While Hadrian was used to being on the road, and it was much more comfortable travelling in a carriage, the kids were tired constantly. Which meant they spaced out and complained they couldn’t sleep.

That was also brought about the fact that they needed to sleep during the day as they travelled during the night. Edwin, Hadrian suspected, was a seasoned veteran of four hours of sleep per day.

He had to be too, being a healer. Hadrian had to pretend to be asleep for longer as he literally restrained Edwin with his bulk. The children, not wanting to hear Edwin write about the cases he had encountered on the road in the middle of the day, also piled on the healer.

Maybe Edwin had caught up on it and was keeping silent. Perhaps he was just obvious. But he kept still the entire day and tried to sleep, with varied success. Hadrian had the need of only six hours’ worth of sleep.

When he had been hunted by vampire hunters during the time of the Holy Inquisition some two thousand years ago, he had gone with less. But times were more peaceful now, now that the treaty of Adosinda was signed.

And a good treaty it was, making all the non-humans equal to the humans. Apart from the walking corpses. They were so mindless they ate all peace brokers that came their way.

Hadrian could still remember the day of the treaty signing. He had been a different vampire back then. All doom and gloom and plots behind false smiles. But it had been expected of him. After all, vampires were hunted by even their kind and in the end times, the prophecy of The Harbinger of the Angels had loomed over their entire kind.

But Hadrian had found the healer that was supposed to bring the end. It had to be Edwin. The prophecy had stated.

On a moonlit night, a healer will journey to mend the woes of the wretched.

Three children he will have, not of his seed.

Three white shrouds they will have, each making the healer more and more bitter.

Then the healer will bring forth a plague like no other, with snakes woven into a curse with no mirror.

The plague will cut down all Kindred and their ghouls.

All werewolves and their mates.

All elves in their forest of green.

All halflings in their huts of mud and stone.

All orcs will fall face first, their tusks cracked.

All ogres will go deaf, then blind, and then finally their hearts will stop.

Only the humans will remain, but they will not live. They will merely exist.

If the children do not die, if no white shrouds cover their faces, then this all will not come to pass.

For the healer is kind and his heart is not black.

Back then, two thousand years ago, he was of the opinion that the healer had to be killed before he even met his children. Many vampires thought the same thing. But that was two millennia ago, and Hadrian had grown milder with peace.

And what a wonderful age it was. Women romanticized vampires and sought them out and offered their blood freely. Men trained for years before approaching one to be turned.

Hadrian had no idea how the other races had it, but he supposed that it was good. They had their districts in the towns and cities. The forests were largely elven and werewolf territories. The halflings settled fertile lands by the banks of the rivers on both continents.

And the prophecy was so easily avoided. All he needed to do was to keep the three pipsqueaks alive. Which, seeing as they were growing on him, was not going to be a chore.

He cracked an eye to see Edwin staring at him.

“Can’t sleep?” Asked Hadrian as he brought the healer closer to himself.

“The kids snore like a saw mill. But at least they are asleep. Soon, they won’t have trouble sleeping during the day,” said Edwin as he laid his head on Hadrian’s chest.

“They are adorable, though, aren’t they? Last night, when you were treating Mister Worm, Ben managed to hit me on the head. He will become a fearsome rogue one day,” said Hadrian, pride swelling in his chest.

“I am worried that it won’t be enough,” said Edwin as his hands wrapped around the three children who were sprawled over him. “I am afraid they will get themselves killed.”

“Should they do so, what will you do?” Asked Hadrian. The prophecy played before his eyes. He needed to take this measure of Edwin now. To show that old charlatan, The Harbinger of the Angels, that Eddy was a good man.

“I will bury them, if there is something left to bury. Mourn them and then… I have no idea. Occasionally, I fear my capacity for anger. Probably the dungeon that took their lives is getting visited by walking corpses and skeletons and whatever else I can make. But the core, I will smash it myself,” said Edwin with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

A stone fell inside of Hadrian’s stomach. This was not the answer he was expecting.

“How good is your necromancy? Have you practiced it a lot?” Asked Hadrian, trying to play it off as simple curiosity.

“I’ve cleared and then leveled to the ground three dungeons so far. The cores were sick bastards. But their mana was no match for what I would harvest at my village’s cemetery,” said Edwin with a shrug, then he yawned.

“I take it; it is not a good time to tell you the kids want to visit the Asylum of Blood? I already cleared it some time ago,” Said Hadrian.

“They are too young. Harry, be responsible,” Said Edwin, half asleep.

“You called me Harry. Does that mean I am your best friend now?” Asked Hadrian and he wiggled his eyebrows.

“The one and only,” then, as Hadrian opened his mouth to tease some more, Edwin spoke. “Don’t push it, Harry. Or I will demote you to vice-best friend.”

“As if you can replace me with someone else, Eddy!” Said Hadrian, faking outrage. Edwin snorted and then he drifted off to sleep. The sound of the grazing horses from outside, a lullaby to the people in the carriage.