Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

CALLISTO

"You are just the cutest," I coo as the creature rocks his crate all around.

"Eli, what is this?" the king asks. I'm so used to tossing out the name Callisto to keep people from recognizing me as the prince that I feel like I haven't heard that name in a while.

"I bought him yesterday at the sale. He is my new mount," I say, rather proud of myself.

The king seems rather not proud of me. "Why?"

"Because he's cute and they were treating him so unfairly. Look at how skinny he is, and he's obviously been abused."

"You are the heir to the throne and that thing is going to kill you."

"He won't kill me. He likes me. Don't you?" I say as I press my hand flush against the bars. The beast slams into the spot. "See? He just gave me a little kiss."

"He tried disemboweling you," King Samuel counters. "Do not let that thing out. If I see it out, my men have the okay to kill on sight."

"That's rather harsh," I grumble.

"Do not let it out."

"Fine."

"Go play with your new horse. The whole barn is raving about what a sweetheart he is."

"Eh."

"And don't forget the ceremony where we will crown you prince, and the ball that will follow," he says. "Our people are very eager to officially meet you. Maybe you'll even find yourself a wife. You are plenty old enough to have a wife and offspring."

This is getting worse by the minute. I'd rather play with my new pet.

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty-four."

"Quite old."

"I'm not that old," I say.

"Very old. By your age, I already had three wives and five concubines."

"How did you get anything done?" I ask.

"I pleased them all."

"I… would rather not know about that."

"Sometimes all at once."

"Uh… fascinating… I guess…"

"And you can follow in my footsteps."

"I'd rather not."

"If you're too shy, I can introduce you to some lovely women who will teach you things . They were once my teachers."

"Are they still even alive, then?" I ask.

"I'm not that old."

"You aren't?"

He stares at me.

I decide that if I'm going to be tortured, I might as well be tortured by someone I want. "What are your thoughts on that tavern keeper on the outskirts of town?"

"The one who poisons everyone who eats there?"

"Yes!" I say. "See? I'm clearly not the only one who knows this."

"No."

"What? Why?"

"He's a human and will produce you no heirs."

"Then I'll like… kidnap a child or something and be like ‘You, you are now a prince.'"

"That is illegal."

"I'd ask first if he wanted to be kidnapped."

"Go find a lovely woman. And then once you're married, you can toss that tavern keeper into the palace and call him your door opener for all I care. Outward appearances come first. I give no shits what you do behind closed doors."

"Can I bring him to the ball?"

"Are you listening to anything I'm saying?"

"Kind of, but it's also really disturbing."

"What part of it is disturbing?" King Samuel asks.

"Like the part where you wanted me to wallow in the sheets with decrepit ladies."

"I'm not that old! They're only like six years older than me!" he protests.

"So about the tavern keeper?"

"No."

"What if… I brought him anyway?"

The king sighs, evidently tired of my shit. "Will you marry the first woman I point at if I allow it?"

"I'd prefer not."

"Then no."

I sigh and all the grass beneath my feet immediately dies.

"Will you stop murdering all the grass when you talk to me? There's just patches of dead grass everywhere because of you."

"If you said better things, I wouldn't!" I say as I wave my hand and life returns to it before I sigh, and it dies again. It's clearly useless to try to fix it.

"Fine. But you have to dance with at least two women who are coming to meet you."

I grin, pleased at that as life returns to the grass beneath my feet. "Splendid!"

"I should have picked my other brother's son," he mutters.

"I can hear you."

"Oh, don't worry, I wasn't trying to be quiet," he says.

"What's wrong with me? Frankly, I feel like I'm amazing."

"You are… something," he decides. "You sleep through all your lessons. You bring home this… vile monster. And you want to run off with tavern keepers. Like… find a lord at the very least. And something that's not human."

"He could be an orc," I say.

King Samuel shudders. "Fine. The human it is."

I beam, positive that's all the permission I need. The king sighs and leaves me to my beast. I fetch a bucket of meat I'd brought and toss a little piece inside. He snarls at me, but he's obviously quite hungry as he tries to figure out how to get the meat between the tiny metal bars that make up the muzzle.

"I'm sorry, I'll cut them up smaller," I say as I pull out a knife and start cutting them. It takes a ridiculous amount of time to cut up each piece to feed such a large creature.

He eats each bite while growling the entire time.

"What do you want your name to be?" I ask as I peer into the crate where the low grumble is coming from. "What about Dandelion?"

The beast doesn't seem to care, so I deem that perfect and set my hand against the bars. It refuses to acknowledge my hand as I sigh. "We will be friends," I threaten.

"Prince, you're late," the butler calls from a good distance away. He refuses to come near my new mount, which means that if I stay out here, he might not be able to drag me inside, but I grudgingly go in anyway.

