soare cu dinti (phr.) "sun with teeth"; a day that appears beautiful until you step out to experience it.

The first day of the Selection had dawned silver; by the time noon was drawing down over the district of Arali, the whole of the sky had been covered by a filmy grey gauze. It was as though the sun had been wrapped in a great gray scarf, exactly like the one she was wearing now. It contrasted utterly with the otherwise elegant gold dress that her mother and aunt had spent weeks making, painstakingly, from first thread to final stitch, but she didn't care, not now; it would be nice to have some part of home, when she was in Ganzir. They had been told to bring no personal effects, for all would be provided for them in the palace. The royal family would be good to them. Tereza was sure of it.

She had been bundled so quickly into the waiting carriage that she had barely been able to say goodbye to her family – grasped hands and hasty kisses, that was all the Stan family had been permitted. Her little sister had been crying out of sheer jealousy; the neighbour boy, Cezar, had lifted tiny Dănuț onto his shoulders, so that Tereza's nephew could watch her leave, watch the beautiful dappled horses clatter out of the town square, watch the paqudus, resplendent in their gold coats, form a guard of honour along the streets with their pikes held aloft in the shape of an arch. Tereza had waved until her arm had tired; she had called goodbyes until her throat was sore.

At the gate in Wall Szymanscy, she was moved from one carriage to another. The Arali carriage had been a beautiful thing, the viceroy's personal vehicle, all lacquered tulipwood and shiny mpingo, wreathed in silver and brass, driven by a personal chauffeur clad in the distinctive navy uniform of a viceroy's valet. The cart into which she was transferred now was utterly different – more akin to a military vehicle, enclosed on all sides, with a coarse canvas roof. There were a trio of small horses leading, hopelessly mismatched – one bay, one dun, one roan – but all with the same big dark scars on their withers and back.

This new vehicle already contained two Selected girls: one, dark-haired, wore a plain teal dress, like something a baker's daughter might prefer, missing only the apron folded over her lap to complete the look; the other, blonde, wore a long, dark coat and patched trousers. By contrast, Tereza's gold dress seemed rather tacky; she fixed her gaze out of the window and tried to resist the urge to fuss with her hems too much. They did not introduce themselves to Tereza, so Tereza did not introduce herself to them.

Outside, there was a shout, and the carriage rocked into slow motion – and then faster, as the horses were goaded into a canter, faster than Tereza could remember ever travelling in a cart before. The land was pockmarked with the remnants of a battle hard-won, long ago; the cart leapt into the air, and thudded back to the earth, shuddering like a heart-beat. She couldn't relax in her seat without hitting her head against the sides of the carriage; she had to tense every part of herself to keep from being thrown about like a ragdoll. The cart was open at one end; she found herself grateful for her scarf, now, when the cold wind rushed about so.

In the tiny view of the world accorded to her by the gap between wood and canvas, she could see the tagma flying through the air around them, in silent protection. They were a multi-coloured bunch, green and blue and red alike; it seemed as though every unit in every corps had been mobilised for this great migration. Fifteen girls, she thought, all of this, for only fifteen girls? There was a hiss, very close to the cart, and the obvious shadow of a figure alighting on top of the cart, sword drawn. A quiet murmur passed between driver and protector, then another hiss, and the shadow flickered away again, red coat snapping.

Faster. Tereza hadn't realised that they could go faster, but here they were – racing across the ground, the horses gasping from the effort of their gallop. She was surprised at the urgency of all – Vanth was still secure, was it not? Wall Szymancy still held firm against the onslaught of the druj, not that you would be able to tell from how fast they were moving now. Opposite, the girl in the black coat stared out at the sky and at the soldiers, her brows furrowed, her expression sad; the girl in the baker's dress stared at her hands, which she folded and unfolded and folded again, and said nothing.

Tereza would have tried to sleep, if she thought there was any chance of success; instead, she sat, tensed thus, as the world disappeared beneath the wheels of the cart and the tagma continued to hiss, hiss, hiss all around them.

The districts became smaller, the closer you drew to the centre; outer districts like Mønt or Tiamat could take days to traverse, particularly if you were unsure of your path. Cutting a direct path towards Ganzir, here and now, was a matter of hours, long and tedious – but fascinating, in a way, still fascinating. Tereza had never been so far from the walls before! There was one point, perhaps midway through their journey, where she could not see a wall rising on either horizon, and the agoraphobia – the enormity of the sky, and the world, running end-over-end utterly unchecked – had almost crushed her.

