The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (22 page)

Bel, fortunately for all, knew how to follow instructions. He carefully set the egg down with both hands, not looking away from the hovering mother, and then stepped back and away, arms out to the sides as he moved. Baby just ran for freedom, diving behind Sevana and trying to look as innocent as possible.

She’d scold the cat for this later, but right now she had to make sure that Bel survived this intact. Her shield wouldn’t hold up for long against a dragon. But it would ward off one attack, and that might be all the time she needed to snag Bel and throw him into Big. The mountain could protect them against anything else this Fire Dragon chose to do. Or so she hoped, anyway. She’d never fully tested her shields against an enraged dragon before.

As soon as Bel had stepped safely away from the egg, the mother dragon dove forward, clamping a protective tail around it. She snarled and snapped at Bel, who scrambled backward frantically to avoid being caught in her jaws.

Sevana threw up the shield with a sharply spoken command, which enveloped the prince in a thick blue haze. She had one arm out, ready to grab him by the back of his neck and throw him inside when the dragon abruptly paused.

Everyone froze with her, not sure what she intended to do next. If she chose to let out a burst of flame, absolutely nothing Sevana could do would save them. With Bel still ten feet from the door, she didn’t have the time to grab him either.

But the dragon drew in a breath of air through her nostrils, lowering her snout as if testing the wind. She sniffed several times, eyes clearing to their normal golden color as her rage faded.

“DRAGON TOUCHED,” she said in a tone that sounded like a rumbling storm.

Bel started, clearly surprised that a dragon could speak human words. Fire Dragons were the stupidest of all the tribes, but even they were capable of rational thought and speech.

Sevana felt just as surprised, but for a different reason. The other dragon could smell the Dragon’s Breath used in Bel’s curse? Now that was interesting information.

Giving a slight bow, Bel showed the dragon deference but did so in a way that made sure he kept eye contact with her. “Yes, dragoness, I am. I am very sorry I took your egg. I didn’t know it
was
an egg. It looked like a very beautiful crystal to me.” He darted a pleading look at Sevana, clearly wanting help.

Sevana cocked an eyebrow at him and shrugged, silently saying,
You got yourself into this fix, you can get yourself back out of it.

The dragon slammed a front paw against the ground, still upset with him for taking off with her child, but her ears lifted in a way that said she appreciated his compliment.

“IS BEAUTIFUL, MY EGG.”

“Very much so,” Bel assured her with a nervous smile. “But I do not wish to separate you from your child. In fact, I wish you a safe hatching and good health.”

The young mother glared at him and didn’t budge.

Sevana knew good and well that if the dragoness hadn’t attacked by this point, that she wouldn’t. Bel was safe enough. She lifted the shield from him and watched in amusement, waiting to see what he would do next to soothe the dragon’s non-existent feathers.

Clearly realizing that he had to somehow make amends, Bel hastily added, “We caught a buck earlier. It lies at the foot of the mountain. Please, take it and use it to nourish yourself as you travel.”

Her head reared back so that she looked at him from the corner of her eye, the tilt of her head condescending. But she grudgingly nodded before taking off with a massive heave of her back legs and several flaps of her wings. Both Bel and Sevana were knocked down to their knees from the force of the air.

With a cry, the dragon veered off to the side before looping back around and heading for a clearing near Big’s base.

Bel lost no time in diving for the open doorway, skin white from the fright. Sevana quickly followed after him, nearly knocked over by Baby as the cat rushed past her for the safety of stone walls. Sevana closed and locked the door behind them—not that a locked door would deter a dragon—and followed them down as they all sought the innermost sanctuary of Big’s interior.

When they reached the hallway on the main level, Sevana’s heart settled into a more relaxed rhythm. Well, that had been interesting. Clearing her throat, she offered, “For future reference, dragon eggs don’t look like eggs at all but darkly colored crystals. It’s a camouflage to prevent predators from taking off with them.”

