Hours later, a gentle hum pulls me out of a dreamless slumber. I open my eyes and push myself up from the reclined seat to find the vehicle’s windows have turned transparent.
We’re parked within the rock walls of a fortress with a circular courtyard the size of Rugosa Square. Its first level consists of twelve-foot-tall, arched walkways that lead into the main building, with small windows adorning the three levels above.
The doors open, and a gust of hot, dry air streams into the vehicle’s interior. I have to squint as we follow the production assistants underneath the shaded arches and into the fort’s cool, white interior.
Nobody speaks on the walk through the fort’s curved hallway. When we step into a featureless, white dormitory containing eighteen bunks, the Noble girls grumble. When we enter the communal showers, the Noble girls walk out.
Petra the Artisan, Emmera, and I take our showers first, while the Nobles screech about the barbaric conditions. None of the Amstraadi girls join us, and I wonder if that’s because they don’t want to damage their machine parts.
When we step out, our clothes have gone, replaced by outfits identical to the ones we wore the day before. We’re the first to arrive in a formal dining room. Unlike the rest of the fort, which consists of stone floors and whitewashed walls, this room has a beige carpet, champagne-colored wallpaper, and portraits of Gaia and Uranus on the wall.
An elaborate table is set for sixteen with two armchairs at the far ends. It looks like whoever prepared this room was probably expecting Prince Kevon to accompany us.
We sit at one end of the table and serve ourselves from a platter of poached eggs, sausages, bacon, and grilled vegetables. Among the dishes are croissants and waffles. Jugs of syrup and chopped fruit surround a tall stack of pancakes, which I intend to have for dessert. There are also four types of fruit juice, silver pots of tea, coffee, chicory, and hot chocolate, along with boiling water for anyone who wants to make a herbal brew.
The old me would have griped that Guardians enjoyed such elaborate feasts, but Prince Kevon’s water rationing reforms will change things for Harvesters. Dad will probably dig up half the cacti and grow enough food in the garden to support the family, and his micro-gardens will thrive with all that additional water.
When the Nobles arrive, they sit on the far side of the table, allowing me to enjoy this breakfast in peace. Once everyone has finished eating, we board two closed jeeps, which take us out of the fort.
Stones rumble under the wheels of the spacious vehicle. I lean forward in my seat and peer out of the window. It’s hard to tell if the rough terrain is because the road’s surface is gravel or because the winds have blown stones everywhere. For the first few miles, the landscape is a mix of beiges and browns and yellows. Swaths of flat desert stretch out into the horizon, broken up by the occasional rocky hill.
Our guide is a black-haired man with an ageless face who wears a khaki suit. He explains we’re approaching what used to be the Dallas Gate of the Great Wall, but it has moved thirty miles in the past century, and now the Gate is in a place called Fort Worth.
As the jeep rounds a tall sand dune, dots of color appear on a distant hill. I lean forward and frown at shades of greens and blues and reds that don’t appear in nature, let alone in the desert.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“One of the Foundling settlements,” says our guide. “After they pass the decontamination process, they’re free to live anywhere within the Barrens.”
As we approach, I can make out that the colors are the sides of the building. “How long does that take?”
Ingrid turns around and bares her teeth. “Why do you have to ask so many annoying questions?”
“It’s called having a conversation and being interested in something other than oneself,” I snap back.
She mutters something about having the guards decontaminate my mouth, but I turn to the first of the dwellings.
They’re structure are slightly bigger than an outhouse made from cobbled-together planks, sheets of corrugated iron, and fabric. Some of them are wooden posts with sand-filled bottles and others are patchwork tents.
I bite my lip. Harvester homes are basic but at least our earth houses are strong and insulated enough to withstand the weather. What happens during the rainy season or if there’s a wind storm? It’s easy to understand why Mom talks like the life of a Harvester is one of unbridled luxury.
