When the doorbell rang at 10am, I let my mom run over and answer the door. I sat still on the couch, listening while a flood of people stepped in through the doorway. I could hear the shuffle of boots on the carpet that lined the entryway just inside the doorframe, and I frowned when my mother called my name.
Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet and shuffled my way into the kitchen. There were three men hovering around our kitchen table, each with their own briefcase lying on top of it. I watched while they opened one after the other, arranging and rearranging the papers that they pulled from them. The tallest of them turned around and smiled at me, though the mustache that he had under his nose made the gesture seem more creepy than kind.
"Miss Carins, my name is Preston Leeroy, I'm the head of the Crowns legal department." He said, reaching out to shake my hand. I met his hand with my own and felt my arm shake under the force he used. He didn't seem to notice my discomfort, and he only kept talking. "We're here to talk to you about the rules and such surrounding the Selection. Please, have a seat. This might take a while."
I moved to sit on one of the chairs, ignoring the fact that he'd offered me a seat in my own house. The other two men with him stayed silent while he spoke, and I dubbed them his lackeys. He sat across from me, and my mom came over to hover behind me, watching the whole thing unfold very carefully.
"So, I have here the written version of everything that I'm about to tell you," he said, sliding a wad of papers towards me. I picked it up and frowned—there had to have been tens of pages in it. I read the title and frowned, not completely believing that there could have been so many rules in a competition based around the Prince choosing a wife. What could there have been other than 'play nice' and 'stay put'?
The man cleared his throat, "First off, we ask that you remain within the palace's property, for obvious reasons. We cannot insure your safety if you leave, and for that reason we ask that you don't. The guards that man the gates have been instructed not to let you leave the premises unless you're accompanied by the proper documentation, or there's been an outing arranged by Mrs. Richards."
I recognised the name 'Richards' from the phone call I'd gotten the night before, so I didn't have to ask him that. With the rebel alliance that seemed to have been doing nothing but growing in the past few months, I had no reason to question that first rule, either.
For years, there'd been nothing but peace in Illéa, but people had begun to grow against the system our government had in place. The rebels were made out of mostly people in the lower castes—eights, sevens and the occasional six—but I wouldn't have been surprised to see a few higher-ranked people in the mix, either. The monarchy had hundreds of laws in place that all kinds of people were against, and they were starting to fight back.
In the past month alone, there'd been three separate attacks in three different provinces. One of them had been in Angeles, on the palace itself. The attackers hadn't been able to make it past the first line of defence, as the papers and new reports had claimed, but that didn't make it any less frightening. The fact that the rebels had felt confident enough to hit the castle left everyone wondering what they were confident enough to try next.
"Next," Preston Leeroy continued, "we must stress that you don't have any personal relationships with anyone aside from the prince. Any romantic relationships with, say, a guard, could result in you and your respective partner being tried for treason."
I didn't see how that could apply to me, but still, I felt my chest constrict at the word treason. Trials in which that was the accusation always ended the same: execution. It was one of the only cases that had death as a punishment, but it was becoming less and less rare. There'd been four people executed in the past year, and considering Illéa hadn't seen an execution since King Carlos had been crowned, that was a lot.
"Everything will be provided for you at the palace, and so we ask that you leave thing such as clothing and food and such here." The man said, "for security reasons, we can't have you bringing in anything unless it can't be made there. So, something like a photo would be alright, but not a bag, you understand?"
I nodded, and he smiled. I wondered if that was the rule he got into fights about the most, considering it was a competition with girls as the competitors, and I imagined at least one or two had a favorite purse or shawl they never left home without.
"I need you to sign here just to say you understood those first few things," he slid a paper my way, a black leather pen sitting on top of it. I wrote my name neatly on the bottom of the page—I'd never had need for a signature, and so I didn't have one. "Now, should the Prince decide to dismiss you, you must be packed and ready to go within the day. If he abruptly decides to let you go at night, you will have until noon the following day to be gone. A car will be called for you and you will be taken to the airport to catch a flight, free of charge, of course.
"And finally, from this moment on your status is a Three."
The moment the words left his mouth, I felt myself choke on the air I'd been breathing. My mother gasped behind me, repeating the word under her breath so quietly I was sure she thought no one could hear her. Three, three, three, three… I was about to be competing for the job any woman with half a brain would want, to be Queen, and yet in that second all I could think about was that I could have been a doctor.
"Girls tend to find it hard to return back to their regular lives if they're anywhere under a Four, so this seems to help," he said, nodding. He pulled out another paper and slid it towards me. This one, as I noted, had significantly less words than the last. "I need you to confirm that you are, in fact, a virgin, Miss Carins."
I felt my cheeks turn red at the question, and I nodded furiously. The law stated that it was illegal to have sex if you were unmarried, and I knew that. Still, the fact that they needed to ask me directly instead of just assuming I followed the law made my blood boil a little—maybe more like simmer. As if the prince's integrity was worth more than any other man's.
"Of course she is," my mom laughed, but I did not. My cheeks burned too much to find the humor in the question.
"Perfect, then just sign here," he said, pointing to the line at the bottom of the page. "I should also warn you, Miss Carins, that if you're found to be lying—"
"I'm not," I said, almost barking the words. He nodded, and I scribbled my name on the paper faster than I thought possible.
"Perfect," he said, gathering the papers I'd signed and shoving them into his briefcase. He left the wad of papers he'd given me in the beginning on the table in front of me, and when he latched his briefcase closed I realized they were mine to keep.
He stood, pushing up his wide-rimmed glasses with his finger, "before I go, I should also say that while you're in the castle you are expected to do whatever the Prince asks of you, Miss Carins. It's not exactly a rule, but it is, well, expected."
I nodded, "of course."
