Chapter Four The First Ray of Sunlight #4
The giant remained, and knelt in front of him. Instead of putting them at eye level, this only seemed to emphasize the man’s size, as the Prince still had to tilt his head back a considerable distance to look him in the eye.
“If I were to give you a piece of advice as a friendly person, it would be to keep that mouth of yours shut on matters of loyalty to the Empire,” the big man said.
“But considering that you are, I am coming to realize, a rather stubborn prince, you’d probably ignore me.
So, I shall convey myself in terms more likely to be fully understood. ”
The Prince realized that the big man was idly playing with a thick piece of wood that seemed to have fallen off a nearby tree.
A branch. That is, when Tomaz held it in his huge fist, it looked like a branch.
Yet it was as big around as the Prince’s leg, and perhaps would have been more properly called a small log.
“I am committed to bringing you back to my people. For personal reasons having to do with trouble my conscience tends to give me, I would like to do so without harming you. However.”
He held the branch up in front of the Prince’s eyes.
“That girl is the closest thing to me in this world.”
With a muffled crack, the wood snapped right down the middle as Tomaz closed his fist. There were a series of dull pops as his knuckles cracked, adding their own support to the statement.
“And I care about her well-being much more than I care about yours.”
The fist opened, and the remnants of the branch fell to the ground. The giant brushed off his hands and leaned in closer, so close that the Prince almost gagged on the overwhelmingly masculine musk that rolled off of him in waves.
“You are coming with us. The only choice you have is whether you arrive whole or in pieces. It is up to you.”
The big man shoved the gag into the Prince’s mouth, tied it off, and rose abruptly.
“Sleep well,” he said, his customary cheerful smile returned.
He walked over to his place by the fire as if nothing had happened and began to eat again.
The Prince, limbs shaking ever so slightly, turned jerkily over and tried to find sleep, though one thought did cross his mind:
So he does get angry.
***
The next morning, the Prince was awoken by a kick in the groin.
“AHH!”
“Oh—shadows and fire—”
A pair of hands quickly covered his mouth to cut off the sounds of pain he was making, audible even through the gag. Spots were dancing in front of his eyes, and he felt a sick and queasy feeling start in his toes and rise through his stomach to his throat.
“You know what’s funny,” said the girl, “I was actually aiming for your leg, but you rolled over. Wasn’t even my fault.”
He whipped his head around and glared at her, letting out a growl as an added sign of his disapproval. The look slid right off her, and she smiled, a quick sideways quirk of her lips.
“Guess our senses of humor aren’t compatible. Pity.”
She walked around the tree and undid the ropes tying him down. After a quick breakfast, after which he was allowed to relieve himself again, the Prince was tied back on the horse, and they began the second day of their journey.
This day was even worse. The Prince, who had never slept outside his private chambers in the Fortress, much less on the stony floor of a ravine in the mountains, could barely summon the energy to stay awake.
Twice more during the course of the morning he fell off the side of the animal because he had fallen asleep and the beast had decided to make a sharp turn or rear up.
He thanked the Empress that he had received rudimentary riding lessons for visits of state, or else the day would have been even worse.
Still, he was not accustomed to being tied hand and foot, and as the sun rose and heated the day, the restraints dug into his skin at ankles and wrists, chaffing back and forth with the movement of the horse.
Eventually it was all he could do to stop from whimpering in pain at every step, but manage it he did: they could tie him up, they could gag him, they could take him to the farthest ends of the earth, but he would not give them the pleasure of seeing him in pain.
As if in response to this thought, the horse turned suddenly, and the restraints dug even deeper into his skin as he was forced to cling to the saddle. The pain made him breathe in sharply through his nose, and he was only just able to keep a gasp from escaping past the gag.
Please let us stop soon. Oh Empress, please.
But they didn’t stop again until night had fallen, by which time the Prince was not only tired and bleeding, but almost blinded with hunger.
He’d never gone without a midday meal before, and the evening and morning meals were a far cry from the gourmet feasts to which he was accustomed.
When they had chosen a spot for the night and made camp, Tomaz moved over to untie him from the horse, but stopped short and let out an exclamation.
“He’s bleeding!”
The Prince was shocked to realize the big man looked actually surprised. And then, to the Prince’s utter amazement, concern flashed across the giant’s large, bearded face, and his huge hands quickly untied him, picked him up off the horse, and moved him to the nearby fire.
“Pass me a waterskin,” the big man rumbled, as he quickly removed both the restraints and the gag. The girl complied, handing him one of the large bulbous animal-skin bags they carried with their luggage. She was watching Tomaz with the same look of surprise that the Prince felt.
“What are you doing, Tomaz?” the girl asked.
“You bound him too tightly this morning,” the big man replied. “The bonds cut into his wrists and ankles. If we don’t clean them, they could become infected.”
“So?”
Tomaz paused, and then slowly looked at her with a surprisingly sharp expression of disapproval that stunned the Prince and shocked the girl into silence.
Tomaz then turned back and dipped a piece of cloth into the pot of heating water and lathered in with a small cake of what the Prince thought might be a kind of rustic animal-fat soap.
