Chapter 1

Thedrick looked down at the small, pale skinned, white-haired infant that was lying in the ornate wooden crib before him. The baby, who was swaddled in opulent fabrics, was looking up at him with large, crimson eyes. Thedrick swallowed nervously.

“Would you mind explaining this, Thedrick?” Balthasar asked in a very measured tone, making a sweeping gesture with one hand towards the child.

Slowly looking up at the chirurgeon, Thedrick feigned an expression of confusion. “It’s a baby?” he offered tentatively.

Balthasar scowled down at the jester. “And do you mayhap notice anything, say, slightly unusual, about this particular baby?” he pressed.

Thedrick glanced back down at the child apprehensively. “It's… very cute?” he attempted to continue dodging what he knew the chirurgeon was trying to ask.

“Uh huh,” Balthasar said as he rolled his eyes. When he rested them on the jester once more, he made another attempt. “Doesn’t she, mayhap, remind you of someone?”

Thedrick examined the baby with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Hrm, yeah, I guess so. She has her mother’s eyes.”

“No, she doesn’t, Thedrick, she has your eyes!” Balthasar pointed out, his tone sharp with annoyance.

Thedrick winced slightly under the verbal lashing. “Well, uh, she certainly has her mother’s nose?” He knew the inevitable wringing out he would get if he confessed, so he persevered in trying to delay it, even though there was no real way of getting out of it.

Balthasar heaved a massive sigh at Thedrick’s attempt to dance around the issue, looking down at the jester with extreme weariness. Thedrick gave the chirurgeon a small, nervous smile in return, trying not to flinch under his burning gaze.

“Why you, of all people?” Balthasar finally asked, reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut in dismay. “I know that Richard is infertile, but by the gods, surely there were better options?” The chirurgeon opened his eyes again and looked the small jester up and down.

Thedrick gave an overexaggerated shrug. “Perhaps because of my charming personality?” he hazarded, gesturing towards himself.

“Well, they certainly liked you a lot, for some reason, and you are of noble birth but…” Balthasar reached up to press a hand against his forehead as he shook his head slowly. “Didn’t you realise how irresponsible it was to do this, given your ‘condition’?”

“Hey hey, it’s not my fault!” Thedrick claimed, raising his hands in surrender. “I was just following her orders, like I’m supposed to.”

“Well then, it seems that choice cost the queen her life,” Balthasar said, his tone now a lot softer.

Thedrick felt like a cold iron rod was suddenly piercing his heart. “Wh-Wait, Vivi is… dead?” he choked out, looking up at Balthasar with wide eyes.

The chirurgeon nodded solemnly. “She passed away during childbirth, and I can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with this child being part vampire.”

“You’re… you’re blaming her death on me?” Thedrick asked in a wavering voice, sudden grief and hurt both pulling at his guts. “No no no… it can't be that. My mother didn’t die giving birth to me, she’s fine! Why would this be any different…”

Balthasar took a deep breath. “Alright, perhaps it’s not that. I can’t know for sure,” he admitted with apparent hesitation. “But what I do know for sure is that this is still a rather tricky situation. The resemblance is too clear, everyone is going to know that this is your child.”

“Does it matter? Vivi was the heir to the throne, not Dick,” Thedrick pointed out quietly, looking away from his friend.

“But have you also considered the other issue, that the child is part vampire?” Balthasar asked firmly, and Thedrick felt like the chirurgeon’s eyes were boring into him. “Firstly, there is the matter of caring for her, is she going to rely on blood like you? And then, if anyone found out what you truly are, she would be persecuted the same as you.”

Thedrick let his shoulders slump, then turned to look down at the infant’s face again, who seemed to be watching the two of them argue quietly, slowly blinking her big red eyes. “She’s just a baby though, would they really hurt her?”

“All I know is the people might not take too kindly to their future queen being part vampire. So now we not only have to keep your secret safe for your sake, but to protect her as well,” Balthasar explained plainly.

Thedrick was still looking down at the child, who really did look almost like a clone of himself, though her ears and nose were much more rounded. He couldn’t help but smile down at her. “What’s her name?” he asked softly.

“Vivienne named her Maerwynn before she passed,” Balthasar explained.

“That’s a pretty name,” Thedrick said in a voice barely above a whisper, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her. He snapped himself out of his trance, then turned to look back up at Balthasar. “So, what now?” he asked apprehensively.

“Well, now we wait for the midwife to get back with the wetnurse and see if she will drink breast milk like a normal child. Did you, when you were a baby?” Balthasar asked, a spark of scientific curiosity in his grey eyes.

Thedrick shrugged lightly. “I don’t remember, I guess so?”

