After that, the hits kept right on coming. Lucas wasn't given the chance to even talk to Heisenburgle about this. Worse, as soon as he was ushered into the waiting carriage by the black armored guards, they left immediately. He was being taken to the Prince without the gnome, which never ended well.

Lucas reflected on the previous times this had happened and decided that he didn't like this development one bit. He tried to chat casually with the two stern-faced guards who joined him inside the carriage, but they gave up very little, and after a while, they stopped talking to him at all.

When he reached the palace, he encountered the same level of dismissiveness. They didn't quite take him to the dungeon or anything, but as he approached the chamberlain, flanked by the guards that shadowed him. He said, "I will inform the Prince of his guest's arrival. Please take him to the upper study."

While Lucas had never felt welcome in the palace, this was stiffer than usual. Rather than simply being unwelcome, he was being made to feel unwelcome, which did not bode well for him.

The guards didn't follow him into the upper study, at least. Once he was in it, they shut the door and then flanked it, making it clear he wasn't getting back out that way. Unfortunately, the place had no obvious exits, and he quickly started pacing as he contemplated his predicament.

What did the Prince want with me? Lucas asked. No, that was a dumb question. He knew what the Prince wanted with him. The better question was, how did the man find out what he was planning. It couldn't have been Heisenburgle, not after what the man had gone through.

For a moment, he thought about what lies he could tell him, but Lucas had no faith that he had the ability to lie to that man. The Prince of Lordanin had Ice water in his veins. Last time, he'd dodged the issue and stuck to true but irrelevant things. This time, he doubted he'd be given the chance.

So, instead of trying to come up with a story, he looked around the room for something that might help him. His first thought was simply to flee, but the door was guarded, and the window to the Prince's study showed only a sheer four-story drop off below it.

Lucas felt every one of the seconds that ticked by as he looked around indecisively. It wasn't until he noticed that amidst the Prince's liquor cabinet was one familiar potion hidden in a nondescript crystal decanter.

Extended Elixir of Superior Insight - Intelligence 6(Scheming), essence -4(Distant), endurance -3(fragile), poison 3(slow acting), euphoria -2(pensive), strength -2(frail), Agility -1(deliberate). Lowers emotional affect. Bonus is twice as effective for planning purposes. Highly addictive, effects last for up to a week, decreasing over time.

As he did the math on the potion that lasted a week, he decided it would be terrifyingly strong if he brewed a version that lasted for just a few minutes. The highly addictive part concerned him, but then, he needed every edge he could get right now. So, he ignored the warning and took a quick slug of the sickly sweet stuff.

Then, as the elixir took hold of his mind with cold fingers, he put it back and started pouring himself a few fingers of brandy to give him an excuse to be over there. That was a fortunate instinct, because he still had the decanter of brandy in his hand when the Prince walked into the office.

"Making yourself at home, are we?" he asked dryly. He sounded the same as he did any other time, but now, Lucas could hear the layers of subtext in the man's speech. He could sense his annoyance.

"Well, I didn't know how long you'd keep me waiting," Lucas answered, trying to tread a middle ground between respectful and dismissive. It was the first thing that had come to mind, but already he could see a half a dozen better answers.

When he drank a strength potion or an endurance potion, it was hard to quantify how much stronger or tougher he'd become, but with an intelligence potion, he could take that in much, much faster. This elixir had only increased his intelligence to twenty, which was a far cry from the thirty-five he'd pegged out his strength at, but it was still enough to make him see the world in an entirely different light, and when he turned and sat down, he felt much less frantic than he had a moment ago.

The Prince is probably still smarter than me, he reminded himself to keep his arrogance in check, but not by nearly as much as he was a moment ago.

"I'll get straight to my point, Mr. Parin," the Prince said, "I know what you're doing."

"Working on ever more powerful potions?" Lucas asked. "I'm not exactly keeping it a secret. You're kinda footing the bill for that, after all."

"Yes, but why you've undertaken it so recently with such gusto," the man admonished him. Lucas could see the pride in those words, but also the frustration in them. He'd always suspected that this man would have killed him if he didn't need him, but now he was sure.

"Because I'm locked away with nothing else to do with my time!" Lucas said, slamming the glass down on the desk just hard enough to make it slosh theatrically. "If you want me to get back to my basics, all you have to do is—"

"I don't have to do anything," the Prince countered cooly. "You have to explain yourself. That's why I've brought you here despite the odd hour. Why are you making such high-powered strength potions?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Didn't Heisenburgle tell you about my death wish?" Lucas asked. "Think of it as extreme sports, with more blood."

"We both know that isn't the truth," the Prince answered with a shake of his head. "I want you to admit it. This is about Skylara, isn't it?"

"Fine, you win," Lucas sighed. This wasn't the route he'd planned on going down at the start of the conversation, but he was smarter now than he'd ever been in his life, and he'd found a better answer than denying it. "I'm working on the endurance potion to deal with Skylara. The strength potion, too, but not in the way you think."

