Chapter Twenty-Two: The Prince of Oxen
There was something eerily beautiful about all of the Children, a physical trait that seemed to come directly from the Empress herself. It was an ethereal quality that marked them out as different and, as the Children were instructed, special. But none of them exemplified this trait like Ramael. The moment he removed his helm, the dark night seemed to shine with reflected glory; the Prince saw Leah’s knees go slightly weak before she caught herself, and a number of the Kindred, including Tomaz, took an involuntary step forward as if to bow in deference.
His face was framed with golden waves of hair that shone like the sun even in the night with an insistent and hypnotizing luminescence. Perfectly sized almond eyes the blue-grey color of ice framed a sharp nose that led to sculpted brows and high, sharp cheekbones, giving him such an air of masculinity that no other man in the world could ever be considered more than a boy. He was the perfect physical being, made so by over one hundred and forty years wearing the Ox Talisman. He was stronger and faster than any living man, and had been so upon reaching adulthood.
But beneath it all, the Prince of Ravens could sense blood and hate, as he always had. The Prince of Oxen’s life was an inferno of burning metal, and around his life the Prince could sense a murderous heat, like coals set to the leaves of a dry forest.
The Prince of Ravens stepped forward, knowing how small and insignificant he looked in front of his brother, the same way he’d always looked.
“Ramael,” he said quietly.
“I’m amazed to find you here,” the Prince of Oxen said, smiling to reveal a row of perfect white teeth that he had never needed to scrub clean. Even his voice was beautiful: a deep vibrating bass that penetrated pleasurably to the core of your body, making women sigh and men pledge everlasting fealty. “But then again, I’m not.”
“Go away, Ramael,” the Prince said, his voice low but strong. A few of the Kindred shifted behind him, as if this contradiction had helped them break free of the Ox Lord’s spell. “Or else fight us like a man.”
There was a growl of anger as the face turned ugly, the lips pulling back from the teeth in an animalistic snarl as the gray-blue eyes grew even colder.
“Oh … I’m sorry,” the Prince said loudly, his own lips lifting, but in contempt. “I forgot – you don’t like people challenging you.”
“Mother isn’t here to save you from me now,” Ramael said, the anger cooling quickly everywhere but in his eyes. “I would watch what you say. No Geofred here to convince me it’s better not to teach you a lesson.”
“Watch what I say?” the Prince asked wryly. “Does that mean you’ll leave if I ask nicely?”
The Prince of Oxen chuckled darkly. The Prince of Ravens felt his teeth clench automatically, but he took a deep breath and another step forward.
“Ramael,” he said, “you don’t have to do this.”
He motioned to the Exiled Kindred soldiers behind him.
“These are good people,” he said, forsaking his pride and speaking from his heart. “They have law and order in their cities, they raise their children well, and they would be good citizens of the Empire, if only Mother would allow them back.”
There was another stir behind the Prince, this one rebellious; he knew that many of the Kindred, Leah and Tomaz included, would never go back to the Empire, no matter what the Empress offered. But he rushed on heedlessly – he knew that if the Prince of Oxen attacked, they would stand little to no chance of surviving.
“Please brother, they have things they can teach even us! They can add to the Empire’s greatness, they can come back, they are good people! They would be good citizens. If you and I both go to Mother and tell Her that – ”
“Mother didn’t even allow you to keep your name,” the Prince of Oxen said slowly, enjoying every word. “Why do you think She would allow you in Her presence?”
The Prince fell silent, and in spite of his resolve he felt his breath catch in his chest. He took another deep breath, but Ramael cut him off by raising his helm to his head.
Fear spiked through the Prince’s body and he took another step forward. A number of Kindred drew in sharp breaths: he was within the reach of his brother’s axes if the Ox Lord chose to swing them.
“Please, brother,” the Prince said to Ramael. “Please believe me!”
Ramael stared at the Prince for a long moment, face stony and blank, and then slowly his upper lip pulled up in disgust.
“I would say it shames me to see one of the Children who would beg,” he said quietly. “But then again, you aren’t one of us. You’re a dog, who ran instead of facing his fate. You are a mistake. The first that Mother has made, perhaps, but one she is striving to correct. And I am here to take back what has always belonged to the Empire. Like a good son. A true Child.”
At that moment a number of things happened simultaneously: Ramael pulled his helm back onto his head and unlimbered his axes; a shout rang out from behind the Prince and an enormous form pushed him out of the way; arrows released from taut bowstrings on both sides; and the Earth Daemon charged forward, lifting a heavy, spiked, iron club.
