The Selected

Chapter 2: Carriage

I walked back inside my home thinking about Dorian's offer. I can't believe I was going to do it. My mother, who was peeking out the cloth covered window. She looked at me with a guilty expression before morphing into an excited one.

"I knew it! I knew my daughter was always meant for greatness! But, queen... oh my! My daughter is going to be a queen!" She went on and on hugging me tightly. Great, what did I just agree to?

"But mama, I don't want to be queen," I said quietly. She threw me a dark look that had me cringing. Oh, that was not good.

"You are getting to experience what every girl wishes for and yet you don't want it? After everything I've done, those nights I've wished for you-" She stopped speaking turning pale. "Oh my, I think I'm going to be sick."

I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. My mom always tried to guilt me like this. I held her hand helping her sit down in the kitchen. She started to fan herself letting out a loud sigh.

I knelt down on my knees next to her. "Mama... you know I will try for you," I said taking her hands into mine again resting them on her laps.

My mother squeezed my hands in delight before a smile took over her face. "You are? I knew you'd come around! My daughter the queen! I can see it."

Just nod your head and pretend to agree. The door suddenly creaked open.

"Liana? Poppy?" my father's voice called out to us.

"In here papa!" I replied. My father came into sight along with my younger brother Jacob.

My mom jumped up from her seat and ran to hug him. So much for feeling sick. "Oh Nicholas! Our daughter is going to be queen!"

"Queen?" My father looked back and forth between us confused. "I heard a man from the palace's royal guard had come over to propose?"

Propose? So that's what the village have spread.

"The boys in the village were pretty upset, their beloved is about to be wed and leave us," teased Jacob earning a dark look from my mother. I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing, she'd have both our heads.

"She is not getting married... yet. She is joining a royal competition for queen," my mom boasted as she told them the whole story.

"A competition? A merchant came by two days ago saying he heard a few rich men talking about seeing it on those witch boxes from the pre-nuclear war era," my father tapped a finger to his chin. "I think it was called a television."

Oh my! Those exist? Rumors say that there were magical items like wagons without horses and speaking through a small box with someone on the other side of the world. They were all destroyed when the nuclear war happened two centuries ago, it had destroyed the world, but rumors believe some of it still lived. Either ideas, ruins, or sketches with instructions. Only really rich men would know of these.

"Whoa! Will you get to see one?" Jacob asked me with sparkling eyes. I shrugged my shoulders not sure how to answer his question.

My mom was now frowning at me. "Don't shrug, it's not proper."

Oh lord!

My father walked up to me putting his hands on my shoulders. "I am very proud of you Liana, you really have saved our family."

My felt my chest clench. There was no backing out of this, not when my family is treating me like their savior. They held so much hope and joy in their eyes that any thoughts of dropping out of the competition had vanished.

The whole village had come to see whether the gossip was true and were flying with glee when they found out about the competition. They had so much hope for our village now. They had donated a beautiful emerald fabric that brought out my eyes as to wish me good luck.