by Hal Emerson
And then with a shout, the Elders knelt and slammed their hands to the floor.
A thunderclap echoed through the chamber, and the Prince watched, amazed, as lines began to curl out from where they stood – black lines that melded into white, then red, then green and blue, violet and indigo, gold and silver, all the colors one could think of, spreading and branching to the edges of the room.
The air around him began to tighten.
They’re not making a new enchantment – they’re waking an old one. One that’s been here for hundreds of years.
The Elders stood, no longer chanting, and Raven saw that they all looked pale, as if something had been taken from them. It looked as if Leah had told him the truth about their Bloodmagic – it used life energy from the person casting the enchantment, not life energy from a sacrifice.
“I will now ask you three questions,” Crane said, speaking ritualistically. The others were all looking at him very solemnly. Even Spader seemed to be taking this proceeding seriously.
“You stand at the center of an Oath Maker,” the Elder continued, “and as such any oath you take you are bound to fulfill. It will become a part of you. Once you speak, there is no going back. Do you understand?”
Raven nodded.
“Do you swear to uphold the law of the Exiled Kindred in all that you do, so long as you hold this office as Prince?”
“Yes.”
The air around him tightened, and he felt as though something had settled over his mind.
“Do you swear to protect the Kindred, and fulfill your duties for as long as you hold this office as Prince?”
“Yes.”
The air tightened again, making his skin tingle and itch.
“And do you swear to lead the Kindred, as the Prince of the Veil, until such time as our borders are secure once more and Elder Goldwyn’s death has been avenged?”
“Yes.”
A flash of light illuminated the chamber and a rumble of thunder rolled through the air, as if the very rocks were murmuring their approval. The Prince felt something settle onto him, attaching itself to his fingers and toes and layering itself on top of him. It felt as if he had slipped on a full body suit; it was not uncomfortable, but it certainly made his skin crawl.
I hope that sensation fades with time.
The Elders sheathed their sambolin in one quick, simultaneous motion, and the torches guttered back to light, hissing and spitting, burning with an extra brightness as if to make up for the time they’d spent unlit.
The lines in the stone floor faded as if they’d never been there, but the Prince knew that they were simply waiting to be activated again. Enchantments like that could lie dormant for lifetimes.
Crane approached him; he was binding a strip of cloth around his hand with a quick and practiced motion that showed he was used to this. The Prince wondered suddenly how often he had to perform Bloodmagic – it seemed only practical that he would continue to use the same hand in order to do so.
“We need to talk about the coming months,” the Elder said swiftly, motioning to the large map table that sat in the center of the room, carved with a perfect map of Lucia and the Kindred lands. “We need to discuss your new responsibilities.”
***
The first difference he noted between being Prince of the Veil and the Prince of Ravens, was that there was little to no ceremony to stand upon after his naming. The Kindred referred to him now as “my prince,” but without the bowing and scraping customary to the Imperial cities. His clothing did not change – he continued to wear his black Rogue shirt and loose pants, and the Kindred didn’t give him a crown or even a small circlet. There was no finery whatsoever, and really the Prince didn’t find himself very surprised.
The one thing that did change was his armor. He had been wearing the same officer breastplate, helm, greaves, bracers, and chainmail he’d received before the battle at the Stand – all of it dyed black, which quite suited him. But sometime during the night, the armor had been taken, and returned the following morning with gold tracings lining it in intricate patterns and circles. He didn’t know how he felt about this – he had learned from Leah and Tomaz the value of passing unseen through enemy territory, and as such didn’t much like the idea of shining with golden highlights. But, after donning his thick, heavy black cloak and realizing it hid the worst of it, he decided not to make a fuss. The symbols were necessary, and who knew how many Kindred would be offended if he refused to wear it.
His first duty as Prince of the Veil was to visit the other Cities; after being chosen by Vale, the capital city, each Prince was required to visit the other four. While elections were always held in Vale, they were attended by most of the Kindred from the entire land. In fact, the Prince was informed that the size of the crowd present at his election had been larger than usual because many of the Kindred in the outer cities had been in Vale for Midwinter. Autmaran, now officially promoted to the rank of Commander in light of Scipio’s death in the fire of Roarke, would be the man to take him on the journey.
“The cities are all only two days apart?” Asked the Prince, shocked, when Autmaran told him. “How is that possible?”
“What lands we have are limited to what we’ve managed to carve out of the wilderness left after the Empress’ conquest,” Autmaran said. “Besides, Vale is the only true city, the others are towns at best. Every year more of us are killed or captured, and much of the land we have isn’t arable. Vale and Chaym are the exceptions … everything else is wilderness, through and through. Add that to the constant risk of invasion, no matter how unlikely to be effective …”
Autmaran shrugged.