The Prince, knocked to the ground, looked up – and to his horror saw Tomaz, armor in tatters, greatsword in hand, engage Ramael.
Any other vision was obscured by a haze of arrows so thick that the Prince was forced to press his head to the ground and pray he wouldn’t be hit. When he looked up again, it was to see the tree trunk foot of the Daemon descending toward his head. He rolled out of the way just in time and made it back to his feet. The Daemon caught sight of him and swung the club, and it took all of the Prince’s speed to dodge out of the way – a dodge that forced him away from Ramael and Tomaz. He ran back, but the Daemon stayed on him, swinging the mace and killing two Kindred soldiers who got in the way.
And then Leah was there, springing past the Prince and straight at the Daemon, her daggers drawn. She landed on the Daemon’s arm and it tried to shake her loose, but with an amazing display of acrobatic dexterity she not only clung on, but was able to climb up the arm and onto its back – directly behind the Bloodmage controlling it.
“No!” the Prince yelled at her, but it was too late; the dagger swung down toward the Bloodmage’s neck.
There was a flash of green light, and Leah was sent flying into a crowd of Kindred soldiers who were moving to engage the Imperial force; the Bloodmage, still anchored to the earth, the source of its strength through the Daemon it rode, could not be touched.
Except with …
The Prince’s hand flew to his sword, and he drew it in a single flourishing move that caused it to bite deeply into the Earth Daemon’s tree trunk leg.
There was a howl of pain that made the very ground under the Prince’s feet shake; the creature tried to stamp on the Prince with its other foot, but with the speed of numerous men joined to his own, the Prince simply moved to the side and struck again with the Valerium blade, the white metal cutting through the magic flesh.
There was another scream of pain, and the creature brought down its iron mace with such strength that it left a crater in the ground.
Just at that moment the Rangers appeared, now led by Lorna, and engaged the Daemon with their long spears, prodding the creature and unbalancing it enough that it turned its attention to them, leaving the Prince alone.
He turned, searching frantically through the crowd for Tomaz and Ramael.
Everything was chaos, the Kindred and Imperial armies both fighting with a vehemence that showed no mercy. But in the center of it all, standing head and shoulders above every other man and woman there, were two giants.
Tomaz and Ramael were fighting so ferociously that even in the heat of the battle between Exiles and Imperials, a circle had opened up around them that no one dared to enter. Tomaz’s great sword and Ramael’s double-bladed axes were both flying so quickly and with such deadly power that sparks flew each time the blades hit as metal screeched against metal. The two wer
e perfectly matched for battle, neither appearing able to gain any ground on the other. The Prince of Oxen’s face was set in a snarling rictus of fury, and Tomaz’s in a grimace somewhere between anger and pride.
Fear seized the Prince’s heart.
He began to push and kick and fight his way through the crowd, getting nearer and nearer to the two circling fighters. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the form of Leah doing the same.
The Prince of Oxen began to win. It was slight at first, seemingly just a minor setback on Tomaz’s part. But then it became more distinct: the Prince of Oxen began to move faster, faster than should have been possible, and the expression on his face turned to one of amusement as Tomaz tried to counter attacks that seemed to come from every direction at once. Ramael’s blows, which had been earth-shakingly powerful to begin with, now took on a power that was simply inhuman, and Tomaz’s arms began to shake just trying to fend them off. The axes forced Tomaz back step by step – and then the Ashandel slipped on the slick footing of the blood-soaked stones.
The axes descended, and just as in the Prince’s dream, Tomaz crumpled and fell.
“NO!”
Leah ran at the Prince of Oxen, but three other Eshendai grabbed her and pulled her back, just as the Earth Daemon swung its enormous mace and smashed a hole in the ground where she had been standing.
The Prince fell to his knees, his whole body suddenly numb. The Prince of Oxen let out a bellow of triumph and then turned and began to make his way up the boulevard, cutting down anyone and anything that stood in his path. With a cry of anguish, the Prince crawled the final few feet to where the big man lay.
The Prince knelt next to Tomaz. The big man’s breathing was labored, but he was attempting to speak. He motioned the Prince closer, and so the Prince leaned in.
“Kill me,” Tomaz whispered in the Prince’s ear.
The Prince recoiled in shock, but what little strength remained in the great hulking body was enough to easily hold the Prince’s arm and keep him close.
“I’m dying,” the big man whispered. He broke off as he coughed and blood came onto his lips.
“You can recover,” the Prince said, “you know that you can recover!”