Every hour or so – how she wished she could be more precise! – Tereza would look at her companions, and consider speaking, consider an introduction, and think better of it in the end. It was an intimidating kind of silence, though the girl in the coat seemed more sleepy than aloof; she offered a smile, a few times, when their gazes tripped on one another, but for the most part it seemed she had her own thoughts to contend with and Tereza tried to be respectful of that.

The sky was darkening, still filmy with ash, by the time they were swallowed up in the shadow of the walls again. Voras District was adjoined to Ganzir by Wall Schreave; it was a district of reward, the kind of place nobility and courtiers were assigned as thanks for years of good service. Tereza found herself twisting her golden sleeve in her hand, and wondering exactly how tacky she would look next to the beautiful Selected that was sure to have been chosen from such an illustrious province.

They skirted Voras, and drew to a stop near to the gate to Ganzir. Of course; the Selected girl would want a much nicer carriage to carry her out of her province. They waited there for a perhaps a half of an hour, all while the tagma hissed ceaselessly. Surely, Tereza thought, this was a waste of good gas? She thought of saying something, making a joke to that effect, and then thought better of it; there would not have been time to say it, anyway, for there was conversation outside, and the whinny of a horse very nearby.

Tereza nearly jumped out of her skin as another soldier landed, hard, on the roof of the cart . A commander clad in excubitor green pulled back the flap of cloth which served as a makeshift wall on one end of carriage. "Chlebek. We're handing off to the palace guard."

The girl in the dark coat smiled. Oh. Not a Selected at all, then – a final line of defence. When she rose, Tereza saw, for the first time, the knife strapped to her leg, the harness hidden beneath the coat. "Wasn't a bad last shift, all things considered. Relaxing."

"Enjoy retirement, Oktawia," the commander said drily, her voice warm with mirth. "I'll think of you when I'm dying between some druj's teeth..."

Retirement? Wow. Tagma rarely lived to retirement – and this woman barely looked older than twenty-five. When she moved to depart from the vehicle, however, Tereza realised how she moved. One leg hung limp, utterly without motion or sensation; it dragged behind her; she supported herself against the wall of the cart as she limped to the edge of the cart; and was helped down by her commander, who had a walking stick ready for her.

She was replaced by two new arrivals – much more clearly Selected, Tereza thought with relief. The first, a brunette, was dressed in a light pink dress that would have led Tereza's grandmother to declare her desfrânată; she positively bounced into the carriage, smiling broadly, and extending a hand instantly to take Tereza's in hers. "Mirabelle Yannis – can you believe the day is really, finally, gloriously here?"

Behind her, a gentle laugh. The girl who followed her on was dressed in a more modest purple, and had the same iron-straight black hair of the silent girl in teal at the back of the carriage, who had barely registered Oktawia Chlebek's departure or the arrival of their new companions. "You should believe it by now, Mirabelle, you've spoken of nothing else all this way…!" She slid onto the seat opposite Tereza, and smiled sweetly. "Evanne, but call me Evie – god knows everyone does. Obušek."

"Tereza," said Tereza, "from Arali."

Mirabelle Yannis glanced at their quiet friend in teal. "And…?"

"Seo Eun Byeol," was the answer, softly spoken. "Mønt."

"Lovely! Isn't that lovely, to have fallen districts represented so?"

"Well," Tereza said, "there's rather less competition for it, isn't there?"

She wasn't sure that she had intended that to be funny, but Evie laughed anyway, and did not look insulted, and that was such a relief that Tereza found herself relaxing slightly – just enough that she cracked her head against the side of the carriage as they took off again, to a sympathetic look from Evie.

Mirabelle Yannis was not a Selected; she was a lady of the court, who was to act as their chaperone for the first few days, and help them adjust to life in the palace. Evie seemed to have made a quick study of her; she seemed very well relaxed in the situation, even as she carefully mimicked Mirabelle Yannis' hand movements and the way she folded her legs.

They were an easy pair to speak to, likeable, and quick to converse; they'd spent only a few hours together on their journey, so it did not unduly feel as though Tereza was trying to break into a friendship already firmly formed. One had the easy, sunny demeanour of someone accustomed seeing the bright side in life; the other had the bubbly, slightly distracted attitude of someone who had never seen anything but. Neither seemed to know much about the Selection, which was fair, because neither did Tereza – King Aviram's Selection had been nearly thirty years ago, after all, and much had happened in the world since then. In the same way, neither Evie nor Tereza had ever glimpsed the crown prince for whose hand they would be competing; it made it difficult to theorise, or laugh about strategies, or discuss anything deeper than usual introductory chatter: homes and occupations and dresses and family. Mirabelle Yannis was an actress in Voras, and moved in noble circles, and had no end of amusing stories with which she could entertain them as the day drew on. Eun Byeol Seo remained quiet, watching her knotted hands, but it was not an unfriendly silence; it genuinely felt like she simply had nothing to say.

