The Prince of the Veil

by Hal Emerson

  What happens if this changes me? What happens if this is the final step that sent Mother spiraling into the chaos that now consumes her mind?

  The thought came out of nowhere, and he realized what this would mean when it was finished. He would be the master of all seven Aspects. The others would wear them, yes, but they would owe fealty, would be literally bound to him at the level of their souls, for as long as he wore that Crown.

  Whatever gods may be, Raven prayed silently, make my soul indomitable. Don’t let me become her … don’t let me fall like she did.

  Crane broke off his chanting and began to shout at Raven.

  “Grab the sambolin! It’s your turn!”

  In one swift motion, Raven knelt and grabbed for the dagger. He grasped the hilt, a single piece of smoothed ornamental stone that felt cool against his wrist, and sliced the opal blade across his hand. He fought back a sudden wave of pain and nausea at the self-mutilation, and slammed his hand into the ground.

  A huge weight crashed down on him, and tried to bury him into the earth below. The air rushed out of his lungs, his vision doubled, and he nearly lost consciousness. He couldn’t breathe – he couldn’t lift himself up off the ground – he couldn’t do anything but wait to be controlled by the huge forces now coursing through his body –

  He reached out blindly, flailing with his free hand, and by pure luck grasped the burning hilt of Aemon’s Blade. The rune around his splayed body burst into a thousand colors as the blood of each of the others on the outside of the circle finally reached it. The melted Valerium fell to the ground and six balls of light, the blood of his friends pulled from their Anchors, shot into him, coursing through his body.

  “AHHHH!”

  The cry left his lips only to be echoed by each of the six Aspect bearers on the outside of the circle – the pain mounted, pulling at him, as thoughts and ideas and emotions flew through his head that didn’t belong to him, impressions of life that could only belong to the others.

  A new sound reached his ears – the sound of Crane shouting at the top of his lungs, only barely audible over the power of the circle.

  “Use ... the … sambolin!”

  Raven looked down and realized in the middle of what had happened he had somehow released the dagger; it lay inches from his outstretched fingers, and yet seemed farther away than the moon. He reached for it, pulling his hand forward, even as the pain of whatever was inside him now ripped and tore at him. He was a bare fraction of an inch away – he was almost touching it –

  He grabbed the hilt of the dagger with the hand not clutching Aemon’s Blade, and the light that had entered him left and flew into the sambolin. The dagger spun in his hand, moving of its own accord, and flew into the air. Flashes of white shot upward past him, and he looked down in alarm to see the pools of melted Valerium ore rising into the air as if pulled by a magnet. In a quick rush of movement, the ore flew into the dagger, and turned it into something else, a roiling ball of molten metal that spun in the air above his head.

  Crane was yelling again, but this time the sound didn’t carry – it couldn’t force its way against the gale-force winds that threatened to rip up the very ground they stood upon.

  Why won’t it come to me? What is still missing in the – ?

  He felt the hilt of Aemon’s Blade burning against the skin of his palm, and realized what he had to do. He clutched the Blade convulsively in both hands, holding on so tight his knuckles cracked, and thrust it up to pierce the fiery Crown.

  A blast went off that was so violent he might have ignited a whole storehouse of Black Powder. He was thrown flat on his back, and the rune around him disintegrated as if it had never been. The Elders and the six Aspect bearers were all thrown backwards head over heels, and a sound like a thunderclap ripped the leaves off the trees for a hundred paces.

  The silence that followed was almost as loud as the sound before. It was a void, with Raven at its center, and no one sought to fill it. As leaves fell back to the ground and the dust of the blasted rune settled, one by one the others were revealed, all staring inward, all trying to pierce the haze to see what, if anything, was left of their friend. As one, they held their breath, eyes wide and staring.

  A shape was revealed in the center, and they knew it was Raven, but none of them went to him. He was kneeling, left leg up and right knee down, and his hands were holding something that sparkled and shone with inner light.

