The meal was rather good, and the mood was jovial. Darnel was extremely enthusiastic about the improvements to the food, even more than yesterday. “Truly, everything I’ve eaten since coming home is the absolute best I’ve ever had, and I thought it was good before!”

  I chuckled good naturedly. Alian and Jeanette beamed with misplaced pride, or at least I thought it was misplaced. “Just wait for the Wedding Banquet if you thin,…”

  The doors opened, gaining all attention. “Father! What’s this I hear about Alian getting married to a Woman?! No Woman could possibly be worthy of her!”

  “Jenson, you overstep yourself! Besides, she can beat Darnel in the sparring grounds nine times out of ten, and by his own admission, the times he does get a win are pure luck. She’s gold tier at the adventurer’s guild. Which, as you know well, is several ranks above yours, and it’s only been four days since she registered. Even you can’t argue with her strength and skill. You also don’t make judgments about your Sister’s choices, it isn’t allowed, as you well know. Your behavior, as always, is shameful and a disgrace to all Nobles everywhere. I am on the verge of deciding you’re a lost cause, and disinheriting you. Jane knows more about being Noble, without wanting it, than you, who was born to it, and craves it. This saddens my heart, but it seems I may have no choice in the matter.”

  Jenson, the second Prince, froze in horror at the very public rebuke and the possibility of being stripped of his Nobility. “Father, surely you can’t be serious!”

  “Exactly what makes you think I’m not? I have coddled you too much, you’re a perfect example of having been spoiled by my excessive leniency. I must blame myself for not being strict, while at the same time, clearly your elder Brother and Sister were excellent role models, despite the same upbringing. Thus, you have chosen to be improper, and the exact opposite of Noble, which is to be self-sacrificing, to put literally everyone in the Nation above yourself.”

  “I see I was right to take action before, you’ve clearly gone senile, you all can die, and I’ll take a firm hand of the Nation as is proper!” He drew his sword with clear intent.

  I surged into action, without a weapon, but I didn’t care, nobody was going to hurt my Family, not even a lost Son. My feet and fists were a blur, and before he could blink, he had been disarmed and pummeled into unconsciousness. I stood over him with my Claws exposed, tensed for the slightest twitch of his muscles. As I panted, with pure RAGE boiling off me, barely resisting the Killing blow, the King himself wrapped his arms around me, half to restrain me, and half in a gentle embrace of a fully loving Father.

  “He will be beheaded in the Morning, you needn't sully your own hands any further. I took two stumbling steps backward, supported by the King, as Guards removed the soon-to-be executed Prince.

  “I feel so horrible that something I predicted as a distant Future problem came to be such a current issue. How could such a clearly good King, and Loving Father, be cursed with such a Damaged Son? I couldn’t let him hurt anyone, but now he himself is going to die; and that will still hurt you all!” I turned and burst into wracking sobs on the King’s shoulder, as everyone in the room looked on with pride and sadness.

  “It’s clear to me, now more than ever, that your coming is a true blessing to our Nation, but more importantly, our Family. Both would have been destroyed without you. I think perhaps Jenson was the root problem and head of this conspiracy. We will be sure to discover all his other supporters, if any, and deal with them as well, and from them, the entirety of this rebellion. This is a tragic situation that ended in the best possible way. Darnel, I’m afraid you will need to verify that his Mission actually got tended to, I suspect it wasn’t even begun, intending it to disrupt us during his actions.”

  Darnel nodded. “I will address all of his Missions to ensure they are all finished or will be. Thank you, Jane, for all of us, and his actions are his, as are the consequences.”

  He gave me a kiss on the cheek as he left the room. “Summon the Mage Breakers for the prince, tell them not to be gentle, that his mind breaking will be a Blessing in the Morning, since he won’t see the end coming. That’s the most I can spare my Son for his act of Treason.”

  My girls and I departed the Dining Hall after that, none of us having much of an appetite. Gabby clung to me, sensing just how broken I felt. All four of us piled onto Alian’s bed in a pile, just clinging to each other for comfort, not bothering to undress, or have Gabby leave to her own room. We just all clung together quietly, weeping, desperate for contact with safe people, those who love us. Gabby was almost a wreck herself, her Fox ears drooped down, tears streaming down her face. She had been frightened by Jenson, but even more by my own ferocious attack, and then my breaking down was probably the worst thing I could have done to her; she needed me to be strong, and I just couldn’t do it. We all fell asleep in that way, not even waking for breakfast. It was noon before any of us stirred.

