Page 83 of The Broken Dawn

The simple admission hung in the air between them. Hal felt something shift in his understanding of both his brother and his cousin.

"I was thirteen," Christian continued, his voice low. "My father was dead. My mother had remarried and abandoned me. I came here, to this palace full of strangers, and everyone expected me to just..." He made a vague gesture. "Fit in. Be grateful."

"Freddie didn't act like I should be thankful for every scrap of attention," Christian said. "He just... included me. Made space for me." His mouth twisted. "I know it hurt you when he pulled away. But I didn't have anyone else."

The words settled into Hal's chest, easing an ache he'd carried for years without fully understanding it. It hadn't been about him. It hadn't been because he wasn't good enough, or interesting enough, or mature enough. It had been about Christian, lost and alone, and Freddie seeing someone who needed him.

"He taught me to play chess," Christian said suddenly, a faint smile touching his lips. "Said you were hopeless at it, and he needed a worthy opponent."

Hal let out a startled laugh. "I only found out how terrible I was when I went to Riddarhuset. Turns out Freddie had been letting me win our entire childhood. I lost seventeen games in a row my first week there."

"That sounds like him," Christian said, his smile growing more genuine. "He could never bear to see anyone disappointed."

"He used to sneak me chocolates when Mother put me on those awful diets," Sigrid offered into the silence. "Said a princess should be substantial, not something that might blow away in a strong breeze."

The tension in the chapel had shifted, the air between them warming with shared memories. For a moment, they were just three people who had loved the same man, united in their loss.

"The Queen has plans," Christian said after a while, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "For the funeral. For... after."

And just like that, the moment of connection began to fade. The mention of Queen Margreta brought reality crashing back—the reality where Christian was her ally, her agent, while Hal and Sigrid stood as obstacles to her ambitions.

"She always has plans," Sigrid said, her voice cooling.

Christian looked up, meeting Hal's gaze across the coffin. Something complicated flickered in his eyes—regret, perhaps, or resignation. "She thinks you'll be easy to manage now," he said bluntly. "Without Freddie to shield you."

Hal stiffened. "And you? What do you think?"

Christian studied him for a long moment. "Freddie said you were stronger than anyone gave you credit for. Even yourself." His mouth twisted. "I never understood why he believed that so firmly."

The words struck Hal like a physical blow. Freddie had said that? About him? To Christian, of all people?

"He said I was too quick to dismiss you," Christian continued, his voice low. "That I saw what I wanted to see, not what was actually there." He looked away, his jaw tightening. "Perhaps he was right."

"What do you mean?" Hal asked, unable to keep the confusion from his voice.

Christian's eyes flickered briefly to the chapel door, as if checking for eavesdroppers. "Freddie was never worried about you," he said finally. "About what would happen to you when he became king. He knew your mother would try to... manage your life. Find you a suitable wife, a respectable position. But he'd just laugh, as if he knew something about you that no one else did."

Hal nodded, not trusting himself to speak. What could he say? Thank you for this moment of honesty? I'm sorry we can't be the cousins Freddie wanted us to be? Be careful with my mother?

But as Christian turned to leave, he paused, looking back at Hal with an expression that might almost have been regret. "He would have believed in you," he said quietly. "In the kind of king you could be."

Then he was gone, the chapel door closing behind him with a soft click that echoed in the silence.

Sigrid moved around the coffin to stand beside Hal, her hand finding his. "What are you thinking?" she asked softly.

Hal stared at the door where Christian had disappeared, his mind racing with questions he couldn't answer. About power, about protection, about what it truly meant to wear a crown. About Jakob, and whether this separation had to be an ending or just the beginning of a longer fight. The candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across the walls. Hal felt something shifting inside him, a fundamental reordering of how he saw his future crown. Not as a trap, but as a tool. Not as a burden, but as a weapon he could learn to wield.

"Freddie would have been a good king," He said, quietly. "But he would have been the kind of king Mother wanted. Dutiful, conventional, surrounded by the right sort of people making the right sort of choices." He paused, thinking of Christian's words, of Freddie's belief in him. "I can't be that. But maybe... maybe the world isn't going to end if I have to be a different kind of king."

"What kind of different?" Sigrid asked, though something in her tone suggested she already knew.

"The kind who doesn't let anyone—not even family—dictate who deserves protection and who doesn't. The kind who builds something strong enough that threats against the people I care about become meaningless." His jaw tightened with determination. "I'm thinking about Jakob. I'm sending him to Finland because right now, I'm still just the spare who survived. But someday..."

Someday I'll be the king, he thought fiercely. And when I am, no one will be able to touch him. No one will be able to take him from me or use his family against me. No one will be able to make me choose between duty and love because I'll have made them the same thing.

"Someday?" Sigrid prompted softly.

"Someday I'll bring him home." The words came out quiet but absolute, like a vow. "And when I do, it will be because I've become strong enough—powerful enough—that no one can threaten what I love. Not Mother, not the government, not anyone."