Trinity woke up, and immediately realized that the selection was today. The adrenaline started to pump through her veins, and she felt like throwing up. She ran to the bathroom and started throwing up because of how scared she was. She tried to calm herself down, but soon she heard her mom’s footsteps.

“Trinity? Are you okay? May I come in?”

Trinity didn't answer, but she wanted her to come in. Her mother got the memo and came in.

“Honey, calm down, please.” She said, holding Trinity’s shaking hands.

“I can't. What if I get a royal? I don't want to die. I don't want my business all over the news. These past royals died never seeing their friends or families, I don't want that either.”

Trinity continued crying, her mother comforting her. She soon calmed down and tried to get ready. When she put on the dress she picked out last night, which was a bright yellow spaghetti strap dress that was slightly puffy with the amount of lace under it, she imagined it once again as those dresses she saw the royals wear, with a hoopskirt, jewels, lace, a corset, and a long flowy train. Just the thought about it made Trinity start to stress again, but she tried her best to remember her mom’s words.

Her mother had to force her to eat and drink, she was so stressed. She could hardly move her feet when she tried to walk. She slowly walked out of her house, moving as slow as a snail, her legs shaking. She only started moving quicker when she saw someone.

“Trinity! Come on, let's go together!”

It was Chloe. They were walking by themselves, hardly struggling as bad as Trinity was, who started to feel a little comfort seeing her. She soon walked to walk quicker, soon catching up with Chloe, who was wearing a strapless black dress that went down slightly below her knees, and a high ponytail pulling her hair back, a few strands falling out. Trinity had never realized how pretty her best friend was.

“Aren't you nervous?” Trinity asked Chloe.

“I kind of am, but not as bad as you, I saw that you couldn't even walk!”

“Don't talk about it, airhead.”

“Alright then. Both you and I know I'm not gonna get anything other than a knight, my energetic younger self wouldn't shut up about my bloodline to you.”

Normally, Trinity would get worried and not be able to walk again talking about the selection, but with Chloe she felt safe. Not just because she was a knight, it was something else, Trinity didn't know what it was.

“I don't want a green.” she said.

“Me neither, but don't say that, you'll jinx it.” Chloe said.

“Okay, okay, I won't, I just really don't want it.”

“Me neither.”

“I don't want to die.”

“Are you scared of death?”

“Yeah. I know thats stupid, but everyone has to be scared of something, dont they?”

“Alright, I'll tell you my surprising fear. I'm scared of heights.”

“Heights?”

“Yeah, i bet you think thats stupid.”

“No it's not, everyone has something they're afraid of, even the bravest people.”

“I guess you're right.”

They continued to walk down the street, soon meeting a cobblestone path, and a few minutes later meeting cobblestone that looked like it was made of weared-out silver, which made people who walked over it know they were a few minutes walk away from the castle, which you could already see from where Trinity and Chloe were.

The castle was a tower of rock that was arranged in a way that made it look like it was conjured from a modern child’s storybook. Trinity got worse anxiety just by looking at it, but Chloe being there made her feel better.

They both soon started to walk towards one of the entrances of the castle. It was a high arch with knights behind and in front of it, standing on sturdy silver cobblestone. There were lots of other people, of different ages, heights, races, hair types, genders, etc.

They walked through the archway. There were lower arches with signs for age groups, one was 6-12, another was 13-17, then 18-24, 25-36, then lastly there was 37-50.

Since both of them were 14, Trinity and Chloe walked through the 13-17 arch. It was so busy with so many people you could hardly see the stone brick walls.

Before they realized it, the two best friends were holding hands, their fingers intertwined. Even when they realized, they didn't let go of each other. They were both scared, they didn't want to let go of each other’s hands. It felt like the whole world was inside of them. But soon they had to. They walked farther in, and soon they had to separate and go into another room.

Soon Trinity was in a big white room, hardly as big as the room she and Chloe were just in, but it was still pretty big. Trinity couldn't see her own shadow, or a shadow of the random chair that came out of nowhere. She heard a door open, and a person came in, who wore a pair of black jeans, a white button up, and a suit jacket, with their long and straight dark brown hair in a low ponytail and did not have a shadow either.

“Sit down.” the person said to Trinity, who obedintly sat in the chair.

Once she was in the seat, the person took out a large diamond from one of the pockets of her suit jacket and put the pointy end on Trinity’s black gemstone.

Trinity watched as a sparkly cloud of color started to form inside of the diamond. It was a cloud of green, purple, grey, black, and white, the possible colors of gemstones on the ring you could get. The cloud started to change shape inside the diamond and swirled around, mixing the colors.

