Chapter 10 Breakfast Included
Breakfast Included
Vex looked down at his empty plate then across the table to where Hein sat smoking his pipe.
They were seated in the Dawn’s bar room at the large round table by the fireplace where Ailduin had sung the other night and so entranced his son.
There was another type of symphony going on currently.
From upstairs–and despite the doors being shut to both bedrooms–Snaglak’s snores and Glom’s wheezy whines reached them. It was rather peaceful.
The dwarf’s amber eyes were hooded. Smoke curled around his long hair that was held back from his face in long plaits. The center of his magnificent beard was also braided, which moved as he pulled on the slender stem and then pursed his lips as he sent smoke rings up into the air.
Vex meaningfully looked down at the empty plate again.
Hein let out another smoke ring.
He sighed. “I believe you have committed false advertising of your inn, Hein.”
“Oh?” Those amber eyes remained hooded. Only Hein’s lips moved.
Vex spun the empty plate on the table. The very empty plate. “You claim that every stay comes with a free breakfast.”
“Ah.” Another smoke ring. The fire crackled and popped.
“I see no breakfast.” Vex lifted his nose in the air and sniffed. “I smell no breakfast cooking. Not paid, let alone free.”
“There is no staff here at the present time,” Hein said.
“Why not?”
“I closed until dinnertime so that you could sleep unmolested. Your breakfast will be everyone else’s dinner,” Hein explained. “That was the plan for your comfort.”
Vex snorted. “Well, I’m up now and quite peckish.”
“Why are you up?”
“Glom needed the bed. His tummy is still recovering from all those Leviathan fangs,” Vex explained.
There was a long silence. “You gave up your bed to a farting naki?”
“Have you ever tried to move a farting naki from a bed? I tell you that it is harder than when I conquered the vulgral.” Vex fussed with his clean silverware.
“Or you have a soft spot for that reptile. Well, wonders will never cease.”
Vex pushed his empty plate–so very empty–towards Hein. “Now that the mystery of the lack of guests and staff is answered. Let’s get back to breakfast. The included and delicious breakfast that I was promised. You’re here and, unless my memory deceives me, you are an excellent cook.”
“As are you, Vex. I have many fond memories of your roasts over open fires.” Was there a smile on those lips? But they were pursing again as another smoke ring soared into the atmosphere so he couldn’t tell if the smile had ever existed. “The kitchen is open to you.”
“But I am a guest. And I’m paying double,” Vex sighed as he said the last. “So I should be getting double the service, not none of the service.”
“Why are you paying double?” Hein’s bushy left eyebrow rose.
It was Vex’s turn to purse his lips. “My son thinks I am annoying and so should pay an annoyance tax–”
Hein let out a bellowing laugh and smacked the table with the flat of his right hand several times making the silverware dance.
Vex’s red eyes narrowed. “I do not see what is funny about that!” Then softer, more to himself than the dwarven king, “I am not annoying. I am quite charming.”
“You’re not annoying, Vex. Not often anyways. What I am laughing about is how you’re wrapped around his little finger already,” Hein chuckled.
“What?” Vex lifted his chin. “My son has no power over me! I have all the power over him!”
“Of course, you do,” Hein said mildly. Too mildly.
More narrowed eyes. “After all, his fate is in my hands. Yes, that’s right. I’m considering–”
“Whether to kill him?” Hein lifted that eyebrow again.
His friend’s voice had dipped into the arctic zone to indicate just what he thought about that plan. Vex looked at the fire, avoiding those amber eyes. Hooded or not, Hein’s stare was powerful. Even on him.
“What to do about him,” Vex amended. “In general. Life and death is… perhaps not on the table. I have not decided anything. But I am certainly not wrapped around my son’s little finger! He thinks I’m annoying so I would hardly value him! Really! Absurd!”
“Why do you have to do anything about him? He has a life here.” Hein gestured to the cozy dwarven taven’s interior with the stem of his pipe.
Vex’s eyes lingered on the bar. He could almost imagine his son standing behind there, polishing a glass, and glaring at him.
Definitely, glaring at him. “He is content here. He has told you that he does not want to be the Night Prince–”
“He’s in love with Ailduin,” Vex cut in.
It was so strange to say that. His son. In love.
Hein grunted and pulled on his pipe. “It could fade. He is so young and–”
“Have you seen them together?” Vex sighed.
