The Worthy Prince

Aurelius waded through a waist-high pool tinged black-green with the blood of the giant eels he’d just slain. The warm light of his everburning lantern danced off of the water as it rippled with his weight. Soon he reached the far wall of the cave, low and cramped, and ducked down to search it.

Growing from a rocky outcropping on the ceiling was an enormous blue gemstone, shaped like a tooth with rounded edges, crude but shining azure as the light of Aurelius’s lantern hit it. He reached up with one mailed fist and pulled on it until it broke off, with a small section of the rock still attached, then stored it in his velvet bag.

His sisters would be attending the annual ball right about now. Beatrice would have nobles from across Neatheim fawning over her, striking up conversations they’d make about them as subtly as they could. Some of them would come with gifts; a few of them would come with rings. Beatrice would turn them all down, no matter how valuable they were, because taking a ring from someone else had too many implications. Everything people said and did, they did to gain status, or at least save face. It was all about dignity and presence and power.

And Aurelius was exploring the underworld. It wasn’t dignified, but it was what the youngest-born child of the royal family did. In wartime, every servant in the castle fawned over him the way the nobles did over Beatrice. They all knew it was up to him to lead their army, they’d all heard the stories that he was as strong as a hundred men. They knew that as long as he lived, Neatheim’s enemies would think twice about fielding their strongest soldiers in their biggest battles.

But when things were peaceful, like now, he spent days away from home, staining his armour with bog water, using magic to purify his stale rations and keep his cuts from getting infected. To most of his family and almost all the nobles, he was a joke! Even the servants probably didn’t think about him when he was out; they had more important, more worthwhile people to worry about.

As Aurelius stepped out of the pool and waited for the putrid water to run down and off of his enchanted plate leggings, he took the gemstone out of his bag. It was as big as the crystals in a dozen rings, and maybe more valuable piece for piece than what they were made out of.

Some of those rings Beatrice turned down were worth a small percent of the royal treasury, and she couldn’t take them. But Aurelius could do whatever he wanted, as long as it was out of the public eye. As long as he carried their banner into battle and came back alive, and as long as he washed up the moment he got back to the castle, it didn’t matter how he made himself useful.

He’d gotten used to it. It helped that he realized his role was worth just as much as his sister’s. Maybe even more.

What he didn’t realize was that if you asked anyone else, his role included attending the annual ball, youngest-born or not.