I walk down the long halls that are slowly becoming more familiar to me. The former king is the one who built the palace and clearly spared no expense. Even as he watched his people starve, he poured money into making sure every room of the palace was finely furnished.

I walk past it all without paying any mind to it, having no interest in frivolous things. If this were my palace, I would sell it all and fill it with little beasties.

Hurrying down the hall, I take a left into the library where the king's strategist is waiting for me. While he's not technically a teacher, he's taken on the job of getting me up to date on the current proceedings of the kingdom.

"How nice of you to join me," he says with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"You're welcome. I was busy talking to the king. Next time, I will simply tell the king to fuck off," I respond before giving him my best smile.

The man hates me and the expression he gives me just reconfirms it. He's a man of about fifty with dark brown hair speckled with gray. While also fae, he doesn't seem to possess much, if any, magic. But he's an extremely smart man who helped King Samuel win the Vermillion War.

Around sixteen years ago, a civil war began within the kingdom of Vermillion, which is mostly populated by fae. At the time, the fae had such a tight noose around the necks of those who weren't fae that they rose up in revolt, tired of being treated the way they had been. The kingdom was locked in a war with itself for a good five years, which astounded the fae. There were so few humans, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in strength. It seemed to be never-ending before a neighboring kingdom, Langsten, took advantage of the state of the country to move in. With Vermillion broken apart, they'd weakened their army, leaving them open to the new threat.

And as the tables were constantly shifting and turning, the humans managed to assassinate the man who was king at the time, King Samuel's father. It was around the same time Langsten decided to raise arms against Vermillion.

As King Samuel rose to take his place, he weighed the options. If he continued as he was with his kingdom split between fae and humans, they'd be unable to face Langsten who would absorb Vermillion into its clutches.

So things had to change, and King Samuel saw to it. And while neither side within the civil war got everything they wanted, there were compromises tossed in place that meshed them together long enough to keep from being defeated and absorbed into the kingdom of Langsten.

It was a long war full of suffering that ended close to ten years ago now.

So while Donnel, the strategist, is not my favorite person alive, he is quite knowledgeable… but I already know most of what he's going over.

"You need to be aware of all the trade routes as well. Have you studied them?"

"Thoroughly," I assure him.

"That's funny because when you were supposed to be studying, I find out you were off buying monsters."

"Dandelion is not a monster, and I still studied them. I'm well aware that we have multiple trade routes with the kingdoms bordering us. It's where we acquire most of our resources by trading our plentiful livestock. We have three main routes: the Westslate Harbor, which we've seen an increase in pirate activity of late, leading to more vessels needing to scout the seas. Then we have the main route, which is heavily guarded, and then the route we must take when winter makes the main route unstable. If you'd like, I can show you the placement of each route on the map, tell you how many soldiers you have scouting the area, and what is currently in high demand."

Donnel is not impressed. "Sure. You write all of that down for me in very in-depth detail."

I hesitate. "Really? I'm sure there's something else that I don't know that I should be learning. We've barely touched on military or things that aren't common knowledge."

"No, no, no. I'm eager for this report. Please. Have at it."

"Of course," I say as I stare at him. He pushes a quill with refillable ink close to me. "But first, I must be excused for just a moment."

I jump up and scurry off, positive that I don't want to sit there and write down shit I already know. I don't have time for that nonsense.

That's when the king walks right past me without even acknowledging me. I'm not quite sure what he's up to, so I slink after him as I've done a few other times I've noticed this happening. He disappears through a door and before it can fully swing shut, I slip through it.

Whenever he's in this state he doesn't seem to recognize anything around him, even if I speak to him. Even so, I draw myself into the shadows as I move, although if I'd walked right up behind him, I'm not quite sure he would have noticed me.

He carries himself deeper into the palace before he reaches a room cast in shadows. He walks to the middle of the room, stopping right in the middle. For a moment everything is still before I see a flash of light encircling his feet. And then a dark mist begins to seep out of the floor at his feet, stretching across the room. The darkness thickens as I watch, but no matter how many times I witness this, I can't quite figure out what he's doing. Is this his magic? A magic no one else knows of?

The mist slithers along the floor like a snake as it takes note of me. What the fuck? It's never noticed me before; how the hell did it notice me this time? Startled, I turn toward the door, but the darkness has cut off my exit. The entire door is covered in blackness, almost like the mist has consumed it. Quickly, I draw back into the corner where I'd been because how the fuck do you fight against mist ?

It snakes around my ankles, tightening like a vise. I want to kick it away, but there's nothing there to kick. It draws its way up my body, like a weight I can't escape from. I tear away from it and try to run, but it's on me, ripping me to the ground. I twist, struggling to get free as I look up and jolt, startled, as I realize the king is staring down at me.

