Episode 72: Fate (Bentley)

He was busy. He was so unbelievably busy. The porch, the ocean, the sun, the view.

Being a king was terrible.

The worst part so far, besides the funeral announcement day which had been awful, was all the perfect. Perfect house, perfect wife, perfect twins waiting to happen, perfect reconstruction in Gean Hwels.

Not textbook perfect, what Bentley wanted perfect. It was different.

It felt so wrong, to be this happy a day before his mother’s funeral.

Happy wasn’t the word; content.

He liked ruling. Knowing the decisions came from him and Shea, knowing how deeply right each decision felt to him.

He loved being married, knowing he and Shea were one and inseparable.

That was why she was in a totally different part of the house hanging out with her friend Hannah while he sunbathed on the oceanside porch and read a book. It was very foggy for sunbathing, but he could almost see the water so it wasn’t too foggy to try.

Prince hair needed a tan. At least he had a sense of humor about it.

He sat up. They were about to have company, from the Dells. Not Shea’s parents…Zero, the wicca doctor, and Niels, Bentley’s brother-in-law. It was important.

He set the book down on the table and made his way to the front of the palace, so that he stood at the top of the stairs when they transported to the front entrance, like he’d been casually coming down the stairs and was surprised to see them.

He knew Shea would kick Hannah out – Hannah loved rudeness in general – and join them, so he greeted Zero with a smile because Zero seriously looked like he needed to wake up from whatever nightmare he was in.

Bentley was about to make it a whole lot worse. “Having a bad day?” he asked Zero while he descended the steps toward them.

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Zero asked, without smiling.

Bentley had a mini-panic that something big was wrong. He started delving through possibilities of different family members being hurt or dead and came across an unsettling answer for a few: Not yet, but soon.

“Here or in the Dells?” Bentley asked. He mentally ticked off family members and settled on the few that would be affected.

They weren’t who Zero was here to ask about though. Bentley continued down his mental list until he’d found the three subjects on Zero’s mind.

“Here,” Zero requested.

Bentley looked at the giant bird that had accompanied them. He couldn’t remember what they were called, but he knew they could run fast and didn’t fly.

“Familiar?” he asked Niels.

Niels waggled his eyebrows. “Strange,” he joked.

Bentley laughed and led them into their meeting room. “Shea is on her way,” he said. He sat in the chair at the end of the table, where his dad always sat before he died, and added, “It isn’t warded like you’re used to, but we trust our staff.”

Zero sat in one of the high-backed chairs next to Bentley, but Niels sat a couple of seats down the table, probably a preemptive move to accommodate Shea’s seat a the other end of the table.

Niels pulled one of the chairs to the wall before he sat, and his bird creature walked over and sat, it’s skinny neck and head almost level with everyone else. The bird regarded Bentley with a serious expression.

“How do you hire people?” Niels asked. “Do you just squint at everyone in the kingdom until you feel good about someone?”

Bentley laughed. “They have to actually want the job, too.”

Even Zero seemed amused by Niels’ question, which filled Bentley with optimism. Maybe Zero would recover from what he had to say.

Shea came in then, and the room was suddenly warmer and more inviting. Bentley relaxed just seeing her.

“Hi!” she said to Zero and Niels. She gave Bentley an amused look about the bird and then sat in her chair at the far end of the table.

“Good afternoon, Shea,” Zero said.

Zero was one of those men who treated other men as equals and women as superiors. Meldrick had a similar mindset, and Bentley knew he was supposed to but he just couldn’t see girls as naturally superior. Shea had flaws, he had flaws, they were perfect for each other.

To him, it was about being inferior alone and superior together.

But he got where Zero was coming from, and Zero’s wife definitely didn’t seem to mind.

“He wants to talk about Camilla and your parents and Konrad,” Bentley told her, to save her the time and effort of scanning through possibilities like he’d just done.

She rested her hands on the table. She had elegant hands. When she’d first become a teenager, Bentley had secretly hoped that she would decide to play the harp someday, because he would have loved to watch her fingers do the graceful moves that harpists did. Maybe someday.

“Okay,” she said. She looked at Zero, waiting.

“I want to confirm,” Zero began, direct as always, “that the same wiccan is using magic on all four, and to know if Konrad is under a spell or personal issues.”

Bentley almost laughed at personal issues. Konrad didn’t have personal issues, he had a job to do and mosquitos of life that buzzed around his head in an effort to distract him.

