, or to those traitors who have sheltered them, and murdered in their name, and kept my throne from me. I offer it only to you, the ordinary and loyal citizens of Illéa. I offer you peace. I offer you normalcy."

Demetri's face wavered. The government were about to cut off the broadcast. The five rebels in the Wastelands began to gather their things to prepare for an escape even further south.

"And in the interests of that normalcy," Demetri continued, not allowing even a hint of urgency to slip into his voice despite movement around him suggesting his film crew were preparing for a panicked escape the second the camera was shut off. "I announce to you, my citizens, my subjects, my people, my Selection. Our new nation shall be one shared, one in which you shall all share equally - as citizen, as defender, as queen. And I promise - "

The screen went dark. The five were left in doused darkness. Vardi Tayna's voice: "let's get out of here, boys." She had let go of her comrade's wrist, and now she set her shoulders determinedly against the memory of the General dying on the screen before her.

A single point of light flickered in the darkness. Täj's gaunt face was illuminated in sharp relief and contrast as he lit his cigarette. If there were any snipers waiting for them in the shadows, they did not risk the shot.

"To the General," Uzohola said softly. "To his sacrifice." She stood, and brushed dust off her trousers.

"To our new king. To our old hostage." Thiago's voice was dryly amused. "May he outlive us all."

"And if he doesn't," Wick added, a smile in his voice. "Let's hope they kill him quickly."


Hello, readers! If you have made it this far, thank you for reading and please let me know what you thought. I know it's pretty long, and mainly sets up the world, so there will be more information about the Selection in the next chapter. So that you can start sending in characters, I will provide the most important information here:

In Illéa, the rebels now completely control the land to the south which was once Mexico (known as the Wastelands) and most of the provinces south of Angeles. They are still fighting for control of yet more provinces, and partially control the rural areas of many other regions. Where they control a province, the rebels begin to set up their own government to replace the central government - they collect their own taxes, use insurgents as police, and set up their own schools and hospitals, etc. They call themselves the Kingdom in Exile, and have begun to petition other countries for official recognition as a nation in their own right. Fifteen years ago, they succeeded in abducting the crown prince from the palace, and now, five days before what would have been his twenty-first birthday, a rebel has appeared claiming to be the lost crown prince, now accepting his position as king of the Kingdom in Exile. To legitimize his position and win loyalty of more Illéans, they are going to hold a Selection as a propaganda move: "see, we're the real Illéa". The characters in this chapter are the "inner circle", or the rebels that the King in Exile has chosen to join his Cabinet as "Administers", which is a portmanteau of Minister/Administrator.

This section is just the prologue - I don't want to give away the whole plot just yet! You can find more info on my profile, but if you want more information or have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM, I'd love to chat to you about any ideas or queries you have! The form for the SYOC is also on my profile. Like the original Selection, this is set in a world that has most of our technology - Angeles is more advanced, the rebel-controlled areas are a less advanced.

That should be everything - please do let me know what you thought in a review! Thanks again!

- Izar