“Which city are you from?” The Prince asked, wondering suddenly about the man’s dark skin, which was something of a novelty in an Empire that worshiped the fair skin of the Empress and Her Children.
“Marilen,” Autmaran responded with a smile, “born and raised a fisherman. My mother died in childbirth though, and my father followed her when I was old enough to join the Academy at the Stand.”
“Academy?”
“Indeed,” Autmaran said. “He wanted me to be a scholar, and someday an Elder if I could. But while I enjoyed my studies, I always wanted to be outside in the sunlight. I got tired of learning endless theory – I wanted to put it into practice, but never had the chance. Eventually my teachers asked me if I’d like it if they recommended me for officer training in the Scouts – what you would call light infantry and light cavalry. I was ecstatic. The Scouts are ambushers, which meant all of our training took place in the forests.”
“Autmaran the Ambushman,” said the Prince suddenly, remembering what Davydd had called him some months ago now outside Roarke.
Autmaran smiled, his teeth bright white against his skin. But his eyes were sad, and the Prince suddenly suspected he knew who’d given him the name.
“Goldwyn had taken it into his head to train the Scouts that year … it’s when I first met him,” Autmaran said, eyes far away. “He was always doing things like that – trying to change as many lives as he could, even if it seemed like an impossibly strange way in which to do it. He was our top general, and there he was taking over Scout training because he felt like he was needed.”
“Is that when you became his student?” Asked the Prince, watching his friend carefully. He reached out through the Raven Talisman then and did something he hadn’t yet done – he touched the man’s life.
The smell of pine needles mingled with fresh, clean dirt, the sense of hardened leather hands running along the sharp edge of a blade, the smell of fish and the sound of birds –
“Yes,” said Autmaran simply, quietly. “I studied with him for five years.”
A silence stretched between them as the Prince thought about how much he could have learned from the Elder if he’d had that much time.
Likely more than I ever learned in Lucien … or at least more things of importance.
“I know very little about your lands,” th
e Prince said, changing the subject. “I have a few questions, I suppose the simplest being also a little embarrassing to ask … do the Kindred have a name for their nation?”
“No,” Autmaran said.
And so began his brief, though surprisingly comprehensive, education on the lands of the Seventh Principality.
The lands of the Exiled Kindred were small – in reality they were almost nothing more than one long strip of grassland to the north and a number of valleys amid towering mountains to the east, west, and south. When the Prince asked what was beyond the mountains, Autmaran responded that no one knew – many had tried to find ways through them, but most hadn’t made it back alive to report their findings. Those who did return reported only impassible heights and harsh wilderness.
The farthest south they went was only a day’s ride from Vale – to a town called Eldoras. It was a mining town – the mountains, while impassible, were full of metal ore, from silver to iron, copper to nickel, and the Eldorians made their living exporting it to the other cities.
The first impression the Prince had of this place was that it was a town full of Tomaz and Lorna doppelgangers. Each of the men and women here were strong and wide, and generally quite friendly in a gruff, outdoorsman way. The town itself was really just a collection of homes and a large drinking house that also served as a general meeting hall, where they all gathered in their heavy winter gear to listen to Autmaran with a strong, quiet attentiveness. After the Commander had finished, his words stirring and heartfelt, though brief since many of those listening had been in Vale for the Forum, each and every one of them lined up to sign the recruiting ledger.
“Shouldn’t some of them stay?” Asked the Prince.
“No,” Autmaran replied. “We need them all. Each Eldorian is worth two Valemen in battle. They’re also brilliant blacksmiths and carpenters, which will be even more valuable as time goes on.”
After the Eldorians signed the ledger, they came to the Prince one by one and inclined their heads, a few greeting him with the honorific “my prince,” though the majority maintained an air of solemn silence. It was strange – in the Empire such simplicity would have had them whipped for insolence, but the Prince felt himself more and more buoyed with pride as the day wore on. These were not men and women who gave their allegiance lightly, and yet here they were, freely giving it to him.
The next city, Marilen, was the city farthest to the west, the only town that was not landlocked. It was a collection of fishing villages clustered around an enormous bay with huge rock sides that made a perfect harbor.
“The seas are extremely dangerous,” Autmaran told him, “which keeps us safe from the Empire. However, the harbor is deep and wide and filled with an entire ecosystem of its own, which, when kept in proper balance, more than sustains us. We’re also masterful weavers – it goes along with making nets for fishing. My father always said you could mark a good fisherman by the thread of his shirt.”
The experience here was similar to that in Eldoras – they called the people together in the centermost village, Autmaran spoke to them, and they accepted what he said. Most of them were dark-skinned like the Commander, an interesting bit of information the Prince filed away in his mind to think about another time. Was it the sun that had made them that way, over years and generations?
