Chapter 8
The outer castle walls had just come into view when Bella asked Riven about his childhood. He loved speaking with her and wished to share everything about himself, but he feared revealing too much. “What do you wish to know?” he asked.
“Well, for starters, do you have siblings?”
He vacillated how much to share. “My father’s first wife died in labor with their second child, so I have an older half-brother from that union.” Common enough that she would not be suspicious of his parentage.
“Are you close with him?”
“No. Poisson was born as rotten as an old gourd.”
“Poisson? Your brother’s name is Fish?” she exclaimed.
“Pet name. Only the family calls him that. My mother said he looked like a fish, and it stuck. He was too young to argue when he was dubbed with the moniker.”
“How tragic for him.”
“Not undeserved,” Riven said.
“Come now, tell me how rotten this little boy was.”
“Where to start? He would pick me up out of my cradle by my arm and drag me that way on the floor. He poured hot soup on my nappy when I was barely walking.” He felt his face heat, hoping she did not ask about the results of that, which were painful blisters for weeks.
“He said it was to stop me from following him. When I was old enough to ride, he knocked me off my pony and I cut my ear on a rock.” He pointed at his tiny earhole.
“I almost lost that ear. To this day, they are uneven.”
“And how did your mother or governess handle this chaos? Surely your half-brother received a blistering bottom at least once for his evil ways?”
He shook his head. “My mother and governess always pretended never ever happened. Father would tell me to toughen up and be a man.”
Bella’s jaw dropped as she looked at him. “And you were a boy at this time?”
“Yes. Four, five, maybe six.”
Fire sparked in her eyes, and he loved that she was outraged on his behalf. “Well, if your brother is intended to follow in your sire’s footsteps, then for your sake, I hope your father’s industry involves joining the military and being sent to a faraway land.”
Riven laughed out loud. “Would that it were so!”
They shared the most honest, joyful laugh Riven had ever experienced.
A moment later, everything changed.
Barely three hours in total had passed since they had traveled away from the pond, but Riven suddenly knew with absolute certainty he had pushed his luck.
Despite the wineskin with enchanted mud, despite the new, watertight bucket, despite the flask full of smelly pondwater that slopped against his slippery hide, the spell upon him was fading.
In the worst way possible.
“Bella, my friend, we must hasten back to the pond. Wum.”
“Hasten our return? Just as we are getting to know one another so splendidly? Do you yearn for your poisonous muck so badly as that?”
“Wum. Wum.”
“Oh, fine. Keep your secrets, you belligerent bullfrog.”
Riven waved his arms at Bella, his clawed toes dug deep in his magical mud, but the words would not form. “Wum wum wum.”
She glanced down at him, one brow higher than the other. “Are you alright, Albert?”
“Wum wum wum.” He waved his little arms again, but then he began to lose sense of who he was. “Wum....”
“Albert? Albert?”
A vacuousness settled over him; all he knew was that his stomach was full and the mud was warm.
––––––––
“ALBERT?” BELLA KNEW her voice was tinged with a bit of hysteria, but Albert was not answering.
The pond was nearby, but not nearly close enough.
She glanced behind herself, but most of the villagers were heading deeper into their streets for dinnertime and not coming her way.
“Nocturne, I need to ride you. Your master, I assume, needs our help.” She cranked her foot up and wedged it into the stirrup, then hoisted herself into the comfortable saddle.
She kicked the horse’s sides and yelled, “Yah!”
With one hand on the reins and the other hovering protectively over the bucket, Bella raced across the open fields toward the filthy pond. She pulled Nocturne to a halt as she slipped from the seat, unhooking the bucket from the saddle horn before she even knew if her feet were on the ground.
“Albert? Albert! Stay with me.” She raced toward the pond’s edge and tipped the bucket, but the frog crouched further back into the muck.
“Oh, no you don’t.” She scooped him up and plopped him firmly into the water, studying him intently.
After a long moment, the frog’s eyes blinked, then blinked again. Suddenly, a new light shone in them, and the frog looked around himself, then at her.
“Bella?”
“Oh, thank the heavens.”
“How did I get here?”
“I rode your horse. I do not believe anyone saw me, but you seemed at first frantic and then unable to speak.”
He seemed to ponder her words. “Yes. Yes. I recall now.”
“What happened?” she asked him.
“The magic faded. I recall feeling an... emptiness settle upon me. Like I had stepped out of my skin and gone elsewhere. That is the only way to describe it.” He eyed her. “What did it look like to you?”
She considered how to best capture what she saw. “You waved your arms at me, croaking away, but then you... settled. The light left your eyes. Like my mother’s....” She did not want to think of the last image she had of her mom. “You looked like an ordinary frog.”
“I did not mean to cause you distress.”
She leaned back to sit, fluffing her new skirts around her knees. “I wager the spell is not as fickle as we’d hoped.”
Albert croaked and hung his head. “It would appear not. The enchantress is not to be fooled.”
Bella studied Albert for a long moment. “You are Prince Riven, are you not?”
He whipped his head to hers. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“How can I not? The queen offers a crown for any who can produce him to the royal guard, for he has been missing all day since meeting an enchantress. You were turned into a frog today by an enchantress. You do not deny the horse is yours, a Mérens horse, no less. You stopped yourself from saying castle and corrected yourself to say pond the moment we met. You referred to yourself as a gentleman. And of all the people in this city, you are the sole one cursed, though honestly, I presume Poisson is behind this.”
Albert leapt onto the bank, landing heavily, as if he stomped. “Wum wum wum. Wum wum wum.” Now he looked to be pacing. Angry pacing. If a frog were capable of such things.
He made an incredibly long leap into the water and stared at her. “Let me guess, you wish to claim that reward, no? Well, you will have to wade in here and find me.” And he disappeared out of view.
“Albert! Prince Riven!” She growled in frustration, getting up to pace the shoreline. “That is not what I was saying at all. Will you please come up and speak with me?”
She scanned the oily surface, but no eyes erupted through it.
“Fine.” She dropped onto her bottom, facing the pond. “I am getting cold, and the sun is setting, and all I want to do is return home to my father, but I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.
“Therefore, I will sit right here until you tell me the truth.”