Balthasar looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps vampires being so similar to humans means the females, or ‘queens’, have breasts and produce milk for their young. But this is only speculation as I have never met a vampire queen before and the literature on them seems rather bereft of any mention of bosoms, due to the fact that those who encountered them were too terrified or charmed to take detailed notes.”

The jester attempted to stop himself from chuckling at how seriously Balthasar was talking about breasts. The chirurgeon gave a withering look. “Don’t be such a child, Thedrick,” he snipped irritably.

There was a snicker from across the room, and Thedrick turned his head to glance over at Beowulf, who had been standing near the wall silently watching their discussion the entire time. Beowulf had been the one to come and get Thedrick when Balthasar requested him summoned, but the soldier seemed to want to stay out of the awkward conversation. Thedrick flashed the big guy a smile.

The doors to the room opened, and two women bustled in through them. Thedrick took a step off to the side as the midwife and wetnurse approached the crib. The midwife, a small mousey woman with curly hair, was glaring at the jester angrily.

“Don’t you think it’s rather disrespectful, having him in here?” the small woman asked Balthasar, gesturing towards Thedrick. Thedrick flinched slightly at the venom in her tone. Meanwhile the wetnurse, a taller, plump woman with her hair pulled into a bun, was cooing over Maerwynn, who instantly smiled up at her round, friendly features.

Thedrick took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, I was just leaving,” he said indignantly, turning on his heels and stalking off towards the door. He didn’t look back as he stepped out into the hallway, scowling at the ground as he walked quickly away from the room. He heard heavy footsteps gaining on him, and soon an armoured hand touched his shoulder, causing him to stop in his tracks.

“Are you alright, Thedrick?” Beowulf asked while Thedrick continued to stare at the floor.

“Is everyone going to treat me like I’m the cause of the queen’s death?” Thedrick asked sullenly, bunching up his shoulders slightly as Beowulf squeezed one gently. 

“I thought you don’t care about what people think of you?” Beowulf questioned.

“I don’t mind being hated because I annoy people on purpose, but this isn’t my fault!” Thedrick balled his fists by his sides in frustration. 

“Hey, I know you would never want to hurt her,” Beowulf reassured softly.

“She was always so nice to me… I just did what she wanted me to. I didn’t realise at the time the mistake we were making. I mean, I knew the baby could be… but I was hoping it was Richard’s, I didn’t know he was infertile!” Thedrick stumbled over his sentences, voice cracking in distress.

“Calm down Thedrick, it’s going to be alright,” Beowulf attempted to reassure again.
“No… no it’s not… you don’t understand, you can’t understand…” Thedrick muttered as he yanked his shoulder out of Beowulf’s grasp. Then he started running away down the corridor, ignoring Beowulf’s calls for him to wait.

Quickly making his way through the castle, Thedrick tried to push down his emotions, which threatened to spill forth from his eyes at any moment. He soon found himself in the queen’s garden, on the roof, where he stopped and stood still, staring into the distance.

It was not guilt from the queen’s death that was overwhelming him, he was fairly sure that was not his fault. He felt guilt for a different reason. Guilt for creating a child that would probably have to endure the same suffering he did throughout his childhood. The sort of life he wouldn’t wish anyone to have to endure.

Now he couldn’t stop himself from remembering his past. The pain of constant starvation, of being unwanted and unloved, the longing to be normal and the fear of being exposed…

****

Thedrick was hungry, as always. In the years since his brother had been born, his mother had been letting Thedrick feed off her less and less. Now it had been several days since he had any blood, and the hunger was overwhelming. But when he had tried to go to her earlier to ask again, her handmaiden had turned him away, saying she was too busy. So Thedrick had slunk back to his room, to isolate himself, to help fight the overwhelming urge to try and feed off the closest human.

Now he lay curled up on his bed on his side, knees drawn up towards his chest, hoping that if he compressed his stomach then it wouldn’t feel so empty. But that didn’t help ease the hunger pains and lingering nausea from days of filling his stomach at the dining table, as his mother always made him to prevent the suspicions of his father, and then vomiting it up later.

Thedrick felt weak, and constantly tired, though his mother didn’t seem to care. Whenever he begged her to feed him, she always gave him a look of complete disgust, and often turned him away. Thedrick had been forced to start sneaking into the kitchen to drain blood from the animal carcasses, but it wasn’t like they feasted on fresh bovine or boar every evening. 

Thedrick heard a light knocking on the door, the gentleness of the tapping instantly giving away who it was. The servants would knock heavily, and his parents wouldn’t have bothered at all. Groaning, Thedrick curled in on himself tighter, willing his brother to just leave him alone.

“Thedrick, what are you doing in there?” The young boy's voice followed another series of knocks.

“Dying,” Thedrick bemoaned loud enough for his brother to hear through the door.

