The Errant Prince
The
Errant
Prince
Sasha L. Miller
Myron's task is easy enough on the surface: locate the runaway Prince Tamsen and bring him home. But Tamsen is not merely a talented wizard, he's an exceptionally stubborn one, and dozens of others have already failed at the task. When he manages to find the cabin where Tamsen is hiding, Myron isn't foolish enough to mistake the find for a victory.
Instead of attempting to drag the prince home by force, Myron tries a different tact: patience. He might not be able to best Tamsen magically or physically, but Myron can certainly out-stubborn him. He's nothing if not used to doing what other people say he can't.
But neither prince nor soldier expected stubbornness to be the crack in armor they've both become adept at wearing...
Book Details
The Errant Prince
By Sasha L. Miller
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Samantha M. Derr
Cover designed by Natasha Snow
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition February 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Sasha L. Miller
Printed in the United States of America
Digital ISBN 9781620045091
Print ISBN 9781620045107
To my wonderful betas Raelynn, E., and Other Meg. Thank you for putting up with me.
The
Improper
Soldier
The cottage didn't look like it played home to a runaway prince, Myron would give it that. It was small, for one—if it were larger than a single room on the inside, he'd be surprised. It was also rundown, seeming to sag at every corner. It was in sore need of a fresh coat of paint and was overgrown with vines that, upon further consideration, could very well be the only thing holding it together.
He couldn't tell if anyone was home. There were curtains in the windows, suggesting someone lived there, but he was too far away to tell if they looked as worn and abandoned as the rest of the cottage. There also wasn't any sign of movement inside the cottage, and it wasn't yet dark enough to require any light. No smoke climbed from the crumbling chimney, but it was warm enough a fire wasn't strictly necessary.
Myron meandered up the dirt-trod path towards the house, pausing about a dozen paces from the front door. The faint whisper of magic teased along his skin, a hint of a spell that was just out of reach. There would be no reason to spell an abandoned cottage, and it felt like new magic, fresh and clean and bright.
Deciding caution was the better option, Myron removed his sword belt and sat down on the path. He wasn't the first wizard sent after Prince Tamsen, after all, and he wasn't a proper wizard in any sense of the word. He set his sword down next to him, within easy reach, and shut his eyes. Breathing in slowly, he felt out the magic again, drawing it in and searching out its essence. He wasn't good for much magically, but he'd been around spells his entire life, and it wasn't hard to tell that the spell was new, as he'd thought. It was also deceptive—a glamour spell, likely.
Prince Tamsen was a wizard, and Myron's information about the prince's whereabouts came from a good source. He was more sure than ever that he'd found Tamsen's hideaway, which left the question of how to approach. He wasn't the first to find Tamsen. He didn't want to end up like his predecessors: returning to the king empty-handed, with no idea where Tamsen had headed off to hide next.
Myron opened his eyes, blinking a few times against the sunlight. Best to find out what exactly he wasn't supposed to see first. Drawing together a small handful of dirt, Myron carefully infused magic into it using one of the few spells he'd bothered to learn. He shaped and transformed the dirt until it held together in the shape of a tiny, blue bird. It hopped in front of him on the path, chirping softly as it regarded him with a tilted head.
Without a word or gesture, Myron directed the bird to fly past the spell, toward the house. It chirped in acknowledgement, fluttering its wings briefly before taking off. Myron let his eyes unfocus, pushing a bit more magic into the bird so he could see what it saw. The bird's sight was dim, but it could see color and distinguish shapes pretty well.
The glamour spell wasn't a barrier; the bird construct flew past it without a hitch. The cottage wasn't much different past the glamour, and Myron almost thought he'd been mistaken, that the bird hadn't flown past it or that he'd mistaken what the spell was. The cottage was still in sore need of a coat of paint and it still sagged, but the vines crawling its sides were much neater. There was an actual, tidy garden sprawling in front of the cottage, continuing around the side of the building, and a fire was burning inside, sending dark blue smoke swirling up into the sky.
Someone was moving around inside, and Myron directed the bird to land on a windowsill. He peered inside, curious. Prince Tamsen was unmistakable, even through the bird's limited eyes. He was dressed in worn, old-fashioned clothes that had been patched a time or two, but his bright red-orange hair gave him away immediately.
He didn't seem alarmed, or even aware that Myron was nearby. He was reading in front of the fire, which burned a dark, smoldering blue, much like the dark blue smoke it gave off. Myron had been correct: the cottage was one large room, though he hadn't anticipated the books—hundreds of them—and more spell components than Myron had seen in a single place since he'd last visited Olair's shop in the capital.
Myron's captain had made it seem like Tamsen was a mediocre wizard at best… Tamsen shut his book suddenly, and Myron almost believed he could hear the snap of it. The bird shuffled back a few steps as Tamsen stood and dropped the book without any care upon the mantle. He turned toward the window—and just like that, Myron's connection with his bird disappeared. Blinking, he stared at the glamour. He hadn't seen Tamsen make any sort of motion that he was casting, so Tamsen was definitely better than mediocre.
Climbing to his feet, Myron picked up his sword and reaffixed the belt around his hips. There was no point in stealth, considering Tamsen had discovered his bird. Walking up the path, Myron paused once he was past the glamour, shivering at the touch of its magic scraping along his skin. The cottage was brighter, something he hadn't noted through the bird's eyes.
