Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
“Prince Xavier, your flattery will turn my head.”
Xavier smiled roguishly down into the face upturned to his.
The girl in question, the daughter of one of his father’s lesser nobles, lowered her eyes demurely.
He restrained the dry chuckle that rose up inside him, because he wasn’t such a spoilsport as to share his thoughts with her.
Those thoughts being that neither her manner nor her protests fooled him.
Her head was in no more danger of being turned by his compliments than her heart was of being touched.
She was calculating, artificial, and pursuing her own ends.
In short, she was exactly his preferred kind of companion.
“Impossible to flatter perfection, My Lady,” he said outrageously. After all, she was very pretty, in a carefully crafted, golden-curled, beribboned sort of way.
Her lips curled in a smile of triumph as Xavier continued to hold the hand he’d just bowed over.
He was in no hurry to release it. There wasn’t much about Lady Liesl that genuinely interested him, but the disapproving glare he was currently receiving from a passing member of his father’s council was highly entertaining.
It wasn’t as though he had anything else to do with his morning while he waited for news of the travelers.
Or so he’d thought.
“Your Highness?”
Xavier turned to see one of his personal servants hovering at the entrance of their alcove, which came off the castle’s main courtyard. The man’s expression was apologetic as he looked anywhere but at the pair standing closer than decorum allowed.
“Good morning, Charles,” Xavier said, tucking the hand he still held through his arm and leaning against the stone wall with perfect composure. “Am I being summoned?”
“No, Your Highness, not summoned,” the uncomfortable Charles said, bending in a swift bow. “But you asked me to tell you when the anzu eggs were beginning to hatch.”
“Ah yes!” Xavier straightened, his interest caught in earnest this time. “Is it happening?”
“It is, Your Highness,” the servant confirmed.
Xavier released Lady Liesl’s hand, after pressing his lips briefly to its back with a flourish.
“My Lady, you’ll have to excuse me. Business of a delicate nature calls me away.”
Lady Liesl didn’t look too impressed about being bid farewell rather than invited along. But Xavier felt no remorse. Some flirtation on a dull morning was one thing. Putting up with her conversation for an extended period was another.
“Coming?”
The invitation was directed to Charles. Him, Xavier didn’t mind. He was a good sort of fellow, if still a little too naive. The servant was young and quite new in the prince’s employ. He wasn’t yet inured to Xavier’s gossip-inducing ways.
Looking surprised, Charles trotted along beside Xavier as the prince strode across the courtyard.
Xavier spared a glance for the large decorative fountain that formed the centerpiece of the space.
Only about half the usual number of anzus were preening themselves in the water.
The other half were no doubt attending the hatching.
One of those still in the fountain stretched its wings, flicking water expertly over its feathers without splashing its face.
Most anzus didn’t like to get their faces wet.
They were curious creatures, their bodies all avian, but their heads much the same as those of the cats kept by the castle kitchens to hunt rodents.
“Did you ever see an anzu before coming to work at the castle, Charles?” Xavier asked, smiling at the servant’s fascinated expression.
“No, Your Highness,” Charles replied. “They’re curious creatures, aren’t they?”
“They certainly are,” Xavier agreed. “Vain as peacocks, hungry for attention, and at core, shockingly lazy.” He flashed a grin at his underling. “All of which is why I’ve always felt a strong affinity to our little mascots.”
“Your Highness,” the servant said in a tone of reproach. But Xavier had caught the flicker of a smile he’d only just managed to restrain.
The prince chuckled as he turned away from the fountain, satisfied with his efforts.
He liked his servants to be at ease around him, and he’d learned that jokes at his own expense were an excellent way to soften the inevitable barriers created by rank.
He couldn’t do anything about having been born heir to a kingdom, but that didn’t mean anyone could force him to take himself too seriously.
“Why are some of the anzus not watching the hatching?” Charles asked.
“I imagine the ones still in the fountain are the ones that spout water,” Xavier said. “Apparently the fire-breathers are the only ones with an active role in hatchings.”
“You’re quite learned on the topic, Your Highness,” Charles said respectfully.
