Chapter 14: Finders keepers

“Young mistress. Young mistress, wake up.” The calm voice of the maid dressed in black uniform could be heard as she tried to wake up her mistress.

“Just five more minutes Eliin.” Came the muted answer from under the blankets.

“No, can’t do. It’s lunch time already. If you remember, you were the one that instructed me yesterday to wake you up at all cost.” Eliin stated, not letting herself be affected by the pleas of her mistress. After being able to finally get the blanket out of the way, a young girl around the age of twenty appeared lying on the king-sized bed.

Feeling that her shelter was peeled off of her, she met her gaze with Eliin’s. “I swear you could be worse than a bunch of hungry leeches if you really try.”

“Say what you want, I just did as you asked. I was also supposed to remind you that today your master will return. If I’m correct you wanted to go and greet her before she arrives at the castle.” As she said this, the young girl before her almost jumped from her bed, all the laziness forgotten, probably remembering something important.

“I nearly forgot.” She said as she started to choose from clothes that Eliin brought with her, standing before a big mirror.

She is Nexaria Primea of the Pureblood, the first princess and the successor to the demon queen throne. Only twenty years old, she was still considered a child in the eyes of her long-living race, the demons. But even as a child she already possessed a great beauty which could be rivalled probably only by her mother, the current demon queen. Inspecting herself in the mirror, the fiery red eyes filled with cheerfulness and enthusiasm of a young girl stared at her. Matching their colour, her long silky hair, reached down to her waist. Possessing an hourglass figure, many of the maids wondered about how she is able to preserve it, as she liked to just laze around. Her alabaster white skin was without any impurities and if one touched it, it would be as touching the softest silk. Even her horns, which were a symbol of pride for all the demons, looked gracious as they curved alongside her head, looking like some kind of crown.

Still inspecting herself Nexaria ordered Eliin: “Bring me something easy to move in. Today I don’t want any of those long dresses.” She said as she preferred pants over skirt, even if it wasn’t really appropriate for the next queen.

Eliin, sighing with resignation, brought over black pants, a long-sleeved shirt and tall boots suited for horse-riding.

“You know the queen won’t be happy if she sees you dressed like this.” Eliin warned her as she helped comb her hair.

After finishing all preparations she went to the dining room with Eliin in tow. Seeing she was alone there she asked: “Where is mother? I wanted to speak to her.”

“The queen is busy with preparations saying, with all due respect, she won’t wait for somebody who sleeps the whole day.” Eliin tried to reprimand her, as she brought food before her.

“And brother?” Nexaria asked, slicing one of the fruits on her plate.

“The young prince is with his sword instructors. He also tasked me earlier to tell you not to bother him.”

“Every one of them is so uptight and important.” She rolled her eyes up as she put the fruit into her mouth.

“I’m sure that ruling a country is important.”

“You know how I mean it Eliin. Never mind, the problem is I still need to speak with mother.”

“I went ahead and asked her in your name if you could go and greet your master and she gave you her permission. I also spoke to your other teachers and moved your lessons to another date.” Eliin told her, knowing that’s probably what she wanted to ask the queen.

“I love you so much.” Nexaria hugged her. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“You would laze around and probably make problems for somebody else.” Eliin retorted, slightly surprised by the sudden hug, showing a small smile.

After finishing her late breakfast, Nexaria slowly prepared to leave the castle. She was excited as her master, one of the lich-lords, would be coming back from her travels. Her mother, the queen, after finding out about Korpus’s death ordered all of the remaining lich-lords to return to the capital at once. She remembered when the necromancer, who was supposed to be with Korpus in Celum forest, hastily returned a few days ago, only to inform them about Korpus’s death. She didn’t know what he was supposed to do in the forest, as her mother was very secretive about it, but his death shocked everybody. With him they lost their strongest force which was one of the things that promised them protection from neighbouring countries as every one of them feared Korpus greatly.