He laughed dryly, "I don't think you're understanding what I mean. Whether it be a kiss or a date or even a… night, it would not do you any good to refuse him."
If I'd had red cheeks before, I had scarlet skin then. He stood to leave, and as he walked out the door, his two lackeys followed him out. My mom closed the door behind them, but I stayed sitting at the table, disgusted at the mans words.
I'd been feeling a whirlwind of emotions about the Selection since even before I'd handed in my application. I'd felt excited and nervous and happy and sad, but I hadn't felt afraid until right then. The Prince was above me, that much I knew, but I hadn't let that fact sink in until right then. He'd grown up to girls dropping to kiss his feet and probably offering themselves to him on silver platters, and I figured many of the girls I'd be with in the Selection would be just like that.
But I sincerely hoped the Prince would not be looking for that from me, because as much of a Godly complex as the boy might've had, I would have been ready to smack him down to my level if he so much as put a finger on me.
The days passed quickly, and I found myself dizzy with every passing hour. Every tic of the clock made my head spin even more. Women came to measure my arms and waist and all sorts of other area's, writing the numbers down in a little book that had my full name on the cover. Men came and gave me all sorts of medication, from diet supplements and vitamins to little blue ones that were supposed to make my skin clear up of all acne.
The amount of people that had been in our house in the two weeks that followed the day Gavril announced my name on T.V. had to have amounted to double, if not triple, the amount of people that had ever been in our house before. I felt like a circus act that people just couldn't get enough of.
Naomi Richards had stayed true to her promise and called the night before anyone showed up, and I had begun to cherish the days where I didn't have to hear her voice. I'd heard it almost every night, and it'd become quickly annoying after the fourth day. She had a way of sounding condescending, sick, and tired all at the same time.
A man and a woman came to get my bag and anything that I might be bringing with me the night before I was supposed to leave. While the man was there to do nothing but carry my bag out and into the car they'd arrived in, the girl had come to look through it. I stood behind her while she rifled through the contents of the small backpack I'd tucked everything into. She pulled out every photo frame and pen that was in it and examined each item with squinted eyes.
When they left, I turned to my mom and squinted at her, and though she laughed, she hit me on the shoulder and told me not to make fun of people.
"But, mom," I said, squinting again, "did you see her? She was treating my toothbrush like it was a weapon."
"Yes, well," my mom smiled, "you are going to live with the royal family. They need to be safe, I suppose."
I rolled my eyes, "did she think I was going to carve my toothbrush into a shiv and stab the Prince? Do they not have a kitchen with things like knives there?"
My mother snorted, but she didn't edge me on any further. Instead, she turned on the T.V. and we waited for the nightly update on the Selection. Only a week ago, they'd made a half-hour long slot in the T.V. programs for a special broadcast. Uncreatively, they'd named it The Selection.
The host was a woman who's name I had long since forgotten, considering the only time she'd introduced herself had been the first episode of the show. She had long blonde hair and always wore the same kind of dress—long and black and probably worth a lot of money. When the show came on, she was sitting on a couch that was whiter than anything I'd ever seen before.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, staring deep into the camera. I shivered. "Are you as excited as I am? Tomorrow morning we will meet the 35 young women who will be the face of your T.V. screens for the next who knows how long. We've learnt their names and we've seen their photo's, but tomorrow, we get to see them live."
My mom reached over and tapped my shoulder, her action full of all of the pent up excitement she'd been showing over the past few days. I would have bet money that my mom was more excited about the whole event than I was.
I'd been warned about the T.V. appearance only yesterday, and the idea of it made my stomach do somersaults. It wasn't like I was expecting to steer clear of the screens completely, but I hadn't realized we'd be appearing on them so soon. I saw myself tripping over a dress that was too long, or shoes that were too high, all while a million people watched from home.
"The girls will each be picked up from their homes and brought out to the wave goodbye to their cities before making their way to the closest nation-wide airports, and then they'll make their way here. Our show will be a little bit longer tomorrow, because we'll be showing you clips of the girls saying goodbye to their family and friends, their arrival in Angeles, and not to mention the makeovers."
I groaned, and my mom let out a laugh.
"And finally, tomorrow night you'll have to tune into the Capitol Report, in which Gavril will be meeting the girls and getting up close and personal with each and every one of them." The woman on the screen said, letting out a squeal, "So get ready, because tomorrow, the Selection begins!"
The remainder of the show was boring, and it was mostly full of the same chat that had been airing over the past few nights. The host talked about the competitors and their home city, and me and my caste seemed to me a reoccurring topic. There was only one other Six in the competition, and the news reports and broadcasts all seemed to group me and her together as though we were already friends. Apparently to them being from such low castes made us shoo-ins for besties.
Leah McMaire seemed nice enough, but I couldn't really judge her yet, considering all I'd seen was her photo. I'd thought all of the girls looked like they were nice, but my mom had specifically warned me not to let myself be fooled.
My mother could remember the days of King Carlos' selection, and she'd recounted to me numerous stories that made me even more nervous than I'd been before. There'd been girls who cut others' hair, and girls who scratched and punched, and a girl who went as far as to push a competitor down the stairs. The entire event was like a short lived reality T.V. show, fit with drama that bought it's own viewers.
When I retired to my room to get some sleep, I climbed into bed and stared at the outside that hung form my closet door. The duo that'd come to pick up my bag had dropped it off when they arrived, telling me it was the uniform I was to wear on my way to the airport tomorrow. It was nothing more than a shirt and pants, but it was still made out of fabric that I could have only dreamed of before—even nicer than the dress my mom had bought me not long before.
I fell asleep thinking of that dress, and how I'd only worn it once, and how I was leaving it at home tomorrow, alongside my mom.