Chapter Five The Interview Neither Wanted
CHAPTER FIVE
The Interview Neither Wanted
Anya arrived at the prince's private receiving room with three goals. Do not charm him.
Do not insult him so badly the judges called it sabotage.
Do not, under any circumstances, become more interesting to the cameras. The third goal died first.
"Candidate Serrin," said the palace aide outside the door, "your interview will be recorded for archival review. Portions may be released to the public."
Anya looked at the lens mounted over his shoulder.
"May be?"
"The broadcast office selects material at its discretion."
"So everything interesting."
The aide pretended not to hear. He opened the door.
Prince Lucen stood at a long table covered with maps, ledgers, and what appeared to be a dismantled clock.
No tea service. No flowers. No romantic lighting. Anya approved despite herself.
He had removed his coat and rolled his shirtsleeves to his forearms. A black leather brace wrapped his left wrist. He noticed her looking.
"Old fencing injury. Before you ask, no, the Crown did not issue me defective joints."
"I wasn't going to ask."
"You were thinking loudly."
"Then your palace needs thicker walls."
The aide closed the door before Lucen could answer.
For a moment they simply stared at one another.
Anya had expected him to be smoother alone. He was worse.
Without an audience, Lucen seemed unable to decide what to do with his face. The practiced court expression appeared, vanished, then gave up entirely.
"Sit," he said.
"Is that royal command or furniture advice?"
"Furniture advice. The chair is less hostile than you are."
She sat.
He took the chair opposite rather than the larger one at the head of the table. That was deliberate.
She hated noticing deliberate things about him.
A small red light glowed beside the wall camera. Lucen looked at it.
"We have forty-five minutes of approved compatibility questions."
"Thrilling."
"I have been instructed to begin with family values."
Anya folded her hands.
"Mine are against forced marriage."
He laughed before he could stop himself. The camera light blinked.
"You understand," he said, lowering his voice, "that the broadcast office adores you when you say things like that."
"That sounds like their problem."
"It becomes yours if popularity affects your score."
She studied him.
"You're warning me."
"I'm making conversation."
"Poorly."
"Candidate Serrin, I have had to make pleasant conversation with ambassadors who threatened to blockade our grain routes during dessert. I assure you this is intentional."
"Why?"
There. Something shuttered behind his eyes.
"Why what?"
"Why warn me?"
Lucen leaned back.
The brace at his wrist creaked faintly.
"Because you want to lose."
Anya's pulse kicked.
"I never said that."
"You said you wanted to disappoint everyone efficiently."
"That could describe marriage."
His mouth twitched.
"You also looked devastated by second place last night."
"I have a competitive relationship with numbers."
"You were almost offended by competence."
"You seem very observant for someone the papers describe as ornamental."
Lucen went still. She regretted it immediately.
Not because it was cruel. Because it had landed somewhere specific. Then he smiled without warmth.
"The papers describe you as the Pipeline Princess this morning. We are both suffering."
Anya groaned.
"They did not."
"Front page of the Crown Gazette."
"I want to go home."
"That makes two of us."
The sentence came out too quickly. The room changed. Anya looked at him. Lucen looked at the camera.
Then he rose and crossed to the wall.
"What are you doing?"
"Demonstrating an obscure architectural flaw."
He pulled one of the heavy curtains across the camera alcove.
The red light vanished behind velvet.
"That doesn't stop recording."
"No. But it ruins the picture. Broadcast dislikes unusable footage."
He returned to the table.
"Now. Why do you want to lose?"
Anya almost answered.
The directness caught her off guard. She recovered.
"Why do you?"
His gaze sharpened.
"Excuse me?"
"You said that makes two of us."
"I meant I want to leave this room."
"Liar."
The word left before she could reconsider. A prince should have bristled. Lucen only looked tired.
"You make assumptions dangerously fast."
"Occupational habit. Water leaks don't improve while you debate their motives."
"People are not pipes."
"Court seems to disagree."
He glanced toward the curtained camera again.
"Careful."
"There it is again."
"What?"
"Warning me."
He exhaled through his nose.
