by Hal Emerson
“And is there any way to prevent that?” the Commander continued. “What would she send after you if you ran?”
“Everything,” he repeated. “And no, there’s no way to prevent it.”
“What do you mean?” Lorna queried from the shadows behind Davydd.
“I mean that if I run, I will likely only end up fulfilling the prophecy,” Raven said, managing to keep his voice level. “I mean that if I run, the Empire will send everything they have straight for us. Death Watchmen, Seekers, the remaining Children, maybe even the Visigony. Every trap, every sentinel will be activated throughout the Empire, and in the end it will make no difference for them. If we run, they track me down, and kill me anyway. There’s no place I can hide now – no illusions to get behind. We either fight together with a chance to win, or we fight separately and die.”
“What is the exact prophecy?” Tym asked quietly, and they all paused and looked at him in surprise. The young boy became flustered by the attention, and his cheeks grew red and he cast his bright blue eyes down at the floor. “Sometimes words are important … I just thought you … I’m sorry I spoke.”
“It’s all right, Tym,” Davydd said. “It’s a good point.”
“This is a conversation for adults,” Raven said suddenly, not knowing why, “not children. Get him out of here.”
They all stared at him, mouths comically agape. All except for Leah, who rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Shut up, princeling. You’re starting to sound like Henri Perci.”
Raven stiffened; he couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d physically struck him. In fact, he probably would have been less surprised if she’d physically struck him.
“Everyone needs to calm down,” Tomaz rumbled slowly, from behind Raven. “We’ve all been through hell, and were still in the middle of a war. Everyone here has a right to be tired, indignant, and scared witless. But we’re people, not beasts. Control yourselves; be civil. We’re all that’s left now.”
“There are still the Elders,” Lorna interjected softly, though Raven noticed she said it more as if the point had to be brought up, not as though she believe it to be truly important.
“There are,” Tomaz acknowledged, turning to face her and nodding before continuing to scan the alleyway, locking all of them in his gaze, calming them with his steady voice. “And they are important. But we hold the Aspects, and it is us who need to finish this war. It is us who will lead the charge.”
“It is,” Raven admitted. “But why does that mean we need to keep talking? There’s only one thing we can do – go north, as fast and as hard as we can. I thought we’d already settled this.”
“We still have things left to discuss,” Leah said, her face a thunderhead of anger, but her voice steady and driving. “The first is the Return.”
“The … what?” asked Autmaran. “Did you borrow something?”
Leah continued, completely ignoring Autmaran’s comment.
“There is something happening,” she said, “something that Geofred had in mind when he died, and something that is all through his memories. Something called the Return – and I can’t understand it. But it’s why the Empress is doing all of this – it’s why she tried to kill Raven in the first place.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Raven said evenly.
“Shadows and fire, princeling!” she shouted, startling them all. “Yes, we do! Now stop being a twit and own up to what we both know!”
Raven realized his jaw was clenched and his lips were curled up in contempt. They didn’t need to know all of this – all they needed to know was enough to get them to Lucien. If things needed to be explained afterwards, then so be it. But the more they knew now, the more danger they were in, and the more they would fear what was to come.
“We. Don’t. Know. That. For. Sure.” he repeated, driving each word calmly into the silence that had stretched after she’d finished speaking. “I have the same holes in the memory that you do. The Return – it’s something that’s been talked about for ages in only the most vague, broad terms. It’s a legend, nothing more.”
“What is the legend?” rumbled Tomaz.
“That someday the Empress will return to the land She came from,” Davydd said, surprising everyone. “That She will leave behind an Heir to rule this land, one of the Children, and She will Ascend back to the land from beyond the sea, where She will become the last and final Heir of Theron Isdiel.”
He looked at Raven, the blackened half of his face and his new golden eye mocking the prince.
“There are too many of us who have these memories now, princeling,” he said frankly. “You can’t keep things hidden anymore – we all have a piece of the puzzle. Like it or not, we’re in this together or not at all.”
“Fine!” Raven snapped. “That’s the legend – don’t interrupt me now, you want me to speak about it, I’ll bloody speak about it!”
Leah, Davydd, and Autmaran had all made noises as if they would speak, but at the Prince’s outburst, they quieted again.
“What Davydd says is true. It is a legend, a myth. I have never heard the Empress speak of it, and I have never heard any of the other Children speak of it expect in mockery of each other’s ambitions, but the idea persists. It is not true – it is a creation myth, the idea that she came from another place and will someday return there. It’s ridiculous.”
“Finished?” Autmaran asked dryly. Raven almost lashed out again, but reined himself in at the last moment. “Yes,” he replied, “for now at least.”
“Good – then it’s my turn,” the Commander said. “It is easy enough for me to say that there is something more to this than myth.”
Raven scoffed and turned his back on the man.
