Chapter 4

Along the way, Abigail and Rudolph kept trying to have another heir, or two or three, just in case. They didn't have any luck, and I know why. Henry had finally obtained the necessary ingredients for Martha: a lock of Abigail's hair and a handkerchief with Rudolph's blood and snot. How did he manage this? No idea. But I do suspect that it was via the maids. Women loved Henry and were willing to do anything just to get another look from his stunning blue eyes-even Martha, although they never became more than friends. She loved him as a younger brother, Rick and his wife Mirabelle, as their loving parents, and his children and myself, as her own kids, her kin. That said, she loved me a bit more.

Each time we got a letter inquiring about my health and asking them to deliver me to the capital, my nanny started hissing, as if she were a rabid cat, and cursing them, with strong and targeted curses, all powered by her hate for Rudolph and love for my mother.

She went through both pouches with fragments of her enemies and hissed furiously, "Ye want my child, ye scum? Ye'll never have any more of yours!"

A good hex, one that would never let you have children, no matter how hard you tried. You wouldn't conceive, wouldn't carry to term, or if you actually did, it would be such a monster, you'd choke it with a pillow yourself.

Abigail just couldn't conceive. She never got pregnant, simple as that. As an added bonus, only a necromancer could identify such a hex. And necromancers were killed, thanks to the tireless efforts of thralls and servitors of the Bright Saint. They got burned, crucified, drowned in holy water... And not just necromancers, but their entire families. After hearing about that, Martha cursed foul Rudolph and crooked Abigail. She wished them the same thing again-infertility.

Her wish came to life from a necromancer, via a dead fragment of a live body, to the person. No life or mind mage could detect this. And it worked, like a needle, a long sharp needle, which could pierce the rings of chainmail and sink into your throat. Could such a needle kill? Everything could if you wanted it to. Uncle was protected, of course, buried under a mountain of amulets, but a needle could penetrate any armor. That's what needles were for.

Of course, were they to invite a necromancer, he would easily tell them they were victims of malicious intent, but necromancers were the product of the Dark Tempter and had no business being around the court. As for the others, casting a hex was always easier than dispelling it.

Rudolph and Abigail had two children left, Prince Andre and Princess Ruthina. The prince was four years older than me, the princess, two. Both took after their parents, or, more precisely, after their father in looks, after their mother in smarts-both fair-haired, with the same set of features and the same rat-like cunning.

Upon their birth, they had been granted lands, and the generous king had promised that his kids would never want for anything. He kept his word. They never did. They ate from golden plates, wore gowns embroidered with diamonds, and got everything they wanted at first request. And they were slowly but surely turning into scumbags who were completely sure the sun shone out of their behinds.

The king showered his toadies and sycophants with gifts, at the taxpayers' expense, naturally. The lowest thrall of the Bright Saint got a gilded robe and a silk undergarment, while people starved. The king, meanwhile, was getting blessings in all the temples. They collected a tithe, too! Soon, it grew twice as big. And the fee for the simplest rituals, like name-giving, was thrice as big!

They never thought about me, fortunately. Everyone promptly forgot about Torrin and three of its owners-Rick, Henry, and Martha. We didn't produce any income, yet we thrived. But one story at a time.

After the princess died, the three amigos were left with a half-demon on their hands. I had to be fed, raised, taught... How were they supposed to do that?

If not for Aunt Mira-Rick's wife, Mirabelle, who came to him as soon as she was able-I would have probably died. I needed a lot of looking after. I needed food, and nobody dared to find me a wet nurse. Half-demons, well...

Let's start with my looks. My true and original appearance is far from pretty-at least by human standards, as personally, I like it. My skin is ashen-grey in color, tough, and with a light scale pattern. I'm no reptile; I'm quite human-like. But my skin can withstand even a random blow with a knife. My father was scaly, too. I'm slender, tall for a human-almost six feet. I have a high forehead, a long crooked nose, thin lips, and sunken cheeks. Coupled with high cheekbones, it makes quite an impression.

Martha says my face is beautiful, predatory, and strong. If a falcon became a human, he would look like me. I believe her.

