The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (29 page)

“Have you felt the temperature of this water?” she countered.

He glanced back at the river. “That’s a good point. Alright, anything I can do to help?”

“Yes. Get that coat off your father and lead him to where I tell you.”

His head came up and he took in the wand in her hand, the book in the other, and quickly realized she was only waiting on him. With commendable alacrity, he went to his father and did as she instructed, wrestling the coat off of him and his boots as well before urging the man to his feet.

Sevana grabbed another skipping stone from her pocket and tossed it in the direction of the waterfall. As Bel led his father carefully along the stones, she maneuvered her glowing spell-circle so that it lay flat under the waterfall, directly over one of the stones.

Bel glanced back at her, one stone away from putting his father directly under the deluge, expression asking if she were ready.

She nodded confirmation.

He took in a deep breath before guiding his father that one last step. Then he retreated back to a nearby stone and watched anxiously.

Sevana activated the spell.

~ ~ ~

Aren sucked in a lungful of air, as if he had been robbed of proper breath, and then let it out again in a
whoosh
. The lifelessness of his expression disappeared in a twinkling, replaced with the intelligence he’d always had. Then he blinked, and he turned frantically about, searching until his eyes fell on Bellomi. For a long moment he stared, as if disbelieving his eyes, then he ventured, “Bellomi?”

He leaped two stepping stones to get to his father’s side, and then threw his arms around the other man’s waist, not caring that he’d be soaked in the process. The waterfall crashed around his head and shoulders, cold and harsh against his skin, but that didn’t matter either. What
did
matter was that his father caught him and held him close, almost squeezing the breath out of him.

For a timeless moment they stood there, not caring about the freezing condition of the water, or the silent watcher that remained nearby. Bellomi just needed a moment. Just one moment where he knew his father had returned to him, and he needn’t ever look into that awful, vacant expression ever again.

Slowly, Aren pulled back a half-step, maneuvering them away from the brunt of the waterfall and to a different stone entirely to avoid being doused.

“Bellomi, son,” his father hunkered down a little to put them at more of an eye level. “Why are you still this small? A long time has passed, hasn’t it?”

“I’m still cursed, Father.” The words felt like acid in his mouth. “Although hopefully, not for much longer.”

“What?!” Aren’s eyes were confused, eyebrows furrowed in the beginning stages of anger. “I don’t understand.”

“Can you delay the reunion and all until after you’re dry again?” Sevana inclined her head toward the shoreline, arms crossed, her fingers tapping an impatient rhythm against her other arm.

Bel shook his head even as he stepped back a little. “Always practical.”

“Somebody has to be with this lot.” She snorted and waved them on. “This way, you two.”

Aren watched her hop from stone to stone toward the shore. “Who is this abrasive woman?”

“Artifactor Sevana Warran, the reigning prodigy of this age. She’s the one that has broken the curse you were under and has agreed to break mine.” As Bel spoke, he tugged his father into motion, leading him over the slippery wet stones. He hated to admit it, but continuing the explanation of everything that had happened in dry clothes sounded appealing. The water was
freezing
.

Sevana proved right that they would want a warm fire to huddle around. It took a few minutes for them to change into dry clothes and towel dry. Fortunately, the weather still felt slightly warm, so they felt better as soon as they had dry clothes on. Sevana magicked some folding chairs from somewhere so they all had a comfortable seat.

When they were more or less settled, Aren leaned forward, demanding of his son, “Just how much time has passed? I couldn’t keep track of it while under the curse.”

“Ten years,” Bellomi answered quietly.

The king’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. “
Ten years?!
Why didn’t Pierpoint break both of our curses before this point?”

“He was dismissed from court almost three weeks after I was cursed. The reason the Council gave was he was too incompetent to maintain his position as Royal Magician.”

“The Council,” Aren repeated with dark understanding. “I see. What happened after he was dismissed?”

“A few hundred magicians of different types were trotted in to examine me.” After seeing the way that Sevana examined someone, Bellomi now realized that those other magicians were just for show. They hadn’t done more than look him over with the naked eye and then shrug their ignorance. “After a year or two of that, I was basically locked into my room and not allowed visitors. Well, not until Sevana came in and broke me out four months ago.”

Aren shot Sevana a look. “You had to break in to see my son? You, who is the prodigy Artifactor of this age?”

“The Council issued a decree that no more magicians would be allowed to see the prince,” she answered with a shrug. “So I had to be sneaky. Fortunately, that wasn’t difficult. Your guards are pathetic.”

“And then a month ago we went to see you,” Bellomi picked up the narration before his father could get into an argument with her. “We didn’t realize at the time that you were cursed. But as soon as we did, we kidnapped you. Sevana figured out how to break your curse, which is why we’re here.” He gestured to the waterfall not a stone’s throw from them.

Aren scrubbed a hand over his face wearily. “The Council has much to answer for. But we’ll deal with that later. Artifactor Warran, what can be done about my son’s curse?”

“We know how to break it,” she answered forthrightly, leaning casually back into her chair. “The problem is the solution. To have the necessary power to break the curse he’s under, I need to borrow the aid of a water dragon. That takes money I do not have.”

“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?”