“I don’t want to recover in a world where there are no Kindred,” Tomaz responded with a simple, earnest pride that made the Prince’s heart ache in his chest.
“Look … look at that man!” Tomaz said weakly, his normal rumbling voice reduced to a bare mewling whimper.
The Prince looked, and saw the Prince of Oxen sauntering down the broad avenue, killing all who dared to cross his path with an indolent arrogance that made the Prince’s mouth curl in disgust.
“You can stop him,” Tomaz said, tears coming to his eyes with the effort of speaking. “You can stop him!”
With a grunt of effort, the big man forced the Valerium sword, discarded and lying on the ground, back into the Prince’s hands, placing the point above his heart.
“Do it!” the big man said harshly. The Prince pulled the sword up and over his head.
No! the Prince yelled at himself. Another way – there has to be another way! How can I … how can I … FIND ANOTHER WAY!
The sword plunged down, and the Prince felt Tomaz die.
Strength flooded his limbs, strength and power like the Prince had never felt before. Tomaz by himself seemed to be as strong as ten men. His heart began to beat so quickly that he felt certain it could be seen through his chest. The wounds he had sustained in the prolonged battle ceased to exist; the healing hole in the side of his chest from the arrow felt no more serious than a fleabite. Where seconds ago he had felt too weak to stand, he now felt as though he would never need to rest again.
The memories came as well, but the Prince pushed them to the back of his mind, all of the memories except for the Blade Master training and his own rage at Tomaz’s death. He would need that now.
“RAMAEL!”
The Prince of Oxen stopped and turned slowly to the see the Prince of Ravens, unsheathed Valerium sword in hand, standing over the now lifeless form of Tomaz. Ramael began to slowly walk back, ignoring the chaos surrounding him. Two men crossed his path, but black and red axes flashed and they were no more.
The Prince’s hand was clutching the hilt of his sword in a cramped fist, his entire body throbbing with energy and life. The task of killing Ramael was impossible, but he had to try. For Tomaz, the only true friend he had ever had, he would die trying.
Ramael stopped.
“You called?”
“There’s something we need to talk about,” the Prince growled. The Prince of Oxen chuckled, and raised his two double-bladed axes.
“Whatever could that be, little one?”
With a snarl of rage, the Prince of Ravens charged. His enhanced speed and strength carried him across the intervening distance in the blink of an eye, and the Prince of Oxen barely had time to bring his axe up to deflect the Valerium sword.
They exchanged a series of blows, the Prince moving through the Blade Master forms so quickly he barely had time to think. His sword was a white blur in his hands. But, unfortunately, so were his brother’s battleaxes. Every thrust was parried, every riposte turned aside. The Prince felt sweat break out all over his body, but his speed never flagged.
Something flashed past his cheek and he was forced to disengage. Another arrow shot toward him, and he had just enough time to dodge to the side before it struck him through the throat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brother swing one of the axes, and with a desperate leap the Prince jumped to safety through an open doorway, just as more arrows hit the ground where he had been standing.
I need to get him away from the battle!
That much was clear: the Prince had no chance of defeating his brother when he couldn’t give his full attention to the task. He took a deep breath, and shot off across the road, directly at the Imperial archers that had been firing at him. In three quick motions he cut them down, but he saw that more soldiers were making their way toward the two Princes.
“Why, little brother,” Ramael said, “have you been killing? I seem to remember how pathetically against that you were.”
The Prince turned back toward his brother and walked up to him with an arrogant swagger.
“Why do you mention it, brother?” he said. “Are you afraid of what I can do?”
Anger at the thought crossed Ramael’s face, and with no warning the Prince of Oxen brought the axes crashing down. The Prince dodged, having to use all of his speed to do so.
“What was that Ramael?” he taunted. “I almost had time to take a nap during that swing!”
The first axe swiped through the air so quickly it was no more than a blur of motion that the Prince just managed to avoid.
“That’s all you can do, big brother? Now I remember why I never looked up to you!”
Ramael let out a snarl of rage, swinging the second axe – another miss.
“You miserable Nameless wretch! I could tear you to pieces with one hand!”
“Do you really think you could manage to lay even a single finger on me?”
Ramael lunged for the Prince, but he was gone and racing up the street - away from the battle. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Ramael was following him.
Right. Now he’s chasing you. Great plan!
The Prince took a running leap, pushed off a wall with his enhanced strength, and landed like a cat on the roof of a house. There was a rumbling, and the Prince looked down to see his brother pulling himself up the side of the house, tearing chunks of brick and mortar out of the wall with his gauntleted hands, trying to follow. The Prince took off running on the top of the buildings, jumping from roof to roof, as fast as his feet could carry him.