Hein grimaced. “The first flush of infatuation–”
“Hein–”
“You’ve hardly spent time with them to judge the true weight of their emotions. Unless you were spying–ah, of course, you have been spying on them.” Hein shook his head. “You may be getting ahead of yourself here. Assuming things. You hardly know Declan–”
“But I know Ailduin.” Vex rested his head against the back of the chair. “The look on his face when he gazes upon Rahven… I’ve never seen that look before. He sparkles when he even thinks about Rahven.”
“Perhaps the love is more one-sided then. Declan is, again, very young and–”
“What I do know of Rahven is that he attaches to few people, but when he does… he is there for life. And no human bartender can be with the Sun King.”
He gave his friend a stern look. Though, really, the Night Prince could be a bartender as the Draesiwen king was the owner of the inn he worked at.
And a bartending Night Prince could marry the Sun King.
But no. No. His son would not serve drinks and food to the likes of those two idiotic Aravae he took care of in the forest!
“I see,” Hein continued to smoke. The fire crackled and snapped. His plate continued to remain empty of food. “How do you feel about that?”
“Are you asking if I’m jealous?” Vex laughed. This was an easy argument to knock down. Hein was losing his edge if he thought that this mode of attack would rattle him.
“Yes.”
“That part of Ailduin and my relationship ended long ago. You know this. We were better friends than lovers. And it was… too complicated when we were,” Vex admitted.
“I meant whether you are jealous of Declan feeling so close to Aquilan?” Hein asked.
“My son finds me annoying. I find him… I don’t…
there’s nothing…” Vex grimaced. His inability to simply answer that question told Hein likely all he thought he needed to know.
His right hand curled into a fist. “She told him he was jadir, Hein. Ashryn thought that telling him that he was bloodless was better than telling him about me.”
“Knowing Declan, if she had told him about you, he would have sought you out, Vex,” Hein said. “He wouldn’t have been able to stay away. You know this. A son needs his father.”
“A son does.” A smile crossed his lips. “He would have come to me. I bet he would have climbed the Cyran Tower, lightly leaped over the railing of the balcony,” Vex made movements with his hands to indicate his son’s supposed movements, “and then crept inside, looking for me.”
“And if he had found you? What would you have done?” Hein prompted.
“I would have admired his boldness and his skills,” Vex smiled broader. “His head would have lifted high. Proud. Put a faint blush on my child’s cheeks.”
A long pause and then Hein asked softly, “And when you realized he was your son, what would you have done?”
That question hung like frost in the winter air.
“That is why she told him he was jadir,” Hein sighed.
“She had no right to…” Vex pressed his lips together. He was trembling. His fingernails dug into the soft flesh of his palm as he tightened his fisted right hand.
“To what? Have a child?”
“Have my child!” Vex’s clenched fist slammed down on the table. The fork took a dive off the table and clattered by his feet. He did not reach down to get it. He was not going to be fed anytime soon evidently.
“What I do not understand about all this is how it happened at all?” Hein asked.
“Surely, you know the birds and bees, Hein. Isn't that what humans call it? Such an odd saying–”
“Of course,” Hein made a tcha sound. “But we both know that to bear your child is a little more complicated.”
And it was.
So complicated.
It should have been impossibly complicated.
“It should not have happened. But she… she became… she had him!” Vex cried and swallowed. He trusted no one. Not even Ashryn. And his distrust had clearly been borne out in spades. But she had become pregnant regardless.
“You think she worked around your spells? You think she could have done this?” Hein’s forehead furrowed.
“No, she couldn’t have. He should not exist,” Vex admitted.
Rahven should not exist. But he did. He was very real. Very… here. Coming here. He would be here soon. And why did his breath catch at the thought of Rahven being here? He was more excited to see him than Ailduin and he was very excited to see Ailduin.
“The gods,” Hein whispered.
“What?!” Vex’s head snapped up and he was staring hard at Hein.
He knew that his eyes were burning red. His magic swirled around him, snapping the air. All who had seen him like this wilted under the power of his personality. They knew that their lives hung by a thread. His temper… But Hein only hesitated a millisecond before letting out the next smoke ring.
What can I take from him that I have not already? His life? No, I gave that back to him. He knows I will not take it away anymore than slicing my own throat. I would not lose him… again.
“Could the gods have done it?” Hein asked. “That is the only possible explanation–”
“To punish me?” Vex asked, his voice curling with tendrils of rage.
“Or as a gift. A peace offering,” Hein quietly answered.
“A… gift?” Vex let out a cackling laugh. “A gift of a double-bladed weapon? A weapon with a hilt that cuts the wielder as well as his blade cuts his enemies?”