After another twenty minutes, the jeep veers off the road, rounds another dune, and enters a dome four times the size of the one in Rugosa. Spotlights fill the vehicle’s interior along with the screams and cheers of a crowd. I peer out of the right-side window and gape at the interior of an auditorium larger than the Gloria Concert Hall with tiered rows that reach the ceiling.
On the left, dozens of black vehicles stand parked by an elevated stage. At the back is a gigantic Phangloria insignia, along with a row of seats. Byron stands at the center with his arms outstretched. The girls in the jeep ahead of us step onto the stage, and as soon as our driver parks, we take our seats behind Byron.
“People of the Barrens, thank you for the warm welcome.” Byron’s voice echoes across the arena. “Let’s all give Prince Kevon a round of applause. He wanted to be here to meet you all, but he has been called away on matters of the state.”
My brows rise. I wonder how much of what happened to the prince reached people who don’t have access to Netface.
Byron walks across the stage. “Today’s challenge takes us into Phangloria’s most exciting territory, our future. One day, this land will be towns, crop fields, and freshwater lakes. Each Foundling will one day enjoy their own personal oasis.”
Everybody cheers. I gulp. What if those images of wild men were for the benefit of the Foundlings? If I believed the Guardians were keeping me safe from the desert, I’d be too grateful to demand a home and an opportunity to work within the Minor Wall. I shake off these thoughts. Without all the facts, I could go mad with speculation.
“Let’s welcome our mentors,” Byron says. “They will each assign our plucky candidates a task related to life at the Barrens.”
A car door closes on the left of the stage, and a huge guard in black armor approaches. Behind him walks a gray-haired woman wearing a canvas jumpsuit, and a man dressed in Harvester-style gray overalls. Byron introduces the first man, Colonel Victorine, who is in charge of patrolling the wall. The gray-haired woman introduces herself as Primavera Melrose and says she teaches Modern History.
I sit up and study her face. Mistress Melrose was Mom’s teacher, who competed in the Princess Trials before Queen Damascena’s. That still makes her younger than Montana, yet she has the lined features of a grandmother.
Before the third person can introduce themselves, a ringing sound blares through the speakers. Everybody clutches their ears. My heart jumps into my throat, and I turn to the exits at the dome’s right and left.
“What’s happening?” Byron shouts.
Colonel Victorine grabs the microphone from the third speaker. “Everybody, stay in the arena until we deal with the disturbance at the Great Wall.”
“We’ll give you a ride.” Byron waves his arms at the production assistants, who usher us off the stage and pile us into the vehicles.
I shuffle across the seat, away from a camera lens pointed at its middle. My heartbeat races like an out-of-control pronghorn, even though I suspect this attack is something staged to make the Princess Trials more exciting.
Ingrid sits beside me and sneers. “They should throw you through one of the hatches and make the wild men chase you to the horizon.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask with an equally nasty sneer. “Are you still sore that your attempts to kill me failed?”
Her haughty expression fades, and she darts her gaze from the camera to the Noble girl sitting at her other side. Nobody gives Ingrid moral support, and she stares into her lap.
Raising my chin, I sit straighter in my seat. Without guns and gir
ls to bolster her bullying, she’s a puffed-up desert snake—all hiss and no venom.
I turn to the window at the endless landscape of desert, wondering if Byron’s claims that this will one day become an oasis could ever come true in a century. The early Phanglorians transformed a wasteland into a beautiful, green city, but that required a lot of time and water. I can’t see them doing anything with the desert except develop it into farmland.
Moments later, we approach the Great Wall. Its metallic latticework structure reminds me of the Eiffel Tower, which was featured in a documentary about a country called France. Centuries ago, French farmworkers stopped tending to the land and overthrew their king because they wanted to eat cake. The crops failed, and a fungus took root, causing decades of famine. Later, an exiled royal arrived with seeds and soldiers to deliver the French from the brink of starvation.
Before I can remember Carolina’s version of the French Revolution, the jeep arrives at the foot of the wall. It’s tall and sturdy with a row of eight-feet-tall posts set close enough to trap a person’s arm, linked by enough barbed wire to trap a mouse.
