The Desert Prince

by Peter V. Brett

  DOMINATION

  The moment stretches long, and Chadan slumps, his last reserve of strength leaving him. I crawl to him as he drops to his knees, wheezing shallow, rapid breaths through a mouth spattered with blood.

  Iraven paces me as I move, holding position between me and the demon king. My brother’s eyes are not clouded like Levan’s were. They regard me with cold dispassion, like a student studying ants under glass.

  I cradle Chadan in my arms, presenting no threat in an attempt to buy time as I gather my strength.

  “I didn’t…” Chadan coughs, “…stand…frozen.”

  I hold my prince tighter, touching his face. “No, you didn’t.” I kiss him gently, tasting his blood on my lips.

  I look back at Iraven. “You never sealed the breach, did you, brother?”

  Iraven throws his head back and laughs. “You speak as if this grunting ape had a chance. Everything was according to my design.”

  I look over his shoulder at Alagai Ka, standing aloof and unreadable a few paces back. My brother isn’t here at all, anymore. Revulsion shudders through me as I realize he speaks with the demon’s voice.

  “The leaders of this breeding ground are barely drones,” Iraven says. “Even if they had doubts about our breach, none had the courage to investigate for themselves. They were cowed into trusting this puppet and his men, who only remember what I wish them to of our first encounter.”

  So the demon corrupted my brother a month ago, at least, planting suggestions in his mind that held even under the light of day.

  “You made him send Chikga to kill me,” I guess.

  “Your clutchmate was already entertaining the thought,” Iraven says. “It was a simple matter to stoke his feelings of resentment and fear into action.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “To drive you out of the Holy City,” Iraven says. “The training drone was no match for you, but I knew it would force your hand and bring you and the Explorer’s son to me.”

  Darin.

  “That isn’t going to happen,” I say. “He is safe in the Holy City.”

  Iraven clucks his tongue. “He and your other clutchmates approach even now, thinking they can save you. But we have time enough to feed before they arrive.”

  More of the demon’s human slaves appear, almost all those that remained when I was separated from the group. Their helms removed, my brothers are puppets of the demon king.

  Arick is not among them. If his hora shield protected him even after his helm was removed, he may have been able to escape. Or they may have been forced to kill him. There is no way to know.

  Gorvan and Faseek separate themselves from the group. Once, the sight of my spear brothers would give me hope, but these are not my brothers. Like Levan, their eyes are glazed and blank. Alagai Ka hasn’t had time to corrupt them fully, as he has with Iraven. If I can kill the demon, they will be free.

  Still, I am unprepared when Faseek takes the last few strides at a run, leaping to kick me in the head. The powerful blow knocks me onto my back, stunned, as they grab Chadan.

  My prince’s aura is cooling as life ebbs from his oxygen-starved blood. He gives Faseek a sad look, then his head lolls as he rolls it around to regard Gorvan. “I forgive you, brothers.” His words are a dry croak. “I know this is not you.”

  Our brothers say nothing. Faseek pulls off Chadan’s helmet and Gorvan drops him unceremoniously to the ground. Chadan stiffens, and then gets to his feet, his injury seemingly forgotten. He turns to me, but the serene face I am so used to is gone, replaced with an open mask of fear, helpless to stop his body as it marches over to where the demon king stands.

  “Resist,” I growl. My ears are still ringing, but I know which way is down, and that’s halfway to balance. I stay limp, hoping Alagai Ka will underestimate me one last time.

  “I cannot.” Tears run down Chadan’s cheeks, streaking the blood and grime. “He’s too strong.”

  I choke back a sob, instead meeting his eyes with all the love and determination I can muster as I speak the words we’ve shared so many times.

  “We are the Sharum of Desert Spear. What is our fate?”

  Chadan swallows hard, but he seems to draw strength from the words. “To spend our lives on alagai talons.”

  “Indeed,” Iraven says as Chadan is made to kneel before the demon king. Alagai Ka raises a finger, and what looks like a woman’s black manicured nail grows into a hooked talon three inches long.

