The Prince of Ravens

  * * *

  After the Prince of Raven’s betrayal, the Exile girl named Leah lay at the base of the tree for a long time. She regained consciousness sometime later, and though her first instinct was to sit up straight and look around for the shadow-cursed princeling, she remained still, knowing the wave of nausea that followed head trauma would hit her momentarily.

  Just as she had expected, not a second later her stomach suddenly began to do backflips, and her vision swam even though she had yet to open her eyes. For a moment or two she let the feeling wash over her, then she slowly sat up and took a deep breath to still herself. The throbbing in her head continued, but the nausea in her stomach quickly passed.

  Slowly she opened her eyelids, and let out a slight moan as the rays of light stabbed into her eye sockets and sent needles down her spine. Her sides ached where the princeling had struck her, but her hands, while still numb, at least seemed to be working properly, likely indicating no serious damage. The image of the Prince’s attack flashed through her mind, and she, grudgingly, marveled at how well trained he was. He had disposed of her as quickly as she would have a common foot soldier.

  She looked around and saw that the packhorse, Trudger, was gone. The packs were where they had left them, though hers had been torn open … it looked like the only thing missing was the largest of the waterskins. She stood up, only to fall back down halfway through the motion as she realized she was tied to the tree against which she had been propped.

  “Lovely,” she grumbled. She arched her neck to try to get a look at the knots that bound her, but her head began to pound so terribly that she was forced to close her eyes and lean back lest she retch all over herself.

  After the wave of sickness had passed, she opened her eyes again and realized that, even though the light appeared far too bright to her, the sun had begun to sink in the east and dusk was only an hour or two away. Shadows had begun to cloak the area under the trees, all stretching off to the east. She’d been sitting here unconscious for the better part of the day. Tomaz should be back any time now.

  As if summoned by her thought, there was the crackle of rustling leaves, and the Ashandel appeared at the campsite. He pulled up short as he took in the scene around him. Shock and dismay crossed his face, and in a swirl of his long cloak, he was off his horse Malial and racing toward her, his greatsword, Malachi, unsheathed in his hand.

  He dropped to her side and picked up a dagger, which had been lying on the forest floor beside her – her dagger. Yes, she remembered now, that was where they had fallen. He sheathed Malachi and with three quick movements of the dagger she was free, the bonds cut from her wrists and ankles.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice dangerous, like the anticipatory rumble of an active volcano.

  “The princeling made his escape.”

  Leah was not the kind of person to be vindictive - at least not toward her friends - but she felt a kind of twisted pleasure in saying those words to Tomaz, who had been so convinced the Child was no more than a misunderstood boy. Her head gave another nasty throb, and she sucked in a hissing breath.

  The Ashandel stared at her for a long time, and she knew from experience that he was absorbing what she had said.

  “Impossible. Where would he go?”

  “Banelyn,” she said immediately, looking him directly in the eye. “I’ve known ever since he gave that speech on death that he would go there. You and I both know that there’s a Hooded One there - and not just any bloody Seeker but a Shadow Lord as well - and he’ll lead us right to them. So when you left, I knew that he would make his move. I had planned to let him “lose” me when he made his escape, but he’s more ruthless than I’d expected and he attacked … what matters is that we have a way in to Banelyn now, a way to find the Seeker. If we go now we can catch him - Tomaz, after all the time we spent trying to find the way into the Hooded One’s hideout, now the Prince will lead us right to it if we follow him quickly enough. We’ll have the Seeker and the Prince both.”

  If Leah had expected praise, she was sorely mistaken. A number of different emotions crossed Tomaz’s face: anger, contempt, pity, until finally settling on fury. Leah felt a sudden twinge of fear and a sense of vertigo - many times had she seen that look on Tomaz’s face, but never once had it been directed at her. For the first time in her life she felt the way countless others must have before their lives had ended under the dazzling steel of the giant’s sword.

  “You let him go, knowing that it might lead to his death.”

  It was not a question, nor was it a statement. It was an accusation.

  “Yes,” Leah said, as calmly as she could in the face of such inexorable fury. Years of working with Tomaz had taught her that while her moral compass sometimes went awry, his did not. He always did what was right, and such fury as creased his features was reserved only for those who had violated his moral code.

