The Prince of Ravens

by Hal Emerson

  Chapter Sixteen: Choices

  The next morning dawned with the Prince still holding watch, his mind whirling with thoughts. He hadn’t been able to sleep, and in any case, he felt he owed a full night’s rest to Tomaz and Leah for carrying him while he’d been unconscious.

  Leah was the first to stir, waking up with a luxurious stretch like a cat. She opened her eyes and rolled over, taking in the banked fire and the sleeping form of Tomaz, then the Prince.

  “Have you been on watch all night?” she asked, sleep coloring her voice. The Prince couldn’t help but smile at the unfeigned surprise in her tone.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “It looked like you needed your rest. And I’ve been sleeping for a while, after all.”

  “I suppose I did,” she said. Then in one fluid motion she rose to her feet, the blanket dropping off her, and she moved over to wake Tomaz. The Prince in the meantime went to the saddlebags and pulled out more cheese and bread for breakfast. He was pleased that his hands weren’t shaking.

  They ate their meal in silence, the two Exiles enjoying the food and the brisk morning air.

  “What’s our plan for moving on from here?” the Prince asked, bracing himself.

  “We’re going to make for the Pass of Roarke,” Tomaz said, in a sleepy rumble. “There’s a few passes through the mountains that we can use to cross – they’re usually patrolled by rotating squads of men from Roarke, but if we’re quick we’ll be able to make it across the border before they even know we’re there. Then we head to Vale –”

  “No,” the Prince said.

  Leah and Tomaz stopped eating. The Prince looked up at them.

  “What do you mean no?” Leah asked, eyes flashing.

  “I mean you were right, Leah, I’m not one of you,” he said quietly. “I can’t let my personal injustices at the hands of the Empire make me believe rebellion is the right course of action. So I won’t be going with you through the Pass. I won’t be going to Vale.”

  They sat staring at him with incredulity. He rushed on.

  “The Empire is good,” he said emphatically. “It’s good for the people who live under its rule, it’s good for the development of the land, it’s good for the majority. And while you have saved me on multiple occasions, I will never rebel against the lawful rule of the Diamond Throne. I – I am … grateful,” the word caught in his throat, but he forced it out, “and you have given me much to think about, but my place is in the Empire. I am a Prince of the Realm as long as I bear the Raven Talisman, and I cannot turn my back on my responsibility.”

  A long silence followed this pronouncement. The girl stood up, staring at him, and the Prince knew that she felt vindicated. Here he was making all of the arguments she had made last night.

  “And what about the slave auction you saw in Banelyn?”

  The Prince flinched back, as if she’d physically hit him. The memory came back to him, unbidden, and he was once more nauseated.

  “Yes, I know you saw it, I know you were there,” the girl continued. “You’ve seen the kind of men the Empire employs, scum like the Defenders, you saw that they were going to take me to Formaux and would have held me and tortured me until I was dead, simply because it would hurt my father. You’ve seen now what your Empire does to people!”

  “Yes!” the Prince snapped back, “and that is why I am needed here! I can’t just run away from all of that, I can’t just give up and leave the Empire to run off and become a rebel. Do you know how many of the Most High ever leave Lucien to see the Empire? How many ever leave their own Province to visit a neighboring one if they do not need to? If I can make them see the world they’ve unknowingly created, then I can make the Empire better, I can make it –”

  “And when you return and they kill you, what then? What’s your grand plan to deal with that?”

  “What does it matter to you, I thought it was too risky to bring me back to your precious Vale anyway?!”

  The shout came out of him before he could stop it, and Leah took a step back in shock at the hurt and reproach she heard in his voice. The Prince took a deep breath. This arguing was getting him nowhere.

  “In any case, you’ve gotten your wish. I’m not going with you.”

  “Your intentions are good, princeling,” Tomaz rumbled, a look of near-panic on his face, as if things were quickly getting very far out of hand. “But you had never left the capital city yourself until a very short while ago. You do not know how this world works. As soon as your name was taken from you, you were made into an outcast, and even if you wish to return to change things for the better, there are men and armies after you as we speak. You‘ve killed Defenders. You’ve destroyed Death Watchmen. The life of a Bloodmage is on your hands. You’ve defied your Mother’s orders to return to the capital, ignored the commands of a Seeker, and saved the lives of two Exiled Kindred.”

  The Prince shook his head. This was wrong, it was all wrong.

  “But I can’t just run away, Tomaz! I can’t turn my back on my people, on the Empire, I can’t –”

  “It has turned its back on you, princeling.”

  “I won’t run away!”

  “You’ll just go back and get yourself killed,” Leah muttered. “I should have known. Stupid men, why couldn’t we have kidnapped one of his sisters?”

