“It’s the initial reason why we went to see you,” Bel admitted. “I thought to get the gold from you, or at least have you sign the kingdom over to me so that I could get it for myself.”
“I think I see. But as long as you have gold, then we can go directly to see this water dragon?”
“Yes.” Off-handedly she added, “As long as he doesn’t eat us first.”
The king didn’t like this statement one bit. He lunged to his feet, hand grasping for a non-existent sword at his waist. “Isn’t this safe?!”
“Once the deal is made, certainly.” Sevana didn’t look perturbed by his reaction. “Dragons are very loyal to deals. But walking into a dragon’s territory uninvited is something that only the brave, foolhardy, or desperate do.”
“I think we qualify for all three.” Bellomi rubbed at his forehead. Some reunion chat this had turned out to be. “Father, calm down. I’m well aware of the risks. I’ll take them over staying cursed another five years, which is basically what it would take for Sevana to break the curse by a different method.”
“One year,” Sevana corrected easily. “I said it would take one.”
“We don’t have a year.” He turned to meet his father’s eyes. “Those mad, power-hungry fools have been controlling this kingdom for the past decade. They’ve been slowly destroying my kingdom. This stops now.”
“Son, please,” Aren knelt next to him, grasping both of Bellomi’s shoulders as he pleaded him. “One year is nothing. If there’s another, safer way, then do it that way. Don’t take risks like this. You’re my only child.”
Strangely enough, Bellomi didn’t feel pressured to do it his father’s way, as he always did as a child. Instead, he smiled at him, grasping one arm in a reassuring way. “Father, the only thing I fear is being locked back in that room. Anything else is an acceptable risk to me.” More lightheartedly he added, “Besides, I’ve already faced a dragon once. I came away unscathed. The next time can’t be more dangerous than that.”
“Truly,” Sevana muttered under her breath.
Aren looked back and forth between the two of them. “Wait, what happened?”
Bellomi told him the story of the mix-up with the dragon’s egg he accidentally stole. Somehow, that segued into telling some of the other mischief he’d done in the past few months. Sevana more or less left them to it, puttering around the fire cooking an early dinner, chiming in with a sarcastic comment now and again. The scene almost felt homey.
After eating, Bellomi rose to help Sevana with the dishes. His father looked surprised to see his son with a dishrag in hand, but Bellomi had learned how to be self-sufficient these past few months. He didn’t particularly like washing dishes, but he vastly preferred it to lounging about in a gilded cage with nothing constructive to do.
Aren cleared his throat and said from behind his son, “Well, I can’t wait until we’re home again.”
Something about his inflection made Bellomi think that this statement had an immediacy to it. Hands still covered in soap, he turned to study his father over his shoulder. The flickering firelight didn’t give the area perfect illumination, so he could be reading his father’s expression wrong, but…just to make sure… “You realize that we won’t be able to do that for several months at least.”
Eyes narrowing, his father responded slowly, “And why not? We need to go to Lockbright to retrieve the gold we need for you. After that, we can properly return home.”
“You think that simply being restored will make every problem magically disappear?” Bellomi put the dishes down and turned around to face his father directly. “Father, don’t be naïve. We still have no idea who did this to us. The Council abounds with unknown enemies.”
“Well, certainly, we’ll have the Artifactor give us a better set of magical shields before leaving.” Aren inclined his head in Sevana’s direction.
Sevana didn’t look up from the dish she was drying in her hands. “If you think there’s a perfect magical shield out there that can protect you from everything, you’re dead wrong.”
Bellomi didn’t need her to explain to know why she said that. He understood enough of the basics of magic that he could hazard a guess. “A high-power enough spell can make it through any shielding, especially if it’s cast.”
She gave him an approving nod. “You’ve learned well, princeling. The point is, King, you cannot leave for home until you’ve thought of a plan to deal with your enemies. Simply riding into the courtyard and calling for your troops isn’t a plan, by the way.”
