Jara's maids were flitting all over her, trying to get her ready for the first dinner. The dinner was a Selection tradition, where all of the girls had dinner together before the competition officially began. The royal family, including Prince George, wasn't there.

Jara didn't like the idea of the dinner one bit. It was a more regal, twisted way of the palace saying "Get along before you all fight over one guy that you don't even know!"

The only people Jara liked so far in the palace were her maids. Olivia and Charlotte, she had learned the other one was, were the only people she didn't feel like she didn't have a reason not to like them. And she did like them. She was going to spend a lot of time with them, because there was no way in hell she was going to that "Women's Room".  She didn't want to see the snobbery fights that happened there.

As she was lost in her thought, she was interrupted by a gasp from her head maid.

"I know," she said as she smoothed out the black lace dress. Brooke was fixing back Jara's hair. Olivia rushed into the giant closet that the palace had made for her lady.

She came out with a necklace with a black, circular stone that she called "Onyx". If Jara had known that the jewel existed before the Selection, she would have discovered it long ago.

For the first dinner, she wanted to feel like a princess before she had to try and become one.

Every girl in Illéa wanted this opportunity and she would be an idiot not to compete hard. This wasn't a social game aside from with the prince. No one needed friends, and the other girls could be brushed aside, focusing on others wouldn't help her win.

"You look perfect, but my lady," Brooke said as she finished pinning back Jara's hair.

"Thank you," Jara gave a little smile that some may say looked a little like a smirk. She looked at herself in the mirror as she stepped down from the small stage they used for dressing.

She held up the full skirt of her dress, built of layers of lace as she walked down the palace's grandest staircase.  At the bottom were maybe half the girls and the dining room.

She didn't recognize any of the girls at the base of the staircase from earlier that day at the makeovers or anything. But then, the only girl she had talked to was the cheerful girl who came up to her during the tour. She hadn't even made an effort to talk to the other girls at the airport, because, what was the point? Everyone, including her, was disposable to the prince. All but one would be gone in a matter of time.

And every single girl wanted to be that one.

This dinner was just the start of a bigger competition.

Jara knew that all of the girls would treat her fine for now, because she was a Two. She had already seen the nasty way the Twos and Threes were treating the Fours and Fives.

A few girls waved at her as she came down the stairs. Those were the girls who wasted their time learning everyone's name. They sat before the Selection in front of their television watching the petty broadcast that basically tracked all the girls and listed why they applied and who they were. It was a gossip channel.

Jara then entered the dining room, where she saw the bubbly girl again. What was her name again? It had started with Q, she remembered that. For tonight she was wearing a beautiful white and light pink dress that made her look dreamlike.

All of the girls looked amazing, and as Jara sat down, she wondered if it was a beauty pageant she was walking into.

—————
The girl whom Maeve had taken a seat next to at the makeovers and tour earlier had ended up as pretty good company. Both of them were quiet, but it was nice to have someone.

Maeve's new friend's shiny silver name pin read "Lady Deirdre". Maeve suspected she was either a Four or a Five, because no one else spent a lot of time around her, especially not the girls that were clearly from the upper castes.

Although with these clothes, all the girls could be in the upper castes.

Maeve was wearing a gorgeous light green satin dress with heels made out of the same material as the dress. Her brown hair was pulled back in one of the most complicated braids she had ever seen.

Other than the obvious and invisible lines drawn by exculsion, there wasn't a visable difference between higher and lower castes in this environment. Technically, every girl was at least a Three, and once they left, it would be extremely easy to become a Two.

Maeve didn't understand how someone could get out of the Selection, where they were in love with the prince, and then turn around and marry some other random Two. She didn't understand anyone that married for money and caste instead of love.

Watching broadcasts of King Dalton and Queen Miabella, she could tell they might not be as in love as some people thought. Maeve knew she didn't want love like that, purely for power, influence, and a higher caste. If it wasn't love, she didn't want to marry the person.

She knew that a couple of the girls in the Selection were in it for the throne. The ones with the deep necklines and dresses that hugged their curves like a second skin. Those types of girls, like the one sitting next to her now, were convinced they couldn't fall in love.

The girl next to her, Keahi, was wearing one of those dresses, lace and deep purple. The prince wasn't even around yet.

Maeve smiled at everyone though. She knew that not many of the girls were kind, and maybe just being gracious alone would earn her brownie points with the prince. He wouldn't want to marry a rude girl, would he?

But again, the queen was that girl Tricia, but the actual winner of the Selection.

Maeve didn't think much of the girls like Tricia and Queen Miabella. They were the kind of people Maeve didn't enjoy, but also the type that the best thing she could think of to do was ignore.

The dinner was delicious. The palace served a thousand courses of the grandest meal that Maeve had enjoyed in her entire life. She wondered how all the Selected girls always stayed so thin with all the food they ate. And the royals! They must eat more food a day than Maeve had eaten in the last week.

But then again she had been nervous about the Selection, and frankly not eating too much.

She couldn't imagine being a One and having this much luxury at her fingertips. She just knew that she wanted it more than she wanted most things that appeared in her life almost magically.

—————
Evelyn thought the amount of food the palace was feeding the Selected was insane. No one could eat as much food in a month as the palace had put in front of the girls in two hours.

She saw it in the faces of all the girls too, bursting out of their beautiful dresses. The poorer girls had all but moaned when they put the first bite in their mouths.

Evelyn had to admit, it was better than a lot of the food that even she had eaten. Or maybe all the food she had ever eaten. She had never been to the palace before. She always thought they never gave a damn about the women's sports.

