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1
Torben
The stone bell tower chimes midnight over the packed plaza, prompting the festive crowd’s eruption with cheers, noisemakers and air horns.
“Aren’t you special?” The gruff voice next to me in the balcony box drips with irony. Sigurd knows how much I detest this particular tradition.
I turn to my right and beam at my brother with a practiced smile that delivers a sneer only a brother can see. “Jealous?”
Sigurd’s unmanaged beard twitches. “Jealous of the heir apparent? Brother, I’m grateful to still be a bachelor with no expectations from anybody.”
The person to my left finally speaks, slurring his words. “Except psychopathy.”
Here we go.
The flash in Sigurd’s eyes serves as the first warning.
Wanting to defuse this exchange before it becomes a situation, I lean to the left and place a brotherly hand on the shoulder of the slightly teetering Etienne, attempting to force his glassy eyes to focus on me and not on our youngest brother.
“Not here. Not now,” I urge Etienne. Our mother, the queen, gives us a subtle side-eye while waving at the cheering crowd.
Etienne, undeterred, leans backward to address Sigurd with a wagging forefinger. “The first sign of a psychopath is poor treatment of animals.”
The thickly-bearded one simmers next to me. “Where do you think your hangover duck sandwiches come from? Hunters, you imbecile.”
Etienne laughs, “Your friend, the gamekeeper, rounds them up for you. Not much of a fair fight if you ask me.”
At the mention of the gamekeeper, our baby sister, Princess Flora, looks up from her knitting. She wants to say something, but then changes her mind and returns to her project.
On the twelfth bell, the queen leans behind Etienne and hisses to me, “Order.”
The crowd bursts into “Happy Birthday, Prince Torben.”
I can’t bear listening to this, but I’m happy for a distraction. Our mother has cued me to get control of everyone now, or I’ll hear about it later.
I subtly nudge Etienne. “Stop goading Sig. For my sake.”
“It’s too easy,” Etienne chuckles.
At my right, Sig is still eyeing our drunken brother, barely pretending to maintain a serene face for the public.
“Smile,” I remind him. “The paps are watching.”
“Good; I hope they catch the royal introduction of my fist to Etienne’s groceries.”
“For me. Ignore the little bastard, just this once. You owe me.”
Sig stiffens, and that god-awful beard twitches again. He knows what for. He harrumphs but otherwise tries to ignore the other brother.
The crowd below transitions into the Gravenland national anthem. Oh god. This will take a while.
I lean behind Sig and gesture to Flora.
She looks up from her sweater project—I swear I don’t know who she’s knitting sweaters for when her wardrobe is choked with finery sent from designers the world over—and frowns.
“What are you waving those pretty gloved hands at me for, brother? I’m minding my business,” she says.
“Stand up,” I tell her in my most stern big brother voice.
