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CHAPTER 29

DECK

IN WHICH WE REFERENCE SWAFFLING.

The heat of Murdan hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like being swaffled in the face with Derek Reed’s just-removed practice pants. Unpleasant, to say the least. (And unfortunately, I speak from experience.)

Add to that the obsequious guy bowing to me on the tarmac, and I remembered immediately why I didn’t come home more often. I did not want to be a prince. I did not want to be royalty. I did not want to be here.

All the same, I slid into the back of the sleek limousine my father had sent for me. I had a duty, whether I liked it or not. And that duty did not involve pads, pucks, or flying across the ice like I had no cares in the world other than pounding the opposing team’s center into the boards.

It was a short ride to the palace. It was a short ride everywhere in Murdan; the island nation was only a hundred square miles in total. Palm trees swayed on either side of the car, and the low cottages that made up most of the island’s neighborhoods spread out around us, punctuated here and there by colorful shops and even more colorfully dressed people. Murdan had a casual vibe, which I appreciated. But as soon as you stepped into the palace, the difference was clear. We had once been a British colony, and the royals still upheld many of the traditions handed to us by our colonizing forefathers.

The car pulled to a stop inside the palace gates. I wondered if Lizzy would be joining us. Eliza, I meant. I didn’t want to miss her. I didn’t want to think about her. But, of course, I did.

It wasn’t her fault I was here. It wasn’t her fault that I had left when we were children and that she’d gone on to live her life in service of the crown. I couldn’t be mad that she had built a life for herself. It wasn’t my place to say what choices were right or wrong for her.

As angry as I was—about how things had turned out, about how she had deceived me into this outcome—I didn’t blame her. Not really. In fact, I probably owed her an apology.

“Your Highness.” The man who had greeted me at the airfield pulled the door open and then waved for me to step out. I did, spotting my mother and father standing on the steps to the palace.

The building behind them, which we called the palace, did not look like Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland. It was the royal estate, but it was more sprawling resort than towering castle. There were no spires or turrets to be found—just miles and miles of long, low terracotta buildings, filled with treasures and luxuries befitting a king.

It was a place where, as a kid, there had been many rooms off-limits to me. A place filled with endless twisting hallways, where it was easy to lose oneself in a game of hide and seek.

“My son.” The king stepped gingerly down the stairs toward me, his arms wide open. I stepped into them, wishing I hadn’t noticed how thin his limbs felt as they encircled me. My mother was just behind him, a tear rolling down her face as she joined our hug.

Even though we were monarchs, even though our lives were lived in duty to our kingdom, we were still a family. And I loved them more than anything else.

Despite all the complications, it was good to be home.

After a few moments, my mother stepped back, and my father took my arm, walking me up the steps and into the palace.

Everything was just as it had been five years earlier, when I last visited—understated opulence at every turn, the occasional unexplained vase on a pedestal, or a helmet displayed inside a lighted glass cabinet in the hallway. I had never understood this detritus of royals gone by. It all seemed a bit cinematic to me. Maybe that was part of why I’d had to leave.

I was not cut out for royal life.

“There’s much for us to discuss,” the king said, still holding my arm and walking like a man with many years ahead of him. Not a frail leader, about to abdicate the throne.

We entered the royal residence, which was a house within the house—the place I had grown up, where my parents had raised Lambert and me.

“Where is Lambert?” I asked, looking around, as if he might materialize from the parlor or step out of the hallway leading to the bedroom wing.

“I expect he’s at his own apartment,” my mother said. “Lowell, could you?—?”

The man who had discreetly followed us inside nodded and left, off to find my brother.

We sat on the casual couches surrounding the low table in our living room. My mother sat close to my father on the couch across from me, taking his hand and resting her head on his shoulder. I sighed, taking them in.

They both looked older, I thought. Less resilient. I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to think of them always as the healthy, sturdy people who had raised me. But that was the inevitable turn of the world, wasn’t it? People aged. Parents died.

“Why am I here?”

Mom’s face immediately fell, and I knew my words had hurt her.

“I mean, I’m here because I love you, and I understand that things aren’t good. But why the urgency? What’s changed?”