Shea met his eyes down the length of the table, then her eyes settled on Zero. “The first three are being manipulated by the same person. Konrad is, but by someone else.”

“The timing of both is close, but it’s coincidence,” Bentley added. It didn’t seem like either enemy involved had anticipated the outcome, his nieces and nephews that were Konrad’s and Nell’s as well.

“Do you know where Camilla is?” Zero asked. Bentley knew that even with the other pressing matters, this one was most important to him. “We suspect Lower Dell, with Titania’s sister Ionia.”

“She’s with Ionia, but they’re in Tar Faalon,” Bentley said.

The wave of instinct about Camilla’s situation threatened to overwhelm him with nausea, but Bentley decided to only provide information that Zero asked for. Not everyone wanted to address bad news and Bentley could respect that.

“Okay, thanks,” Zero said.

Niels’ bird familiar gave Bentley a stern, knowing look.

“What?” Niels asked Bentley.

He should have known he wouldn’t be able to keep anything from Niels. The guy was a people-reader, it was how he got famous in Babylon and it was why he’d be such a good king someday. Possibly, probably, someday soon. It depended on how Aadya reacted to this week.

Bentley glanced to Shea, careful with his wording. “I don’t think Camilla’s likely to survive. It’s possible, but she’s going to have to get herself home.”

He saw Zero’s posture tighten, but all he asked was, “Is she going to be pregnant?”

Shea puzzled it out on her own. He could see her mind struggling to explain the quantity of babies Camilla carried. All she said to Zero was “Yeah,” so Bentley added, “Someone did a spell to make sure she would have ample heirs at once.”

There was something else about Camilla, too, something heavily-warded and slippery. He couldn’t grasp it, but it mattered.

Camilla was one of the only people who had come out of the war in the Dells worse off than when it had started. Even most of the former nobility had more power now than when they’d started. Hundreds, thousands, had died, but their families had prospered.

Even Drey, who had been Bentley’s friend – his death had done so much good that it was impossible to imagine that he was worse off, even though death probably wasn’t fun.

Okay, death definitely wasn’t fun.

Bentley just preferred to think of Drey and his dad, and now his mom, off fishing together, in a little cottage by a river, with horses and a massive library full of books.

Not dead, rotting. Burned, in Drey’s case. Whatever happened to each body, Bentley hoped that wasn’t death.

It was one of the only things his luck magic never gave a clear feeling on; what happened next.

He didn’t want to think about it this week anyway.

“Already?” Niels asked, almost at the same time that Zero asked, “Is she with Tarragon?”

“Yeah,” Shea told them. “Tarragon is alive.”

And that was unsettling too. Something was blurring Tarragon so thoughts about him were slippery. It took immense focus to get any gut feelings about him. Bentley gave Shea a proud smile that she’d managed it, and she grinned back.

Zero nodded his head, and Bentley waited. He was sure Zero had more and was just formulating how to order things.

He finally informed them, “Until you get a good feeling about it, Konrad isn’t working.”

It would be weeks before Konrad was useful again, then, assuming Zero did the spell today. Bentley laughed. “Does Konrad know that?”

Zero shared a look with Niels, on the border of laughter himself. “We left Konrad in my garage enamored with car parts and planning the new transit system for the Dells, if you’re interested in trolleys…”

Bentley laughed again, because he couldn’t imagine it. But Zero wasn’t lying, not that Bentley worried he would. “You should have him work with Stetson,” Bentley suggested. “He can keep him distracted with details indefinitely.”

Niels’ bird got up and started a peckish walk around the room, pacing.

“Have you talked to Nell about it?” Bentley asked. Stetson was fine for distraction, but what Konrad needed was Nell’s creative mind investigating this problem. He’d know how to push Konrad out of it.

“Not yet,” Zero said. “I think he has been under some influence for a while, but a woman amplified the effects recently.”

A while was closing in on a decade. Bentley frowned. He scanned over employees he knew in the Dells and settled on one. “Someone…” he started. He looked at Shea. “A teacher?”

To his surprise, Zero answered. “A math teacher?”

He must already suspect her, for some reason. Bentley and Shea both confirmed it.

“One last question,” Zero said. He looked at Shea. “Is it a good idea for the king and queen to reconcile, or is their divorce in the kingdom’s best interest? Or their own…”

He obviously had an opinion on it. Bentley wasn’t sure, on this one…it was a complicated mess, and Zero was really asking multiple questions at once.

“That’s two different questions,” Bentley joked.