  I’ve gathered my strength long enough. I tuck my feet under me while the attention is on Chadan. Alagai Ka is only a few strides away. I can cross that distance in a second and butt him in the head with the mind wards on my helmet. That should stun him long enough for my hanzhar to finish the job.

  I flex my muscles, but just as I start to rise, Iraven darts in, tripping me before I halve the distance. My own strength is used to twist the knife from my hand and slam me back down into the stone floor. Iraven puts a boot between my shoulder blades, pinning me facedown to wail helplessly as Alagai Ka slices my prince’s head open like a gourd, removing the top to sink his claws into the wet meat within. He stuffs the disgusting mass into his maw, masticating with three rows of sharp teeth.

  I stop screaming long enough to sick up, but pinned to the ground, most of it gets on me. Iraven and my spear brothers look on impassively as the demon king feasts on Chadan’s brains and my heart is torn to pieces.

  Right until this moment, I expected some miracle. Some sign the Creator is watching, and would send help or give us strength to prevail. Like a fool, I saw what I wanted to see in the prophecy, and believed it beyond sense. I shouldn’t have followed Chadan here. I should have dragged him into Micha’s safehold with me.

  Iraven makes a slurping sound in my ear. “He loved you, you know. And died in anguish, knowing you would share his fate. The pain gives exquisite flavor to his mind.”

  Gone is any last vestige of my dignity. I moan and strain against his hold, but Iraven knows more than me about pressure points and force. He keeps me pinned, forcing me to watch as Alagai Ka finishes feeding and casts my prince’s lifeless body aside. Only then does he let me go.

  I crawl to Chadan, shaking and weeping. My heart feels like it’s trying to climb my throat, and all I can manage is a toneless moan as I take his cooling body in my arms.

  * * *

  —

  I look up and see the demon king watching me with his black, lidless eyes. I can sense his pleasure, drinking my suffering as he licks Chadan’s blood from his claws like Baroness Emelia pairing wine with fine Angierian cheese.

  The realization breaks despair’s hold on me. I harden my heart and set Chadan’s body on the ground, taking off my night veil to wrap the ruin of his head. Blood quickly seeps through the cloth, and my hands come away sticky with it. I am not laying just my prince to rest, but a part of myself—a life that could have been, for both of us, snuffed out before it had a chance. My tears are for both of us, but I have no time for tear bottles, and let them streak my face. “I will see you in Heaven, brother.”

  Then I fall into the rhythmic breathing of sharusahk, which Chadan used to maintain when he wanted to suppress his emotions.

  Alagai Ka loses interest when I look up, heart cold. He turns instead to my kneeling brothers, remnants of the Princes Unit and the Spears of the Desert. Waves of magic emanate from the demon, washing over them like ever-expanding ripples in a pond. As those ripples touch the men, they stiffen, then begin to writhe, moaning in pain as wave after wave runs through them.

  I watch as their auras begin to change, the demon editing their minds the way Mother rewrites a speech.

  “They will have no recollection of what really happened this night.” Iraven’s voice is a low, mocking whisper. “They will return to the light with tales of valor and heroism, of how their brothers martyred them
selves to give Iraven, Majah son of the Deliverer, the opening to finish his father’s work and destroy Alagai Ka.”

  The demon has its back to me, so I turn to face Iraven, or at least the thing that wears his body. It looks like my brother. Sounds like him. Walks with the same swagger. Speaks with the same condescension. But it isn’t him. Just another extension of Alagai Ka, a conduit to speak to while the demon king divides his attention between us and the hundreds of minds he’s editing.

  “Your surviving spear brothers will be distraught at the loss of their princes,” Iraven predicts. “They will blame the Damaji for creating the rift between you, and for stripping the men of their pride and unit crest right before Waning. They will don the spear and olive in your honor, and assassinate Aleveran, paving the way for a civil war the ‘hero’ Iraven can ride to the throne. And then the city is mine.”

  I get up, shaking my head. I will spend my life on alagai talons, but I will not spend it cheaply. “The storms will end.”