“I have cancer, son,” my dad said, delivering the news I had known was coming.

“What kind?” I asked. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want any of this to be true.

“Lymphoma.”

I looked between my mother and father, who were gazing at each other tenderly. “How long have you known?”

“They detected it a month ago,” my mom said. “We’re waiting on some test results. We’ll know more soon.” She delivered this as if it was good news, but it didn’t change the truth of it. My father was dying.

My father looked as if he had long ago accepted this news—the impending arrival of his death. I was having more difficulty with it.

“Dad...”

“We’re all gonna go sometime, son. Now my job is just to make sure that I take care of the people I love—and those I’m sworn to protect. And that’s why you’re here.”

I shook my head. I had known this was coming—kind of. But it was still hard to take in. It was hard to go from lacing up my skates and slamming other people into the boards to considering my father’s demise. And my possible ascension to the throne.

Just then, the front door of the apartment burst open, and my brother stepped in, every bit as tall, tan, and handsome as I had always thought of him.

“Deckkie,” Lambert called, striding confidently toward me and opening his arms. I stepped into them and hugged my brother tightly. He didn’t smell of alcohol, and he didn’t seem like he was on anything. Both good signs.

He sat next to me on the couch and shook his head lightly as he said, “So, you’re getting the full rundown?”

“Yeah, I think so. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Did they get to the part yet where I’m not fit to rule?” I looked between him and my parents, waiting for more. Lambert had had his problems, that was true. But I wasn’t sure what exactly made him unfit to rule. He looked more fit, healthy, and happy than I’d ever seen him. Plus, he was the one who had been groomed for this his entire life.

I was the one who had left. If anyone was unfit, it had to be me.

“Lamb, we just think it might be best,” my mother said.

“For the kingdom?” Lambert asked. I got the sense they’d had this talk many times already.

“For you,” my mother said. “For everyone.”

Dad sighed heavily and sank back into the cushions of the couch.

“Maybe we can talk about this later?” Mom suggested, rising and taking my father’s hand. “Erik, honey, you need to rest.”

She turned to us. “You boys catch up. This has been a lot of excitement for your father. We’ll see you at dinner.”

Lambert stood and gestured toward the hallway. “Wanna see what they’ve done with your rooms since you moved out? I made your bed chambers into a naked room.”

“No, you didn’t. That’s from a movie.”

We walked down the hall, and Lambert grinned. “Doesn’t make it less funny.” He pushed open the door to my old rooms and ushered me inside like I was a guest. And the second I stepped through, it was like stepping back in time. As we stepped into the bedroom, the only room I’d been allowed to decorate myself, the first thing I saw was the giant poster of Stephano Mizzoni, geared up in his goalie pads, hovering in front of the net at the Wombat Arena—like a demon and a hero all in one.

There were other posters too, all of them hockey players. My childhood idols. But there were also the things I had not chosen—the ceremonial garments hanging on the wall, the typical young royal kit I’d been made to don whenever we were out on official business. I’d hated it then, and even now, something inside me revolted at the sight of those medals gleaming under the soft bedroom light.

I sank onto the small bed in the corner, running my fingers over the unfamiliar duvet. They had changed a few things, but mostly, it was the same room I’d lived in until I was ten.

“Lambert, you’ve got to explain everything to me,” I said finally. “I really don’t know why I’m here. I just know that Dad’s sick, the kingdom is in trouble, and someone blew up my truck—which, by the way, I really liked.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot more to the story,” Lambert said. “But I don’t think this is where we should talk about it.”

“My childhood bedroom isn’t the right setting for this information?” I felt my face tug up into a half-smile.

“Not by a long shot.” Lambert looked around once more, like he was giving me a moment to absorb it all, then nodded toward the door. I followed him as he led me out of the royal residence and into another wing—one I had explored as a child but barely remembered.

He pushed open yet another door, revealing a well-appointed apartment, which I assumed belonged to him. Lambert gestured to a low, comfortable-looking couch against one wall, facing a very large television mounted above a sleek console.

“It wasn’t easy, but I get all the Wombats games on that thing,” he said, already digging through the fridge. He came up with two beers and walked back across the room, handing one to me.

