Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files Book 1) Page 2

  Thus, by virtue of its location, Theandrea became the crossroads of the world, and by virtue of all those ancient bridges, the archipelago became known as the Empire of Bridges.

  Now, some say it is better to build bridges than it is to build walls. There are, however, two problems with this statement.

  First, what if one needs to hang a picture?

  And second, what if a bridge is not a bridge? The Empire’s bridges were so old that no one remembered who built them. No one knew their true purpose. Suffice it to say, those things the world referred to as “bridges” were not actually bridges at all. They were, in fact, something far more dangerous.

  But that has nothing to do with this story, so try not to let it trouble you.

  Princess Luscious allowed the cool sea breeze to tickle her hair, little realizing that most of the tickling had nothing to do with the wind and everything to do with Squeaker the Mouse. “You just don’t get it, do you, Laura,” she said.

  Laura’s fingertips had nearly reached their target. “Being a woman doesn’t mean you have to be a victim, Luscious—”

  “That’s Princess Luscious. And being a victim is my job.”

  Laura snatched Squeaker and hid him behind her back just as the princess flared around.

  Seeing her handmaiden standing so close and looking so guilty, Princess Luscious scowled, which still came off looking perfectly beautiful. “What are you doing?”

  “Uh… you… you had something there,” Laura stammered.

  Princess Luscious shook her head and glided toward the door. The audience was over.

  “You know I’m right about this,” Laura called after her.

  “Of course you are,” Princess Luscious said, pausing beside the open doors. “That’s why you’re still just a handmaiden.”

  “I’m only handmaidening to put myself through school…” Laura said weakly.

  “Of course you are,” the princess said again. “Now mail my letter like you were told. Thank you.”

  And with one last perfect swirl of her skirts, Princess Luscious whisked into the hall and was gone. Laura glared after her until Squeaker squirmed in her hand and snapped her back to the moment. She lifted him to her face.

  “Squeaker, just what do you think you were doing? You could have been killed!”

  The love-struck mouse clutched his heart and looked at Laura with beady little eyes full of longing. Laura softened.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you love her. Everybody does. But you have to face reality. You’re a rodent. She’s a princess. Those kinds of things never work out.”

  Squeaker’s beady little eyes now filled with tears. Laura stroked his head and set him on the parchment.

  “Trust me, you can do better than her anyway,” she said.

  Squeaker bowed his head and two big, wet mouse tears spattered the page, right over the phrase:

  NO Shadow Wizards considered!

  The ink bled.

  “Uh oh,” Laura said.

  She dabbed at the expanding black puddle, but the ink smeared and left an unreadable smudge where “NO” had been. All that remained was:

  Shadow Wizards considered!

  “Better fix it,” she said, sighing as she grabbed the quill. “Luscious doesn’t want a ‘Shadow Wizard’, whatever they are.”

  Squeaker sniffled. Laura glanced at him, and she hesitated. Then she put the quill back down.

  “Well, sometimes we don’t get what we want, do we.” She patted Squeaker’s head. “Hey, we rodents have to stick together.”

  Scooping up the parchment and the vase, she left the castle on her way to make the biggest mistake of her life.

  Handmaidens are not schooled in the ways of magic; otherwise, Laura would have known that Shadow Wizards are the most dangerous wizards in the world, and, more importantly, that they sacrifice princesses to fuel their dark and deadly magic.

  But she didn’t know, so she didn’t fix the letter.

  And that’s why I have this story to tell.

  2

  THE BALLAD OF KING HOFNAR

  Now that we’ve met our princess, perhaps we should meet our Prince Charming. But, before we can properly do that, I need to take you back a bit.

  Once upon ANOTHER time, long before the earth had fully emerged from its watery cradle, there ruled a minor king named Hofnar who ruled a minor kingdom named Lilypine.

