Upon the arrival of the royal delegation to the dukedom, everything seemed fine...at first. But then, during the first night they spent on foreign turf, a fire broke out in the palace. At that time, Uncle was quite busy...with Abigail.
When a noble knight and a noble lady deign to procreate, they won't notice a roof falling on their heads, and they didn't, before it was too late. They managed to leap out of the window, but two of their children and a part of the retinue all perished, suffocating to death in their sleep. It happens a lot during fires. First, it's the smoke, then the flames. The majority of the attendants suffocated as well. The minority, mostly Abigail's aunts and uncles, in-laws, and other forty-second cousins, all survived. Princess Michelle did as well. She was one of the first to escape. She tried to put the fire out, calm it down, make it disappear as hard as she could. She failed.
Abigail accused her of starting the fire. What an imagination! Or was it more than imagination-intent? She said that Michelle had been about to get married, which would have put a stop to her dreams about the throne, which is why she had decided to get rid of her brother and his family. She said Michelle had managed to kill the older children-the heirs-but had no luck with her brother.
“Get this nasty woman, good people! Grab her! Tie her up!”
Michelle couldn't resist. She was all spent during the fire. And, when a mage is spent, they're helpless as a baby, can't even run away. You can do whatever you want to with them. And so they did with Michelle.
They had her bound hand and foot and locked in a cell. Took the initiative, you could say.
For my mother, it came as a total shock. She was a princess, after all, used to luxury and adoration, never encountering a hardship in her life, and here she was, grabbed by someone, accused of something, shackled, imprisoned! And, she had lost so much of her strength, all to save her ungrateful brother, by the way. If Michelle hadn't calmed the fire down, Rudolph and his bitch would never have gotten out. Yet even that was used against the princess. Traces of her magic were discovered in the ash-her aura. If there had been a skilled mage, he would have examined the charred ruins and understood what had happened.
There was no mage. Mages are odd birds in general. It's a rare talent, manifested maybe in one person in ten thousand, and then you'd have to find that one, teach them, and help them survive the rigors of training. Magic is not pottery. And, almost always, you're born with only one type of magic.
Which one? You can't simply decide to become a wizard. You either have the gift, or you don't. And, if you don't, you can jump through hoops, but it won't help you any. In total, there are seven types of magic. Four are elemental: air, water, fire, and earth. Three are spiritual: life, death, and mind. Out of them all, death mages are the least popular; they're also called necromancers. But we aren't talking about them right now. So, if your gift is fire, you can do your best, but you'd never do anything with water, and if you can conjure air, mind is outside your skill set.
In that case, they needed a fire mage-a powerful one, a competent one, and trusted, too. Of course, they didn't find anyone like that in the royal retinue or anywhere within three days' travel. By then, the traces of aura had vanished. Nothing could be proven. The only one they had was a life mage. He could heal, cure, prevent illness, but he knew about fire about as much as a pig knows about politics. The trial was led by my uncle, and the investigation, too. Abigail helped, naturally. Uncle held his own sister imprisoned for ten days straight, trying to find out how she had planned to murder him and his family. First, she was just questioned, then threatened with torture and execution... Who knows what Prince Rudolph could have ended up doing? They did break her fingers, at least. No rape, thankfully, but broken bones hurt a lot, too.
The princess was rescued by an old servant, Tom Horn. He had known Michelle since she was a baby and loved her to death. He learned about her imprisonment right away and couldn't believe his ears-neither about her guilt nor about the fire. He grabbed a horse and rushed to my grandfather's side.
The royal party had traveled for twenty days. Tom crossed that distance in eight. He traveled by the stars, avoiding roads. Roads would take five days more. He chose the direct route via the wasteland. Rode down two horses, almost died himself, ate and slept in the saddle, but he made it in time. He told the king everything, and Grandfather's fury was terrible indeed. He sent carrier pigeons and messengers into the duchy right away. Royal guards followed. On top of profuse swearing, the letters contained an order to return the princess to the castle, TREAT HER WITH UTMOST RESPECT, and if any lowlife dared to accuse her of anything, Grandfather would...and then...stick the royal scepter into...to the very knob.
Uncle had never even deigned to inform him about anything, neither the fire nor the trial. Or maybe he had, but the messengers encountered some wolves on the road-hungry wolves, who, incidentally, really loved parchment. Maybe they didn't get enough vitamins? And Uncle's pigeons were set upon by falcons. Did I mention that some of Abigail's cousins were avid hunters? But there was no proof.
And here, destiny threw the first card onto the table-a queen of spades-a necromancer and a dark witch. She had been caught trying to put a hex on somebody. They had wanted to burn her at the stake straight away, cleanse her unholy spirit, and send her to the abode of the Bright Saint, but my uncle arrived and was made an honored guest for the execution, and the feast, of course. They didn't get the chance. The evening after his arrival, my uncle had other plans, and in the night, the fire happened. Everybody forgot about the necromancer girl...except for the princess. They were kept together, in neighboring cells, and they had a lot of time to talk. Who said that necromancers were all dark and evil?