There was a heavy crash behind him, and the Prince shot a look over his shoulder. His brother had made it to the rooftop and was still following him, leaving deep gouges in the thickest wood and stone buildings with his enormous weight, but gainin
g with each of his immense strides.
“Is that all you can do?” the Prince called back, doubling his speed, leaping almost ten feet with every step. The only answer he received was a roar of rage. Ramael picked up his pace as well, and soon he was right on top of the Prince.
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
A battleaxe swung down and tore into a section of rooftop where the Prince had been not a second before. The second axe swung and actually brushed the Prince’s head, shaving off a chunk of his hair and missing his scalp by the barest fraction of an inch.
Good question – where are you going?!
The Prince rolled under his brother’s feet and dove into an open doorway that led him down a staircase to the main level of the house. With a crash of smashed plaster and powdered stone, Ramael tore through the opening and followed.
Where do I take him, where do I take him, where do I…?
The Prince made it out onto the main level of the street, looked left and then right, and saw off in the distance a large building that looked like a temple, up on the third tier of the city, completely away from the battle, in an open area where he could face his brother alone. He took off running with all of Tomaz’s strength - oh shadows and light, Tomaz! - fueling his legs, and just in time, as the next instant his brother crashed down behind him with a bellow of rage.
“STOP RUNNING!”
That was all the encouragement he needed to run faster. He lowered his head and focused with all of his might on getting to the temple off in the distance.
Why am I going to a temple? I should be running away!
“SHUT UP!” he yelled at himself. He spun around a corner, going so fast that he actually overshot and ended up running along a wall for a few paces before he was pulled back down to earth. He shot a look over his shoulder and saw that his brother, going just as quickly as the Prince, couldn’t help but smash into the wall, and was forced to extricate himself before he could continue the pursuit. It cost him barely a second, but it was enough that it gave the Prince an idea.
The Prince kept running along the street, and his brother came up behind him alarmingly fast; the Prince swerved around a corner, and when his brother followed, he crashed into the opposite wall again. The Prince of Ravens shot around another hairpin turn, but this time his brother checked his speed just in time to keep his distance. The gap was closing between them.
The Prince looked up and saw his destination, behind the large gate of the third tier, which was still open in the event the Kindred needed to retreat once more. The Prince of Ravens flew through the open gate, and veered immediately to his left, where rose before him a wall of the large temple, directly ahead at the end of the street. He ran toward it with all of his might, casting frightened looks over his shoulder at Ramael.
Ramael, sensing the fear, let out a snarl and began to gain once more on the Prince. The wall was coming closer … closer … there!
At the last moment, the Prince turned and ducked away.
With a resounding crash, the Prince of Oxen shot past him and straight through the side of the building. As the dust settled, the Prince of Ravens followed him, sword drawn and ready to fight.
They were in a dark rectangular enclosure with unlit torches lining the walls. Numerous pillars went from floor to ceiling, and in the middle of room was a large marble tomb.
All right, now I’m here, what do I do?
He looked left and right, but his brother was nowhere to be found. How did someone run through a wall and then have the clarity of mind to hide?
His nose wrinkled, and his now inhuman sensory input brought him the smell of blood and sweat and oiled metal from over his shoulder; immediately, the Prince ducked, and once again felt the heavy wind of a battleaxe pass over his head, inches from scalping him. He rolled behind a pillar, got to his feet, and ran for the other side of the Temple.
With a resounding boom and crash amplified by the large empty space of the Temple, the Prince of Oxen swung his axes and destroyed the pillar in a display of strength that shook the Prince of Ravens to his core. As the dust settled, the Prince of Oxen stepped into view, swinging his axes easily by his sides, a horrible grin on his face.
How do I defeat that? the Prince thought with despair.
The building around them seemed to shake for a minute, and then settled. The Prince of Ravens felt his breath catch in his chest, and realized he’d just found the answer.
Ok – I’ll take it.
Taking a deep breath and praying this would work, he ran for a second pillar. Immediately, his brother followed him, and as soon as the Prince was behind the pillar Ramael tore it down with a savage blow that struck sparks as the metal of his blades tore through the heavy stone, ripping it down. As the dust settled, Ramael looked around and … saw nothing.
The Prince had taken the opportunity of his brother’s momentary blindness and the enormous crash of the crumbling pillar to run to the other side of the Temple and throw himself behind another pillar to hide.
