“Wow. I didn’t think he’d show. Can I hex him?”

  “Bonnie, I removed the rule about douchebag kings,” Fiona replied. “No, you can’t hex him, and the guys with pointy weapons have these cartilage-based features called ears.”

  To say it was tense in the staff room, was an understatement. Fiona and her staff were all on one end of the break room table. Barry and two of his knights, plus his assistant, were on the other. Barry still looked gaunt, shaken, and possibly regretting his life choices up until now.

  The assistant closed the room, and Bonnie latched it with a magical privacy ward. “We should be clear to talk in here, without interruption,” she assured him.

  Fiona sized up the crowned brat and kept wondering how Rikkard had completely screwed up raising him to be anything like the rest of his kids. Edward was military-minded, calm, and composed, as was Lucy–though even she had her mischievous streaks. Dave was a college stoner who was at least intelligent, but lazy. Mira was a gem of a darling, and Barry…

  Barry was a complete douche. “Start talking, Barry. All the parts you want me to hear, and then the parts you don’t want to utter aloud.”

  “King Barry, or His Highness,” the assistant uttered with contempt, eyeballing her with scorn etched on his tiny face and huge glasses. “We do not need to decompose this to childish antics.”

  “Fine. King Barry, you better start telling me what is going on. The truth. And why should I even remotely consider helping you secure a deal with Vale.” Fiona crossed her arms, to further her skepticism.

  Barry let out a soft sigh. “Vick. Hansel. Leave the room.”

  The knights looked at each other anxiously. “We’re not prepared to take that risk, Your Highness, on account of your father.”

  “Then best keep this sealed and in the room.” Barry tensed his fingers, not even having the decency to look her in the eyes, but rather, at the scuff marks of the secondhand table she’d bought for cheap, the wood varnished but flecked with dents and scratches. “Fiefdala has a big income problem, Miss Swiftheart.”

  “Tell me something I didn’t already deduce! You tried to rob me, asshole. And threatened my life–which isn’t as big a deal, because facing death the tenth time around, it loses its biting edge a bit. How big a problem is it, and were you the one who caused it?” she demanded.

  “No. This problem started a while ago. Gold mines started running dry from our usual spots. Fiefdala has a cultural core that draws a lot of tourism, but its finances are what makes it desirable. Lessons imparted upon me by my father,” Barry sighed. “My father started pivoting to other means of finance–agriculture, business, and the mage academy are big draws of foreign investment from the surrounding kingdoms. Plus, with the Unified Kingdoms, there are open paths to trade and commerce, without a lot of red tape.”

  Doug snorted. “I knew it. Fiefdala finally tapped out.”

  “And, who are you?” Barry inquired. Doug sat up in his boosted seat, and leered at the King.

  “Oh, we’ll get into that one later. First, tell us how deep in the hole Fiefdala is, and to whom. Gregory, take notes please?” he asked politely, his golden eyes never wavering from the benchwarmer ruler.

  Barry sighed and pulled out an arcane datapad. “Five hundred million gold. Owed to the Unified Kingdoms.”

  Fiona let out a manic, unfettered laugh that echoed through the otherwise silent room. “Five hundred million? Holy shit, you’re so dead, Barry. People who steal and embezzle that kind of money don’t go to white-collar prison, they go straight to the grave.”

  Seeing Barry twitch at this assertion, gave her great pleasure. “It wasn’t fraud! I was fixing a problem that I inherited. And when I say ‘this does not leave this room’, I mean this, in plain terms. DO NOT TELL LUCY.”

  Fiona blinked and smiled evilly. “Thanks for the extra ammo, Barry. Really, you’re making this too easy–”

  Oh no. The reason why instantly became obvious, and her smile disappeared. “You inherited this mess from your father. He knew Fiefdala was in deep shit, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” he heaved, looking pale, and he clenched his jaw as if fighting back nausea. “You know how long I’ve lived with this dreaded notion? A year. I’ve known for a year after I found the papers in the tax office that gave me disturbing statistics. That income was outstripped by expenses and imports--not even mismanagement and borrowing coins to try to invest. My father buried the paperwork. He knew, and was trying to find a solution. He didn’t find a good enough one. A few members of the guilds know, but...it's very quiet."

  Fiona could hear Greg’s muscles tense, Bonnie’s fur bristle on end, Kali clicked his beak menacingly, and Doug…Doug just dug his claws into the table and tapped the table impatiently.

  “Rikkard knew?” Greg asked in a deadly tone. “Did he also know how you planned on shorting the adventurer’s guild their hazard pay? Put Fiona’s life at risk over money? The amount she owed doesn’t even come close to what this Kingdom is underwater for. You are disgraceful.”

