Forged with the Blood of the Sinful chapter 1

“Bring in the defendant, and prosecution.” A Lord; if I remember right he is Baron Henry McClair; and a heavily pregnant woman in rags and handcuffs; clearly a slave; come out of their respective doors on the either sides of the court. I review the papers detailing this case; I read them when I got them, and again this morning; this case though is particular in the fact that there is no clear law pertaining to it.

Baron McClair has run into some money problems as of late, to remedy this he decided to sell ten of his slaves. The woman; who has no name implying that she was born into slavery, is labeled as a high stock slave; translation: bastard child of a bastard child, making her more noble than slave, and making her able to have noble children if the father noble decided to acknowledge the child. The woman is a rare ‘commodity’ with a large price tag; since the number of nobles that are impotent are increasing, likely because of the incisive inbreeding in the noble class. Based on her looks; I would say that the woman is more than likely Baron McClairs’ daughter and granddaughter; in which more than a little sick.

Anyway, that's not what makes the case unique though it does pertain to the case. What makes it unique is the fact that the woman bought herself from Baron McClair, using money that others had gathered for her. She bought herself anonymously since she doesn’t have a name. It was a legal buy, since it was an anonymous buy in which Baron McClair approved of; taking the money, and leaving the woman. So by all premises it would be a legal buy if it wasn’t for the fact that Baron McClair already had a contract with Earl Leo Stilson for her. Earl Stilson had made it known to Baron McClair that he was going to buy the woman, anonymously; Baron McClare; when given the anonymous offer, thought that it was from Earl Stilson, only to be proven wrong when the Earl Stilsons offer came in a week later. Baron McClair tried to void the sell with the woman only to be told by the lower courts that the sell is valid; in which it is; but it was revealed that the woman is pregnant with Earl Stilsons child, in which is why she bought herself in the first place. She was a sex slave favored by Earl Stilson when he visited Baron McClair; in which is why he decided to buy her. Since she was freed, and pregnant with his only child Earl Stilson proposed to the woman, she said yes. Upon finding out about the marriage Baron McClair sued Earl Stilson for a bride price since she was his daughter; Earl Stilson refused since she was unclaimed; not to mention freed; unfortunately for the couple the judge assigned to the case had a grudge on Earl Stilson, and ruled in favor of Baron McClair; declaring the marriage, and sell invalid, banning Earl Stilson from involving himself in the case all the while. The woman is now acting in place of Earl Stilson; with him footing the legal fees for her; this leads to an extremely bad situation for the woman, and she was put in protective services by the state court; she is still a slave, though so she has little rights of her own, but the ruling that made her a slave again is in question; the previous ruling of the legal sell should have prevented that, but as a slave she doesn’t have the right to refute that claim, with the only claim of illegal termination of marriage being the only case she can claim as her former husband was a noble.

As the second highest judge in this country, only below King Frederick of Little Evalia; also known as my father, but don’t expect me to ever call him such; I can bring any previous rulings into question. In which is what I am going to do, vetoing the previous ruling pertaining to her sell.

“I have reviewed your case, and have determined that the sale of the woman, between Baron McClair and the woman to be legal. The woman legally bought herself from her former owner. In Baron McClair’s claim of being the woman's father, the claim has been denied. Baron McClair may be the woman's birth father, however your name is not on her birth record, and you refused to acknowledge her as your daughter throughout the entirety of her life; refusing to even give her a name. In the claim of unlawful termination of marriage, I award the claim to the defendant; as a free woman she has the right to marry whomever she wants, no matter whom is her father. Earl Stilson can come into the courtroom.” Earl Stilson calmly walked into the courtroom, and over to his wife. “Earl Stilson; the previous ruling has been overturned; the plaintiff is to cover the court fees, give the woman three million dollars, have his ten youngest slaves taken from him, and handed over to the state.” I gaze over the three; noticing that the woman was clutching her stomach, and the bodily fluids running down her legs, pooling at her feet; her water must have just broken. “Earl Stilson, you may take your wife to the hospital wing so that she may have a safe labor.” The earl was shocked; he didn’t realize that his wife was in labor more than likely, then after a few moments of getting over the shock he hurried his wife out of the courtroom. I have no doubt in my mind that there will be no love in their relationship; the man married her purely so that his heir wouldn’t be a bastard.

This is why I hate Civil cases.