  “You wouldn’t want to meet my sisters,” the Prince retorted, shaking his head ruefully at the thought of Leah and Symanta in the same room.

  “They can’t be worse than you!”

  “Enough, both of you,” Tomaz said. A silence fell, as both Leah and the Prince turned away from each other and pretended to be very interested in examining the trees surrounding the clearing.

  “If you wish to go, then we cannot keep you.”

  The Prince looked quickly at the big man. Tomaz was quite clearly disappointed by this turn of events, but was just as clearly resigned to it. There was a deep sadness in his eyes, and the Prince quickly looked away, feeling as though he were betraying the man in some way.

  “Yes we can keep him! We did it once, we can do it again!” Leah cried.

  “No we cannot, Eshendai,” Tomaz said, turning to the girl, “we are being pursued by the Empire in force now. Things were different when we had a reasonable chance of passing through the Empire by stealth – but how can we tie up the Prince of Ravens and take him not only through the Pass of Roarke, but past the personal seat of the Prince of Oxen, who will have gotten the message days if not weeks ago that his brother is heading straight toward him? It’s common sense, and if you used your head you’d know it better than I do. Calm yourself and consider the situation.”

  For a long moment it looked as though Leah would just ignore Tomaz. But as the Prince watched, the anger seemed to drain out of her, and her face grew calm and still. Her hands continued to clench and unclench by her sides, but eventually those too relaxed, and the Prince breathed easier.

  “You’re right,” she said finally. “The benefits we could receive from his information do not outweigh the dangers of us not returning. The Elders need our report. We can’t take the risk of being caught by a border patrol.”

  She turned to the Prince.

  “We can’t let you go now,” she said, and he tensed, dropping immediately into a defensive stance, “but once we reach the road again near Roarke, we can part there.”

  “How long?” the Prince asked.

  “A few days at most,” she responded automatically, her eyes now focused past him as if seeing something in her memory. “It is far enough from Roarke you won’t be detected by the Prince of Oxen’s forces, and it is close enough to the Pass that we can continue on without any added inconvenience.”

  She caught his gaze.

  “And then you can go get yourself killed in whatever way you want,” she said, the anger coming back to the surface. She turned away, and began to pack her belongings. The Prince looked over at Tomaz, but the big man had turned away as well and begun making his way to the river
once more to fill the waterskins one last time before they left.

  The three of them climbed onto their horses in silence soon after, the sun rising in the sky to their left, and set off toward Roarke.

  The next few days passed in almost total silence. The Prince did not feel much like talking, so he kept silent unless a question was asked of him, and that was seldom enough as it appeared Leah and Tomaz were just as reluctant to speak as was he. However, it soon became apparent that they still weren’t being followed, which surprised all three of them and made them wary. The Prince made a habit of reaching through the Talisman every night and every morning, searching for any sign of people following him, but time and again he found only the three of them in the middle of the giant forested mountain range.

  The mountains began to become more noticeable as well, the ground dipping less and less often back toward sea level and instead continuing to climb. The Prince knew from lessons in geography that the Roarke mountain range was easily twice the size of the Elmists, and that passage straight over the top of them was next to impossible. He wondered how the Exiles were going to get around the Pass of Roarke.

  None of my business now, he reminded himself firmly.

  One night as they began to make camp while the sun was still in the sky, the Prince broached a subject that had been on his mind. Leah had disappeared into the trees, muttering something to Tomaz but not even acknowledging the Prince’s presence.

  “Do you really think we’re being followed?” the Prince asked Tomaz.

  The big man looked up from starting a fire and raised an eyebrow at him. The Prince quickly continued.

  “It’s not that I doubt your word,” the Prince said, “it’s just that it seems like we’re the only ones for miles. As a matter of fact, we are, I can tell you that much for certain. I haven’t even caught the slightest hint of the odd hunter or shepherd for days now.”

  Tomaz looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, before letting out a long sigh and speaking.

  “I’ve been wondering that as well, truth be told. It’s something of a curiosity that we haven’t caught a hint of trouble sooner. I can only assume that they’re unsure exactly where we are.”

  “We’re almost a week past Lake Chartain,” the Prince insisted, “and we haven’t caught any sign of anyone. Maybe we got away clean this time. It’s possible don’t you –”

  The Prince cut off mid-sentence. Something, as if summoned by their conversation, was coming. He turned quickly, looking through the trees out over the side of the mountain. There appeared to be nothing there, only landscape folding out underneath them. But the Prince was certain there was something. Why was he so sure there was something?

  “Don’t I – ?”

