1 Prologue

Two black horses ran down the cobbled street in front of the mansion we called home. The sound of their hooves almost seemed like music to my ears, though it certainly wasn't a happy tune.

The longer I listened to it, the more my feelings of loss and powerlessness grew into something I couldn't bear. Still I was standing here, staring at the carriage that grew smaller with each second.

It was already two hours ago that we had started loading all those boxes, bags and suitcases filled with clothing and various necessities onto the vehicle, but it still felt as if only minutes had passed since then.

The last days had flown by just like that, without me even realizing that our time was running short. I had been too busy gathering new clothes, dishes and bedding, fresh soap and all those other items she would require now that she would live on her own.

In the end, it was too late for me to realize that I had forgotten the most important: my daughter. All of this was for her. I did it so I could send her to that Academy as a certain cursed law demanded.

Sure, she had everything she would need now, even spare beddings, but how could that compare to spending a few more hours together?

I deeply regretted it. If only I had talked to her a little more or hugged her a few more times to show her how much I loved her, I maybe wouldn't feel this lost now. Maybe she would even have slept in my bed like she used to, back when she was still young.

In the end, I had missed all of those chances.

It was fifteen years ago that she had stepped into my life, fifteen years since I had murdered her mother with a single stab of a dagger, thinking she was the ultimate evil that had to be fought against using all means. It had been the biggest mistake of my life, yet it had saved me. It really did.

The men and women I fought back them had been demons, making it only right for me to kill each and every one of them. At least that is what they told us – and what I believed.

The war had changed me, without me even realizing it at first. The cries deafening my ears, the tears running over their faces, those eyes that screamed for mercy when it was already too late, all of those had slowly hollowed me out. I was breathing and fighting, sleeping and eating, but I wasn't alive. That was until I found her.

When I first saw her, she had just laid there on the bed, sullied by her mother's blood and crying her eyes out. It was as if she had realized what all that noise surrounding her meant, but she had been far too young to even realize what horrible crime I had committed moments before.

Sera had been so small, so fragile, and still she had somehow defeated me within mere seconds. She was the one that had made me cry for the first time in months, she was the one that had tossed me to the ground and helped me up again to give me a new life.

All of this she had done by doing nothing, by just staring at me with her ruby eyes.

She was the demon king's sole daughter, the last surviving member of his family and last enemy of mankind and still, she was nothing but a girl too small to even hold a spoon, let alone lift a sword.

Sera was the weakest thing I had ever met and yet all the tales told by the men described her as the most evil and vile demon roaming the earth. To them, she was an existence that would only bring us death and decay.

Just like the rumors had betrayed the reality, Sera made me betray my king, commanders and friends for the first time in my life. I sold them lies, over and over again, until there was nobody left to question her origin.

To them, Sera was nothing but an unlucky child, a mere human girl that had been stolen away from her murdered family to become a living sacrifice. I told them she would have been used by the demon king himself, to strengthen his power and help him gain victory over the allied kingdoms.

Contrary to my fears, they had bought the lie just like that, not even questioning my words once. This was probably due to the picture all of those exaggerated or false rumors had painted in their heads, stories about the countless crimes the demon king had committed, his sinister mind and the insanity that had caused him to led his kind to war against the human kingdoms.

By the time I returned to Korinth I had long since become a mother to her. Those few weeks had been more than enough to forever bind me to that precious little existence that had managed to drag me out of the darkness I had lost myself in.

In the end it was my turn to return the favor and save her instead as years after years of never-ending hunts, raids and searches passed by and thousands of men tried to find the one girl that had escaped their grasps.

Faced with all of the questionaries, the searches and the fear of being discovered, I had been left with a simple yet cruel choice: watch my daughter be dragged away and tortured to death or pretend she never had been my daughter in the first place but my little son instead.

The decision couldn't have been easier. I loved her, far more than everything else in my life, and I would continue protecting her even when it meant hiding her right in front of all their eyes as Sera Baringdale, a small boy and my own flesh and blood.

We had survived like this for nearly fifteen years when we finally hit a wall we wouldn't be able to climb no matter how much we tried. It came in the form of a law set in place years before Sera had been born when the war against the demons was at its peak.

On their fifteenth birthday all girls and boys, poor or rich, noble born or commoners, were to enroll in schools that would form them into knights or magicians, should they show any potential for either of both.

I long since had known what is meant: I wouldn't see Sera for years to come, safe for some few days or weeks of holiday they would allow her to take every now and then – that was if she didn't get discovered.

Our peaceful life had come to a sudden stop and only my name and a small artifact hanging from her necklace still allowed me to dream of her ever returning into my arms safe and sound.

As long as she wore the seal, nobody would feel her demon aura and as long as she was Sera Baringdale, my son and heir, nobody would expect her to be a girl and princess instead. It was a faint hope, but I couldn't help embracing it with all my heart.



«Please be safe!»