The Secret

The Illéan Report

           

The Selection: a competition where thirty-five people would be Selected to compete for the heart and hand of the crowned Illéan heir. It had been almost a century since the last Selection. Now, several decades after the end of the Illéan Civil War, the country was holding its first Selection since that of Queen Eadlyn.

            While I normally wouldn't have cared all too much about a competition where contestants competed for the bachelor's affections, this one was important. Not only would this competition determine who would become the future Queen of Illéa, but I had applied to become a competitor.

            Leaning my head against the headrest of the sofa, I regretted, not for the first time, my sending of the application. What in the world had I been thinking? I had a fiancé, for Pete's sake. How was I possibly going to explain to him that I had sent in an application to compete in the Selection because my friends had dared me? I doubt that the straightedge that held him together allowed for him to find any humor in the situation. It helped less that I had only decided to submit an a real application out of spite after a heated argument that I had incorrectly believed to be the end of our relationship.

            If you get Selected, I firmly reminded myself. The Selection contestants are said to be picked at random and the odds were slim for me to be picked out of hundreds upon thousands of other Illéan girls within the ages of sixteen and twenty. The odds were even slimmer since it had been announced that the Selection would be open to every caste except for Eights. So, I wouldn't be Selected and my fiancé and his family as well as my own would never have to know that I had applied and everything would turn out perfect.

            If any of that were true, then why couldn't I loosen the knots in my stomach?

            "Has it started yet?" my mother called out as she descended from the grand staircase that led directly into the foyer which opened up into the living room where my father and I were seated. The pristine white leather couches resisted our movements as my father and I shifted to make room for my mother who plopped herself in between us. My mother's dark hair whipped my face as she quickly spun her head in the direction of the kitchen to call for one of the servants to bring us some drinks and snacks.

            Peeling some strands of her hair out of my mouth, I whined, "You know, we don't have to make a huge fuss out of this. It's just naming a bunch of girls and their castes. What's the big deal?" I hoped they couldn't hear the strain in my voice that I was trying so desperately to hide behind the façade of a petulant daughter who wanted to watch the latest movie with her friends instead of being holed up in her house watching the latest Illéan Capital Report with her parents. I didn't want to be here to see my face pop up on the side of the screen as the host of the Report, Mateo Nako, announced my name and caste to the entire country.

            You're not going to get picked, you're not going to get picked, you're not going to get picked, I repeated to myself like a mantra. I breathed slowly in an attempt to calm my sprinting heart. My heart wildly thudded in my ears and I was afraid that my parents and even the servants on the second floor would hear it. Luckily nobody seemed to notice the incessant thumping.

            I knew that if I weren't in the living room watching the Capital Report, I would be doing so with my friends or through shop windows. Everyone in Illéa would be watching the Capital Report tonight. Any other Friday night of the year it would have been considered, at the very least, unwise to miss a report as that was our main source of updates on current affairs, but whenever a Selection was in progress, it was absolutely unfathomable to miss a weekly report. The Selection wasn't only the best fodder for royal gossip, it was also what everyone used to size up the future queen of our country. We as the people of Illéa have the opportunity to know beforehand what kind of a queen we'll get before she's even chosen and we're going to take advantage of that. All of this my father reminded me as he waved the remote in the air in a knowing manner.