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“I ask for an heir and you bring me oxblood?” King Mattias screamed. His loud voice travelled around the throne room, echoing off the walls and filling the listeners’ ears with the rage the king felt. He was so enraged, in fact, that his anger was not only made known through the harsh grating sounds which accompanied the words he yelled, but also by the visible tremors travelling through his body, and the fisted hands by his side.

Faustina had never seen a royal so angry. But the cause of his ire proved to be the greatest shock to her. An oxblood princess? Who would not want that? She pulled the baby closer towards her chest. This baby that she had carried for nine months, nine blissful months with Caster by her side. Now, Caster, the father of her child, and heir to the throne of Ikeja, stood on the other side of the room, beside his enraged father.

Caster’s silver eyes shone with the rage he felt. It was those silver eyes that had pulled her to him. He was fine and she was ox, both bloods were meant to mate, it was the way of the blood law, it was the natural order. At least it was in Uromi, the land of her birth. If Faustina had given birth to an oxblood in Uromi, there would be a celebration. There would be joy, not the boiling rage of an unyielding king. You would think that he was fineblood, with the way his anger commanded the room. But he was foul, a black-eyed being born of a mixture of the purer bloods.

“What did you do brother, mate with a servant?” Silas’s voice dripped with scorn.

Faustina fell to her knees on the stone-cold floor. She bowed her head, her sky-blue eyes fixing on the answering blue in the eyes of the daughter she had born. Silent tears spilled from her eyes. There was no thought of defiance in her head, no desire to yell back insults at the young prince who had called her a servant. She was oxblood after all.

The king marched over to her. He pinched her chin between his fingers, forcing her head up. “Well, what are you?” he demanded.

“I am Faustina, majesty, of the Eme-Ora line.”

The king gasped. “You fool!” his voice thundered through the room. “You bedded an oxblood noble from Uromi.”

“I married her first.” Caster’s quiet voice filled the room. “Our daughter is heir to the throne of Ikeja.” Caster was not shaken by his father’s anger. He did not cower as Faustina did, as cowering was not in his nature. He was fineblood, born to lead, just as surely as the oxblood were born to serve.

Silence greeted Caster’s words. It was a silence which was felt by each person in the room. The guards stilled, Faustina’s sobs froze in her throat, and the king went so rigid he could be likened to a statue. Then it happened.

The king reached for the mahogany hilt of his famous cutlass, drew the sharp blade out, and then sent it on a smooth arch through the air. Before the onlookers’ unblinking stare, the king of Ikeja cut off the head of an Uromi noble. The head fell onto the floor with a loud thud. In death, Faustina released the baby from her hand, sending her on a tumbling fall which was stopped when the baby’s head hit the floor.

Caster launched at his father. He was pulling his cutlass out of its sheath even before he reached his father’s side. Rage shone pure and dazzling in the fineblood’s silver eyes. He placed the rounded edge of the blade against the white kaftan of the king’s agbada.

King Mattias simply rose an eyebrow. “Do you have the stomach for patricide Caster?” he asked. “You were disloyal enough to dare to wed a woman I would never approve of, but are you disloyal enough to kill your king?”

Caster blinked. He stood in a pool of blood. His wife’s head rested somewhere behind him, parted by a man he respected, a king whose service he had sworn to. And his daughter? Caster’s eyes closed in anguish. Tears fell from his eyes. The cutlass slipped out of his loose grasp. The sound of the metal clanging against the hard grounds was the last sound to so fill the hall since the one that preceded it, the sound of Faustina’s head falling.

Caster dropped to his knees and wept, the picture of a broken man.

“Take him away.” The king ordered.

The guards could not move. They stared at a sight which no history book had ever recorded, an occurrence which defied the laws of nature. Fineblood was unbreakable. Yet Caster, a prince some called the finest of them all, had been broken. They could not understand the love that Caster had lost. The prince that would awaken from the horror of this day is one that the entire kingdom will reel from. His anger would become an all-consuming thing, a beast which no beauty could ever tame. It would be felt in the air that filled the castle, by the servants who tended it, by the king who had caused it, and most of all, by the prince who was it.

