Chapter 14 #4
Christian's eyes flickered briefly to the chapel door, as if checking for eavesdroppers.
"Freddie was never worried about you," he said finally.
"About what would happen to you when he became king.
He knew your mother would try to... manage your life.
Find you a suitable wife, a respectable position.
But he'd just laugh, as if he knew something about you that no one else did. "
Hal nodded, not trusting himself to speak. What could he say? Thank you for this moment of honesty? I'm sorry we can't be the cousins Freddie wanted us to be? Be careful with my mother?
But as Christian turned to leave, he paused, looking back at Hal with an expression that might almost have been regret. "He would have believed in you," he said quietly. "In the kind of king you could be."
Then he was gone, the chapel door closing behind him with a soft click that echoed in the silence.
Sigrid moved around the coffin to stand beside Hal, her hand finding his. "What are you thinking?" she asked softly.
Hal stared at the door where Christian had disappeared, his mind racing with questions he couldn't answer.
About power, about protection, about what it truly meant to wear a crown.
About Jakob, and whether this separation had to be an ending or just the beginning of a longer fight.
The candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across the walls.
Hal felt something shifting inside him, a fundamental reordering of how he saw his future crown.
Not as a trap, but as a tool. Not as a burden, but as a weapon he could learn to wield.
"Freddie would have been a good king," He said, quietly.
"But he would have been the kind of king Mother wanted.
Dutiful, conventional, surrounded by the right sort of people making the right sort of choices.
" He paused, thinking of Christian's words, of Freddie's belief in him.
"I can't be that. But maybe... maybe the world isn't going to end if I have to be a different kind of king. "
"What kind of different?" Sigrid asked, though something in her tone suggested she already knew.
"The kind who doesn't let anyone—not even family—dictate who deserves protection and who doesn't. The kind who builds something strong enough that threats against the people I care about become meaningless.
" His jaw tightened with determination. "I'm thinking about Jakob.
I'm sending him to Finland because right now, I'm still just the spare who survived. But someday..."
Someday I'll be the king, he thought fiercely. And when I am, no one will be able to touch him. No one will be able to take him from me or use his family against me. No one will be able to make me choose between duty and love because I'll have made them the same thing.
"Someday?" Sigrid prompted softly.
"Someday I'll bring him home." The words came out quiet but absolute, like a vow. "And when I do, it will be because I've become strong enough—powerful enough—that no one can threaten what I love. Not Mother, not the government, not anyone."
Sigrid squeezed his hand. "That sounds like a king worth becoming."
Hal looked down at his brother one last time, feeling the full weight of what he was accepting. The crown had always felt like a cage, but maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe it could be a fortress.
"I hate it," he admitted quietly. "But becoming the kind of king who can keep him safe means first becoming the kind of man who can bear being apart from him."
The chapel fell silent except for the soft whisper of candle flames.
Hal stood with his sister beside their brother's coffin, feeling the weight of responsibility—invisible but undeniable—settling more firmly upon his shoulders.
But alongside that weight was something else now.
Not resignation, but resolve. Not fear, but purpose.
He would send Jakob away. He would learn to be Crown Prince, then King. He would become someone worthy of the power he'd inherit. And when he was strong enough, when he'd built something unshakeable...
He would bring Jakob home. And this time, nothing would separate them again.
November 26, 1939
"A moment, Harald." Gustav's voice stopped Hal as the ministers filed out. "In my study, if you would."
Hal couldn't remember the last time he'd been in his father's private rooms. The study smelled of pipe tobacco and leather, with undertones of the bergamot tea Gustav preferred.
Stacks of papers covered every surface, each pile weighted down with different objects – a brass compass here, a carved wooden horse there.
Gustav settled heavily into his armchair, gesturing for Hal to take the other. "You've handled all of this — your mother, the funeral, the demands of the council on you — well," he said, reaching for something on his desk. "Better than I expected."
The praise felt foreign, uncomfortable. Hal shifted in his seat. "I don't think that's what Mother would say."
"Your mother means well," Gustav said, though his tone suggested even he didn't quite believe it. “But she will never understand what I do, and what you are about to have to do.”
His father pressed his hand to Hal’s.
“You are about to be inducted into one of the most exclusive fraternities in the history of humanity, my son. The brotherhood of crowned heads. There are so few of us left, and fewer still who actually wield any power in their countries. Freddie would have been one of us, but now it will be you instead.”
Hal felt his heart sink knowing that he was a sad, pitiful replacement for his resplendent older brother. His father must have read that in his face.
“No, my son,” Gustav said, sadly. “I don’t mean that you are less than Karl Fredrick would have been. You’re very different children, and will be very different kinds of Kings, but who am I to say which one would have been better? Especially in the uncertain times we find ourselves in.”
“I don’t feel ready.” Hal admitted.
“You aren’t ready. But you will be ready when the time comes. You will have no other choice.”