  King Hofnar was known as “new royalty” and consequently was frowned upon by neighboring monarchs. He had no manners, pedigree, or class; he spoke in an old-fashioned dialect that prompted the other kings to snicker at his “backwoodseth, bumpkineth wayseth”. Without a single drop of blue blood flowing through his veins, King Hofnar could not have been more unqualified to rule had he been a tufted titmouse.

  What he WAS qualified to do was hit things with his war hammer.

  Prior to becoming a king, Hofnar had been part of a horde of barbarians sweeping south over the Knuckle Islands to attack the archipelago. He was good at what he did — which was smashing things with his war hammer — but after overrunning the island of Lilypine and celebrating the conquest a bit too enthusiastically, he fell into a drunken slumber. His barbarian brothers, meanwhile, having seen nothing of value on Lilypine, departed the island in a flailing, screaming mass. When Hofnar came to his senses the next day, he found himself alone and confused.

  To be fair, Hofnar almost always found himself confused.

  Through a convoluted series of events and court intrigues far too complicated for Hofnar’s barbaric wits to comprehend, the young barbarian next found himself married to Berba the Frigid, princess of Lilypine, and subsequently crowned the island’s king.

  It is worth noting that Hofnar benefited in one significant way by not leaving the island with the other barbarians.

  After ravaging their way across the archipelago, the horde ran afoul of the dark wizard Seeboth, Lord of Shadows. Needless to say, their rampaging stopped right there.

  So did their lives.

  The Battle of Waterblack lasted a full ten seconds. It would have lasted five, but Seeboth yawned in the middle of his spell.

  Hofnar eventually learned that Berba the Frigid’s title did not imply she was “easily chilled”, as her father had led him to believe. Too late did Hofnar realize he had been tricked. Berba’s father, desperate to find a husband for his daughter, seduced Hofnar with promises of wealth and a throne, but upon marrying Berba and taking the throne, Hofnar discovered there was no wealth.

  Only lumber.

  Lots and lots of useless lumber, too weak to be used for construction or shipbuilding or even for burning. All one could actually manufacture from Lilypine trees was shade.

  So Hofnar found himself trapped in a loveless marriage with a frigid wife on a worthless throne made of Lilypine wood.

  As if those difficulties weren’t troublesome enough, King Hofnar had an even bigger issue to deal with: he suffered from what certain healers called a “gland problem”.

  We shall call it Excessive Testosterone Syndrome, a product of his barbarian heritage. Sadly, this condition tended to provoke in him what might be called “aggressive tendencies”.

  Queen Berba the Frigid had little sympathy for King Hofnar’s glandular secretions, so he spent many lonely nights in the forest, smashing trees to vent his frustration.

  Considering he was hormonally challenged at the time, his encounter with the witches seems all the more tragic.

  Said group of witches sat on a cluster of tree stumps, hunched like pieces of shriveled fruit. One of them slowly creaked and cracked to her feet then began to speak.

  “Sisters, my self-image was in the outhouse,” she began. “But nows ol’ Azraethel taught me that beauty’s only skin deep, I finally feels better. ’Cause if beauty’s that shallow, I can just peels it off anyone prettier ’n me!”

  The surrounding witches cackled and applauded.

  Behind a podium at the front of the circle, a witch in sharp, busi
ness-like robes quieted the others. Her scraggly hair was tucked carefully under her pointed hat, and a banner strung through the trees behind her proclaimed:

  Witch Way To Go: 12 Steps To Take

  When Your Self-Image Is At Stake!

  “Yes, my dearies,” said Azraethel the Motivational Witch. “Learning to love yourselves is an important step in getting villagers to stop burning you at the stake, but more importantly, you need to stop killing them — they don’t like that! When you get the urge to give them the old Evil Eye, you have to step back and think ‘peasant-friendly’.”

  At that moment, King Hofnar smashed down a tree and came thrashing out of the woods. “Beware the wrath of Hofnar this night!” he bellowed. “I be in the mood to kick buttock!”

  The witches stared at him.

