Page 53 of The Prince and the Puck
“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 wasunfit 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.”