I'd never even heard him get near me, but he's staring down at me with eyes that are as black as the mist holding me down. Pain tears into my chest like the mist is eating into my skin. I try to pull back, struggling to get free as panic clutches at me.

Twisting hard, I jerk back as a light shatters the darkness. I have no idea where it came from, but I'm just thankful it pushes the darkness off me.

I'm panting, confused and a bit shaky as the king looks at me with his startled blue eyes. "Eli? What are you doing?" he asks.

"What the hell was that?" I ask as I scramble to my feet.

"What?" he asks as he looks around. "Did that beast attack you? Don't tell me you let it free?"

"N-No," I stammer, wondering how he could possibly think Dandelion did any of this.

Did the king do that? Or does he not know what happened either? How the fuck do I know if I should trust him or not? I barely know the man.

"You look like you've seen something horrifying."

"N-Nothing at all," I say as I rush for the door. But as I reach it, I turn back to look at the king who is staring at the spot in the middle of the room.

I don't know what the fuck that was, but I know I need to get away from it. Quickly, I leave the palace, needing to escape those suffocating walls. Rushing through the city, I head toward the outskirts where the tavern of poisonous food awaits me since it weirdly feels like the only place I feel safe when I don't know what's going on or who to trust.

Just as I get near, a dark red bird takes off and flutters up into a tree. I rush toward it and the instant I'm out of anyone's sight, it drops down into my hand. I pull the paper free from the little pouch it wears and unfold it. The parchment is blank until I use my knife to nick my finger and smear a drop of blood on it.

The blood sizzles the moment it hits the paper and words assemble before me, a cryptic message that only I can read. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could spell disaster, but thankfully, I'm the only one who can access it.

The words shift until they form before me, only to see that the letter says: Wow, sounds like you're fully fucked! Ha ha!

I ball up the paper and throw it before jabbing a finger at the bird as the paper ignites and turns to ash in the grass since it's no longer needed. "You go back and you pluck his motherfucking eyes out, you hear me?" The bird cocks its red head, clearly listening intently to its newfound duty. "Your new job is to fly in and just like go right for his face. And like get those little claws in there, you know? Get them in deep."

"I don't even want to know why you're trying to train a bird to murder."

I jump and quickly look over at Silas who is only a few feet from me. I give him an awkward smile and question how the hell he crept up on me. "Ha… it's a little joke I like to play with birdie here. Right, bird?"

It pecks me then flies off, pleased that it's drawn blood.

"Was that the punchline?" he asks.

I swipe at the blood. "Hysterical, right?"

"Can't stop laughing," Silas teases.

"I came to pet your mule."

"Oh? You didn't come to see me?"

"I came to pet your mule and to invite you to my spectacular princing ceremony and ball, or whatever it's called. You can watch me wear a crown and things. I don't actually know what happens at one. It could be like a magic circle to call upon a great ancient dragon for all I know, but what I do know is I want you there."

"Am I the sacrifice?"

"You would make a good maidenly sacrifice," I say.

"I would be a damn fine maiden," he decides.

"That beard alone would be enough of a sacrifice, it's so magnificent."

"Thank you. But no. I'm good. I actually have plans."

"I didn't tell you what night it was," I say.

"I have plans every night."

"Then good thing it's during the day."

"I also have plans then."

"It's actually at night. But you can take a break from poisoning the city for a small bit of time."

"I thought you were going to be dead by now, if I'm real honest. Don't you want to try riding your mount?"

"His name is Dandelion."

That makes him laugh like he could possibly think that the name doesn't fit him. "Of course it is. Just giving it a cute name doesn't make it any more tolerable."

"I will see you tomorrow night. You will praise me and my crown. You will take one look at me and decide that I am fit to be king. And then go ‘I will dedicate my entire life to this man.'"

"Are you trying to get out of marrying any of the women coming to see you?" he guesses.

"One hundred percent. There are so many and they're all so lustful. The last one told me our babies would have the cutest hair. I went home and threatened to cut it all off."

Silas reaches over and ruffles my hair. "Don't cut your hair off. How else will I be able to drag you out of your beast's maw? Oh wait, I'm sorry. Out of Dandelion ' s maw."

"Funny. You better be there tomorrow."

He's giving me an odd look and I hesitate, unsure if it was something I said. His hand drops off my head before his finger pokes me in the chest and then he smiles, making me question whether I'd made the whole odd look up. "How much are you paying me?"

"I have to pay you?" I ask.

"Handsomely."

"Fine, fine," I say as I pull out my coin purse and open it before pulling out the lowest value coin that I have. He takes it, puts it back in my hand, and dumps the rest of my coins into his hand.

"I will see you tomorrow, Prince."