Bel stopped dead in his tracks and gave her an aggravated look. “You don’t say.”

Sevana bit back a smile. “Let me guess. You found the egg in a rocky crevice of some sort that was near water.”

“Bing-bong,” he said sarcastically. “You could have warned me we have dragons in Windamere!”

“We don’t,” she negated as she moved past him. “She was just passing through, on her way to the outer islands off Kindin’s shores so that she could hatch her egg. Both Fire Dragons and Water Dragons do this once a year.” He opened his mouth to protest but she held up a hand to stop him. “I also didn’t think I
needed
to warn you of this. I said
train,
not
go play with dragons.
”

“I
was
training,” Bel responded in frustration, giving Baby a nasty look. “We were working on my climbing skills. Why didn’t Baby warn me that it was a dragon’s egg?”

“Now why would he know such a thing? He doesn’t haul rocks home, you know. He wouldn’t be interested in eggs, either. Although it
does
violate Rule Number One.” Sevana gave the cat an arch look. “Do we need to review? ‘Thou shalt not bring home anything bigger than you are.’ I think dragons qualify.”

Baby’s ears went flat against his head and he looked ashamed of himself.

Sevana reached out a hand and patted a nearby wall. “You alright, Big?” He was sensitive up top to people and she didn’t imagine that having a mad dragon doing a war dance on him had felt good.

Itchy
, Big complained.

Pointing a finger toward the roof, Bel asked curiously, “He feels things?”

“Oh yes. And he’s ticklish on the top.” Sevana added ruefully, “Don’t ask me why or how. I’ve never been able to figure it out. Okay, big man, I’ll come up and wash you down so you’re not itchy.”

Big gave a deep sigh of pleasure that made all of the stones shift a little.

“Is the dragon gone?” she checked just to make sure.

Gone
, Big confirmed.

“Good.” She headed for her workroom to fetch one of her water fountain wands.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to go study for a while,” Bel announced to the world in general as he started for his alcove.

“You mean hide in your bed for a while,” Sevana corrected in amusement.

Bel didn’t miss a beat, “Yes, that too.”

Sevana chuckled to herself. Still rattled, huh? Well, not that she blamed him. But she’d get plenty of mileage out of this later. Baby followed after Bel with a distinct slouch, no doubt planning on hiding
under
the bed for a while. She laughed as they walked away from her, not bothering to muffle the sound. They resolutely ignored her.

One thing’s for sure
, she thought to herself as she fetched the wand she wanted,
those two are definitely going to be more cautious about what game they hunt from now on.

Bellomi rapped his knuckles on the table. “I hereby declare this strategy session to order.”

“Oh? Is that what this is?” Sevana asked. Her mouth had a slight quirk to it that suggested she found this situation amusing in some way. But the way she sat straddling the chair with her arms casually crossed along the back also said she didn’t intend to take anything said very seriously.

The prince gave her a steady look. “Yes, that’s exactly what this is.” He’d come to the conclusion yesterday that they needed to hold one. He’d been sleeping on his grow-for-true-love bed for over a month now without any real progress being made. Sevana hadn’t come to him to discuss options on breaking his curse, either, which made him think that she’d hit a wall and was too stubborn to admit it. So early this morning he’d gone into Milby and caught Morgan, dragging the man back to Big. Then he’d snagged Sevana before she could hole herself up in her research room or workroom.

Now they sat around the kitchen table, each sitting on a different side with Bellomi taking the head chair. Morgan had capitalized on the close proximity to food to make himself a quick sandwich which he happily munched on. Bellomi felt a little frustrated that neither of them took this seriously.

Alright. If they weren’t in the mood to be serious, he’d
make
them be serious. “We have two problems at the moment and I don’t have a clear solution to either of them. Sevana, I’m assuming that since you haven’t said anything to me, you don’t have a way to break the curse.”