A final transfer between carriages at the gate to Ganzir, now into a carriage resplendent in marble and gold and grey silk. It made Tereza's scarf match a little better, but she ripped it from her throat nonetheless; they were in the royal vanguard now, and the bright coloured ranks of tagma had been replaced by the paler greys of the royal guard who patrolled Ganzir and the palace proper.

Evie grimaced slightly. "So it begins."

Traditionally, the girls would sleep in their carriages in a minor courtyard of the palace, for presentation at first light the next day; however, Asenath Schreave had denounced this practice as archaic, and the girls were instead being brought to a dormitory on the outskirts of the palace compound, to be made ready before the Selection began in earnest when the morning broke.

Smoke rose, lazily, to the north. Aizsaule was, even now, still burning. Tereza looked down at her shoes, and adjusted her silks, trying hard not to think about it. Evie, opposite her, smoothed pale purple skirts over a prosthetic leg, and smiled radiantly.

"Smile," said Mirabelle Yannis, beside her, with the tone of a woman very mindful of eyes upon the Selected. There were crowds thronging the street, lining up along the avenues; every space was occupied by a body. They were waving and cheering and jumping to catch a glimpse of a Selected; she was not sure whether they were utterly heedless of the ashes still drifting over their city, or whether they were frenzied with the need to heed literally anything else. "There is nothing to worry about. We are going where it is safest."

Safe. Could that really be?

Oh, she hoped dearly that it could.

The second day of the Selection had dawned golden; it crept across the polished wood and beautiful silks of the room to which Tereza had been assigned, making everything it touched glow bright as though the sun itself had been stitched within. The curtains drawn over the windows were pale and transparent; they did little to deter the intrusion of the light. Luckily it did not wake Tereza, who had been awake, at that point, for many hours – in fact, she had barely slept at all, despite the softness of the beds or the richness of the stew which had been delivered to her room as dinner. They had been assigned their room by district; that meant she had no idea who was on either side of her, and had little incentive to find out.

Early in the day, when the day was still dark, she had been chivvied from her bed and into the baths; the stone surface had been slick with the residue of perfume and shampoo, but she had little chance to question anything as she was practically tripped into the water, and found herself being perfumed and washed and scoured within an inch of her life. She rose, spluttering, from the water, only to be pushed back down so that her scalp could be scrubbed with the violence of one who is considering ripping it off in a single piece. When she rose from the water again, and was wrapped brusquely in a soft grey towel, her skin was tingling and raw.

They had removed her lovely golden dress from her room; that left only the pale grey dress that had been left in the wardrobe. It was a simple, long dress, with a sleek crossover bodice and delicate lace embellishments on the sleeves. It bared her arms and collarbones, but little else; it was pretty in its simplicity. It looked a lot like the dress she had worn for Fall Day the previous year, when they had gone to the chapel, when Cezar had told her that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. The shoes were similarly plain, just grey ballet flats barely visible beneath the hem of her dress. The maid who had helped her bathe – if you could call that helping – gave her a few short, sharp instructions on dressing before departure: "wear your hair loose. Do not alter the dress. No accoutrements."

Accoutrements. That was a military term; Tereza took it to mean accessories. She had concealed her grey scarf beneath the pillow of the enormous, soft bed; she took it now, and wrapped it tightly around her thigh, so that it was well-hidden beneath the skirts. Something from home, she thought, something small from home. Once thus attired, she stepped out of the room, and ran immediately into the tight pack of Selected girls milling about the hallways; she blinked, and took a step back, and had barely got her bearings when she heard an enthusiastic "Tereza!" and turned to see Mirabelle Yannis frantically waving her over.

The court lady was the only person not in grey; she was in another pale pink dress which left little to the imagination, carefully skirting the edge of total tastelessness in favour of blatant provocativeness. "Darling," she said, sweetly, "did you sleep well?"

"Not really," Tereza admitted. "Too much excitement."