  “Quiet,” the Prince said. He squinted his eyes as the wind picked up, blowing in his face. He reached out with his senses, using the Raven Talisman. He became more aware of the abundance of life around him, the mountain forest full of bright points of light – but they all bore the same hazy, undefined quality. No people, nothing nearby but animals. Further away perhaps?

  The Prince closed his eyes and knelt down to focus. He sent his mind out, questing in every direction, ranging over the forested mountains, down to the bottom of the valley. Nothing. It appeared that they were alone.

  Wait – there!

  It was so far away that the Prince knew he shouldn’t be able to sense it: a bright point of life, coming toward them. But it wasn’t a single point … it seemed to move and pulsate just beyond his vision, expanding and contracting strangely as if moving in disparate parts. And then he understood.

  “They’ve found our trail,” the Prince said, standing quickly. “And there’re following with an army. That must be why we haven’t seen or heard them in so long, they’ve been gathering force. They probably found the Defenders, and knew they were on the right trail. My guess is they’ve got the entire countryside covered. They’re still a few miles away … I can barely feel them … but they’re coming quickly.”

  “Are you certain?” Tomaz asked.

  The Prince nodded. Tomaz didn’t hesitate.

  “Find Leah,” was all he said before turning and rushing back to the campsite.

  Immediately, the Prince set off around the side of the mountain in the direction the Rogue girl had been headed. The Prince closed his eyes and the Talisman picked her up, pointing the Prince toward a river that came down from the mountaintop. He burst through the trees, already launching into an explanation of what was happening.

  And there was Leah standing at the edge of the river as it poured down the hillside in a gently sloping stream, all of her clothes piled carelessly on a rock behind her.

  The Prince stood breathless, his mind suddenly blank.

  Her midnight black hair fell halfway down her back, shining and clinging to her light olive skin in a shimmering wave, glints of deep blue highlighted by the rays of the sun. Her skin glistened with water droplets from the stream, as she stood, back straight, arms spread wide to either side, drinking in the sun, the mountainside, and the miles of landscape spread out in front of her. A wind whipped through the trees, racing across the clearing as if to embrace her, and she breathed it in as if it were a spring of youth and grace, making her shine with an inner light, her eyes closed, mouth open and jaw slack in surrender. Her skin dimpled in the cold, but she didn’t cover herself. She stood in the rushing brook as much a part of the world as the wind, the stream, and the earth itself.

  Without warning, she whipped around and locked eyes with him. The Prince didn’t remember having walked forward, but he now stood on the bank of the stream. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen, perhaps for her to yell at him to turn around, or for her to run for her clothes, even attack him for invading her privacy, but she did none of these things. She just continued to stare at him. She shifted slightly, and as the sun hit her from another angle the Prince’s breath caught in his throat.

  Scars crisscrossed her body, some red, thick and ugly, others barely a razor’s width and white, nearly invisible. Some were scars from battle, but many of them were long whip scars, their latticed crossings along her arms and shoulders standing out as if branded into the skin.

  She’d been beaten. Horribly.

  Horror and revulsion seized the Prince – not at her disfigurement, but at the person who had done such a thing; his stomach knotted up, and anger rose in his throat, choking him. Each of the scars seemed to be a slap to the face, a kick in the gut. A thin, nearly invisible, scar ran vertically down her chest and seemed to stand out most of all as she pierced him with her green eyes, eyes that dared him to look away, dared him to defy the evidence of the Empire’s cruelty.

  Slowly she took a step forward, the muscles in her legs bunching and stretching with a steely, coiled, grace. Her hands slowly lifted to each side and she inclined her head.

  “Your Mother’s legacy, my Prince,” she said, bowing to him, voice emotionless but gaze so intense it felt like a hand had begun to squeeze his heart and lungs, leaving him panting and unable to speak.

  “Be glad you can choose to ignore it. Some of us were never given the chance.”

  The sound of her voice broke through his clouded mind, and he dropped his gaze to the ground, looking anywhere but at her.

  “Tomaz,” he stopped, his voice coming out in a croak. He swallowed and started again, still not looking at her. “We’re breaking camp – they’ve found our trail, we’re leaving, Tomaz sent me to find you. I’ll see you back – back there.”

  He turned and ran, not even waiting to see if she would follow him. When he had reached Tomaz, he was out of breath, but the ex-Blade Maser didn’t seem to notice.

  “Where’s Leah?” he asked.

  “Coming,” the Prince managed to respond.

  “Good,” the big man said, finishing the packing.

  Leah burst into the clearing not a minute later, once more clothed, and without hesitation jumped onto her horse.

  “
This way,” she called out as she spurred the mount through the trees.