There was a moment of silence. “It’s time for lessons, you know,” the small voice continued with a tone of uncertainty. 

“I’m not going,” Thedrick huffed. He heard the creak of the door opening and small footsteps padding into the room.

“Do you feel sick again?” the boy asked as he stepped up next to Thedrick’s bed. He looked very much like Thedrick, though there were some distinct differences. His white hair was cropped short rather than left in a wild mess, as he didn’t have any pointed ears to hide. And his eyes, which were filled with naive concern, were a paler shade of red, more pink compared to Thedrick’s crimson.

“Yes, Finn, like I always do,” Thedrick grunted, frowning at his little brother.

Finnian looked thoughtful for a moment. “Why is it when I am sick, mother takes me to the chirurgeon, but not you?” he questioned innocently.

“Because mother doesn’t love me,” Thedrick stated plainly. It was easy for even a child like him to deduce that much from the way his mother treated him.

Finnian looked conflicted about this, like he wanted to protest the statement but knew he didn’t have any evidence to the contrary. Eventually he seemed to swallow whatever he was about to say and attempted a different tact. “I could take you to the chirurgeon?” he suggested softly.

Thedrick sighed and shook his head. “There isn’t anything they can do for me,” he explained vaguely, but found himself uncurling from his cramped position slightly anyway.

“Okay. But you know, if you skip lessons again mother will be annoyed with you,” Finnian pointed out with all the righteousness a six-year-old child can muster, lips set in a firm line.

“So what?” Thedrick said in return. ‘How much more can she punish me than this?’ was the part he left unsaid, as his little brother wouldn’t be able to understand.

“But then how will you learn how to read and write, if you don’t go to lessons?” Finnian pressed.

“That sort of thing… just isn’t my style,” Thedrick offered as an excuse. It was more the fact that when he did attend their lessons, he spent the entire time thinking about and trying to stop himself from biting their tutor to drink her blood, which made it a little difficult to focus on learning. “Why don’t you do a really good job of learning to read, and then when I’m king, you can do all the reading for me?” Thedrick suggested in a partially joking manner, while thinking ‘if by some miracle I manage to outlive my parents’.

“I can’t just leave you here like this,” Finnian said sadly, giving Thedrick a pleading look. The younger boy's concern was touching, to say the least. Thedrick couldn’t help but have a soft spot for his little brother, considering Finnian was the only one in the family who actually seemed to care about him.

Thedrick sighed again and sat up. “Alright, fine, I’ll get up, but I’m still not going to lessons,” he stated firmly, and started climbing down off the bed.

“Where are we going then?” Finnian asked, looking up at his brother expectantly, who was only slightly taller than him, despite being five years older.

“We?” Thedrick exclaimed in over-dramatised astonishment. “I thought you were going to go to lessons to learn how to read for me?” He placed a hand on his brother’s head and ruffled his pale locks. “Plus, there’s no reason to get mother angry at both of us,” he added, though what he meant was he wanted to avoid his mother getting doubly angry at him for being a poor role model to his brother.

“But it’s so boring without you,” Finnian complained, pouting up at Thedrick.

“Alright alright, you’ve twisted my arm, Finn,” Thedrick said with a smile on his face. “You want to come and collect bugs in the garden to slip into the maid’s pockets? Since we are going to get in trouble anyway, we might as well make it worth it.”

“Yes!” Finnian agreed enthusiastically, nodding and smiling. Thedrick grabbed his brother's hand and took off out of the door with him in tow. 

Finnian’s small hand felt very warm in Thedrick’s own, a very human trait that the young vampire desperately attempted to ignore. Thedrick was incredibly jealous of his brother for being human, for being normal and therefore accepted by their mother. Thedrick also tried to forget Finnian was human to help curb the desire to feed on him. Finnian was the one person Thedrick never wanted to harm, no matter how hungry or desperate he was.

The boys ran through the castle together, laughing and trying to dodge any servants or guards that might attempt to escort them to their waiting tutor. They made it out into the garden and found an area that was mostly out of sight to begin their bug hunting.

Thedrick had to admit, being out in the sun was pretty nice. His frail, thin body felt cold a lot of the time, and the rays of the sun helped to warm him up. Though of course with their sensitive skin both boys needed to be careful not to spend too much time outside. Their parents, by means of the castle servants, attempted to keep them inside as much as possible so they wouldn’t get burned, so the pair of them appreciated any chance to get outside all the more.

But despite the fun he was having playing with his brother, Thedrick still felt tired and weak, hunger continuing to eat away at him. After a while he took a seat on the grass to rest in the warm rays of the sun, watching as his brother continued to run around and dig through the meticulously kept garden beds. Soon he started feeling light-headed and had to lay down. Then everything was fading away, and he could hear Finnian call out his name in distress as he lost consciousness.