"Oh?" the Prince responded. His body language told Lucas he was very slightly surprised by that turn of events. "Do tell."

"Well, it's something I've been keeping pretty close to the vest," Lucas said, trying to sound embarrassed as he repressed his anger and revulsion. "But… you know how we banged after one of your parties, right? Surely one of your spies told you."

"I don't have spies watching Lady Skylara," the Prince corrected him. "That is an exceedingly dangerous suggestion; she will do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. However, I was informed of the aftermath of your dalliance by my head maid. Apparently, you left the room quite a mess."

"I, ummm, sorry about that," Lucas answered. "Anyway, I don't have the body to go with a woman like that. Not all night anyway. She nearly killed me."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that," the Prince commented. Lucas wasn't sure if the man had already caught him in a lie with some minor slip-up, but it was too late for that. He was committed. So he pressed on.

"Anyway, before I try to win her back, I plan to make something that can give my performance a little—" He started to explain.

"Win her back?" The Prince asked. "What are you talking about? What about Danaria?"

"She's dead," Lucas said flatly, doing his best impression of not giving a fuck. "She's dead, and she's not coming back. What do you want me to say? You want me to spend the rest of my life moping around after her?"

"I expected you to be a little more broken up than this," he admitted. "Where was this Lucas when you were staying in my château?"

He swallowed at that, but pressed on. "I'm not really into whores, and women that are paid to want me will only ever be that. I cared about Danaria, but pragmatic reasons as well as lustful ones. I could chase some new noblewoman, but if Skylara's already there, why not just take her up on it and be done with it?"

The Prince did something then that Lucas couldn't recall him doing before. He laughed.

"What's so funny?" Lucas asked. No matter how well he thought he'd told it, he could think of half a hundred holes in his story, and had no idea which one the man that held his life in the balance found so ammusing.

"You think she'd be interested in you after the way you spurned her?" the Prince laughed, "I doubt her dignity would allow it."

"How many women have you been with?" Lucas asked. He waited for the Prince to open his mouth before he added, "That you haven't paid, I mean."

"What's your point?" the man said, betraying more than a hint of annoyance at that jab.

"My point is that women love drama," Lucas said. Truthfully, he was no ladies' man, but he'd had plenty of friends who were, and he channeled them in that moment. "I'll bet that Skylara has killed every man who's ever crossed her, and now, along comes someone she can't, and he makes her feel like this? Catnip. Her wires are completely crossed. I just gotta do the whole crawling back to her thing and—"

"I can't let you do anything that would endanger this Kingdom again, Lucas," the Prince admonished him.

"And I'm telling you, nothing would make it safer," Lucas boasted, taking a drink.

"You're sure about that?" The Prince asked, judging him harshly with his eyes.

"I'm sure that paying her in gold or in drugs is a losing strategy," Lucas said. "She's ancient. You need to bond with her emotionally, too. You need her to care about the people of the city. In 50 years, I'll be dead, but she'll still be the same demanding dragoness. You should be using that, and make her so fond of this place, that… Well, you know."

"The royal family is already bound quite tightly to her," the Prince answered.

For a moment, Lucas could see something else on his face. There was clearly a larger secret there, but the Prince wasn't about to share it. Instead, he stood and said, "Come, you've come a long way, and I have clearly misjudged you, at least in part. We shall solve that problem after dinner with a gift?"

"A gift?" Lucas asked, but the Prince didn't answer him.

Instead, they went downstairs together, making small talk about the state of the Kingdom, and the two of them entered the small dining hall where a single place had been set. As Lucas sat, the servants scrambled, and a second place was added.

That puzzled him. With his currently towering intellect, he could think of any number of reasons why the man had not planned to have dinner with him, but none of them were good.

Still, whatever terrible futures had been planned for him, Lucas had talked himself out of them, at least for the moment. Instead, they talked about drugs and exports, and Lucas pretended to care. Finally, at one moment, the Prince asked, "If this was your plan the whole time, why not simply tell Heisenburgle and ally my suspicions?"

Because this is all a lie and I made it up on the spot, Lucas thought. He didn't say that, though. Instead, he said, "Heisenburgle, didn't tell you this. He probably told you about the troll, but that's not why I'm here."

The Prince nodded at that, so Lucas continued. "Tell me who did it and I'll tell you why I'm keeping Hesienburgle in the dark."

The Prince paused a moment, and Lucas could see the urge to order him to talk written across his face, but he resisted and said, "I have men everywhere, including among my chief alchemist's assistants. I thought you knew."

Lucas laughed at that to cover up the bitter feeling that one of the two men he'd helped had sold him out. Thank god I never asked them to relay a message to Danaria like I'd considered Or I'd be seriously fucked, he thought, doing his best not to let that relief show.

"The answer is simple," Lucas said. "Your man is a soulless prude, and knowing my real plan would make him hate me more than he already does."

The Prince didn't laugh at that, but it was a close thing. He nearly did, but merely smirked and toasted Lucas with a goblet of red wine.

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