Being paranoid is not enough to protect you
A few minutes before my life turned into hell, I was reading in the library, reclining in my favorite royal-red plush armchair, lost in the very old, very illegal book on demon summoning and bonding I’d found two months earlier in a hidden part of a hidden shelf in a hidden section of the library.
That section had sadly been compromised because Alexi, the captain of my guard, was too impatient to wander around the library calling my name until I felt like coming out, and she had pulled out every book from the dragon-breeding shelf, which she correctly guessed hid the entrance since I always came from that direction.
But this new room I’d found was even better, because in addition to pulling out a select few books (or all of them in Alexi’s case) to make the shelf click open, this one required the sliding ladders attached to the shelves outside to be in very specific positions.
It looked like the rest of the library: polished dark wood and even darker, more polished stone; royal-red carpets; sofas and chairs; thick candles flickering since the daylight from the small window near the ceiling had long since faded. It was the only place remotely safe enough to let Alexi out of my sight for even a second.
I frowned at the ancient words winding over the page. I’d been reading the same paragraph for the last ten minutes without it becoming even a smidgen clearer, so I let the book fall into my well-dressed lap and stared up at the dark stone ceiling where shadows danced with the light from my flickering candles.
Despite the ballroom being two stories below and on the other side of the castle, the cheery music had no trouble finding its way through the stone and wood into my ears. It was distracting and annoying, mainly because it reminded me how very far away Alexi and her sword were.
I usually didn’t let her go further than shouting distance. Her job was to keep me alive. How was she supposed to do that half a castle away, mingling and watching the horde of backstabbing nobles dance? Too bad she knew the exact combination of bribing, threatening, and bullying to get me to fold if she really wanted to.
And she had outdone herself with the bribe this time, somehow finding the only thing that would let her replace herself with three regular guards, now posted at the library doors, supposed to keep me safe.
The black steel dagger gleamed at me from the dark wooden table, as if hearing my thoughts. It was magnificent—the craftsmanship beyond perfect; the big white crystal set in the crossguard, sparkling with magic, so old it had begun to overtake the steel around it, forming a myriad of smaller crystals, like a huge monster with its tiny offspring. I had no idea where Alexi had found a summoning dagger like that. It was believed that they had all been destroyed.
Sinking deeper into the soft armchair, I went back to the book, ignoring the tension in my muscles and my racing thoughts telling me that I wasn’t safe, that any time now someone would barge through the hidden shelf-door and my life would be over. At least Alexi would feel guilty for leaving me then.
This was why I needed a demon. A big, scary, shadowy monster that never complained about how impossible it was for someone to climb a hundred meters up the outer wall to break into my bedchambers, that never told me I should trust guards who had been devoted to protecting the crown longer than I had been alive (ha, as if), and that never insisted it was perfectly safe to go out into the gardens—as if subjecting myself to the possibility of being attacked from every angle wasn’t total madness.
Watching the nobles piss their pants and skirts as I brought said demon to court would be a huge plus as well. No one would dare mock me to my face or behind my back if I had a demon at my heel.
That last scenario never failed to motivate me, and I grinned and stretched as it played in my mind. Not even the music from the ballroom could dull it. I closed my eyes and focused on the part where my demon chased Lord Fawncrown down a corridor until he fell down the stairs. Very satisfying.
Now that I had the knife there was only one thing left I needed to solve for it to become reality. According to the book, the demon realm was bathed in a miasma of energy that fueled the demons’ magic. Removing them from their world by summoning them to ours without replacing the energy source would render them useless. That’s why this was always made in two steps.
1. Summoning.
2. Bonding.
The summoning part was very straightforward, but the bonding, and exactly how that allowed the demon to keep its magic, was everything but.
By binding the demon to thyself, it will need to consume your red flowing life, or receive instead the unnamed succour of delight—a secret tending of senses, shared behind closed doors for no one to witness.
I assumed ‘red flowing life’ referred to blood, but then why not just say that? And I hadn’t even started figuring out what the other part meant. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound pleasant.
The book also went on about the bond between the summoner and the demon in the most abstract and unhelpful way possible, saying things like a true connection of souls can only form beyond the magic and truth and honesty must guide the path for the bond to grow and evolve beyond the crystal that created it, failing to give any concrete examples of what this really meant.
So it was a good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. Or stupid. I knew this was dangerous and I would make sure I had everything figured out before I started experimenting. Getting this right could take years. But it would be worth it.
The lights flickered on as I tried to make sense of the book, and I had no idea how much time passed but the candles were significantly shorter when I looked up and tried to figure out why everything suddenly felt even more wrong than usual. My whole body was like a toy wound up way higher than it was designed for.
Usually, when I felt like this I could never find the source, Alexi said it was all in my head, which is both insulting and wrong, and this time, I knew it wasn’t because as I frowned into the shadows I realized the music had stopped.
There was no way the peace celebration ball would have ended already. The way the nobles had talked about it, it sounded like it would go on for days. Anna, crown princess and my oldest sister who could never do anything wrong, had been blabbing about it for weeks trying to convince me to go. No way she’d let it end this early unless something terrible had happened.
