The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) Read online

  THE

  DEMON

  OF

  DARKLING

  REACH

  P. J.

  FOX

  Book One of The Black Prince Trilogy

  This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places or events is purely coincidental.

  THE DEMON OF DARKLING REACH

  Copyright © 2014 by Evil Toad Press

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art: Amor und Psyche, Henry Fuseli, 1810

  Cover design by Orange Box Design

  Published by Evil Toad Press

  ISBN 978-0-9904762-3-8

  First Edition: June 2014

  Acknowledgements

  Producing a work of this kind is a tremendous undertaking, and when you’re writing your first book especially you need all the support you can get. I’m grateful to say that while writing is of necessity a solitary profession, I haven’t been in this alone. First and always, I’d like to thank my family for being so supportive and for eating so many pizzas because I got into a scene, lost track of time, and forgot to cook dinner. I’d also like to thank my test readers, and biggest cheerleaders: Jim, Sierra, Michelle and Shawnnee. Sierra in particular gave me the gift of honesty. There are other people too, too many to mention, who supported me and encouraged me and helped me to believe in myself. Without them, this book would never have happened.

  P.J. Fox

  For my family

  Table of Contents

  Chapters:

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  About The Author

  ONE

  She studied him across the long, scar-pitted table, for once thankful to be invisible among her louder and more boisterous tablemates. What Isla’s father lacked in actual blood relations he more than made up for in devoted—or at least devoted-appearing—followers. Isla herself, her father’s oldest daughter and legitimate offspring, was always present but rarely occasioned notice. She didn’t drink, and she didn’t gamble; she wasn’t witty, or pretty. She wasn’t, in short, the kind of ornament that any self-respecting court, even such a backwater as the so-called hall at Enzie Moor, dreamed of having grace its crown.

  Isla was, at best, tolerated; she was, after all, her father’s daughter; even if the old and enfeebled earl had long ago given up hope of seeing her married. What man could, at this point, possibly be persuaded to take her? At nineteen, she wasn’t an old maid. Or not much of one, at any rate. Her own mother, the late Madam Enzie, had been married at fourteen. But Isla was, according to her childhood nurse, obstreperous and read too many books for her own good.

  When not wandering through the woods or climbing one of the half-crumbling towers that made up the unused portion of the manor or aiding one of her siblings in committing mischief, she could invariably be found stuffed into a corner with her nose in a book. And if not a book, then one of the older scrolls she’d pilfered from her father’s library. Which, as she’d been quick to point out when reprimanded, smelled of mold and was ignored besides. What did it matter if she read, when no one else did?

  That it mattered because learning and, Gods forbid, opinions made a woman less attractive to a man concerned her not a whit. One might even think, she’d overheard her father complain to his young and stupid second wife, that Isla wanted to repel men. She glanced over at her sister. She didn’t. She liked men, and quite a bit. She just wasn’t boy-crazy like Rowena.

  Rowena was holding court, as usual. She laughed gaily, enchanting her circle of eager admirers with pointless banter about nothing. She was everything Isla wasn’t: fair-haired with just the sort of rose-tinted complexion about which the poets sang, where Isla was raven-haired with skin like the underbelly of a fish. Rowena’s eyes were cornflower blue and vacant; Isla’s were shrewd and green. Rowena was petite and beautifully made; Isla was as slender as most boys and as tall. Rowena, knowing her own strengths, had garbed herself in a lovely costume of pale linen. A quilted corset belt covered in delicate embroidery did everything to show off her curves.

  Even their own father, the earl, seemed enchanted. Quite possibly the only person at the table not enchanted, apart from their sour-faced stepmother, was the lovely vision’s intended husband. Isla’s eyes flickered back to him. He still hadn’t moved, or spoken, but watched the surroundings with a kind of sardonic amusement that unsettled her. His eyes were bright over the rim of his cup, as black as obsidian and as utterly lacking in emotion.

  The wind howled outside and both of the fireplaces in the great hall were filled with roaring flame. Still, the lamps dangling from the ceiling gave off more smoke than light and even at this close distance his features were partially obscured. A log crashed in on itself with a loud pop and in the brief flash of light she could have sworn that his eyes glowed briefly red. Like the embers in the bowl of a pipe.

  She gasped, startled. He said nothing, gave no indication that he’d taken note of her reaction, but she knew all the same that he had. And then a plate crashed. The illusion was gone, and she felt foolish. So this was the creature, she thought, who worshipped the devil and ate people. Or so she’d heard. He seemed like just an average man, if an unpleasant one at that. The rumors were just that—rumors. Reminding herself of this fact helped her to settle herself, and conquer her fear of the enigmatic figure.

  He hadn’t spoken to her, beyond a courtly half-bow and a meaningless platitude about enjoying her dinner; he wasn’t interested in her and she, Gods above, certainly wasn’t interested in him. In fact, she would have given a great deal to be anywhere else at that moment. Propriety, however, dictated that her place was here. With their guest of honor.

