The Crown Wars

There are moments in our lives that define us. Moments that are etched into our minds with indelible ink, and no matter how many years pass, no matter how many memories fade, they remain there, alive, as though they happened only yesterday. It is strange, but at the same time fascinating, how one decision, one word, one step forward or backward can change the course of our lives so dramatically.

Now, I believe it wholeheartedly. Everything that has happened, every tear, every laugh, every moment of loneliness and doubt led me to this moment. To this exact point. With me watching, overwhelmed with emotion, as the crowd erupts into wild celebration beneath the palace’s magnificent marble balcony.

The sun is slowly setting behind the hills, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that look as though they have been taken straight from a painting, as if nature itself wants to celebrate.

He is standing beside me. I feel closer to him than ever before. He has finally managed to believe in himself, to see himself through my eyes. And that, more than any medal, is my greatest victory.

Who would have told me six months ago that I would fulfill my biggest dream and one of the greatest goals of my life in this very place?

On this balcony that has welcomed kings and queens for centuries, that has witnessed love blossom and betrayals unfold beneath the same moon. That has heard vows of eternal devotion and whispers of conspiracies that changed the fate of entire generations. Wars were declared and peace treaties were signed in rooms just a few meters behind me. How many stories could these marble walls tell if they had a voice? How many women have stood here, in this exact spot, looking out at the crowd, feeling the weight of history on their shoulders? And now, me. Celeste. The girl from the cheap student apartments who counted coins for rent and studied nuclear medicine until dawn.

And at the same time, who could have imagined that I would fall in love with a man who, even though we are so different -like fire and water, like day and night- I see myself in him? As if I were looking into a mirror that reflected not my image, but my soul. My insecurities. My dreams. The fears I keep buried deep inside me and don’t dare admit even to myself.

Never before have I felt such intense excitement about a new beginning. My beginning. Our beginning.

But let’s start from the beginning.

6 Months Earlier

“No way!” I declared firmly, lifting myself from the plush sofa in the living room and crossing my arms over my chest in a stance I hoped would make it absolutely clear to Anne that, this time, she was not going to get her way.

The sofa, a cheap leftover from my previous student apartment, let out a protesting creak as I stood up abruptly.

In my tiny living room, everything was arranged with almost manic precision. My medical textbooks were stacked in order, organized by subject and year, my notes color-coded in labeled folders, the mugs on the shelf with their handles facing to the right, perfectly aligned.

I felt that as long as I could control the environment around me, put things in their proper places, organize and categorize them, perhaps, if I was careful enough, systematic enough, perfect enough, I could control all the things I was afraid of, too. Loss. Abandonment. The unpredictable. If life was chaos, I would be the one to create a little corner of order within it. A sanctuary. An illusion that nothing bad could happen when everything was in its proper place.

A foolish illusion. Just like the illusion that I could hide from the outside world, from decisions, from life itself. But Anne stood there, living proof that no amount of order could protect you from her enthusiasm.

With her familiar expression, the one she knew drove me crazy, she followed my movement and excitedly linked her arm through mine. Her long hair, dyed a shade of red that seemed to change every time I saw her, tangled with my brown hair.

“Oh, come on, Celeste! Don’t be difficult!” Her eyes were shining with excitement. “It’s been our dream since we were little!”

“Correction. Your dream.”

I pulled my arm away, trying to maintain some distance, although I knew it was pointless. Anne always made me feel as though my refusal was merely a temporary delay before the inevitable agreement.

“So you’re telling me you don’t remember how, back in the summer of 2009, we watched that documentary about the royal family’s life over and over again and dreamed about a reality where we were members of it, too?” She raised one finger authoritatively, like a lawyer delivering her final verdict. “Was all of that just in my head?”

I sighed.

“Of course I remember! We watched it seven times, Anne. Seven. Only because you discovered your love for Prince Christian at the tragic age of ten.” I lowered my head. “Besides, I can’t imagine myself as a princess even in my worst nightmares. A servant, maybe. Sweeping marble floors and complaining about tourists.”

Her laughter filled the little room. She had surely remembered that time she dressed up as Snow White for that school costume party while I was the evil queen, because no one else wanted to do it. We had taken pictures I was still embarrassed to look at.