Which, she supposed, they didn't considering they brought her to the palace to play dress up and be the prince's side piece before they inevitably shoved her to the curb.

"What caste are you?" The girl sitting next to her, Anika, as her place card read, asked.

"Two," Evelyn replied, then asked politely, "what about you?"

"Oh, I'm a Three," Anika said, "This is like the best food I've ever tasted in my life."

"Same," Evelyn agreed.

"Really? I thought Twos would get food like this."

"Like the palace?" Evelyn asked, "No way. Not even when we visit other countries."

Anika smiled, and Evelyn thought that there might be someone sane in the apparent hellhole of a palace she had dropped into somehow.

"I love almost everything about this place so far," Anika said, "I can't wait to meet the prince."

"I'm just glad there's someone here who's not stuck up and cares too much about winning to be nice to anyone."

"I try not to fight with other people."

"Me too, but it gets hard when everyone else is so rude."

"Exactly," Anika said, "I hope it'll at least stay normal until the competition gets more cutthroat."

"Thank you for being normal," Evelyn
told her, and the two girls laughed.

—————
Deidre thought she was one of the quietest girls at the whole dinner. A fire alarm wouldn't have been heard through the ruckus in the dining hall.

For refined ladies, these girls were awfully loud when they spoke to each other.

If she had talked with the girl earlier, she would have tried to find her as the girls left dinner to watch the Illéa Report, where the night's broadcast would be dedicated to the arrivals of the girls at the palace earlier.

She smoothed her pretty yellow dress as she walked down the hallway. She felt like an actual princess from books.

From what she knew, each girl would have a little segment on the show. She was nervous about what would be said in the segment about her, but she was more worried about what the broadcast would say about the other girls. She didn't want to see any fights in the palace.

She sat on a chaise sofa when they got in, marked with her name and another girl's, Kim Vera of Ottaro. She noticed a crowd around one of the chairs at the end, and sure enough, it was Tricia's. Deidre felt like an outsider in this competition. She noticed a couple of other girls sitting on the outside, including the brunette girl she had met earlier. The girl gave her a little wave, and she smiled and waved back.

"Welcome to the Illéa Report!" Luna Madison said from the TV, a huge smile on her face. The girls standing in front of Tricia scattered to their assigned seats. "We're so happy you could join us on this lovely evening for our Selection Special episode, one of many features we will have to introduce our audience to the Selected."

The in-studio audience cheered. The girls, all sitting in this room would be part of that audience next week. Deidre had grown up seeing Luna talk to the audience, and it would be surreal to see the show in person. It was almost like meeting your favorite fictional book character. Like even though you know you're never going to meet them you love them anyway. In the eyes of Illea, that's what Luna looked like. 

Luna Madison was a celebrity, basically a member of the royal family. Deidre loved her so much because the biggest thing about Luna Madison was that she was always herself on TV. One time, Deidre remembered watching Luna scream at a trick that Prince Donovan had planted for her on live TV and then laughed it off afterward. Deidre wished that she dared to be as authentic as Luna was.

On the TV, Luna was discussing how nice Tricia had been to the fans in her hometown. She saw a girl with dark hair, who was sitting across from her on a sofa for a province later in the alphabet, roll her eyes. At least one person was immune to Tricia.

Then, they talked about Maeve Ambree, whom Deidre recognized as the girl from earlier. Maeve. Maybe the one person who had tolerated her in the whole palace, even though she hadn't said a thing to anyone. She was nice to the fans too, smiling for photos and accepting pens.

Deidre knew that if no one else would be nice to her, she could rely on Maeve, who was looking at her at that moment and smiling at her.

—————

Anika was taken aback by the humor of the girl she met at dinner, the girl seemed different than Tricia, Tillda, Bethanie, and pretty much any girl she had met in the hellscape of a palace.

Anika hoped that more than just one girl was willing to be nice to someone for a change. She preferred not to be in a palace of warring girls. It never felt good to be in such a tense residence.

After the show, she met Evelyn again. The show made everyone look good and said somewhat kind things about pretty much everyone. They accented the clips where they were being the kindest towards the fans. It was impossible to be portrayed negatively.

Anika loved the dress she had been given. It was the most beautiful dress that she had worn in her entire life. It had layers of ruby-colored lace, and her neck and ears were dotted with red stones in jewelry that resembled flowers.

Everyone looked like a princess though, and she was starting to feel glad that she wasn't the prince. If every woman looked like they could be your wife, how could you possibly choose one to earn the title? She was sure that almost everyone was deserving of it too.

"How do you think the prince is ever going to choose one of us?" she wondered allowed to Evelyn.

"Some people are just snakes in pretty dresses," Evelyn said, "And he has his preferences, too. I don't know anything about love, though. What about you? Have you ever been in love?"

"No, not really," Anika said. Only in my imagination, she thought, "From how books describe it, it must be a wonderful thing."

"I don't know," Evelyn said, "I've never thought about being in love either."

"You don't read?"

"I do, it's just not very often. And it's usually only if I have to."

"You might be bored in here, then. I've heard there's not much to do except sit and read."

"I can always talk, I guess. Or walk around."

"I love looking at the gardens, I would love to walk in there."

"With the prince on your arm?" Evelyn gave her a look that resembled a friend's face when they were joking about a crush.

"Maybe," Anika answered slyly, causing both the girls to laugh loudly.

There might be some friendship in this game after all, Anika thought as she went up to her room.

—————

next chapter the girls meet the prince!