Now the queen wanted to gather the other lich-lords and discuss their plans for the future. They also needed to inaugurate a new lich-lord in place of Korpus. This will be probably the hardest part as the few eligible lichs are struggling for power between each other. They will need to be tested and approved by the lich-lords and the queen and this will surely take a lot of time and consideration. However, the lich-lords themselves cannot stay for too long so that their posts are not left vulnerable to attacks from outside.

As Nexaria walked through the castle she could see how servants were almost running in the corridors, just to prepare everything on time. After all it wasn’t wise to let her mother wait, she learned this many times in the past and the queen’s lack of patience was almost famous.

Finally arriving at the stables she grabbed one of the servants there and ordered: “Prepare my carriage and horses, I will be going out.”

“As the young mistress wishes.” He said with a bow, hurrying to do what he was told.

It didn’t take long and she was already sitting inside her carriage with Eliin sitting across from her. It wasn’t normal for the maid to sit together with her mistress but Nexaria wasn’t one to strictly care about etiquette so she allowed it. On the driver seat sat two of her best personal guards, both of them being female demonata. As the princess it was unthinkable for her to have male guards or teachers until she got married.

The carriage was made from shiny black wood, named grave wood. It comes from trees growing on lands where a lot of undead slumber beneath it. Thanks to that these trees gain special properties and the wood from them turns black and almost as hard as metal. It is quite hard to reproduce so the only one using it is the royal family and some of the wealthiest nobles.

The interior was also quite luxurious with comfortable silky seats and quite a lot of space. In one corner there was even a small ice box; a metal box with ice magic runes on its sides and a small magic core to provide mana, holding drinks for the sake of refreshment. Right beside the ice runes were fire runes, so if one wanted he only needed to redirect the mana flow from the magic core and the box would become heated.

The carriage was pulled by two black demonata horses, also known as nightmares. In appearance they were quite similar to the normal horses that humans use, with slight differences here and there. They are bigger, quicker and also have more stamina in comparison to a normal horse. Also they are carnivores and can be dangerous predators when living freely in the wilds. Their best weapons are their sharp teeth, the bull-like horns on their head and their quite high intelligence in comparison with other monsters. They could also use some dark magic which enabled them to conceal themselves in the night.

Slowly making their way through Grimthorn, Nexaria observed the calm streets of the city.

“It’s weird how other nations like humans, elves and beast-men hate us when I can see them here in our city living side by side with other demonata without any conflict.” She expressed her feeling aloud. She had pondered about this a lot of times now, always wondering why the kings and queens must try to kill each other while their subjects live side by side.

Eliin only sighed heavily knowing they had already discussed this countless times.

“This is why her majesty the queen calls you a naïve child.” She said observing her.

Making idle chit-chat and buying some things that piqued her interest as they made their way to the west gate of the outer walls the night slowly approached. They went through the gates without any problems, the guards seeing the carriage belonged to the royal family only saluted to them as they cleared the way. Eliin tried to convince the young princess to stay inside the city and await the return of her master there, but Nexaria refused saying going to the plains won’t be any more dangerous than inside the city walls.

As they moved away from the walls they could finally hear the sound they were searching for. It was a rattling. A rhythmic rattling of uncountable bones as they moved through the plains. Soon after hearing the rattling sound they left the carriage and spotted a huge army of undead. Skeletons, phantasms, wights, death knights on skeletal horses and other undead creatures marched forward to Grimthorn. Looking at this spectacle Nexaria wondered again how somebody could kill Korpus if he could command even more with a single thought.

Amid their ranks, not far from the frontlines, she spotted a large skeletal dragon with a comfortable chair attached to its back. On it sat one of the lich-lords and her master, Deq’ria, the Dragon lord. If she wanted Deq’ria could summon armies of undead like the other lich-lords, but that wasn’t her speciality. As her title of Dragon lord suggested, she liked to travel around the countries, trying to find the places where dragons died and bring them back to life as her servants. Nobody knew the exact numbers that were already bound to her service, but she once gave a hint to Nexaria which suggested that there were tens of them.

Spotting her only student, Deq’ria commanded the army to halt as she dismounted the dragon.