I look at the next case file, this case is nothing but a formality truthfully; the man is being charged with killing his family with the exception of his youngest child. The only hold up being that of the son vehemently denies that it was his father, instead insisting that it was his uncle. The child's truth serum testimony shows that he truthfully thinks that his father is innocent, but all of the other evidence points to it being the father. The uncle has already been interviewed with truth serum, and has proven his innocence; the whole thing would have gone faster if the father was not allergic to the truth serum; in which in that itself is an anomaly as it has no chemical in it that should enact an allergic reaction. I wonder if I could have the allergy test readministered. No it would take too much time, I’ll just have to listen to his testimony in person. 

“Send in the next case.” Jon Samen walks into the courtroom; it was clear that he had no respect for me or the court, by wearing jeans, and a t-shirt to a royal court; in the presence of your Crown Prince nonetheless. Then again; he is from a lower class family so that might be the nicest thing he can afford. Little Evalia, does have a large poverty problem with about a fourth of our population being classified as lower class, with barely enough money to put food on the table; if they have a table. Slaves sadly makeup half of our population. King Frederick has been trying to rectify this problem; especially in terms of child slavery, as most slaves are born into it; unfortunately King Frederick has had an easier time setting up orphanages; than ending slavery. In which is ironic as all but a certain few nobles want slave regulation to change. I believe that those, certain few nobles, are either blackmailing, or bribing the larger majority of nobles.

Add in the fact that the neighboring countries are starting to threaten war on us because of slave dealers invading and kidnaping their people; along with the ever present threat of our own civil war; it makes me wonder if it is worth trying to keep this country going, and not just pardon it off to other countries. Highly doubt that anyone will want to take us through; with the amount of work and money they would need to put into us so that we would be fully incorporated into their own country.

Then again Norway has offered to buy the southern alps, fjords, a fair bit of forests, and prairie lands; a total of twenty percent of our land. It is fairly isolated from the rest of the country with it being separate from the mainland and being surrounded by Norwegian land; Duke Linus Albertsen who is in charge of the land is actually from Norway, and has hence started a major clean up of the area; all but banning slavery in its entirety; raising the economy to the point that half of our middle income families live there. We’ve gotten plenty of complaints from lower lords in the area; complaints that we have dutifully ignored if not just because his work has greatly improved the area, to the point that I am seriously considering implementing the same policy for the rest of the country. Even if his way of changing things is controversial; with his ‘obey or I will force you to’ view of things; he has even taken the local military there, and forcibly evicted nobles that refused to follow his new laws, taking their noble rankings and money away from them.

Maybe a civil war is what this country needs; only instead of the civil war being between the government, and the common people, it would be between the nobles, and the government. That way at least we would at least a cornerstone to work off of, though I do think that if a civil war was to pop up in the first scenario that the other countries would support the people. At least I hope they would, for if a war like that were to happen, I would; despite the fact that I would hate to do it; lead our military against our own people. I pray to the Savior King that if it comes to that; that there will be more deserters than followers in our military.

A subtle clearing of the throat coming from the chancellor next to me brings me out of my musings; focusing me once again to the man in front of me. “It has come to my attention that you have not given any testimony at any of your previous trials, if you wish to do so this is your last chance.” My voice quiet, but strong; demanding the attention of everyone who hears it, and silences even the loudest crowds with a single word; it pours ice into the very soul of those who have wrought my ire; spreading dread and fear to those in its wake. My eyes colder than the coldest of icebergs, my stare making even the strongest of people quake in fear, and my glare having the ability to kill those that are held under it.

“No your majesty.” The quaking blubbering fool was able to squeak out before passing out; landing in the leftover liquids left of the woman’s water breaking.