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  When we finally did drag ourselves out of Bed, it was nearly lunchtime. We changed clothes without bathing, since we hadn’t woken for the Maids. We left for a private dining room and picked at some lunch. Not that we were hungry, really. I determined to go to the execution in any event. “Gabby, I have to see this through, but you don’t need to watch. You should go to the Garden, or the Library, and wait. We’ll come right after that.” She shook her head. “No, I’m coming too!” I shook my head right back. “You don’t need to see someone die, not like that!”

  “I’ve seen people die before, and he’s a Bad Man, I need to know he’s Dead, and can’t hurt you anymore! It’s too Scary otherwise!”

  I caved; she had defeated my best intentions. The execution was swift; his mind broken during the night, he had nothing to say. The charges were read for formality’s sake, and the ax came down. It wasn’t pretty, but not as gruesome as I’d expected. Still my gorge rose, and I almost lost what little I had managed to eat earlier. We left after paying our respects to the King and Queen. They were sad, clearly, but stood proud and refused to shed a tear over him, at least not in public. I did not doubt that they would weep all over again in private.

  It was nearly a week before any of us had broken the depression over this incident. Though we didn’t quite seclude ourselves as we had before. Instead, much time was spent ambling through the gardens, and diving into studies for the girls, either reading and writing for Jeanette and Gabby, or Math for everyone else. By the end of our week-long depression, everyone had managed to understand basic algebra adequately enough to be carrying on. The two writing students were fully competent with the simple uses of the characters, and starting on the advanced combinations, and altered meanings dependent upon context. It would take months or years before they were truly adept, but they could manage now. It was at that point that the Queen informed us that our Wedding would be held within the Week. Darnel had managed to correct his Brother’s oversights, deliberate or otherwise. Apparently, unbeknownst to him, there had been some decent people assigned to him, and they had mostly finished the work without him.

  “So, despite his attempts at disrupting proper rule, he didn’t even manage to damage anything? Doesn’t make it hurt less, though.” I tried to smile at the Queen, but I just felt too bad for her to really mean it yet.

  One of her own Sons had attempted to kill all of us after all. Vanessa hugged me tightly. “I feel disgusted at myself for not being as sad as I should be. He’s literally never hidden his disdain for anyone, including us, but like you warned us, we felt guilty for not paying him proper attention, and coddled him with everything. I don’t even think he loved us as an infant, it always felt cold holding him; no matter how much I wanted to genuinely love him, I just never could.”

  I thought for a Moment before I answered. “Sounds like he had a Chemical Imbalance in his brain, and it prevented him from having any empathy. So it actually wasn’t your fault, just very, VERY bad luck. He was a Sociopath, and that’s not learned, it’s how he was born. We can’t even screen for that back in my old country, but we’ve recorded plenty about Sociopaths over the years. Quite a few came from Royal lines too. Too much inbreeding.”

  Vanessa started back a bit. “Inbreeding, what do you mean?”

  “Ah, well, the closer related two people are when they have offspring, the more likely something will go wrong. Royal lines tended to try remaining “Pure” so even siblings would marry, in order, to not “Thin the blood”. This led to all manner of birth defects, some visible, some not so much. In normal situations, a disfigured or mentally challenged person won’t be able to have children, because who would want to, but if it’s a Royal, they’d buy wives, and concubines, and force the issue, even if the man was a drooling mess. The bad traits can even hold for a generation or two before manifesting. I can only imagine something similar happened here, what with all the Nobility being Tigers, you’re all basically one big family. Which makes my contribution much more important, either giving or receiving. If I didn’t have this block in my mind over it, then I would need to bear a child myself too, just to spread the genes a little.”

  Vanessa was shocked. “So it is our fault? The King, is my Brother, not even a Half Brother, we have the same Parents, but there wasn’t any other choice at the time.”

  “Oh, WOW, that’s, I’m sorry, I’m going to need some time to process that. You didn’t know, though, so you can’t really blame yourselves. Might be a good idea to make a decree that no Tiger can marry another, though, after us that is, owing to the need to expand the bloodlines, not refine them. Then, if a Non-Tiger man marries a Tiger girl, we can create a new name. Didn’t I hear that any child of a Tiger will always be a Tiger, regardless of the other Parent?”

  Nodding, the Queen responded. “Indeed, and I fully agree. Knowing what we now know, Donican will make that decree immediately after your Wedding, and explain the reasons to everyone. Even making new lesser Noble houses is worth it to prevent a repeat of this travesty. I must excuse myself, Donican must know of this at once, so we may begin the legal documents for the decree.”

  With that the Queen left swiftly. “Jane, will, will my children be alright?!” Asked Alian fearfully.

  “Yes, I am completely unrelated to you, as is Jeanette. So, regardless of which of us gives you children, they will have stronger genes to work with. After the new Decree, we can weed out all those bad traits within ten generations at the outside, and probably less. Seems like this is a recent development, or there would be a darker history in your Kingdom.”