Shea got on board, adding, “We can only answer one, sorry.”

To Bentley’s relief, Zero laughed, a little more relaxed. Maybe they could give the other warnings, too. “Overall best interest,” Zero modified. “When faced with two different wiccan threats – one in Sylem and one here.”

Two was a little short, as a count of wiccan threats. Bentley tallied four in his head.

Everybody just loved the Dells, apparently.

“Someone is pretending to help Spence,” Bentley warned Zero, “but is weakening the supports around him. As for your parents,” he added, to Shea. He ran out of words for a second because it seemed impossible. It was impossible. “I think Drey is coming home?”

“Unless you need to,” Zero requested, “I would refrain from telling Aadya, or anyone else. Her capacity for manipulation is…”

Bentley frowned at the table, as guilt seized him.

Decades ago, centuries ago, when Queen Titania had first invited Princess Elaira to marry Drey, it had been something of a joke to all of them. Drey had barely escaped, they’d married off his sister Drella to another kingdom so that she would be safe.

But Drey’s younger brother, Meldrick, hadn’t been as much part of anything. He’d been more into keeping his mom happy, more interested in Elaira. He’d become a joke, for a long time, until he showed up in Nivern with his kids, asking for sanctuary and help.

He’d lost Elaira, but by then she’d had her memories erased by Titania and believed her name was Aadya. In the end, he’d gotten her back, coaxed her into loving him again…only to lose her now.

Bentley knew someone should have done something sooner, to protect Elaira, to stop the war that almost happened between the Dells and the Sea Kingdom, to get Meldrick out of there even if it was against his will.

Konrad was the only one who’d ever stepped up. Not Drey or Drella – they’d fled. Not the ruling family of the Upper Dell – they’d maintained their borders and even refused sanctuary to those fleeing the famine in the Lower Dell.

Not Bentley and his family – they’d retreated to their island and pretended the Lower Dell didn’t exist.

Bentley wasn’t going to be that sort of king. People needed to take care of each other.

But Konrad – he’d never been the kind of man to look away. He was the realm-fixer. He’d even put Bentley’s family in power, almost two millennia ago now.

That made it even more disturbing that someone was messing with him. As far as the realm’s safety was concerned, Konrad stood between every single vulnerable person, and whatever chaos anyone brought.

Aadya didn’t need added stress, with all of that going on.

“I wouldn’t mention it to Drey, either,” Bentley advised. “He’s dead. I don’t understand…”

It was impossible, so how could it feel so true?

“Death isn’t what it seems,” Zero reminded him. “It isn’t as permanent as it sounds.”

Bentley had been there when Zero brought Spence back from the dead. He’d seen miracles happen.

Unfortunately, Drey was missing a key ingredient in that equation.

“Yeah,” Bentley pointed out, “but he doesn’t exactly have a body hanging around to revive.”

Shea shifted in her chair. “Well,” she stated, “if you have any other questions, Aadya has luck. We’re available too, but…” she looked at Bentley. “Where did she get luck from?”

Bentley wondered how weird it felt to Shea, calling her mom Aadya.

At least he didn’t have to survive the indignity of calling his mom Cheyenna. She’d always just be his mom, or the former queen.

“She bonded to my mom,” he told Shea. Which was interesting. It had been recent, from the feel of things, not long before her death.

“Interesting,” Zero said. His eyes drifted from Shea over to Bentley, studying. Watching his face for reaction, probably, since he then asked the big question Bentley had been dreading. “Is there anything else?”

“Someone else,” Bentley began. He wished he and Shea had a minute to talk alone, to sort out what and how much to share, given the see-saw nature of the world’s definition of good. “A third group, not attached to either of the others, is planning an attack on Talise.”

Zero nodded.

Niels’ face contorted for a second before he got control of it, and Bentley almost laughed, except that would be horrible timing.

“And people keep saying you’re terrible rulers,” Zero joked.

Shea laughed.

Bentley didn’t get it, but he was relieved to have a way to release the pressure of wanting to laugh at Niels. He laughed too. “We do our best to disappoint,” he said.

“I have a question.” Niels leaned forward, and his bird resumed its place beside him, looking back and forth between Bentley and Shea. “What does that mean, an attack on Talise?”

“I think she’s going to die…soon…” Shea looked up at him, wan. “This week.”

Bentley nodded his head.

“But she’s strong,” Shea added, following the avenue of possibilities. “So she will revive I think.”

Bentley thought so too.