“Put him in the dungeons, once he wakes up, put him prison where he will stay for the next twenty years with a chance of parole after ten years.” A relatively light punishment for the type of crime he committed, I know King Frederick was expecting me to sentence him to execution, but the punishment needs to fit the crime. I look at the two remaining cases files; both of which are executions, meaning that they have both already been tried, and just waiting for the ultimate punishment. “Ladies and gentleman of the Court our remaining two cases are executions if you will join me in the outside arena we can finish up for today.” It hasn't been a particularly long day; it’s only eleven o’clock, but with all political pressure, and my increased paperwork since our king is in Norway negotiating the sell/trade agreement; have been wearing on me, I am only fifteen years old damn it; between Court cases, paperwork, tutoring, and making sure King Frederick does not get his way in raising my younger siblings; he has been trying to make my ten year old brother hold court cases, that's way too young! No, it doesn't matter that I have been executing prisoners since I was ten, and holding court cases since three years before that, it’s just plain old child abuse. If I could I would sentence him to be executed like all the other warlords who force children to kill. I have practically raised my siblings; keeping them as far away as possible from Frederick, not to mention a mother that is more often in the hospital than not, and wants nothing to do with her own children; no wonder I punish those that harm children more strictly than those that don't. Then again I can’t really blame them, Mother can’t help if she is sickly, and Frederick was a slave before he was forcibly wed to my mother, and was raised with a do everything I say without question mentality; causing him to lean too much on his advisers and let them make most of the decisions in how to rule Little Evalia.

As I walk out of the courtroom a group of slaves and servants holding the cleaning supplies bow to me, I barely acknowledge them as I walk by; according to the few servants that are brave enough to talk to me, I am a cold, strict, and terrifying prince that parents tell their children to be good or I will take them away, and kill them. They call me the Arctic Prince. Anyway; as I walk to the end of the line of servants Margrit; a servant that was my nanny when I was younger; holds out my ceremonial execution sword. Her face showed her sadness clearly, worry lines prominently displayed, she smiled at me sadly as I took the sword from her hands; she hates this; I know she does, but I chose her to be the to carry this burden; a ten year old desperate for protection and help from the only mother he knew. Hoping that she could stop what was going to happen, only to be proven wrong when A noble forcibly took the ceremonial sword from her unwilling arms, and had the guards punish her in an unspecified way. It wasn't until nine months later when she gave birth to her daughter Katie that I fully understood how she was punished, and why she never fought giving me this sword afterwards.

I look away from her; unable to take the pity in her eyes, and the knowledge that I am the cause of much of her current pain. Facing forward I use a bit of magic to open the thick white marble doors with platinum inlays in the form of snowflakes, white diamonds, aquamarines, rubies, emeralds, smokey quartz, and yellow sapphires riveted to it; each representing the Savior King and his five generals; water, fire, wind, earth, and lighting.

May humanity forever praises them for it is them that saved the remnants of humanity from the nuclear wasteland of it's own creation; taking the last humans that had held up on Iceland off earth, and striking a deal with the Evilans so that we could live on their planet, but the Evilans lived up to the evil in their own name, exploding one of six ships that carried humans to their new home in an attempt to scare humanity into complete obedience. They chose to destroy the ship that my namesake, the Savior King Lloyd, his descendants, and the future population of Little Evalia was taking to Evalia; the Savior King was crushed, but the Savior King; little more than a head and an arm; used the last of his life and magic to prevent the collapse of the ship, and his oldest granddaughter killed the Evilans that was slaughtering the surviving humans in a fit of rage. The Evilans gave an ultimatum to the generals, submit to their ruling or they will destroy the rest of the spaceships; however the generals refused, instead they started a war with the Evilans; planning on either making the Evilans submit or extinct. The image of a bloody General Water standing over a clearly defeated King Azleid with her mace pressing down on King Azleids’ neck is forever iconic. The peace treaty of Little Evalia made it to where the five Nordic nations would be free of the Evilans, with a sixth newly created country that would be under the Evilans control, but with their own human government, and no input from the generals would be allowed into the governance of the newly created Little Evalia with the youngest granddaughter of the Savior King was crowned Queen of Little Evalia. And so little Evalia was created with it’s government formed in the image of the Evilan government, with those that are not nobility having no say in the governing of their own country

Fire himself has admitted to me that he wishes that he had just killed them all off; it wouldn’t have been hard either as all they have to do is kill King Azleid and the Evilans hive minded structure would kill off all of the other Evilans. Fire and I have been close since before I can even remember; which is strange as none of the five generals have opened up to anyone else. Thinking about it; I'm fairly close to all of them.

My ever so wonderful escapism was brought to an end as I reached the center of the arena where I am to give a speech telling the watching public why these two men were to be executed; the bloodthirsty public expecting bloody torture rather than a swift death. King Frederick was supposed to do the executions this week, and he likes to put on a show. In which is ironic as he himself has been tortured before. The public is going to get their wish anyway.

