By the time Cassiope walks back into the room, I’ve made enough peace with my decision to quell my tears. Breaking ties with Prince Kevon is for the best. He would have rejected me later if he discovered that I joined the Princess Trials to remove him from power. Leaving now might preserve my secret, but I still have to negotiate the safety of my family with Queen Damascena or Lady Circi.
“It’s nearly time.” Cassiope stands at the other side of the low table. “Are you ready to start your next challenge?”
Georgette fixes my hair and makeup, then Cassiope and I step into the hallway. I’m sure the palace has assigned this part of the building to only the Harvesters as I never see anyone else here. The stairwell door opens, and a fresh-faced and newly dressed Emmera steps out with the production assistant assigned to her.
I’m in no mood to venture out of the palace and face the reporters so we walk the palace grounds, looking for inspiration.
Vitelotte and her production assistant join us through winding corridors, passing servants clad in purple uniforms and the occasional armed guard. Carolina’s plan to infiltrate the palace through its hidden passageways was sound, but it would require the rebels to murder all these innocent servants to reach anyone with real power.
When we exit into the gardens, a vast swathe of land stretches out with pathways that lead to smaller outdoor features, like a sunken garden of terraces that descend toward a pool. I move my head from side to side, not knowing which way to go until Cassiope suggests that we look at a statue of Gaia for inspiration.
She leads us through a series of tall hedges arranged in a maze, which a former king built in honor of his bride. In the middle of the arrangement is a round pool that takes up more floor space than my entire house and in the middle of that stands two statues back-to-back. The first is Uranus, the god of the sky, and the second is Gaia.
Emmera’s assistant interviews her about what happened during the last challenge and asks if she saw Ingrid or the other Guardians. We don’t learn anything new from what she says, so I place a foot to the edge of the pool and squint at the earth goddess’ intricate stonework.
Water pours from the cornucopia she holds to her chest, which contains apples, grapes, ears of corn, squashes, and delicate blades of wheat. Vines curl around her flowing locks, which provide a setting for berries and leaves and flowers.
If I were serious about winning this challenge and not just passing time until I could leave the palace, I would choose this work of art. I tilt my head to the side. Maybe I can leave the Harvester girls with the next best thing.
“Can either of you weave baskets?” I ask.
Vitelotte raises a shoulder. “I wasn’t the worst in Rural Craft classes.”
“I can,” says Emmera. When we both turn to the blonde girl, she raises a brow. “What? I come from a long line of hedge-layers.”
It’s rare to find a Harvester trained in anything except tending to plants and building soil, and I try to suppress my surprise at learning that Emmera maintains the borders that separate fields of different crops.
“Do you think you can make a cornucopia?” I ask.
She tilts her head to the side. “Out of what?”
I turn to Cassiope. “Can we use anything we find in the palace grounds for this challenge?”
“Within reason…” Her brows draw together. “What are you thinking?”
“The early Phanglorians focused on restoring the earth. They built this country out of destroyed grounds, and we’re still doing this with the soil builders and the expansion of the Great Wall.” Everyone gives me blank looks, but I continue. “How many statues of Gaia do you see where she’s holding a cornucopia?”
“About half of them,” replies Vitelotte.
“And in the other half, she’s pregnant with the earth,” adds Emmera.
I nod. “Her treasure isn’t a crown or a piece of art. It’s the land. And what do we do with that land?”
“We grow food.” Vitelotte turns to the assistant assigned to her. “Does the palace have an orchard or a vegetable garden?”
She nods. “It’s by the kitchens.”
I clap my hands together. “Emmera, can you find a willow tree and weave a cornucopia large enough to cradle in your arms?”
Emmera nods.
I turn to the other Harvester girl. “Lotte, can you collect as many different fruits and vegetables as you can find, including a pumpkin?”
“What will you do?” Emmera asks with a scowl.
“There’s another treasure we haven’t mentioned,” I say.
Her frown deepens. “What?”
