Sons of Hellfire: Book 1 [Wattys 2016]

Aeric - 17

The next few days passed by with Luce learning how to 'be a prince' from his siblings. Overall, it was an entertaining sight to watch.

Either they had conversations while flying with Demetrius telling him of all the expected duties of an Ignisian prince, bastard or not, or he had acting lessons with Rodel who grew quickly satisfied with the fact that Luce already knew how to hold himself up properly.

But of course, by the end of the week, Luce had had enough.

Demetrius was not particularly the best teacher in describing public affairs and it had reached a point where Luce refused so furiously to meet with large amounts of people in one day that an argument erupted that scared the nearby animals in their resting spot for the afternoon.

"Why must I do people duty?" his best friend snarled, kicking at the dirt that quickly revealed itself to be an ant mound. Luce swore before stalking away from it. "Cadius should do it, he's successor. People want to talk to him, not me!"

His brother was also in a worked up state, crossing his arms and glaring at Luce with an aggravated expression. Aeric was up in a tree, bird on his knee, watching the spectacle below. Rodel was sitting on the ground below his tree, sharpening her claws, ignoring the scene before her as if she had seen it many times. In fact, Aeric had seen her snort quietly in amusement whenever Demetrius said something forcefully.

"Because that is your duty as a prince!" Demetrius argued. "It doesn't matter if you're next in line or not. The people want to make sure that the entire royal family is there to care for them. We take turns during the week with Cadius having done two days to compensate for only six children. But now that there's you, there's no doubt you'll be working that seventh day."

"I don't want to work that seventh day! I don't want to work at all!"

Aeric would hear the whine behind the protest, a reminder that Luce was still the stubborn boy he had met so many years ago. Matured in appearance, but definitely still a child deep down.

Demetrius let out a frustrated sound, running his fingers aggressively through his hair until it looked like a frazzled mess. "Well too bad, you're going to have to." he shot back. "Lucien, I don't care what you did do or didn't do in the castle at Artus. Where you're going, you have a responsibility. The people won't just be settled with the news that a new prince suddenly appeared in the kingdom. You have to prove to them that you've earned a seat amongst us."

"I never said I wanted to!" Luce said in exasperation, his arms open. "I wanted to go down to escape drab life up north! Sitting down in front of mounds of people and listening to them rant about their problems sounds even worse than sitting alone!"

"They don't always talk about their problems," snapped his brother. "They come with gifts and blessings. Yes, they bring up issues that they'd like to be sorted through, but the major ones are simply deferred back to Cadius who'd want to deal with them anyway. You're simply supposed to put on a good face."

Luce let out a little growl. "I don't have a good face."

Aeric heard a soft, entertained 'lies' from Rodel beneath him but he simply continued to stroke the bird's head. It was a pale blue colour with a vivid yellow breast. He had never seen anything like it before and when he asked, the bird said they mainly lived in the south.

"This is ridiculous," said Demetrius. "Lucien, you're going to be talking to your people eventually, whether you like it or not. See? They're not just the king's people nor Cadius'. They are also yours. You have a responsibility to them because they put their faith in you."

"Faith in me?" He cried. "I'm not going to be king! I don't ever want to be king! What reason would anyone want to put their trust in me for?"