The Bastard (Darling #2) [complete]

Chapter Thirty-Six

A S  H E paced outside of the ballroom doors for the last time as Prince Thatcher Cornelius Darling, crowned prince of Darling, Thatcher could hear the murmurs of guests from behind the closed doors, anxiously waiting for their prince to be crowned king.

Anxiously waiting to meet their next king.

Was he truly ready for it all? Was he truly ready to be the next king of Darling?

No, he answered himself. He was not ready. There was still so much that he had to learn. There was still so much he had to know about the state of the nation before he went into it blindly.

He supposed he did not need to know all of that. Most kings, if not all, did not get their proper training before being crowned king. They all went into it blindly. They all went into it scared that they would not do right by their country. They all were afraid that they would not succeed.

But they had to. People's lives depended on them.

That thought alone scared Thatcher beyond belief. He would have lives that he would need to protect and take care of.

When in the cabinet meeting earlier that afternoon, he was assured he would not be alone in the wilderness when he would be crowned king. The other members would always be there during his time of need - at any hour of the day or night. Although he hoped it to be true, he also did not want to become reliant on their knowledge. He was more than certain his father was not - which could have been why he was such a loose cannon - but the soon-to-be king hoped he would be able to catch on swiftly, and not need to ask any ambassadors or council-people for assistance; unless it was greatly needed, of course.

Thatcher was not the youngest prince to be crowned king of Darling. In fact, the youngest was his grandfather, King Cornelius at the age of seventeen. The crowned prince assumed he had been quite frightened himself. He was only a child, walking blindly into a mess or situation his own father caused, but had to endure or solve anyway for the sake of the country.

And Cornelius prospered.

He succeeded.

If he did not succeed, then Thatcher would not be standing outside of those same ballroom doors his father and his grandfather walked through.

From what he learned in regards to his grandfather, he was not a very kind man, just like King James. Perhaps, he often thought, it was where King James got his anger issues from.

Like son, like father.

It also feared Thatcher to think he would become just like both of those men. He prayed, for the sake of his own sanity and the ones he loved, he would not become that. He had grown up hating his father for how he was treated: the whippings, the slaps, and the verbal abuse... He never would dream of hurting his future heirs in the same way.

He could not.

He refused.

But his father very well could have thought the same, and look at how he turned out... Every opportunity he sought, Thatcher was at the other end of a whipping, even if it was not his own fault.