“People,” I place a hand on my chest. If they broadcast this segment, someone out there will catch the significance in this movement. It won't lead to better treatment for Harvesters, but maybe they’ll see the vital contribution we make to Phangloria. “Gaia created the earth, but she entrusted it to us to maintain her treasure. What better than one of her modern custodians to hold the cornucopia?”
Vitelotte steps back and lowers her head, but Emmera raises her hand. “Me.”
My lips spread into a wide grin. “I was hoping you’d volunteer.”
I spend the next few hours walking around the palace gardens with Cassiope, gathering flowers, vines, and decorative stems. While I’m no Tussah Thymel, I often make adjustments to the Harvester uniforms and repurpose old clothing into deep pockets, bags, and holsters to help Dad and me hunt.
With a few scraps of fabric, I can fashion a garment of flowers for Emmera to present herself as Gaia. And best of all, I have a member of the House of Thymel as a makeup artist who has an eye for beauty.
We return to my room and lay out our spoils on the dining table. Georgette pulls up Emmera’s measurements from her tablet computer, and together, we create the structure of a dress from flesh-colored Elastosculpt and scraps of fabric. Forelle acts as our live model. She’s paler than Emmera, whose sun-kissed skin won’t get washed out by brighter colors, but they’re equally curvaceous.
Footage from the Lifestyle Channel plays on a wall screen. A few of the Noble girls borrow art from their family homes, which I recognize from our journey into the Oasis. They’re not as grand as I imagined and one of them lives in a house only twice the size of a Harvester’s.
Georgette explains that the Noble Echelon is more complex than the split between the Royals and everyone else. The first tier beneath the Royals is those closest related by blood to the current royal family. That includes Garrett, whose father is the brother of Prince Arias, and whoever else descended from the previous two kings. There are about fifty people in the first tier of the Noble Echelon.
Further down the hierarchy are those elected into power, such as the Chamber of Ministers and those related to the kings of previous generations. Ingrid Strab fits into that category because her mother descended from King Phallon and her father is the Minister of Integration. This level of the Echelon contains about a thousand people, and they are considered the second tier.
Georgette counts the third tier on her fingers. “That leaves four-thousand Nobles, who live in the Oasis. Not all of them get huge mansions, and some of them work within the Guardian Echelon or occupy themselves with art.”
“Like the doctor who treated Emmera?” I stitch together white tufts of pampas grass to create a skirt. They’re like dandelion seed heads, only flatter and eighteen inches in length.
“And Queen Damascena’s family,” Georgette replies. “Her father was the field marshal in charge of protecting the borders around Phangloria from invaders.”
My brows rise. That explains why the queen is so ruthless and why she was tactical enough to team up with Lady Circi.
“Everyone is equal in the Harvester Echelon,” I say.
“Are they?” she asks.
I raise my head and frown. We have the mayor and his wife. They live in one of the nicer houses close to Rugosa Square and distribute water rations to those who don’t work under a supervisor. Some of the
older supervisors who work the faraway fields get to ride pronghorns, and I suppose Deliverers like Ryce have a more varied workday, as do the people who work within the mayor’s office, like Carolina.
My gaze darts to Cassiope, who looks on with interest, so I say, “I’ve never noticed any divides in our Echelon.”
Someone knocks on the door, and my heart leaps into the back of my throat. An image flashes into my mind of Queen Damascena and Lady Circi sweeping in with a retinue of armed women. In this worst-case-scenario, they strip me of my last shred of dignity, then drag me by the hair through the palace and eject me from the gates in a spray of gunfire.
I gulp and hope that I’m wrong. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me exit quietly through a back door. “Come in?”
The door swings open, and Vitelotte walks in holding two huge baskets of fruit and vegetables. Behind her is Emmera, who clutches a willow cornucopia as large as her torso.
“Great work,” I say with a gasp.
Emmera smirks. “I had to make Gaia’s cornucopia large enough to hold a pumpkin.”
We spend the next hour dressing Emmera, fussing over the arrangement of the cornucopia, and weaving grapes and flowers into her hair. Vitelotte sits at the dining table with a notebook and a copy of Gaia’s bible. She takes notes, scribbles them out, and frowns. I’m not sure if she’s writing a story or making an inventory of the crops Gaia told Gabriel Phan to grow.
