The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (20 page)

“It would indeed.” Morgan gave him a sympathetic smile. “Especially since your ulterior motives might have shown through your expression.”

It well might have. He hadn’t quite mastered making his face obey orders yet. “But I honestly do want to thank her,” he half-whined defensively. “She’s done a great deal to help me.”

“Flowers,” Morgan informed him, lips twitching as he tried to subdue a smile. “Flowers or cheap chocolates are the best thing to give her. Nothing expensive, nothing lasting.”

Seriously? “Would you be willing to outline precisely what I should and should not do with her?”

“Of course,” Morgan assured him. “But let’s walk and talk, eh? I’m starved.”

~ ~ ~

Bel went through the main door of Big, absently patting at a nearby wall as he came in. He’d seen Sevana do that—pat Big in greeting as she came in. He’d adopted the custom at first because he didn’t know if there was some significance behind it. Now he realized it was just a silent hello from her. But the mountain had been…kind…to him, if a mountain could be described as such. The silent sentinel had proved to be a friend, and so Bel treated it as such.

Today, though, he did the gesture out of sheer habit. His head pounded, brain cramping from too many problems that didn’t have solutions. He’d spent the past several weeks at the library researching and had gone out several times with Morgan into different cities, all with the same goal in mind: he wanted to know Windamere’s precise condition. His inability to properly court Hana weighed on him as well. He’d finally managed to give her a gift successfully, thanks to Morgan’s advice, but that fell so short of what he truly wanted to do.

The problems he faced were too different, and they pulled at him, trying to take him in entirely different directions. At this point, he honestly didn’t know what to do or who to turn to for advice.

Without any conscious decision, his feet took him to Sevana’s research room. He had discovered on a previous visit that this room, unlike her lab, could be safely entered at any time. She kept most of her books, diagrams, and designs stored in here. The room had a more square shape than any other place inside of Big, with wall-to-wall bookshelves. Even the table in the center of the room had bookshelves for legs.  Sevana clearly didn’t want visitors here, as she had only two places to sit—a very large and comfortable chair that sat next to the fireplace and a padded chair at the table.

Slinging his swords off, he dropped them next to the door, along with his pack full of notes and the two books he’d borrowed from the library. Then he went straight to the table, climbing up into the chair and burying his face into his hands.

Sevana looked up from the book in her hands, twisting in her chair next to the fire, and said, “What’s gotten into you?”

“I can’t find an answer,” he groaned, not looking up. “I’ve been researching the history of Windamere, looking at other times when my ancestors had to retake their thrones. But it’s not helping me.” He finally dropped his hands to the wooden surface and turned slightly to look at her. “They all had armies. Or were able to gather up armies. They
fought
to get the throne back.”

“You don’t have an army or enough gold to pay for one,” Sevana said factually.

“I
know
,” he groaned. “Worse, under the laws of Windamere, if I fight them right now I would in fact be committing treason. An Heir Apparent can only fight to reclaim the throne if the king is dead or so ill that he cannot reign. But my father
isn’t
ill. In fact, I think he’s in perfect health. He’s just….”

“A bad king,” Sevana finished with a frown. “Hmmm. This problem is actually more complex than I initially assumed. Why is there a law against this, anyway?”

After days of reading nothing but history, Bel could answer this question without thinking. “In 476 the second son of the reigning family, Voni Dragonmanovich, decided that his brother was incompetent and tried to win the throne for himself. He actually tried three separate times, all in different ways, and caused no end of havoc inside the government. His father finally passed the law so that he could hang the threat of treason over his son’s head. If Voni tried one more time to usurp the throne, he would be stripped of his title and exiled, never to be able to rule in Windamere in any way. The threat worked. His son never made another attempt.” Bel heaved a year’s worth of sighs. “Which is all well and good for the time, but didn’t my great-great-great grandfather consider what might happen
later
? My hands are tied because of that law! Even if I came up with some brilliant plan and won I wouldn’t legally be able to rule!”