“Don’t you dare turn your back on me!” Autmaran roared at the top of his voice. “I stood for you when we were in Vale and made you Prince. I stood for you when even you didn’t think you could do this. I stood by you, and lied to the Elders about what happened to Keri, because when I saw that monster you’d become I knew, in my heart of hearts, that that beast could never be the man I’ve come to respect, the man I would gladly follow in battle. So you owe it to me to explain. You owe it to all of us standing here! You owe it to us, and you’re acting like a spoiled child. We have every right to know what you are getting us into, and we have every right to know what the Empire is planning, so man up and grow a pair, you sniveling, whining brat!”
For a moment, Raven could only stare in shock, but then anger flared up in him, a black flame that burned and pushed him on. His hand fell to the hilt of Aemon’s Blade.
Immediately, the others were all in motion. Tomaz put a hand on Malachi and interposed himself between Raven and Autmaran; Davydd, with his glowing eyes, was spinning a white dagger in his hand and eyeing Raven’s neck; Autmaran had thrown his red cape over his arm to use as a defense, and drawn his short sword backhand; Lorna, still missing her axe, had simply settled into a grappling stance.
But it was Leah who reached him first, and it was she who stopped him in his motion. All she did was reach down and touch his hand, and as the pads of her calloused fingers grazed his skin, the anger left him. The human contact almost made him break down, and he had no idea why. He was losing control of himself.
“What happened when you turned?” she asked quietly.
The words and the tone calmed him, and the tension left his arm, letting his hand fall to his side, away from the hilt of Aemon’s Blade. It was suddenly very hard to breathe.
“I don’t remember,” he mumbled, very unconvincingly.
Leah stepped closer, and he turned his head away from her, looking toward the entrance to the alley, doing everything he could to keep himself from acknowledging her. It was too much – she was too close, she shouldn’t be doing this where others were around. Her hand climbed from his hand, tracing the curve of his arm, until it rested on his shoulder. She was close enough that he could smell her, that lavender scent, and ben
eath it the clean warmth that was all her own.
“Tell us what happened,” she said softly, though loud enough that the others could hear. “You don’t need to worry; you don’t need to be hard. The Generals are gone; the Elders are gone. It’s us. Your … your family. Your true one.”
His eyelids were so heavy they closed on their own, and when they reopened it was as if some huge effort or energy had gone out of him, like the last prop that holds up a sickly man. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes felt like they’d sunk back in their sockets.
“It was … freeing.”
His voice was soft, and almost disappeared in the thin air of the alleyway.
“I’m always so worried that I’ll become my Mother, always so worried that what I’m doing might not be right. I hate that Kindred die because of me; I hate that Imperials die because of me. I hate death, and yet I’ll never be rid of it. I worry every minute of every day if I’ll be good enough to see this through, if I’m making the right decisions, if I’m dooming us all.”
He swallowed hard, and blinked rapidly against stinging eyes. But the words continued to flow from him; the dam had burst, and it was impossible to stop it now.
“And when I finally let go, when I finally let it all just take me over, it was the first freedom I’ve known in my entire life. I just gave in, and everything was taken away from me. Everything was right, and if I wanted to do it, then I did it. I had no conscience, and I cut down everything that stood in my way. I felt just. I felt righteous. And I never wanted it to end.”
He stopped and drew a deep breath, staring far beyond them now, into the few memories and sensations he could piece together.
“I felt like my Mother must feel every day,” he finished, before lapsing into a long period of silence.
“And then I killed the closest thing to a true mother I’ve ever had,” he continued, breaking his gaze and looking at them. None of them could meet his eye now, not even Leah or Tomaz. “I killed her, and you’re acting like it didn’t happen. I killed one of the Elders, ruining our best chance of restoring the illusions around Vale that keep the Kindred safe. A woman loved by everyone, a symbol of Kindred goodness and strength, and everything that’s good and kind in the world. I killed her. And you pretend it didn’t happen. You tell me it doesn’t matter – that I didn’t do it. Then how do I remember it? How do I know what it felt like to sink my fingers into her and rip her apart? That’s in my head – it’s my head! That memory! I … it’s …”
He trailed off as anger, guilt, and shame all came together and choked away his voice. He looked around at them again, his whole body quivering with the effort it took to hold back the full force of his emotions. But still none of them could meet his eye, none of them wanted to acknowledge what he was saying. They didn’t want to believe it was true.
“SAY SOMETHING!”
The sound of his voice echoed up and down the alleyway, almost unnaturally loud. Each of them flinched as if he’d struck them, and he realized his hands were balled into fists and his teeth were bared. His fingers and legs felt cold, but heat seemed to radiate from his chest and face, so hot his skin felt like it was burning.
“I did it. I lost control, and I liked it. That was me in that body, that creature is buried in me right now waiting for another chance to get out. So say something. Say something. Shout at me. Strike me. Please. Please!”
Still, they didn’t speak, and still they looked away.
“LOOK AT ME!”
And they did, his words lashing them into action. He felt his fury radiating from him still, fury that was as much directed against himself as it was against them. Still no one spoke, but they all held his gaze. The silence lengthened, going on forever, and suddenly Raven felt a certainty coming over him that none of them would speak, that none of them could forgive him now. He’d finally done it – he’d crossed a line, and whatever it was that they were was broken.
Until Davydd stepped forward.