My most striking feature is my eyes. They are big, stretched to the temples, with long thick eyelashes, and bright blue, no whites, just the iris and the pupil, black during the day, bright red at night. I can see in the dark as well as I can in the light. I also have long thick hair, white, like my mother's. I grow it out because I like it that way and because it makes it easier to conceal a garrote or a stiletto. Henry taught me that. My eyebrows are white as well, curved toward my temples. In short, I like the way I look, with a long tail with a barb at the end; with double rows of pointed teeth and a slightly forked tongue; with sharp claws that I can retract and hide in special folds on my fingers and toes.

The only thing I regret is that I have no wings. My father had them and still does. I didn't inherit them, however. Oh well. A flying prince would have been too much.

Imagine you get a kid you can't show to anybody. What would you do? Aunt Mira found a solution. I was nursed with goat milk. Mother had the foresight to bring an entire herd of goats and sheep. Unfortunately, the sheep were unable to adapt to the local climate, but villagers started to breed the goats. They are pretty good at climbing mountains, after all. Not picky about food either; they could even eat chopped fish heads. Who cares if milk stinks of fish? It's still milk. Baby goats also gave meat, and adult goats, wool.

Michelle didn't ask a copper piece for the goats she gifted to every house. Still, the villagers were grateful enough. All of them got together to clean the castle of a century of dirt. Five village girls and three boys-those crippled or too sick to go out to sea-were hired to serve at the castle, for twenty silver a year, a fortune, by local standards. Children got work as well. Rick and Henry knew very well that the king shouldn't be allowed to see me in my original form. Thus, they had to learn in advance about any messengers headed for the castle. There were two paths leading there-one road and one hiking trail through a mountain pass. There, Henry arranged watch posts with four boys, also on the weaker side, always on the lookout for travelers.

If they saw anybody, one of them ran straight for the castle. The travelers would have to go around the back, following the road, while the boys went through the mountains directly, so everyone at the castle was warned ahead of their arrival.

Once warned, Rick found me and put me to bed, while Martha prepared an herbal concoction for the welcome guest and enchanted another amulet of glamour. Michelle had bought a dozen of them before leaving the capital. The amulets worked in a curious way: they didn't change my appearance outright, they slightly adjusted features that were already present. A person simply saw what they expected to see. If a messenger had assumed me to be a sick child who looked exactly like Princess Michelle, that was what he saw-not a healthy, if a little thin by human standards, half-demon child, but an ill kid lying in bed. My skin wasn't grey, just too pale because of sickness. My eyes weren't blue with red pupils, but normal blue, a bit red because of lack of sleep or poor lighting. I had the same white hair, the same humanoid shape. My tail could break the illusion, but I hid it under the blanket. Why shock people before it was time? Too bad my claws weren't poisonous.

We didn't fail once. Rick and Henry couldn't allow themselves to fail-it would mean my death. That is why I almost never went to the village and why I was never looked after by the servants. I played with Rick's children-Tom, Marie, and Miranda. They didn't think me a half-demon. For them, I was human. Together, we played, we learned, we misbehaved, and got punished. Nobody made any distinction between a prince and a common brat. That said, Rick always explained to us the reasons for his punishment, and if he was fair, we never argued.

Some things were different, however. Our day went like this: in the morning, while the air was fresh, we trained with Henry. We ran, jumped, did push-ups and sit-ups, learned to use a bow and crossbow, throw daggers, fence... Henry didn't care if we were boys or girls. Marie and Miranda ran and shot together with us.

"In our times, a woman should learn to protect herself," Rick always repeated.

In the afternoon, Henry went to the village. After arriving at the castle, he had decided to make the village boys into a proper garrison, and he didn't give up on that undertaking. Making them listen to him required a real show of strength: he knocked out some local brawlers, threw a couple of daggers, shot a few arrows...

And now, every day in the afternoon, in turn, he trained local boys and girls, the same as us, although our training was a bit harder. A farmer or a fisherman doesn't really need to know the fine art of fencing, with two blades or a sword and a dagger. One sword was more than enough, or an ax, or even a club.