“Or we could just not let it happen,” Niels snapped, like they were all morons. Which they were. Luck was a great magic, until you realized how helpless you were. “How do we stop it? Where? When? How?”

Bentley sighed and said in a soft voice, so Niels would have to calm his breathing to hear him, “We don’t. You need her to die. The kingdom does.”

Bentley didn’t understand it. He wasn’t going to pretend to, to satisfy Niels’ desperation for an explanation he could live with. Somehow, whatever the consequence of Talise’s death was, it was right for the kingdom and for Talise and Niels.

Maybe they weren’t supposed to rule.

That put Ach and Spence in the gauntlet.

Bentley knew there had always been a possibility that Ach took the throne and not Talise. He loved that idea – gay son of Maelchor, needs no woman to tend the kingdom. Not that Bentley hated women, he just wanted some equality for men, and if anyone could do that it was Ach.

Ach would rule. He could feel it.

“What about her pregnancy?” Zero asked.

“That’s tougher,” Bentley said. If she revived quickly, there was a chance… “It depends on how everything goes.” He glanced at Shea, less certain than ever about what to share. With Indigo’s baby on the line too, it mattered, but he didn’t want the only people who actually seemed aware of the level of problems in the Dells to both be distracted worrying about their wives. They needed Zero focused. “I’m not sure…” he said, more to Shea than to Niels or Zero.

Shea didn’t seem to be either. She tiptoed around the issue. “You should talk to Talise about loyalty, the strength of loyalty…tonight,” she told Zero.

“Talise isn’t disloyal,” Niels defended.

Niels was like this, in most ways:

Bentley: Niels, the entire universe is on fire and about to collapse. People are starving. Someone murdered children. The world will probably end.

Niels: Don’t worry, I’ve got this. (fixes everything)

Bentley: Niels, Talise got a splinter.

Niels: What the hell is wrong with the universe? (slams doors, goes to ‘fix’ Talise’s splinter, followed by an afternoon of sex and assurances that he would never let anyone hurt Talise)

In some ways, Niels was Bentley’s best friend from this childhood. In other ways he was exasperating and exhausting.

Fortunately, Shea laughed it off. “Loyalty magic she keeps secret.”

“Any other questions?” Bentley asked, quickly before the full onslaught of Niels’s panic ensued. “We have a funeral plan to work out the details of.”

“Will the loyalty magic protect Talise?” Niels asked.

They were going to die here, of old age, while Niels panicked.

“No,” Bentley assured him. He scrolled through possibilities…girl or boy? Boy. Named yet? Yes. A? No. B? No. C? Nope. D? Definitely not. Ah…E.

He went through common E names until he found the one they’d chosen. “It’s for…Elliot?” he said, to Zero.

“Who the fuck is Elliot?” Niels demanded.

“I understand,” Zero said, with a nod of his head.

Bentley stood. He really hoped Niels would take a lesson from Zero’s calm demeanor in the face of his wife’s imminent death, the probability that his unborn baby would also die.

Niels had a lot to learn.

“I hope the funeral goes well,” Zero said. He stood too, and Niels’ bird stood and spit on the table.

“We do too,” Shea said, and there it was again, the weird thought that the funeral was going to be an unpleasant disaster.

He couldn’t figure out why. They had planned it well, they had good security, throngs of mourners who had traveled here from all over the place and now camped outside the palace.

“It won’t,” Bentley said. Because he didn’t know what the problem was, he didn’t have a way to assure people that their kingdom wasn’t about to be screwed over by some unexpected, unpredictable threat either. “Something’s wrong, but we can’t figure out what so we keep re-planning.”

Zero frowned. “Have you tried just accepting that funerals are difficult? Maybe you need to just accept the wrong feeling and plan the funeral you want.”

Maybe.

Or maybe no matter what they did, a disaster was unavoidable.

But Zero kind of meant the same thing.

Bentley grinned at Shea and flipped his Prince Hair hair. “We should do a Hawaiian theme.”

“Your mom loved your surfer days,” she laughed.

“When is it?” Zero asked. Behind him, Niels wore an incredulous face that they could be joking while Talise was in danger.

The whole world was in danger, constantly. This was a fact Niels was just going to have to get used to. “Tomorrow morning,” he told Zero.

“I’ll come late tonight and ward the space if you’d like, against anything,” Zero offered.

It was useless, against whatever was coming, but Bentley had the feeling he’d sleep better knowing Zero had done it.