  As he knelt there, knowing the ritual was complete, Raven felt something bubble up from beneath his thoughts, something old and barely cogent. It was a set of memories, so muted and distant that they were almost nothing more than whirling motes of dust on the flowing winds of time. But they were there – distant and vague, almost just impressions, but there.

  Aemon … it’s his life. Crane was right. He was in there all along, and none of us had any idea.

  But then he felt a new shock run through his body. His palms hit the ground even before he realized he’d collapsed onto all fours, and tears came unbidden to the corners of his eyes. A single word rang through him and sang in his ears.

  He knew his name.

  Chapter Twenty-One: Crowned

  He opened his mouth to speak, to say the word out loud –

  And couldn’t. He tried again, but the word wouldn’t come. The sounds wouldn’t form. His teeth and lips and tongue were unable to say the name that now blazed in his mind, and even as he tried to speak it anyway, the exhilaration rushing through his body faded. It was a dark name. It was a name meant for the bringer of death, and as the excitement of remembering faded, he felt uneasy, almost as if he’d encountered an old friend he wasn’t sure was still a friend. He could feel the name; grasp it even, in an abstract way. It rested on the tip of his tongue, hovered at the edge of vision; but the sounds wouldn’t come and the letters wouldn’t settle. He had broken his Mother’s grip on him – but not completely. There was still something left to do, something that kept him bound to her.

  She’s my Mother. The very blood in my veins keeps me bound to her.

  “How do you feel?”

  He looked up. The question had come from Crane, the only one brave enough to approach him, though not by more than a step or two.

  “Strong,” he said.

  It was true – the word described the state he’d entered in a way that none other could. Every ache he’d ever had, both mental and physical, had been washed away. Gold and blue haloes outlined the world, giving a strange, extra dimension to everything he saw. He heard the sounds of birds and insects, and somehow knew the truth of what they were saying to each other. He could see the veins in Spader’s neck, the sweat beading on his pale forehead, and knew the exact shade of his fear and hope, and the way the two emotions battled inside him like marked warriors in a dueling ring. In a flash of blue he saw Ishmael leaving this grove and joining the other Elders, of him fighting against a figure on a Daemon.

  Bright colors caught his eye, and he looked around at the others. All seven of the Aspect Bearers, the new Heirs of Theron Isdiel, were lit with the glow of their respective Aspect. Autmaran’s bald head was framed in a glowing mane of white light that traced around his head and down his neck; Leah’s hands and neck were highlighted in blue as her Aspect traced her body’s nerve ending; Davydd’s veins were pulsing with liquid gold, and the blackened, burnt skin on the left side of his face seemed darker in contrast; Lorna’s face was clear, but her hands and feet burned so bright with gray light that both her boots and gauntlets had split, cracked, and fallen away like the shell of a crab; Tomaz towered over them all, his armor straining against his chest, legs, and arms as the straps sought to hold together despite the pulsing, blood-red light that had engorged his muscles.

  And as Raven stood there, he felt each of those same lights flow through him.

  The light around his friends winked out, leaving them stunned and off-balance; but the light in the grove didn’t die. Instead, a new light blossomed, brighter than any of th
e Aspects individually. It seemed source-less to Raven, though each of his companions had thrown a hand up before their eyes to shield them from the brilliance. It took him a long second to understand where it was coming from, but then realized his head felt just slightly too heavy. He reached up and his fingers touched something warm, and hard as diamond. Grabbing hold of it, he pulled it off.

  Immediately, the light guttered out, and the sense of wonder he’d felt, the light that had infused the gathering, disappeared.

  He staggered sideways, catching himself at the last moment and managing to find his feet again before he fell to the ground – ground that now felt hard and unyielding, distant and colorless.

  “Raven,” Crane repeated once more. “How do you feel? Did it work?”

