Page 1 of Heavy Crown

one

Alex

Whenever I was summoned to my father’s—the king’s—office as a kid, I expected trouble. As an adult and the first in line to the throne, my father and I meet all the time. Finding the request on my calendar isn’t unusual, but given the swirl of controversy surrounding the monarchy right now, I’m uneasy that something else is about to be dropped on me.

When I arrive to his office, the crowd greeting me is a surprise. My younger brothers, Brice and Nick, along with Nick’s soon-to-be wife, Julia, are lounging on the couch. My mother is at my father’s shoulder, standing at attention. My father’s semi-retired secretary, who also happens to be Julia’s mother, is also present. Finally, Desmond, the secretary I share with Nick and Brice, is here too. Every person who could either plot against me or rescue me from my own stupidity is in the room. Thankfully, it’s a big office.

“This feels ominous,” I say. They’ve left the seat directly in front of my father’s desk free.

As a child, standard conversations on etiquette and protocol were had around the dinner table, on our private jet, or in various hotel rooms. If we were called to the office, we were in trouble. Big trouble. My father would be seated across the desk from one or more of us, a reprimand on his lips and suggestions ready for a slew of community service hours. In those instances, he wasn’t my father, he was the king.

This crowd, though, is abnormal—whether in celebration or castigation.

“I wanted to make sure everyone was here for this conversation.” My father taps a thick book on his desk with his index finger.

Is that the coronation manual? I haven’t actually read it. Julia, my younger brother’s fiancée and my father’s current secretary, is in charge of organizing the exchange of power, both the ceremony and legalities.

I examine each person in the room, and no one meets my gaze. Not unusual—as my brother Nick likes to claim, I’m the asshole in the family. It’s a title I don’t relish, and one I’m not convinced I always deserve, but I’m not going to deny I can be abrupt and direct. I am who I am.

“Must be a big mess if you needed everyone. Did you invite the butler too?” I check behind me.

“Alexander,” my mother admonishes me.

I run my palms along the armrests of the chair. “Who’s in charge of delivering the doom and gloom?” Ever since my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I haven’t been sure whether he should be leading Bellerive, and he has, for the most part, shared that opinion.

The coronation is almost a year away, but his cognitive decline might not be so predictable.

With the public referendum on legalizing assisted suicide and my father’s disease out on social media, our island politics are in disarray. The Advisory Council of Bellerive, our national government, passed a temporary measure to eliminate royal input until I’m king. They cannot risk a political misstep by having my father involved, especially with some of them up for re-election. Cutting us out isn’t a problem as long as none of the issues require the tie-breaking vote the sovereign provides.

Fingers crossed the country can make it through the year.

“The page is marked.” My father passes the manual across the table to me.

I flip it open to the highlighted section and breathe out a frustrated grunt. “‘Prior to the coronation, the heir apparent must be wed,’” I read aloud. “To become king, I need a wife? What kind of archaic bullshit is this?” I glance up, and my gaze connects with my mother’s. “Am I interpreting this correctly?”

“You are,” my mother confirms. “You’ll be the youngest king in hundreds of years, so the marriage rule has never been, as far as we can tell, an issue before. We’ve had several policy people tear the thing apart. With your father now declared…” She seems to fumble for a kind way to phrase his decline. “Unable to fulfill his duties, we can’t even legally change the coronation framework. The line is binding. Of course, once you’re king, you can change whatever you wish with the proper public approval process.”

I toss the hefty manual back on the desk and rub my face. “I can change the requirement once I’m married, and I’m the king. But to update the rule, I need a wife. The wife rule is the one I’d prefer not to follow in the first place.” I give a mirthless chuckle. “It’s not as though marriage is going to suddenly turn me into a better ruler and policy maker.”

Without thinking, I glance at Julia, but she’s avoiding my gaze. Probably for the best. I just promised Nick the other day that I’d stop interfering in their relationship and hoping for something with Jules that will never happen. Old habits die hard.

If the clause about a wife had come out any earlier, we all know I’d have pushed her to assume the royal duty. Asking her wouldn’t have been about love. She would have been my best—if most complicated—option.

“Well,” I say. “Even if Father can’t legislate a change to the coronation, I would think the advisory council could?”

My father shakes his head. “Unfortunately, they cannot. Again, it’s another change you are welcome to make once you’re king, but as of right now, all royal rule changes, regardless of the circumstances, have to be made by the king and vetted by the royal family as a whole.”

“No one actually knows the entire coronation manual.” I gesture to what looks like a four- or five-hundred-page tome on his desk. “Is anyone going to notice that page 302 says I should have a wife and I don’t?”

At that, Julia perks up. “There’s always renewed interest in coronation protocol when one is about to happen. All available manuals have been checked out of the local libraries. Desmond has fielded and fulfilled four requests for the manual in the last week.”

Instead of looking at Julia, I glare at Desmond, my shared secretary. “Perhaps you should have run that past me.”

“I asked the king,” he says. “The requests were approved.”

My father sighs. “People are interested. Their interest helps to keep us relevant in a world where monarchies have become mostly obsolete or merely figureheads. There’s no getting around the clause, Alex. What we need is a brainstorming session of suitable matches for you.”

I smack my lips in displeasure and run a frustrated hand through my hair. “Let’s not and say we did. My future wife is not a roundtable discussion.”