“Bu etarli bo'ladi! Qaytish va mening keyingi chaqirishni kutmoqda! (That will be enough! Return and await my next summons!)” She commanded and with a simple wave of her hand the undead army around her was swallowed by the ground as if it never existed in the first place.

“Master I’m so glad to see you back.” Nexaria welcomed her in a good mood, not minding what just happened before her. She was raised in the company of lich-lords so their powerful summoning and magic was a normal occurrence to her.

Deq’ria walked towards her student, slowly revealing her face under the red cape. Similar as with Korpus, only a skeletal face showed up. If one wanted to find some differences between them, Deq’ria had more delicate looking bones suggesting she was a woman before changing into a lich. Also on her skeletal forehead there were two pairs of small horns revealing that previously she was a demonata. Wearing a silky red mage robe, decorated with gold strips, a noble aura radiated from her. Unlike Korpus she wasn’t holding a staff but a yellow dragon eye, slightly bigger than a human fist, hovered near her hand.

“My cute little Nexaria, I’m also glad to see you.”Deq’ria said, kindly patting Nexaria’s head.

“Master, when will you stop calling me cute? The future queen shouldn’t be called cute by her vassals.” Nexaria pouted.

“Hahaha, when you will start to behave as a future queen should, I will start to think about it.” Her master humoured her in a good mood.

“These humble servants greet you Deq’ria.” Eliin together with the two guards bowed before the lich-lord showing their respect.

“Eliin. How have you been? It must be tiresome to take care of Nexaria all the time.”

“I do what I can.”

“You two stop talking about me as if I’m not present.” Nexaria pouted.

“Hahaha you see, you are cute when you are angry, but enough of pleasantries. Is it really true that Korpus was killed?” She asked, now boarding the carriage with the others.

“That’s what the necromancer who was with Korpus told us when he returned, but I don’t know any details. Mother kicked out everybody from the throne room except him and marquis Zeidan, so we didn’t hear anything else.”

“Hmm, it’s hard to believe for that old fox to die in some elven garden. I could understand if a whole army were to be involved but I highly doubt that possibility. There must be something else to this story. I will need to talk to your mother.”

“She is already expecting you, together with the other lich-lords which should arrive this week.”

As they made their way through the night streets of Grimthorn, they heard a commotion before them near one of the inner gates, leading to the castle.

Curious as to why they stopped Nexaria’s head looked out of the window asking her guards: “What happened? Why did we stop?”

“There seems to be trouble at the gate. It seems like the guards are apprehending somebody.”

Curiosity being one of her features she got off the carriage and approached the gate. There, four guards were holding somebody down.

“What happened?” She asked, trying to act like a proper princess.

“I’m sorry for delaying you young mistress. We will be finished here in a second.” A guard saluted to her, recognising the princess.

“That’s not what I’ve asked you. I wanted to know what happened!” She now ordered him.

“Yes young mistress, I’m sorry.” He started to sweat imagining he enraged one from the royal family. “This creature tried to get inside and when we wanted to send him away he tried to fight his way in.” He explained quickly, looking as his colleagues subdued the creature and prepared to take it to the prison.

“Didn’t he mention why he wanted to go in?” Nexaria asked, still curious about the weirdness of this situation. Everybody knew that getting inside the inner walls without invitation from the queen or high nobility spelled prison or maybe even death.

“He said he must speak with her majesty the queen.”

“That’s stupid. Nobody just tries to waltz in and declares that he needs to speak to the queen.”

As she thought about the absurdity of the situation, her master probably thinking that it takes a lot of time and came to look as well.

“So this little one wanted to speak with the queen you say?” Deq’ria asked as if she didn’t hear what was said before.

The guards seeing who she was lost all colour, because everybody knew that angering lich-lords spelled death.

“Y-yes, m-my lord.” The one previously speaking with Nexaria confirmed.

“Bring him closer to me!” She ordered not minding the nervousness of the guards. Finally seeing the creature up close she extended her long bony finger and touched the creature’s chest.

“Hmm, I see. Interesting. Really interesting.”Deq’ria said not letting the creature out of her sight. Still touching its chest she chanted in a whispery voice: “Yuxu. (Sleep.)” When finished, she called for Eliin.