“Ten minutes, girls,” says Cassiope.
We’ve woven a wreath of white grapes and vine leaves into her flaxen locks and mixed them with white roses. Every inch of the ElastoSculpt encasing her torso is covered with flowers that climb to her right shoulder and create an asymmetric neckline. The skirt is a luxurious array of white grass fibers that sweep down to the floor.
Emmera wears the barest of cosmetics—only enough to darken her lashes, emphasize her brows, and bring out the cornflower blue of her eyes. Cassiope applies the finishing touches of gloss to her lips, and she looks like the epitome of natural, Harvester beauty.
It will take more than a heartfelt apology for me to forgive her role in hunting me after the ball, but I hope that this moment of glory will make up for the Lifestyle Channel broadcasting her humiliating treatment at the hands of those Nobles.
“How do I look?” she whispers.
“Like Gaia made flesh,” I say.
Her eyes sparkle, and she exhales a shuddering breath. “Alright, then. I’m ready.”
After thanking Georgette and Forelle for their help, Vitelotte and I hold Emmera’s train, and we follow her production assistant through the hallway and down the grand staircase. At the half landing, a pair of camerawomen tell us to pause.
“You’ve helped to make Emmera irresistible,” Cassiope says as we stand at the train of the other girl’s dress. “Prince Kevon won’t take his eyes off her. I’m sure the viewers at home are wondering how that makes you feel?”
Claws pierce my heart. Cassiope is only doing her job and asking the obvious, but I meet her gaze and inject my voice with cheer. “Every girl needs their moment to shine. I hope this will be Emmera’s.”
Emmera turns around and offers me a dazzling smile. I smile back. It’s a pity that she finally came to terms with her resentment on what I hope will be my last day of the Princess Trials.
The assistant leads us through the palace’s chandelier-lit entrance hall to a patio room of high ceilings and a wall of glass doors. Each girl stands behind tables or beside framed paintings on easels. It reminds me of Soil Science classes at school, where we would bring in weeds, dead insects, and soil samples from around Rugosa and talk about how they affected the development of crops.
Constance Spryte storms across the room from beside a green-skinned Gaia portrait who sits cross-legged with her arms wrapped around the planet. Her hands ball into fists and her ringlets bounce with every furious step.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snarls at Emmera. “You can’t wear a piece of art and call it a commission.”
I walk around Emmera and fold my arms across my chest. “If we made such a mess of our challenge, why are you so upset?”
Constance’s mouth drops open. She glances over her shoulder, presumably for an imaginary Ingrid. When nobody backs her up, she bares her teeth and hisses, “You’re making fools of us all.”
“Mistress Spryte, is it?” Vitelotte walks around a cowering Emmera and stands at my side.
“Yes,” Constance snaps.
“Wealth is found not in gold, but in the wisdom of words. Those who tend to the earth will survive the storm.” She looks the Noble in the eye. “Gaia, chapter four, verse six.”
I recognize that passage. It’s part of Gaia’s prayer our teachers would make us chant each morning at school. According to Carolina, Gaia’s Bible indoctrinates Harvesters to think their toil and suffering makes them beloved to a goddess who doesn’t exist.
From the mockery in her voice, Vitelotte just used the Nobles’ propaganda to prove Harvester superiority.
Constance steps back. “What?”
Vitelotte reaches under her arm and extracts the bible. “What a credit you must be to your parents. Did they not teach you the wisdom of Gaia?”
Constance flares her nostrils, and purple blotches appear on her cheeks. She raises her hand to deliver a slap, but Vitelotte mirrors the movement. She steps away, her face slack, and then hurries back to her borrowed portrait.
Before the Princess Trials, a flare of triumph would have filled my chest. Now, it flutters with trepidation for how the Nobles will retaliate. I can’t let my friend make herself a target, especially now that my time at the Trials will end and nobody will watch her back.
We walk to an empty space and wait.