  Iraven snorts. “You humans and your dice. All these centuries, trying to look at infinity through a pinhole.”

  I think of Grandmum Elona. The way she could cut her enemies apart without even touching them. I throw Iraven one of her most withering looks. “If you mind demons see the future so clearly, how is it humans exterminated all your brothers fifteen years ago?”

  A vein throbs on Iraven’s forehead, and he flashes a dangerous smile. “My brethren were fools. But I am still alive, and my vengeance has already begun.”

  He paces in front of me, moving in close. I can smell spiced lamb on his breath. “The storms will end not because you won, but because there is no point in continuing them once I have you and control the city from within. It will be a safe larder for the new queen.”

  A chill runs through me, but I keep the rhythm of my breath. Let the demon see the fear in my aura. “The queens were all killed.”

  “They were, and they weren’t.” Iraven winks. “I will show you personally, after you lure your friends to me and help subdue them, just as your brother did to you.”

  Iraven is in close, but the demon thinks me cowed and is a trice too slow to react to my quick punch to the throat. I advance as he staggers back, delivering a stomp to the side of his knee.

  Even the finest armor offers scant protection to the knees unless the fighter is willing to sacrifice mobility, and only a fool would sacrifice mobility in the Maze. His leg snaps like a dry twig.

  I’m already moving as Iraven collapses, out of reach of his grasping fingers before he realizes he cannot pursue. The demon still has his back turned as I sprint two steps and cross the remaining distance between us in a leap. None of my enslaved brothers are close enough to stop me.

  I crash into Alagai Ka from behind, expecting to bowl him over. The demon king doesn’t budge, and I feel as if I’ve thrown myself into a stone wall. Stunned, I grasp the sharply ridged shoulders and throw back my head to slam the mind wards on my helmet into the back of his skull.

  Without turning, Alagai Ka reaches out almost casually to catch one of my arms. He rolls his midsection, yanking my arm to redirect the force of my attack into a perfect sharusahk throw.

  I hit the ground hard, but there can be no hesitation now. I won’t get another chance at this. I bound back to my feet and continue to attack. The demon tries to draw a ward in the air, but I ruin it with a high kick, then whip around to throw my opposite leg into his midsection.

  It’s like kicking a goldwood tree. Again, I expect my smaller foe to be knocked aside, but his feet seem rooted to the ground by more than mere talons. He hits me with a backhand blow to the face that nearly dislocates my jaw. Alagai Ka may be no bigger than a small man but with terrifying strength he bats my punches away and seizes me by the throat, lifting me clear off the ground.

  I choke and pull helplessly at his wrist. The demon king’s arm is longer than mine, and my punches fall short. With no ground to offer leverage, I throw my hip forward to generate momentum for a kick to the demon’s head.

  He might have parried with his other arm, but Alagai Ka lets it happen, accepting the blow without flinching. The many vestigial horns that form a crown around his brow are still sharp, and my leg comes away torn and bloody. I try to cry out, but only a crushed squeak escapes my lips.

  Unable to draw breath, I lose the calm I maintained with its rhythm. I thrash desperately as Gorvan and Faseek come forward to unfasten my helmet and pull it off my head.

  The demon’s grip loosens slightly, and I draw a half breath as his cranium throbs.

  * * *

  —

  I flinch, expecting sudden pain or some psychic struggle, but there is nothing. I feel a sudden warmth on my arm, and the demon king hisses. Gorvan tears the white sleeve away to reveal Belina’s armlet, but he and Faseek fumble with it, unable to so much as find the latch. They strain and pull at the little spear to no avail.

  “It’s a blood lock,” I croak. “Your slaves cannot open it, and you and your drones cannot touch it.”

  “I could cut your arm off,” Iraven is sitting up, calmly holding his broken knee in place while the hora in his armor speed the healing, “but I wish to present you to the queen unspoiled.”

  He gets to his feet, though his left leg still bends unnaturally as he strides over to me. The pain must be intense, but under the demon’s sway, Iraven shows no sign of pain or discomfort.

