The Prince of Demons

I stirred from my slumber. It was darker than usual, but I could still see. Do I have night vision? I was probably the only one awake at the moment, so this was probably a good time to train. Was necessary to use somewhere I couldn’t see, or was there an alternate method I just didn’t think of? I tried anchoring two inches towards the top of the crib. Nothing. I tried anchoring where I could see a foot above where I was. The anchor was almost instantaneous. I used my incredibly inefficient to feel two inches towards the top of the crib, the anchor formed. Maybe required me to visualize the location? I thought about the room where I was born. In the distance, I felt the anchor form after a few seconds. If I cast now I think the would straight kill me; so the key was visualizing the location. For this baby body that’s quite restrictive. Why did father think I could behind me? Did he simply forget that criterion? He might be too familiar with it to realize a baby would struggle with that.

Are they called I wonder? seems more like a technique rather than a spell, whereas definitely feels like a stereotypical . My parents keep wanting me to practice , so I should probably practice something at this time. seems like a bad idea to practice without an adult around though. I thought to myself.

From what I could tell, required me pouring into the surrounding area. There had to be a more practical way because if it required a constant stream of the technique would be near worthless. I took a few deep breaths (okay maybe just huffs because of the baby body) to try and clear my mind. When I used my available decreased sharply, then replenished on its own. So either I generated the or it came from somewhere. I would assume generating should require energy; my hunger doesn’t seem to depend on how much I have exhausted though. If was ambient, it wouldn’t be too surprising. It did raise a question though: how on Tenebrae (?) did I use through it?

After struggling for what felt like hours, I gave up. My head felt like it was about to split open from all the exertion. I also depleted nearly all my trying to get a sense of how this worked. Throwing out random probes of was a long shot that most certainly did not yield much. I could say the probes started as basically slabs of and evolved into a sack of potatoes of by the end. Mentally exhausted, I fell back asleep.

*

My days sort of fell into a pattern. Daytime I spent some time with my parents, then was watched by Helga, occasionally they would try to imitate words and phrases with me, as well as have me use and . The distance and efficiency of each was getting better, but I still found way too taxing. At night I would try and improve to no avail. My was noticeably increasing as I could further than previously. By the first month, I could barely do a ten foot . One thought did constantly run in my mind: Can’t these adults ever talk about how this stuff works around me?!

I did learn a few things in this time. The world I was in was most certainly called Tenebrae, whether the Lords of Tenebrae was some religious pantheon or an expression still eluded me, and Cesar was a long time friend of my dad who earned the position of Chief Advisor on his own merits. My mom was definitely clingy and liked spending as much time as she could with me. She loved reading me stories and singing lullabies. When my dad tried singing however, I legitimately cried. How was it possible to be that bad of a singer? Nails on a chalkboard was a symphony in comparison. Whenever my dad was really being obstinate or truly not wanting to go through his schedule, Cesar would always threaten to tell my mom about a night in Rockhaven. This piece of information may come in handy one day; it must be a truly embarrassing story, or he cheated on her. From how he acted though I doubt it was the latter. I also gleaned from some of Cesar’s more snide remarks that my father was certainly not an angel growing up and apparently was quite the problem child for a time.

Helga was truly a klutz as a maid, but when it came to protecting or fighting for me she was more than qualified. She did accidentally drop me that one time, but thankfully for her I toughed it out as my mom might have actually killed her with how protective she tended to be. Maybe a little extreme, but Helga was nice and deserved to hide her mistake. Another topic often discussed was the development of my ; they always seemed concerned about my supply. Was it that lacking? They stuck to the basics of increasing the range and number of and my ability to use . They always praised me after, which felt nice. Are they just comforting me? Or praising me because I’m their baby? They always discuss my with concern, is it lagging what a normal baby should? It definitely ate at me for some reason.