The king didn’t like this at all. He glared at both of them. “We are the reigning family of Windamere. Our place is at Lockbright.”
Ignoring him, Sevana told Bellomi, “If this gormless berk goes back and gets himself cursed again, I’m doubling my fee in breaking him free the second time.”
Bellomi winced. Only Sevana would have the guts to insult the king to his face. “Understood.” Before his father lost complete control of his temper, he dropped the dishes in his hands into the pan and wiped his hands dry. “Father, let me make this clear. In another five months, you would have been dead.” That stopped the man cold. Nodding in grim confirmation, Bellomi repeated, “Dead. The curse you were under made you focus on just one thing, to the exclusion of anything else. That includes eating and sleeping. The maids and palace staff weren’t taking care of you. If we hadn’t come for you when we did, you’d likely be on your deathbed now.”
Aren slowly sat back in his seat, eyes falling to the ground, looking bewildered and perhaps a little scared. “I…I was in that bad of a condition?”
“Yes. You have to understand, the spell cast at me was meant to kill as well. Our enemies found loopholes in our magical protection, in the laws of this land themselves, in order to kill us. This isn’t just one person that we must keep our guard against. The whole council is responsible for the state we’re in.” Bellomi took in a breath for patience. This might be a bit much to hit the man with, considering he’d only been free of the curse for a little over two hours. But he had to know the truth before he started getting ideas in his head. Gentling his tone, he sank onto his haunches next to the man, catching his eyes to make sure that his father understood him. “Father, you’re a decade out of touch with Council politics. You can’t go blindly charging in there.”
Aren blew out a low breath, cradling his head in both hands for a long moment before looking up again. “You’re right. It was foolish of me, I suppose. We must gather allies first.”
Relieved his father saw this sense of the situation, Bellomi gave him a slight smile. “Well, I have a good idea who to start with.”
~ ~ ~
The fire was down to embers, to the point it barely gave off any light at all. They’d retreated into their individual tents hours ago, but after tossing and turning and almost strangling himself with his blanket, Bellomi gave up on sleep. He crawled out instead and headed for the fire with the vague idea of making himself a cup of tea. His plan didn’t last more than a few seconds.
His father sat on the edge of the fire, hunched forward in one of the folding chairs. With such poor lighting, Bellomi almost didn’t see him. His father seemed lost in thought, not stirring until Bellomi slung into the chair right next to him. Then he almost started in surprise.
“Bellomi.” The light flickered over his face as he moved, making his face looking more hollow than normal, the shadows in his cheeks emphasized. He looked frailer by firelight than he had in broad daylight. Bellomi’s heart gave a lurch at the sight, as it proved to be an uncomfortable reminder of the time Aren had been little more than a skeleton.
“It’s too much to take in all at once, isn’t it?” Bellomi said with complete empathy. “I felt like that, too, when Sevana first took me to her home. She gave me such a cold, logical analysis of what my curse was and what it was meant to do it almost made me feel the breath of death itself.”
Aren took in a shaky breath and released it slowly. “Son, I feel like I�
��ve failed you. Why didn’t I realize how grave your condition was?”
“You were cursed before I was.” Bellomi shrugged, a motion that his father probably couldn’t see. Strangely, it felt easier to talk to the man without them able to properly see each other. “The curse got stronger over time, certainly, but it wasn’t weak at any point. Sevana said you were hit about a month or so before me. Or at least, that’s what it looks like to her.”
“And Pierpoint didn’t see it?”
“Apparently not. But Sevana didn’t seem to find that strange, either. Something about the spell not being obviously malicious and segueing itself into the magical protection you were under.” He hadn’t quite followed her explanation, truthfully. “My curse wasn’t malicious either in nature. Actually, it’s quite common and known as a benign spell. It was just malicious in intent.”
“And more obvious, so it would gather more attention than mine,” Aren finished wearily. “Bellomi, I’m glad that you have taken steps to free both of us from this situation. And I realize, too, that you’re now an adult in years despite your appearance.”