  He looked up, and nodded, dumb-founded by the sense of completeness he’d felt with the Crown on his head. He held it up, so that they all could see it.

  It was fitted to his head, and neither thick nor thin but somewhere in-between. Unlike his Mother’s crown, which was cruel and made of seven spires sharp as daggers spaced equidistant around the circle, the Crown of Aspects was smooth, and all of one piece. It started thin in the back, and then gradually increased in width until it met again in the front, where a single, large gemstone was set: an opal, made from the blade of the sambolin.

  Light flowed from the large stone in varying shades and hues, pulsing and flickering with light that alternated between each of the Aspect colors.

  “It worked,” Raven said, answering Crane’s question. He was unbelievably weary, but pushed through the fog of fatigue. “And now we attack.”

  His words seemed to break the spell that held all the others in place, and they all moved forward toward him: Leah and Tomaz came first to determine for themselves he had survived unscathed – the big man even went so far as to rest a hand on Raven’s shoulder and look into his eyes; Davydd and Lorna hung back, moving closer to each other as they watched the proceeding warily; Spader and Ishmael joined Crane, flanking him directly to left and right, waiting for him to make the first move; Autmaran and Tym came together, both still staring in awe at the Crown.

  “Now we attack,” Crane confirmed. “How will we go about it?”

  “It would be a massacre if we attacked the Visigony in traditional lines,” Autmaran said, shaking himself out of his trance. “Our best hope is to keep drawing them into the Mountains, forcing them to come to us.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” protested Raven. “I saw something in Marthinack’s memories – what he had of them.”

  “Marthinack?”

  “The … Visigony I killed. He was one of the Trium – the three who have been here since the founding of Lucien. He was one of the original Bloodmages to join the Empress.”

  “That tin-pot brain of his actually held something?” Davydd queried.

  “More than something,” Raven said quickly. “A memory of a cavern beneath Lucien – a cavern like the one we saw in Lerne. A cavern that already holds two active Bloodmage crystals, from Tibour and Lerne, and has a third prepared. I’d give you three guesses when and how they hope to make it, but you’ll only need one.”

  “You’re saying if we don’t invade the city by tonight,” Lorna confirmed, “they’ll sacrifice everyone the same way they did in Lerne.”

  “Yes,” Raven said. “If she gains that power tonight in conjunction with my death, then the Empress will be able to accomplish anything.”

  “She won’t kill you,” Leah said harshly.

  “Not for want of trying,” Davydd drawled.

  “And if we stay in these mountains,” Raven continued, “I can see her coming for us. And then there is nothing that will hold her back. We need to take this fight to her. I need to take this fight to her.”

  “To the top of the Fortress,” Tomaz rumbled. “That’s where she’ll be waiting when she sees us coming. And she will see us coming.”

  Distant noise pulled their attention down the mountainside, away from the clearing. There were shouts and roars now, and again the clash of swords.

  “The other Elders have held them off as long as possible,” Spader said quickly. “Whatever plan we come up with, we need to make it on the run.”

  Raven nodded, and as one they began to make their way from the clearing to the treeline, headed toward the sounds of battle. The sun had left the sky completely now, plunging them into quickly deepening twilight. Raven’s palms began to sweat and his stomach roiled with apprehension.

  By dawn it’s over, one way or another.

  “Tym,” Autmaran said quickly, “we will need torches –”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said, already disappearing into the trees.

  “What about the Visigony?” Lorna asked, continuing their conversation. “They routed us, and they led that army across the plain – what makes you think that we can even get through them to begin with?”

  “Leave them to us,” Crane said swiftly. “They will find there are few tricks we do not know.”

  “Then who will lead the charge?”

  “I will,” Raven said as he placed the Crown of Aspects on his head.

  The light returned, illuminating their way, and driving away the lengthening shadows around them.

  “You could have done that before I sent Tym running,” Autmaran grumbled.

