by Claire Luana
eBook ISBN: 978–0-9977018–7-6
Paperback ISBN: 978–1-948947–90–9
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover Design: Bookfly Design
Interior Formatting: Integrity Formatting
Editing: Amy McNulty
Read the story of Hale Firena before he joined the Confectioner’s Guild in this Confectioner Chronicles prequel novella.
Hale Firena has everything–looks, money, power, more girls than he knows what to do with. But in one night everything changes, as a bloody coup turns Hale and his family into penniless refugees on the run for their lives.
Hale’s not cut out for real life–the thought of holding down a real job is almost more horrible than the pirates and bandits chasing him. Is Hale’s swagger enough to see him to safety, or has his luck truly run out?
Chapter 1
The afternoon sun gleamed off the horse’s sweat-lathered flanks. The racetrack’s crowd roared as the ebony beast rounded the corner, pulling ahead of the dappled stallion next to him.
Hale’s friend Roan leaned forward from their viewing box, roaring for the stallion to run.
Hale grinned in satisfaction. The little black horse would win this race—Hale could feel it. And the victory would be all the sweeter knowing that the long odds on the horse would net him a pretty penny.
Roan’s groans were echoed throughout the stadium as the black horse crossed the finish line two noses ahead of the gray stallion. Roan collapsed back in his wicker chair with an expression of such despair that Hale couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Did you bet on the black?” Hale’s brother, Calladan, leaned forward, squinting suspiciously at Hale.
A wide grin stretched across Hale’s tan face.
“Of course you did.” Cal rolled his eyes. “Because when do things not go your way?”
“It’s not my fault I like an underdog,” Hale said.
“Yet somehow you always pick the right underdog,” Roan said. “When I play the long odds I always lose my shirt.”
Hale picked at his friend’s seersucker button-down playfully. “You could stand to lose this shirt. No one is wearing salmon this season.”
“I didn’t know it was possible, but you grow more insufferable by the day,” Cal quipped.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Roan said.
“Yet you keep coming back for more.” Hale ruffled Roan’s and Cal’s blond heads as they both struggled to escape his grasp.
“I’m stuck with you, brother,” Cal said. “I’m not sure what his excuse is.”
“I’m here for Hale’s castoff ladies,” Roan said, draining the copper mug set before him, the sweat from the mug leaving a ring of condensation on the glass table. “Consoling them after their inevitable heartbreak has become almost a full-time job for me.”
“Now, mates, green’s not a good color on either of you. I’m very open with my admirers. They know what they’re getting with me and they know what they’re not. It’s not my fault that they all think they can change me.”
“Like moths to a flame they are,” Cal said.
Hale and Cal’s mother, Brea, chose that moment to glide over from the other half of their viewing box. Her flaxen hair was pulled into a sleek chignon and her coral dress was impeccably tailored. She looked no older than thirty, despite having two teenage sons. “Did you enjoy the race?”
“Hale did,” Cal grumbled.
“The black?” Brea asked, glancing down at where the horse now stood with a garland of roses draped across its withers.
Hale nodded, puffing up with pride.
Brea laughed, a sweet, melodious sound. “You always were my good luck charm.” She picked at a stray lock of his golden hair affectionately.
He shied away from her touch. “Mother…”
A wistful shadow passed across her smooth face. “I can’t believe how big you boys are getting. Look at you. You’re practically grown men.”
“Some of us just think we’re grown men,” Cal said pointedly.
“Why don’t you stand up and tell me that?” Hale said, standing to his not-insubstantial height of six and a half feet. “Though I’m not sure I’ll be able to hear you from all the way up here.”
Cal rocketed out of his chair, meeting Hale chest to chest. He couldn’t stand that his baby brother had grown inches taller than him in the past few months. “It’s easy to be tall when your head’s filled with so much air. You’re probably floating off the ground right now.”
Brea let out a long-suffering sigh, throwing her hands up towards the heavens. “I don’t know what I did to be punished with two boys. I could’ve had girls. Your mother did it right, Roan—one boy and three girls.”
“I’m not sure my ma would agree,” Roan said. “From all the screeching, it doesn’t seem to be going well.”
“But if I had girls, I could go shopping with them, go to tea parties…”
“You could do those things with Hale,” Cal said with mock innocence. “He’s pretty enough for tea and pastries.”
“I thrive in all environments,” Hale said. “It’s not my fault your ugly face is only fit to be hidden in a library.”
“Let’s see how well you thrive after my fist spends some time in your face,” Cal said playfully, smacking Hale upside the head. Hale met his brother’s challenge with a headlock, and the two scuffled in a flurry of hooked elbows and knees.
“I turn my back for five minutes and this is what I return to find?” a deep voice thundered.
Hale and Cal broke apart in a flash, standing at attention before their father.
“Willum, they were only playing,” Brea said, placing a soothing hand on her husband’s forearm.
“That’s all they ever do. When I was their age I was already serving as a page for Grand Minister Excentium.” Hale’s father was the Trade Minister for King Vespian of Aprica and seemed to object to anyone who did not take life as seriously as he did. Especially his youngest son. “Clean yourselves up. We’re late for lunch with Minister Turbino.”