"Fine. The palace will reward whatever makes the Trials watchable. Outrage, romance, humiliation, redemption. It is not enough to score well or badly. You become useful to the story, and the story carries you."
Anya thought of marble doesn't dehydrate replayed on hallway screens that morning.
"So I should be boring."
"Can you?"
"Rude."
"Honest."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because I dislike the machinery."
"You are the machinery."
"Yes."
No defense. No royal outrage.
That was more disorienting than denial.
Lucen looked down at the table.
Among the ledgers sat a map of Aldermere's water network. Anya recognized provincial reservoir marks, trunk canals, and eastern diversion channels.
"Why do you have this?"
He followed her gaze.
"Tomorrow's Trial briefing."
"That's not Trial material."
"How do you know?"
"Because half those marks are classified municipal routes."
His head came up.
Anya reached for the map, then stopped before touching royal documents without permission. Lucen pushed it toward her. She forgot the interview.
The map was old. Fifteen years at least. Greybridge's East Reservoir showed the expansion her father had refused to certify. Her fingers went cold.
"Where did you get this?"
"Archive annex. Why?"
Anya traced the printed spillway line. It was wrong.
Not inaccurate from age. Wrong in the original engineering sense.
The extension had been drawn before the foundation survey Davin Serrin said made it unsafe.
And beside it sat a black administrative stamp.
APPROVED - CROWN INFRASTRUCTURE OFFICE.
Dated three months before her father signed his refusal. She stared.
"Anya?"
The prince used her first name. She barely noticed.
"The Crown approved this before the final inspection."
Lucen leaned closer.
"Is that unusual?"
"It's illegal."
"I see."
"No, you don't. My father refused the certificate because the support beds were unstable. They relocated him for obstructing a critical project."
Lucen's expression changed. Not surprise. Recognition.
"Your file said relocation."
Anya looked up so fast the chair legs scraped.
"You read my file."
"I read all candidate files."
"Did it say where they sent him?"
A pause. That was answer enough. She stood.
"Where?"
"The status was unconfirmed."
"Where was his first assignment?"
Lucen hesitated.
"East restoration sector."
Her stomach turned.
"Which camp?"
"It didn't say."
"You're lying again."
"I'm not."
She watched his face. He did not look away. Damn him. She believed him.
"I need a copy of this map."
"You can't have one."
Anger came hot and immediate.
"Of course."
"Because archival infrastructure documents are restricted, not because I want to keep it from you."
"A distinction useful only inside this building."
Lucen rubbed his injured wrist.
"I can request the approval file."
Anya froze.
"Why would you?"
"Because pre-approval before inspection is illegal."
"You said that like law matters here."
His face hardened.
"Sometimes it does. Usually after someone forces it to."
For one strange moment, they were not candidate and prince.
They were two people leaning over the same bad line on an old map.
Anya heard the building hum around them.
Pumps somewhere below the palace. Ventilation. Water in the walls.
"If you help me," she said slowly, "what do you want?"
Lucen's eyes met hers.
"Nothing."
"No one here does anything for nothing."
"That may be the first thing I hate about this place that you understand better than I do."
The interview bell chimed. Forty-five minutes.
The curtain over the camera stirred as the door opened. The aide entered.
Lucen moved the old map beneath a stack of harmless papers. Anya sat again.
The aide glanced at the covered camera.
"Your Highness?"
"Sun glare."
There were no windows on that wall. The aide looked at him. Lucen looked back.
"Of course," the aide said.
Anya bit the inside of her cheek.
As she left, Lucen spoke behind her.
"Candidate Serrin."
She turned. His expression was formal again.
"Try being boring."
"Try being ornamental."
The aide inhaled sharply. Lucen smiled.
Anya walked away furious to discover she had enjoyed the exchange.
That evening, the palace broadcast released twelve seconds from the interview. Not the map. Not the warnings. Not her father.
Only Anya saying, Mine are against forced marriage, followed by Lucen laughing.
By midnight, the clip had become the most replayed Trial moment of the day.
Her public confidence score rose six points.
Anya stared at the residence screen. Sela patted her shoulder.