Xavier flashed him a grin. “I have become so only recently, my good Charles. You see, the daughter of the visiting Torrenese lord is intrigued by the creatures. I’ve made it a quest of honor to give her a comprehensive education about them.”
The servant managed to hold in the sigh that Xavier could tell wanted to escape at the discovery that the prince’s interest in the anzus was nothing more than another flirtation.
Xavier’s grin grew. Charles was halfway to being part of the family, as far as the prince’s personal retinue was concerned.
The long-suffering sigh was one of Xavier’s most frequent companions.
They’d crossed the courtyard, and Xavier led the way through a narrow doorway and down the short flight of stairs beyond.
The anzus’ nesting area wasn’t designed for humans, so the dozen people already crammed into it made the space tight.
But Xavier spared no thought for them beyond a quick glance to discover whether the Torrenese girl was present.
She wasn’t, and while Xavier would have expressed great disappointment if asked, in truth he was relieved.
In the course of studying the creatures, he’d become genuinely invested in the nest of hatchlings about to be born, and he was glad to be able to focus on the event without the need to play any expected role.
For weeks past, the anzu eggs had been clustered in a large group among a nest made primarily out of pilfered fabric and the contents of castle cushions the anzus had demolished for the purpose.
There was no individualism among anzus. Xavier doubted even the adult anzus present knew which egg had been laid by which bird.
The nest was surrounded by a loose ring of adult birds, their catlike mouths open wide.
They weren’t quite breathing flame, but the heat emanating from their open jaws, along with the constant angry hissing, suggested they were summoning fire but holding it back right before release.
The result was eggs that were warmed but not scorched.
Not all the fire-breathing anzus were taking part. The animals had notoriously short attention spans, and some had already given up on the eggs, grooming their feathers with their long, feline tongues, or examining all the humans in the room with tilted heads and curious eyes.
“Honestly, it’s incredible that the species survives,” Xavier commented to Charles.
He accompanied the words with a chuckle, still tickled by his own earlier comparison.
He really was like an anzu. Certainly if the royal succession depended on him alone, everyone would be worried.
Of course there was the expectation that he’d marry one day and produce some dutiful little heirs.
But if he failed for any reason, no one would panic.
Not with Theo around to cover for him. The responsible younger prince had already married and everything—an uncontroversial and politically advantageous marriage, naturally.
And then there was Xavier, metaphorically grooming his feathers rather than taking an interest in anything of importance.
“What are you grinning about?”
Xavier looked up, surprised to hear his younger sister’s voice.
“I didn’t see you there, Mim. Come to watch the hatching?”
“No, I frequently stand around in this small, dank room,” Princess Miriam said, no heat in the sarcastic words. “You’re here hoping to impress that Torrenese lady, I suppose.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Xavier said in polite bemusement. “My interest in the anzus is purely scholarly.”
Miriam knew better than to give him a reaction, instead smiling faintly.
“I’ve heard you called a lot of things, Xave, but scholarly isn’t one of them.”
Xavier had a retort ready, but Miriam shushed him with her hand. “Listen!”
He returned his attention to the nest of eggs, hearing the crack that had caught Mim’s attention. An egg near the middle had started to wobble more violently than the rest, the fissure down its side expanding rapidly.
It was like the start of an avalanche. In moments, the small space reverberated with splintering cracks, the sounds much louder than made sense, given the size of the eggs.
Tiny creatures started to poke their way out into the warm air of their elders’ breath, their sleek avian bodies making the feline heads more comical than ever.
Excited mutters from across the circle drew Xavier’s eye to a young man who was vibrating as much as an unhatched egg, his hand moving furiously as he scratched notes onto a piece of parchment.
“He’s certainly excited.”
“He’s from the Craftsman’s Guild,” Miriam told him. “This is probably his first time witnessing a hatching.”
“Ah yes.” Xavier nodded.
He’d discovered this in his reading. All magical creatures were fascinating to skilled craftsmen, the Dust stirred up by their movement potent and remarkable in ways regular movement wasn’t.
But apparently the motion created by an anzu’s first movement after birth was particularly unique.
Shame there was no useful purpose for the resulting magic on this occasion.
Given there was no known way to store magic, the Dust was just being released pointlessly into the air.