In which we meet Henry.

It sucked being the eighth son of a seventh son.

All it meant was that he had seven perfect older brothers, with perfect lives and perfect jobs, who ran the kingdom in perfect harmony.

Henry ran through the list in his head:

Alexander, the firstborn, had done his princely duty. He'd married his childhood sweetheart, the Lady Amelia, and they'd produced an heir and a spare within the year. The epitome of princeliness, Alex had been trained, since birth, to take over for their father and, by all indications, would be a benevolent and competent ruler.

Byron and Cedric, the twins, worked in perfect sync as the joint heads of the military. Byron was the head of the dragon air corps and Cedric dispensed weapons from the magical armoury, but they split all other duties evenly.

Damien, who'd dressed himself in black from the time he had a choice about clothing colour, handled the darker side of diplomatic relations. Henry tried not to think about what his brother coordinated from his rooms in the highest tower if he wanted to sleep well at night.

Edmund, the experimentor, had worked with the head of the Collegium Magica and developed a harvesting machine that practically ensured that the country would never go hungry again. And, he'd met Eileen, head of her class at the Sorceress Academy and Henry had fifteen silver coins on them being married by the end of the year.

After a wild youth, Francis had surprised everyone when he joined the priesthood. Oddly, he'd taken right to it and been given his first abbey at the age of 30, the youngest abbot in several decades.

And Gideon, the legendary seventh son. Gideon had done everything right. 'Slacked off', as tradition demanded, until he was kicked out to have his adventure.
And adventure he did. That dragon that terrorized the eastern border? Slain. The giant who lived in south? Driven away. And, of course, he'd completed three tasks to win the hand of the fair Princess Genevieve, marrying her and bringing peace and wealth to both their kingdoms.


But what about Henry? What was Henry's oh-so-exciting lot in life? What was left for him to do?
Nothing! Nothing princely needed doing, because his brothers had taken care of all that, and he was stuck with absolutely nothing to do.

He'd made the mistake of mentioning this to his mother...which is why he found himself with a new job.
A sucky job.
The worst job he could conceive of for an eighteen year old male.

His father had decreed it yesterday: Henry was the officially the kingdom's Unicorn Caretaker.