He dropped the cloth back into the pot, waited for the water to finish boiling, and then re-lathered the cloth and used it to carefully clean the lacerations.
The Prince wasn’t sure who was more amazed, the girl or himself.
He tried several times to think of something to say, but the situation was so bizarre that he found himself speechless.
Was this the same man who had so recently threatened to bring him back to the Exiled Kindred in pieces if he didn’t mind his manners? It made absolutely no sense.
After a few minutes, the big man had finished his ministrations and retied the Prince’s bonds, which were now wrapped in cloth and done up in intricate knots that wouldn’t tighten on their own.
The Prince was again tethered to a small tree near the edge of the fire, and given a dinner of dried meat, cheese, and water.
Once he had finished, he rolled over and pretended to go to sleep, though in truth he remained awake, trying to figure out why the Exile had shown him such unexpected kindness.
The spot where the Exiles had chosen to make camp that night was in the shelter of a narrow passage through a large stone wall.
The tree that the Prince was tied to grew in the shelter of that stone, making it a stunted, withered thing, but still rooted deeply enough to hold him.
As he lay there feigning sleep, he heard the Exiles begin to whisper heatedly to each other, the sound of their conversation brought to him by the slightly concave wall.
“He’s the Prince of Ravens, Tomaz,” he heard the girl say vehemently. “He doesn’t deserve to be treated well.”
“He’s a boy, eshendai,” the man rumbled back. “And from what I know of the Fortress and his mother, he has seen precious little kindness in his life.”
“And given out far less,” she growled, voice clipped, fiery, and emphatic. “He’s one of the Children!”
“He’s barely old enough to shave every day,” he replied, voice measured and quiet. “He is little more than a boy, and his path has yet to be chosen.”
“He was born to his path, Tomaz,” the girl insisted. “He has the evidence of it etched into his skin. He’s the Raven—he bears the Death Talisman!”
“And yet there he lies,” the big man said, and the Prince could almost feel Tomaz gesture in his direction, “sleeping like any other person. There is no monster lying in that alcove, no horrible fangs that sprout from a bloodthirsty mouth. You are blinded by your ideas of him, of what he is supposed to be. Open your eyes and see.”
“You are blinded by your compassion, ashandel,” the girl responded.
“You see the boy instead of the monster he’s born to become.
The evidence of it isn’t in a grotesque appearance, it’s in his immaculately manicure nails.
He is a Child of the Empress, a son of the Tyrant, born into a world of privilege, unable to even comprehend the life of a Baseborn commoner.
Even if he were to see the world his Mother has created, I doubt he would ever accept it.
The Council will agree with me when we arrive in Vale.
They’ll pull what information they can out of him, and then they’ll dispose of him. ”
“Ah, eshendai… you didn’t used to be so harsh. For one whose own life path changed so abruptly, you are very quick to judge what the future holds for others. No path is set in stone. I can see something in him. Can’t you?”
“I see many things in him. Pride, arrogance, a hard and fast belief that he is a god among men. Not to mention a threat to my people and my life. A boy whose power literally feeds off the lives of others—”
“—a boy who’s been cursed,” Tomaz interrupted, “with a terrible burden. Someone in his own family just tried to kill him. He may have convinced himself that it was a plot by others, but you and I both know that the signs point to either the Empress or the Children on Her orders.”
“So not only do we want him dead, but the Empire does as well.”
“Eshendai, stop being stubborn! Use your head. Why would the Empire want him dead? It makes no sense. If he’s the seventh son, the one intended to destroy the Kindred, then why would they try to kill him? If I can see that, then surely you can see that. Calm your temper and think.”
A long pause fell between them, and the Prince barely dared to breathe lest they realize he was awake and listening.
“You’re right,” the girl said suddenly. Her voice had changed somehow, and the Prince realized that all the heat had gone out of it, leaving it cold and dispassionate.
“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at the fact we don’t have the information we need to fully understand what’s happening.
Every instinct is telling me to kill him now while he sleeps, or else to wait until we get him back to the Council and arrange his death once they’re finished with him. But…”
“But if the Empire wants him dead,” Tomaz finished for her, “shouldn’t we want him alive?”
There was another pause.
“Yes,” the girl responded. “Yes, we should. But I don’t think he can change the way you think he can.”
“He’s just a boy,” Tomaz rumbled again. “A princeling who would walk right back into the arms of those who want him dead. We’re the only thing keeping him alive.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” the girl said, the coldness gone from her voice and replaced by wry amusement.
“Come, we’ve talked long enough,” Tomaz said. “Dawn will be here soon, but ’till then we should sleep. I will take the first watch tonight.”
The Prince heard the girl come back to the fire and lie down, and the big man bank the fire and settle in for his watch.
His heart was beating quickly, but his mind was strangely blank. He wasn’t sure what to think, and he lay there awake for a long time, listening to the girl’s soft breathing and the distant, unfamiliar sounds of the night, trying over and over again to remind himself that they were wrong.