I told you about the seven types of magic. Of them all, death mages are the least popular. They're also called necromancers. Why? Say thanks to the Bright Saint and his followers. They needed an enemy, didn't they? Their parishioners needed to be scared and repulsed. And what's more disgusting than the undead? Or ghouls?

Personally, I always found gaudy courtiers way more disgusting than any cadavers, but that's me. If you show a peasant a living corpse, his pants won't stop stinking until the cows come home.

So the necromancers were exterminated—burned, drowned, beheaded with silver, run through with wooden stakes. Nobody had any mercy for them or their families. Nobody would take mercy on that girl either. Her name was Martha Fael, and like the princess, she was seventeen. Mentally, she was much older, though. Sometimes, life forces you to grow up.

Martha was far from pretty. She was thin as a rake and had black hair, dark eyes, and skin as pale as death itself. Her nose was long, her mouth too wide, and her smile seemed to show twice as many teeth as normal. The most beautiful thing about her face was her eyebrows. Dark, thick, evenly arched, but who'd even notice them, with her looks?

Martha didn't like people. The feeling was mutual. People called her ugly and monstrous. Guys steered clear of her; her sisters laughed at her; her neighbors took pity on her while mocking her behind her back. Even her parents didn't love their daughter.

When everybody hates a necromancer, their gift manifests much earlier. Martha put on her first hex when she was ten. Her victim was the girl next door. Martha was sick of her mocking and wished for her to be covered with acne from head to toe. She didn't say it out loud, at least, but poured on enough anger for the magic to work. That girl can't get rid of her pimples to this day.

How did Martha manage to avoid capture for so long? For seven years? She used her powers very sparingly. And she was scared, too. A thrall of the Bright Saint at the local church told the flock about necromancers and their burning in such graphic terms that Martha did everything possible to control herself.

She might have played a prank or two in the meantime. Somebody couldn't get their dough to rise for seven days straight, someone's daughter was bald for an entire year after her birth before her hair finally started growing...

But one day, everything changed. Martha's little sister was getting married. She was fifteen. They marry them early in the countryside.

Martha was happy for her. She held no grudge. But at the wedding, everybody drank till they were blue. Martha went out, alone. She sat near the barn, and that's where three drunken friends of the groom stumbled upon her.

At first, they just took cheap shots at her, calling her an old maid, a scarecrow, an ugly betty... Then they turned to insults, "You see something like that next to you in bed, you'd get so scared, you'd never wake up." "Nobody would wed you even with a dowry of a hundred gold coins." And, to top it all, "Your husband would never even get it up." Martha wanted to leave, but they wouldn't let her, and she could never handle three guys by herself. Music was playing; nobody would even hear her screams. Everyone was hammered. And it would be so shameful!

Her naiveté and stupidity betrayed her. She should have screamed her guts out, but she didn't say anything. She only realized what was happening when they dragged her into the barn, bragging all the while. "Nobody will marry you, so at least you'll taste some real men." "Now you'll learn what real pleasure is like." "You'll thank us all later."

Rapists are rarely original. But it's hard to understand that when two men are holding your arms while trying to cop a feel, and the third one has pulled off his pants, trying to hike up your skirt.

See, a necromancer's gift also often manifests when they're in danger. Any magic does. That's how many mages learn about their gift—when in a life-or-death situation, elements start bowing to their will. Everybody else learns that as well, though. Hard to miss a volcano erupting, a tornado half a mile high, or a fire burning everything you see.

Martha couldn't hold out either. She got so terrified that she hexed them all—once and forever. It was a good hex, too—quality work. The bits they were going to use to force themselves on her—yep, the very same ones, and hands, too!—fell off and decayed right in front of them, their skin was covered with ulcers, and their bodies desiccated. And all of that in less than five minutes, imagine that! The girl was scared out of her mind.

She had no strength left, couldn't run away, couldn't even walk or raise her hand. They found her there the next morning, completely exhausted. She never got a chance to defend herself. The local thrall shrieked so much you could probably hear him from the capital. He had always preached about the danger of necromancers, and there was his chance to get back at them. Martha was arrested, tied up, and imprisoned. They didn't even torture her. What for? Everything was clear.

If Martha could, she'd have killed them all—her jailors, the local thrall... She could not. Her gift was a weak one, and she had spent a lot of her power hexing those three guys. A mage is like a cup. You can't do anything until it gets full. One cannot drink from an empty glass. She had to wait at least a moon to replenish her magic, and in that time, they could burn her ten times, if not more. They also put a magic dampener on her, as well as on Michelle, at the very first interrogation.

