Royal Package - Lili Valente Page 0,1
a broken heart if she knew she’d never get to see one of her girls become a “real” princess.
Since the vote that relegated our family to ceremonial status, without taxpayer support or any power over our country’s governing process, my sister’s betrothal to Prince Andrew of Gallantia has been the hope my mother’s clung to like a sugar addict guarding the last chocolate croissant in the bakery. She’s raised Lizzy to believe that marrying Andrew is her duty and destiny, and no amount of common-sense talk from my younger sister or me has been able to change Lizzy’s mind.
But we’ve both tried. Hard.
Especially Zan.
My younger-by-ten-minutes sister, Alexandra, is a fiercely independent businesswoman presently living in Zurich who considers arranged marriage so horrifically medieval that she plans to wear black to the wedding in protest.
Maybe it’s the fact that we’re triplets that’s made Lizzy’s fate so hard to stomach. Zan and I know that if the stars had aligned a little differently on that cold December day, it would have been one of us led to the slaughter instead of sweet, shy Lizzy.
But as Lizzy’s identical twin—Zan shared a womb with us, but she doesn’t share our matching DNA—I can’t help but feel it’s worse for me. I can sense Lizzy’s emotions, even when miles separate us. I know she’s miserable to be leaving home.
As I head down the trail, leaving my campers to get settled in their yurts before the guided hike this evening, I catch waves of Lizzy-flavored melancholy wafting up the mountain toward me.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I will lose my sister forever.
Every time I think about it, tears prick my eyes. I’ve always been a look-on-the-bright-side kind of person, but lately, the sunny side has been hard to find.
I can’t bear the thought of my sister married to Andrew the Atrocious.
I only spent one summer with Andrew and his brothers, but that month by Lake Lucerne was enough to make me loathe the Royal Turd. Even under the supervision of the nannies hired to watch over the six of us while our parents and the boys’ grandfather drank too much German wine and debated the terms of Andrew and Lizzy’s betrothal, Andrew managed to make Lizzy cry no less than ten times.
He thought his pranks—everything from the relatively benign “crickets in the oatmeal” trick to the more brutal stashing of snakes in Lizzy’s bed—were hysterical. Zan and I were not amused, of course, but poor Lizzy was traumatized.
She still checks her sheets at least twice before she turns out the light, just to make sure nothing slithery is hiding under the covers.
And no, it doesn’t matter that the snakes weren’t venomous, or that Andrew was only nine years old. My sisters and I had only been five at the time, and all three of us knew better than to torment other children, and our parents were far more checked out of the parenting process than the Gallantian elders.
Surely, Prince Andrew had been warned by his grandfather to be kind to his future bride and her sisters, but he made a different choice. Sometimes people just turn out rotten, no matter how hard their parents and grandparents try to raise them to be decent human beings.
These days, Prince Andrew seems to be your average playboy prince, rambling around the globe with his brothers, drinking too much, partying too hard, and taking scandalous pictures with half-naked women. But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s still got a mean streak.
Once a snake-hider, always a snake-hider.
And once they’re hitched, he’s going to be hiding his snake in my sister.
The thought makes my stomach turn. Lizzy deserves better. She deserves a man who worships her, a man she can’t wait to share her life and her bed with.
Which is why you have to do something, Sabrina. Now! Before it’s too late.
“But what?” I grumble as I head through the garden and into the afternoon shadows cast by the only home I’ve ever known. I talk a tough game, but I’ve never lived anywhere but here, with my parents. I was homeschooled by various nannies, got my botany degree online, and have lived a very sheltered life. I’m unfit to lock horns with a worldly opponent like Prince Andrew.
Or even my parents.
My parents mean well, but they’re from another age. They were raised to believe that children should be seen and not heard, that food magically appears at the table without any effort on their part, and that the cash to fund castle expansion and