  As they rode, the Prince could feel the men behind them hot on their trail. That was a surprise – they must all be on horse as well, and though the Prince, Leah, and Tomaz all had mounts that were well rested, the Defenders, despite their boasts, certainly hadn’t been picky when purchasing the animals. None of them were built for speed.

  They rode around the lip of the mountain before dipping down into a small valley that split into two paths at the far end. When they reached the fork, the Prince realized the path to the right led downward, and in the distance he could see that the mountains gave way to a large thoroughfare with a steady amount of traffic on it. The road to Roarke.

  “That’s the way back to the main road,” Tomaz said, breathing heavily, pointing the way the Prince was looking. “This is where we part ways. Hopefully they will split their force and we will both have an easier time of avoiding them.”

  The Prince looked at the trail leading down the mountain, and turned his horse to go. But he paused. He had to know. He turned back and looked at Leah.

  “How did you get those scars?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened slightly, in surprise or anger the Prince couldn’t tell. She shifted her hands on the reins. Tomaz’s eyes narrowed on the Prince.

  “What do you know about scars, boy?”

  “It’s fine, Tomaz,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. The Prince didn’t need to follow her gaze to know that the army was closer; he could feel them growing nearer every second.

  “I lived in the city of Tyne until I was eleven years old,” she finally said, turning back to him, voice coming out hurried but quite clear. “The Empress came to visit. I put on my best dress and went out with my family to watch. When she passed where we were, we were expected to bow. No one had bothered to tell me. So, I was left standing, smiling up at this beautiful figure on a beautiful white horse. She was beauty incarnate and I was so happy to be standing there, able to see her finally. Then, not even knowing what I had done wrong, guards seized me. I was taken out of the crowd, brought to the center of town, and whipped with a lash by the Prince of Lions himself. My family took me home and whipped me as well, all the while telling me what a terrible girl I was, and at the same time that I should be grateful. Apparently it was an honor to be beaten by one of the Children, an honor to be recognized by the Empress even if it was for punishment. I came within an inch of death for bringing shame on my family. My father … he spat on me as he left the room, leaving me hanging from the chains where slaves were whipped for disobedience. He was a member of the Most High, those virtuous men and women you hope to convert. My mother made no comment. She didn’t need to - I could see what she thought of me, clear as day, written across her face. When I recovered, I ran away.”

  Her eyes were blazing with emerald fire as she dared him to say anything.

  “You can go back to your precious Empire,” she spat. “But I know what they’ll do to you. I know what they did to an innocent child who wanted to believe in glory and hope and ideals. Go. But when they kill you, when you watch them slice you open with no remorse in their eyes, then you’ll understand. Then you’ll understand that the world is made of people like us, who see evil and fight it, and people like you, who see evil and excuse it.”

  She wheeled her horse around, and launched herself up the mountain side. After a brief second, Tomaz followed, spurring his own mount even harder to catch up.

  The Prince watched them until they disappeared into the mountain forest, numb, empty, feeling the need to go, to escape the pursuing men, but knowing, deep down in his heart, that once he did his path was set. Part of him had known, all along, that what Leah had just told him was true. He would die. There was no hope for him.

  And still, knowing this, he slowly turned his horse to begin the path down the mountain. The horse began to trot, and the path fell away, and suddenly, not knowing why, maybe just wanting one last glimpse of the two Exiles, his companions - his friends? - he thrust his mind through the Raven Talisman and sent his consciousness up to them, following them along the road that led higher up into the mountains. He found them, and watched them go in his mind’s eye, feeling their life dwindle as they rode further and further away. They were almost gone. Gone forever.

  Sudden as a flash of lightning, he felt another life spring into being in the direction they had gone. He jerked back, shocked. There had been nothing, and now there was a growing life energy focused in a single point at the top of the mountain along the left hand fork. At first the Prince thought he was seeing things, but the life continued to grow - to grow? How was that possible?

  Understanding hit him, cold and dead, numbing him with terror and fear for the Exiles. Only one thing could leave that kind of signature.

  The Prince looked down the right hand fork, down toward the distant road. The path duty would lead him to. He looked back up the way he had come, back toward the left hand fork where Tomaz and Leah had gone, and still he could sense it, that life growing, morphing, building. It was huge … elemental.

  In panic, he looked behind him and felt the enormous multitude of men combing through the forest, making sure he wouldn’t slip through their net this time. There were thousands of them, and they were moving very quickly. He wouldn’t have time to come back this way if he didn’t take the trail down the mountain now.

  “Shadows and light!” he growled to himself.

