1
"Your mother is worried about you."
Valentin, crown prince of Glorvaird, looked up from the newspaper headline that had captured his attention.
His father, Cody Austin, strode into the blue breakfast room with his usual loose-limbed cowboy swagger. Valentin had attempted to imitate it once. He'd been all of ten, and his mother had politely hinted that a future king couldn't walk like that.
Mother's hints were always polite. Until they weren't.
"I'm fine," Valentin told his father as the older man settled in the chair across the small, round table covered in white linen and fine china. He folded the newspaper and laid it on the table beside his place setting.
Father leveled a look on him.
"I had my annual physical a few weeks ago,” Valentin said. “I'm as healthy as a horse." He wasn't the one who spent his life drinking and carousing and doing who-knew-what. Let Mother worry about his brother. Not Valentin.
"She's worried about your emotional health." Father grimaced. "I can't believe I just said that."
Valentin could. Mother was demanding and to-the-point. She had to be as reigning queen. But Father... Father had a sun-hardened facade that hid a soul sensitive enough that he was often the emissary Mother sent when she needed someone tactful.
Which meant the eighteen month reprieve Valentin had received was over.
The bite of eggs Benedict he'd put in his mouth turned to ash. It would be impolite to spit it out, even though it felt like he would vomit if he swallowed.
He swallowed anyway. Everyone said his heart was made of stone. Maybe the lining of his stomach was, too.
"Max phoned you, too?"
Dad's head came up, his eyes sharp. "No. He called you?"
Oh. He should've just asked Dad what was going on with Mother, not revealed something he'd rather have kept quiet.
"A few times. He left voicemails." Which Valentin had deleted without listening to. As far as he was concerned, his brother no longer existed.
But the curiosity and disappointment his father couldn't quite hide cut.
Valentin couldn't help the hit of guilt before he buried it. Max deserved what he got. Valentin never wanted to see him again, and he'd said so right to his brother's face.
But despite the fact that Max was a screw-up, Mother and Father didn't feel the same way.
"He probably blew through his allowance for the month," Valentin said grimly.
Tiny lines fanned his father's eyes. He hummed noncommittally.
It was time for a subject change. If Father called Max later to find out what bind his younger brother had gotten into, Valentin didn't want to know about it.
"If it wasn't that, what exactly has Mother worried?"
Now it was Father who laid down his fork. "We can talk about it later."
Or never. Never would be Valentin's preference.
Unfortunately, his mother was used to the entire country bowing to her wishes. And even if Father delayed, it wouldn't be long before Valentin discovered whatever this was.
"Tell me," he said.
If he wasn't mistaken, Father winced.
Valentin braced himself, imagining an invisible joist and braces shoring up the crumbling brick wall that was inside him.