They went through Aemon’s Stand next, which, while known primarily as the sight of the Kindred’s greatest battle, was also the nation’s center of learning, boasting a library nearly as large as the one in the Fortress of Lucien. The city was still recovering from the devastation of the Ox Lord’s invasion, still rebuilding the broken houses and devastated defenses, but the people here, who had seen the Prince fight his brother Ramael, were the most eager of all the Kindred to join the fight against the Empire.
The last city they went to was in the east, a city called Chaym, which primarily grew crops, both for food and clothing. In terms of size it was the largest, stretching miles to accommodate what they grew, and apparently even going right up to one of the deeper roots of the Roarke mountain range. Chaym was the home of Elder Ceres when she was not in Vale, and her daughter Demeter governed when she wasn’t present. It was a peaceful place – full of soft amber light and warm cotton clothing. Most of the people here were not the kind the Prince would imagine willing to join an army – but when Autmaran came and made the call, they all lined up, just as the men and women had done in Eldoras and Marilen.
But underneath each visit was a grim note, long and drawn out, like the sound of a funeral march caught just at the edge of hearing. As the Prince watched the Kindred sign the ledger, he knew in his heart that many of them, maybe all of them, would die. He knew what they would go through, he experienced it every time he took a life, felt the death as if it was his own. His mood darkened. When he led them north many of them would not return, and he cursed himself for not running when he’d still had the chance.
He wished Leah and Tomaz were with him. He missed them more than he’d ever thought he could miss anyone, but they were officers in the Rogues and had needed to stay behind to organize their troops. It was for their company, more than any other reason, that he longed to be back in Vale, and he was grateful when he and Autmaran finally set themselves in motion back to the capital city.
When they arrived, the number of men and women in the streets had swelled considerably. The wide roads leading to the city were now clogged with travelers, even in the inclement winter weather. Rain and sleet came nearly every day, but still the Kindred gathered, finding refuge in the homes of relatives and the enormous Bricks.
But when he returned he had no time to seek out his friends. Upon setting foot on the outskirts of the city, he was greeted by a number of Aides to the Elders who summoned him to the Capitol, telling him the War Council had begun.
The Council consisted of the senior military officers, Wyck, Oleander, Perci, Gates, and Dunhold, as well as the Elders and the Prince himself.
They met in the large map room beneath the Capitol seat of Vale as storms raged aboveground, mirroring the arguments that took place down below. For nearly a month they argued about where to fight, how to fight, whether or not to rebuild Roarke, who should lead, who had jurisdiction over which part of the army, which General would command the vanguard versus the main host, which target was most important, when to leave Vale, if they should gather more supplies before going. It soon became clear to the Prince that very little would get done this way, but he held his tongue and sat through it, contributing when he could, while his thoughts strayed to the coming months and the war against the Empire.
How can we beat them? Is it possible?
One day, when they adjourned early after an argument broke out among the Generals, the Prince took the opportunity to go to the Bricks, with a mind to seek out Leah and Tomaz, though he found himself dreading the proposition of talking to Leah, not sure how she would react to seeing him. The last time they had spoken had been more than a little strained.
“Raven!” Called a pleasant baritone voice behind him.
He turned to see Davydd striding down the corridor of the Bricks living quarters. The young man’s customary smirk was missing, replaced by a strange, tight neutrality that looked out of place. His red eyes were tired, and the Prince found himself wondering how much sleep the other man was getting. It didn’t look like much.
“Davydd,” the Prince said with a nod. He wanted to say more, but found himself unable. The only thing he could think of was the man’s father.
“What are you doing here?” The Eshendai asked abruptly, walking past him, shuffling through some papers he had in his hands – it looked like they were messages of some kind, reports perhaps.
“I was looking for Leah and Tomaz,” the Prince said smoothly, falling into step beside him. This kind of walking conference was something he was used to – most conversations in the Fortress took place between two destinations, affording the speakers privacy from stationed eavesdroppers. “I have
n’t seen them since I left, I was hoping that I would be able to –”
Davydd stopped walking, and the Prince took a few extra steps before turning back in confusion. The man’s eyes were looking wearily at the Prince, and just past the fatigue was something akin to pity.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” he said finally. “She told me to tell you if you came looking for her that –”
“Princeling!”
The Prince turned and saw the shape of Tomaz; he looked like his old self now, fully recovered from the taxing effects of the Ox Talisman, but he also bore the signs of recent sorrow and lack of sleep – his bluff square of a face had dark circles beneath the eyes and his usually immaculate beard was in need of a trim.
“Tomaz,” said the Prince with the first real smile he’d felt on his face since Midwinter night nearly a month before.
“Wow, you need some sleep little one. You look like–”
“I was speaking!” Davydd snapped.