CHAPTER 6 Aug 13, 2025 Next morning I woke to cold stone and colder silence. The thin blanket barely covered my knees, and the window let in more frost than light. Somewhere across the palace, the South Tower chimed with laughter-high and sweet and gilded. It carried through the vents, mocking me. I pulled my shawl tighter and pressed a hand to my lips. I got dressed in silence. The borrowed dress was too short at the wrists and smelled like lavender over something older-fear, maybe. Shame. I tucked the ends of my hair into a ribbon, finger-combed what I could, and made my way to the grand hall. Breakfast was already underway. The girls had been sorted by status, naturally. Long tables of silks and smiles lined the front, closest to the stained-glass windows. Clarissa sat at the center, a flower blooming in her own reflection, flanked by noble-born girls who giggled too easily. I kept my head down and moved toward the back. That's when I saw Sarah. "Room for one failed lady?" I asked. She smiled. "Only if you eat fast. They start judging us the second we put forks in our mouths." I sat beside her, grateful. The porridge was bland, but warm. I barely got two bites in before Clarissa's voice floated across the hall. "I saw him," she said loudly, leaning forward like she was whispering a royal secret. "The prince. He looked straight at me. I could feel it." "Oh, you're definitely in the top five," one girl cooed. Clarissa's eyes cut toward me. "Some of us are here to win. Others... well. I suppose someone has to scrub the royal boots." The table erupted in polite laughter. My fingers clenched around my spoon. Sarah nudged me. "Let her talk. It's her only talent." I tried to smile. But the shame clawed its way up my throat anyway. That's when Lady Isolde entered with a scroll that snapped like thunder when unrolled. "Hear this," she barked. "Today's assignments: morning interviews, followed by etiquette instruction. Afternoon portrait sessions. Evening free for individual leisure. Tomorrow, you will begin royal evaluations." A groan moved through the hall. "Interviews?" Sarah whispered. "With who?" "Not the prince," I muttered. "Not yet." Still, I couldn't help the flutter in my stomach. Clarissa flicked a curl over her shoulder. "I'm not worried. He'll remember me." "Better start packing, sister," she added with a sickly-sweet smile in my direction. "Unless you plan to clean the palace after I'm crowned." I opened my mouth to reply, but Sarah got there first. "Oh, I didn't realize the crown went to whoever could talk the loudest," she said brightly. "Should we all start practicing our sneers?" Clarissa's eyes narrowed, but the steward blew the horn and dismissed us to preparation. The portrait session was worse than I expected. The noble girls were given tailored gowns and pearls. I was handed a dress that had belonged to someone shorter and slimmer-probably a girl who'd been cut from a Choice past. My hair refused to cooperate. The palace seamstress sighed so loudly I thought she might faint. "Well," she said, pinning back a frizzed strand, "at least she has cheekbones." "Thank you," I said dryly. "I grew them myself." Sarah snorted from behind the curtain. The artist barely glanced at me. "Sit still. Tilt your chin up. Try not to look so... anxious." I tried. But my palms were sweating and the dress itched and I kept thinking of the Prince, and whether this awkward, borrowed version of me would even register to him when my portrait was delivered alongside girls who looked like they stepped out of storybooks. Hours later, I passed the small hallway where the painted proofs had been pinned for drying. I saw mine right away. There I was-unsmiling, posture stiff, eyes a little too wide. The lighting was harsh, catching every uneven shadow under my cheekbones. My dark brown hair had frizzed at the temples again, no matter how tightly it had been pinned, and the borrowed gown sat wrong at the shoulders. But the longer I looked, the more familiar she felt. Not delicate. Not regal. Just a girl with olive-toned skin, tired eyes the color of stormwater-gray with just enough green to look uncertain-and a mouth that always looked one word away from saying too much. I had a long, straight nose, a dusting of freckles across both cheeks that no amount of powder could hide, and a square jaw that once made a shopkeeper call me "severe"-like that was a flaw I should've tried to sand down. *** That night, Sarah told ghost stories. We sat on my lumpy cot with a candle between us and whispered like children in the dark. "They say some girls go missing," she said, eyes wide. "Ones who ask too many questions. There are wings we're not allowed to enter, you know. The last girl who tried to sneak into the East Wing... well, she never came back." "Are you trying to scare me?" "No," she said seriously. "I'm trying to remind you that not everyone leaves here the same." When she fell asleep, I curled beneath the thin blanket and stared at the ceiling, listening to the wind rattle the shutters like impatient fingers. The stone walls held the cold too well. My feet were numb, but I couldn't bring myself to move. I kept thinking about the Choice. What kind of prince needed to choose a bride like this? Through portraits and posture and secondhand gowns? What kind of man needed twenty-four girls lined up and polished, like horses at a market, just to decide which one deserved to stand beside him? And what kind of kingdom dressed girls up like dolls, taught them to curtsy and flatter, then called it honor? Tomorrow was the ball. The first official event. The first time the Prince would see us-not as citizens, not as people-but as potential matches, like jewelry in a display case. Was this love? Was this duty? I turned on my side and pulled the blanket tighter, as if that could protect me from the answer.