Another row stands twenty feet away, creating a gap within the wall wide enough to accommodate two jeeps. Metal joists linking the rows at the top form a walkway and the foundation for the next level of posts.
I lean against the window and cast my gaze along its width. Every hundred or so feet, there are watchtowers of varying sizes. This must be where the marksmen shoot down raptors that try to enter Phangloria.
The jeep stops, and I open the door. Hot, dusty air blasts into my face, making me wince. Ingrid screams at me to pull the door shut, but I step out and sink my feet into the sand. My eyes strain against the sunlight, and heat seeps through the leather of my boots.
Colonel Victorine steps out of his jeep and leads us along the wall. The desert on our side of Phangloria is no different from the landscape beyond the barrier. He stops at one of the larger towers with an elevator that reminds me of a cage.
“Half of you come with me to the viewing station.” He points further down the wall. “The other half get to see the disturbance from the next tower.”
I follow the colonel into the elevator with Ingrid, Constance, Emmera, Sabre, Tizona, and a black-haired Amstraadi girl called Katana. Just before the elevator doors close, Cassiope jumps in with another production assistant, and they exchange grins. The other contestants huff their annoyance and trudge away in the sun with the production assistants.
The viewing station is halfway up the tower in a climate-controlled room of white walls and panoramic windows. Four telescopes point out into the desert, each manned by guards, but I can’t see anything from the window except the desert and a distant formation of orange rocks.
A border guard in khaki uniform sits before five monitors arranged hexagonally around his wide desk.
We line against the back wall, while Cassiope and her colleague set up cameras around the room. As soon as they’re done, the other production assistant raises her thumb.
Constance strides forward with her hands on her hips. “Where’s this emergency?”
The guard sitting at the monitors rises and beckons at one of the guards at the telescope to bring another chair. “Mistress, would you like to see?”
Constance sticks her nose in the air and joins Ingrid at the seats. As the rest of us gather around them, the guards bring us bottles of Smoky Water and ask the Noble girls if they would prefer something more refreshing. They ask for a beverage called Oasis Palmtree.
Once the drinks arrive, the guard taps on the middle screen and pulls up the image of a vehicle appearing in the middle monitor. The Amstraadi girls and I lean forward, and I resist the urge to place my hands on the back of Constance’s chair.
The only way I can tell it’s a vehicle is because it’s moving so fast and creating clouds of dust. It’s hard to tell the size, but it’s brown and looks larger than a jeep and smaller than a bus.
My mouth drops open, but it’s Constance who speaks first. “Have the wild men evolved?”
“They’re Foundlings, you idiot,” Ingrid snaps.
“That’s correct, Mistress Strab,” says the guard. “Most Foundlings arrive on foot, but some reach us on the back of animals, and a few manage to cobble together vehicles.”
Our Modern History teacher told us that no technology survived from the spate of disasters that destroyed the earth. I imagined Foundlings as nomads lucky enough to stumble across Phangloria. Where on earth would they get cars after all this time, and what would they use as fuel?
“How?” The question slips from my mouth.
Ingrid huffs, but the guard glances at Colonel Victorine, who nods.
The guard answers, “As the Great Wall stretches across the continent, it becomes more visible to survivors hiding in mountains and other geographical enclaves.”
I turn my gaze back to the screen. A moving mass appears behind the vehicle.
Sabre leans forward. “Could you magnify the screen?”
Ingrid twists around in her seat and smirks. “Don’t your eyes have a zoom function?”
“Isn’t that the girl who faked her disappearance?” Sabre tilts her head to the side.
Katana shakes her head. “You’re mixing her up with the girl with visible stitch marks around her new nose.”
“You’re both wrong.” Tizona taps her chin. “That’s the girl who ducked out from the Princess Trials to fix her nose so it would be more to Prince Kevon’s liking.”
