Simon had no she of other offers after that, but what he was really frustrated by were his material. The hat wanted him to paint murals to their greatness offered him signifit sums, but even with money, he wasn’t really sure where he could get better materials to work with.

  Oh he could have just ordered paint in any color online, one down to the local hardware store, but here, things were harder. So, while he took a couple of straightforward jobs to finance his resear that regard, the few months were spent mostly to expand beyond those limitations in Thebian. It was there that he discovered from another local artist of signifit repute that some colors like deep, vibrant blue could only be created by crushing literal precious gems, which seemed io Simon.

  “I do not have time to i chemistry from scratch,” he told himself. Sometimes, though, it felt like he should. It ecial sort of torment to know that a tool like bright blue paint or broad spectrum antibiotics existed, but to have absolutely no way to use it himself.

  “It took millions of humans thousands of years to i all of that stuff,” he lectured himself while he painted his current patron at the height of two stories tall on a watchtower overlooking the grand market. “So don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re doing pretty good, for one guy.”

  While Simon couldn’t deny that, he was hardly thrilled by it. Good enough had once been his mantra, but now it was like a stone in his shoe. Even projects that he personally didn’t care about at all, like a mural of the man who was hoping to win a seat oy cil in the iion, had to be just right.

  Of course, he wasn’t all work. He had his distras. In a city as rge as Thebian there were a dozen ways to party on any given night. Even beyond drinking, drugs, and whores, which he stayed away from, there had been a couple noblewomen ied in some private portraiture that threateo bee something more after only a few minutes of being aloh them.

  Simohem, of course, often in much less than he’d inally inteo, but he didn’t sleep with them. As beautiful as one or two of the women had been, and as single as he very much was, he simply wasn’t ied in random flings with women he didn’t know. If I do that, I might spend the rest of my lives just wandering around the world and spending the night with ahat catches my eye, he thought sullenly. What a waste that would be.

  The ical part of his brain pointed out that he’d actually already done precisely that with Freya, but he batted that thought away immediately. “That’s different,” he told himself. “We were in a life or death situation, then. Things got weird.”

  Beating himself up about getting together with her too easily was a lot better thahings he used to think about when she came to mind, so he let that go easy enough. Still, thoughts of Freya made him wonder if he might be holding himself too far away from the wider world. He was still sidering whether he should take the ce to get to know more women, when the news suddenly spread through town.

  “The Queen has given birth to an heir!” the town crier read out the following m. “She, and her boy Seyom, are doing well, gods be praised!”

  Everyone cheered at that news, but Simon was just pleased that she’d he boy after him in her own way, with a loame that was slightly simir to his. That softened his feelings toward her more than he would have thought possible.

  Despite the fact that the city immediately decred three days of public feasts at the news, it immediately banished any thoughts of debauchery that he might have had. Now, suddenly, he was inspired, and he went to the richest of his prospective patrons with a proposal. Lord Hepholon was the owner of several rge vineyards, a winery, and he dabbled in shipping up and down the coast. He had more wealth than Simon would have in a dozen lives.

  He was supposed to be a hard man to reach, with maioners, but thanks to his growiation, Simon had no problems with that. He had even less of a problem getting the man to approve the rge mural that he wao do to celebrate the queen and her son. He merely looked at Simon’s sketd asked, “When you start?”

  “It’s… you know that much blue will be very expensive, right?” Simon asked. This project would cost as much as all of his previous endeavours bihanks to the price of pis zuli, but the man was utterly uurbed, and instead of dismissing Simon, he dismissed his servants so he could speak more frankly to him.

  “You are an artist. A skilled artist, but an artist heless, so I will five your y,” the older man smiled grimly, “But you must uand that for a man like me, a work like this is meant to be expensive. Indeed, you should lie to everyone who asks. You should tell them it cost ten times what it did, and that your blue paint is worth its weight in gold. Such dispys are lovely for the an, but for those in the rarefied air he top of the city, they are nothing but a test for status, and in such tests, atters almost as much as beauty.”

  Simon uood all of that on some level, but to have it spelled out so clearly was refreshing. It was a nice remihat at least in this life he wasn’t important. In any of his others, where he wielded a sword instead of a brush, he might have crushed su egotistical mert beh his sandals. However, here and now he was nothing but a status symbol, and ohat was slowly increasing in value at that.