“Brother, brother, brother,” Ramael said, amusement coloring his voice. “Are you hiding now? Tsk tsk tsk … no wonder Mother is so disappointed in you …”
The Prince’s breath caught in his chest.
“Did you know that there was a bet between the Children over which one of us would be the one to bring you home and kill you? Though I suppose credit should be given where credit is due … Mother was the one who offered the prize for your head …”
There was another huge crash and the sound of screeching metal as Ramael tore down another pillar, thinking the Prince was hiding behind it. The roof above them shook ominously, and a patch of stone fell and crashed to the floor. The Prince tensed, but the dusted settled and the building remained standing. The Ox Lord continued to talk.
“My bet was on Geofred, to be frank … he seemed to think it would take cunning to find you, but then again you always were predictable. Perhaps I should have realized you were with these scum. At first I thought you were being clever, luring me to their base, trying to buy back your place in the Children with the end of the Exiles … who knows, it might have worked. But when the Bloodmages told me you and the others they were tracking had moved, I knew you had gone over … I knew that you had been corrupted away from your duty and your blood. Scum … rebels … the worst dregs of humanity …”
“They’re better than you will ever be!”
The words were out of the Prince’s mouth before he could stop them. He snapped his mouth closed and held very still. Ramael began to slowly make his way over to the side of the temple that the Prince was hiding on, heading about ten yards too far to the left.
“Hah! You actually believe you’re doing the right thing! Think again little one, you’ve betrayed your family! You’ve betrayed your Mother!”
“She betrayed me!” the Prince roared back, coming out from behind the pillar before he could stop himself, rage boiling so hot inside him that he couldn’t see straight. “You all did! You tried to have me killed! I did nothing to you, and you took away my name, you made me an Exile, and then you tell me I’m the traitor?!”
The Prince of Ravens charged, and there was a flurry of blows exchanged that threw sparks into the dark temple. The Prince of Oxen made another swing with his axe, but the Prince ducked and it instead hit another pillar that also came crashing down.
“Too slow!” the Prince of Ravens taunted. His rage was so intense it was bordering on madness.
The Prince of Oxen reversed the swing and almost took the Prince’s head off; he had to scramble back ungracefully to once more avoid decapitation, and as the Prince rolled back to his feet he heard his brother laughing.
The Prince of Ravens realized with a spike of fear that he was being toyed with.
“What,” the Prince of Oxen said, “this is all about Mother taking away your name? Oh, poor little boy … would you like a new one? I’m sure I could think of something.”
“I HAVE NO NAME! AND YOU H
AVE NO RIGHT TO GIVE ME ONE!”
He launched himself forward once more, sword light as a feather in his hands, and pushed his brother back across the room. A sharp swing from one of the axes brushed across the Prince’s ribs so closely that he knew he had barely avoided evisceration. The Valerium sword lanced out again, but the axes were there to meet it and repel it.
The Prince dodged away, and the axe hit another of the pillars, and as the pillar crumbled, the entire temple, weakened to the point of collapse, came crashing down.
The Prince dove to the ground and covered his head with his hands as an enormous rumble vibrated through his body, and then he was struck with falling rocks. He cried out in pain as a stone smashed into his spine, and he felt his hands go numb and his vision grow dark. If it wasn’t for the strength of Tomaz keeping his body whole beyond the point of natural endurance, the Prince was certain he would have died. But eventually the shaking and crashing subsided, and he was able to pull himself out of the pile of rubble with one hand. His head emerged first, and he drew in a gasping, shuddering breath and set about freeing the rest of himself, dirt and powdered stone clouding the air and making it hard to breathe. Blood was in his eyes from a cut on his forehead that was bleeding freely, and his left arm was hanging uselessly at his side with no feeling; his legs still seemed to be working, though when he tried to stand he found that his strength finally failed him and he crashed back to the ground in a heap.
His sword was gone. The Prince looked around for it frantically, and finally saw it sticking straight out of the ground several yards away where it had lodged itself point first. He began to crawl toward it, looking warily around him for any sign of his brother. The entire building around them had fallen, and now that he was in the open air once more he could see the battle, far off on the second tier, still raging.
A huge pile of rubble not far off to his left shifted and then seemed to explode outward as Ramael stood up with a bellow of contemptuous rage, whole pieces of his armor missing and a large scratch marring his perfect face. His helm was gone, his breastplate torn away, and one of his axes buried somewhere deep in the Temple’s ruins.
“Nothing can stop me, little brother!” he roared at the Prince. “And now, I think it is time to end this.”
