The Salamander Prince

by S R Nulton

  “That was an assumption. In fact, at no point has any twin other than the one who is proclaimed king been allowed to marry. It is family tradition, not an actual rule,” my husband pointed out. “And as such, we decided to ignore it. There’s no reason for one of us to have to live alone for the rest of our lives.”

  “Yes, but that puts us in an awkward position. You are both married and both of you have children on the way. There is no precedent and it is worrisome. We aren’t certain how to determine who should rule, but someone must be chosen, and quickly.”

  Things were beginning to become clearer and I knew it was time to interject.

  “Why?” I asked, silencing the room.

  The old man frowned. “What do you mean ‘why?’”

  “I mean why do you have to choose? Why is it only one brother has ever been allowed to have a family? Why this silly competition at all?”

  The bald man sputtered. “Don’t be ridiculous! Of course we must choose! There can only be one king, and if the other twin had children then there would be no clear line of succession.”

  I laughed. “Wow, you guys are pretty clueless, aren’t you? Either that or you are incredibly cruel. I mean, just look at what the traditions did to the Prince Regent.” This time, even the boys frowned at me. “Are you telling me that your country has been driving the royal twins apart for centuries? And no one noticed the problem earlier? No one noticed that they went mad without one another?”

  Jeshu’s brows drew together and he put on his thinking face. “They have, haven’t they. The unmarried one, anyway. I mean, I knew that Uncle Fred was going crazy, but I hadn’t thought about the other uncrowned twins.”

  I nodded. “The marriage ceremony is a binding of souls and magic because it is all that holds you together when you take the throne. The thing has a curse on it that forces your souls apart completely. Standing up there while the ladies in the ballroom had to search for their smelling salts gave me plenty of time to examine it. The thing has a wicked curse built in to break the king away from any soul-to-soul connection. That’s why you weren’t supposed to marry ‘til after being crowned. Without an anchor, you will go mad and die.”

  I decided not to mention that performing the marriage ceremonies before one of the boys was crowned meant that all four of us were soul-bound, like a chain. I wasn’t sure what the results would be, but I knew that they had too much else to process to bring it up right then.

  Stone blinked. “What do you mean by saying it forces our souls apart completely? Aren’t they already apart.”

  “No. You are split soul twins.” When no one reacted I realized that they were all completely clueless. “Oh, wow. You really don’t know. Okay, well, basically your family carries a very rare ability to create twins that share a soul. They are linked by that shared soul and they literally complete each other. It has only been observed a handful of times, so it is a condition that is nearly unheard of. My friend Mallie has a very large library and I read about it there.”

  “Okay, but what does that mean,” Jeshu prompted.

  I bit my lip. “It’s hard to explain. It’s like, every part of your soul has been divided up and each of you is given a portion. Some portions are equal while others are uneven, like your magic. Mages always have a lot of power, and you do Jeshu, but Stone doesn’t. He is definitely a mage, but his lack of power is completely unheard of. One brother got the majority of the magic.

  “You work well together because you know what the other is thinking. Being different people with different experiences means that each half brings a unique perspective, but you will always be able to understand each other, even when you don’t know how. In fact, I know that if I asked you who should rule, you would both be torn between serving and believing the other would do better.”

  The men nodded, but still looked a bit lost. Finally, Stone asked, “Then why did all of our ancestors fight and hate each other?”

  I shrugged. “Self-hatred is a common enough affliction, particularly when it is being fueled by outside influences.” I glared at the council. Several glared back, but a few looked shocked and dismayed. “From what Jeshu told me, your parents wanted to break the cycle, so they made sure that neither was encouraged to hate the other. At least, that’s why I assume.”

  “So, what do we do? We still need to declare a king,” the practical councilor from earlier declared.

  Everyone was silent for a long while, eating their food and wondering what to do.

  Finally, I looked around and cleared my throat. “I think I have an idea…”

  Chapter 16: Coronation, Take Two

  Getting ready for the new coronation ceremony took a lot longer than anyone expected. You would think that we could just reuse everything but the food, but that wasn’t the case. For one thing the old throne had to be destroyed. The enchantment I’d seen, the one meant to sever the twins’ soul wasn’t just laid on top. No, it was built into the nation’s seat of power. Whoever had created it had gone to a lot of expense and effort. The spell itself had actually been carved into every inch of the throne, inside and out. This allowed the wood, metal, fabric, and jewels to be both the power source and the charm itself. Basically, the whole thing was trash, not a bit of it reusable.

  The crown was just as bad. Not an inch of it was left untainted, not even the very large emeralds and rubies adorning it. It was actually the combination of both the crown and the throne, plus whatever ceremony was involved in the crowning, that activated the magical enchantments. At first I thought I could get away with just destroying one, but then I noticed that they were designed to act in concert so the king wouldn’t notice the pain of having his soul severed in half. Each of them could do the same thing alone, but they were faster and less trauma inducing together.

