Grey Area Prologue

Aumrienok’s mother practically broke down the door to his chambers, fury radiating from her claws to the tips of her horns. His servants glared at her disapprovingly. The servants were probably from better families than she was and they let her know it whenever she came by. She was nothing to them without her noble son. “Where is he?” She demanded from them.

“The prince has not been seen all day.” One servant said stiffly, looking down his nose at her, as if it was her fault that he was constantly missing and ignoring his duties as a prince of Hell. They probably thought it was.

“And you did not see fit to try and find him?” She sneered right back.

The servant sighed, adopting the tone one might use with a petulant child, “His Highness is quite impossible to find if he does not wish to be found, ma’am. No one can be spared to embark upon an impossible task. He shall surely return before the full moon rises, as is his custom.”

Ri’s mother gritted her teeth, but thought better of making an angry outburst, knowing it would not do much good. She turned to leave, but then the servant continued, “His Highness left a letter addressed to madam, however.”

She whirled around and roared, “WHY DIDN’T YOU START WITH THAT?” The servant wiped his face as if removing some spittle from it, and withdrew the letter, offering it to her in casual disrespect.

She snatched it from him and tore it open right there. With every word she read, she shook a little harder, until she was nearly literally breathing fire, her leathery black skin glowing slightly red.

“To my dearest and most honorable mother, bearer of my life, hundred and something’th mother of the nation, venerated concubine of the King of Hell with no equal except for the hundred and something other more important concubines,

It brings me great pain, I suppose, to address you now. It is my great shame to now realize that I have been the most unfilial of sons. Always has my lord father been the truest vision of a matchless King of Hell, and you, my lady mother, the humblest of his gentle brides. I have met such virtue with thoughtless scorn and disobedience. My eyes have been opened to the error of my ways, and even as a prince of Hell, I can no longer face the weight of my wrongs. I sojourn now from the comforts of home to seek a higher purpose, that through more virtuous actions I may be redeemed for my unconscionable behavior to such caring, thoughtful, and noble parents. I shall return in a millennium, a more honorable man than left this place. EVER SHALL I THINK OF YOU, MY BELOVED PRIMOGENITOR, MATRIARCH OF MY LIFE.

Your most esteemed son, Aumrienok, 9th Prince of Hell.

P.S. Just kidding, I’m sick of palace life. See you never. Seriously don’t look for me.”

The ensuing scream of rage at the end of the letter was heard all the way across the many palaces of Hell, to where the king sat chuckling to himself in his throne room, easily guessing its origin.