  Tristan Mountbatten was Lord of Darkling Reach, and brother to the king. There was no reason for him to be here, in this backwater. Enzie Hall might have pretensions of grandeur and refer to itself as a court, but in truth its greatest days were behind it. It had no political importance. A fighting man’s fortress, it had been converted to a manor in the previous age and then let slowly—and painfully—go to pot.

>   Weeds sprouted between the once tightly fitted blocks of the outer wall. The conversion marked a peaceful, more dignified age; the degeneration marked a like degeneration in the earl’s finances. Peregrine Cavendish, Twelfth Earl of Enzie, was land rich and cash poor. His tenants ignored him. His fields, which should have been the envy of Ewesdale, barely produced. Isla had been born into that class of genteel poverty that, owing to the contributions of past ancestors, was allowed to limp slowly into its own ruin for their sake. Rather than simply being pushed into the pit, as the rule of the wild would otherwise dictate.

  The same tenants who ignored the earl also ignored his mounting debts, turning not a blind but rather a benevolent eye on his inability to manage even simple finances. His wife, the second Madam Enzie, was not so forgivingly regarded; but she inspired fear. Born Apple Darlington-Hall, the youngest daughter of a jumped-up merchant who’d given himself a hyphenated name in the hopes of erasing his dockside past, she’d made it plain early on that no amount of money was worth her wrath. A wrath she doled out with little restraint and often, whenever the idea struck her fancy. Shopkeepers gave her the lace and bolts of linen and reasoned, how many gowns can one woman wear? She couldn’t bankrupt them; her seamstress couldn’t stitch fast enough.

  Mountbatten, on the other hand, was one of the richest men in the realm and not merely due to his connections. Unlike the Much Honorable Earl of Enzie, Mountbatten’s lands produced famously well. Some might say, unnaturally well. His tenants, of which there were a great many, were—depending on one’s informant—either fiercely loyal or perishingly afraid. Regardless, they did their work.

  He had other sources of income as well, or at least that was the rumor: spices, silk…slaves, potentially. In his youth, he’d spent some considerable time in the east and had forged connections there. One of his best friends, supposedly, was a sultan who smoked opium and kept a harem of men at his disposal.

  To the extent that a man like that had friends, Isla thought. Looking at him now, she dismissed the idea as unlikely. He couldn’t have friends; he’d frighten them to death. Although she had to admit that part of what made him so frightening, both to her and to everyone else, was the air of mystery about him. Here he was, a guest in her home, and she knew nothing about him except the same tripe everyone else knew—or suspected. In place of hard facts, the man was a magnet for rumor: that His Grace the Duke of Darkling Reach was in league with the devil and some kind of sorcerer, and that he practiced religious rites calling for the consumption of human flesh. Or ate people for the pure pleasure of the experience, she wasn’t sure which. Isla, who didn’t believe in the devil and found the idea of ritual cannibalism almost as difficult to credit, regarded these rumors as the worst kind of bunk.

  What Isla did not dismiss, however, were the very whisperings that everyone else seemed to deem less important. Tristan Mountbatten might or might not be a sorcerer but he had killed his last wife. And the wife before that. Some people claimed he’d only had the two; some people claimed he’d never been married at all and that the women had been mistresses, or prostitutes, or the evil inventions of jealous minds. And some people claimed that he’d been married four times, or even five. Counted among this last group of gossips was Isla’s old nurse, Moira, who’d helpfully filled her head with stories right before this dinner.

  Were Moira right, Isla mused, Tristan would have to be old indeed; her own father had nearly sixty winters and had only managed two wives. And one mistress, but no one ever counted her. Tristan, meanwhile, looked to be no older than his late twenties. If he’d reached thirty winters, she’d eat her garters.

  A young start, for a serial murderer. She felt his eyes on her again, and looked away. No, a man like that did not have friends. She could picture him cutting someone’s heart out with his eating knife, but she couldn’t picture him laughing. And on that appetizing note, she looked down at her plate. Trout. Again. Served with potted frumenty, a revolting concoction made from parboiled wheat berries that had been strained and boiled in almond milk, honey and cinnamon. Except her father couldn’t afford cinnamon, so the cook had substituted chicory. Again.

  Well, she thought sourly, no one will have trouble moving their bowels tonight.

  A laugh rang out and she looked up, just in time to see Rowena beam with pride as her coterie of loving fellows cheered on her latest bon mot. Isla doubted very much that any of them had understood what she’d said or, indeed, cared to. Rowena could say trout over and over again and be hailed as a sparkling wit throughout Ewesdale.

