Usually this part of the jump is where your heart starts to slow, where you realize where you are, what you’re doing—that you made it. You’re safe. As you float down to earth, you carry nothing inside you but awe, knowing that you’re just a tiny bright-colored parachute soaring toward a cerulean-blue fjord, eagles at eye level.
But there is no peace and tranquility today.
There is none of that sharp focus and clarity that always comes during a jump, where my scattered world seems to pause, just for one wonderful minute as I fall from the sky.
All I can focus on are Ottar’s words slicing through my head. I fucked up. And it’s not just his words either. It’s my sisters, it’s my parents, it’s the press. It’s the damn prime minister.
When you’re royalty and you do something stupid, everyone in the whole world, let alone the whole country, gets to weigh in on it.
And I’m the Crown Prince of Norway, heir to the throne, and my latest scandal just set the public image of our country back another hundred years.
No wonder it was easier to jump today than most days.
A scream pierces my thoughts and I look up, even though I can see nothing above me but the electric yellow of the chute. That was Ottar’s scream. This is only the second time the guy has BASE jumped, and for him, it’s one too many. Hell, no sane person would attempt this sport, but I have the nickname “Magnus the Mad” for a few good reasons.
The screaming seems to stop after a bit, which means Ottar probably pulled his chute, and now I have the ground to worry about.
Focus, fuckface, I tell myself, willing my brain to stop racing around and work before it’s too late. Everything is throwing me off. I grab the pulleys in front of me and steer myself toward the people standing on the small peninsula below me, hoping Ottar follows suit. His last landing was about as graceful as a cow being flung from a catapult.
There’s only a small patch of grass to land on—overshoot that and you’re going to smash into rock or the ice-cold waters of the fjord. Maybe it’s because my mind has been so liquid, but the grass is rushing up fast and I know that this is going to hurt like a mother.
My feet strike the ground and my legs immediately crumple, sending pain up my shins. I duck into a roll across the grass and then spring up just before my shoulder hits a slab of rock.
Helvete.
All the bystanders standing around are gawking at me and my not so graceful arrival.
I push my helmet on straighter, adjust my goggles, and give them all a quick bow. “Not a bad landing when the alternative is death,” I say with a big smile.
A few of them clap. These people just seem to be tourists, their speedboats pulled up along the shore, cameras around their necks to capture the crazy fuckers like me who do this famous jump.
And Ottar.
He’s screaming again, his legs kicking out as he rapidly descends toward us, his arms jerking on the handles, completely out of control. If he doesn’t slow down and steer he’s going to smash right into a few people, and then the rocks behind them.
This is going to get ugly.
Everyone is scattering, unsure of what to do, and I know this is all out of Ottar’s hands now. Even with his goggles covering up his eyes, I can tell they’re open wide, his mouth agape as he seems to freeze from terror.
I don’t even think. I start running toward him and leap up, crashing into him in the air while trying to wrap my arms around his thighs.
Somehow I manage to pull him down, like I’m plucking a big, fat, hairy bird out of the air, and then he’s crashing on top of me, squeezing the air out of my lungs as I smash into the ground.
“Oh my god, Your Highness!” he yells at me, and even though my mouth is full of grass, I’m already mumbling for him to shut up.
He rolls off me, and then I lie back, trying to catch my breath and hoping no one else heard his address.
“I am so sorry!” he goes on, patting my arms and thighs. “Are you alive?”