dusk until dawn (the selection)

i found helios

"Helios, you can't keep this up for ever."

"I know."

"It's been five days already."

"Only five."

"Give them a chance."

"I need more time."

"No you don't."

"Yes, I do."

Prince Helios. His royal highness. Crown prince of Illéa. Future king. Helios Schreave. Or just Helios. Somebody once even thought 'His handsomeness' was a cute nickname. Helios disagreed.

It was Tuesday night. There was no more twisting and turning around it. No more sneak routes in and out of the library and no more apparent departures during dinner. Tomorrow he was going to meet the selected.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow and definitely not today. Maybe he could push it out a few more days? Maybe. Right? He could do that. Maybe.

Helios wasn't stupid or blind. He knew the selected were angry at him for not showing up sooner. But it wasn't even so that he was nervous or anxious to meet them. He just knew none of them were the one for him.

None of them could be the girl he was looking for.

He'd already found her.

And she'd already broken his heart.

Nothing personal to any of the selected, he had already decided this.

It wasn't fair. She just got married. When she knew he was going to lay down the selection for her. She just got married. Without warning, without engagement. Out of the blue. To a guy Helios had never even heard of.

For these past days, Helios had been trying to write her a letter. A goodbye letter—or maybe a slap in her face letter. Maybe a love letter, or a congratulations letter. Or perhaps he should send nothing at all. He knew that was what his guards and maids thought of it. Better to send her nothing. After all "she didn't send you anything either." he was so grateful they kept this secret.

But it was hard, and every afternoon, every night and every other free moment he could find, he sat at his desk. Thinking. Thinking of ways to talk to her or reach her at all. Thinking of ways to get back at her. Thinking of how to avoid this selection for just a little longer, because maybe he'd figure it all out tomorrow.

This night in particular though, he impulsively decided it was no use. She wouldn't come back to him no matter what he tried. She hadn't sent him a message since May. Which was soon turning into a whole month ago. He still had that letter. It said she missed him. It said she'd see him soon. And nothing about other arranged marriages or other men.

Apparently Ophelia lied.

Helios had turned her final letter inside out after the marriage. He checked it upside down and held a flame to the paper to see if there were any hidden messages. He'd folded it into message figures and checked for out of the ordinary patterns. He even compared her handwriting to see if it was genuine.

His hand was a fist as he stared at the empty paper on his desk. If he held the pen in his hand any tighter it would crack open.

It was no use.

He stood up from his desk. He'd have to stop trying. Maybe it was for the better. Definitely healthier if he stopped trying to find something to blame. The entire thing was eating him alive.

There was no one in the room with him. No one to stop him from tearing his final empty attempt of a letter apart. Helios was aware that the chamber maids would soon find the ripped paper. They'd know too. But they knew better than to spread information about the prince.

In the end, Helios felt defeated rather than relieved.

Thankfully it was warmer outside than it was inside when Helios walked out onto his balcony for the fresh air he desperately needed, and it was peaceful. He could hear crickets and spotted a firefly roaming over the garden here and there. The treetops and flowers were lit by the moonlight, quiet for the night.

Helios noticed the garden wasn't entirely cleared out yet, though. When his gaze fell on the field by the flower beds he saw, very vaguely, two figures laying on the grass. Both on their backs, staring straight up at the sky.

The first thing that crossed Helios' mind was to run back inside. Because they might be able to see him. And what if they saw him? And why weren't they looking his way? Why weren't they interested in someone else being halfway outside with them? Who even were they? Could they even see him? And who allowed them outside at this hour? If they were maids they sure as hell weren't supposed to be there—and if they were selected..weren't they supposed to be under a curfew?

More questions crossed Helios's mind and he rushed back into his room, immediatly pulling a drawer from his desk open to get out the selected forms. He hadn't even looked at them when he received them after the national selection announcement. All he remembered of that night was that he had to write a bunch of letters to make the girls feel special. His hand hurt like hell the days after that.

The form on top of the stack read Macy Gewins. From Allens. Her smile pretty as ever. It was easy to miss out on the small detail of painfully clenched teeth. Macy Gewins was angry on this photo. He could feel the anger this girl had towards her parents through the neat and forced handwriting. How did his friend get in here? He had kind of expected the blonde to run away if it ever came down to this. He couldn't imagine the terror that went down in the Gewins household when her name was called on television. Knowing Macy's parents..

The second form was from Angeles. The handwriting was just as precise, but less forcefully smashed onto the paper. The girl's smile was just as sweet, just less familiar.

The third form was from Atlin. Same old. Three forms in and the girls faces already started merging together.

Helios started skimming through the forms. There weren't any lower castes than Three. Not until he reached Columbia. The form read Bella Rose. Her skin was dark and her hair was curly. She looked nothing like the other girls. And she couldn't write as well either. A Seven.

Curious to see if there were more, Helios started looking for lower castes. There weren't a lot of them. He wondered why, because number-wise, the lower castes greatly outnumbered the higher castes. He sadly had no say in who got selected but the government officials assured him the girls were chosen at random.

Dakota, a Four. A baker girl. She looked tough and hardened. And strong. Helios wondered what she'd look like now—after the make-over maids had gotten their hands on her.

Fennley, a Six. The bottom castes like these interested him most for now, as he wondered, why did they get in? Or how?

He wasn't entirely naïve. His parents' advisors must have either hand-picked the selected or just straight-up taken out eighty percent of the lower castes before the lottery. Why did Bella and this girl, Dawn, make the cut?

It wasn't like they stood out much visually. Bella had a big nose, Dawn had deep set eyes. Another Six had hair that looked like it was made of dead grass. And their forms were barely readable. The A in Dawn was a triangle. A girl named Ilona had written from right to left.

The form from the Yukon girl was particularly bad: this girl had decided to write letters backwards and upside down. Her form was almost a puzzle.

He vaguely remembered something about one girl having a shrine dedicated to him, although he didn't remember which one it was. And another selected apparently had six toes. Someone else had dyslexia. Once upon a time the fun facts had names and faces linked to them, but Helios couldn't remember because he hadn't cared. He had just nodded and smiled along. Looking back at his own attitude he figured he may have been kinda rude.

The prince ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. He pushed away from his desk again.

After reading through even more forms the whole selection may actually have some potential after all, if only for fun. His problems weren't solved, and he'd also watched a few short interviews that predicted even more trouble for him—but maybe, just maybe he'd pay a little attention during the interviews from now on. Weren't there supposed to be a bunch of them tomorrow? He guessed maybe he could show up.