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

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

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

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

S
he 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.