The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (11 page)

Pierpoint waved him toward a spot in front of him. Bellomi quickly moved to within a few feet of the man and directly in front of him.

“Good. Now don’t move.” Pierpoint lifted a wand and inscribed a rather complicated pattern in the air, leaving streaks of light lingering. He paused and that same icy, dreadful tingling sensation pricked Bellomi’s skin. Yes, the stasis spell had definitely been removed.

Almost within the same breath, the air around Pierpoint wavered as if he were standing in a heat wave. Then little bursts of flames started up around him at equal intervals, ringing his head and then another ringing his waist. Lifting his wand again, he started inscribing another spell in the air, this one more complicated than the last one, or so it seemed to Bellomi. He didn’t understand anything Pierpoint drew, only that it took longer.

Or maybe it only seemed longer.

Within moments, Pierpoint finished off the lines and lowered his wand again, the flames around him snuffing out. The tingling sensation ceased immediately. Bellomi took in a breath, relieved.

“Uh-oh,” Sevana intoned, giving him a quick study from head to toe. “Not quite fast enough. He’s lost a good year, I would say.”

He froze, breath halting in his chest, and looked at her in horror. “Did I really?!”

Pierpoint shot her a chiding look. “No, Your Highness, you did not. You look exactly the same.”

Phew. Wait, that meant—he glared at the unrepentant Artifactor. “
Sevana
,” he growled out.

Not sorry in the least, she just shrugged, mouth suspiciously quirked. “Well, we’re done here. Pierpoint, I’ll try to keep you updated.”

“I would appreciate that, Sevana.”

Turning for the door, she called, “Come along, squirt.”

If he didn’t need the woman so badly, he’d have already strangled her by now. Resigned, he gave a bow of thanks to Pierpoint before scrambling after her.

“And Sevana, stop disabling my wards!” Pierpoint called after her.

“Then stop living in impossible-to-reach places!” she retorted without slowing down.

Bellomi shook his head.
You’re one to talk.

He carefully didn’t say that out loud.

After their trip to Pierpoint’s the day before, and their late night arrival back at Big, Bellomi would have thought that Sevana would need time to think up a few strategies before trying anything. But she came to get him early in the morning, almost forcibly dragging him out of his bed, and barely gave him time to get shoes on.

Sevana dragged him outside of Big by his arm. He stumbled along in her wake, rubbing blearily at his eyes. “Why so early?” he asked in a mumble, trying to get his mouth awake enough to cooperate. “The sun isn’t even properly up yet.”

“That’s why,” she answered as if it explained everything. “We need to do this test before the sun and the winds start rising.”

Huh? Test? “You thought of a test already?”

“I thought of it on the way home yesterday, but I don’t do tests in failing light. Bad results.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the far-see glasses. “Alright, kid, climb aboard.”

He viewed her outstretched hand in distaste. “Again?”

She gave him a level look. “No, you’re right. Right side this time. My left arm is sore from carting you around yesterday.”

Right. No use complaining, obviously. Feeling perfectly ridiculous, he let himself be scooped up like a child and settled on her hip. Any other child in this position would naturally put their arms around that person’s shoulders but he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. In fact, he had no idea what to do with his hands. If he started hugging Sevana, she’d likely drop him on his rear. As he timidly settled, he got a better look at something that stuck out of the pack on her back.

“What’s that?”

“My compass board.”

Compass board? Like one of those tools to tell which direction was north? He wanted to ask more questions, but before he could, she opened the shade on the glasses and started moving forward. Like yesterday, everything passed in a blur. This time, instead of the light green of grassland and the dark green of forest, streaks of other colors passed them. A dark collection of abandoned stones in moss passed on their left. That must be the Nickerchen Ruins, where Morgan had fallen victim to the Sleeping Princess curse. At the same time, the Milby village and the Sanat Forest passed by on their right.

He didn’t see anything except green streaks and the gold-tinted blue of the sky for several far-sees until a city abruptly appeared ahead on their left. “Is that Kingman?”

Sevana paused, hand holding the lenses up and gave him a look that might have been approving. “You really
do
know your geography. At least Windamere’s.”

So he was right? They’d been traveling north all this while, and the only large city in northern Windamere was Kingman. “Can I ask why we’re traveling so far northward?”

“The only reliable place to do this test is Stillwater Lake.” With that said, she closed the lenses again and they darted forward in a rush of wind.

Stillwater?! That was in Kindin! And they would have to pass through the Standor Mountains to get there. Did she really think that they could cross all that distance before the sun rose? They’d left at pre-dawn, certainly, but the sun had already risen above the horizon. Well, actually, they’d just crossed fifty miles in ten minutes, so maybe they could reach it that quickly.

He kept quiet and just watched avidly as Sevana popped up the wooden lenses and closed them again in a rapid motion. She had clearly done this many times before as she barely took a look before they were sailing forward again. They passed out of sight of Kingman, heading for the open plains near the northern border of Windamere.

But when they reached the base of the Standor Mountains, they didn’t go through them as he expected, but skirted around it instead. Why would she…actually, come to think of it, going through the mountains would probably slow them down considerably. Especially with that thick covering of trees on the slopes, her range of vision would be drastically reduced. Going around the mountain range might be more ground to cover but it would be faster.

The sun had completely risen over the horizon, but only just, hovering on the edge of the land when they arrived at Stillwater Lake. Bellomi took in the sight of it with jaw-dropped surprise. He’d never seen the like of it before. When Sevana stopped at the edge of the water, he absently slid down until his feet touched a sandy beach, head swiveling this way and that as he took in everything.