Sevana slowly closed the book and set it off to the side, on a small table nearby, a thoughtful look on her face. “So you have to get the king to abdicate and pass the throne to you.”

“Right,” he agreed. “Which I can’t do until the curse is broken because no one in their right mind would pass a kingdom to an eight year old to control.”

“It’s a conundrum,” she admitted. “But if we need to, we can always go in and kidnap the king and get him to sign over his kingdom to you.”

He froze at her words. Kidnap the king. Of course. She could do that. She already went in once and got him, after all. And that ‘we’ was very heartening to hear. Had it ceased to be solely a Bel problem, then? “Sevana…that’s an excellent idea.”

“I’m full of them,” she responded snarkily.

Bel let out a breath of relief and slouched back into the chair. “Well, that’s one problem with a solution.”

“Ohh?”

Uh-oh. He shouldn’t have said that aloud. He gave her a cautious look. Sevana didn’t normally pay a lot of attention to what he said, but he had her full attention now and the expression on her face clearly said she wanted to know about his second problem. “Umm, never mind,” he muttered, eyes darting to the side. “It’s personal.”

“Personal. I see.” She shifted so that she had an elbow on the arm, leaning slightly toward him. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with why you’ve chosen to do all of this research at the library despite the fact that I have loads of history books right in this room, would it?”

He couldn’t quite control a wince.

“Ohh?” Sevana asked him with an evil smile. “You like the librarian’s daughter, eh? Love at first sight and all that?”

Bel glared at her with murder in his eyes. Either her women’s intuition was razor sharp or he had become far too easy to read.

“This is
not
funny, Sevana.” Actually, the whole situation was probably perfectly hilarious, to her eyes.

“Why, you little grave-robber, you!”

“SEVANA!”

“What?”

“I’m actually twenty-one, or did you forget?” he gritted out.

 She paused, putting on an expression of fake thoughtfulness, as if pondering his response for a moment. “That’s true, you are. And she’s, what, eighteen? Hmmm…in that case, you should be ashamed of yourself, you cradle robber.”

He actually growled in frustration, like a wolf separated from its dinner by a mere foot’s distance. “She won’t believe I’m that old, though. I mean, look at me! She won’t even take me seriously! Sweet mercy, I can’t even
flirt
with her because I look
like an eight year old!
”

“I’d pay money to watch you try, though. Probably the best show I’d see all year.”

He gave her a lethal glare, mentally planning out the details for her funeral arrangements. “Why are you pouring salt into an open wound?”

“I was just trying to change your mood,” she responded innocently, batting too-big eyes at him.

“That’s how you help someone who’s depressed?!”

“Sure. You’re not depressed anymore, right? Now you’re mad.”

He stared at her incredulously for a long moment. This time she wasn’t (completely) snarky, but half-sincere. This really
was
her attempt to comf—help him. “How can Morgan stay around you without losing his mind?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted frankly. “Tell me if you ever figure it out.”

Bellomi let his forehead thunk against the table, feeling perfectly miserable. The cool wood actually felt good against his overheated skin. He pressed his skin in a little harder, not caring if it would leave a mark.

“You’d think the world was ending, the way you’re acting.” She raised her hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll try to think of a way to make you age at least while I try to break the curse. I probably need to anyway, as breaking the curse doesn’t automatically restore the years of growth that you lost. It just lets you age again.” Shaking her head, she added rhetorically, “Heavens, I really am too nice to this kid.”

He went from depressed to puppy-eyes in a flat second. “You will?” he asked hopefully, almost worshipping her. “Really?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” She shooed him out with a casual flip of the hands. “Go train or something, will you? Sheesh. Kids and their drama.”

He felt like kissing her, but knew she wouldn’t be comfortable with that. Instead, he offered, “I’ll cook dinner.”

“And have my kitchen black and smoking? No thanks. How about you go
catch
dinner.”

That actually did sound like a better option. Bellomi freely admitted that he was a disastrous cook. “What do you want?”