“Where’s Byron?” one of the Nobles asks.
“Where’s Prince Kevon?” asks another.
Constance glowers at us from the other side of the room. I meet her gaze and glare back. She’s nothing but a loudmouth in a position of power. Someone like her would never survive a day in the Harvester Region.
Complaints along this vein fill the room. I glance at Vitelotte, who rolls her eyes. Right now, I would give anything to watch these spoiled brats toil the fields all day with a gourd of warm and metallic-tasting water rations.
One of the production assistants points a remote control to the wall screen, which displays the Lifestyle Channel. Prunella Broadleaf stands in front of the camera, her eyes half-lidded. Lights flicker along one side of the collar on her neck, and she sways on her feet. I press a hand to my chest and cringe at the cruelty of her punishment.
Behind her is footage of Gloria National Park. Dozens of drones fly above the forests, and more guards in black armor scour the land. I’ve never seen so many Guardians in one place, not even during raids. This must be for Ingrid because I didn’t see any amount of effort placed into investigating who really killed Rafaela.
Vitelotte leans into my side and mutters, “Who’s maintaining the Great Wall?”
A witty retort dries on my tongue as the screen shifts to highlights of the ball. There’s a clip of Prince Kevon dancing with Ingrid followed by footage of them nearly kissing under an arch of roses, next they show him carrying her through the tunnels.
“His Highness didn’t dance with Ingrid,” a Noble screeches.
In the corner of my eye, I spot someone pointing a camera at my face. I won’t react to false footage or events taken out of context.
Prunella steps aside to let the viewers see action sequences of Ingrid and Berta attacking the Amstraadi hijackers, and Ingrid pointing a gun at an unseen person at the entrance to the bus. Me.
“What are they doing?” Constance screeches. “These are all lies.”
I bite down on my lip and glance at the Amstraadi contestants. Sabre, the red-haired girl who once tried to goad me into sedition at the dinner table, meets my eye and nods. A series of slow knots tighten through my guts. Does that mean she understands that the footage is a sh
am or is the gesture a promise that she will get even for my crimes against her countrywomen?
“What a wonderful display,” booms a voice from the door.
We all turn to find Byron Blake walking into the room with Prince Kevon at his side. My breath catches in the back of my throat, and our eyes meet. I blink, and he glances away. A fist of regret reaches into my already knotted insides and twists, making me squirm.
“What’s wrong?” Vitelotte whispers.
Emmera scowls and tells us to hush. Even if we don’t care what Byron says to the cameras, she wants to listen.
I offer Vitelotte a tight smile and turn back to the front of the room where Byron asks Prince Kevon to browse the contestants’ choices. The prince pauses at each work of art and speaks to every girl for about five minutes. For some, this is the first chance they’ve gotten to speak to Prince Kevon when he isn’t disguising himself as Sergeant Silver.
This, plus Prunella Broadleaf’s attempts to make me look like I used nefarious methods to catch his attention, could explain why so many of the girls said nothing when Ingrid attacked me.
With every passing minute, with every approaching step, the lining of my stomach flutters as though it’s trying to take flight. Sweat beads on my brow and nausea churns through my insides. Someone should have escorted me out of the palace by now. Facing Prince Kevon after our last conversation will be excruciating, and I’m not looking forward to the camera picking up on our awkwardness.
“This is a unique display.” His voice jolts me out of my stupor. “Who is responsible for which aspect?”
Emmera dips into a pretty curtsey and beams. “I made the cornucopia from branches of the willow tree, Your Highness.”
Prince Kevon nods. His gaze skips over me, and he asks Vitelotte which parts she developed. She inclines her head and gives him a polite answer about the palace’s varied kitchen garden.
My heart sinks into my roiling stomach. I tell myself that I’m being unreasonable. Of course, he would ignore me. From his point of view, I joined the Princess Trials, told him I would help ease the burden of his ruling and that I admired him from afar, and then refused to give him a chance. What else should I expect?
The Princess Games: A young adult dystopian romance (The Princess Trials Book 2) Page 10