I told you about the seven types of magic. Of them all, death mages are the least popular. They're also called necromancers. Why? Say thanks to the Bright Saint and his followers. They needed an enemy, didn't they? Their parishioners needed to be scared and repulsed. And what's more disgusting than the undead? Or ghouls?Personally, I always found gaudy courtiers way more disgusting than any cadavers, but that's me. If you show a peasant a living corpse, his pants won't stop stinking until the cows come home. So the necromancers were exterminated-burned, drowned, beheaded with silver, run through with wooden stakes. Nobody had any mercy for them or their families. Nobody would take mercy on that girl either. Her name was Martha Fael, and like the princess, she was seventeen. Mentally, she was much older, though. Sometimes, life forces you to grow up.Martha was far from pretty. She was thin as a rake and had black hair, dark eyes, and skin a
Prince Rudolph turned red with anger. Meanwhile, the princess didn't waste any time. She turned her gaze to the captain and said, "Captain, it is not right to badmouth a poor girl. Maybe your tongue didn't work because of your spite? Still, you got lucky. They say the tongues of slanderers fall off for good. And their noses rot, as if from a horrible disease. Isn't that right, Martha?"Martha stared at the prince and smiled, baring all forty of her teeth. "'Tis the honest truth," she said. "Your Highness, the Bright Saint puts a mark on an evildoer. His nose rots, his tongue withers, his eyes leak out of their sockets..."And she used some of her power. A wave of cold spread throughout the room, driving both the prince and the captain away-quick and efficient.The next day, the royal party started on their way back. Michelle insisted on it, saying she would recover more quickly in her homeland. Nobody said out loud that Henry needed to get away from the duchy as
I think you've already guessed which boy the princess wanted to bear. That's right, a half-demon. Me.It took two moons for Michelle to reach Torrin. All this time, Martha, Rick, and Henry were trying to dissuade her from her plan. They were too late. Michelle had already set her heart upon that idea as if a flame was burning inside her-a scary, black, mad flame. She had chosen her path and had no intention of changing her mind. In response to all their questions, she simply shook her head. Only once, she gathered her friends and told them her mind."You think me mad? You're wrong. I hoped you would understand everything yourself. Rick must, even if not quite. And yet it's simple. What do people think about me right now? That I'm a criminal, acquitted by her own father-a kinslayer, an arsonist, a witch. Abigail and her entourage made sure of that. Rudolph trusts her as if the Bright Saint himself sent her down to earth. And what awaits me after Father's d
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
We found the silver deposit by pure chance. Every once in a while, Henry took Tom and me for a mountain stroll, to hunt and build up our stamina. We took some supplies, climbed mountains, trained, and got back after five days, tired, dirty, sweaty, but completely content. This time, it was the same.I love the mountains. They are eternal. I'd like to think they have been standing here for thousands of years and will last thousands more, with their sharp peaks piercing the sky's heavy underbelly. I'll be gone, as will my children, and the mountains will still be laughing while tearing the skies apart, as centuries pass by, leaving them untouched in their haughty splendor.Their beauty is oppressive, unfettered, untamed, and I feel as if I'm a part of them so strongly that sometimes, I forget myself. Like that time. In many ways, it was my fault.***"Alex! Where are you going again? Come back, or I'll box your ears!"I bent over on a rocky ledge and made a fa
Years slowly passed, and I was ten, then twelve. I became a better fencer than Henry and won eight duels out of ten. Sometimes, Henry, Tom, and Rick all banded together to take me on. I loved that; it was a challenge both for me and them.Martha marveled at my necromantic prowess. She realized very well that I could easily raise all the dead bodies in the neighborhood and put them down without breaking a sweat. Controlling any undead or summoning any demon, whether a war demon or run-of-the-mill succubus, came naturally to me. I felt all-powerful. And one day, it almost killed me.I got a new teacher out of that.***Rene Ghirr urged his horse on until it dropped dead. Then he waited an hour, and the animal recovered. The zombie was starting to smell, but the advantages were obvious: an undead horse was not as fast as a live one, but it never tired and could gallop even with broken legs.Unfortunately, its rider wasn't tireless himself. By the thir
Cassandra was offered the choice of two widowers, one a father of eight, the other of five, and a young man her age, who was especially pious, and, as a result of that, afraid to even talk to girls. She suspected that if she were to marry that boy, she'd remain a virgin forever. He probably had no idea that babies weren't brought by a stork. Moreover, he was half a head shorter than her, possessed the narrow shoulders of a man who had never in his life done any physical labor and had disgusting white plaque on his lips. The girl always wanted to spit at the sight of him. If he were her brother, she'd pity him, but as a prospective husband, he made her nauseous. She wasn't desperate enough to resign herself to that marriage.She had to act so cold and stiff that the poor guy first started to stutter in her presence and then just disappeared for good, informing Hermann that his niece was as hard as granite and adamant in her faith.Widowers weren't especially attractive
Rene, who already knew about her pregnancy-he was a necromancer, after all, and any experienced necromancer could easily detect the number of souls next to him-realized that logic was powerless against Cassie, and started to comfort her. It took him two hours-and very pleasurable ones. Yet Cassandra didn't want to go even after that. She was convinced only by her husband's promise to come to her after the epidemic was over.Rene wasn't fooling himself. He knew he would last a moon, while the epidemic was in its height and the others still needed him. Then his fate would be sealed. They would try to kill him. As long as you had a necromancer, finding a stake to burn him on was simple enough. So after fending off the disease, he would need to leave. But first, he needed to sell all of his things to get established in his new home, and his dearly beloved Cassie would have to be sent away from the city with all the money he could gather.So Rene set out to find a family wh