In less than a second, my safe haven turned into a coffin, where the candles ate up the air, sealing my cause of death to suffocation. I tried to stay calm, tried to take slow breaths as I sat up straighter, loosening my red cravat. But nothing worked. The silence was banging on my head as the air avoided my lungs, and when the panic of being trapped won over the fear of what was waiting for me outside, I stumbled to the shelf-door and stopped to listen.
The guards stationed at the library doors (three of those old ones that would never betray the crown, kill me, or sell me to the necromancers, according to Alexi) should have noticed that the music had stopped. I could go ask them. Or sneak up on them and see what they were saying, yeah, that sounded better.
So as silently as I could, which was very because I’d practiced this a lot, I unlocked the shelf-door and pushed it open into the dark library. Only a single candle was left to light the big room and most of the shelves and furniture bathed in shadows. I held my breath and stayed close to the shelves covering the walls as I sneaked closer to the doors to the hallway, having no trouble navigating, since I spent most of my waking time haunting these shelves with a bored Alexi sulking on a sofa.
I slowed down as I heard the guards. There were still too many shelves, books, plush chairs, and sofas between us for me to hear the words, but I could tell something was off, so instead of stepping out of the shadows and facing them head-on as I would have if I’d had my demon, I crept closer.
Light spilled from the hallway over the red carpet and made the guards’ shadows look like looming monsters.
“Should we go get the prince?” one of them asked. She sounded too young to have been loyal to the crown longer than I had lived. Weren’t these the guards Alexi had sent?
Another one snorted. “He’s like a mouse hiding in a maze, it’s easier to just wait him out. He’ll be hungry eventually. Or panic over something and come asking for Alexi.”
“Can you imagine having her job? I would fake my death and become a farmer,” a third one said. If I had had my demon I would’ve ordered it to eat them.
“But she said—” the first guard started, but the second interrupted her.
“I know what she said. But do you really think he’ll be a problem? He’s scared of his own shadow. There’s no other way out. If you wanna play hide and seek with the brat, be my guest.”
I’d listened to guards talk about me before. And nobles. And servants. And my family. They were usually not this crass. Something was up. They sounded on edge but not worried. Why weren’t they talking about the lack of music?
Maybe the dancing idiots had needed a break? Or someone wanted to make a long boring speech, my father was an expert on those, especially when he had had too much wine. I strained my ears as the guards fell silent. But instead of distant violins, cellos, and clarinets, muted clangs of swords meeting swords and the unmistakable screams and shouts and general chaos of battle invaded my mind. And just like that, I traveled three years back in time, bound and locked in a coffin like a useless idiot as my other sister, Dana, Alexi, and my sister squad fought off the skeleton army guarding me.
As always, the memory hit me so hard I blacked out, flailing my arms for something to hold onto but only managing to send a heap of old dusty books crashing to the floor.
“Who’s there?” One of the guards asked, stepping into the dark library, sword drawn. The small red gem set in the cross glittered in the light from the hallway and I turned around and ran. Not even remembering the sword hanging at my hip. I had trained with Alexi these last three years, but I was no match for three trained guards. Even if the rubies set in my sword were so much bigger.
“Get him!” The guard who had called me a brat ordered.
Familiar panic fueled my muscles as I rounded shelves and turned over armchairs in my haste to get away from them. Their footsteps were heavy, even muffled by the red carpets but they didn’t know the library like I did, so even if they were faster I lost them among the winding shelves.
My hands shook so hard I lost precious seconds overshooting when moving the ladders and my lungs burned as if my cravat was strangling me, stopping all air from passing through. I dropped How the Use of Emeralds Has Changed Agriculture for the Better with a heavy thump when I pulled it out and my heartbeats were so loud all three guards could have run up right behind me without me hearing them.
I clenched my teeth around a pathetic, panicked sob and pulled out the last book. The door clicked open and I pulled it open with more force then needed, probably making unnecessary noise. Shivers ran up and down my back as I threw myself into the room and pulled the door closed, stumbling over my footstool, ending up in an undignified heap on the floor.
My erratic breathing and drumming heart almost drowned out the sound of the lock clicking into place and the soft squeaking as the ladders moved.
All but one candle had gone out in my absence, fluttering on the table as if struggling to light the space itself. Its reflection danced over the black steel like a promise. The white stone shining with magic, looking like a small moon.
As my breathing slowed, I ran through everything that had just happened, not feeling remotely as satisfied as I’d thought I would about being right about those idiot guards. Alexi would be hearing about this until she died.
I wish I knew why they had chased me. Were they sent by the necromancers to kidnap me again? Or by some scheming noble as a prank? But then what was the fighting in the ballroom about? Because that had been real, not just in my head. This was nothing like the vanishing skeletal dragon incident. This was really happening.
I’d never believed the peace treaty would last, and attacking as almost everyone was getting drunk was how I’d do it.
I glanced at the dagger glittering on the table.
It seemed like I would be meeting my demon sooner than I expected.