The Prince pulled himself with all the strength left to him toward the sword. It was only an arm’s length away now. He reached for it and his fingers just brushed the wire-wrapped hilt.
“Too late for that,” Ramael said. A double-bladed axe rose high overhead.
A flash of steel shot through the air and sank into the Prince of Oxen’s neck.
He let out a bellow of rage and pain and the axe went wide, burying itself in the ground next to the Prince. Another dagger streaked through the air, sinking its foot-long blade into Ramael’s back and causing another convulsion that made him fall to the ground.
The Prince pulled himself the last few inches, wrapped his hand around the hilt of the Valerium sword, pulled it from the rubble, and with a cry of pain at the effort, sank the blade into his brother’s chest, piercing his heart.
Light exploded in the Prince’s mind as Ramael’s life and memories were added to his own. His mind felt as though it had been exposed to the sun after being kept for seventeen years in the dark: one hundred and forty two years of memories, crystal clear and visceral, flooded into the Prince.
Someone slapped his face.
“Argh!” he sat upright, holding his head with both of his hands.
“Are you all right?” Leah asked.
“Parchment,” he said through clenched teeth, “and something to write with!”
The memories of the Prince of Oxen were whirling through his mind, more than the Prince had ever absorbed before, and in any other case he was sure his body would have collapsed under the strain, but he felt as if he had an unlimited source of strength that he could draw on, a power like the sun that would never die.
He wasn’t sure when the parchment came, he wasn’t even quite sure how he was able to write legibly, but he was later told that he wrote for the better part of an hour, and never the same sentence twice. Memory by memory, the Prince plumbed the depths of his brother’s mind, doing his best not to think of what he was writing down, just putting it in words. He would deal with it all later – he had no time to judge it now, and he couldn’t keep it in his mind.
The memories were on all topics, but among the most important were details about the layout of the castle of Roarke, the defenses of the Empire, the current state of politics, the names of various spies planted within the Kindred’s scouting forces that had passed false information …
And then, without warning, the memories from his brother’s mind shifted, and the Prince was remembering another life. The life of a young boy, training with a sword bigger than any the Prince had ever seen.
Tomaz.
The next thing the Prince knew, he was up and moving, clutching his sword, the parchment having fallen from his numb hands, caught by whoever had been attending him. He left the ruins of the once great Temple and moved in a strange dreamlike trance through the city, memories playing in his mind of the big man who had given his life to save the Kindred.
He moved through the gate to the second tier of the city, passing cheering Kindred, hearing the sound of retreat blown on Imperial horns. But none of that seemed to matter.
The Prince turned a corner, and there he was, lying in the street, just as the Prince had left him.
Tomaz.
The Prince moved to the big man’s side. He sank to the ground beside the body, feeling the rough stone of the street scrape his knees through his tattered clothing. How could Tomaz be dead? He still felt … the Prince felt as though at any second the big man would roll over, get to his feet, and laughingly ask the Prince what he was doing on the ground.
Tomaz.
“I’m sorry,” the Prince said, voice full of emotion. He laid one hand on the gaping wound left by the Prince of Oxen’s axe, as his other hand fell to the hilt of the Valerium sword sheathed at his side. He began to sob.
The memories of Tomaz’s life continued to play in the Prince’s mind … Guardian training, a young woman long ago, hope and laughter and simple things … and then the memories began to fade. In panic, the Prince tried to hold on to them, to keep them from leaving, but the harder he tried to hold them, the more quickly they seemed to fade and slip through his grasp. The Prince let out a growl of anger – he wouldn’t let what was left of Tomaz die! He would keep these memories – he would keep Tomaz alive!
Concentrating with all of his might, the Prince mentally sank anchors into all of the memories, and began to reel them back toward him. Memories of Guardian Training, the young girl from his youth, the parents he had never known, and a man … a man he’d been forced to kill. The Empress condemning him, the pain he’d felt as his name had been taken from him. And the first sight of the Prince - and the knowledge, the certainty, that he could be redeemed.
But the memories were fading, like lines drawn in sand before an advancing tide, and little by little the Prince felt them slipping away, try as he might to keep them with him. The power of the big man’s life was going as well, dimming, dying.
So he drew on what strength he had, drew as much strength and power and energy as he could find in his body, and threw it into the memories, clinging to Tomaz and sobbing over his body.
A burst of light flung the Prince flat on his back as the memories were sucked away from him by an inexorable force, and then the strength that had kept him going, the strength he’d taken from his brother’s death, was gone as well, and he fell backward into darkness.