“Look, there’s no use in worrying about anything right now. Nothing bad happened to you, and you told dad about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Helen’s words barely reach me over my thoughts.

I had barely got the right words out of my mouth. It was horrible, as if someone was trying to strangle me to prevent me from saying a simple sentence out loud.

And the dreadful silence accompanying my story, extinguishing any semblance of cheer in the room, the cold stares between all of us, it made all of it feel like a funeral. I remember Mother’s funeral, the sadness and eerie accompanying it as the stone slab covered the tomb.

Cerolus just stood up, telling me not to worry and that he’ll be back soon. Then he just walked out of the room, not turning towards anyone with almost a blank stare on his face, as if no one were in it in the first place.

Kozzok left shortly afterwards, as if called by an unknown force. I assume they somehow can communicate like that, but I haven’t felt privy to ask. More questions pop up wherever I go, and I always feel out of place to ask them.

That left Helen sitting on the table, and me staring at the door Cerolus left through.

“So what’s going to happen?” I ask timidly, almost expecting a punishment for the mere question I pose.

“I… don’t really know…” Helen’s words linger in the air around us, each pause seemingly taking some of my breath away. Just what have I exactly done? “I don’t think there’s a law to govern this kind of a situation.”

“Why?” I try to remember if Leonia has something similar, but my memory decided to fail me.

“Well, to put it bluntly, people don’t usually say no.”

“I don’t follow. They don’t say ‘no’ to what?” Her leisure is offputtingly calming somehow, my own tangled thoughts seem to slowly fade away altogether.

“To sleeping with other people. Especially if it’s the Prince. Definitely if it’s the Prince.” Helen herself seems to have entered a small world of her own with that last sentence, and my hopes of getting any information from her now seem slim.

Wait, they don’t shy away from sleeping with other people? Then what is the marriage supposed to represent? It’s a sacred bond of trust and love towards one another! That’s the entire core of the marriage. How do you just go around betraying someone like that?

Is Cerolus like that too? Has he been doing whatever he wanted while I wasn’t with him? What will he answer if I ask him that? How can I trust anything he ever says to me anyway?

----------------------------------------

“Master, what are you going to do?” Stupid questions, stupid answers, stupid children not being taught any proper manners. Why did I even think anything good would come out of this invitation? Someone gets born in this family and everything starts going downhill.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“We’re going to teach our dear Prince a valuable lesson in life, Kozzok. You can go and report this as mutiny towards the crown, you know I won’t really care.” Kozzok mentally shrugs at the notion. An attack on a Prince would usually be sentenced to hard labor or death, but that hadn’t actually occurred for a while. Well, not for our family.

“Would you like me to step in to stop you from killing someone?” Why does he think I’d actually kill someone? I haven’t killed anyone in years.

And why would I kill him over that? He only overstepped on a couple of boundaries and almost raped my wife. Who I haven’t had the opportunity to consummate the marriage with yet. And who was scared for her dear life then, and probably now. Who probably has very few things to like about me, and will probably like even less now. And now I’ve left her with Helen, who is bound to fill her mind with some nonsense somehow…

“…Yes.”

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“You wanted to rape my wife!” I lift Sarron up by his shirt and throw him into one of the cabinets of his room. “We come here happy and cheerful over you getting a brother and you just decide you want to do some raping and pillaging! What was going on in that empty head of yours? ‘Oh my uncle got married to a Human, so let’s just try and fuck her.’ Who in the entire Underworld was teaching you that nonsense?” I walk over to him and pick him up by his collar. I put fire magic into my hands and fear into his mind. Oh how good does it feel to manipulate someone like this. “SAY SOMETHING YOU CRETIN!”

“I’m sorry Uncle. I’m really sorry.” He is bawling his eyes out while being held up in the air. And this is supposed to be someone that is going to rule one day. He can’t even put up a fight.

“You two over there, stop screaming already!” At that point, the incessant screaming from the two young women on the bed stops, finally allowing me a moment of peace and quiet. “And you, what am I supposed to do with you now?” The sobbing from the manchild in front of me prevents me from hearing any answers.

“Uncle, stop!” My attention turns towards the man in the doorway. Oh good, finally an adult in the room.

“So, ‘Maorok’, would you want to take over disciplining your child over how he’s supposed to behave? Or should I do that for you? Because the previous twenty years didn’t seem to yield much.”

“Just put him down first Uncle. You’re hur…”

“I’m hurting him? I’M HURTING HIM? HE TRIES TO RAPE MY WIFE, AND I’M HURTING HIM? You really want to have one fewer son, don’t you, Herod?” I release my hands, a loud thump from the floor echoing through the room into my head.

I try to calm myself down, thinking of what someone else would’ve done in this situation. What would I have done if it were Axelor in his place? Whipping, overloading, expulsion, banishment, I go over all the possible ways of hurting someone without maiming them. But I’m not Sarron’s father and I don’t get to discipline him. Maybe I should, though. He would’ve turned out much better.

“Tomorrow morning, I am doing the Ritual, and we are leaving. I don’t want to see him anywhere near the Church, and you better pray to all the Gods that I forgive this in a few decades. Is that clear, Herod?”

A solemn ‘yes’ lingers behind me as I exit the room, turning over some furniture along the way.

What happened to me? Why am I suddenly so protective and concerned for her now?

I haven’t felt like this in years, it’s perplexing to say the least.

“You could’ve done a bit more, Master.” Kozzok joins me from the shadows around.

“You think?”

“It seemed to do well on you, you seem… less tense now.”

… I really need to sleep with someone.

“You seem a bit cheerful at the prospect of bloodshed, Kozzok. Are you finally getting so old that you want something major to happen?” I try to remember how long he has been in my service and the number of nearly five decades comes to mind. That is on the far end for a Shadowling. Kozzok’s silence only exacerbates my dread. “Has it started?”

“Master?” Kozzok’s feign ignorance is crafty at best.

I guess it did. “Since when?”

“Two months, more or less.”

“Then I guess you’ll get to see a Reversal Ritual in the least. Not many get to do that.”

“As you say, Master.”