Her insanity was the only motivation I needed to finally get up from my comfortable spot and head toward my tiny kitchen. I couldn’t continue this conversation on an empty stomach. I needed reinforcements.

The delicious smell confirmed that the soft chocolate chip cookies were ready. I had made them earlier in an attempt to calm down after Anne had been pressuring me for three days. The exhaustion of the day, studying, working at the bar, all of it seemed to disappear as the warm, sweet smell filled the room.

Although my apartment was small, so small it could easily have been described as a rabbit hutch, it was my own personal palace. A little different from the one my best friend dreamed of, but mine. Completely mine.

I took the baking tray out of the oven, and the smell became even stronger. The chocolate had melted and spread across the dough.

It was strange that a little apartment like this meant so much to me. But ever since I lost my parents -I was only seven, an age when no child should ever have to learn what loss means- and the court decided that I had to live with my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, I had spent eleven whole years looking forward to the moment when I would live on my own.

I longed to wake up without hearing someone else’s footsteps in the hallway. To have complete silence in the morning.

To decorate my space however I wanted, with the colors I liked, not those neutral beiges my aunt chose so they wouldn’t be offensive, not the soft shades that “suited a girl,” but perhaps a bold blue wall, or a yellow blanket, or something completely ugly and tacky that only I would love. Without having to coordinate with anyone else’s aesthetic, without asking permission, without explaining why I liked this and not that.

To cook whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Pasta with ketchup at three in the morning, if I felt like it. Pancakes for dinner. To burn my food without anyone telling me, “What did you do this time?” or “Be a little more careful.” To make mistakes in my own kitchen, in my own chaos, and laugh about them by myself.

To spend my time however I chose, spending hours reading, or staring at the ceiling, or dancing without anyone watching me. Without feeling the need to prove something, to justify my existence. Because during those six years in my aunt’s house, every move I made seemed to bother someone, to disrupt something, to remind everyone that a sad and awkward child had intruded on their quiet life. I learned to apologize for my presence, to make myself invisible.

The right opportunity came when I was accepted into medical school. I had known since I was little that this was where I belonged, perhaps to heal, perhaps to understand, perhaps so I would never again feel as helpless as I had when I lost my parents, and finally, I had done it.

I wasn’t unhappy with my aunt and uncle, I want to make that clear. They loved me, took care of me as if I were their own child, gave me a home, food, and safety. I was truly grateful to them. But every time my aunt smiled, every time she laughed in that particular way, I saw my mother in that sweet expression. And it crushed me. Every smile was a reminder of what I had lost. Life with them was peaceful, stable, but also withdrawn. I wasn’t used to that. Before the accident, I had been a lively child who laughed loudly, ran around, and made noise. They had transformed me into a child who learned to walk on tiptoe so she wouldn’t disturb anyone.

“Celeste? Lost in your thoughts again?” Anne’s voice pulled me out of the whirlpool of memories. She had followed me into the kitchen and was now standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” I shook my head, chasing away the ghosts. “Look, Anne...”

I took a deep breath. I knew I had to say this properly.

“I know this is something you really want.” My voice came out quieter than I intended. Because as much as I disagreed, as much as my logic rebelled against it, I understood. I understood Anne. I had watched her cut pictures of the prince out of magazines and stick them into her notebook since we were little. I had heard her whisper his name before falling asleep, like a prayer. To her, it wasn’t just a dream. It was the compass that guided every step she took.

“And honestly, it’s an incredible opportunity for you to live in the palace for six months.” I meant it. In the middle of all her madness, she had a point. How often does someone get the chance to live in a palace? To walk through corridors kings had walked through, to sleep in rooms that had housed princesses? “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Truly.”

I smiled, and for a moment, I let myself imagine her there. Spinning around in some grand ballroom, laughing that loud laugh of hers, glowing beneath the chandeliers.

“And who knows...” I stopped, playing with the idea. “Maybe your ridiculous dream will come true. Maybe one day you’ll be standing in front of the whole country, making all those expressions you’ve practiced, while I’ll be somewhere in the crowd, among ordinary people, thinking, ‘I remember her when we were arguing over fortune cookies in my kitchen.’”