“Yes, sir,” the brothers said in unison.
Hale’s father spun on his booted heel and swept from the viewing box.
Hale sagged slightly as the tension in his spine that accompanied his father’s presence uncoiled. “Do we have to go to lunch? All the ministers ever do is talk politics. I need to go collect my winnings,” Hale said.
“If your father wants you there, you’ll be there. End of story,” Brea said.
“You should come too,” Hale said to Roan, hoping his friend’s presence would lessen the tedium of a lunch with the ministers.
“No, no, no. You couldn’t rope me into that lunch for all the gold in Aprica. All the ministers will be complaining about the patricians. I’ll be at lunch with my own kind. You know, where the patricians will be complaining about the ministers.”
“The ministers wouldn’t be complaining about the patricians if they would stop trying to overthrow the king,” Hale said.
“Hale!” Brea said. “Don’t say such things. You know the situation is complicated.”
“Doesn’t seem complicated to me. The king looks like death warmed over and the Grand Patrician has his eye on the throne. Simple.”
Roan shrugged. “True enough. My dad’s trying to stay out of things as best he can.”
“Your father is an honorable man,” Brea said. I’m sure Hale doesn’t mean to suggest that he or any of the other patricians would do anything untoward.”
“Oh no, nothing untoward.” Hale laid a mocking hand over his chest. He snorted. “Evander’s practically measuring the throne for h
is ass.”
Even Cal sputtered a laugh at that one, but Hale’s mother was not amused. “Enough! I will not hear one more word of this now and certainly not at lunch.” She lowered her voice, so only Hale could hear her. “Do I need to remind you the consequences of embarrassing your father?”
Hale turned red, memories of leather belts flashing to the surface. “Fine. I’ll be your boring perfect son. But just lunch. Then all bets are off.”
“Lunch,” Brea said with a world-weary sigh. “And when you come to visit my early grave remember this moment.”
“Our mother could’ve had a career in the theater,” Hale said to Cal, slinging his arm around his mother’s narrow shoulders. “Her talents are wasted making wine.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” Cal said, holding his hands up and backing away.
“Let’s go.” Brea patted Hale’s chest. “We don’t want to keep your father waiting.”
Hale trailed after his mother and brother, descending the stairs from the shade of their viewing box. The purple blossoms of jacaranda trees filtered the sunshine, but the afternoon’s heat was still powerful.
Roan peeled off from their group with a bump of his fist against Hale’s. The racetrack was a proud old building of soaring spires and fluttering pennants. They had gone to the races as long as Hale could remember, to cheer for his uncle’s racing stallions. Hale and Cal had both inherited their mother’s love of animals—he remembered standing on the fences of the racing pens, watching as the horses were groomed. Hale’s father, who to his knowledge didn’t enjoy anything at all, tolerated the trips to the track, as it gave him an opportunity to network with other politicians.
As Hale had grown older, his attention had turned from the horses to other more interesting wildlife. Hale waggled his fingers at a clutch of passing girls who giggled and fluttered their handkerchiefs back in his direction. Hale grinned at his brother, who rolled his eyes. Hale smiled to himself. It wasn’t his fault that the gods had smiled upon him in the looks department. If the young women of the city appreciated tall, well-built fellows with turquoise eyes and blond hair, who was he to dissuade them?
Hale was jarred from his daydream as his mother abruptly stopped before him. The brothers pulled up on either side of her, towering above her petite form.
“Sa Farina, it is a good day indeed when I have the opportunity to encounter such beauty.” A thin older man dressed in the white smock of a chef stood before them, bowing low to kiss his mother’s reluctantly proffered hand.
“Sim Daemastra, you are too kind,” Brea said, using the male honorific.
“I swear you look lovelier and younger every time I see you. To think these two strapping young lads are your sons. You must tell me your secrets. You hardly look a day older than they.”
“You flatter,” Brea said with an uncomfortable laugh. “What brings you to the race track today, sir?”
Hale studied the man with a sick fascination as he droned on about his latest recipe. There was nothing for it—Eldo Daemastra creeped him the hell out. The man’s smooth skin stretched too tight across his face, giving him a vaguely skeletal appearance. His teeth were too white and his hair was too thick for a man of his age. He was too nice, too friendly, too interested, especially in Hale’s mother. While Hale had only met the Grand Patrician’s personal cuisinier a few times, each encounter had left him with a distinctly uncomfortable impression.
Hale’s mother seemed to feel the same. He could hear it in her uneasy laugh. Now the man was talking about getting his hands on some of Hale’s mother’s smallbatch wine, a vintage that was prized throughout the city—perhaps even all of Aprica.
Hale opened his mouth to come to her rescue, but it seemed that Cal had the same idea. “Mother, we don’t want to be late for lunch. We should probably get going.”
Yeah, you eerie old corpse, Hale thought.
“Of course. Shame on me for keeping you. I must attend to the patricians’ lunch as well,” Daemastra said, as if sharing a private joke. “You know how men get when their gazpacho is late.”
“True. Important topics and empty stomachs are a dangerous combination.”
