Chapter Two
KYRIAKOS HAD NEVER wanted his cousin’s throne—or any throne, for that matter.
He had been of a mind to refuse it when he had first been told of his cousin’s collapse into a coma—an aneurysm, they had discovered soon after—followed too soon by the news that there was no hope of recovery.
Then Venediktos had, in fact, died and Kyriakos had wanted to step aside and keep his private life—but he had too much love for his country to hand it over to his venal, opportunistic uncle.
Panayiotis was in no way a decent man, despite what his bride might imagine.
And Kyriakos did not have it in him to walk away from a disaster he could have prevented.
He had never wished to live off of the principality the way many royals in many countries did, but that did not mean he did not love the place.
On the contrary, he rather thought he loved Zaccaria enough to take care not to exploit his relationship to the Prince.
That was always how he’d chosen to live his life.
Though tonight he rather wished he had less of a sense of duty and responsibility. Or that he’d loved his cousin—and his country—less.
He stood in the forbiddingly thick-walled palace that felt far more like a prison to him, despite its grandeur.
He was aware of all the revelry going on outside as the royal reception carried on into the night.
The entire Royal Quarter of the island was thrown wide open for the occasion and Zaccarian citizens and guests were encouraged to stream about as they would, making merry on such an auspicious day.
In medieval times, he supposed, the day would have been one of great relief.
Whatever factions existed between the dead Prince and his successor were now merged in the form of the same woman.
The Princess was his now and any plan she might have been cooking up to depose him, or set up someone else as the rightful heir, could come to nothing.
Not that Kyriakos could imagine the excruciatingly correct Aikaterini lowering herself to plot. What would that do to her spotless, saintly image?
Nonetheless, many in her position had. It was all laid out in the history of the principality. It had happened before—and was the reason for the laws that had bound the two of them today. It would likely happen again.
Power made fools out of everyone in the end.
Kyriakos knew this too well.
He stood at one of the windows that were clearly a late addition to the palace, after someone—long after the medieval period—had decided a bit of light might not go amiss in all the stout, heavy stone.
Despite himself, he was looking down into the main bit of garden that was closest to the palace, where the Princess herself was seated in a chair, entertaining a steady flow of well-wishers.
He had kissed her, as required. There was no reason it should dance in him still, like a flame he could not manage to extinguish.
She had always been beautiful. He’d been aware of her growing up, though both she and his cousin had been younger than him.
Aikaterini had been pretty as a girl and she had only grown more beautiful with the years, but he had always thought of her the way he thought of the island of Zaccaria itself. Something of a museum piece.
And she had always been his cousin Venediktos’s. So any impression Kyriakos might have had of Venediktos’s betrothed had always been remote and without heat. She might as well have been one of his cousin’s crowns.
Venediktos himself had always amused Kyriakos. The former Prince had been a willowy sort of man, deeply committed to appearances in all things, and the appearance he most liked to convey was one of boundless elegance and calm, quiet refinement.
Kyriakos had therefore taken great pleasure in scandalizing Venediktos—gently, he’d thought—with his various escapades over the years.
The fight club he and his two best friends had set up at Cambridge, for example.
Nothing could have been less acceptable for any of them.
One of his friends was Vesuvius of Liandero, even then destined for the throne of his alpine kingdom, a tiny country carved out in the mountains above Italy and below Liechtenstein.
Vesuvius had been saddled with an ironclad betrothal since birth, to a woman who, at best, could be considered a pit viper—but this meant he’d viewed his university days as an opportunity to do the things he knew he could not once he was king.
It was good to remember that things could be worse than an archaic law that had required him to marry a woman not of his choosing, Kyriakos thought then. Because whatever else Aikaterini might have been, she was no snake.
Their other best friend was from another noble family who had been in Liandero’s highest circles since antiquity.
Saviero Cimarosa had always been destined to assume his high ministerial position in Vesuvius’s cabinet.
