Howl and the Soulmate Stone

Part Ten : A Royal Invitation

It was around four hours later that Howl stumbled out of bed. He'd had a most fitful night of rest. It was surprisingly warm and comfortable in Justin's bed. He was definitely going to steal it.

The wizard looked around but he didn't see the Turnip prince anywhere.

"Turnip?" he called, but there was no reply. Did he leave me here? The wizard wondered. Did he really abandon me? Just like Sophie did? How RUDE!

When Howl found him he was going to give the prince a piece of his min- wait. The wizard paused his internal ranting to sniff the air. All around him was the delicious aroma of food. It reminded the wizard of the way Sophie would wake him up by cooking breakfast for the people in the castle. That must have been why he had woken up now.

Completely forgetting his anger, Howl quickly exited the chambers to begin his search for the source of the smell.

It was a good thing Howl had such a powerful sense of smell, or maybe the smell was just extremely strong, but he tracked the food through the winding hallways and staircases until he reached a large banquet hall.

The room was massive, probably large enough to hold the King's entire army. Despite this the hall was primarily empty.

The only occupants, aside from the servants, were the King, the Queen, Prince Justin, his sister: the Princess Beatrice, and Madame Suliman. The royal family were eating breakfast but they all turned as Howl approached except Justin, who kept his gaze fixed on his plate.

"Howl! How are you?" boomed the King. "I thought you'd never appear! Weren't you supposed to arrive early yesterday?"

"It's wonderful to see you, Your Majesty," Howl replied instead of answering the questions.

The Queen offered him a warm greeting and invited him to sit at the table with them and eat, an invitation Howl eagerly accepted. A large plate of food was placed in front of him and he quickly dug in.

Madame Suliman watched him cooly and Howl tried to ignore the way it made his skin crawl.

"So you are the wizard Howl," commented the polite voice of Beatrice. She was quite a pretty girl, bearing a striking resemblance to Justin. She had his curly blonde hair and deep, sensitive grey-blue eyes... Howl was shaken out of his thoughts with the stunned reality of what he had just been thinking. He didn't think of the Turnip's eyes like that! Ridiculous.

"Why yes," he replied to the girl with a dazzling smile. "And you would be the gorgeous Princess Beatrice. I've heard so much about you..."

The girl giggled and used her fork to poke some of her toast around on her plate. She was a little younger than Howl and Justin were and Howl felt no attraction to her whatsoever, but he decided to continue their banter that aside. Besides, he rarely felt attraction to any of the girls he met and he had stolen many of their hearts anyway. This was no different, except he could feel Justin glaring at him.

Howl glanced towards the prince with an air of confusion, he would have thought anyone would be happy that he had come to join them. But Justin's eyes made a beeline back towards his plate when Howl tried to meet his gaze. He definitely looked angry...

No matter. Why should he care if the Turnip was sulking?

"And what sort of things have you heard about me?" Beatrice pressed, dragging the wizard's attention back to her.

"Oh, erm, marvelous things certainly. Who would wish to speak ill of such a pretty girl?" Howl returned. He had heard nothing of the princess. He merely knew her name and her face, but she didn't have to know that.