“We would appreciate that.” He met Zero’s eyes. “And I’m sorry about Camilla. She isn’t afraid.”

It was a dumb comfort, but it was all he had. He knew Camilla well enough to guess that she probably wasn’t afraid because she didn’t get it yet. Or because she wasn’t conscious.

“Thank you,” Zero said anyway. “We’ll get through it.”

What great friends they all were, giving each other useless comforts and thanking each other anyway.

That was life, was helping, or trying to, even when you couldn’t.

Shea hugged Zero, then Niels. She held Niels a little longer and told him, “Talise loves you, never let yourself forget that.”

Bentley wondered what would make her say something so unsettling.

“That’s vague and ominous,” Niels agreed with Bentley. He hugged Shea. “I won’t.”

Bentley scanned through things about Talise, and what was coming if she survived her death.

He huffed out a breath of surprise and avoided everyone’s eyes.

Oh, well, at least she wasn’t about to die again right away.

“And congratulations on the newest twins,” Shea said. She flashed Bentley a tiny just-for-them smile, and Bentley almost erupted into laughter.

If their instinct was right – and when hadn’t it been? – Niels’ life with or without Talise was about to get complicated.

Complicated on top of complicated. The first wave would feel easy once the second arrived.

All he and Shea had to do was get through a funeral. They had it easy.

Once Zero and Niels had transported out of Nivern, Bentley walked behind Shea and pulled her against him in a hug. She turned her face up to kiss him.

“They’re in for a mess,” he mused.

She turned, on tiptoes to kiss him again, before she settled into a light hug. “Why do we like the mess?” she asked.

He wasn’t fully sure. Niels wouldn’t like it. Talise would struggle…Ach and Spence…no one had even asked about them, which was careless of them.

But there was good there too. Bentley could feel them. “The next rulers come out of it,” Bentley said, relieved they would be Dragon. It’s down to three, can you feel them? Two boys and a girl? Any of them could rule, but only one of them exists yet.”

Only one of the other two was Niels’.

“Oh,” she agreed. “Yeah I can. Okay.” She tugged on his hand, coaxing him from the room and his distraction about her family and their best allies. “We’ll get through the funeral,” she assured him. Then her voice got playful as she said, “You named our sons in your sleep.”

“Did I?” he wondered what. “Snorf and Dorf? Radley and Narley?” He tried to think of other names Prince Hair would have come up with.

“Declan and Tristan,” she told him.

Interesting. He turned them over in his mind. They were solid, strong names. Culturally, they would be accepted by the Nivernese.

“Interesting choices,” he said. “What do you think of them?”

“I hate them,” she joked.

“So we’re doing Radley and Narley?” he pushed her against the wall and kissed her more.

They were going to end up in their bedroom again, when they needed to be out and visible this week.

“Jaque and Mo?” she suggested, light in her eyes.

He laughed. That were the names Jiacomo should have given his sons. They were teenagers now, both of them, their mom gone so long they probably hardly remembered her.

Bentley wouldn’t forget his mom. They’d been through so much together. He promised himself, no matter how long he lived, he would never forget.

“What about Evil and Irony,” he said, “and we can let people sort through the implications of our magic and those name choices.”

She kissed him again, more serious. “Funeral. Plans. Are we doing the casual one or the Hawaiian one?”

“Casual,” he decided. “It’s her funeral, not mine.”

“I have your funeral planned,” she teased him. “You won’t be disappointed.”

He frowned a little.

He already knew he would die first. That was easy to feel, and that knowledge stretched between them, sad. He didn’t like the idea of her possibly ruling alone someday, like his mom had.

“Should I be disturbed by this?” he asked her.

“Deeply,” she joked, grinning.

“And what would you like yours to be?” he teased back.

She hummed in thought, a trait she’d inherited from her mom. He loved when she did it. “I want everyone to have to go through a complex maze to get there,” she announced.

“I’m not sure I have time to plan something like that.”

She laughed. “At the rate you’ve planned a casual one for your mom? No you don’t.”

He laughed, and held her for a minute.

He wouldn’t die any time soon. But someday he would. He hoped Declan and Tristan or whatever they named them, would be there for her when he was gone.B

“Do you want to ride?” he asked her, a layered request.

“How is that a question?” she asked. She ran her hand down his torso, humming again as she met his eyes. He melted against her, but she whirled away at the last moment, a tease. “I’m riding Gala. She’s getting so lazy.”

He sighed, refocused, and followed her out of the room.

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