  “I had an opportunity!” he snarled, crown now askew yet again. Fiona would comment on him having a tiny head, but that might be just mean, at this point. It was likely sized for his father, when she thought about it. Barry sat back, tapping the table. “I was approached from contacts in Vale about properly defrosting relations, and opening big-time trade for various manufactured goods, to replace the raw materials gap. Do you realize how embarrassing this is, that I needed a strongman--or strongwoman, as may be the case--to assert that we had physical power to back up the soft power?"

  “Which part is embarrassing?” she asked in a low tone. “The part where you tried to railroad me? The part where your plan spectacularly backfired? Or, the part where you’re willing to make deals with slavers?”

  “No. The part where I had to confront my father. You know what he told me?” ‘I’ll find a way.’ He always did, you know. He made deals with dragons, who are reliable business partners. He made deals with the Bar’dathi, who have excellent produce imports even during winter because of the weird magic of the land. And his signature effort? He made deals with the rest of the Unified Kingdoms–Gortir, Antioch, and Waselin. My father was good at math. But he didn’t factor the gold drying up.”

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  “That’s absurd. You should still have reserves of gold everywhere, the dragons surveyed the land because we can detect aurelium and its lesser, non-magical counterpart,” Doug scoffed. “You had enough reserves for a thousand years, at last survey!”

  “And yet, it’s gone, and no one knows how it was overestimated,” Barry growled. “Now, we have had numerous efforts to diversify from mining production. And we did okay for a while. But, when a vast majority of your wealth is in one industry, and it dries up over the last five to ten years? That’s a problem.”

  “That’s a ‘you’ problem, Barry, not an ‘us’ problem,” Fiona retorted in the most barbed insult she could muster for the moment. Greg clenched his jaw to avoid laughing, and the rest of them leered at Barry with deadly intent. But it was Greg who stood up and pointed accusingly at Barry.

  “You did this to Miss Swiftheart, even though you knew that fleecing her down couldn’t possibly cover the shortfall. You could have picked any number of heroes and just asked. They might have not liked deals with former rogue states, But they could have been persuaded without threats. You are, without a doubt, the leader we don’t deserve, Regent King Barrimeth. Now, tell us what your plan is.”

  “Vale has money and is under new management. Glados has connections to make our problems go away. We open the borders, we open up the financial markets, and Vale could be an industrious trade partner in five years. They could join the Unified Kingdoms in ten, if they keep their nose clean,” he explained. “So, yes, I was willing to look past the history! My father couldn’t, he would have burned it to the ground if he thought it was in everyone's best interests! He has not jested when he said he'd destroy that country so completely that the corrupt elements never recovered!”

  "What about financial hardship with the other kingdoms? negotiate the terms? find other investors?" Darla proposed. "You know, the darklings have some very expensive tastes, and my father has connections with very influential people--"

  "Not at this scale. I'm sorry, Miss...uh..."

  "Seluna. Darla Seluna, just your average barista," she shrugged. "You still could have tried. The Kingdom has allies."

  "And ruin my father's reputation by saying 'sorry, we're broke'? I don't think so," he scoffed.

  "You're willing to let toxic pride crumble this lovely country?" Fiona snapped. "Stewey, cover your ears, I'm about to use some four-letter words."

  "Let's not," Bonnie sighed. "Barry, I'm presuming you're not under the influence of anything, and I can't see any traces of wards or runes, other than the hygienic ones for your acute sweating problem." He looked ruffled by this but didn't respond to it. “How’d you convince your father to hand you the throne?”

  “Because no one else wanted it.” He counted off his fingers for emphasis. “Lucy bailed. Dave is a murkvine stoner, Mira is too young, and Edward is married to the military already. So, guess who that left? Yours truly.”

  “You guys are utterly dysfunctional,” Bonnie uttered with a whistle. “It’s a good thing the counsel of the guilds runs most of the day-to-day functions–”

  “Bonnie. We need to keep focused.” Fiona glanced at her witchy friend, canines visible and indicating her fury. She turned back to Barry. “You also might want to take a look at Glados–”

  “She’s your future queen, Swiftheart,” Barry snarled. “Like it or not, that’s happening. Just because you don’t like her–or your companion mage–doesn’t mean you get everything you want.”

  “Don’t send me an RSVP for that match made in hell then, it’ll be a waste of paper and postage,” she retorted back. “You need to realize a few things, Barry. You’re in over your head. Rikkard is getting a chewing out when he gets back from his spa retreat, and Lucy lied to me about how dire this was–”

  “She didn’t know. I kept everyone out of the loop to avoid the appearance of them being aware of this problem.” He hung his head low, like the weight of the crown was finally getting to him.