Evie smiled sympathetically. They were wearing the same dresses, Tereza realised; she, and Evie, and silent Eun Byeol, were all clad in identical grey dresses and grey ballet flats, hair loose, no accessories. No makeup either, which was an utter shame – she had rather hoped for some kind of a makeover, and was a little deflated to realise she would be appearing before the prince as her own uninteresting self. So were all the girls around them; Mirabelle Yannis caught her looking and said, knowingly, "it's some nonsense about true beauty shining from within."

"I see."

"I know, it's such a shame – grey doesn't suit your colouring at all, Tereza, poor thing. It rather suits little Seo, doesn't it? But, ah, what wouldn't?"

A smile, perhaps, Tereza thought dourly. Eun Byeol was looking up, cold-faced, at the enormous oil painting which dominated one wall of the corridor, a frozen tableau of the first Schreave king discovering the walls on Illéa for the first time during their strategic retreat after the Fall. Evie put a hand on Tereza's shoulder, gently, as she adjusted the joint on her prosthetic slightly.

"You okay?"

"Yes," Evie said with a smile, "fine, yes – sorry for the hand."

"No, no, not at all. It seems very inconvenient."

"It was the best the military could afford," Evie said wryly, "which means that it isn't very good at all. Just keep an eye out for me on the stairs."

Tereza returned the smile. "Grab me if you need to."

They were moving now; in a crowd of similar dresses like this, Tereza rather thought they looked like a cloud of charcoal moths. The dormitories in which they had spent the night was a relatively small wooden building on the edge of Ganzir, what had probably been a lodgehouse or a place to relegate lesser nobles when they came to the centre of the kingdom for an audience. Tereza was carefully to gather up her skirts as she walked out onto the path, which was muddier than she thought anything this close to the palace would allowed to be. They were being divided into carriages again; she made sure that she stayed close to Evie and Eun Byeol as Mirabelle Yannis made a beeline for the nearest carriage and hurried them on. Eun Byeol spoke for the first time unprompted – "mind the step, Evanne."

"You'll forgive me, girls," Mirabelle Yannis said – a strange verbal tic, Tereza thought, when she was at most a year or two older than them – "but I want my girls to make the best impression."

"You have a bet riding on this?" Evie said with a laugh.

"A bet? Oh, dear me, no, no, no." She winked. "More than one, darling, it's like you don't know me at all."

Each carriage had a grey-suited guard controlling the reins; theirs was a very handsome man with dark hair and grey eyes and the tattoo of a skeletal hand with a butterfly on the tip of its finger on the inside of his left forearm, bisected by a long black scar. Eun Byeol sat closest to him, and then Evie, and Tereza facing them.

"All in?"

"Yes," Mirabelle said firmly. That wasn't true – there were still Selected milling about the courtyard, looking for empty seats – but the guard shrugged, and rattled the reins, and they were off. "The Schreaves cannot stand tardiness. We need to make a good first impression, don't we?"

Tereza found herself overwhelmingly grateful, in that moment, that Mirabelle Yannis appeared to be on her side.

There was a similar flurry of activity as they pulled up the long, wood-crowded path towards the palace. Tereza had only ever seen it in wood-carvings; based on the awestruck expression on Evie's face, and even the small look of surprise in Eun Byeol's eyes, she was not alone in the emotions which crowded her now. It was awe, utter awe, as the palace stretched broad before them.

Oh, wow.

It was only slightly smaller than the Walls themselves, she thought, the immaculate facade facing the woods stretching almost a kilometre in length. The paths were all angled slightly upwards, with the tail end of the palace drifting out into the surface of a cliff, so that it seemed as though the castle had almost grown organically from the stone thereof. There were stone turrets at regular intervals, she was delighted to see, and which seemed only proper – what was a castle without some spires, after all? It was not the plain grey stone she had expected, but paler, richer somehow, in a yellowish hue – each spire sharp and tall and wrapped in gold, each window rising higher and broader than a door, fretted in brass, the bell-tower on the northern point all ebony and onyx. Approaching it from this angle, she could see no movement within; it seemed an utterly silent, still, building, devoid of any life or living.

Evie said, softly, "it's beautiful," and Tereza found herself stunningly unable to agree.

"You never get used to it," their guard said, "not really."

They were coming up the driveway now; Mirabelle Yannis was shaking herself out of her own awed stupor. "This is it, girls," she said, but it sounded rather like she was speaking to herself more than to them. "I'm not permitted inside for the inspection so… good luck. I know you'll do great."

The inspection. Tereza swallowed hard, and followed Evie out of the carriage. Eun Byeol had jumped out before them, and paused to make sure that Evie would be alright; the girl from Obušek waved them on, as though amused at the thought that she might require assistance.

