33. Nick
NICK
The palace is quiet tonight. Hushed, like the entire building is holding its breath.
I walk the familiar corridor toward my father’s private chambers, my footsteps muffled by thick carpets older than our constitution. Outside, people are gearing up for New Year’s celebrations.
I knock at the king’s door. “It’s Nicholas.”
“Come in,” he calls, his voice raspier than I remember.
He’s sitting in bed, bags under his eyes.
It’s here, away from the daily pomp and circumstance that surrounds him as he moves about the castle, that I notice how the disease is slowly wearing him down.
I miss the big, towering, scary king. I would love to be intimidated by him, rather than the swell of pity and sadness building in my chest.
I pause in the doorway, suddenly unsure how to step forward—not as prince, not as heir, just as a son.
“Nicholas,” he says, his voice thin but warm. “You hover like your mother used to.”
I manage a smile and move closer. “Am I disturbing you?”
“No. I’m not up for festivities tonight.”
I pull a chair beside the bed and sit. Up close, the changes are impossible to ignore—the hollowed cheeks, the gray tint beneath his skin. The man who once filled every room now seems swallowed by it.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“I visited Saint Brigid’s today,” I say finally. “Got my butt whooped in hockey.”
A faint smile touches his lips. “You playing hockey? Parliament is scandalized.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “I think I was the worst goalie in Ardenian history.”
A quiet moment lands between us. I straighten in my chair, forcing myself into the speech I rehearsed all evening.
“Father…I’ve been thinking.” My hands clasp together. “About the future. About Ardenia.”
He watches me carefully.
“I want to be king,” I continue. “I wish to retract my renouncement of rights. These are our people, and I will do right by them. I am ready to step into this role, when the time comes. Being king requires many responsibilities, but marrying a woman is not one of them.” I keep my jaw tight, staying strong.
He doesn’t react. “And, if that means I must remain single, then I am ready to make that sacrifice for the country I love. There are still ways for me to produce an heir. Modern medicine is quite astounding.”
The rise and fall of his chest continues its steady rhythm. Silence stretches between us.
I expect outrage. Bellowing fury about making a mockery of the crown. About responsibility.
Instead, my father closes his eyes. When he speaks again, his voice trembles.
“As I lie here,” he says slowly, “I find my fears have changed.”
I frown. “Father?”
“It isn’t proper planning for a king and queen to only have one child. You have the heir, and then you have the spare. We tried, of course, but nature had other plans. That, understandably, put a lot of pressure on you.” He breaks into a harsh cough. I pat his back, offer him water.
“I once feared Ardenia without an heir. Without stability. Without continuity. But now…” His gaze shifts to me. “That is not what keeps me awake.”
He sits up, putting us eye level.
“My greatest fear,” he says, “is leaving this earth knowing my son is miserable and hates me.”
The words knock the air from my lungs.
“I don’t hate you,” I say quickly.
He gives a faint, sad smile. “No. But you have been unhappy for a very long time.”
I don’t know how to answer that. The vindication I thought I would find from that admission isn’t here, only more sadness.
He looks toward the ceiling, gathering strength.
“I was so determined to be a good king,” he continues. “Your grandfather taught me that the crown must come before everything. Before comfort. Before desire. Before family.”
His hand shifts weakly against the blanket.
“I believed sacrifice made me noble.” His voice softens. “But somewhere along the way, I stopped being a good father.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” he says gently. “I saw you with the other children. You were always…different. Your mother commented on it once. She found it delightful. I told her to never mention it again. Rather than face the truth, I chose to ignore it in the hopes it would go away as you got older.”
“It didn’t. It’s who I am.” I wish I could’ve talked to my mother about this. She saw who I was, and she was delighted. How different my life could’ve been if she were here.
“I see that clearly now.” He heaves out a heavy breath, eyes heavy with guilt. “I taught you duty before joy. Obligation before self. And so I watched you grow lonelier each year and called it strength.”
My throat tightens.
“I thought that was what princes were meant to be,” he says. “Unbreakable.”
A long pause follows. Then he turns his head toward me fully, eyes sharp despite exhaustion.
“Do you love him?”
The question lands without warning. I don’t need clarification.
Hank fills my mind instantly: his crooked smile, grease-stained hands, the way he laughs without restraint, the warmth of his house, the safety I felt sitting beside him watching terrible Christmas movies.
My voice barely works.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I do.”
My father studies my face like he’s memorizing it.
“Does he make you happy?”
I swallow hard. “Yes.”
“Do you feel like yourself with him?”
The answer comes immediately. “Yes.”
He exhales slowly, as though releasing something he’s carried for decades.
“Then you must be with him.”
I blink back tears. “Father—”
“I am dying, Nicholas,” he says plainly. “Titles lose their power when you are counting breaths instead of years.”
Emotion cracks through his composure.
“I spent my life believing the kingdom needed perfection from me. But Ardenia survived my mistakes. It will survive yours.” His eyes shine. “What it will not survive is a king who has forgotten how to live.”
My chest aches. Soon, I will be on this earth with no parents.
“But the heir—”
“We will solve the future,” he says firmly. “Kings always do. But I will not send my son into a lifetime of loneliness.”
His hand reaches for mine. I take it carefully, startled by how fragile it feels.
“I do not want my last gift to you to be a cage,” he says. “I am so sorry you got your heart broken.”
Tears blur my vision.
“I pushed you toward duty because I believed it would protect you,” he continues softly. “Now I see it only isolated you.”
He squeezes my hand weakly.
“Papa.” My voice breaks. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I want one million more of these moments.
“Go to the man you love.”
The words undo something inside me.
“I don’t know if he still wants me,” I admit.
My father smiles faintly. “Then you must do what kings are rarely brave enough to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Ask.”
I sit there holding his hand, realizing that for the first time in my life, he is not speaking to me as a king instructing his heir. He is speaking as a father trying, at last, to set his son free.