  “I knew he would never change,” she said, trying to explain herself quickly. She had good reasons, and Tomaz was her closest companion, her best friend - she knew he would understand her reasons and see them as valid if she could only explain them to him.

  “When he talked about death the way he did, I could see he would never be free of his Mother’s reign. In his eyes the Tyrant is the only one who can save him from himself. He sees himself as cursed - he is cursed - and his precious God Empress is the only one who can keep him sane. He doesn’t know how to live with himself without Her - the Tyrant is the only one he will ever trust! He’s broken Tomaz, there is no saving him. And this way, he’ll lead us right to the Seeker’s lair. Right to the heart of their organization! He knows we’re outside Banelyn, and that’s the only place left he thinks he can go. When he attacked me, I could see it in his eyes - he didn’t want to hurt me, but he did anyway. He’s a zealot of the worst kind. He knows what he does is wrong, and yet he doesn’t care. He thinks the Empress, the Tyrant of Lucia, is the only solution. There is no saving him!”

  She hadn’t realized it, but by the end of her rambling speech she had begun to shout, because Tomaz’s expression of fury had not changed. His eyes, like chips of black ice, stared at her and dug into her conscience, and as she finished she knew what she had done was wrong in his eyes, and that was almost more than she could bear.

  “Everyone can be saved,” he rumbled at her, so intensely that she felt the vibration in her bones. “And what you have done is allow an innocent boy to walk into the open arms of his murderers. While you were looking for advantage when he spoke of death, I was looking into a mirror. Well you know my tale, and well should you know that this boy is just like me. Just like you too.”

  Leah recoiled as if burned.

  “He’s nothing like me!” she hissed. “He’s a spoiled Prince who has lived his entire life in command of the people of Lucia, sitting in luxury born on the backs of slaves!”

  “He is a tortured mind who knows more of compassion than any living man I have ever met. If he can be shown a better way - if we can bring him to the Kindred and show him that the Empire does not need to rule supreme - then we can truly begin to change things. And, most importantly, we can change him. I see myself in him, and I see you in him. I see every man, woman, and child who has lived under the Empress and accepted Her rule simply because they have food to eat and know nothing better. He is the key, Eshendai. This boy will change everything. And should that change happen, there will be no need to send him or anyone in as bait for the Hooded Ones.”

  Leah stared at Tomaz for a long time, not knowing how to respond. When she did speak, her voice was soft and weak, confused and halting.

  “How? I don’t … I can’t see that far ahead, Tomaz.”

  “Neither can I,” he rumbled back, the fury finally gone from him, but the sharp intensity still present, like a bar of heated steel that has cooled and hardened into the form of a sword. “The path will come in time. All I know is that this boy is good. There is a spark in him that has been smothered for years,
but it has not gone out. Not yet. He can be redeemed. The way he spoke … he knows life and the cost of death better than anyone. He knows what it is to feel another person’s pain - something none of his siblings have ever known. Something their Mother was never able to teach them.”

  “He’s not different from them, Tomaz, he’s one of the Children all the same.”

  “He is different, Eshendai,” rumbled the big man, “in all the ways that matter. In all the ways that made them monsters, and left him nothing more than a scared boy, trying to fill a role he never wanted.”

  “I know you, Tomaz, and for all your talk of changing the Empire that is not why you are doing this. What is it about him that affects you so?”

  There was a long silence.

  “A debt I owe to the man who saved my life,” he said finally.

  “What debt?” Leah asked, confused. “I know your entire life’s story Tomaz. But I know of no debt that would ask this fierce loyalty from you.”

  Tomaz turned to her.

  “I will tell you when the time is right. As you said, you know me. And you know I would not keep this from you without good reason.”

  Leah was about to protest, but she had seen the look in his eyes before and knew that she would get nothing more out of him.

  “Fine. So what do we do now?”

  Tomaz held out a hand, which she grasped. He pulled her to her feet and handed over her daggers. As soon as she grasped the hilts, the enchanted Spellblade metal soothed the ache in her head and calmed her stomach.

  “We rescue a Prince.”