  King Hofnar stared at them.

  Unfortunately for all concerned, the king blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. “By the gods, what a hideous clutch of hags!”

  And thus, King Hofnar reduced a week’s worth of intensive self-help counseling to naught. Of course, Azraethel the Motivational Witch had no choice; etiquette demanded she hex him.

  Pointing a crooked finger straight at the king’s face, she said, “Well, my pretty, we have ways of dealing with your negative feedback. Sisters, remember Step Ten?”

  The assembled witches chanted back in unison, “Step Ten! Retaliate!”

  “But remember, sisters, think ‘peasant-friendly’.” To illustrate her point, Azraethel thought it best to turn King Hofnar into an object lesson rather than turning him into a toad. “From this day forth, pig-king, may your offspring be cursed with that most crippling of all social diseases — insecurity!”

  King Hofnar snorted. “Insecurity? Thou callest that a curse—”

  She jabbed her wand at him and the proud king crumpled when the magic spell struck his royal, barbaric jewels.

  Now that, King Hofnar had to admit, felt like a curse.

  In the fullness of time, and with the help of certain herbs, King Hofnar managed to sire an heir, much to the queen’s displeasure. Following even greater displeasure, she bore him a son. The queen vowed never again and the king sadly returned to his deforestation therapy.

  They named their newborn son Paul.

  But the witch’s curse continued to weigh heavily upon their minds. The king and queen did whatever they could to circumvent its effects, even going so far as to hire a freelance Flitterling.

  In other places and other times, a Flitterling might be referred to as a fairy, but allow me to assure you, fairies are not real. Flitterlings, on the other hand, are three feet tall, packed with magic, and very much real. Fairies are cheap dolls children buy from trinket booths at wandering fairs — hence the name “fairies”. Flitterlings, on the other hand, are playful creatures of purest magic that bestow the best blessings at christening parties, provided you pay enough. Unlike fairy dolls, Flitterlings do not come cheap.

  Unfortunately, the only Flitterling the king and queen could afford was not very passionate about her work. When she arrived at the ceremony, face splashed with garish makeup and hefty beyond the dainty lift of her wings, she cast a single, disinterested glance over the cradle of the infant Prince Paul, tapped some ash from her cigar as if she were sprinkling magic dust from a wand, and said, “May the prince… uh… grow up to be a very nice boy.”

  King Hofnar’s head very nearly exploded. “Nice? Nice?! What manner of blessing be nice!”

  “Whaddaya want from me?” the Flitterling said. “Ya hire a discount Flitterling, ya get discount magic. Which way’s the buffet?”

  True to the witch’s words, the curse of insecurity paralyzed young Prince Paul with fear. As the years passed, he fled every confrontation, certain he would fail whatever he set his hand to do, certain no princess would ever love him.

  And so, King Hofnar watched his son grow up and trained him as best he could, unaware that the prince’s blossoming inferiority complex would kill the boy eighteen years later.

  18 Years Later

  3

  BEYOND THE TROLL BOOTH

  The island of Lilypine bristled with thick stands of tall, slender evergreen trees. Although their wood was worthless for anything other than smashing, the Lilypine trees were nonetheless quite breathtaking.

  A crescent of beach hugged the trees, smooth white sand sloping down to a gentle sea where waves lapped at the base of a crumbling stone bridge. Strange symbols and pictures had been carved into the bridge, but they were so old and worn that no one could read them anymore. It was just as well, since most people don’t enjoy reading horrible prophecies about how their world would be ending in the not-so-distant future.

  But again, that has nothing to do with this story, so try not to worry about it.

  Because of Lilypine’s remote location and because so few people ever traveled there, the Empire did little to maintain the ancient bridge. As a result, several sections had begun to collapse. If one sat on the beach for any length of time, one would certainly hear a KA-PLASH as yet another piece of the bridge gave up hope and jumped from itself into the sea. For now, though, most of the bridge remained both hopeful and intact enough to allow relatively safe travel.

