pseudoblack

Prologue

     Queen Lacy's harsh cry of surprise jostled the sleeping King Jaeger awake as the moon slid into place directly above the castle roof.

     As quickly as that first contraction shook her, Queen Lacy was carried into the sect of the nursery used for delivering babies and gently laid onto the soft, comforting bed by Jaeger. He spotted a startled guard staring into the room and demanded that he leave and come back with nurses and a midwife. While he waited, he grabbed a torch from the hall and lit each candle with it, providing gentle yet reliable light.

     Queen Lacy was red-faced, her eyes popping out of her head, mouth open but silenced by the fierce pain blistering across her waist to her thighs. Jaeger begged her to speak but she couldn't get a word out quick enough before the nurses arrived.

     King Jaeger was dismissed from the scene but he took a chair at the edge of the room and watched his wife give birth to their first child and son, who they conceived one month before their wedding, when Lacy was nothing more than a farming hand. Their unorthodox copulation was ill-received by Lacy's father, but the idea of his daughter becoming queen was enough to make him accept Jaeger as Lacy's husband.

     Eight hours later, as dawn colored the sky a pale gray-blue, the baby cried. Jaeger had been half asleep. As soon as Lacy stopped shrieking and he heard that pitiful squeal, he jumped up and his eyes spun in circles, unsure of what he should look at first.

     "It's a boy," said the midwife to Lacy, turning to Jaeger with a delighted, tired smile on her face. A nurse took the baby and wrapped him in freshly-woven robe after washing the blood and casing off of him and chopping off his cord.

     She tried to hand the child to exhausted Lacy, but the new mother hissed and demanded that the baby be taken outside and fed to the pigs. The joy and relief bouncing around the room gave way to utter shock and horror.

     "Your... Your Majesty, this is your son," stammered the nurse, hesitantly holding him out again. Lacy reached out and hit his head- he screamed out and the nurse shouted and stumbled back, clutching him tightly.

     "Give him to me!" Jaeger gasped. His stomach felt like it was due to drop out of him. He scooped the crying child into his thick arms and cradled him gently. "Lacy, what's the matter?"

     Fire burned in Lacy's blue eyes. "That is not my son, it is a monster. It has to die. If it doesn't, we all will. It all came to me in a dream before I awoke tonight- it's a vessel for Satan! You must let it die!" The hatred in her voice melted away and revealed her panic near the end of her plea.

     Jaeger looked at the baby, who was now calming down. His hair was black like his, and he had his brown eyes too, but he was shaped and built just like Lacy. Beautiful little boy, Jaeger thought. Jeager couldn't accept that the boy, his son, was evil, but he loved Lacy too much to discredit her. Lacy was known to be a very religious woman- she would never carelessly throw around accusations like that, especially not when it involved the son she spent months carrying, who she always seemed to be madly in love with up until now.

     "Take her away, back to bed. I'm sure she's just exhausted and in shock. When she awakens, she should come to her senses. But if she continues to claim that the baby is a vessel for evil and Satan, there is a woman who I know will take good care of him."

     The midwife, still reeling from what happened, breathed, "what are you going to do with the child?" The grave look in her eyes let Jaeger know that she was taking Lacy's claim very seriously. "If what the Queen says is true, surely you cannot let him live. Why would she lie?"

     "I understand your concern. My decision will be made with Lacy. There's nothing to worry about. Clean yourselves up and leave."

     Looking relieved but still lacking the answers they craved, the nurses and midwife took Lacy and carried her off without a fuss from Lacy. Jaeger looked back down at the baby. The baby stared back at him. He babbled hoarsely, little hands struggling against the baby-sized robe he was swaddled in. 

     "And I'm going to name you little Ciaren," King Jaeger declared, smiling fondly and poking the soft little chin. It was a perfect name for him, meaning "black." Call it ghoulish, but Jaeger liked the name and the symbolism. It could refer to the blackness of Ciaren's hair, or the blackness that was alleged to be swimming in his innocent soul. Jaeger wanted nothing more than safety for his firstborn son, who was destined to take his throne sometime in the next few decades, but he couldn't help but feel chilled by what he knew about the little scrap.

     What could you ever possibly do, little one?  What reason would you have to harm us if we do nothing but love you?

     Hours later, near noon, King Jaeger exited the nursery empty-armed. He crept down the spiral staircase on light feet, planting his toes on the polished wood and bringing his heels down slowly and silently with each step, heading towards his and Lacy's bedroom quarters without drawing the attention of the guards planted around the expanse of the hall. His cape swept the floor, acting as a broom, so he unhooked it and slung it over his shoulder.

     The door, painted to look like gold, came open with a quiet click and a shrill creak. Jaeger could not hear his wife's feet shuffling across the floor or her favorite emerald hairbrush penetrating knots in her blonde locks. He rapped the wall just inside the door. 

     "Lacy, are you awake?" he called. With no response, he walked in. His cape slipped down and fell into a crumpled pile on the floor. A knot formed in his throat that trapped his horror down in his immovable chest.

     Lacy had fallen asleep as she intended to do, but by the time Jaeger could reach her she had already become cold, her face pale blue. The only color that could be seen on her was the blood dried on her thighs.