At about 3 months, things changed slightly as I finally got a handle on how worked. As I lay exhausted in my crib, absolutely annoyed at my inability to grasp it, I just relaxed and took a few deep breaths. Just enjoyed the moment. I wasn’t too tired yet so I just enjoyed the night a bit, kind of just relaxing in the moment. There was a gentle breeze coming from outside. Windows really weren’t a thing on the upper floors of the castle from what I gathered. There was a faint glow of moonlight, a much more normal color than the night I was born. That purple light was a fond memory, something about it was so calming.I then noticed an odd sensation around me. The instant I tried cluing in on it, the sensation vanished. I went back to just enjoying the moment and after a few seconds the sensation returned. Ten minutes later I could start sensing around me. It was at most a foot around me, but it was definitely me sensing something. I tried focusing on it again and it immediately dissipated. What the hell? When I focus on it I lose the sensation? How does that work?! I tried relaxing and enjoying the moment again, but I was forcing it too hard. This needed some further research. Irritated, I let out a baby huff and went to sleep.

*

When I woke up, I was in a meeting room. My father was sitting at the head of the table, and several others were around the table discussing something. This was new. There were twelve other people excluding my father and I. One was Cesar, who was droning on and on. Man this guy can ramble. I just sort of zoned out after I realized they were discussing policies. Cesar was hitting some sort of fever pitch, or second wind, or something as he had been rambling for ten minutes straight since I woke up. I just decided to let my mind go blank and completely zone out. This was so boring.

Dad was probably too busy today to peel away but still wanted to spend time with me. Curse being too awake to go back to sleep. Maybe I should onto the table and make things interesting. I don’t think dad would like that though. I concluded to myself.

After being zoned out for twenty two minutes, I noticed the sensation of last night, but on a substantially higher scale. I could sense the entire room. I felt like I could count the ridges on each of their horns. I tried focusing on other details, keeping my breathing steady and my mind open. Somehow, it worked. Even better: the radius got even larger until it hit a barrier that was around the room. I tried focusing on the feeling, and it started to waver. I relaxed and controlled my breathing, which caused the sensation to instantly return. Was it my, it couldn’t be, it depends on my breathing? I focused on keeping my breathing steady as I began focusing on other details, and the sensation didn’t change at all. It was so subtle I barely even noticed my breathing change when I started focusing. Best of all, my was barely being consumed to maintain this. Let’s test this new out. I cast a small directly behind me, and my was barely consumed. My brain immediately started plotting what I could do with this newfound power and nearly immediately it started wavering. I focused back on the breathing and keeping my head kind of open. It was an odd sensation; it felt like I could open and close my mind to what was around it. It was also at this point, I noticed all the people in the room staring at me. Keep the breathing even. Stare them down. Don’t lose this sensation especially now that I finally got it working.

“Is he? Did Nil just?” my dad asked the table. All of them had varying degrees of shock on their faces.

“I thought you said your brat was only three months old, Azzeck? How is he doing this already?” one on the opposite end of the table asked. His voice was quite unpleasant, it sounded like metal scraping metal, and was quite deep.

“That is Emperor Azzeck, General Railos. And Nil is only three months old. Cesar, how is this possible?” my dad immediately retorted.

“Excuse me, your Imperial Highness. I am just trying to comprehend a literal baby using to such a degree.” General Railos mocked him.

“Your Imperial Highness, with all my knowledge and experience I can definitively say, I have no idea.” Cesar replied, sighing as I clearly derailed the meeting.

“Magus Erli, would you be able to give an evaluation or idea of how this is possible?” my dad asked another member at the table.

Was this that odd? The way they are phrasing this definitely makes me believe this is not normal. It took me months to get to this point and only reached it because Cesar was so boring. That man could put the dead to sleep. His extremely boring nature helped though.

“Your Imperial Highness, the only way I could explain this is an extreme level of innate talent with , and a natural ability to feel the ambient around him. Given he was born on the Night of Fire and Ice, it is quite possible he has a that is causing this quite frankly absurd level of growth.” a female voice chimed in. Her voice had a very proper tone, and she clearly enunciated her words.

“So those exercises you recommended to help get his to formulate better and start training him would not have caused this?” my dad checked, sounding a bit perplexed.

“Honestly your Imperial Highness, his growth vastly exceeds what it should be using those exercises.” Magus Erli admitted with a bit of a sigh.

