You told him you loved him
But push had come to shove
And there are no easy answers
Mixing money and blood

He was gone in an instant.
They said nobody was spared.
Not gonna tell you he loved you.
Not gonna tell you he cared.

I won't go and rip you apart
Won't tell you "you could be king"
I don't want to break your heart.
(You asked me, you asked me)

Oh no, did it rip you apart?
To be told we could be kings when we were damned from the start?

- Dave Hause

In the weeks that had passed since Matthias' murder, his killer's hair had grown long and ragged, his skin wan from the lack of sunlight, his eyes shadowed by an obvious inability to sleep. Azeria couldn't say she felt sorry for him. If it was guilt that kept him awake, so be it. It was the very least with which he could begin to pay for what had happened to his brother.

She refused to sympathise, but she could definitely empathise. Sleep was elusive for the girl these days. So this was what disgrace felt like, she thought - disgrace and despair and desperation all at once. How often since that night at the opera had she awoken with the sudden, awful, all-consuming yearning to race across the cobbles that separated the barracks from the royal wing of the palace, to force open the doors to Matthias' sleeping chambers and let the story spill out of what an awful nightmare she had dreamed up in some frenzied fit of insanity, to have Yves laugh at the idea that he might be so cunning as to plan an assassination, to have Silas look at her with eyes that were not so utterly burdened with grief and solemnity?

He had not looked at her since the death, but she knew that it was only his intervention that had prevented her from being stripped of her rank and position and shot in the back garden as a failure. She had been reassigned to mundane duties around the capital - night patrols, prisoner transfers, border vigils - but every cramped, cold moment that she spent watching the jazz-club speakeasies or searching the trains as they crossed into Angeles was another moment that she spent thinking to herself I am an accomplice to the murder of my best friend. She had been as useful to Yves' plan as Luhar the traitor, she knew that now. Her close bond to the royal brothers had for so long been seen as an asset, but in the end it had blinded her to what had laid before her eyes. Before that night, she would never have believed or dreamed Yves a killer even if he had told her himself.

And now, staring straight-faced through the bars at the man she had once called brother, she would not have believed she ever could have loved him the way she had once, that blinding, blind kind of affection. What had happened to him in the Federation, she wondered, what had transpired during those long years as a hostage and peace-offering, to transform the kind, impulsive, thoughtful boy from her youth into a snake that would poison his own brother for something as petty as power?

No, she thought. He did not deserve sleep.

He had smiled when she came in, as though he expected a friendly smile in return, but he had said nothing. Azeria, for her part, had not allowed her mask to slip for even an instant. To be permitted back into some position of responsibility, even if it was merely to enter the underground oubliette which held the most dangerous criminals and the most deranged maniacs of the capital city, was not something she intended to take lightly. She stood as a newly-trained soldier, all straight-backed and firm-shouldered, and he lounged, languid as a lazing lion, back to the wall of his cell and his arms resting on his knees. His eyes were very, very dark indeed, she thought. Like little pools of black ink.

He had not fought the guards, had never resisted his arrest and detention. Indeed, in that very first moment, when Azeria had realised what had passed and she had reached for Matthias as he fell and felt her heart wrench in the guttural, visceral knowledge of that which she could not prevent, and all had been silent but for that gut-wrenching whisper (prosti menya) she could not deny that in her anger she would have gladly broken Yves' bones, driven the air from his lungs, stopped his heart, and she knew that in that fractured moment he probably would have let her, and said nothing, and resisted not.

In a way, she was grateful that the guards outside had rushed in to detain him. He did not deserve a quick death, and certainly not at hands as common as hers. Azeria, even now, could barely cope with one royal death on her conscience - to suffer two, so quickly together, might have ended her entirely, if she wasn't hanged for treason. Even a murderer prince was still a prince, after all. And even entirely apart from Yves' royal heritage, she thought, she could not have done that to Silas. She could not have left him entirely alone in this world.

That boy was lonely enough as it was.

In front of her, Yves moved slightly - she sharpened her gaze abruptly, every line in her body tense as though anticipating an escape attempt, even if it was merely him shifting his weight, brushing his hair from his eyes, curling and uncurling his fingers as though to alleviate a cramp. How quickly all things he did became detestable to her. What had once been mere innocent movements became ominous and vile. He had resisted all attempts at interrogation, all questions going unanswered, all exhortations and pleas for information ignored - why he had done it, with whom he had planned, and, most of all, absolutely anything about Sabela Luhar, the girl who had vanished into the aether as surely as a ghost might dissipate into fog like a dream forgotten upon waking.

Yves had said nothing, only smiled that same wan, slightly feral smile in the face of his interrogators and shook his head intermittently, as though ruefully dismissing their attempts at discerning the truth.

She wondered if he felt guilty.

She wondered if he knew where Luhar the traitor had gone.

She wondered if he believed that he would die down here.

So far from the sky...

Buried beneath the earth, like his brother.

"Kaitse!"