  “And why bother, when we have the blood to open it right here?” Iraven presses his thumb against the tip of the little spear, offering his own blood instead of his mother’s. Whatever magic discerns such things accepts the substitution, and the red drains from the gem, leaving it clear as the spear slides free and the latch pops open.

  I have a flash of panic, and then my synapses catch fire as the demon slips inside my mind.

  * * *

  —

  Memories flip past my mind’s eye, the demon going through them like the pages of a scrapbook. My shame as Mother dressed me down for disappointing her with a less-than-perfect test score. Selen forcing a submission from me in the practice yard. The first time I insisted on making my own dress for the Solstice Festival and looked like a fool because I made those stupid ruffles in an attempt to soften my shoulders. Having to cover myself in baths and privies and sweat rooms my entire life, even as others walked around nude without a second thought.

  All the nights I cried myself to sleep.

  I sense Alagai Ka’s pleasure at my suffering, but these small moments are not enough to satisfy the monster’s hunger. He burrows deeper, clawing past my defenses with ease as he violates my most private thoughts.

  Dropping my guard on the borough tour to kiss Lanna, only to have demons exploit that one moment of vulnerability to kill half the children in the camp. The realization that Micha and Mother had been lying to me my entire life.

  These the demon savors, feeding in a way meat and blood cannot satiate. Still it is not enough.

  “A lady doesn’t eat with her fingers,” Mother said at the table.

  “A lady sits with both feet on the floor…”

  “A lady doesn’t use language like that…”

  A thousand half-forgotten moments forming an endless litany from my mother as she attempted to make me pass in polite society, to shape me into the duchess she wanted me to be.

  But I am not a lady. I don’t even know what the word means, anymore. Grandmum was a lady, and so was Captain Wonda, and neither of them ever had much use for Mother’s school of lady’s manners.

  “You are my daughter, but you are also my son.”

  Alagai Ka sucks at my memories like a baby at the breast, forcing me to relive moments of childhood through adult eyes. Did I tell Mother I wanted to be a girl because it was what I wanted, or did I just say what I thought she wanted to hear? What she spent the first five summers of my life coaching
me to say? I was too young to truly understand the choice she was giving me, or the ramifications it would have on my life.

  Instead, Mother took a child’s promise as tacit consent to guide me away from masculine pursuits, even those I had aptitude for, redirecting me to others she found more suitable. She gave me the sewing kit that brought me so many hours of pleasure to keep me occupied because she wouldn’t let me go hunting with Selen and the general. She scowled and pressured me from wearing breeches, even as Selen gave up dresses almost entirely.

  I’ve never allowed myself to dwell on it, to truly let myself get angry with Mother. I’ve told myself she loved me. That she tried and meant her best, but did not have the time she would have wished with me.

  But caught in the demon’s will, I have no choice but to wallow. An acid burn of anger builds in my chest as I watch it all unfold—the big lie of my life built on countless smaller ones, starting since birth. Every moment manipulated by the duchess and the surrogates she sent to mother me. Grandmum Elona and her powder kit. Darsy and Favah with their endless lessons. And Micha, the living weapon she planted beside my cradle in the guise of a nanny.

  Selen was no less a girl than me, even as she hunted and strutted around in leggings and kissed anyone she liked. Part of me hated her for it. Part of me still does. Selen was allowed to be herself. To find that self on her own terms and in her own time. I never had that chance.

  I try to pull away from the feeling. Selen is my best friend. It isn’t right to blame her for my problems. But I feel the demon’s will guiding my thoughts like Mother did my life, keeping my pain, my confusion over who I am, at the forefront. Keeping me distracted and off balance as his tendrils snake and burrow through my brain.

  Does it matter who I am, when a demon is in my mind?

  But I can’t deny it matters to me. Everything changed when the Krasians thought I was male. Who knows what they would do if they learned the truth? Who knows what it would do to my friendships at Gatherers’ University or with my spear brothers? What the royals from other duchies trying to broker marriage with me would do if they knew?