Chapter Three Forty-Eight Women
CHAPTER THREE
Forty-Eight Women
The capital smelled too clean.
That was Anya's first thought when the train rolled through the inner wall at dawn.
No coal smoke. No open drains. No sour steam leaking from street vents. The avenues beyond the window looked scrubbed, pale stone shining after night rain. Brass fountains ran in every square. Fountains.
Anya stared at water being thrown decoratively into the air and disliked the city on principle.
Across from her, a candidate named Sela Morcant followed her gaze.
"You're doing calculations, aren't you?"
Anya glanced over. "What?"
Sela had boarded three stops after Greybridge and introduced herself before the train had moved again.
She was twenty-three, broad-shouldered, brown-skinned, and wore her dark hair in a single braid thick enough to use as a rope.
Her family raised salt goats on the western cliffs.
Anya knew more about goat digestion now than she had ever intended.
"Your face," Sela said. "You have the look my brother gets when someone overcharges him."
"Those fountains use enough clean water to supply my ward for a morning."
Sela leaned toward the window. "Ah. So you are angry at plumbing."
"I'm angry at decorative plumbing."
"Important distinction."
The woman beside Sela laughed softly.
Junia Pell was from Highmere and had spent most of the journey pretending to read. She was tiny, pale, and elegant in a way that made the Crown's gray travel dress look intentional. Her file card said SCHOOL INSTRUCTOR. Her hands said musician. Anya had not asked.
At the far end of the carriage, Lady Mirel Dane had not spoken to anyone for three hours.
Mirel was the one with servants at Greybridge Station. Her family owned freight routes along the central river. She sat with perfect posture and the expression of someone being escorted to an execution she intended to critique afterward. The train slowed. Outside, the palace appeared.
Anya had seen it on screens all her life. That had not prepared her for scale.
Crown Palace rose from the center of the city in terraces of white stone and dark glass. Seven narrow towers curved around a central dome. Water ran down channels cut into the outer walls, catching morning light and making the entire structure look as if it had been built inside a waterfall.
"Wasteful," Anya muttered.
Sela grinned. "I like you."
The train stopped beneath a vaulted station built directly into the palace grounds.
Candidates were arranged by number, then marched through three rounds of identity checks. Their trunks vanished. Their personal clothes vanished. Their draft slips were taken and replaced with black wrist bands bearing name, region, and candidate number. Anya touched hers. 47-18.
A young palace aide gave them a smile trained past sincerity.
"The band grants access to approved candidate areas and records official scoring. Do not remove it. Tampering is grounds for Forfeiture."
"How does a bracelet know I tampered with it?" Sela asked.
The aide's smile tightened. "It knows."
"Reassuring."
They were led through a garden surrounded by high glass walls.
Cameras tracked them from recessed housings along the path.
Anya saw the first lens turn and nearly raised a hand in greeting. Then she remembered millions of people could be watching and decided not to offer the kingdom her middle finger before breakfast.
The candidates assembled in a circular hall beneath the palace dome. All forty-eight.
Anya tried not to count differences like a census clerk and failed.
At least twelve were visibly wealthy. Six wore regional religious cords.
Three had hands rougher than hers. One woman had a shaved head and a scar from lip to ear.
Another trembled so violently her wrist band clicked against her bracelet.
No one looked like a future princess.
Then Anya realized that was because princess was not a natural human category.
It was an outfit people were forced to fit. A bell chimed.
Every camera turned toward the upper staircase. Crown Prince Lucen descended alone.
He looked less polished in person. That surprised her.
The official portraits softened his face.
Up close, the prince had shadows under his eyes and a thin scar through one eyebrow.
His ceremonial coat was black rather than white today, cut simply except for silver thread at the collar.
Forty-eight women straightened. Anya did not. Lucen reached the bottom step.
His gaze traveled around the circle.
When it reached her, it stopped. Only for a second. Still.
Anya wondered what offense she had committed at twenty paces.
"Good morning," he said.
No amplified grandeur. Just a man speaking in a large room.
"You have already heard enough speeches about honor, so I will spare you another."
An aide near the wall looked pained.
Anya felt an unwilling spark of interest.
Lucen continued. "You are here because the law says you must be.
Some of you may want the Crown. Some of you may want what you believe winning can do for your families or regions.
Some of you intend to lose as quickly as possible.
