“Mr. Morgan, your father wants us back before the morning assembly,” Mr. Wainwright said from behind the asshole, interrupting us.
I refused to take my gaze off Brandon Morgan, but I sensed the older man was very close. Brandon suddenly spun, and I glimpsed the generous and warm smile back on his face. Dude was well-versed at faking his humanity. “Oh, George, old man. Thanks so much for retrieving the lovely Violet for us. But I can take it from here.”
“No,” I said. Both men turned to me. “I’d prefer to ride with Mr. Wainwright. He’s been very thorough in updating me about this new world.”
If Brandon pushed, I’d push back. I wasn’t completely defenseless, even though the secret hidden in the bottom of my luggage was enough to get me incarcerated. Or worse. Good thing security screening in airports was a thing of an older, more violent time.
Brandon opened his mouth, but Mr. Wainwright cut him off. “As Dean Morgan’s personal assistant, I can assure you that I am capable of escorting Ms. Violet to the academy. Your father did not tell me to hand this over to you, Brandon.”
Brandon sneered. “I’ve told you more than once to call me Mr. Morgan. My authority is not much below my father’s. I will graduate next year, and from then on I will help him control the academy.”
Mr. Wainwright didn’t say much, but I could have sworn he murmured, “We’ll see about that,” under his breath.
“Why exactly are you here?” I asked Brandon bluntly. “If your father expected Mr. Wainwright to escort me, it seems a little odd that you’re here.”
I had no idea why I continued to poke at this asshole. He’d already proven that there was a sinister, evil streak running through him, and instead of taking his advice about blending, I was doing the opposite.
His grin was long gone now. “At my school nothing happens without me knowing about it. You are a situation I plan on being in control of.”
Throwing back my shoulders, I grabbed my bag and checked him out of the way.
“Take care, Violet,” Brandon said as I moved past him, and only an idiot would miss the threat there. He strolled off then, sliding into a low-slung red car, the engine powerful and loud when it roared to life.
Cars had disappeared for a while after the Monarch War—all technology and computers had faded away. When everything was rebuilt from the ashes, cars were one of the first things to get an overhaul. Now they ran solely from sun energy and water power. Well, a salty water with multiple other properties that I didn’t understand.
Suffice it to say, only the mega-rich—the royals and equally wealthy—got cars.
Swallowing hard, I finally made my way off the stairs, joining Mr. Wainwright as we strolled toward another car, this one black and larger than Brandon’s with very dark tinted windows. It was a Mercondor, formerly known as Mercedes; that company had risen up to be the premier provider of cars in the new age.
“Is Mr. Morgan a royal?” I asked Mr. Wainwright.
The older man let out a low sigh, rubbing a hand across tired eyes. “No. His family has no royal blood at all. But there is a certain prestige from running Arbon Academy, a legacy he will inherit from his father. It’s given him an inflated sense of self-worth.”
Understatement of the year. “So he answers to the royals?”
The older man chuckled humorlessly. “Don’t we all?”
So true.
There were fifty royal families, each ruling large sections of the world. Country boundaries were not the same as they had been before the last world war. A lot of the world had been destroyed, rendered totally uninhabitable by heavy chemical warfare, resulting in just fifty distinct kingdoms, all varying in size and power—power being the control of technology, clean drinking water, food, and fossil fuels.
All the former democracies crashed when the world did, ushering in an age of monarchs. Two of the most powerful were the province of Switzerland and New America. They were allies, which gave them a strong ruling power, but close behind was Australasia and Denmark. Our enemies.
“How many crown heirs are at Arbon Academy right now?” Because although there were many, many royals, each monarch only had one crown heir, successor to the throne.
We were in the car, the driver smoothly leaving the airport, and I tried to remember the last time I’d been in a vehicle. I’d been a small child.
“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.