  The term “relatively safe”, however, did not extend to the fight about to break out.

  Three individuals faced off on the bridge near a small shack that operated a wooden gate. The gate was currently lowered and prevented further passage along the bridge. A sign above the structure read “TROLL BOOTH”. Below the sign, a toothy, warty Troll filled the tiny booth to capacity, wearing it like a shirt a few sizes too small. The Troll’s massive arms stuck out from the booth’s side windows, and the great lump of its head projected through the window in front.

  “One hundred gold gildings,” the Troll growled.

  Trolls have always had what experts call “a thing” for bridges.

  They tended to lurk beneath them, leaping out to devour, rob, or taunt whoever happened to be passing overhead. The abundance of bridges that comprised the Empire of Bridges made it the perfect breeding ground for these brutish pests.

  Needless to say, tourism suffered. Never knowing if one would be devoured, robbed, or taunted when setting out on a trip tended to make the notion of travel less appealing. Merchants stopped delivering goods, banks stopped transferring gold, and people stopped buying those silly little fairy dolls from the fairs on neighboring islands.

  The situation appeared grim.

  Before the Empire collapsed completely from lack of mobility — for even empires need regular exercise — the Emperor dispatched Sir Whitethorne and his Knights of the Oblong Shield upon a crusade to exterminate the threat of the Trolls. Following a series of brutal battles, Sir Whitethorne managed to beat one simple idea into the Trolls’ heads.

  Unions.

  His thinking was this: since humans had stopped traveling on the bridges, Trolls had been unable to devour, rob, or taunt as they had in the past. No one benefited from such an arrangement.

  But there was a way everyone could be happy.

  If the Trolls organized and structured their abuses according to Imperial rules, they could charge a “safe passage” toll for humans to use the bridges. This steady income, he argued, would prove far more profitable than freelance devouring, robbing, and taunting had ever been.

  Seeing the wisdom of Sir Whitethorne’s words, the Trolls formed the Troll’s Guild. They came out from under their bridges, climbed into their Troll Booths, and began robbing people far more legally.

  Astride his weary horse, King Hofnar sat eye to eye with the Troll. Even after all these years, the king was still a testament to testosterone run amok — all hair and muscle and temper. A modest crown periodically peeked through his savage, tangled mane, while a threadbare cape clung for dear life to his hammer-swinging shoulders.

  “One hundred gildings?!” he exclaimed in his old-fashioned dialect. “That be robbery! I wilt pay no such toll!�
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  The Troll shrugged, and the entire booth shrugged with him. “No pay toll, you no go.”

  King Hofnar shoved his nose into the Troll’s face. “Knowest thou with whom thou art dealing?!”

  “Father, it’s all right…”

  Prince Paul spurred his horse beside his father’s. The boy had a slender, athletic build, more given to fencing than the brute bludgeoning his father favored, but athletic or not, an attitude of perpetual defeat bent his shoulders. A handsome young man lurked somewhere behind his lonely, downcast eyes, but that young man was far too self-conscious to show himself.

  “Really, we don’t have to go.”

  “Silence, Paul! Let me handle this!” King Hofnar barked before turning his attention back to the Troll. “I be Hofnar, king of Lilypine! This be my kingdom! I deserve thy respect! I care not what the Troll’s Guild demands, for I be on official business: taking my son to the Lottery in Theandrea—”

  The Troll perked up and stared at Paul. “Princeling of age? Go to Lottery?”

  King Hofnar threw his arms out in frustration. “Yes! He be eighteen! ’Tis time for him to Quest and I refuse to—”

  With a tap of one sausage-sized finger, the Troll raised the heavy gate. “Why not say so? Lottery free. Agreement with Empire. You pass.”

  Paul’s heart sank. Like a melting candle, he slumped even lower in his saddle.

  “That be more like it. Come, Paul. To Theandrea!”