  But what does it matter? he thought. They’re only Exiles. They chose this life –

  Anger rose up in him like a bolt of lightning, and cleared his mind, consumed his well thought out arguments and plans, and in that instant he knew where he belonged.

  He kicked his boots into the sides of his horse and was rocketed up the mountainside. He could feel the energy of the new life still growing and he knew it wasn’t over yet. Thunder sounded in the sky above him and he looked up to see black clouds forming over the top of the mountain. Too fast – he wouldn’t reach them in time!

  He urged all of the speed he could out of his mount, climbing higher and higher, leaving the road to Roarke far behind him, racing against the building clouds. If it started to rain, then he’d know the process was complete and the monster would become corporeal.

  Trees flew past him as he tracked both the life energy of the Exiles and kept a check on the life of the creature. The trail was leading him well up into the mountains, high enough that the wind whipping past him cut straight through his layers of clothing. His horse was frothing at the mouth, but the Prince continued to push it mercilessly.

  Faster! he urged it. The Exiles were close, but he didn’t know if he’d reach them in time. He looked up and saw the clouds converging on a spot not too far ahead of them. His horse came to a small clearing in the midst of a grove of trees, and there they were, moving at a steady trot twenty yards in front of him.

  “STOP!”

  The two Exiles turned in their saddles to look back, barely slowing as they did so, but then reining in their horses as they saw him. Tomaz dismounted and moved forward, roaring to the Prince over the rising wind.

  “WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE TYRANT’S SAGGY LEFT –?”

  “THERE’S A DAEMON RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!” he yelled back.

  They both stared at him blankly, obviously not hearing him, keeping a tight rein on their horses as they tried to keep them calm against the force of the rising wind.

  “A WHAT?” Tomaz shouted back.

  “A DAEMON!” the Prince roared. “AN ELEMENTAL! WE NEED TO LEAVE – NOW!”

  “WE’RE NOT LEAVING!” Leah shouted back, clearly having heard almost nothing he’d said. “RUN BEFORE YOU CAN’T!”

  “NO, LEAH, STOP!”

  Lightning and thunder broke through the clouds and momentarily blinded the Prince and left his ears ringing. Rain began to fall, and the Prince looked up at the sky, terror seizing him. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of this one.

&nb
sp; The clouds began to circle in on each other, and lightning and thunder rocked the world once more. The black clouds parted, and an enormous shape plummeted toward them.

  The Storm Daemon crashed into the ground in front of them, lightning shooting across the ground in sheets. The Prince dove behind a tree and the raw energy shot past him, leaving his muscles limp and jerky. He forced himself back up, looking around frantically for Leah and Tomaz – hoping they had found cover across the clearing.

  The Prince turned and looked at the creature before him.

  It was nearly twenty feet tall, made of a blinding white substance that the Prince knew to be the essence of the storm itself. It wore a white helm shaped like a crown, made of razor sharp shards of ice and flickering pulses of lightning, around a skeletal head, out of which glared eyes that were pockets of ice. It was clothed in blue and white armor and a cloak that flowed like storm clouds, gray and misty. Hands like claws, each of the fingers as long as the Prince’s arm, held a staff as long as it was tall, one side a pointed, wicked looking saber blade, the other end a cruel spear point. The entire length crackled with raw lightning.

  The Daemon drew a deep breath and the air in the clearing rushed toward it, a mighty wind that tore at the Prince’s clothes and pulled him toward the monster.

  The Prince knew of no way to defeat a Daemon that did not involve killing the Bloodmages who had created it, and as distance mattered little when there was a full circle of twelve summoning a Daemon, the Bloodmages could be halfway to the castle of Roarke. All that they could do now was run.

  The Prince saw the two Exiles looking out from behind a tree not too far from him. Hoping against hope the Daemon wouldn’t notice him, he took off running as fast as he could in their direction. There was a roar of surprise as the Daemon caught the motion. The Prince dove behind the tree hiding Tomaz and Leah just as the creature brandished its staff, shooting a crackling bolt of lightning through the spot the Prince had just been. The Prince ran headlong into Tomaz’s chest and stumbled back. Big arms shot out and steadied him.

  “We need to run! Now!” he roared over the rushing wind. Lightning and thunder crackled again, and the top of the tree was severed from the trunk and came crashing down nearly on top of them.

  “We need Valerium!” Leah called. She was peering around the edge of the tree as if examining how to fight off the monster. The Prince grabbed her by the cloak and pulled her back, turning her around to shout in her face.

  “What in the Empress’ name is Valerium?!” he cried.