  Unsurprisingly, I was not popular with the council when I told everyone what was worked into the two objects. I wasn’t offended. It was a case of shooting the messenger. Nevertheless we melted it down and put both items on display as the ‘cursed crown and throne’. They couldn’t be used again with their guiding patterns so distorted.

  New crowns and thrones were commissioned from the artisans and substitutes were found in among the kingdom’s secret vaults. I checked every piece of jewelry over very thoroughly before letting anyone handle them. No need to cause any more issues. Also, it let me make sure I didn’t end up wearing a fifty-pound monstrosity to the event. No thank you. Surprisingly, they were much prettier and less cumbersome than the one we had to destroy. Until that point, I had begun to worry about the sensibility of my husband’s ancestors.

  As far as the regular citizens went, the months we had spent hiding in the market made the take over remarkably easy. The princes had managed to figure out who were loyal to them and who were spies paid off by their uncle pretty early on in our stay. That meant it took them all of two days to round up the traitors and have them arrested. They also sent messengers to call the soldiers stationed in other cities back to the capital for a formal review. Well, all except one hand. The group from Stonesford was going to be pleased when they arrived. They’d been as loyal as they could without getting themselves killed and I greatly appreciated that.

  Not everything was going so well, not the least of which was that my husband was so busy that we hadn’t seen each other since the council meeting. While our husbands were busy dealing with cleaning up some of their uncle’s mess, Thyme and I were informed that we were in charge of seeing to the castle and servants.

  “Why?” Thyme asked as one of the councilors wives told us of our duty.

  That made the woman flustered. “Because it is expected!”

  “Not by me. I expected to remain a healer or be the wife of a farmer. Why should I be punished because I happened to marry a prince?”

  “Why I never! You are an impertinent, rude young lady if I’ve ever met one! How dare you speak to me that way!”

  “How am I rude? It’s not like I said that you look good in that ridicu
lous in that dress. It’s enormous, by the way, and makes you look sallow and fat. You shouldn’t wear that color or cut again.”

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh.

  “How dare you speak to me that way! Do you know who I am?”

  Thyme shrugged. “Someone who thinks they’re important.”

  I lost it and started laughing. A few of the maids were fighting the giggles as well. Finally, I calmed down enough to breath and turned to the irate older woman.

  “Madam, she isn’t being rude, at least not for her culture. My sister-in-law is of the lake people. To them, false flattery is rude. Telling the blunt truth is kindness. She was letting you know something that needs to be fixed so you wouldn’t be embarrassed later on.”

  The woman flapped her hands. “What a ridiculous culture! I’ve never heard something so silly. She’ll be sure to offend all the visiting royals if she continues to speak that way.”

  I shook my head. “You think so? I don’t. Crechel will undoubtedly be offended, but their king and ambassadors get offended by just about everything. Mindep and Alenia are in contact with Lettelach on a regular basis and know what to expect. Fretche is a close neighbor and unlikely to enter into argument with a woman from the only group that might be able to attack them easily, not that anyone hears much out of them. In fact, the only ones who will be offended are the nobles of Shessat, and they could learn something from the lake people’s perspective.”

  She huffed and left the room, her oversized gown flapping like a canary behind her. My sister-in-law was right, though. Pale yellow really did not look good on that woman.

  Thyme looked at me with a sour expression. “Does this mean we still have to deal with the castle?”

  I sighed and stood awkwardly. “No, it means that we talk to the person who is actually in charge of running it.”

  She shifted to her feet and joined me as we walked/waddled down to the steward’s office. We knocked on the door and received a barked “Enter!” in response.

  Geoff was busy with another mountain of paperwork when we entered. As a result, it took him a few minutes to glance up, but when he did, he looked very uncomfortable. We ignored the suddenly pale aspect of his face and took the same seats as we had three weeks before.

  “Highnesses, to what do I owe the honor?” he asked, voice strained and hands clenched tightly.

  “Oh relax. We aren’t firing you,” I told him as I leaned back a bit in the chair, trying to get comfortable. They weren’t comfortable chairs, though, at least not for very pregnant women. Then again, nothing was very comfortable for us right then. “We were informed by a decidedly unpleasant woman that we are supposed to run the castle now.”

  He blinked, color slowly returning to his face. “That’s correct, the queen does run the keep. Whichever of you is crowned will be placed in charge of the staff.”

  We grimaced. “Um, yeah, who does it now.”

  “Why, I do!”

  I nodded. “Perfect. Keep doing it. Neither of us wants to and, quite frankly, we don’t know how. I have a cottage on the edge of the wilderness and Thyme lived on a farm with four brothers. Running a castle isn’t exactly something we were raised knowing how to do.”

  Geoff looked like the weight of the world had just been lifted. “Truly?” His eyes watered. “I was worried that you were offended by how I treated you when we first met and would want me fired. Thank you!”

  Thyme laughed, shocking him even more. “You were overworked! Of course you weren’t going to take two pregnant women on your doorstep as a good thing. And we’re foreigners at that! Interviewing people before you give them access to people with a lot of enemies seems like a smart move to me.”

