I never answered what love means to me. I froze, got lost in front of thousands of stubborn cameras, literally feeling the attentive gaze of trillions of inhabitants of the Sol Galactic Empire with my skin.
How should I know?
I didn’t come to the Big Selection for love. Not to win the Heir’s heart did I fly to the contest of brides—I came for survival of those I left on Ptor-63, which we called the New Earth. But I was wrong. I expected anything from the contest—shameful failure, even death—but I didn’t know that precisely there I would find answers to the main questions. I’ll learn who I really am—and what it means to love more than life itself.