Sim Daemastra raised one eyebrow, which seemed to float halfway up to his artificial hairline. “Important topics? Surely, the ministers are talking horse flesh and next week’s regatta. That’s all the patricians are discussing—I assure you.”
“The same, the same. It was just a turn of phrase,” Brea said.
“Mother…” Cal said, pulling his pocket watch from his unbuttoned waistcoat.
“Don’t let me keep you. Brea, always a pleasure. Say hello to your husband for me.”
Brea gave a stiff nod, and the cuisinier was gone. She wiped her hand on the fine brocade of her skirt. “That man is like a shadow passing across the sun.”
“Was that a threat? ‘Say hello to your husband for me,’” Hale said in a mocking tone, waggling his fingers at his mother.
“Don’t be silly,” Brea murmured. “Lunch awaits.”
Hale met Cal’s eye. Something was definitely up.
Chapter 2
Lunch was as tedious as Hale had predicted. Even worse, he had been forced to endure the entire afternoon cold sober—his father had cast him a thunderous look every time Hale so much as looked at the pitcher of wine. At least the food was good. The cuisinier had served a chilled watermelon, mint, and crumbled cheese salad followed by a pheasant glazed with orange and fennel reduction. The view wasn’t so bad, either, with Minister Salta’s daughter seated directly across from him. Her lace bodice had a swooping neckline, giving him a clear view of her sweet bosom every time she leaned forward to take a bite. He’d wondered idly if she was tempting him on purpose until her delicate toes creeping up the inside of his thigh made that fact perfectly clear.
Unfortunately, Hale’s mother had spotted the girl’s wandering toes when they made it too high, spoiling all his fun. When the lunch had come to a blessed end, Brea marched Hale down the stairs with a grip of surprising strength. He just managed to turn and throw the girl a roguish grin over his shoulder. Perhaps he would see her again. Courting women was rather like tending a garden. A little fertilizer here, some water there, and it was remarkable to see what would pop up.
The excitement of the afternoon’s race was long gone, and now Hale found himself bored out of his mind at his family’s villa, pacing before the wide double doors that overlooked the ornamental gardens. Brea sat at the table, delicate spectacles perched on her nose, going over a giant ledger filled with the accounts for her winery. His father had not returned with them, heading back to the palace for some late scheduled meeting of the ministers. Cal slouched in a chair by the empty fireplace, one long leg splayed over the arm, a book in his hands. Reading. He was always reading.
“Cal, you up for a game of pips?” The dicing game was Hale’s favorite, but it required two to play. A betting game was no good without someone to take the money from.
“You always win,” Cal said without looking up from his book.
“Is that a yes?” Hale asked, grabbing the book from his brother’s hands. The Rise of the Alesian Empire. Boring.
“That’s a no.” Cal snatched the book back. “Consider it a standing no for all eternity.”
“And I thought being boring came naturally to you. It turns out you’ve been studying.”
“Hale…” Brea said, not looking up from her ledger. “Leave your brother alone. If you can’t find something to fill your time, I’m happy to find you some chores.”
Cal snickered.
“Chores?” Hale was aghast. “That’s what we have servants for.”
Brea looked up, removing her spectacles. “It would be good for you to do some real work every now and then. Heavens only knows how you’ve grown so big when all you do is loaf around and eat.”
“Mother! Don’t forget my most important pastime—”
“Being an ass?” Cal said.
“Dazzling the city social
scene.” Hale made a face at his brother.
“Socializing is important, but it’s not the type of labor I mean,” Brea said. “Why don’t you come to the winery with me tomorrow? We’re pressing some of the grapes. You used to beg to come to the winery with me.”
“I’m not eight years old anymore, Mother,” Hale said. “I need a bit more than dusty floors and spider-filled vats of grapes to wow me these days.”
Brea’s face darkened. “Making wine is noble. It’s science and it’s art—it’s romance and passion. I haven’t sold out every vintage the last eight years for the spiders, I’ll tell you that much.”
The far doors burst open as Hale opened his mouth to make a halfhearted apology. It was Roan. He staggered into the room, his face ashen, his hair disheveled. “I ran all the way here.” He gasped, resting his hands on his knees. “There’s been a coup. The king is dead.”
Brea’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. Hale met his brother’s eyes and saw his own worry mirrored there. What did this mean? For the country? For the ministers?
“The patricians?” Brea asked, though they all already knew the answer. Who else could it be? The patricians had been vying for power against King Vespian and his cabinet ministers for years now.
“Yes, Grand Patrician Evander led the charge himself. He has the military behind him as well. General Lysander has thrown his support behind him and the patricians. They’re killing people.”
“Killing people? Killing what people?” Hale asked.
Roan straightened and met Hale’s eyes. The look of sympathy etched across his friend’s face said more than words ever could. A rush of cold flooded Hale’s body, numbing him to the core.
“Willum… He was at the palace…” Brea said faintly.
Cal was by his mother’s side in three quick strides. “Roan. Tell us.”
“I’m so sorry… There was fighting… The ministers tried to stop the general and his men. Sim Firena…he was killed. They all were.”