So she was the reason they always pushed me to in such oddly specific ways which changed to use to locate the ball and to it. One of the older gentlemen at the table just burst out laughing. Not like barely laughing, laughing to the point tears were strolling down his face.

“What is so funny, Elder Repte?” my dad inquired, confused as to what could possibly be so funny about this.

“I just remember back when your father was raising you, and the headaches you gave him with your early use of . Then when you got older and more mischievous thinking your was a great tool for pranks, and always wondering why your father eventually started saying, ‘I hope you have a troublemaker just like yourself one day. Help you understand all these gray hairs you caused me’ and thinking ‘ah that would never happen to me.’” Elder Repte laughed, clearly amused by the turn of events.

Cesar then began laughing as well. It was almost maniacal, like a villain finally revealing his master stroke. The two of them laughed while the others just sighed and shrugged, like it didn’t really matter to them. Or they just didn’t find it as funny as those two did.

“My prayers have been answered! Crown Prince Nil, please torment your father as much as he used to torment me.” Cesar requested between chuckles.

“Hey! I did not torment you that much! We were having fun!” my father replied, clearly starting to lose his authority in this situation.

“You were such a problem child. I still remember when-” Elder Repte started before my dad cut him off with the wave of a hand.

“Let us get back to discussing the thrilling policy Cesar is to propose to the Senate.” my father ordered, which caused a slight groan to go through the people present.

They left me in peace after that. I continued to practice my breathing throughout the meeting; I needed to be able to do this naturally. As the meeting ended, the documents simply vanished, and they did a check to make sure everything was secure. With a quick snap of the fingers, the barrier was gone. Which was not good for me. Apparently, during my practice, I had been building up while the barrier was containing it. I had built the pressure up and up and up. Once the barrier was gone, the radius spiked. It over tripled in length, absolutely overloading my senses. My breathing definitely shifted, and I instinctively closed my mind, but the damage was done. My brain felt as if it had been beat with a bat as a skull crushing headache quickly ensued. The most unpleasant sensation was when my felt like it had been ripped from my body. Waves of nausea overcame me as my body began to hurt; this was way worse than before. My body felt like it had been stretched out and partially ripped apart, but it wasn’t my muscles or bones. It felt almost like nerves throughout my body and were stretched and partially torn. I immediately started crying. as this sensation was new, highly unpleasant, there was a lot of pain. Something went wrong. Why is this so much worse? What happened? I wondered as pain absolutely overwhelmed my baby body.

“What happened?!” my dad snapped, looking directly as Magus Erli.

“Quick assessment is he unknowingly extended which was being contained by the . When the was released it shot out farther and faster than he could retract it. This is likely the of trying to maintain a large radius for a brief moment.” she quickly explained.

“Do whatever you can to help him!” my dad ordered, sounding a bit distressed.

She was immediately next to me using the similar type of to my mother. As if on cue, my mom appeared. She definitely heard the crying. I’m sorry dad, you are toast. I thought as the pain began to subside.My mom rushed over and began assisting Magus Erli. The pain was rapidly reduced as I could feel my was being refilled. Mom shot dad a look that made even my blood turn to ice. I noticed Helga waiting outside and noticeably jumping at the look my mom was shooting at my dad.

“What happened to my baby?” Mom interrogated, her voice cold as ice. She held me close to herself while shooting out death beams from her eyes.

“Your Imperial Highness Senna, your son has yet again shown immense talent for to a degree that caught us off guard.” Magus Erli explained cautiously.

“What did he use that had such severe ?” she pressed, clearly not getting how I managed this.

“ Empress Senna. He originally used it to fill the the meeting was in, and when it was removed, the radius of his over tripled in almost an instant.” Magus Erli replied, keeping a ridiculously polite tone as my dad shifted under the death rays.

I clung to my mom. Even though they healed the , the sensation after was unpleasant at best. Healing did not seem to remove the pain. She patted my head and held me close, softly singing a little lullaby, which for some reason made me feel a lot better. I closed my eyes as I leaned into her, letting my exhaustion take over.