As Eliin came closer, as the lich-lord asked, she looked at her with question in her eyes.

“Bring him to the carriage.” Deq’ria ordered again with a firm voice.

Not having any choice in this Eliin did as she was ordered. She took the creature from the guards and soon vanished with it inside their carriage.

“You will not speak to anybody about what happened here! Be it your commander, nobles or other lich-lords, do you understand?” Deq’ria warned the guards before her, her shining eyes promising unimaginable fate if they did otherwise. “As far as you are concerned nothing happened tonight. There were no problems on your watch.” She voiced her order again and not waiting for their response she slowly went back to the carriage.

“Come Nexaria, we must hurry.” Were the last words they could hear from her. Nexaria, knowing when her master is serious, went after her without any questions.

Finally moving, the royal carriage vanished in the dark night behind the inner gate.

“What do you think that was about?” One of the guards finally found the courage to ask.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know. You heard the lich-lord. Tonight nothing happened here.” Was his solemn answer.

Sitting back inside, Nexaria curiously studied the creature they took from the guards.

“Master, do you know him?” She asked, not knowing what to think.

“Yes and no.” Was the mysterious answer she was given.

“What is that creature?” The curiosity getting the better of her forced her to ask again.

“Do you want to tell me that you can’t recognize an imp when you see one?” Deq’ria voiced really surprised.

“That’s an imp? I read about them and have seen some pictures but this one doesn’t look like one. I mean there is some resemblance, but shouldn’t they have wings and hoofs, also the hands are different. They shouldn’t be summoned anymore in this age. If I’m correct they are too weak to be really useful for something. I know many who called them useless creatures.”

“You should watch your tongue before calling him useless. He may be only an imp, but he is still a true demon. Their power wasn’t in combat ability but in their potential to evolve. While it is true that there was only a small chance for this to happen, once it happened they could be one of the strongest demons that walked the earth. If I’m not mistaken even your great ancestor evolved from an imp.”

“I didn’t know that.” Nexaria was left surprised.

“Well nobody today talks about it and as you said imps aren’t summoned anymore. As for his appearance, this one was tortured. Look here,” she pointed at where his wings and tail should have been. “It’s clear he had them and from the sight of how his wounds mended it looks like they were cut off. As for his hands and feet, I think he already went through an evolution phase. His height also doesn’t match the height of a baby imp. The same goes for the colour of his skin.”

“So, why did you help him master?” Nexaria wanted to know.

“I want to confirm something, but first I will need to speak with the queen. This reminds me of another matter. I want to ask you for a favour.”

Hearing her Nexaria almost instantly agreed. “I’m indebted to you for your teaching so I will do whatever I can.”

“When we arrive I want you to take this imp and hide him in your room. Tell nobody about him until I call for him.”

“I must protest.” Eliin said, not showing any fear from speaking against the lich-lord. “The princess can’t hide questionable males in her room. There would be a lot of problems if somebody found out.”

“It will be fine Eliin.” Nexaria tried to persuade her.

“No young mistress, it won’t.”

“I promise you it will be only for a day, at most.” Deq’ria said with a calm voice.

“What if he wakes up? What if he is actually dangerous? We don’t know anything about him and you want to leave him in the room of the princess? That’s madness.”

“Oh, he surely is dangerous. I can feel it from him. Still, I must insist on this. But you don’t need to worry about him waking up, I made sure of that. He will sleep until I tell otherwise.”

“But…” Eliin wanted to continue arguing as they stopped in front of the castle.

“You know I can order you to do it.” Deq’ria reminded her with whom she spoke. “Do it for me as a favour and one day I will pay it back.”

“Haaa, do as you wish.” Eliin sighed, knowing she won’t win this argument.

“Thank you. Now I need to excuse myself.” After saying this Deq’ria quickly left, as if somebody was chasing her.

The only ones left in the carriage were Nexaria with Eliin, both looking at the imp.

“So? How will we smuggle him inside?” Nexaria wanted to know, showing a big mischievous smile.

Eliin only grabbed her head as she muttered: “I think I will have a headache.”