  The answer was lost as the rest of the tree was uprooted when the Storm Daemon attacked again. The Prince was suddenly airborne, thrown across the clearing. He landed with a crash on a tree root that dug into his back and tore his breath away. He choked and tried to push himself to his feet, but the Daemon was there, hurricane winds twisting around its head, as a clawed, blue and gray foot shot out and pinned him to the ground. The Prince let out a cry of pain and struggled vainly to free himself, the heat already seeping from his blood as the cold bit deeply into his body. He looked up into the icy, enchanted eyes of the Elemental, and knew there was nothing he could do to save himself.

  The Daemon raised its staff, lightning crackling along its length, and brought it down. The Prince closed his eyes and waited for the end.

  But it didn’t come – instead, there was a piercing cry of pain from above him, like that of lightning ripping open the fabric of the sky, and the Prince opened his eyes. The Daemon reared back and turned, a dazzling white dagger sticking out of its neck, just below the edge of its crown shaped helm.

  A figure burst from concealment, a sword like a white flame held in one hand.

  The Daemon charged the figure, roaring in rage and pain. That alone was enough to stun the Prince – he had never seen a Daemon in pain before. The figure dodged and the sword lanced out, to the Prince’s continued amazement, in the complicated sword form of Wolf on the Mountain, flawlessly allowing the figure to dodge the Daemon while slicing through the blue-white armor coating it.

  Another flash of white caught the Prince’s eye, and he looked over and saw a second figure, nearly as large as Tomaz, wielding an enormous ax made of the same white metal. The figure reared its arms back, and then hurled the ax through the air; it swung through a large arc, and lopped one of the Daemon’s arms clean off. A terrible scream rent the air, a howling and tearing that resounded with the raw power of thunder and the piercing shriek of wind. The Daemon swung its staff, lightning branching from the saber’s blade, through the air - but the figure had dodged back, and it rolled to the side just as a flash of energy shot over its head, ripping into a pine tree and shattering it into a thousand flying bits of kindling.

  The smaller figure took a running leap, and threw the white sword through the air. It flew completely straight, as if a force was pushing it directly through the intervening space toward its target. With a scraping, ear-splitting crack, it plunged into the creature’s neck, just below the crown-shaped helm. As it sunk in, the white metal seemed to pulse, and the Daemon appeared to swell. And then, with a final heaving cry, the elemental monster exploded into a thousand shards of ice that went flying in as many directions. The Prince, Leah, and Tomaz threw themselves to the ground in a heap, hands covering their heads. Lightning flashed and thunder roared; the Prince felt a searing force and an accompanying percussive boom rock through his body and explode in his ears –

  And then it all stopped, and everything was deadly quiet. The Prince lifted the edge of his drape-over, which had blown up over his head, and looked to where the Daemon had been. But where the creature had stood was now just a blasted heath, and in the sky the scattered clouds of a dying storm.

  The Prince felt his head lift, almost involuntarily, as if drawn by a living lodestone, his eyes flying across the ground, trying to locate the two figures that had saved them - the two figures that had killed that which should have been immortal.

  There!

  The Prince was on his feet, stumbling across the clearing before he knew what he was doing. As he stumbled over the uneven ground he saw that the two figures had also thrown themselves to the earth, and were only just slowly picking themselves up.

  “Davydd!”

  The Prince gaped in surprise as Leah shot across the clearing toward the smaller of the two figures, laughing in a way he had never seen. The Prince shook his head, trying to force his eyes to focus, and when he looked up again the smaller figure had resolved into a tall, lean young man, returning a gleaming white sword to a sheath slung across his back, and the long white dagger to a loop at his belt.

  “Leah!” he laughed out in response, wrapping her up in a tight embrace.

  “Lorna,” rumbled Tomaz.

  The Prince looked at him and then toward the bigger figure to whom he was nodding, and noticed it was a woman. She had short-cropped light hair cut as if a bowl had been placed over her head and all of the hair sticking from it had been sheared off. She walked forward with a lumbering gait that reminded the Prince of the bears sometimes brought to the Fortress for court entertainment.

  “I’ve always told you that you should carry Valerium with you,” the young man said to Leah with a roguish smile.

  “Good against Elementals,” Leah responded, smile turning into a frown, “but terrible against everything else.”

  “Now that, is a complete and utter fallacy that I will not accept, particularly coming from my sister.”

  “Sister?” the Prince asked incredulously.

  Both of them turned to look at him, and with a shock the Prince realized they were almost identical. With one simple, very noticeable difference: the boy had shining, scarlet pupils.

  “What’s this? You don’t usually pick up strays,” the young man said, looking the Prince up and down and smiling as if at a private joke. The red eyes seemed to mock him, and the Prince couldn’t help but think of the red crystal Bloodmages carried with them to perform their magic.