I bowed my head in a mock curtsy.

“Maybe one day I’ll bow to you as my queen. Although I’d rather be your lady-in-waiting so I can whisper to you when you make a fool of yourself. But you know I can’t come with you.”

I started counting on my fingers. “What about my job? What about my degree? My internship? Studying? My routine? And who’s going to take care of Meow? I can’t leave him alone, and I can’t take him to a palace!”

Meow, my cat, chose that exact moment to walk into the kitchen after hearing his name. He was a huge gray stray I’d found behind the bar two years ago and adopted despite my landlady’s objections. He looked at me with his brown eyes, meowed indifferently, and lay down on the floor, taking up all the available space.

Anne bent down and stroked him.

“First of all, let me remind you that we work at the same bar, so by that logic, I’ll lose my job too.” She looked up at me. “But Stella is our friend now. We’ve worked for her for years. I’m sure she’ll understand and, when we come back -if we come back- she’ll welcome us with a big hug and put us right back behind the bar, serving drinks to drunk students.”

She stood up and came closer to me.

“Also, we both know your graduation isn’t going to happen during the next semester. You haven’t even started your internship yet!” She paused, and I knew her best line was coming. She always saved her best arguments for last. Her eyes lit up as her lips curled into a mischievous smile. “We can take Meow with us. The palace is huge. No one will notice him.”

I laughed. It was so loud that it startled my own cat and made him jump out of his comfortable position. “I don’t think that’s how things work, Anne.”

I imagined the scene. Meow inside the palace. On the silk fabrics. Chasing pigeons through the royal gardens. Sleeping on the throne, just as he slept on the cushions of my tiny sofa, lazily stretching out his enormous body as if the whole world belonged to him.

“I don’t think the royal family has planned for ‘stray cat smuggled in by a medical student’ in their daily routine,” I added, wiping a tear from my eye.

But Anne wasn’t giving up. “No one needs to know. We’ll hide him. I’ve read enough novels to know how these things work. There’s always a secret door, a hidden passage, some servant who can secretly feed him.”

“Anne, those are books. In real life, cats meow loudly, leave fur everywhere, and definitely don’t know how to use secret passages.”

“You don’t know that.” She crossed her arms. “Meow is a special cat. He’s practically of royal blood. You can see it in his face.”

Our eyes fell on him as we watched him begin licking himself in a completely shameless position, one leg in the air and his gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

“Yes. Truly regal,” I said sarcastically. “Prince Christian will be jealous.”

“Please, can we stop arguing like lawyers?” Her voice took on a pleading tone. “Ever since we found out we won two places in this program, you haven’t stopped complaining and being negative. You haven’t stopped finding reasons not to do it for even a minute.”

She stepped closer. So close that I could smell her perfume, the cheap one she bought from the outdoor market that suited her personality so perfectly.

“Say yes, Celeste! Look at it from your nerdy side, too! The palace has incredible doctors, some of the best in the country. The royal family doesn’t hire just anyone. And maybe, who knows, maybe you could become part of their research. Work with them. Get recommendations.” Her eyes lit up. “There is no better place to make connections for your internship.”

With her enthusiasm, she was like a ray of light in a dark room. Indeed, the country’s most highly qualified doctors worked for the royal family. They had access to the best laboratories, the most modern equipment, the latest research. Even if I didn’t work directly with them, a recommendation from a royal physician could open doors I wouldn’t even dare dream of.

But was that enough? Was it enough to go to the real-life version of the reality show “The Bachelor”?

Because that was essentially what it was. Seven girls, six months in a palace, and a potential marriage proposal from the heir to the throne. They might have dressed it up with pretty words about education and ladies-in-waiting, but everyone knew what was really happening. Or at least, what they hoped would happen.

The life of the nobility had never interested me. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, nor had I ever had great luxuries, except for the one thing no amount of money can buy: two parents who loved me and a childhood filled with laughter.

My parents were ordinary people, both teachers. My mother taught literature at a public school, filling our home with books and stories about princes and princesses, never imagining that her daughter would one day meet real ones. My father was a mathematics teacher, the kind who stayed after school to help struggling students even though he wasn’t paid extra. We had enough to get by, yes, but nothing more. And we never lacked anything, because we had each other.

