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CHAPTER 1
“Oh, please. Seven minutes the other way, and you’d beQueen,” Christian, her brother, said.
“Well, it didn’t work out that way, andyou’re going to be King.”
“He’s talked about retiring for years; he won’t do it,” Christian argued. “The last I heard him talk of retirement was at Christmas, and Mom talked him out of it.”
“He might. You’re more than old enough to take over for him now, and his Parkinson’s has been getting worse. You know how he hates looking weak on camera.”
“It’s not his fault he has Parkinson’s,” Christian replied.
“I know, but he’s also sixty years old, and I’ve heard Mom tell him that she wants him to start taking it easy. The events, functions, and the travel have been getting to him a lot more lately.”
“You know I don’t want this, right?” he asked her.
“It’s the hand you were dealt,” Elin reminded her twin.
“What if it’s the hand I dealyou?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?” Elin glared over at him as they walked down the expansive hall with paintings from the masters hung in ornate frames that were just as beautiful as the paintings they held.
“I don’t want it. I never have. I’ve dreaded the day he dies, and not just because he’s my father. I’m a Prince, and when I get married, I’ll be a Duke and a Prince. I’m good with that.”
“Dad would say it doesn’t matter what you’regoodwith – it’s your duty to take your place,” she argued.
“You’re next up after me, Elin. We both know you should have been born first. I don’t know why I fought you out of the womb and ended up with the unlucky straw, but that’s how it feels to me – unlucky.” He shrugged a shoulder as they continued down the hall and turned right. “I’m going to abdicate when it happens; whether it’s today or in ten years. We might as well talk about this now.”
“What?” She stopped walking. “Christian, you can’t just abdicate. Dad will kill you.”
“I want to serve my unitandmy country. I can’t do that if I’m King. I’m a military man; that’s what I want for myself. Dad will understand that. He’s always known there was a chance I’d want to remain in the Royal Air Force. I haven’t hidden that from him. The entire country knows. I’m a Captain, and I’ve earned that rank; it’s not just something they’ve given me because I’m a Prince. I want to retire from the Air Force one day, and if this country ever has to go to war, Elin – heaven forbid, but if they do – I’ll be there fighting for it.”
“Well, that makes you sound like a good person and not at all like someone trying to shirk his duties and thrust them upon his unprepared sister,” she replied.
“You’ve known this could happen,” he said.
“As a possibility, yes. But you’re telling me it’s reality now.”
“Because it is. I’m ready to tell Father and Mother that I’d like to be left out of the line of succession from now on. We can announce it to the country whenever, but that’s my decision.”
“It’s that American university you went to,” she joked. “It gave you all sorts of ideas, didn’t it?”
Christian laughed and said, “You’d make a better Queen than I would King any day of the week. Besides, we’re twins, Elin; he’s been preparing us both for this for years because we were inseparable when we were younger and actually like each other now.”
Elin stared into his blue eyes that so resembled her own and watched as he ran a hand through his unkempt ice-blonde hair. He’d get a cut and style it neatly before leaving the palace, but right now, he wasn’t a Prince – he was her brother, her twin who was seven minutes older and thus, had been called the heir to the throne of Norway. They’d been raised by a humble monarch who didn’t want to rock the boat and his equally humble wife. They also had two younger sisters. Neither of them was particularly interested in the throne – at least, not now – but that made sense: Lillian was twenty-seven, and Mari was only twenty-four. Christian and Elin were thirty years old and had started taking on more and more royal work since their father’s Parkinson’s diagnosis five years prior.
“Let’s just see what he has to say. Maybe he just wants to talk about some ambassador visiting or a family holiday.”
“Well, Lillian and Mari weren’t invited, so I doubt it’s the family thing,” Christian reasoned as he started walking again.
She followed close behind as she’d done since they were born, always one step behind her big brother. He’d always been just a little bit bigger and just a little bit faster. When it came to school, he was better at some things; Elin was better at others. The first time they’d been separated had been university – Christian had gone to America, and she’d gone to a school in St. Rais, followed by law school in Norway. After that, they’d both served their mandatory two years in the military as per her father’s requirement that all royals, regardless of gender, serve for two years. Christian had stayed. She’d spent the past several years taking an active role as a senior member of the royal family.
“Ah, come in,” their father said, standing from behind his old pine desk that had been given to him as a gift from his father prior to his death. “Have a seat. Your mother is on her way. She had lunch with the Prime Minister’s wife today.”
They sat down on the small sofa opposite the two chairs in the overly large office meant more as a meeting room and office combination than a true office. The door opened, and their mother walked in past the two guards that had opened the doors for Elin and Christian only moments earlier.
“Hello,” she greeted with a wide smile that endeared her to everyone she met.
“Hey, Mom,” Christian said, leaning forward to grab a grape from the bowl of fresh fruit her father had brought in every day.