  Now
that the Prince had a good look at him, he was surprised he hadn’t pegged him for Leah’s brother immediately. He had the same lithe frame as Leah, with the core of steely cat-like grace that made her movements seem like she was dancing. He had the same shade of black hair, though he wore his short and in an unkempt, windswept tousle. And the eyes – both red and green had a piercing quality that showed a clear and masterful intelligence. What was different was their carriage; where Leah held herself with a tension and rigidity that seemed to exude strength, the young man held himself with a slouching ease that radiated command and charisma. They seemed like two sides of the same coin.

  “He’s a friend,” Tomaz said from behind them. They all turned to look at the big man as he approached, followed by the young man’s companion and leading five horses, two of which were shiny, light gray, and quite obviously meant for speed and endurance.

  “Well, a friend,” the young man acknowledged. “Where do you come from and what could you have possibly done to earn my sister’s company? She would rather travel with a talking parrot than another person.”

  He smiled mockingly at Leah.

  But Leah was ignoring him and staring directly at the Prince, who felt his throat go dry. A few awkward seconds passed, wherein the Prince just managed to prevent himself from swallowing nervously. What was she going to say?

  “He’s Tomaz’s project,” she said finally, “he fell in with us when we were passing through the Elmist Mountains. He’s a runaway from a family of the Most High. Something, I think you will find as intriguing as I did. His name is … Raven.”

  “Raven,” Davydd said, tasting the word as he said it. “Very well.”

  The Prince held Leah’s gaze and tried to convey his gratitude without words, but whether she understood or not he couldn’t tell.

  “Mmm,” the young man said, looking back and forth between them. He stepped forward abruptly with a smile that seemed to mock both the Prince and himself, and offered his hand.

  “Davydd Goldwyn,” he said.

  Slowly, the Prince reached out and grasped the hand, noticing that it was slim but nonetheless covered in calluses that belied constant work with a sword. He reached out briefly through the Raven Talisman, but felt nothing special about this Exile. How had he managed to destroy a Daemon?

  “Raven,” the Prince said, taking Leah’s lead.

  “And this is Lorna,” he said, dropping the Prince’s hand and motioning to the woman who had come up with Tomaz. She had retrieved the large battle ax from where it had been flung after the Daemon had exploded, and wore it slung on her back just like Davydd wore his sword. He was shocked to find that she stood just a head shorter than Tomaz. She grunted and nodded to the Prince before turning to Davydd and speaking in a husky voice.

  “Eshendai – there is a force coming on us very quickly. It looks to be several thousand strong, all cavalry with mounted archers.”

  “How do you know that? They must be a mile away still,” the Prince blurted out, reaching out and sensing the army still far away but certainly gaining.

  “Ignore him,” Leah said with a long-suffering look, “he thinks he’s a tracker but he has no idea what he’s doing.”

  The Prince felt his ears burn as they all turned away from him and looked at Davydd and Leah. He understood that she was covering for him, but he still didn’t like it.

  “Is there a cache of supplies nearby we could go to?” Leah asked Davydd.

  “No,” he responded, “and you’re not going to get much farther on those horses so the normal route is out.”

  For a moment the two of them stood silently thinking, and then Davydd clicked his tongue and made for his mount.

  “The bridge.”

  Leah’s eyes widened.

  “It’s finished already?”

  “Indeed,” Davydd said with another rakish smile. “We were part of the first scouting party sent across. We were trying to navigate a path through this area – it’s ringed with Bloodmage traps like that Storm Walker.”

  “I should have rechecked the area before running through,” Leah said angrily, “I led us right into it. I was so focused on … nevermind.”

  The Prince’s eyes flicked in her direction and saw small spots of color light on her cheeks, but the young man didn’t seem to notice.

  “No worries, sister mine,” Davydd said. “We’ll lead them up to the higher pass, cross the bridge, and cut the restraints. We should have enough time to get there and they won’t be able to follow us. We’ll have to repair it eventually, but since winter will be on us soon and the pass will be closed for months, we can deal with that later.”

  “The Elders will take us to task for ruining what was just built,” said the large woman. Her mouth didn’t move much when she spoke – in fact it barely opened, making her words sound like a kind of soft, bass growl.

  “You’re right, but there’s not help for it,” Leah said simply. She looked at Tomaz, who nodded his assent, and they all mounted, the Prince remaining silent, seeing no way forward but to go with the group for now – he had to stay out of reach of that army.

  They made their way out of the clearing, and continued the upward trek, passing the midway point on the mountain and beginning to make their way past patches of snow. The Prince pulled his drape-over closer about him and settled the hood upon his head. It helped a little, but he was still shivering. They continued in this way for the better part of the afternoon, keeping up a quick trot along a narrow hunting trail, working their way through territory treacherous enough that the army coming up behind them would no doubt be forced to slow to a crawl to maneuver their larger numbers.