“No, I have one,” she disagreed with a very discontent frown. “The problem is accessing the cure. The only feasible way to do this, really do this, is to borrow the aid of a water dragon. If a water dragon will spit water at you, the curse will break instantly.”

Morgan paused in mid-bite. “Spit?”

“Yes, Kip, spit.” Sevana rolled her eyes in a clear bid for patience. “You know that action when someone puts water in their mouth and then hacks it back out again? That’s what I’m talking about. We need the power of a mystical being who can manipulate flowing water. Hence, water dragon spitting at you.”

“Still,
spit
?” Morgan objected. “Can’t you think of a better way to put it?”

“Why should I?” Sevana responded impatiently. “He knows what I mean, right? So, moving on. I have other options but they’ll take longer or run just as much risk. The problem we have is paying the dragon.”

Frustrated at their casual banter, he slammed both hands against the table and demanded, “Will you both be serious! Please!”

Morgan froze with his sandwich half to his mouth and looked at Bellomi with raised eyebrows. “Whoa, there. What’s gotten into you?”

“Ignore him,” Sevana advised before Bellomi could even get a response out. “He’s just in the pre-teen stage now.”

“Come again?” Morgan responded, obviously not following.

“The bed I made him doesn’t just let him grow, it forces him to physically mature,” she explained with sardonic amusement. The past day or so, I’ve seen him go through some amazing mood swings. I think the bed is messing with his hormone levels a little.”

More than a little
. But that wasn’t the reason he was upset. Well, not the only reason. A month had passed without any real progress and his inability to solve all of the problems he saw in his country grated at him like a rash that he couldn’t scratch. But even if his body was like that of a growing pre-teenager, he still had the intellect of an adult. And his adult mind knew very well that snapping and snarling at the two in front of him wouldn’t get him anywhere. Bellomi forced himself to sit back in his chair, trying to regain his temper before he bit someone’s head off.

“I’m personally betting on when his voice will start cracking,” Sevana added, not able to leave it alone.

Bellomi gave her quite the look from the corners of his eyes. “Am I entertaining you, my lady Artifactor?”

She smirked at him and shrugged with one shoulder.

Being the peacemaker, Morgan cleared his throat and stepped in, moving things along. “So, we need a dragon’s help to break the curse?”

So she really hadn’t found any other way? This was the option she’d mentioned to him last time. “Alright. In that case, let’s solve problem two first.”

Morgan looked blank. “We have a problem two?”

Sevana pointed a finger at her childhood friend and demanded of Bellomi, “Why exactly is this plonker here?”

“I am not an idiot, Sev!”

Bellomi ignored the protest. “Because I figure that at some point in this conversation, he’ll tell me something that I need to know.” Both adults gave him a blank look, as if he had just announced he’d grow a pair of horns tomorrow. “I realize he’s your business manager, Sevana, but the man’s half-information broker as well simply because he’s constantly traveling around and talking to people.”

“Well, you’re not half-wrong,” Morgan agreed.

“Anyway, the second problem is that I can’t lead a revolt against my father while he’s still alive and in good health. There are serious laws against it, and if I try, the Council will have every right to exile me. Or imprison me.”

“Which rather defeats the whole purpose of Sevana breaking your curse,” Morgan finished thoughtfully, brows furrowing. “I see the problem. I’m not sure how to resolve that.”

“I actually have a possible solution.” Bellomi shrugged, both palms spread. “It took a lot of digging—actually it was Hana that found it—but there’s a precedent. About seven generations ago, the reigning king of the time got tired of ruling and wanted to pass the throne down to his son. So they devised a written contract for the throne to be passed on. I have a copy of it and if we can get my father to sign it, then the legal side of the problem is solved. We’ll just have to figure out how to get power back from the Council. There’s just one hitch.” He couldn’t seem to meet either set of eyes as he admitted quietly, “I don’t know if my father will care enough about me or the kingdom to actually sign the contract.”