“We have twelve heirs at the school right now,” Mr. Wainwright told me. “New America, Switzerland, Australasia, Britains, Mongolia, Russia, Denmark, the Africas, and a few other less influential families.”
Twelve! Well, fuck.
“How is there not a war every day?”
I got a side-eye then, his face almost comical as his eyebrows lifted to his hairline. “Who said there wasn’t?”
I gulped, and at the no doubt concerned look on my face, he shook his head, dark brown eyes almost twinkling. “Calm yourself, Ms. Spencer. The war we fight now is psychological.”
In some ways, that scared me more than physical violence. Especially after meeting Brandon Morgan and learning there were twelve crown heirs attending.
I’d known my time here was not going to be easy, but right now, I was wondering if I’d make it out alive.
Chapter 3
Turned out that Arbon Academy was in the Switzerlands, which now incorporated multiple countries that were formerly part of Europe. It was ruled by King Felipe and Queen Jacinta. They had three children: Rafael, their heir, and the younger twins, Jean-luc and Lacy-liun. The twins were too young for Arbon, but Rafael was one of the twelve currently attending.
There were no pictures of the heirs anywhere—for their safety. But I’d seen the Swiss king and queen on television before, with their dark hair, eyes, and bronze skin, and I could only assume their children had the same coloring.
Guess I was going to find out.
I knew a lot about the royals from school, but I’d never come close to meeting one. Hopefully I didn’t faint or embarrass myself. Or punch one in the face. Violence against a royal, especially a crown prince or princess, was potentially punishable by death. They could beat each other up no worries, though. Gotta love those double standards.
The car we were in slowed, and I refocused on where we were. For the past half hour or so, while I’d been daydreaming, we'd been steadily climbing in altitude, and when I peered out the window, I gasped.
We were high, really fucking high up, with a massive snow-covered valley falling away from the road. Across the chasm, the white-coated mountains rose up higher than the cloud line, and I couldn't stop my jaw from falling completely open.
I'd recognized that my whole life would change after winning the Princess Ballot—ahem, sorry, the Arbon Lottery—but I just hadn't even considered that I'd be seeing the world.
Growing up, I'd thrived on stories of faraway places—books written in a time before the Monarch War, when it was commonplace to jet all over the world. I craved that kind of freedom like it was a missing piece of my soul.
Mr. Wainwright made a small sound, pulling my attention from the awe-inspiring, snow-covered landscape to the other side of the car. Or rather to the front, as our driver had just turned off the mountainside road to crawl through an intimidating set of gates.
"Holy shit," I whispered, staring up at the structure in the distance. It was like something out of a fairytale, all delicate spires and elegant masonry. The grounds were covered in snow, but I had no doubt they'd be just as awe-inspiring. "It's like a castle."
I hadn't really meant to say it aloud, but Mr. Wainwright heard me anyway.
"Itisa castle," he informed me. "Or it used to be, a long time ago. Since then it has spent several hundred years as a private residence, then it was a hotel for about eighty years or so until the first Lord Morgan purchased the property just prior to the Monarch War and started Arbon Academy."
I gaped at him, but he didn't even seem to register my head exploding. The car stopped in front of the impressive front entrance, and the car door clicked open via a button that the driver pressed. He didn't even need to get out into the cold to open it himself.
"Come along, Ms. Spencer." Mr. Wainwright indicated for me to exit the vehicle before him. Manners and all that crap. "Dean Morgan wanted you here before the morning assembly, which starts in five minutes. You'd better hurry."
I stood beside the luxurious car, looking up at the legitimate castle that was to be my home for the next four years, and just... trembled.
"Oh for goodness sake," Mr. Wainwright grumbled, dropping his own woolen coat over my shaking shoulders. "Honestly, Ms. Spencer, you didn't think to pack a coat?" He retrieved my pathetic bag of belongings from the trunk and propped it up in the snow beside us.
I rolled my eyes, but slipped my arms into the sleeves, pulling it tight around my frozen body. "I don'towna coat, Mr. Wainwright." I arched a brow at him. "Or did you forget I'm the school's latest charity case?"
The old gentleman gave me a long look. "I doubt it's that easy to forget anything about you, Ms. Spencer." The way he assessed me was bordering on uncomfortable, but not in a leery, sexual way. More just that he was taking my measure, committing it to memory. "Hurry along. You'll find plenty of coats in your new room, but for now you can keep mine. Last thing I need is to be reprimanded for delivering a new student with hypothermia."
He didn't wait for my response before sliding back into the warmth of the car and leaving me standing there with nothing but my ratty duffel bag at my feet.
Trembles still ran through me and I wasn't getting any warmer just standing there, so I hoisted my bag in my freezing hands and made my way up the impressive stairs to the huge, carved wooden doors.
"You're late," a woman snapped as I let myself through the grand entrance. "Quickly now."
I barely even got a glance at her face before her heels were click-clicking away down the marble hallway. What I could see of her was a tight, professional French twist in her mouse-grey hair, hair sprayed within an inch of its life. Her skirt suit was dowdy, but expensive. Some kind of checked fabric. Was that what they calledtweed?