  At one point they passed along a ridge that afforded them a view of a castle and city far down at the entrance to a large pass through the mountain range. The castle of Roarke.

  The Prince reached out and felt the life of his brother Ramael even from the large distance. The Ox Talisman endowed his brother with enhanced physical strength and power, and he was positioned here in the southern most Province because of that fact. He was not the general that Rikard was, but he was the most unforgiving and brutal of all the Children. His physical strength was matched only by his force of will – and he had never been defeated on the battlefield in an open fight. The Exiled only managed to keep him on this side of the Pass because he could not bring his full force to bear on them; they were able to hide by stringing his force along with ambushes and false trails that led nowhere.

  Suddenly the Prince realized the significance of what was about to happen. He was about to pass into the lands of the Exiled Kindred, a place where none of his siblings and none of the subjects of the Empire had been for nearly half a millennia.

  “Why did you come back?” Leah asked.

  The Prince looked up from examining the castle in the pass and into the frowning face of the girl. He realized he had fallen behind the group of Exiles and she had fallen back as well to talk to him.

  “You needed help,” he said quietly. “You didn’t know the Daemon was coming. I thought I could warn you in time, and we could get away before….”

  He trailed off and shrugged.

  “Guess that didn’t work out particularly well,” she said.

  They exchanged a glance and he laughed ruefully. “I suppose not.”

  Together they rode along for a stretch of time, not saying anything. Finally, the Prince had to break the silence.

  “And also,” he said, “I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen.”

  He felt his cheeks turning red and kept his eyes firmly facing ahead. He felt her do so as well, and when she spoke it was with a pausing awkwardness that was very unlike her.

  “You could have. Ignored it, I mean. None of your brothers and sisters would have even given it a second glance. And none of them would have listened to what I said … for which, I apologize. It was said in anger.”

  “I … there is no need for apologies. And I know that none of the other Children would have come to hel
p you,” he responded, “but the more time I spend away from them the more I realize I’m not very much like them after all.”

  They rode in silence again for a good amount of time, following Davydd, Tomaz, and Lorna at a quick trot. As they rounded a boulder completely covered in snow and ice, she spoke again, her voice misting in the air.

  “I know you didn’t want to come with us,” she said, her voice taking on a steely quality as if expecting a fight. “But it doesn’t look like you have much of a choice. And I should tell you that once you’ve gone over the pass, you won’t be able to come back.”

  The Prince looked up sharply.

  “What?”

  He pulled hard on his reins and the horse came to an abrupt stop amidst a small cloud of dislodged snow and earth. Leah pulled up as well. The others heard the noise and turned.

  “We don’t allow people to leave our lands. Once someone has crossed through the Pass or over the mountains with us, they have to remain in Vale until the Elders agree they are ready to leave.”

  “And how long would that take?”

  “It’s not a matter of time,” she said, “it’s a matter of trust.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, and then to Tomaz waiting further up the trail. He reached back with his mind and felt the army of the Empire still following behind them. The choice appeared very simple on its face: go forward with the Exiles, or die with the army. He nodded and set his horse in motion once more, the shivers running through him only partially due to the cold. He’d made his choice back at the crossroads – he’d thrown his lot in with the Exiles. His mind tried to whirl into action but he shut it down. This was his only way forward – there would be time for thought and reflection later.

  They came to the bridge not too long afterwards. It was a simple thing, made of wood and rope that was coated in tar and resin to provide a steady footing for horses. They all blindfolded their animals in preparation to make their way across.

  The Prince felt his heart beating faster in his chest as they crossed the bridge. It was barely fifty feet long, and it was sturdy enough that the Prince felt no worry of falling even though they were suspended better than a thousand feet in the air, and below them yawned a black, shadowed abyss. What had his heart knocking against his ribs was the realization of what he was doing.

  Once they were on the other side, Tomaz and Lorna destroyed the wooden restraints that held the bridge in place, and then began to saw through the ropes that held it up. After a quarter of an hour, with the sharp sound of snapping fibers, the rope unwound and split, and the bridge fell into the chasm, crashing and resounding off the steep stone walls. The Prince winced with each sound, unable to control his frayed nerves. The four Exiles all breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, but the Prince did not.

  He followed them as they made their way through the mountain passes on the other side of the chasm, and soon they began to make their way back downward, this time on the other side of the mountain range. For the first time in history of the Empire, a Prince of the Realm had peacefully crossed into the Seventh Principality.