The water here was unlike something he could see in a fountain. It didn’t have perfect clarity so he could see all the way to the bottom. In fact, the surface looked a strange blue-green that changed to brown the further down he looked. And the beach didn’t have a perfect bed of sand as he’d always imagined, but had pebbles and chips of rocks with a scattering of broken twigs mixed in. The area smelled strange, too: water and mud and the faintest tang of something rotten and yet not. His nose wrinkled as he tried to discern if he liked the scent or not.

“We don’t have a lot of time.” Sevana shrugged out of her pack and pulled out a long board from it that was shaped like a very elongated tear drop. “Strip.”

He froze and edged away from her. “I beg your pardon?”

She chuckled, eyes filled with devilish amusement. “Not completely, Your Prudishness. Just down to your shorts. You’re about to get wet. We both are.”

Oh. Well, if it was just removing his shirt and boots… He started pulling the shirt over his head and paused when the second thing she said registered. So…if she was also getting wet, then did that mean…?

His unease quickly proved unnecessary. Sevana toed off her boots, shrugged out of her jacket, and revealed a formfitting shirt that clearly could handle getting wet. Her pants were made of the same material. She had planned for this from the beginning.

Relieved, he finished taking off his socks and boots and set them aside.

“Good. Now, climb on the board.” Sevana held it steady on top of the water a mere foot from shore. The water remained shallow enough that even he could step in and get nothing more than his ankles wet. He slid onto the wider section and sat on it. It rocked gently against the water as his weight settled but didn’t do any alarming dips.

“Alright, now I want you to remain as still as possible.” She walked forward as she spoke, heading more toward the center of the lake.

His curiosity finally got the better of him and he couldn’t help but ask, “What exactly are you testing?”

She gave him a look. “You’re always asking so many questions.”

“
You
never explain anything beforehand,” he retorted, equally exasperated.

Resigned, she towed him a little harder, heading for an area where his feet wouldn’t touch the lake’s bottom. “In short, simple terms, then: do you remember when Pierpoint explained that a casted spell loses its power over time?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when a spell is casted, it’s never completely sundered from the caster. The further away they are and the more time that passes, the connection becomes weaker, but it’s not completely broken. You can trace the caster of the spell if you’ve got the right tools.”

His heart rose into his throat so fast he almost choked. “So we can track down who did this?”

“And get them to reverse it, or break it,” she agreed but held up a finger in warning, “
but
there’s a catch.”

There always was.

“The only part of the spell strong enough to leave a trace of the caster is the base element. That’s why I had to figure out the base element of it first. Your attacker, whoever he is, went through a great deal of trouble to camouflage the base element. That suggests a weakness to my mind. We might be able to track him through it.” Sevana stood waist-deep in water now and she looked around for a long moment before nodding in satisfaction. “This should do. Wind likes to move, and it’s especially easy to sense its movement on water. The compass board you’re sitting on will naturally gravitate toward the wind’s source location
if you don’t move
.”

He gave her the most charming smile he could muster. “I’ll be a stone statue.”

“Do so.” Sevana took two long strides back, well out of the way, and then she also stood stock still.

She didn’t do anything that he could discern, but the pale runes etched into the board started to glow under him. He held his breath, not even daring that movement, and watched as the runes grew brighter and brighter. Then, almost indiscernibly, the board started to rotate around so that it pointed more westward. At first he thought it might be the natural movement of the lake’s water, but it had been named Stillwater Lake for a reason—nothing in this place moved. Even the water looked like polished glass.

The movement became stronger, so that it turned in sharper degrees. His lips parted in delight and confusion. West? His attacker didn’t hail from Windamere but somewhere in Kindin? With a lurch, the front tip of the board abruptly pointed upwards. Not expecting this movement, Bellomi almost fell off. He lunged forward, frantically grasping at the edges of the board in an effort to stay on.

“Bugger and blast!” Sevana swore and dove forward, catching him and the board with both hands, sending water splashing in every direction. “That filthy, base, whoreson weasel!” she snarled, eyes snapping with anger.

Bellomi grabbed her around the neck with an iron grip, afraid of what might happen if she accidentally dropped him. (He didn’t, after all, know how to swim.) “What?” he demanded, voice shrill. “What went wrong?”

She took in three deep breaths, getting a stranglehold on her temper, before she responded. “Your curse-caster is a sneakier lout than I gave him credit for. He used wind for your curse’s base, alright. Dragon’s Breath to be precise.”

“You can use specific wind for spells?!”

“Oh yes. And air from mystical creatures is the most potent.” She got a better grip on his waist and the board and started hauling both toward shore, frowning deeply all the while. “Good thing I caught you. You’d have gone flying toward the dragon the breath came from if I hadn’t.”

For a minute, he imagined what it would have been like, flying through the air with nothing but a thin board under him, heading straight for a dragon’s nest. Just the thought made him feel faint. “Y-yes, that’s fortunate. We’re not going to do that test again, right?”

She glanced at him and apparently found his expression amusing as she snorted, frown fading. “Relax. We won’t need to do it again. I’ve got the information I need from it. But I’m afraid the easy solution is out, now. I can’t track down that rump-fed giglet and force him to break the curse. We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

He preferred that over fighting a dragon. “But you can do it.”

“Oh, certainly. It’ll just take some more experimentation and a few false tries before I find something that works. But we’ve got time.” She shrugged as if this was all just a part of the process and of no consequence. “Let’s go home and get breakfast. I’m starved.”

~ ~ ~