  Simo a season on his mural to his son. It ainted across the sed story of a wide municipal building that looked out over the harbor and the lower market. It ced so btantly that everyone iy could see it, but really, he’d lobbied to have it put there so that the queen herself would have no choice but to see it the ime she came through the city.

  Most of that time ent waiting for the rare blue stones, so that he could grind them to powder and mix them with a binder and water, but other that building the scaffolding and sketg out the outline for the painting to e.

  Once he had everything he needed, along with a handful of assistants eager to learn his craft, he was done ihan a week. This time he started with his queen, and the infant that she carried. She was done in nearly pure white again, as was befitting of purity and power. Then, once he was doh all of the chiaroscuro details o make her look like the woman rather than the ideal of one, he drew his son.

  There Simon could only do his best. He’d never seen the boy, nor would he for years. What really mattered was the bright blue swaddling he was dispyed in, and the darker blue background that he painted behind both of them.

  Simon had drawn the whole thing in such a way that it was the infant who was the source of light in the painting. It was he that was illuminating his mother, and pushing away the darkness of the night. He even painted faint stars at the edges of the giant forty-foot mural that very subtly spelled out “Glory to Queehena and Prince Seyom!”

  The effect was muted, and very effective, and received nothing but accim. Simon’s patron held a vish party in his honor when it was done, where Simon was expected to thank the man for bearing the crippling expense of the thing. Lord Hepholon of course reciprocated and praised him for making something truly priceless in it beauty at the cost of mere s. Afterwards he even tried to marry off Simon to the daughter of an important t, but Simoown after that, traveling further north.

  While his destination was in, he left little works of art up and down the coast, all the way there. Sometimes he beautified the shrines of a Goddess, and other times he decorated the shop of a mert much too poor to afford his services, but he always left the pce he stayed prettier than he found it.

  Even with su i and haphazard journey, only a year had passed by the time he’d reached the northernmost city in Ionia. He thought that he might tour the isnds . Some of them were supposed to be quite beautiful. However, even after he discussed the prospect with a ship captain, that never happened. Instead, he fell in with the Alexin’s.

  They were a noble family of some importa just iy, but in the try as a whole. Acc to rumors they were perhaps the third or fourth most promi noble family iire try. Simon wasn’t surprised to receive an invitation to their estate, but he was surprised by their request.

  He’d pnned on doing more art, and taking some time to iigate the stra of ceramics, but they made him a different offer. “Our middle son is absolutely fasated by your work,” she expined, “When he saw your mural in Thebian he absolutely insisted we hire you as a tutor. So, we’ve been looking for you ever since.”

  Simon expined his long winding trail up the coast and the woman merely ughed politely. Her husband was more direct. “What is the point of making art that will never be seen?”

  Simon thought about pointing out that it would be seen every day by the people that lived there, but the text was quite clear, and he didn’t ue the point. Instead, he simply said, “One prove without practice, so I practice where I .”

  Lord Alexin that. “I would prefer that the boy take up architecture, or sculpting. They are much more reputable than painting, but if it is to be painting, the be with a master.”

  Simon smiled at that, but said nothing, instead he talked about some of his projects he had pnned, and the three of them worked out an arra. The Alexins would fihose endeavors, if he would allow their son to be his sole assistant, and receive extensive instru throughout.

  Simon erfectly happy to agree to those terms, though they didn’t st nearly as long as he expected. Their agreement was for art tut, but when it became apparent to Simon that youand as well as his younger siblings were woefully behind where they should be in reading and writing, Simon took that on as well, much to the children’s disappoi.

  Simon still worked on his art, of course, a Bertrand assist him with that, but it was the carrot to make him work oher more necessary skills, since he clearly had no talent when it came to drawing, and other important skills.

  Simon didn’t see that as a dealbreaker, necessarily. He’d been terrible at art once upon a time too, and he would have long since given up had a vivid imagination not proved so vital for the casting of magic spells. Still, Bertrand didn’t have half a dozen lifetimes to improve. So, Simo him busy from m to night sketg ohat admired his murals while Simon worked on the rger works of art. “Just be gd that your parents afford so much paper,” Simon ughed when the boy pined about so much practice. “I did most of my practi a whitewashed wall with sticks of charcoal. You’ll learn much faster than me.”