CHAPTER ONE
‘YOURHIGHNESS?HISMAJESTYwill be with you in a few minutes.’
Princess Freya of Svardia nodded, resisting the urge to press her palm against the erratic pulse of her heart. She reminded herself that it was her brother who would take this meeting, not her father, who had—as Svardian tradition held—stepped down from the throne at the age of sixty-five, as his father had done and his father before him. The tradition ensured that whoever graced the throne was mentally and physically strong, whilst also reflective of the broadest generations of Svardia’s subjects.
The reigning King—her brother Aleksander—would mark his first year while their father and mother left on a twelve-month sabbatical, away from the country and out of contact to ensure no risk of interference or influence while both the new King and the Svardian people got used to each other.
Three months ago, Aleksander had ascended the throne. And now, hands clasped firmly behind her back, she stood outside his office and prepared to go to battle with her King.
A bird soared past the window, catching Freya’s eye and taking it over the spring green garden that extended all the way to the walls separating the palace from Svardia’s capital city of Torfarn. It was a view she’d seen a million times but never given real thought to. Now, though, it had become uniquely precious to her.
The simple beauty of the ancient trees, the subtle delicacy of the hornbeam hedges used in the sixteenth-century maze, the neatly manicured lawns and the sprawling natural park just beyond, each was a piece of evidence left by the successive generations of one of the world’s oldest royal families. Her heart pounded a single dull thud as she wondered what Aleksander, her brother, would leave behind for his future generations.
Perhaps after she stepped down from her royal title, she could get a job showing tourists around the palace. The laugh that should have followed the ironic thought got caught in her chest and she closed her eyes.
She loved doing what she did. Being who she was. The sense of history, the grandeur, the respect for tradition and the symbolism of it all. And most of all she loved having the ability to use her position and title to support the causes and people that needed it, ones that sometimes the people of Svardia and their politicians forgot. But she also knew that the responsibility of being royal was a duty that few could understand. And even now she felt a sharp sting at the cruel irony that meant she could only do her duty bynotdoing her duty.
The door behind her opened and two palace staff passed into the corridor, their conversation quietening and their heads bowing as they saw her. She waited, facing the door, able to see glimpses of the room her brother had taken as his office. It didn’t matter how much modern technology Aleksander filled it with, his office—just like every other room in the palace—was inescapablygrand.The preservation of the baroque style that filled the Rilderdal Palace had been a matter of pride for her father and a source of embarrassment for her brother.
‘Freya? Get in here, I don’t have much time.’
‘You know,’ she said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her, ‘you really should get a secretary. You can’t just go about shouting at people from your office.’
‘Didn’t you hear? I’m King. I can do what I like.’ Freya honestly couldn’t tell whether the statement was pure arrogance or a dark notion from his new role, now that their parents were on their sabbatical. Not that it mattered. His statement hadn’t required an answer.
Once, it might have been different. When they had been younger,he’dbeen different. But around his seventeenth birthday Aleksander had changed. The soft warmth that she’d shared with him gone in the blink of an eye with no explanation whatsoever. And in its place? A controlled and forbidding man who was closed even to her. Now she could rarely tell what he was thinking, let alone planning. In that moment, Freya wondered at the price they had both paid for the throne.
‘Are you sure that this is what you want?’ he asked as his gaze assessed her face for a reaction. She stared blankly into irises that were so dark they were almost black. Hers were the opposite—the palest amber—and their younger sister Marit’s a perfect meld of the two, a startling hazel.
Freya could have laughed at his attempt to catch her out, so she might reveal that it was the last thing she wanted on this earth. But she’d been trained well—such a perfect princess that even in this she was the better diplomat than he.
‘Yes. My mind is made up.’
Aleksander grunted an unintelligible reply and turned to look out of the window, framed by the much-detested pink curtain. ‘What do you think Father would say?’ he asked, his tone surprisingly solicitous.
Her stomach turned. She knew what their father would say. That she was doing the right thing—the only thing that could be done. But saying that would make her brother more likely to dig his heels in, so instead she stalled. ‘We won’t know for another eight months until their return.’
‘You could contact them. If you wish?’
Freya wondered why he believed that would make any difference at all. Their parents wouldn’t thank her, instead seeing it as a concern only for the King of Svardia to handle. And if she expected emotional support, well... Freya, Aleksander and Marit each knew better than that.
‘I don’t think that he’d appreciate the break with protocol.’
‘Even for this?’ he pressed.
‘This ismyproblem. I’ve always known how important the line of succession is.’
‘If you give me time—’
‘Aleksander,’ she interrupted. ‘If anything were to happen to you before you have children, or to your family in the future, the line of succession falls to me and...’ She clenched her jaw, still struggling to vocalise it.
‘Ifs,’ Sander replied.
‘Ifs that happened to our father!’ Freya frantically tried to call back the emotion in her voice. Having had to take the throne after the shocking loss of his older brother, her father had always made sure she knew how important she was as the second child. And she had borne the weight and responsibility of that duty, and would have continued to do so until her dying breath. Even after discovering that she could not fulfil the full extent of that duty.
‘Marit is going to struggle.’
‘Yes,’ Freya agreed. ‘But I will help her in any way I can.’