  He sighed in relief. “That’s exactly it. We’ve had a few close calls over the years from people who look innocent. Most of them happened while the princes were still young, of course, but I didn’t want to chance anything so close to the coronation and with so many dignitaries.”

  I nodded. “Perfect. Great instincts! You can, of course, let us know if there is anything you need approval on and feel free to hire more help so you don’t work yourself into an early death. Oh, and please try not to antagonize Tom anymore. The poor man is just as overrun as you are and he is very fast with a knife. I don’t want to have to go looking for a new steward because you two decided to have another tiff over supply orders.”

  That made Geoff laugh. “Don’t worry, we fight all the time. He’s my brother-in-law and we were best friends as children. Yelling at one another is the easiest way to get rid of our frustration. It drives my wife crazy. And thank you for letting me hire more helpers. The… former Prince Regent had us let quite a few people go so he didn’t have to pay them.”

  “Of course he did,” I sighed. “Why is it the power mad ones are either too free or else too tight with their money?”

  “Obsessed with control. They either don’t want to exercise it with their spending or they have to have control of everything they do,” Thyme responded. “Thus being power mad.”

  The conversation turned back to the castle finances and needs at that point. We spoke a few more minutes, but were gone shortly after, leaving him to his work. No need to micromanage.

  Thyme sighed as we reached the courtyard. “Let’s go to the boat. I’m tired of all the people buzzing around.”

  I agreed, feeling the same way. I had lived in nearly complete isolation before our adventure had begun and being around people constantly was beginning to wear on my already frayed nerves. Ignoring the guards that constantly tailed us, we headed toward the dock that jutted into a channel just off the courtyard. It was usually used for supply orders and royal processions but the day after the solstice my boat had mysteriously appeared tied to the end of it. My boat had become the perfect place to disappear to while everyone else ran around, worrying themselves to death. Sometimes the pregnant women just needed some alone time on a gently rocking boat.

  Also, I may have been using my pregnancy as an excuse to be crabby. Let’s just keep that between us, though.

  ~

  I officially hated court clothes. They were hot and tight and uncomfortable. Oh, and the palace seamstress had decided that I should wear something that was completely shapeless so that my pregnant belly wouldn’t show too much. Because that was a concern? And how could something so baggy be so tight at the same time? Magic had to be involved.

  On the bright side, I was able to modify it to hide quite a few extras that the ladies of the court would disapprove of. What made it worse was the fact that the enchanted clothes I had on my ship didn’t want to work anymore. Apparently they could transform into anything except maternity clothes. Either that or the combined magic was interfering with the charm. Probably the latter.

  I shook my head and looked over at Jeshu as he paced the hall behind the throne room. “Relax,” I told him. “It will be fine.”

  “I know, but I want this over.” He started to run his hands through his hair before he remembered that he was wearing a crown. The distance I’d noticed since the council meeting had only grown as the days passed and it was making me nervous. It was the first time I’d seen him in nearly two days.

  Before he could say anything more, a bell tolled, letting us know it was time to go. He walked over and took my arm as the double doors opened. Stone and Thyme stood to my right and with a quick nod we walked through together. The throne room was packed with people, to the point that every door was open and more people were standing in the halls and on the balconies, all craning to see what was going to happen.

  We moved up a few steps and onto the platform that normally held the throne. It was completely empty, causing more than a little confusion among the crowd. Well, they were confused about more than that, but that seemed to be the first issue facing our guests. They were about to get their answers, however.

  “Good citizens and guests of Shessat,” the princes began in perfect sync. I was amused to see a shiver work its way through
the crowd. Apparently it unnerved everyone, not just me.

  “We stand before you as the rightful rulers of this great country on the cusp of a coronation.” The priest moved up the steps, ready for the ceremony, although his face was so pinched, he might have been drinking vinegar and bitter apple before showing up. “As such it is time to make a few announcements. To begin, there will be no choice made as to who will rule.”

  The audience was shocked. A few were genuinely angry, but most were just confused. The general consensus was that someone must rule and few people wanted the council or the other nobles to take control of the entire country. They hadn’t done a very good job while the princes were gone, apparently.

  “Instead,” my husband and brother-in-law continued, “we will rule together, as every generation in the past should have done. We share a soul and as such should share the throne. Apart we would be adequate; together we will be great!”

  The nobles were still upset, but the common peoples seemed cheered by the idea. It was a bit odd, but I knew it would work for the country. We just needed to be given a chance to prove it.

  Before another word could be said, the priest began stomping toward us.

  “What is this perversion? This is not how it is meant to be! One man, one rule. I will not stand for this!” he shouted. And then he flung his hand out to attack the princes, a spell at the ready.

  My arms were up and a shield popped into existence less than a moment later.

  “You dare attack my husband? My husband?” I growled.

  The priest used his magic to break the shield, but it was too late. I’d already pulled another toy out of my oversized dress. This one was an enchanted sword. I swung my arm and it stabbed the traitor in his heart before melting into a pile of slag.

  Jeshu pulled me back into his chest, holding me tightly before turning us back to face the frightened crowd.