“Ladies and gentlemen; we are here to witness the execution of Joseph Mayer, and Alf Leoson.” The people in the stands shiver in fear, good I want them to fear me; it makes it easier to keep them in line. “Joseph Mayer is guilty of killing his twin and the rest of his family in a fit of insanity; he is to be beheaded.” A large percentage of twins go insane in Little Evalia, I expect that the mixture of Evilen DNA and human DNA that is prevalent in Little Evalia make twins more prone to going insane. Though the culture of fearing twins most definitely has a roll in it to. One of the guards brings the man forward, and makes him kneel before me; I put my sword on the back of his neck; frostbite instantly turning the skin there black from me subconsciously adding my own ice magic into the sword. “Any last words?” I ask Joseph.

“Do you think my family will forgive me?” Joseph has to be strong to be able to talk while his throat is quite literally freezing to death.

“They forgave you the moment that they passed on to the other life.” It's less of a beheading as a shattering of the ice in which was formally Joseph's neck. Guards remove Joseph's body from the arena; paying attention to not touch the frostbitten skin as to not develop frostbite themselves. “Alf Leoson is convicted of leading and/or participating in sixteen raids on orphanage's; killing all of the children that showed promise of becoming Evilans.” Evilans are born human but those with the Evilan gene are born with both human and Evilan magic, the Evilan magic ‘eats’ the human magic and converts it into Evilan magic, the more magic a child has the faster the human magic can be converted, and it takes a child born with a large amount of magic for full conversion to be successful before the age of ten in which is when a child's magic will be too stable for it to be converted. It is only after a child's magic has been fully converted that their magic begins changing the child's human body into that of an Evilan one. Because of terrorist groups like Alf the total Evilan child population is now only three including me. “He is to be gutted and butterflied.”

I hand Margrit my sword, making sure all the while that she only took it by the handle with her specialmade gloves. I don’t want her to see this; she knows that too so she leave the arena without protest. Alf is dragged into the arena, or at least what remains of him; the Evilans certainly did a number on him; he had his skin, and in some places muscles flayed off of him leaving only bone, and connective tissue behind; his silent screams coming from his now voice boxless throat in which echos non silently in my mind the only thing keeping my him alive being a healing crystal embedded in his chest. If it hadn’t been for the brutality of it I would have called this a mercy killing. I have to wonder if he will even feel what I am going to be doing to him, or if he is too far gone in his own pain to even notice any more.

Alf is dragged out in front of me by a couple of guards, taking a knife offered to me; I cut the remaining muscle and connective tissue holding in his guts. His guts spill out of him, and land on my feet; reminding me sickenly of a time my youngest brother Rafael dropped a wet rag on my feet to see if my ambient magic would freeze it. Pulling myself together, I pull out his stomach, cutting his throat and several veins at the same time, causing blood to gush out and cover me head to toe in the velvet red liquid effectively soaking me with the stuff. I cut the rectem in half and do the same to the base of his bladder; freeing the rest of the innards all the while; taking one last swipe at the man's breast done cutting it in half. I move out of the spray and take the towel offered to me by somebody, it wasn’t a guard, their hands are way too small; like those of a small child's. After wiping my face clear of blood I look to see five year old Katie; Margrits’ youngest child; why is she here? Did Margrit want Katie traumatized for the rest of her life? And why in the living hell did the guards allow her up here? I don't have time to question it at the moment; however I do cover her with my cloak so that she doesn't have to see anything more. Turning to face Alf's back, I reach around his chest, force my fingers between the two halves of the breast bone, and one swift movement I thrust them apart breaking all of his ribs exposing his lungs and heart to the air. The man dies in less than a second after I remove the healing crystal.

Turning away from the gruesome scene, I lead Katie out of the arena; upon entering the hallway, I lifted my blood soaked cloak off of her, and she looked upon me with terrified eyes as the blood dried and dripped off of her onto the growing pool of blood at my feet. To terrified to do anything but stare as she look into the face of death I have become. I wonder if my children will look upon me the same way; fear to be in my very presence like all of those that surround me while I stare at them my face void of any emotion, for I no longer have the ability to express any. Could I care for my children with the way I am? Will my children look up to me, as a role model or as an object of fear? Will I even be able to find a wife to have my children, or will the Evilans assign me a wife like they did with my mother when she didn't find one by the time she was twenty?

I'm not sure I want to know the answers or not.

Anyway, that is of little matter. My loyalty is solely towards my family, my country and, my people; I will treat any family I have or will have with as much love and affection my nearly frozen heart will allow and no less.