Chapter 10

After I was able to keep Nicolette and Yasmin from having a cat fight right there at the dinner table, Caulder and Soren began to discuss trading regulations with our neighbors.

“All I’m saying,” Soren argued, lifting his hands, “is that raising taxes a single pence on the pound won’t make that big of a difference.”

“Except it does when the kingdoms ordering from us are requesting thousands of pounds at a time,” Caulder shot back. “Far Shore is already complaining about the prices we do charge, and we charge them less than any other realm.”

“Pfft.” Soren shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Then I guess they can buy their clear rock from someone else. Oh, wait.” He dramatically slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. “That’s right. No one else makes clear rock, so they’ll just have to suck it up and keep paying what we quote them if they truly want it that bad, which they do. Everyone wants what we have. We should profit from that.”

I opened my mouth to respond, only to