In the palace, I was greeted my Tom ripping me a new one for putting my life in danger—and my uncle doing the same for another reason. Dealing with the first one was simple. I just snorted and said that I wasn’t worth a dump if two gilded parrots could defeat me. Or would cockroaches stomp me to death with their tiny feet, too?The second one was harder. Uncle was majestic and imposing...and somehow reminded me of a gaudy fool in a village fair. Abigail was pressing her lips together with such force that I could see her teeth—a rat was a rat.“Alex, how could you do that!”I fluttered my eyelashes as convincingly as I could.What else would I do?I don’t know anything; I haven’t seen anything; I haven’t killed anyone!“Two dead bodies in one morning! Viscount Muerlath. Marquis Tiernen! By the way, Duke Tiernen is Her Majesty’s second cousin!”Oh hell, the rat had some nerve. Making her second cousin a duke? I had to get an execution list, pronto. And the executioners.I didn’t deign t

The Sunday dinner at Morinar estate was much more of a success. Count Morinar accepted me as if I were his family—and not in that false manner I had gotten used to at court when they said one thing and meant something entirely different. No, he really had liked my grandfather. During his reign, the Morinar family had been in favor, and Henry Louis Morinar would love nothing more than to gain that influence back—the more, the better. He also wasn’t kissing my rear and kowtowing to me. He simply treated me like a friend of his son—told a few interesting stories, gave good advice, invited me to visit his house at any time.Meanwhile, Henry’s wife, a pretty-looking, plump blonde woman in her forties, took a shining to Tom and me. For some reason, she had decided that I was a poor orphan who never got any motherly affection and started to feed me and dote on me.If Martha had seen that, she’d probably have killed her right there. To consider her darling an orphan! Never. Still, I tried to

Abigail’s cousin was called Count Torne. All decked out, that fop was sitting atop a stallion, whom I felt really bad for—carrying such an idiot probably wasn’t a dream come true.Armor made of hammered gold, outrageously expensive weapons, lots of jewelry—if a band of brigands caught this imbecile, they would be set for life. Even their grandchildren would be. In the meantime, I was getting by with two horses, one of which was carrying all of my meager possessions: a tent, food rations, a pot, a couple of bowls and cups, a flintstone, and a tinderbox, in a word, everything I needed to survive.We weren’t headed to the wilderness. There were people there. And really, Henry would have the time of his life with this dummy, driving him as hard as he could on mountain hikes. The count looked at me with surprise.“Your Highness? What about your cart?”A cart?“It will catch up to us later,” I decided to say.“Are we going?”“Yes. First, we’re to meet the regiment. It’s stationed in Tyrem.”

Compared to the previous day, the mayor seemed to have more brass, but I quickly put an end to that. The secretary flew into the corner and hit the wall with such force that I heard his spine crack.The mayor tried to greet me with a smile but froze in place as soon as my saber cut the table in two in one swing. Just like a petrify spell.“If in two hours, the regiment doesn’t receive rations, tents, uniforms, and horses, you may consider yourself hung.”“Your Highness!”I pulled out a scroll given by my uncle to Count Torne. Everything its bearer did was assumed to be done for the good of the country.“I’m going to leave this room, show this scroll to the guards, and order them to hang the entire town council on the gates. At most, my uncle may give me a slap on the wrist, as I’m his only nephew. Go look for necromancers on the other side and try complaining about me.”“Y...your—”“My Highness, and My Highness is waiting! Go on, chop-chop!”I spoke the last word while almost hissing,

Farne, of course, let me know exactly what he thought about my actions. He was yelling, brandishing his fists, and screaming that if the bandits hadn’t gone crazy and turned tail for some unknown reason, I’d be dead as a doornail.I had a pretty good idea why exactly they had gone crazy, but I was in no hurry to confess it to the colonel, and thus, I kept poking at the ground with my toe-cap and making an innocent face. When Farne finally realized that winners couldn’t be judged, he stopped pestering me. They still had to release all the captives, help the wounded, interrogate everyone, get them home, hang the bandits, and sort out the loot.Compared to all that, I was practically sitting on my hands, other than pouring another dose of moonshine into the noble count, affectionately telling him that incorrect wake-up juice led to a bender. I calmed down.Too bad. In five days, a shadow slipped inside my tent. His name was Tyen Claymore, and he was a tutor who had been teaching a baron’