They left me a little money when they were gone that spring, the spring when my life was divided into “before” and “after,” but I never touched it. I kept it aside for an emergency. Not for my own survival, but for something else I couldn’t yet name. Maybe so I could still have something of theirs with me.

To live on my own, I worked. I found a job at Stella’s bar, a woman with no limits, a voice that could shatter glass, and a heart bigger than her own establishment. I served drinks to drunk students and couples on dates while preparing for my medical school exams. I counted coins for rent, saved on electricity and water, and learned to fix things myself so I wouldn’t have to pay a technician. And every night, when I returned to my tiny apartment, exhausted and with my feet aching from standing all day, I looked around and thought, “I did this on my own. This is mine.”

Those few square meters were mine. The silence was mine. The life I was building, inch by inch, was entirely mine.

And now Anne was asking me to leave it all behind for a fairy tale I had never cared to live.

Everything I had achieved so far, I had worked hard for. Very hard. I got into medical school because of my dedication to studying, not because of my surname. Besides, my surname meant nothing to anyone. My grades were the result of nights spent with coffee and notes, not private tutors and prep courses.

How would I survive living in the same place as so many nobles who would probably look down on me? How would I survive living with six other girls who, if they weren’t already part of that social circle, certainly desperately wanted to become members of it? Girls who would talk about clothes and handbags and vacations on islands whose names I couldn’t even pronounce?

For those who don’t know, let me explain: The Ceraun royal family opens the doors of the palace to seven lucky girls, preparing them for a life among the country’s upper class. It gives us the opportunity to become ladies-in-waiting, and one of us, as the rumors go, might even marry the new heir to the throne, Christian Ceraun.

Christian. Prince Christian.

I had seen him in photographs. Who hadn’t? Magazines, newspapers, advertisements, even postcards sold at newsstands. His face was everywhere. The country’s ultimate icon, the “Prince of Hearts,” as they called him, as though his heart belonged to everyone, as though it were something to be shared with the public.

Tall, blond, with eyes so blue they looked almost unnatural in photographs, as though someone had edited them, as though nature itself couldn’t possibly have created such a shade. I had never actually seen blue eyes up close. Only in movies and magazines. In my neighborhood, everyone had brown or black eyes, like me.

He was always smiling. At every public appearance, every ceremony, every photograph, that perfect smile was there, steady, bright, flawless. A smile he had probably learned as a child, in etiquette and public-image lessons. “Smile, Christian, even if you don’t feel like it. Smile, Christian, the people are watching.” I imagined him practicing it in front of a mirror.

His father had died suddenly of a heart attack a few years earlier, if I remembered correctly from the news my aunt had put on in the living room that day. The funeral had been broadcast on every channel. Anne had sobbed, not for the king, but for Christian, who had stood there motionless and pale, that smile gone for the first time.

And now, at twenty-eight, he was preparing to take the throne.

I wondered what it must be like to carry all that weight on your shoulders. To know from childhood that one day you would become king, that every move you made would be recorded, every word analyzed. To be unable to simply be a person, to make mistakes, laugh loudly, get angry, feel sad without it becoming a headline.

And yet, I was going to meet him. Me, Celeste, who had grown up without a mother and father, who worked at a bar to pay the rent, whose greatest fear was failing my exams. I was going to stand in front of Prince Christian.

The most interesting part, though, is how we were chosen. Because it wasn’t a beauty pageant, nor was it some complicated application process. It was something much more... strange.

About a month ago, the royal channel announced that on March 18, at exactly six in the evening -for punctuality was a matter of honor to the royal family- fortune cookies would be handed out at the café inside the Museum of History and Archaeology.

Fortune cookies. The little cookies of fate, as we called them back in my village. Those bland, slightly sweet cookies served at Chinese restaurants, which no one really knew whether they were Chinese or American or simply some marketing invention. Inside them, there was always a little slip of paper with a vague prediction: “You will soon meet an old friend,” or “Your fate is in your hands.” Things that could mean everything and nothing at the same time.

But in seven of them, instead of the usual saying, there would be the symbol of the royal family: a crown wrapped in orchids.

I had seen that symbol thousands of times. On flags, on television, on official documents, even on plates.

