The Choice

Ch. 1

If you haven't read the first book, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?!? GO READ IT!!! Sorry, and when I put caps on my words I'm not yelling at you, I'm just over excited. I made a different character board for Lily's the fist one was bad so I'm talking it down and and adding my new one to each probably tomorrow.

I walked out of my heart covered door, and breathed in the cool fresh air coming in from the open window. My peace was interrupted by shouts coming out from Sara's room.

"I told you time and time again Sara! I don't know what I feel for you!" I could hear Christian shout.

"Oh yeah? Well you seemed pretty sure of what you felt for me before Lily came and ruined my chances, my- my life, with you." she screamed back. I scoffed and held in a laugh.

I was taken back, I ruined her life? It wasn't my fault that Christian liked me.

"Sara, if you can calm down and be the girl I used to know- maybe, maybe, there's a chance, but for the last few weeks you have been rude, overbearing, and annoying. Queens can't be any of those things." He said. 

Always a way with words my Chris... Sarcasm anyone?

"Ugh," she moaned and then screamed, surely waking up everyone in the tower if they weren't already awake.

"Christian, I am fed up with you, you pathetic little jerk, I'm done."

A moment of silence passed and she went at it again.

"You just used me as a rebound girl, I was your back up plan, and I'm done with it. I'm going home."

I didn't want to hear the rest so I quickly went down the spiral staircase that lead to the hallway by the Woman's Room.

The rumors spread like wildfires across the whole castle. I heard murmurs of things through out the groups and Loretta and Sam, my two best friends from the Selection, pulled me over to our regular corner.

"So, I heard you and Riley are friends?" Sam asked as she put her hand on her hip, referring to the girl who caused my life a living hell, but then magically fixed it.

"Well we aren't friends, she just wanted it to be a possibility for the future, and she apologized." I explained.

"Well," Sam said but I cut her off.

"Please don't be mad, she is nice now, and she isn't even competing."

"We know that, and she isn't really friends with Brittany anymore..."

"So, we took her under our wings, to be our friend--that is." Loretta finished for her.

"That's great!" I said.

Loretta gasped and started talking extremely fast, "Oh, and I wanted to tell you something. The prince has officially lost his luster, to me-- I'm dropping out tomorrow."

I nodded, lost in thought.
It's just Molly, Willow, Lisa, and me.

Three

After contemplating for a while I decided to go and greet them.

"Hi," I said shyly as I walked up to them talking. It seems that I was the only Selected left that wasn't included in this conversation. But how could they know about Lori?

"Hi!" Willow said before Lisa put her hand down and scolded her, "A lady must not yell."

"Oh just ignore Lisa, I'm Molly, but I'm sure you already knew that. Everyone know who I am." Molly said as she twirled her jet black hair around her finger.

"Believe it or not, we've met before." I gently smiled as a added a bit of sarcasm to my tone of voice.

She pursed her red painted lips into a thin line, her eyes narrowing towards me.

It's not even been a minute and already only one-third of the girls haven't managed to tick me off yet.

I thought back to the time when Molly was being a diva, and complaining about her feet hurting when Christian took us out to the gardens as a group. The gardens. That day was filled with mockery and humiliation to me, whereas for these other girls it was a day for celebration.

The first day in the palace, I tried to meet everyone, but I had a very hard time with names, and I have even lived with these girls for almost a year and I still can't match their face with their name.

I always remembered Willow as the shy, nice girl. The one who everyone wanted to be friends with. Everyone but me, being the ignorant person I was, I thought that I didn't need friends, except for the ones I had, to help me get through this. I think it's time I paid the other girls some respect.

"Lily, we all know your the prince's favorite..." Willow trailed off, and I was at a loss of words of what to say. I mean, what do you say to a girl who just said something nice about you, about the competition that you are both competing in. Try saying that 5 times fast.

"Ladies, history lesson!" I heard the sharp shrill of Maryweather, one of the palace staff, voice calling us to our etiquette lesson.

"So as you all know after the war many things changed about our society." she said bringing out a poster.

We all nodded.

"Willow what happened to our language?" She asked.

"Um- As the war became more deadly, w-we partnered with Illea, who at the time had the most ad-advanced army, and we learned their language." She said in her quite voice.

"Good, Lisa, can you tell me what happened when we won the war?" She seemed to be asking only the Selected left.

"When we won the war against Germany, we decided to expand our country into desolate places that people had abandoned like, Naples." She stopped stuttering and straightened her back, as if remembering to be ladylike.

"Very good, now Lily can you tell me why we as a country now have English as our language?"

I smiled to myself, this is was good at, language, "We decided that throughout the war, which took up half of a decade, that the language was already so widespread that we decided to keep it and now many people don't know how to even speak our old universal language of Italian."

_______

"I have an announcement, all of the selected who have been disqualified, or left on their own terms will be leaving on the 20th of November." Christian said during the report tonight. Normally the topics are boring and sometimes the Selected don't even have to attend. But tonight is different. We will go up and speak about a project that we will be working with one other girl with. My partner; Willow.

I had on a light fabric, dark blue dress, that had a high low cut. We decided we should match, so she wore a dark navy blue with ruffles version.

"Miss Lily, and Lady Willow, please come up and we will tell you the plans for your party." Gabe said.

We obliged and sat side by side on the small couch.

"So as you know you need to host a party, but for whom you ask? Well your about to find out. Willow, Lily, you will be host a tea party for the Illean royal family." he said.

I let out the breath I was holding in, Illea, perfect, I can try to remember what the palace looks like, and I even know the royal family. How could I forget that palace, even though half of my trip I was knocked unconscious, I can still remember the modern high ceilings and the magnificent diamond chandelier in the ballroom. Truly unforgettable.

I have a leg up, knowing Hannah and Jason, the princess and Heir prince, Jason.

We sat back down and watched as the other group got Germany. Germany, wow, for the past twenty years we have been trying to form alliances with Germany. Although they forgave us about the war, they still won't form any alliances with us. Someone's holding a grudge.

Willow and I were going to blow the others out of the water.