Karl Lambert stared at the sniveling guards before him. His horse, an undead with blazing green eyes, snorted and bend its chewed up neck to graze. Gloom hadn’t needed to eat in a hundred years, ever since it died, but the horse was a creature of habit and stubbornly refused to behave like an undead.

“There is already a Boliarin in Myrna, sir. The law dictates…” Began guardsman Rollo, but the necromancer just snorted.

“And how am I to speak to the boy if I can’t ever meet with him? There is something I must give him. He is going to leave the country with the blessings of our good and wise king,” Karl snorted at that. Valyr might be wise to take the Lamberts out of the line of succession, but he was not kind.

With a shake of the head, he continued.

“And I feel, as someone who was here during the year 900, that I have plenty of wisdom to share with him. Wisdom that will see Roberts as a Boliarin for the next two thousand years, or even more.”

The guards, who were practically shaking at that, hastily checked his papers and the guard that had addressed him stamped them.

“Well, if you say so. I am sure the king wouldn’t mind two of his loyal vassals meeting. It is not as if it is in secret, right?” Rollo sweated proficiently. This man could plunge Myrna in death and terror and the only one that could stop him, or, let us be realistic, delay him, wanted to play at being a hedge healer.

“I won’t divulge what we speak of to the public. It is none of their business,” dismissed him, Karl Lambert. He took his papers back and rode inside the city. He looked around.

This place had been hit hard with the coughing sickness, and yet there was not a gray flag to be seen. Eddy worked wonders; Karl had to admit. The boy didn’t have it in him to be a Boliarin, not really. When he had taken care of that dolt, Fredrik, it had been for vengeance.

And Karl felt for the boy, truly. A wife lost; three newborns dumped like trash on the floor. Honestly, the autopsy Eddy had performed on the dolt while the man had been alive had been too merciful.

Once Edwin had been appointed Boliarin, for not taking the sword to everyone that Fredrik held dear, and his skill with a scalpel, Karl had sent mercenaries to Fredrik’s tower and had it scored for a phylactery. The dolt had not taken the precaution and was well and truly dead. And good riddance to him.

This gesture of goodwill had earned him a thank-you letter for the young man, as well as a still beating heart in a static spell. Bought from the black market, Karl was sure, but a delicacy nonetheless.

And now Karl was here to return the favor. Eddy didn’t know what he was getting into by agreeing to raise young Elidys. Valyr might think himself smart to make Edwin his heir apparent after the bastard, making him the next regent should something happen to the king, but his great-grand daughter was smarter.

Alaine Gothenburg, née Lambert, already had scouts and servants snooping around the Boliarin. She was not going to kill the child, she was one of his brighter heirs, but she was going to do something worse.

Was already doing it, in fact. Young Elidys was cursed to have darker urges. To be excited by death and destruction. To become a wretch that no council would suffer, no matter how capable his regent.

And what did Eddy know about ruling? The court would eat him alive. Nudge him in this and that direction while he stumbles blindly. Or maybe the boy would bring a golden age for the common folk. He seemed idealistic enough.

Karl sighed. People around eyed his horse in fear. They may not know who he was, for they weren’t running for the safety of their home. Instead, they turned to gawk at him and murmur.

Did they think he was just a country bumpkin here to challenge their Boliarin? Possibly. They must feel so proud that the good necromancer was here and not he, Karl Lambert.

And now he was darkening their city just as their protector was preparing to leave. Once the snows melt, Eddy would use the permission to travel he had bought with the promise of a healthy prince. Then these people would turn to Karl again if a necromancer went wild. Would he help, though?

He supposed it was his duty. Oh, how he hated that word. He was born to be a conqueror. To command undead legions like the necromancers of old. Back before there were no Baliarins and necromancers ruled the world.

Then, Aleric Stormcrow had bent the knee to the King under the mountain, his great-grandson. One by one, bored necromancers gave up their crowns for a pittance. They were no different from Edwin. With power at their fingertips, but with a sickness people praised. Morality.

That thing did not infect Karl Lambert. But these days, he felt old. Not a single one of his heirs was a decent necromancer. Not one had a vision worthy of becoming a legacy. Not even Alaine, who refused to suck at the vitality of others to keep her youth.

Soon, she would be past childbearing age. So, Karl asked himself, why bother harming a child then? Out of pride. His granddaughter thought that Valyr had dishonored her by siring a bastard on a kitchen maid.

These things happened, and if the king had given the boy to a blacksmith or a candle maker, Karl supposed she would have swallowed the shame. But he had named him crown prince. Had given him to a Boliarin to protect. Had shown more consideration to the boy than he had his wife.

And in the end, Alaine was just human. Prone to jealousy and anger. But should a child suffer for it? Karl might be getting old, his cracking phylactery a proof of that, but he found he needed to do one good thing before the end. For his rotten, bloodstained, soul.