After he returned home, Nikolai and I tried our best to convince him to offload some responsibilities to his advisors, but he kept brushing us off.
Three weeks later, we were still at an impasse, and I was at my wits’ end.
“He’s being stubborn.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my voice as I guided my horse toward the back of the palace grounds. Edvard, sick of both Nikolai and I nagging him to heed the doctor’s warnings, had all but kicked us out of the palace for the afternoon. Get some sun, he said. And leave me to stress in peace. Nikolai and I had not been amused.“He should at least cut back on the late-night calls.”
“You know how Grandfather is.” Nikolai came up beside me on his own horse, his hair tousled from the wind. “He’s more stubborn than you are.”
“You, calling me stubborn? That’s rich,” I scoffed. “If I recall correctly, you’re the one who went on a hunger strike for three days because Grandfather wouldn’t let you skydive with your friends.”
Nikolai grinned. “It worked, didn’t it? He caved before day three was over.” My brother was the spitting image of our father—wheat-colored hair, blue eyes, square jaw—and sometimes, the resemblance was so strong it made my heart hurt. “Besides, that was nothing compared to your insistence on living in America. Is our home country really that abhorrent?”
There it is. Nothing like a beautiful fall day with a side of guilt. “You know that’s not why.”
“Bridget, I can count the number of times you’ve been home in the past five years on one hand. I don’t see any other explanation.”
“You know I miss you and Grandfather. It’s just…every time I’m home…” I tried to think of the best way to phrase it. “I’m under a microscope. Every single thing I do, wear, and say is dissected. I swear, the tabloids could turn me breathing wronginto a story. But in the U.S., no one cares as long as I don’t do anything crazy. I can just be normal. Or as normal as someone like me can get.”
I can’t breathe here, Nik.
“I know it’s a lot,” Nikolai said, his face softening. “But we were born for this, and you grew up here. You didn’t have an issue with the attention before.”
Yes, I did. I just never showed it.
“I was young.” We came to a stop on our horses, and I stroked my horse’s mane, taking comfort in the familiar feel of its silky hair beneath my hand. “People weren’t as vicious when I was young, and that was before I went to college and experienced what being a normal girl feels like. It feels…good.”
Nikolai stared at me with a strange expression. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn it was guilt, but that made no sense. What could he be guilty about?
“Bridge…”
“What?” My heart pounded faster. His tone, his expression, the tight set of his shoulders. Whatever he had to say, I wouldn’t like it.
He looked down. “You’re going to hate me for this.”
I tightened my grip on my reins. “Just tell me.”
“Before I do, I want you to know I didn’t plan for this to happen,” Nikolai said. “I never expected to meet Sabrina and fall in love with her, nor did I expect this is where we’d be two years later.”
Confusion mingled with my apprehension. What does Sabrina have to do with this?
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” he added. “But then Grandfather got hospitalized and everything was so crazy…” His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Bridge, I asked Sabrina to marry me. And she said yes.”
Of everything I’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it. Not by a long shot.
I didn’t know Sabrina well, but I liked her. She was sweet and funny and made my brother happy. That was enough for me. I didn’t understand why he would be nervous about telling me. “Nik, that’s amazing. Congratulations! Did you tell Grandfather already?”
“Yes.” Nikolai was still watching me with a guilty look in his eyes.
My smile faded. “Was he upset? I know he wasn’t happy when you started dating because—” I stopped. Icy fingers crawled down my spine as the pieces finally clicked. “Wait,” I said slowly. “You can’t marry Sabrina. She’s not of noble blood.”
That was the law talking, not me. Eldorra’s Royal Marriages Law stipulated the monarch must marry someone of noble birth. It was archaic but ironclad, and as the future king, Nikolai fell under the law’s jurisdiction.
“No,” Nikolai said. “She’s not.”
I stared at him. It was so quiet I could hear the leaves rustle as they fluttered to the ground. “What are you saying?”
Dread ballooned in my stomach, growing and growing until it squeezed all the air from my lungs.
“Bridget, I’m abdicating.”
The balloon popped, leaving pieces of dread scattered throughout my body. My heart, my throat, my eyes and fingers and toes. I was so consumed by it I couldn’t speak for a good minute.
“No.” I blinked, hoping it would wake me up from my nightmare. It didn’t. “You’re not. You’re going to be king. You’ve been training for it all your life. You can’t just throw that away.”
“Bridget—”
“Don’t.” Everything around me blurred, the colors of the leaves and sky and grass blending into one crazy, multicolored hellscape. “Nik, how could you?”
Normally, I could reason my way out of anything, but reason had fled, leaving me with nothing except pure emotion and a sickening sensation in my stomach.
I can’t be queen. Icanticanticant.
“You think I want to do this?” Nikolai’s face tightened. “I know what a big deal it is. I’ve been agonizing over it for months, trying to find loopholes and reasons I should walk away from Sabrina. But you know what Parliament is like. How traditional it is. They would never overturn the law, and I…” He sighed, suddenly looking much older than his twenty-seven years. “I can’t walk away from her, Bridge. I love her.”
I closed my eyes. Of all the reasons Nikolai could’ve chosen for abdicating, he’d picked the one I couldn’t fault him for.
I’d never been in love, but I’d dreamt of it all my life. To find that grand, sweeping love, the kind worth giving up a kingdom for.
Nikolai had found his. How could I begrudge him something I would myself give up my soul for?
When I opened my eyes again, he was still there, sitting tall and proud on his horse. Looking every inch the king he would never be.
“When?” I asked in a resigned tone.
A smidge of relief softened his expression. He’d probably expected more of a fight, but the stress of the past month had drained all the fight out of me. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Once my brother set his mind on something, he didn’t back down.
Stubbornness ran in our entire family.