I raised it toward him hesitantly. “I thought you were in recovery?”

Lambert grinned. “I’m good with alcohol. Just nothing stronger.”

“So, you’re probably wondering why you’ve been summoned here.”

“Yeah.” I cracked the beer open and took a long sip.

“So, Dad had an incident a couple months ago. And it set off alarms about succession.”

“An incident?”

Lambert went on to explain that Dad had collapsed at a palace event, attended by only a few members of the public. They thought they had properly debriefed everyone about the importance of keeping the event secret, but speculation had still begun to spread about the state of succession in Murdan.

Dad’s illness had never been acknowledged publicly, and still wasn’t, but whispers of instability were starting to make the rounds.

Unfortunately, at that same time, Lambert had been on vacation on the other side of the island—where he had supposedly been using “extracurricular medical supplies” in less-than-prescribed ways, according to Murdan’s premiere salacious gossip rag. Lambert had long ago been dubbed the “Playboy Prince.” That was his official nickname in the media. When he was in his early teens, there had been real problems. He had been put in a recovery program and deemed an addict. And since then, he had been in and out of the rehab center.

Just after my father’s “incident,” he’d been put back into rehab. And that had brought unwanted public attention to the state of the succession. It was widely believed Lambert was unfit to rule—something that had suddenly taken on far more importance, now that our father’s health was in question.

And that was when the quest to locate me had ramped up.

There had always been speculation about the other Murdan prince. But my parents had done a good job hiding my whereabouts, allowing me to live an unfettered, unwatched life. Changing my last name had been a big part of that, and allowing my uncle Jericho to raise me had been equally important.

But clearly, I had been identified, since my truck had recently exploded.

“Your secret life can’t be secret anymore,” Lambert said.

“Yeah. I got that.”

“The question is—do you want to be king?” Lambert stared at me, the question hanging between us.

If he was unfit to be king, I was the definition of the word. At least he had been in royal life for the last decade. I had been in another world. I wasn’t up on current affairs, I didn’t know who our allies were or who our enemies might be. I hadn’t been paying attention at all. And I liked it that way. “No,” I said simply. “I don’t want to be king. I don’t want any of this.”

“I figured.” Lambert gave me a grim smile.

“So, what do we do?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Mom and Dad have made up their minds, and most would say there is no challenging the will of a king. Maybe we can figure something out.”

Lambert and I figured absolutely nothing out that night. Mom called his apartment and canceled dinner—Dad wasn’t feeling up to it. So we ate in his rooms, drank more and talked. And it was so good to be with my big brother again, even if he did insist on calling me Deckkie.

I told him about Lizzy, and he seemed to understand how confusing the whole thing had been. Maybe he understood more than that.

“So where is she now?” he asked as darkness gleamed outside the windows of his apartment.

“I don’t know. Wherever all the spies live around here, I guess,” I laughed, though I didn’t find myself amused at all. Instead, I felt sort of sick. And tired. And just... really, really sad.

“So you really like her?”

“I mean... like is kind of an inadequate word, I think. We were best friends growing up, only I didn’t realize it was her until we were practically back here again.”

“You were in love with her when you were little?” Lambert asked.

“It was nothing as mature as that,” I said, thinking. “She just... She was my reality. She was my childhood. She was my friend.” It hurt to think about Eliza, the little girl I had loved as a boy. And it hurt to think of her as Lizzy, the friend I had now lost.

“Well, it isn’t like she’s gone anywhere,” Lambert said. “What’s stopping you from pursuing something now?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I’m supposed to become king?”

“Have you learned nothing from Mom and Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you seen the way they look at each other? They’re completely in love. That’s why Dad is such an amazing ruler. Because he’s not doing it alone. He has a trusted partner.”

I thought about that. When I had trusted Lizzy, it had felt good. Like I had a partner. But maybe she was too close to all of this to be a partner now.

Lambert suddenly pulled out his phone, scrolling through photos. He turned the screen to face me, and I saw a picture of a woman, smiling serenely—a very pretty woman, with dark hair and dark eyes.

“This is Celeste,” Lambert said in a voice I had never heard him use before. “We’re going to get married.”