He’d be one of the few that did, then. Even Morgan and Sevana, who knew full well his history, didn’t treat him as an adult most of the time. But Bellomi had a feeling his father was leading up to something, so he bit his lip and waited.
“But why are you really pushing so hard to get free of this curse quickly?”
“The country is in…very poor condition.” Even saying that felt like a ridiculous understatement. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and searched for a way to properly explain this. “I’m still learning just how bad of a situation. The laws of the land themselves have been changed to the point that the Council has all of the power and they are using that power to line their pockets as deeply as they can. Morgan and I have been traveling all around the country—”
Aren held up a hand. “Wait, who is this Morgan?”
“Ah,” right, he wouldn’t know, “it’s Sevana’s business partner. He handles the marketing of her products. He’s half information broker, really.”
“I see. Go on.”
“As I was saying, we’ve been traveling all over the country and gathering up information as we went. I’ve been doing it partially to improve my skills at interacting with people, partially to learn my country better, but mostly because it’s taking considerable work to figure out just how badly the Council has taken advantage of our absence.”
The king didn’t seem to know how to react to this. He mulled it over for a taut moment before venturing, “How bad, exactly?”
Bellomi somehow managed to answer this question levelly. “The law that sent Sevana to our rescue gives the Council the authority to govern Windamere in our absence or in case of our incapacitation.”
Aren choked, the sound mixed in with a guttural moan of pain. “Son, tell me you’re exaggerating!”
“I wish I were. You ask why I’m rushing and pushing all of us so hard? It’s because of that law. The state Windamere is in now is bad enough, but can you imagine how much more damage they can do now that they have carte blanch on any law they can think to pass? Neither of us are even in the palace right now! There’s no one left to stop them.”
“How bad is it? Give me precise details,” Aren insisted.
“Let start with taxes. There are three now in effect—”
“THREE?!”
He didn’t let his father interrupt him and kept speaking. “—the royal tax, of course, but the royal tax no longer pays for anything city-related. It’s used solely for the government. I’m still trying to pin down where all that money is going to. But then there’s the city tax, which each city manages and uses for its upkeep and expenses. The council recently added a third, a business tax, which takes five percent of whatever profit or goods that a businessman has at the end of the month.”
Aren’s hands knotted into the bottom of his coat. “H-how much does it add up to?” he asked hoarsely, tone saying a part of him didn’t want to even know the answer.
“It varies because each city tax is different.” Bellomi had a hard time explaining all of this. It angered him every time he remembered it and the damage it was doing even now. “But it’s more or less half of a man’s income.”
Aren stood up so quickly his chair fell and skidded backwards. “HALF?!”
“That was more or less my reaction.” Bellomi shook his head, tamping down the urge to go after the Council with a sword in hand. “Take a seat, Father, and calm down. It gets worse.”
“How can it possibly get worse?” Aren spluttered, absently righting his chair and dropping back into it. “First you tell me that the Council has practically wrested the right of rule away from our family and now you tell me that they’re robbing our citizens hand over fist? What more are they doing?”
“They’ve dismissed the country’s military and most of its navy.” Bellomi paused and gave his father a second to process this. By the way Aren’s jaw dropped, he needed more than a second. “I don’t know why. I’m still investigating that. But I think it was for monetary reasons. It’s cheaper this way and they have less soldiers to pay for.”
“But who’s protecting the country in their stead?” Aren stared at his son with a ghoulish expression, as if he were in a waking nightmare. “The soldiers are there to patrol the main highways, help maintain peace in a city, not just for times of war.”
“The personal militia of the Council is doing that work now.” Bellomi rubbed a hand over his face. This is not what he envisioned for a heartfelt reunion talk with his father. “I suspect it’s a power play, as the personal militia are more loyal to the Council, and thereby can keep Windamere under tighter control. But as I said, I haven’t been able to find proof of that.” Not yet, anyway.