Their guard led them up the enormous slate stairs towards the entrance. Each step was a metre in width; they rose high into the air, such that when Tereza turned back at the door to look back at Mirabelle Yannis, she found herself taking in the most gorgeous view of the whole kingdom. Illéa unfurled before her, a beautiful rolling land of tiny red-roofed villages and enormous colourful towns, perfectly carved up by the walls like a geometric design. She was looking south, she thought; none of the southern districts had fallen, so the view was perfect and unspoiled. The grass was emerald, the water sapphire, the sky above a perfect lapis lazuli streaked through with the gold of dawn.

She found herself trying to take in absolutely every single detail, so that she could relate it all to her mother, to Maria and Dănuț, to Cezar, when she was inevitably eliminated in the first day or two. Please, she thought, let me remember this exactly as it is.

"Tereza, come on!"

She turned, and hurried after Evie and Eun Byeol. Their guard had led them into the foyer, which was marble-floored and marble-walled, and into the drawing room beyond, where they found that they had been the fourth, fifth, and sixth Selected to arrive. The room here had wallpaper in the print of flowers, foxglove and nightshade and belladonna; those same flowers overpoured from vases and hanging baskets all around the room, so that the air was filled, utterly filled, with fragrance. Hasty introductions were made with the first trio to arrive – they, too, had left with a half-empty carriage to avoid being late, and seemed rather more guilty for that fact than Tereza did – but they were nice girls, beautiful as Selected were, sweet as Illéans tended to be. So busy were they with their chat that she barely noticed their guard departing, with a murmured goodbye to Eun Byeol.

Other girls slowly trickled into the room, as the other carriages arrived. In a room of such colour, the grey dresses stood out all the more; it was strange, Tereza thought, what an equalising effect the garment had. She had worried, on the way here, about her golden dress, about whether she would be considered low-class and tacky, but now she could clearly see that, even if she was not the prettiest girl here, she was certainly not the plainest. And the others seemed to consider her charming enough – though it could not hurt that Evie had clearly taken Tereza and Eun Byeol under her wing. The girl from Obušek was as charismatic as anyone Tereza had ever met before, effortlessly so.

"Is that everyone?"

Tereza had not even noticed Asenath Schreave sitting at the piano, on the far side of the room, until the princess had spoken. She was not sure how she could have ever missed her; the angel of Illéa was, as the sayings went, beautiful enough to stop birds still in the sky.

It was true: Tereza had met her once before, when she had come to Arali to visit the new girl's school and tour some of the apple farms. No one had been able to take their eyes from her – those silvery eyes, that inky black hair, that starlight skin.

It was more than physical beauty: it was the way she moved, the way she held herself, the way she spoke. She genuinely made it seem as though she was speaking to you, personally, alone.

Tereza found herself nodding without knowing if she was correct.

"Well, then. Allow me to thank you all personally for your participation in this ritual; I am so delighted to see such beautiful, accomplished women standing before me, and I hope you will find our hospitality agreeable over the next few days." Asenath smiled. "Truth be told, I used to be a little resentful that I wouldn't get a Selection of my own, but I certainly don't begrudge my brother for the difficult choice he now faces."

It was all typical pleasantries, but Tereza found herself smiling slightly nonetheless. It was nice to have nice things said to you, about you; she had never been considered any great beauty at home in Arali.

"I'd like to speak to some of you one by one," Asenath said, "just to get to know you all a little better. This is traditionally the duty of the prince's mother, but, alas – the queen sends her apologies."

A door swung open on the far side of the room, previously hidden in the chaotic design of the wallpaper. The princess' silent guard, an androgynous soldier with short black hair and pale hazel eyes, said, sharply, "Lady Kass, please."

Tereza blinked. Oh. Yes, of course – they were names no longer. Just districts. She was Lady Arali, then, and Eun Byeol was Lady Mønt, and Evie was Lady Obušek, and they were all in the Selection, and the druj were far away, and it was all beginning. Only just beginning.

Evie caught her eye, and winked. "Let the games begin," she whispered.

On her other side, Eun Byeol said, softly, "and here we go."

The third day of the Selection had dawned crimson. Tereza had woken from a dream of being at home in Arali, of picking apples with Cezar, of hoping that he would call her pretty again. She had woken to hammered knocks at the door; Mirabelle Yannis had been waiting on the other side, beautiful and breathless, and beaming. Tereza had taken several moments to understand; even when she had understood, it had not quite seemed real.

She had been summoned for an audience with Silas Schreave.