The Heir And The Spare

#1

NOTE: this book is currently being edited. this is a FIRST draft so there is definitely room for improvement. I write on wattpad purely to share my work and most of what I post are all first drafts so please don't expect this story to be perfect.

ONE

'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.' - George R.R. Martin

I am almost positive today there will be a murder. And I'd like to think it's not mine. But if Claudia Winthorpe has anything to do with it, I'll be dead, buried with a diary bashed over my head before I can even utter another word.

You could say I have a knack for getting myself into shitty situations - the kind that no matter what you do, you are always the one left looking like a complete idiot. And out of the numerous shitty situations I have put myself in, this could easily be summed up as being one of the worst.

I should probably make it clear that Claudia Winthorpe is mad, like off the scales mad and not in the way of saying she has a diagnosable condition, because if she did, at least there would be a medical answer for why this girl acts the way she does. No. Claudia Winthorpe has an inane ability since we were toddlers to make everything in the entire world all about her.

I know I've only got myself to blame for this one. I shouldn't have entered the screaming match we're both in, my lungs screaming for air. Claudia has turned positively feral. Her eyes are dilated, her lips puckered and she has run her hand through her blonde curls more times than I can now count.

"This is ridiculous," I wheeze, my voice dropping several octaves as I catch my breath. The monotone reaction displayed across Claudia's face is only more aggravating and she raises one of her thin, manicured brows in a look of distaste. "Look, you can't just come in here and take what isn't yours."

This is clearly not the right thing to say because her small face scrunches up.

"Isn't mine?" her mouth gapes, "that belonged to my great, great grandmother!"

I am beyond this argument now. I want to pick the object in question up and lob it at her smug face because at least the backlash from that would be a walk in the park compared to the twenty-minute argument I'm now stuck in. What's worse, we are fighting over a book. The leather wrapped, gold embossed book that currently resides on my lap is a diary written by one of my ancestors from the eighteen hundreds. Claudia seems to think she has some mad claim over it because her great, great grandmother looked after the book, among the rest of the contents of the main royal library when the palace we are now standing in was being built some hundred or so years ago.

Apparently, that makes the book hers.

"I can't even believe we are arguing about this, it is insane," I shake my head in disbelief, watching as her eyes narrow down to the diary in my lap. "You are insane."

Claudia, who up until now has been standing before me, unfolds her arms from her chest and bends down, her blonde hair swinging in front of her face.

"You think you know everything, don't you, Eva?"

I bite back the retort springing to my lips. This girl, without fail, resorts back to the same insult as if nineteen years of butting heads hasn't told her that the words she is about to sprout mean little – if anything – to me

"You might be a Princess, Eva Windsor but you're nothing more than a step down from the rest of society. You're the girl grasping at the ladder trying to catch up. You're the insane one." Claudia leans away enough that my eyes snap onto a figure beside the door. Charlotte, my cousin who also happens to be my best friend is watching the both of us like we're a game of tennis and this is the best match she has ever attended.