“Fine,” the man said, looking at the others, standing now in the no-man’s-land that had formed between them and Raven.
“Fine,” he said again, “I’ll say it.”
He took a deep breath, and they all watched him with apprehension.
“You’re a dick.”
The silence that followed this pronouncement was profound indeed.
“Seriously,” he continued in earnest, his tone completely at odds with the mood of the gathered group. “You’ve done a lot of things since I’ve known you, and most of them have been at least half dickish. A few have been full-on assholic.”
He took another step forward, standing tall, the burned half of his face making the gold of his left eye stand out brilliantly.
“But you’ve also led us through some serious shit,” Davydd continued, the profanity somehow lending his words unintended weight. “And for the most part, that dickishness has paid off. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still a bastard for keeping the Wolf Talisman; it’s Lorna’s, and everyone knows that – and yeah, all of what you just said was really intense and makes me question your sanity. But I refuse to believe you would have done what you did if you were in your right mind. I have no doubts about you being a good person. Doubts about your decision making process, not to mention your haircut and wardrobe choices? Sure. Doubts about whether or not you’re good enough to be kissing my sister? Definitely. But doubts about whether or not you’re the right man to lead us through this and get most of us out the other side? No. Never.”
He took another step forward, and thrust a finger toward Raven as if he were trying to pin him in place.
“So if you want a promise from me, then I’ll make you one. I will never turn on you. Never. But if that thing comes out of you again – and yes, it is a thing, completely and distinctly separate from you – then I will do everything in my power to end its life and yours before it kills another person.”
Raven felt a surge of anger mixed with pure, unadulterated relief course through him. That promise was what he’d wanted, and he hadn’t even realized it until the man had said it. He swallowed hard once more, his throat dry and closed off. The silence lengthened between them as Davydd continued to stand where he was, letting his pronouncement hang heavy in the air between them.
“Thank you,” Raven said softly. Davydd nodded.
“You’re still a dick, though,” he repeated.
“Yeah, I got that,” Raven said.
“Just want to be clear.”
“Right.”
He shifted awkwardly, and then spoke abruptly, his voice scratchy and hoarse, over the man’s shoulder to the others. “Now you. All of you swear the same thing.”
“Princeling,” Tomaz began.
“Raven,” Leah said, “the Blade –”
“No,” he cut them off. “You swear, or we’re done. I could lose the Blade, could lose one of you, could lose my mind. So you swear, or none of you comes near me again. I can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen. You want me to trust you? Then fine – I’m trusting you. If you want me to be your Prince, then you need to swear you won’t let that beast hurt another Kindred. Swear that you will kill me if I even come close.”
For a long moment, no one spoke, moved, or even seemed to breathe. And then a small, lonely voice broke the silence.
“I don’t know if I’d be able to,” Tym said. “But Mr. Davydd told me what happened after Ms. Lorna told him, and … I see why it’s important, Prince Raven, sir, so I promise. I –I promise to do it. I promise.”
The boy was shaking slightly as he said the words, and Raven knew the boy must still be cold, but even more so must be frightened. His fine blonde hair swayed back and forth as he earnestly tried to meet Raven’s eyes, between sneaking glances at the others.
“Thank you, Tym,” Raven said softly.
“I swear as well,” Autmaran said, just as softly. The others shifted as the commander walked over to stand next to Davydd. “But only if you swear to set this behind you an
d continue leading the army. Continue leading us.”
Raven swallowed again, thinking about what it would be like to live in a world where he dared say ‘no.’
“You have my word,” he said, instead.
“Then I swear, too,” Lorna said.
“You already have my word,” Davydd reminded him.
“Shadows and fire, princeling,” Leah swore, suddenly turning and kicking the brick wall nearest her. She stood staring at it for a long moment, shaking her head, biting her lip. The open display of emotion was almost shocking on her.
“Very well,” Tomaz rumbled, and as he said the words he caught Raven’s gaze, and they shared an unspoken agreement, the kind that only exists between best friends: Tomaz would do it, and he would make it clean.
“Fine,” Leah growled out, turning back, her hands on her hips as she paced back and forth. “Fine – I swear. But only, only if there’s no other way. And I will be there, all the way until the end, making damn sure of it.”
“Agreed,” Raven said, and a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” murmured Davydd, “I might just enjoy doing it.”
“Now they need to know,” Leah said, ignoring her brother and speaking to Raven. “They need to know everything – everything we know, everything we pulled from Geofred, and what you and Davydd pulled from Tiffenal.”
Raven looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded.
“First,” she said immediately, still pacing, “the first prophecy speaks of the Return. That’s why the Tyrant wanted you killed, we both know it. She thinks it’s real – how is she going to try to make it happen? What are her plans?”
“I don’t know,” Raven said. “I don’t know. No one knows, like I said. But what I do know is that there are plans in motion to do … something. Geofred saw blood and death, huge waves of it … but I can’t understand any more than that. But I do know that killing me is about the Return, and more than that, securing her rule for another thousand years through one of the Children.”
“So one of the Children has to survive to inherit the throne?”