  While Isla remained invisible, the other daughter. She chewed absently on a piece of bread, letting the noise wash over her. She and her tablemates were eating off of wooden trenchers tonight, a display that assuredly fooled nobody. Least of all those who lived at the manor, and were used to supping from trenchers made of stale bread just like the peasants outside their walls. Who also ate plenty of trout, since Enzie was a watery place and there was plenty to be had.

  But, stranger or no stranger, no one who saw the condition of his surroundings upon entering Enzie Hall would be so foolish as to imagine that this was the usual state of affairs. And Mountbatten, whatever else he was, was no fool. That dark, inscrutable gaze missed nothing. He, Isla supposed, must eat off pewter trenchers. Like the king. Kings ate off pewter trenchers, didn’t they?

  She didn’t know; breeding or no breeding, she was a country girl and had never been to the capital. But she’d seen her neighbors’ houses and knew that they didn’t have wind whistling through the shadowed upper reaches of their great halls or birds nesting in the rafters. Their wine wasn’t thin swill, the poor quality of which over-spicing did little to disguise.

  And they, of course, didn’t look at Apple and imagine that she loved the earl. The way the earl did. Isla felt sorry for her father but, at the same time, contemptuous of his weakness. Her mother had been strong. Her mother, now eleven years in her grave after a mysterious accident. No, Apple’s presence at the table represented the same sort of self-delusion that Peregrine Cavendish had been practicing since he’d been a young man. He looked at the harsh, uncompromising lines of his wife’s face and saw desire where others—including Isla—saw naked avarice. The earl wasn’t rich, true, but he had a title. And even though an earl wasn’t a duke, or even a marquis, Apple had been born with no title.

  She was hoping, no doubt, that her husband would do them all a favor and die before either of his girls got married. Isla was nineteen and Rowena sixteen, both of more than marriageable age, but the earl was feeble and feeble-minded and might go at any minute. And even if he didn’t dispose of himself properly before a legitimate heir was procured by marriage—whoever Isla married or, barring that, Rowena, would of course inherit Enzie Hall and all of its attendant possessions—at least one of the girls was bound to marry someone with connections. A new and better husband could perhaps be procured for Apple, who was still young and beautiful. If one didn’t mind the hash lines around her eyes and the faint look of dissatisfaction that marred her otherwise kissable lips. Apple made sure that they were kissable; she spread them with boar grease and pigment.

  She glanced briefly at her husband, her contempt barely hidden, before continuing a conversation with one of her…friends. A handsome young man, this time. One of the guard.

  The earl was oblivious, all his attention focused on his honored guest and the man he fondly imagined to be his social and political equal. That such an illustrious person as the duke would visit him here had assuredly bolstered his already overblown image of himself. Peregrine Cavendish was nothing if not impressed with his own heritage.

  Mountbatten smiled back pleasantly enough, although the expression didn’t touch his hooded eyes. He seemed, if anything, amused by the older man. And more than willing to accept his fawning, almost groveling appreciation.

  Isla saw that and hated him. Where, before, she’d merely disliked him. And been afraid of him. Which she still was; but consciousness of her fe
ar had been superseded by rage. Her father might be useless and old before his time, but as conscious as she was of these faults Isla was in no rush to have some stranger come in and make mock of them for no reason other than simple boredom. That the comings and goings of Enzie Hall and its inhabitants mattered nothing to this man, this—supposed—creature, was obvious.

  And he cared not who saw his contempt, although Isla knew well enough that her father did not see it. Had never seen anything he didn’t want to see, his entire life, which went a long way toward explaining why he was so poor. His favorite refrain had ever been, I don’t think that, my dear. And now this, this—

  She forced herself to calm. Causing trouble would serve no purpose and help no one. And besides, the duke was Rowena’s problem, now.

  The next course was served, an overdone piglet grasping an apple between yellow fangs. Isla felt her stomach turn, and bit her lip. Her father cut into the thing, releasing something uncomfortably like a belch along with an odor that almost knocked her back off her bench.

  Hart, her illegitimate half-brother, stifled a laugh. His eyes met hers over the rim of his cup. His were the same brilliant emerald as hers, a trait that they’d inherited from their father and that looked infinitely better on Hart. Hart’s blond hair had occasioned the first Madam Enzie to remark caustically that Peregrine’s mistress must have been stepping out on him. To which the earl, in a rare fit of backbone, had summed himself up to point out that Jasmine herself was fair. She’d kept her radiant straw-blonde tresses until the day she mysteriously fell down the stairs and died.

  Hart had proved a little more impervious to such accidents, although he’d suffered enough as a child. His eyes were a constant reminder to Isla’s mother that the earl preferred others. And then Amanda herself had died and Apple had taken her place. Apple, little more than a child herself when she’d married the earl at fifteen, couldn’t be bothered with a brood of ill-tempered children that felt uncomfortably like peers. And so she’d settled from hating them into ignoring them, and in the end everyone had gotten on well enough.