We had our lunch, then three hours for playing and resting. Rick grabbed us at four o'clock in the afternoon and sat us in his office: several languages, mathematics, reading and writing, history and geography, logics and rhetoric, politics and management, military science and chivalric code, laws of Radenor and neighboring countries-everything that could come in handy, everything that Rick himself knew and was learning. The classes lasted until evening. We dined at eight. Afterward, Mira got the girls, Tom ran to the library, and Martha got her hands on me.

I am a half-demon, a natural born necromancer, and also, surprisingly enough, a fire mage. Martha thought I had inherited that gift from mother. Until around midnight, I was with Martha. First, she told me everything she knew herself, and then we took any book on fire magic or necromancy and tried to study. The gift burned me as much as her. It was inside us, it burned in our veins, demanding to be used. And practicing fire magic was easy; you could simply run to the mountains and try setting ablaze anything in your path. That trick didn't work with necromancy.

I realized why necromancers were so rare when I was a kid. Martha was an exception: weak power, strong self-control. What if the opposite happened? It did, all too often, and the magic poured out unchecked. Necromancy was no life magic. Necromancy produced randomly raised corpses, ghosts, ghouls and ghasts, vampires. What parent would let a zombie be their child's plaything? A fresh, recently buried corpse...

And thus, necromancers died. It might have happened to me, too. I have a powerful gift for necromancy. Suffice to say; I don't even need anything to summon a ghost-no pentagram, no spell, not even a drop of blood, just one command. Alas, we couldn't find even one sorry spirit in the whole castle. What can I say, it was a land stricken by poverty.

Hence, for my first ghost, we had to visit the cemetery. Martha and I often trained there. It had a really convenient location-far away from the village, hidden from the eyes of outsiders. Great!

Martha was there a lot. She took me with her when I turned five, a little birthday present of sorts. I didn't need anything else. I wouldn't trade away that visit for all the crown treasures combined.

Martha never forbade me of anything in my life. She just explained there were things above my skill level-for the time being.

"Ye can't lift Rick with one hand, can ye? Not yet. Ye'll strain yourself. But when ye grow up, ye'll do that with ease, right? Right. Then why overload yerself? I swear, in two years, I'll show and explain it to ye myself. And now, let's just stick to theory. Ye'll see that ye just need to grow up a bit. Ye're a smart boy, Alex..."

Usually, this is why necromancers die. They try doing something outside their power, like summoning a demon, and they fail. I had Martha. Her knowledge was enough for me, at least for starters. I also had mountains of books on a wide range of topics. I was taught everything that a proper ruler should know. A good king is a warrior and a manager. Henry and Rick did their best to make me one.

Meanwhile, they took care of Torrin-salted and smoked fish, produce, trade with pirates and smugglers, a pier, hidden harbors. Rick made it clear to the villagers that if they wanted to trade without paying any taxes, he would turn a blind eye to that, but he wanted a piece of the action.

The villagers didn't mind. It was convenient for them as well. Nobody was watching them or guarding them, and they were the ones to get most of the bought stuff anyway.

For instance, Rick ordered the smugglers to get him a large batch of weaving looms-quality stuff, masterwork-or geese, barrels of resin, hemp rope, canvas. Everything was given away to the villagers' homes; the castle got only a twentieth share-sometimes, in money, sometimes, in food. Lazy buggers didn't survive there. Everybody worked their behinds off.

Rick found out that villagers gathered and ate seaweed, which they prepared in a special manner, and discussed it with Aunt Mira. Half a year later, we were selling barrels of spiced fermented seaweed by the boatloads and got silver in return. The seaweed was delicious-we couldn't help but gorge on it ourselves. It didn't spoil for a long time, and some court life mage said it was good for your health. After that, it became all the rage-funnily enough, in Radenor as well since Abigail loved every new fad. And she had no idea about where it was from. In the meantime, Aunt Mira tried more and more recipes.

Captains brought us barrels and spices and carried away our seaweed, fish, and meat. And when Henry stumbled upon a silver vein in the mountains, life became just great.