Aren raised both hands to shield his eyes, blocking what Bellomi could see of his expression in this poor lighting. “What else?”
“Oh, I’ve heard rumors of other things, some of them more outlandish than others. I heard of one rumor particularly where a councilman is using his funds to pay for his own brothel, named Sunrise House. But I don’t wish to trot it all out until I can prove it.” He’d probably dumped enough on his father at this moment anyway. “I’ll investigate more the next time that Morgan and I have a lesson.”
“A lesson?” That brought Aren’s head back up, hands falling to his lap. “What sort of lessons?”
“You name it, the man’s been teaching it to me.” Bellomi started ticking things off on his fingers. “Horseback riding, navigating a city, haggling, conversational skills, trade, economics, politics, and things of that ilk.”
“You sound as if you…enjoy them?” Aren ended on a questioning note.
“Oh yes, always.” Bellomi reflexively grinned at the memory of some of his more recent lessons. “Morgan’s an interesting man so it’d be entertaining no matter what we did, but what he teaches me is truly valuable as well. We don’t have lessons often, just whenever we both have a free day. It usually averages to about once a week.”
“Then, you weren’t in jest earlier, when you said you were learning the skills that a prince needed.”
“Mercy, no!” Bellomi shook his head, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “I should regale you with some of the tales, when we both are in the mood for them. No, between Morgan, Sevana, and Baby, I’m doing nothing but training.”
“I am…relieved to hear it.”
“Even if you question the oddness of my teachers?” Bellomi shrugged, chuckling at his father’s sour nod. “They might be odd, but they know more of the world than either one of us, I think.”
“It’s certainly better than you just waiting idly by as the Artifactor works on breaking your curse,” Aren agreed. His smile slowly fell away as he whispered, “You paint a dark picture.”
He wished he could do otherwise, but…. “We have a steady ray of hope. There are a lot of good people in this country that are anxious to help us right the wrongs. I believe that wit
h their help and enough tenacity, we can overthrow the Council and regain our home.” A trifle wryly he added, “I’d just rather do sooner instead of later. Less of a mess to clean up that way.”
“I rather see your point.” Aren rubbed a weary hand over his face. “And share it.”
“Don’t worry about it tonight,” Bellomi advised, wondering if he could follow his own advice. “It’s not like we can do anything about it right now anyway. Tomorrow we can properly form a strategy as we travel back.”
“That is perhaps for the best.” He rubbed at is face again, motion slow and somewhat jerky. “My mind still feels muddled. And it’s strange, how tired I feel. But at the same time, I feel restless.”
Yes, he felt exactly the same. “Perhaps we can stay and talk a while longer. We can always sleep on the cloud skimmer on the way back, after all.”
A smile could be heard in Aren’s voice. “Yes, that’s true. Then tell me, son. Where on earth did you get sword training from? It certainly couldn’t have been in the palace.”
“Well, you see these twin swords on my back? They’re actually….”
They returned to Big without any fanfare and spent a day or so just recovering from the long trip. But Bellomi couldn’t remain inside for long, so he went down to the village the next day, putting into motion a personal plan of his. It had taken considerable charm and using quite a few of Morgan’s tricks, but Bellomi had managed to talk Hana into having lunch with him the next day. As he did not want interference from anyone else (no matter how well-meaning), he decided on a picnic. The weather wasn’t quite right for it, being clear but a trifle hot, but he’d found a way around the problem via one of Sevana’s cooling charms.
Which he would, of course, properly apologize for ‘borrowing’ later.
Late the next morning he went straight for the village gates, an overly large picnic basket strapped to his back. Of course with the wicker basket on his back, he’d needed to carry his swords differently, so he’d simply slung the sheaths over one shoulder, letting them hang at his side. It probably made for an odd picture (at least judging from the reactions he got from the people he passed on the road, it did) but he wanted his hands free.
The Child Prince (The Artifactor) Page 22