“NOW!” The king yelled.

Their reverie broken, the guards stirred into action. They approached Caster warily, as one would approach a wild lion. It took long seconds for them to realize that Caster was too distraught to attack, too heartbroken to care. When at long last they reached the prince, they locked hands on his arm, and carried him away.

Following in Caster’s wake, the king turned to leave.

Then they heard it.

First it started off as a cry, a lone sound in a room that had grown silent with terror. Then the little wail grew into a string of cries and then an unending barrage of a baby’s screams. The king turned back around, his mouth hanging open as he heard it. His disbelief was mirrored by Silas, Caster’s younger brother. How did a baby survive such a fall? They wondered. Especially an oxblood. Oxbloods were born weak, yet this one had survived a fatal blow. Some would call it a miracle.

A frown formed on the king’s face. “Kill it!” he snapped.

“Yes father.” Silas was quick to respond, bowing as he watched his father storm out of the room. Most of the guards followed, only two remained. These two were Silas’s guards, soldiers that had guarded the prince since he came of age.

Silas walked over to the wailing baby and picked her up. He rocked her in his left arm, while his right hand reached for the dagger that he hid in the deep pockets of the trouser underneath his tight fitted agbada. When he brought the dagger up, raising it high enough that the baby could see it, she stopped wailing, and stared into his eyes.

Silas faltered.

A slow smile began to form on his face as he stared into those blue eyes. His black eyes traced the glow of her brown skin. She did not have her father’s light-brown complexion, no, she was dark like her mother, a true Uromi girl. He looked at the curve of her face, at the slope of her chin, and finally the stark contrast of the blue eyes against skin almost dark enough to be black. His smile turned into a wolfish grin as he thought of the beauty that she would become. A dark skin oxblood with the appearance of a noble. There were many in Uromi who would pay a fortune to spend a night with the woman she would become. Silas was young, only a few years past his prime, but he was smart enough to see the value that his father threw away.

He put the dagger back into his pocket.

“Take her to the blood institute. Tell them that she is a noble’s bastard. They will raise her to serve, they will train her to be the oxblood she was born to be.”

The guard bowed as he reached for the baby. She stared at her uncle as she was taken from his arms. In the blue of her eyes, Silas saw a glimmer of silver, a sliver of strength. It was a sight that left him so shaken, he almost rescinded his order. But Silas was nineteen now. He was the foulblood brother of a beloved fineblood prince. Even though their father, king Mattias, was foulblood just like him, it was Caster that was preferred. But Silas saw a chance in the oxblood princess, the promise of a beauty that could buy him a nation. He turned away from the baby, looking away before she did.

Nineteen years would pass before the blue eyes of Caster’s oxblood daughter locked again with the black eyes of his foulblood brother.

Follow the link to read the rest of the story (free with an okadabooks account):

https://okadabooks.com/book/about/servia_an_unpublished_short_story/29310

Obehid o. What are you doing again? What a fine start. I am going there right away.

wow....you just have a way with words
the way you pull out these stories from thin air like a magician performing a trick amazes me
I surrender myself to be blown away by your wonderful works !

@Fazemood lol! thanks, let me know what you think

@popeshemoo thank you soo flattering

You've got more than just mere talents.

tunjilomo:
You've got more than just mere talents.

Lol! Thank you!!!

I love dis story already. Well done obehid. I miss nosezele though, when are they coming back?

monalicious:
I love dis story already. Well done obehid. I miss nosezele though, when are they coming back?

Thank you, glad you like it. It's a short story though, and not finished, but if you want to read more you can continue on okadabooks. I miss Nosezele toooo!!! I'm busy with the other marked inspired book I'm working on, so I don't think I'll get back to the human realm till next year, although I'm not sure that I'll posting any more of the marked series books on Nairaland. I'm trying to get them published, so we'll see how that goes. Thank you for thinking of Nosezele