" Anya's pulse tripped. Around her, several women shifted. The prince's mouth almost curved.
"I advise the last group not to make that intention obvious. The judges dislike mockery of the process, even when the process earns it."
Someone coughed to hide a laugh.
Chancellor Senn appeared at the edge of the balcony above. Lucen saw him.
Something in the prince's posture changed.
"There will be six principal Trials over seven weeks," he said, tone more formal now.
"Between them, you will undergo interviews, civic instruction, public events, medical evaluation, and supervised meetings with me.
The first two elimination rounds allow Release to your home region.
After that, elimination may constitute Forfeiture under Article Seventeen.
Read every rule you are given. Ask questions before signing anything. "
That last sentence sounded less like welcome and more like warning.
A woman in the front row raised her hand.
The room froze around the breach of protocol. Lucen pointed. "Yes?"
"Candidate Ileya Morn, South Reach." Her voice shook but held. "Can we decline a supervised meeting with you?"
For one heartbeat, the prince looked delighted.
"I hope so."
A few candidates laughed. Senn did not.
Lucen glanced toward a waiting official. "Can they?"
The official stammered. "Your Highness, individual meetings are a required component of compatibility assessment."
"Then apparently not. My apologies, Candidate Morn. I encourage you to make any unwanted meeting unpleasant."
This time the laughter spread. Anya tried not to smile.
The prince's gaze found her again. Damn him. She flattened her expression.
After the address, they were divided into groups of eight and assigned rooms in the eastern residence wing.
No candidate shared a bedroom. Privacy, however, was largely theoretical.
A camera indicator glowed above the sitting-room door.
The bathroom had none, which Anya confirmed by inspecting every tile like a suspicious plumber.
Her group included Sela, Junia, Mirel, the scarred woman—Tarin Vol—and four others Anya had barely learned by lunch.
Their first packet of rules waited on the common-room table. It was eighty-three pages long. Anya sat down.
Sela stared. "You're not actually reading that."
"The prince told us to."
"I thought we were trying not to marry him."
"Knowing the trap improves your options inside it."
Junia looked up from her own packet. "That sounds rehearsed."
"My father used to say rules are pipes. Pressure always finds the weak joint."
Anya regretted the sentence as soon as it left her.
Mirel turned a page without looking up. "Your father was Davin Serrin." The room went quiet. Anya's spine stiffened.
"How do you know that?"
"My family moved freight through Greybridge when he was district engineer." Mirel finally looked at her. Her eyes were a pale hazel, almost gold. "He refused the East Reservoir expansion certificate."
Sela leaned back. "That sounds obscure enough to be dangerous."
"It was nine years ago," Anya said.
"My father still complains about it. The expansion was delayed eighteen months. Cost us three contracts."
Anya felt old anger wake.
"The support beds were unstable. The overflow channel would have failed under spring load."
Mirel's brows rose. "So he was right?"
"He was relocated. Does that sound like the Crown thought so?"
"That wasn't my question."
Anya studied her.
Mirel did not look hostile. Curious, perhaps. Or calculating.
"Yes," Anya said. "He was right. They rebuilt the channel two years later and called it a scheduled upgrade."
Mirel's mouth tightened.
"Then my father complained about the wrong man."
She returned to the rules.
Anya did not know what to do with that.
A palace bell rang at fourteen hundred.
The residence screens lit with the day's schedule.
WELCOME ORIENTATION WARDROBE FITTING MEDICAL BASELINE FIRST MEASURE - 18:00
Sela groaned. "They test us tonight?" Junia read further. "Public broadcast." Mirel closed her packet.
"Of course."
Anya found the section on the First Measure.
The description was vague: candidates would be evaluated on judgment under civic pressure. Elimination possible. Scoring weighted by "public confidence" and judge assessment. Public confidence.
There was a weak joint if she had ever seen one.
"Excellent," Anya said.
Sela eyed her. "Why do you look happy?"
"Because I need to lose early."
She tapped the phrase public confidence.
"And I have been told repeatedly that my personality is an obstacle to trust."
From the doorway came a man's voice.
"Whoever told you that may have been trying to help."
Every candidate stood.
Lucen leaned against the open doorframe.
Anya had not heard him approach.
Two guards waited behind him, pretending not to listen.
The prince looked at the rules in front of her, then at her face.
"Candidate Serrin."
So he knew her name.