A laugh catches in the back of my throat, and I clap a hand over my mouth. My gaze darts to the side of the room, where Cassiope nods. Prince Kevon once implied that I was unadorned, but I thought it was a comment aimed at the Nobles in general. He was probably talking about Ingrid’s surgical enhancements.
Red blotches appear on Ingrid’s cheeks, and her hand rises to her nose, but she forces it down.
The guard clears his throat, taps a few commands on the screen, and brings up a group of people riding camels.
I swallow a mouthful of strawberry-flavored water to soothe my dry throat. “What happens when people approach the Great Wall?”
“That depends on if they’re homo sapiens or homo ferox,” the guard replies.
“Homo what?” I whisper
“Ferox means wild,” Ingrid snaps. “Don’t they teach you anything apart from how to pick corn?”
“Apparently not,” I mutter.
Colonel Victorine interrupts with a speech about the Foundling welcoming process, starting with a definition of wild men that’s similar to the one Prunella Broadleaf offered the night before.
While he tells us that some Foundlings arrive at the Great Wall incapable of speech, they have ways of testing if a new arrival requires education or extermination.
I drop my gaze to the screens, which display the approaching groups. The vehicle continues at its steady pace, but it’s hard to tell who is inside. On the next screen are the riders. They wear fabric head coverings and obscure the lower half of their faces with rags. Their clothes are dark but from this distance, it could be a uniform or caked-in dirt.
“What’s that behind the camels?” asks Sabre.
Colonel Victorine walks to the monitors. “Magnify the telescopic camera.”
The guard zooms into a mass of moving pixels that look to me like blobs racing through the desert. It looks like a crowd is chasing these newcomers.
He sighs and taps some commands into the monitor at the end. “This is the largest hoard of wild men we’ve had in months.”
“I expect you’ll activate short-range missiles,” says Ingrid. “If enough people approach the Great Wall, they might damage its integrity and attack the Oasis.”
“But what about the people trying to reach the Great Wall?” I ask.
Ingrid sniffs. “I’m sure everybody will agree that the safety of Phanglorians takes priority over Foundlings.”
I glance at the Amstraadi girls, who don’t react, then I cast my gaze to
the guards standing around the room. Either they agree with Ingrid, or they don’t care. “Those people running after the camels might not even be wild men.”
Colonel Victorine folds his arms across his chest. “If you’re so sure that rabble is a group of Foundlings, you may take an armored vehicle and escort them through the wall.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
His eyes harden. “Consider it a challenge for the Princess Trials.”
Chapter 14
Colonel Victorine waves at one of his sergeants, a dark-skinned woman with a long braid. “Travis, take Miss Calico to the gate and allow her to choose a vehicle.”
An attack of vertigo seizes my perceptions, and the watchtower’s white walls bend at strange angles. I glance from the nodding sergeant to the colonel. “What’s happening?”
He folds his arms across his broad chest and fixes me with eyes as cold and pale as Ryce Wintergreen’s. “Since you so rightfully pointed out our obligation to help all those who approach the Great Wall for refuge, you’re going to lead the team to ensure that those on camelback reach the wall.”
“Sir?” I ask, my mind going blank.
He holds up a thick finger. “But they must discard their animals before they reach the gates. We won’t risk the contamination of our breeds.”
My throat dries. “But I don’t have any experience.”
“I see.” Colonel Victorine turns a knowing look to the camerawoman. “Calico wants me to risk my staff to hold off the wild men for her foundlings, while she and her Echelon rest easy behind secure walls?”
I turn my gaze back to the monitor, which displays the men on camelback. The hoard remains several feet behind them and shows no signs of slowing.
“How typical.” Ingrid shakes her head.
Constance nods. “It’s easy to run your mouth when your entire life centers around picking sweetcorn.”
Sabre, who stands at my side, leans into Katana and whispers something that makes the other girl snort.
The Princess Games: A young adult dystopian romance (The Princess Trials Book 2) Page 19