Azeria started at the sharp bark of her name, uttered by the commanding officer who appeared at the entrance to the stone hallway, his expression as impassive as Azeria's. She knew him well: Ronan Shard was the second-in-command of palace security, and had been the bodyguard of Matthias' father in his own time. He was a steel-spined figure, with tightly cropped salt-and-pepper hair and golden rings glinting at his fingers like something stolen - not exactly regulation uniform, she thought ruefully, but no one was ever going to be brave enough to tell Ronan Shard how to conduct himself. In her own time as part of the palace's security detail, she had never seen the man smile, and had always considered him something of a wraith. The less you saw of him, the better a job you were doing. She had spoken to him directly only twice - the first time, when she was making her case to earn the duty of guarding the king-that-was-yet-to-be; the second time, when she was being stripped of her title and expelled from the grounds.

So this time round made three.

"Sir!"

He waved away her salute, looking impatient, and gestured. "With me," was his guttural growl, his usual stoic scowl not even displaced by Yves' cheerful call of "good evening, Ronan! Or is it morning? You really can never tell down here..."

At the very least, Azeria thought darkly, she would not have felt too much guilt on her conscience about removing his tongue.

"Yes, sir," was her only reply, and as she stepped away from her post she noticed with droll amusement that a green-suited cadet had sprinted to step into her bootprints, so as not to leave Yves without watch for even a single instant. Azeria walked towards Shard, and then trailed in his wake as he turned to walk away before she had even reached him. She knew better than to ask any questions, as they ascended the spiraling stone steps which led down to the cells, and moved through the hallways of the security centre above. It was so quiet here, she thought - after all, with the Selection upcoming, they had called away every man and woman that they could spare to protect the palace and those who came to compete there.

The only hub of activity was the bureaucratic office across the courtyard, where the security services were running thorough checks on the backgrounds and families of those who had been Selected, uncovering even those relationships and underlying elements that perhaps they did not even know of themselves. Azeria could catch sight of only a few names - Valentina, Jean-Josephine, Selina - but the sheer number of files and papers which accompanied each girl's profile suggested that the security detail was absolutely committed to ensuring whatever oversight might have permitted Luhar the traitor to slip under the radar was eliminated. Azeria followed Shard to the desk at the back of the cavernous space, where he moved aside a few documents and did not look at her as he spoke. His words were clipped and sharp - they brokered no disagreement.

"The prince," he said, darkly, emphasising the words as though to absolve him of any responsibility attached to the decision. "Has ordered that you be returned to the palace without delay." From the disheveled mess on his desk, he reshuffled and produced a short document in heavy vellum, penned in gold-leaf ink. He held it out to her, brusqueness attached to even the small motion. "You are to serve as a personal protection officer for the duration of the Selection. Do you understand?"

Azeria blanched. She did not need a mirror to know that the colour had drained from her face; all of the thoughts which she had stewed and flagellated herself in the past long hours and days and weeks seemed to rise in her throat as a solid knot of thorns, as physical and tenable as if she had swallowed a bunch of roses. That, she knew, was Shard's technicalisation of the term bodyguard. For whom? Who was she going to get killed this time? She held out her hand and took the paper and perceived through her daze that the word Silas was writ large upon the parchment.

Shard's sharp voice cut across her thoughts, or rather, her hazy lack thereof. "I'll take it that you do understand, then. Any questions?"

"Sir, I -"

"None? Good. Dismissed."

"Sir, but I -"

"I said dismissed, Kaitse."

She started. Blinked. Put her boots together and bowed from the waist. "...sir."

She turned. Opened the door. Stepped out.

No, she thought. No, please.

What if I get him killed too?

At the click of footsteps, she looked up to see Silas approaching. Little Si, she thought, somewhat overwhelmed. He still did not look like himself: the same tall, slender figure, now with hollow eyes and hair grown too long and crow's eyes around his eyes from scowling, clad in a waistcoat rumpled as though he had slept in it and polished black shoes with scuffs at the toes where she knew he had taken the stairs in twos. His hair was slicked back from his face, the neatness of the style at odds with every other element of his appearance.

She wondered how long it had been since he had seen the interior of a library.

She wondered if he knew his bandages were visible from under the cuff of his shirt.

She wondered if he meant to look her in the eye as he passed.

He inclined his head. "Zeri," he said softly as he stepped up to the door of the office. "See you back at the palace?"

Azeria paused, and nodded. She flashed a practised, polite smile. "See you back at the palace, your Highness," was her reply, and she watched as Silas stepped into the office and shut the door - quite firmly - behind him.

She almost smiled at the realisation that this meant she would have to endure a second Selection. May they be more likable than the last lot.

Sorry about the delay with this update! We return to our original viewpoint character - I know a lot of people have said they dislike Azeria, so hopefully she's a little more palatable now.

The Selection is still open and accepting characters! So far I have accepted seven characters:

Atlin - Selina Law
Carolina - Aquila Linh Nguyen
Columbia - Jean-Josephine Alianovna Galanis
Dominica - Valentina Sofí Reyes
Fennley - Candace Annilee Hurst
Hansport - Katrina Isla Arina Conte
Likely - Claudia Jeenpak