"You are truly terrible at this."
? ? ?
The interview room emptied in layers. First the judges. Then the camera crew.
Then the palace attendants who had stood against the walls pretending not to listen while Anya told the Crown prince that marriage by elimination sounded like livestock policy.
When the door finally closed, she remained in her chair because standing immediately would suggest the interview had affected her. It had. That was private. Lucen remained across the table. No cameras now. No judges.
No reason for either of them to perform. He loosened one cuff.
"Livestock policy?"
"Accurate."
"My ancestors will be devastated."
"They seem resilient. There are statues."
His mouth twitched.
Anya disliked the relief that caused.
The official interview had been designed to make forty-eight women legible in twelve minutes each. Values. family. marriage. service. children. faith. ambition. One polished answer after another. Anya had tried to fail.
Instead Lucen kept asking follow-up questions. Not flattering ones. Real ones. That had been unfair.
"Why did you ask about the feeder replacement schedule?" she said.
Lucen leaned back.
"Because you mentioned Greybridge loses eleven percent of treated water through old distribution lines."
"Most judges' eyes glaze over before the word distribution."
"Mine almost did."
"Honesty. Rare palace symptom."
"I am told it passes."
Anya stood. He did too.
She collected the candidate card they had placed beside her glass. Number Forty-Seven stamped in silver.
"You know I'm trying to lose."
The words came out before she decided whether to say them.
Lucen's face did not change much. Too little.
"Do I?"
"You kept giving me chances to repair answers that would score badly."
"Perhaps I dislike watching a system mistake bluntness for incompetence."
"That is not a denial."
He looked at the closed door. Then back at her.
"No."
The room became more honest and therefore more dangerous. Anya crossed her arms.
"Why help me?"
"I did not."
"You asked whether I would reform Greybridge water policy from the palace after I said I don't want to live here. That gave me a chance to sound public-minded instead of hostile."
"You noticed."
"I repair pressure systems. I notice interference."
Lucen smiled faintly.
"Then perhaps I was testing whether you would take the rescue."
"And?"
"You did not."
"Disappointed?"
"Relieved."
"You want me to lose too."
There. The sentence landed between them.
Lucen walked to the sideboard and poured water, buying time badly.
"I want the process to produce a result none of us are forced to pretend is legitimate."
"That is a prince sentence."
"I practice."
"Translate."
He turned.
"I do not want to choose a wife this way."
Simple. No policy language. Anya's anger shifted shape. Not gone. Complicated.
"Then stop the Trials."
"I cannot."
"You're the heir."
"Which is not the same thing as king."
"Fine. Ask the king."
"I have."
That surprised her.
"And?"
"Council authority. Provincial rights. Succession stability. Tradition. Pick a noun."
Anya hated that she understood the structure. Systems were excellent at distributing responsibility until no individual hand seemed to control the valve.
"So you participate."
"So far."
"Convenient."
His expression hardened.
"Do you think I don't know that?"
Anya stopped.
The question carried more than irritation. Shame, perhaps.
She was not ready to sympathize with a prince about being a prince.
"Knowing is not the same as changing."
"No."
Again, he accepted the hit instead of defending. This man was becoming inconvenient. A knock sounded.
An attendant opened the door a fraction.
"Highness, the next candidate is ready."
Lucen nodded. Anya moved toward the exit.
"Candidate Serrin."
She turned.
He held out the glass of water he had poured and forgotten to drink.
"You have been talking for forty minutes."
She looked at it.
"Is this bribery?"
"Hydration."
"Gateway corruption."
"Take the water."
She did.
At the door, Lucen said quietly, "The judges score what you say. Crown Media scores what they think the public will remember. Those are not always the same thing." Anya looked back.
"Why tell me?"
"Because if you are determined to lose, you should at least know which game you are failing."
The next candidate waited in the corridor wearing pearls and terror.
Anya stepped aside to let her pass. She should have felt victorious.
The interview had gone badly by every conventional measure.
Instead she walked back to the residence carrying one unwanted fact.
The prince was not her opponent. Not exactly.
That made the Trials harder, not easier.