Tamsen was waiting for him, arms crossed and a scowl on his face as he leaned against the doorway of his cottage. The little bird Myron had created was perched upon his shoulder, ruffling its feathers and still very much animated. That surprised Myron—he'd thought Tamsen had dismantled his spell, not… whatever he'd done.
"How did you steal it?" Myron asked, pausing just shy of the steps up to the front door where Tamsen stood. He wouldn't go further without an invitation.
Whatever Tamsen had expected, that apparently hadn't been it. His scowl softened into a deep frown as he stared at Myron. "Spying is rude."
"I'm aware, your Highness, but I thought it better to know what I was getting myself into than charge through a glamour spell nilly-willy," Myron said, dipping a slight bow.
"You can take yourself off again. Whatever my brother wants, he can get it elsewhere," Tamsen said, lifting his hand. The bird hopped off his shoulder and down onto Tamsen's fingers, and Myron watched as it flew back over to him. He lifted his own hand, startled at the slight jolt of magic when the bird landed and Tamsen's magic left it, leaving only his own.
"You overrode it with your own magic?" Myron asked, curious despite himself. He'd never heard of such a thing past overriding a spell in order to break it. The bird ruffled its feathers at him, tilting its head up at Myron like he was something entirely unusual.
"Yes. Go away," Tamsen said, then stepped back into the cottage. He shut the door firmly. A second later, the curtains on all the windows snapped shut simultaneously.
Touching his fingers to the head of the little bird, Myron let it dissolve back into dirt, reabsorbing the remainder of the magic he'd infused into it. He sprinkled it across the path and then dusted his hands together to remove the lingering dirt. He wasn't going to get any further with Tamsen right then, so Myron set about exploring.
The gardens were a combination of vegetables, herbs, and plants that were specifically meant for healing or augmenting magic. They were well-tended, and Myron wondered if Tamsen did the tending himself, or if he had someone from the village an hour east tend it. Probably he did it himself; even as lucrative as some of the plants in the garden were, they wouldn't fetch enough money to pay someone else to do the work of caring for them.
The sprawling garden, the rundown cottage, the patched clothes—none of it fit the image of the spoiled, runaway prince Captain Farbirn had given him. Myron had wasted so much time trying to track Tamsen to many of the smaller cities, places he could hide away without necessarily losing the comforts a prince was accustomed to. It was only after he'd thought to ask some of the men who had previous tracked Tamsen down that he'd gotten any inkling that Tamsen could be further afield than the king thought.
Why the discrepancy, Myron wasn't sure. It was certainly in the king's and his captain's best interests to be accurate, but they hadn't been. He'd been told Tamsen was a poor wizard and had been coddled, and neither seemed to be true. Either their information was wrong, or they didn't believe that Tamsen would leave the comforts of the cities behind for a small cottage near a village that was barely large enough to boast an inn.
Tamsen could very well have improved his magical skills over the last seven years, but it was also possible that the king was underestimating Tamsen. Seven years changed a person, and if King Stirling was still focused on who Tamsen had been when he'd left, he may not have any faith in Tamsen's ability to do anything on his own now, be it magic or the more mundane tasks of living by himself.
Given Tamsen's prowess with magic, Myron wouldn't be able to force him to return. Tamsen could trounce him with magic with both hands tied behind his back. Myron could barely hold a barrier spell on a good day, and it was a few weeks' journey back to Rishaw and the royal palace. Myron couldn't exactly subdue Tamsen and hope to transport him that far without Tamsen's getting the better of him somehow.
So Myron would have to convince him to return, which… was going to be no small challenge.
Myron wandered around to the back of the cottage, noting the garden extended back there as well. He didn't recognize most of the plants in this section of the garden, but that wasn't much surprise. Myron had spent maybe a handful of hours in his parents' garden growing up, and that was mostly to cut through to sneak out into the city. He glanced at the cottage, stifling a smile when a curtain obviously shifted back into place.
The cottage was tucked up neatly against the edge of the Hearth Forest, and Myron headed for the trees. He made sure to stay where Tamsen could easily see him from the cottage, picking a tree with a wide canopy. He was just inside the glamour's spell, so he could see when the curtains twitched slightly again. Grinning at that, Myron removed his sword. Propping it against the tree, he unslung his pack and dropped it to the ground. Sitting down, Myron settled in against the tree to wait for Tamsen to come to him.
The feel of magic around him was calming despite its being the unfamiliar feel of Tamsen's magic. It was soft, clean, and bright, and Myron relaxed, wondering what else Tamsen used his magic for. Something besides the glamour spell, likely, given how much magic Myron could feel. Perhaps something to do with the garden? Little matter. The magic wasn't hostile, so Myron didn't need to worry about it.
The afternoon passed slowly. Myron caught Tamsen checking on him from the window a time or two, but Tamsen stayed firmly shut up inside. Myron dozed but mostly passed the time by watching the cottage and imagining what Tamsen might have been up to in the last few years. He also created and discarded several plans to convince Tamsen to return to the palace.
He needed a better gauge of Tamsen before he could make a real plan. Everything he knew about Tamsen, he'd learned from others, and most of it had already been proven wrong. A spoiled prince with little to no practical magic wouldn't be living in a little cottage on the edge of the kingdom with no one to take care of him but himself. The only thing he was sure of was that Tamsen wouldn't take well to being pushed, hence waiting in the garden for Tamsen to get curious enough to come out and talk to him again.