Soon one color out of the cloud was chosen, and the full diamond turned into the color. Soon, it was like the color started to bleed out of the diamond, and the black gem soaked up the color. Trinity, who was not able to move or even breathe, stared in horror at her new green ring.

~

Trinity was soon escorted out of the room. She saw that the people who were selected were going to another hallway, but she was taken to another one. She saw that in the room, there were two other anxious looking people with green rings that looked exactly like Trinitys. One was more masculine, and had dark blue eyes with short black hair. The other one was more feminine, with lighter blue eyes and longer wavy light brown hair.

Soon the people who escorted her in said, “You have all been chosen as a royal. You will get to know each other better for a few minutes” and then left.

“I'll go first,” the feminine person said. “I'm Apurva Christensin, I'm 15 and I go by they/them.”

“Alright then,” the masculine person said. “I'm Arkanos Lordano, I'm also 15,”

“It's your turn now.” Apurva said to Trinity.

“Um… I'm Trinity Aohina, and I'm 14.”

“Well… what do we do now? I don't think any of us can start a conversation.” Arkanos said.

“I know!” Apurva said. “Who are your parents and how did they meet? Arkanos, you go first!”

Weirded out by the question, he replied with, “Well, my parents were just normal people, my mom had Aiolfi blood in her-”

“Aiolfi? Aren't they the third best bloodline of knights?” Trinity piped up.

“Yeah, they are. My dad is just a normal guy. And then they met, just had the usual love story. About you, Apurva?”

“Well, my dad had Iraklis blood in him, and they are a really royal bloodline, so I expected this.”

Trinity remembered once when her mother mentioned the Iraklis bloodline. One of them was the person who Trinity’s mother had read about that day.

“Wasn't one of them the last royal killed a few years ago?”

“Yes, that was my second cousin, so we have the same grandparents. Well, my dad fell in love with a child of two knights. Their non-binary, so i refer to them as a parent.”

“Well, that was a lot to process. What about you Trinity?”

“Well, my dad was a normal guy, his parents was an herbalist and an archer, so he was talented, my mom is Seher Aohina-”

“Really?” Arkanos said.

“I know, one of your parents had a crush on her and loved her-”

“What? No, she was all over the newspaper 17 years ago, my parents always told me about it.”

“Let me guess, it was about how she got another person to fall for her? That something happened to her and there were riots from guys who need something better to do with their lives?”

“No, what are you talking about? She was on the newspaper because of attempted murder.”

“What? She never told me about that! Who did she try to kill?”

“One of the overlords. She knew that they were immortal, but she still tried. She even went to jail, her mugshot was in the newspaper. There were riots, people saying she should be released, she was tired of their excuses, she wanted the overlords to stop killing innocent people. These protesters, they weren't just secret admirers, they were also tired of the overlords’ excuses, and glad someone did something. All that did was just shorten her jail time to only one year. After that, she fell in love, got married, and by the time she had you, the drama had died down.”

Trinity was so shocked. Her mother had never told her any of this, and never hinted about it.

Soon the same people from before came in.

“You may now see your families.”

Trinity now had a chance to talk to her mother about it.

A few minutes later, her mother came in with Chloe.

“Trinity! I got a knight!” Chloe said.

“Good for you. Mom, why did you hide what you did 17 years ago from me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of the other chosen royals said you tried to kill one of the overlords before I was born. Why did you hide that from me?”

“I didn't want you to take after me, okay? I didn't want you to think that you could do something like that because I did it. Im truly sorry.”

Trinity was still mad at her mom, but something inside her made her not able to stay mad.

She turned to Chloe and said, “I'm glad for you, show me the ring.”

Chloe brought up their hand and put it in Trinity’s. Her ring now had a purple gemstone on it. It was a smooth, shiny gem that was slightly bioluminescent, despite the color itself being dark. Trinity’s was exactly like that, but a brighter green.

Chloe put down her hand, but Trinity immediately grabbed it again, interlocking fingers once again.

“I know that because of your bloodline, we might see each other again, but that's just a guess. If not, I'll miss you.”

“I'll miss you too,” Chloe said back to Trinity, “but I know we’ll see each other again.”

Trinity soon let go of their hand a few seconds later, and went to hug her mom.

“I’ll miss you, mom.” she said.

“I’ll miss you, too.” her mother said back to her.

A minute later, the room was empty with only Trinity inside of it. Soon the people who brought her to the room where she met the other royals came inside with Arkanos and Apurva.

“Let's take you all to the overlords, now.” they said.