CHAPTER ONE
‘I’M SORRY, MATEO.’
On the computer screen, Mateo Karavitis’ mother’s elegant face was drawn into weary lines of sadness and resignation—sadness for the position she’d put him in, and resignation that it had come to this. A queen who’d had three healthy, robust sons, an heir and two spares, and yet here he was, the unneeded third to the throne, now about to be thrust into the unwanted limelight.
‘I know you don’t want this,’ his mother, Queen Agathe, continued quietly.
Mateo did not reply. He knew who didn’t want this: his mother. How could she? As the third son, and a late surprise at that, he hadn’t been prepared for the throne. He’d never been meant to be King, to rule Kallyria with a gentle manner and an iron fist the way his father had for thirty years, as a revered ruler, kind but strong, beloved by his people, feared by his enemies.
It has been his oldest brother Kosmos who had been taken into training from infancy, told from the cradle who he was and what he would become. Kosmos who had gone to military school, who had met dignitaries and diplomats when he was barely out of nappies, who had been crowned Prince and heir to the throne when he was just fourteen, arrogantly assuming the title that would be his. And it was Kosmos who had died in a sailing accident ten years ago, when he was only thirty.
His oldest brother’s sudden death had shocked his family to the core, and rocked its seemingly stable foundations. His father, King Barak, had diminished visibly in what felt like minutes, his powerful frame suddenly seeming smaller, the thick mane of grey hair turning thin and white. Three months after Kosmos’ death, Barak had suffered a mini stroke that had affected his speech and movement but kept him on the throne. Four destabilising years after that, he’d died, aged only sixty-eight, and Mateo’s older brother Leo, the true spare, had been crowned King.
How had they got here?
‘Have you spoken to Leo?’ he asked his mother, his tone brusque. ‘Has he given an explanation for his unprecedented actions?’
‘He...he just can’t do it.’ Agathe’s voice, normally mellifluous and assured, wavered and broke. ‘He’s not up to it, Mateo. Not up to anything any more.’
‘He is King.’
‘Not any more,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Not since he abdicated last night.’
Mateo spun his chair around, hiding his face from his mother, a welter of emotions tangled inside him, too knotted up to discern one from the other. He’d never expected this. Even after Kosmos had died, after his father had died, he’d never expected this. Leo had seemed more than ready to assume their father’s mantle. Leo, who had always been in Kosmos’ shadow, finally ready to shine. He’d been more than ready for it, eager even. Mateo recalled the gleam in his brother’s eye at their father’s funeral, and it had sickened him. He’d walked away from Kallyria, intent on pursuing his own life here in England, away from the royal family and all its pressures.
And now he had to come back, because Leo was the one who was walking away. His brother had been King for more than half a decade, Mateo acknowledged with an iron-edged frustration. How could he just walk away from it all? Where was his sense of duty, of honour?
‘I don’t understand,’ he ground out through gritted teeth. ‘This is coming from nowhere.’
‘Not nowhere.’ Agathe’s voice was soft and sad. ‘Your brother...he has always struggled to assume his royal duties.’
‘Struggled?’ His brother hadn’t struggled when he’d practically snatched the crown from their father’s head. ‘He seemed more than ready to become King six years ago.’
Agathe’s mouth tightened. ‘The reality was far more challenging than the dream.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ If his brother had acted as if being King was a licence to indulge whatever pleasures and whims he had...but Mateo didn’t know if he had or not, because he’d chosen to distance himself from Kallyria and all it meant, and th
at had been fine by everyone, because until now he’d never been needed. ‘How has he struggled, exactly?’ He turned back to face Agathe, wanting to see the expression on her face.
She shrugged her slim shoulders and spread her manicured hands, her face drawn in lines of weary sorrow. ‘You know Leo has always been a bit more highly strung than Kosmos. A bit more sensitive. He feels things deeply. He hides behind his pleasures.’ Mateo made a dismissive sound. Leo was thirty-eight years old and had been reigning as King for nearly six. Surely it was more than time to put such boyish indulgences behind him, and act like a man. Like a king. ‘With the insurgency in the north of the island,’ Agathe continued, ‘and the economic talks coming up that are so important...’ She sighed sadly. ‘He fell apart, Mateo. He simply fell apart. It was a long time coming, but I should have seen this was going to happen. He couldn’t handle the pressure.’
Leo was now, according to his mother, in a very private, very expensive clinic in Switzerland, leaving his country rudderless at a critical time. Leaving Mateo as the only one to step up and do his duty. To become King.
But Mateo had never been meant to be King.
Outside, the chapel bells of one of Cambridge’s many colleges began to peal, a melodious sound so at odds with the bleak conversation he was having with his mother. His life was here, in the hallowed halls of this university, in the modern laboratories where he conducted important research into chemical processes and their effect on the climate.
He and his colleagues were on the brink of discovering how to neutralise certain chemical emissions and potentially reverse their effect on the climate. How could he leave it all behind, to become King of a country most people hadn’t even heard about?
A country that was the linchpin in important economic talks, a country that was, if his mother was to be believed, on the brink of war.
‘Mateo,’ Agathe said softly, ‘I know this is hard. Your life has been in Cambridge. I understand that I am asking so much of you. Your country is.’
‘You are not asking any more of me than you asked of my brothers,’ Mateo said roughly. Agathe sighed.
‘Yes, but they were prepared for it.’
And he wasn’t. The implication was glaringly obvious. How could he be a good king, when he’d never been shown or taught? When no one had expected anything of him, except to live his own life as he pleased?
And he had done exactly that—going to Cambridge, becoming a lecturer and researcher, even living under a false name so no one knew he was a prince, eschewing the usual security and privileges to be his own man, free from all the encumbrances of royalty.
But all along he’d belonged to Kallyria.
‘Mateo?’ Agathe prompted and he gave a terse nod of acceptance.
‘I’ll fly back to Kallyria tonight.’
Agathe could not hide her relief; it shuddered through her with an audible sound. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Mateo nodded, knowing he was doing no more than his duty, even if it chafed bitterly. Of course he would still do it. There had never been any question of that.