She thought for a moment. “Quail.”

“Coming right up!” He bounced out of the chair and spun for the door, snatching up his swords as he moved.

~ ~ ~

Sevana dove back into her books, this time shifting focus slightly. Instead of breaking the curse outright, she wanted to devise a way to get around it enough for Bel to gain a few inches. Hopefully, her back-brain would still be working on the main problem while she tinkered and spit out something brilliant later.

As the days passed, she vaguely became aware that the hunting/stalking lessons had developed into a competition between Baby and Bel. They took turns bringing in some very unique game—some of which she made them release immediately—and other things that Bel charmed her into cooking for dinner. As it provided a variety between the endless fish, ham, and chicken, she willingly took on something different. But the game progressively became bigger with each day. Sevana had a bad feeling that she’d have to step in at some point and stop them, reminding them of Rule Number One.

Once she had a good design, she went to building it, tweaking things here and there as improvements occurred to her. With carpentry wands at her disposal, building anything took very little time or effort on her part and within a day, she had it built. Actually, it took longer to carve all of the magical insignias and infuse the device with magic than it had to build it.

But two weeks after Bel had slouched into her Research Room, all depressed and love-sick, she had a working model. She looked it over one last time, making sure that she hadn’t forgotten or overlooked anything. It didn’t seem that she had. Satisfied, she straightened back up and asked Big, “Is Bel inside?”

Yes,
the mountain sighed.

“Call him for me, would you?”

It took a few minutes, but eventually she heard a timid knock on the door. “Come in!” she called, a little amused at his caution.

Bel entered the room warily, Baby on his heels. This room attached to her workroom, so she supposed the caution was warranted if over-exaggerated at this moment. When things failed to explode or set him on fire, he entered more confidently, taking in the room in general. But this place had nothing to it. In fact, it had the size of a large alcove with just the bed inside.

He went straight to her new invention and stared at it intently from several different directions. Bel being a curious sort, he often studied something silently for several minutes before asking questions. “Is this it?”

“This is it,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched him. What had he expected, anyway? She’d told him two days ago that she had made a bed that would help him grow. Surely this simple single bed with a wooden frame didn’t surprise him. “It’ll be slow, but if you’re on this, it will subdue your curse enough to allow you to grow.”

“The name is on here somewhere, right?” he asked suddenly.

Name? Oh, was that why he looked at it from so many angles? She always had a name on it
somewhere
even if it took a magnifying glass to read it at times. The wood frame was darkly stained with black carvings in every possible inch of it. The name blended right in with the rest. “It’s on there.”

When he did find it, he let out a groan. “
Grow-for-true-love-bed
. Really? Did you
have
to name it that?”

“I did,” Sevana told him seriously. She pointed at it and added matter-of-factly, “Besides, how many people do you think I can market this to? There aren’t many cursed princes running around with aging problems, you know.” Tapping a finger thoughtfully to her chin, she mused aloud, “Although I suppose I could market it to anyone who’s just short and in love with a taller woman. Without a curse on them, it wouldn’t take more than a night’s sleep to give them a few inches. Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that.”

Assuming she didn’t offend anyone with her marketing approach, it would probably sell. Well, actually, she’d have Kip market it for her. He could sell a cup of water to a drowning man.

Bel put a hand against the footboard of the bed frame. “Explain this to me one more time.”

Sevana gave him an exasperated look. “Didn’t you pay attention the first time?”

“Certainly. But, I didn’t really understand it.”

Alright, as a non-magical practitioner it probably hadn’t made a lot of sense, but… “Why do you need to know how it works, anyway?”

Bel met her look for look. “So I don’t make any stupid mistakes.”

Kid made a good point. Not that she could think of a way to misuse this, mind, but if it could be done then a child would do it. They were ingenious that way. “Fine. Pay attention. This,” she put a hand on the side of the bed and tapped the wood, “is a device to overpower the curse and allow you to grow.”

“But what about the stasis spell?”