Perhaps that was why, on the surface, Saviero had appeared to be the reigning conscience among them.
The truth was rather more complicated, of course.
They had gotten in all manner of trouble over the years, though Kyriakos had always taken the blame. Vesuvius could not be seen to sully himself as he prepared to take the throne, and the man well known to be his best friend and most trusted advisor could not, either.
So they had worked together to save the reputations that required saving, never imagining that Kyriakos would end up here. The reigning Prince of Zaccaria.
They flanked him now, standing there in silence, because what was there to say?
Venediktos had been younger. He had married years ago. He should have stayed as healthy as he’d looked and had a proper heir and spare at once. Then none of this would have happened. There should never have been the slightest possibility of this happening.
And yet.
“It is likely harder for you to sink into this as you must,” Vesuvius pointed out, his own gaze on the Princess down below.
“You’ve never had to spend years and years of your life preparing to live it entirely at the behest of your people.
And old laws that read as if they were created entirely to torture you. ”
Not that the man was bitter about his impending nuptials to the serpent queen, who had recently informed him that she wished to procreate via test tube and that Vesuvius should prepare for a life of abstinence and inner reflection.
Still.
“Given that you have been by my side for years and years of your life, up to absolutely no good,” Kyriakos pointed out, “I rather doubt that you’ve done much preparing for these things, either.”
“I am the kingdom and the kingdom is me,” replied his friend, as he often did, as it was advice he’d received at a young age from his distant and disapproving grandfather. Usually he said it sardonically, or to elicit a laugh.
That was not the case tonight, clearly.
“And what of your bride?” Saviero asked in his usual calm, measured way. He nodded down at Aikaterini, who managed to seem completely apart from the throng of admirers around her even while in the thick of them.
Kyriakos couldn’t decide if it was that he admired most or least about her.
And that kiss still haunted him, the flicker of that flame licking at him even when he was certain it had been vanquished. Because it should have been vanquished. It should not even have registered.
“What of her?” Kyriakos asked and was pleased he sounded something like careless.
“You were there. You saw her speak her vows and make herself my wife. And then kneel before me and swear unto me her undying fealty, amen. I am certain that will lead to precisely the sort of wedded bliss she has been known for all along.”
No one commented on his sardonic tone, however. Possibly because it was far too dark.
“My future bride hates me too,” Vesuvius said, almost cheerfully.
“Of course, in my case, that is because she hates everything. I suspect she may attempt to poison me in my sleep on the night our first child is born, when she can safely be done with me. That would be a blessed escape, in my case. I doubt you would feel the same.”
Kyriakos was still not used to wearing these clothes that were required of him now.
The suits were exquisitely tailored, and he had always liked a gloriously well-cut suit, but he couldn’t say he much cared for all the hardware that went with it.
All the flashy coins and medals and the rest of it.
All the things that marked him Prince of Zaccaria.
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, something he had been repeatedly advised not to do by the palace staff. But they weren’t here right now.
“I don’t think Aikaterini hates me,” he told his friends. “I think that she’d like to hate me. A critical distinction.”
Next to him, Saviero, who Kyriakos had always suspected harbored a tragic crush on Vesuvius’s wild child younger sister, the scandalous Princess Cesca, let out a short laugh. “Good news,” he said. “You can work with that.”
And again, that flame seemed to dance over him, and through him, and the feel of her mouth beneath his and her hand in his grip—
This was madness, he thought.
He was something like grateful when duty called—in the deferential tones of the palace staff.
They all shook hands and clapped each other on the back, and Kyriakos wondered when it was he would see his friends again.
It had been their custom that he, who had no dynastic responsibilities, would make himself available around Vesuvius’s busy schedule.
But now he had his own.
He followed the staff member down the stairs and allowed himself to be led outside.
The last year had been a crash course in royal duty, and he liked to think that he had risen to the occasion in a way that honored his cousin.
But the truth was, he had never imagined that this would be his job.
He did not imagine now that he would impress anyone with his execution of it.