  Raven smiled, but didn’t reply. Wearing the Crown, he felt no need to respond to the annoyance in his friend’s voice – why was such a thing important? He could see the way the world worked, down to the smallest ripple and fold in the ground. He knew the truth of what he saw, knew how and where to move, and knew he would never tire, his limbs never falter. He was the perfect manifestation of humanity.

  And as that thought crossed his mind, a sudden, sourceless sense of foreboding gripped him. He pushed it away. He felt powerful – why did he need to worry? For the first time in this whole war, their goal was accomplishable. He had the power now. The darkness he had spoken of to Leah was gone as if it had never been, and the hopelessness of only a short time ago was now nothing more than a memory.

  It was like a mountain had been lifted off of him.

  The others continued speaking, and Raven realized absently that he should be listening. But his mind was far distant – he was thinking of grander things, about the turning of the world and what would happen after he deposed the Empress. The nation would be without guidance then. Someone would need to be installed, possibly even by force. The Kindred would never accept such a ruler, though.

  But maybe…maybe he could be that ruler. He could be the Emperor his Mother never was, the one who everyone could truly follow, Kindred and Imperials alike. Now, with his mind unburdened, with the clarity that all the Aspects brought to him –

  And you will end the same.

  He convulsed, his body spasming, and he threw the Crown from his head.

  When the metal lost contact with his skin, his mind snapped back to what it had been. He stared at the white metal circlet where it lay in the grass like a deadly snake. His was breath coming hard and fast, and though he was himself again, he was left in a state of shock.

  He became aware that the others were staring at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  I think I might have.

  “What happened?” Elder Crane asked.

  “Nothing,” he said quickly. “Nothing – go ahead, gather the troops. I need some time.”

  They all paused.

  “Is it the Crown?” Leah asked. “Are you seeing something – something that might happen?”

  He caught her gaze, but couldn’t answer. He reached down and grabbed the Crown before he could think too much about it, and held it loosely, trying to keep his mind blank.

  “Go,” he repeated, “organize the attack and call me when we’re ready.”

  He spun and left them, almost running, trying to outdistance his thoughts, racing back to the clearing, where he stopped and looked at the empty space where the rune had been. He saw the
matted grass where he had stood, and a glimmer of white stuck into the side of the oak tree.

  Aemon’s Blade.

  He ran for it, grabbed the hilt, and pulled it from the trunk with all his might. The sword, though reluctant at first, slid out with a sharp jerk that left him stumbling. He grasped the hilt tightly in his right hand, and realized he still held the heavy weight of the Crown in his left. He had never seen his Mother use a sword, and now knew why: she had never needed one. With the Diamond Crown on her head, her words Commanded the world around her and it obeyed. He could do the same now.

  But this is more than just a sword.

  He felt the overwhelming urge to put the Crown back on his head, to feel that power again, that perfection, but something stopped him, something from the Blade that helped him resist. With a huge effort of will, he threw both Blade and Crown to the ground in front of him. He fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands.

  This was supposed to fix everything. This was supposed to change it – the Aspects are pure, why can’t I use the Crown? Is it me? Am I broken? Am I too much my Mother after all, so much so that I can’t even touch the Aspects without corrupting them?

  He became aware that he wasn’t alone in the clearing. He turned: Elder Crane, in his gray robes, his lined face drawn and eyes narrowed, stepped out from the shade of a tree not a dozen yards away.

  “How did I not sense you standing there?”

  “It would appear you had other things on your mind,” Crane replied evenly, taking a few steps forward before stopping well short of Raven’s reach. He was wary; he knew what lived inside Raven. “After all,” he continued, “not even the Empress can have her mind on all things at one time. No one can.”

  The words, though speaking of the Empress, were pointed at him, and Raven knew it. How much did the Elder know of what he’d been thinking? How much did he just suspect? Those eyes were too knowing. They saw too much.

  What would I be thinking if I still had the Crown on? Would I see him as a threat?