  “Wow, he told the truth twice in one day? Damn, that’s setting a record,” Darla quipped, eyes narrowed in on him. “You know, a good dose of openness and honesty might have prevented this problem.”

  “I’m going to intervene here and say that once again, this information doesn’t leave this room,” the assistant chimed in, but the weariness in his face told Fiona that he knew this was a hundred percent true. “We have a plan in place. We can close out the debt in five years, assuming our projections for tourism, exports of textiles, magitech goods, and other industrial applications scale the way we think they will.”

  “Except, Vale is going to do you dirty, if history is any indication.” Fiona thought about it for a second, wondering how far to tip their hand. “Barry, if you want me to get you the best deal in the history of this entire kingdom, I want assurances. The part where I name our price for making sure this country doesn’t get bought up on auction, because you drove it to bankruptcy.”

  He let out a hissing exhale through his teeth. “Fine. Name them.”

  “Anything we do to secure trade and goods for the country, is with your blessing. Period. You don’t get to pick and choose.” She handed off a list to the assistant that she’d prepared. “Mister Stewey, do read that aloud.”

  “Yes, the first one…” he narrowed his eyes. “'Unlimited snacks for Miss Swiftheart?' Is this a joke to you?”

  “When I'm well fed, I think faster,” she offered with a grin. “Keep going.”

  “...Return all remaining treasure to a former citizen of the Renslas Fens–to Douglas Fierkraag?!” he shrilled. "And reinstate citizenship--are you taking the piss?!"

  “Yep. Turns out our poor boy might have been set up by his brother. Long story, we’ll go into detail on that one later,” she assured him. “I’ll also need compensation for the items we already sold.”

  “Oh that is going to be one unbelievably hard sell,” Stewey grumbled. “Fiona and Friends emporium, its employees, and suppliers, will be exempt from any taxation, including tariffs, until its closure or the dissolution of the country of Fiefdala?!” He practically screamed it aloud.

  “Yep. We don’t ever pay taxes again,” Bonnie added with a curl of her lip. “I mean it’s either you meet our demands, or you can leave with nothing. Good luck getting to the bottom of where the missing gold is, or what Vale is really up to, and nailing the instigators that made all these monetary shortfalls happen. Because your track record so far has been a real winning effort.”

  Barry tapped the table impatiently. “Reduced taxes, sixty percent. You are not living rent-free in the city of Fiefdala, that’ll cause a riot and a half.” Greg dipped his head silently beside Fiona, she knew that one would be too hard a sell.

  “Last term. Read it aloud,” Fiona pressed. Barry glanced at the paper in front of him and sighed.

  “You want my resignation at the end of this. Well, that’s not happening.”

  “Do you want to be the fall guy for everything going on, Barry? I despise you for being a ruthless, utter jerk to save coins, but I can at least understand why you did it, now. Assuming, you aren’t lying. By the way, if you lie to us, or try to screw us, the deal is off,” she added, trying to read his mood.

  “Barrimeth, we can do this without them–” Stewey tried to offer a way out, but Barry waved a hand.

  “I will stay on, until such a time as my father takes back the throne, or Lucy comes to her senses. She’s a good leader. Even if she hates the palace." he let out a soft sigh, his hands trembling for a second. "I'm not sorry for what I did. Leaders have to cut costs where they can. Or make sacrifices."

  Fiona let out a snarl of fury, and leaned in, ears like knives. "You haven't sacrificed a damn thing--"

  "I am getting married to Glados Hennaway, the only woman thrown out of Fiefdala Academy of Magic for gross ethics violations. I know what people say about her, behind her back," he uttered with all the graveness of a funeral. "I needed her to get the talks going, she worked past hundreds of years of hatred and got a meeting arranged. I made sacrifices I'm not proud of."

  It softened the impact, a little. "Read the last one aloud."

  She curled her nails into her palm but said nothing. Barry spent ten seconds glancing at the paper, making that scrunched face. "Do I have to say this aloud? This last part? In front of the entire Adventurer's Guild?"

  "Read it." This might be mildly cruel, but deserved, for what he put her through.

  Barry let out a resigned sigh. "Alright, fine. I'll do it."

  "Great to hear," she added with an evil smile. "How about it, Barry? I've been making deals for days, lately! So don't break the streak."

  Douglas was wearing a leering grin as Barry picked up the pen, looking like he'd stepped in manure. "Heh. she's making quite a collection Kali, isn't she?"

  "You still owe me ten gold, you oversized plushie." Doug nodded proudly as Barry started scribbling notes.

  "Worth it."

  The debt is paid, Fiona's broke...but she's still a heroine...

  |