The Princess Trials (The Princess Trials #1)(10)
“Thank you.” She inclines her head but doesn’t smile. Circi Aster is as serious as the weapons she wields.
The camera pans out to reveal the rest of her garment, a catsuit that hugs her waist and skims her hips. Holsters wrap around it like corsets, and I count four handguns. Circi Aster is the queen’s lady-in-waiting, bodyguard, and closest confidant wrapped in a beautiful, deadly package.
Ryce’s arm wraps around my waist, and he pulls me into his side. “Thank you, Zea for securing our life together.”
All the air leaves my lungs in a shocked breath. I turn away from the screen to gauge his expression. “What do you mean?”
In the fading light, Ryce’s eyes are like the morning sky, filled with the promise of a better day. “Someone’s going to be at my side after the revolution. Who better than the brave warrior who paved the way for our freedom?”
As Lady Circi and Montana continue to chat onscreen, I bite down on my bottom lip and examine Ryce’s features. Nothing in his expression says that his words are a ploy to make me complete my mission. I already agreed to enter the trials. What’s the point of promising a future together unless my attack on that guard had finally caught his attention?
His brows draw together, and the arm around my waist falls. “Sorry if that was presumptuous—”
“It isn’t,” I say.
Ryce nods and turns to the screen. I can barely concentrate on Lady Circi’s words. Montana asks her about all the girls who have already entered the pageant, and her face twists into a wry smile.
I turn back to Ryce. “How far have they gotten with the Trials?”
“They selected which Nobles will compete in the palace on Monday,” he replies, still staring at the screen. “On Tuesday, they chose the Artisans, yesterday the Guardians, and today the Industrials. Harvesters are tomorrow.”
I don’t bother to ask about the Foundlings. The Nobles are so peculiar about genetic perfection that they probably wouldn’t want to breathe the same air as someone without generations of careful screening.
Montana switches to a clip of the royal family in an opulent drawing room with tall windows that overlook a rose garden. Outside, fountains that spray plumes of water into the air. My lips tighten at the flagrant waste, and I focus on the royal family.
Queen Damascena is clad in an ivory gown that blends with her pale features. Wearing her golden hair in a chignon with large curls framing an oval face with high cheekbones, her face is painted to perfection, highlighting her huge, violet eyes. She’s the winner of the last Princess Trials. Although the pageant took place years before my birth, OasisVision occasionally shows highlights of her victory.
A shudder runs down my spine at the thought of parading myself in front of every citizen of Phangloria in a slinky gown with my face painted and my hair pinned and primped like a doll’s. My lips twist with distaste as Queen Damascena allows Montana to kiss her hand.
Next to her sits King Arias, whose face is a stoic mask. He wears a royal blue officer’s tunic with gold braid trim running around its collar, down its placket, and on the cuffs. King Arias looks like something from half a millennium ago when people fought wars with swords and cannons instead of nuclear missiles. With his neatly trimmed beard and the red sash around his jacket, the effect is elegant and heroic.
I shake my head as the camera pans left to their only son.
It’s rare to see Prince Kevon on OasisVision, and it’s clear from the rigid set of his shoulders that he’d rather be out doing what Royals do when they’re not posing for the camera. He wears a less ornate version of his father’s jacket and looks like he hasn’t so much as picked up a shovel. Glossy, blue-black hair sweeps over a strong brow and curls around prominent cheekbones. He combines Queen Damascena’s beauty with the rugged masculinity of King Arias. His eyes are so dark, it’s hard to tell if they’re blue or brown or black.
Ryce turns to me. “What do you think?”
I grimace and glance at the other Harvesters in the crowd. Some of the younger girls stand with their hands clasped together in prayer to His Royal Pamperedness, and others sigh as though he was the most handsome young man in Phangloria. He isn’t.
With enough sustenance, rest, and an army of beauticians, anyone can look as good as Prince Kevon. Ryce works out in the sun all day, and he is breathtaking.
Leaning into him, I say, “He’s too pretty for my tastes.”
Ryce returns his hand on the small of my back, and all the tension leaves me in an instant.
“Your Highness,” says an unseen, sycophantic voice. “Do you have a message for the young hopefuls vying to become your bride?”
I’m not sure why, but I’m holding my breath.
“Good luck,” he enunciates in the clipped accent everyone uses on OasisVision. “I look forward to meeting you all in person.”
The camera pans back to Queen Damascena, and the voice asks, “As a former winner of the Princess Trials, what advice can you share with the Harvester girls competing for one of the remaining six places?”
I whirl around and whisper, “Six?”
Someone behind us hisses at me to be quiet. Ryce raises a shoulder. “Only five Echelons qualify, and thirty girls will be invited to the palace. It’s an equal split.”
I clench my teeth. Five-thousand Nobles live in Phangloria. At a rough estimate, ten percent of them are aged sixteen to twenty-one. With half of them being male, that means two-hundred-and fifty Noble girls competing for six places.