How was the prison designed? How could they talk? We lived in a humane country. Miellen was like that as well. So, the prison was in a dungeon. Imagine a big wide hallway with alcoves on two sides. A 6x6x6 foot cube, a mat in the corner, some chains, a bucket for various needs, no screen to hide behind. Nobody wanted to install doors or walls, so the exit was covered with simple iron bars. Through them, Michelle and Martha could see each other while they talked.

That's how they became friends. Michelle knew she wasn't guilty, and so did Martha. Necromancers can sense if a person killed someone. Murderers get something of a spot on their aura like a burn scar. Michelle's aura was clean, and Martha took pity on her.

You're probably wondering how a necromancer could feel sorry for someone. Well, that's how it happened. At first, Martha gloated for a while; finally, life wasn't easy for a princess. Then, when the torturers broke all of Michelle's fingers on her left hand, and she was choking back tears, Martha felt pity. Nobody tried torturing her, after all. They just wanted to burn her at the stake. So nice.

The girls started talking. Martha told her story, and Michelle, hers. They bonded over the injustices they had met in the world. They sobbed their socks off, but tears never really helped anyone.

And here, destiny threw in another card. Not a trump card, no, but a good one nonetheless. I think it could have been a jack of clubs. It was a local steward named Rick Arnes. The duke tossed him into prison right after the fire and started interrogating him, too, for the time being. Afterward, he was due for a visit to the Bright Saint, naturally.

Rick had barely managed to save his family, but not himself. He wasn't noble or anything, he had just been too late. At the moment, he was waiting for the end of the investigation and his execution. He was the one who explained to the girls what was what—about the necromancers who were to be hated and the heirs from the princess and her sister-in-law. A thief and a bastard, he still wasn't guilty of the fire. Thank the architect who made the cells open into the shared hallway. Thank the prison keepers who put Rick and Martha next to each other and opposite of Michelle. Both of them felt sorry for the princess.

Michelle, however, stopped feeling sorry once and for all. Prison, torture, interrogation—all of that makes you lose faith in people. She might have been a bright light once, but now, she was a cold dark flame that could burn anyone who dared to touch it. Martha and Rick were the only ones who could warm themselves near that fire. How could it hurt them? They were barely better off. They had already been singed. And those three didn't want to take mercy on anybody else.

The pigeon arrived on the twelfth day, the messengers, on the sixteenth. After reading the letter, Uncle was pale-green with fear. The princess was let out of prison, washed, her wounds dressed. Her every desire was catered to.

And she did have a few. Martha was released from her cell and appointed as the princess' personal maid. Rick became a lackey. That's what they called it, at least. In essence, both were her faithful hounds who could tear out the throat of anybody who meant her harm. And Michelle was prepared to go through hell and high water for them, too. Rick also recommended another man to the princess—a bastard son of the previous Duke of Miellen, Henry. I'd call him a jack of hearts. After his father's death, he had been exiled from court and stripped of all his property, title, and lands...everything his legitimate brother could think of. Needless to say, he was not happy with that. And thus, a duke's son became a highwayman. He started robbing travelers on the roads—and became very good at that. All the duke could do was grit his teeth until they ground off.

As it happens, the gentleman robber got caught because of love, as tender and passionate as my uncle's. Rick spotted him when he was climbing the window of his beloved. He turned up the heat on that gentle and sensitive lady, and she threw her lover under the cart—for a reward, naturally. Three thousand gold, I believe.

She got a hundred at most, as an advance, before Rick was jailed himself. But that was before he could tell his liege about his newest captive—he had wanted to surprise him.

Michelle listened to Rick, no questions asked. She ordered they bring Henry Miellen to her and made him an offer he couldn't refuse—a title, land, and an appointment as her personal bodyguard. Henry was no fool. He knew what was awaiting him. Did he agree? That's a stupid question.

The captain of the guard, Rudolph's flunky, couldn't help but protest. Naturally, he didn't want to be dismissed in favor of someone else, so he tried to make a scene. Why tried? Because he failed. Martha helped him, with a plain three-hour silence hex. She wished for his tongue to shrivel away, and it did. Still, Martha wasn't that powerful, so the spell could only last for three hours.

Afterward, the captain didn't stop objecting. What could he do? Prince Rudolph never liked people smarter than himself. He went to complain about the necromancer girl, who had cursed him to mumble for three hours straight. The Prince turned on his sister. He said that she had released a criminal from prison, a witch and a necromancer, who had cursed his man; asked Michelle to send her to the cleansing fire before it was too late, or Michelle would stain her own soul. Stuff like that. Only, threats like that didn't work against the princess anymore. She threw a tender look at her brother and the captain, who was hanging behind his back, bared her teeth, and asked, "Isn't Martha as much of a necromancer as I am an arsonist? They love torturing innocents in this duchy far too much. I will not give anyone up. And you, brother of mine, would do well to think about what you are going to tell our father. Surely he's very interested in the reasons for your actions."