The announcement caused a frenzy. Thousands of girls had rushed to the museum that day. The television showed images of lines stretching across the entire block, girls in their best clothes, their hair done, wearing that look of anticipation belonging to those who believed in fairy tales. Some held signs with messages of love for Christian. Others had brought their mothers with them, who were even more excited than they were.

Anne had obviously dragged me along too. I remember waiting in line for hours under a sun that showed mercy to no one, while she talked nonstop about how she would feel when she held the little piece of paper, how she would turn around and look at the camera, how Christian would notice her from the very first second.

I just wanted it to be over so I could go home and study. I had exams. I had work. I had a life that had no room for fairy tales.

But she insisted. And, as always, I followed her.

“We’re not going to find anything. It’s stupid,” I complained as we waited in the enormous line.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll have the experience!” she insisted.

The next moment will remain unchanged in my memory. I had just mechanically broken the cookie in half, expecting nothing.

And there it was.

I stared at the little piece of paper for a moment without understanding. My mind, stuck on anatomy and diseases, couldn’t process what my eyes were seeing. A crown. In my fortune cookie. In my hand.

“Anne...” I whispered, but she had already started screaming.

And then I understood. My life, as I knew it, had just ended.

This tradition, as we learned later, wasn’t new. It had begun around the time Queen Elizabeth, Christian’s mother, married the late king. She hadn’t come from an aristocratic family. She was the daughter of a merchant, if I remembered correctly from the documentary we’d watched seven times. In this way, she wanted to show that every girl, regardless of her background, deserved the chance to find herself in the palace. Or at least, that’s how they had presented it.

Of course, Anne had to make sure she would be one of them. She had planned it from the beginning: we would go together, each take a cookie, and if I won, I would give it to her. She had the whole plan in her head.

When I opened hers, my heart pounding, I saw the same symbol inside.

We had both won.

Anne had already started dancing on the spot, shouting and hugging complete strangers.

“I’ll think about it.”

I said it more to make her stop than because I truly meant it. I picked up a warm cookie from the baking tray and ate the whole thing in one bite.

“That means yes!”

Excited, she came closer, her eyes shining like a child’s after being promised a trip to an amusement park.

Her pupils were dilated, her eyebrows slightly raised, and her lips formed that smile I knew so well, the smile of victory. The smile she wore every time she managed to convince me to do something I thought was impossible.

Anne always knew what I really wanted before I did.

“That means I’ll think about it,” I warned her.

“So that’s a yes!!”

I didn’t have time to react. She threw herself at me, hugged me tightly, and began spinning around, dragging me into an improvised dance across the full six square meters of my kitchen. Meow, clearly annoyed, got up and walked away with the dignity of an offended aristocrat.

“Celeste and Anne at the palace! Celeste and Anne, ladies-in-waiting! Celeste and Anne are going to meet the prince!” she sang as she spun around.

“Stop, please, the neighbors will hear us,” I whispered, throwing an anxious glance toward the wall separating us from the neighboring apartment. “They’re going to think there’s chaos in here, that someone is being murdered, or at least that we’re celebrating something very important.”

But she didn’t stop. She kept spinning, jumping, squeezing me in her arms as though she were afraid that if she let go, I would disappear along with the agreement she thought she had managed to get from me.

“Celeste and Anne at the palace! Celeste and Anne, ladies-in-waiting!” she sang quietly now, trying to comply with my warning, but her voice was trembling. “Celeste and Anne are going to meet the prince!”

I put my hand over her mouth, laughing. “They’re going to kick us out before we even get there when they find out I have a crazy friend.”

She laughed beneath my palm and finally stopped, breathless and bright red. She looked me in the eyes, and suddenly her expression became serious.

“You mean it, right? You’ll come?”

And I, at that moment, with my heart still pounding from the dancing, my mind still hazy from laughter, said what she wanted to hear.

“Yes, Anne. I’ll come.”

And somehow, without even understanding the exact moment I had agreed to this crazy idea, because I never said yes, I never said it clearly, or rather, I did say it but I didn’t really mean it, or I meant it but I didn’t know what it meant, I found myself standing in front of the palace’s great blue entrance.

Is it too late to turn back?