The Luna Choosing Game

As Nicholas asked out Lilliana, I stood in the back of the crowd of watching girls, my heart down on the

floor.

I had no right to be upset. I knew that. I had given up the right to be upset a long time ago.

Yet I couldn’t deny the feeling.

First, Nicholas had returned the handmade gift I made him, and now he was asking another girl on a solo

date.

According to the rules of the competition, solo dates were only supposed to be awarded after a girl performed well in one of the events.

Of course, from what I’d heard, the rules also stated that a prince could ask any girl out at any time, sol supposed such a thing wasn’t unheard of.

But for it to be Nicholas who asked for the first solo date felt like the hardest pill to swallow.

I understood that the candidates were invited here to the palace to date the princes. Soon, Nicholas would pick someone to marry.

already made it abundantly clear that he would never be interested in

on since then. It wasn’t my business who he dated, or who he

holding Lilliana’s hand with only the barest

more I looked at him and his faceless expression, the more he seemed like a shell of the man

an escape for a minute, I turned away from the spectacle and headed

just beginning to set over the western tree line. The sky was painted

to see it. We had never gotten much time to appreciate nature

she was

a male voice said,

and turned

place or a speck of dirt on his guard

more stripes and fringe than the other

was the head of the royal guards.

not someone I had met personally, but I

pointed him out.

at me with a severe expression. I felt much like an ant under

more,” he said, voice gruff. “Are you lost? The banquet is