Chapter Sixteen Choices #2
“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 from beneath them and out toward the horizon.
But the Prince was certain there was something.
Why was he so sure there was something? It wasn’t a life. It was… what was it?
“Don’t I—?”
“Quiet,” the Prince said. He squinted 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. Farther away perhaps?
He 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 he almost couldn’t 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,” he 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 together a force.
My guess is they have half the countryside covered.
They’re still a few miles away… I can barely feel them… but they’re coming.”
“Are you certain?” Tomaz asked.
The Prince nodded. Tomaz didn’t hesitate.
“Find Leah,” he said, before beginning to quickly repack the campsite.
The Prince set off around the side of the mountain in the direction the girl had headed. He closed his eyes, and the Talisman picked her up, pointing him toward a river that came down from the mountaintop. He burst through the trees, already launching into an explanation of what was happening.
Leah was standing up to her knees in the river, her clothes piled carelessly on a rock beside her.
The Prince’s mind went 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, and she stood, back straight, arms spread wide to either side, drinking in the sun, the mountainside, and the miles of landscape spread out before her.
A wind whipped through the trees, racing across the clearing as if to embrace her, and she breathed it in.
She seemed to shine with an inner light, her eyes closed, her mouth open, and her jaw slack.
The cold dimpled her skin, but she didn’t cover herself.
She stood in the rushing water as much a part of the world as the wind, the river, 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 river.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen, perhaps for her to yell at him, or for her to run for her clothes, maybe even attack him for invading her privacy, but she did none of these things. She just stared 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 stomach and shoulders standing out as if branded into the skin.
She’d been beaten. Horribly.
Horror and revulsion seized him. 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. She pierced him with her eyes, daring him to look away, daring him to defy the evidence of the Empire’s cruelty.
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; she inclined her head and bent forward at the waist.
She was bowing to him.
“Your Mother’s legacy, my Prince,” she said, voice emotionless but gaze so intense it felt like a hand squeezing his heart and lungs, making it impossible to speak, impossible to breathe.
“Be glad you can choose to ignore it. Some of us were never given the chance.”
Something about those words broke through his clouded mind, and he dropped his gaze to the ground, looking anywhere but at her.
“Tomaz,” he said, 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 reached Tomaz, he was out of breath, but the ex-Blade Master 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 her mount through the trees.
As they rode, the Prince could feel the men behind them hot on their trail.
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, 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 her horse’s reins. Tomaz’s eyes narrowed.
“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,” she said, turning back to him, words hurried but 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. I forgot. So, I was left standing, smiling up at this beautiful figure on a beautiful white horse. I was so happy to be standing there, finally able to see her. And then 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. You see, 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.
It was 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 girl 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 mountainside. Tomaz shot him one last look, held his gaze and nodded, and then followed her, 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.
If he went back, he would die. There was no hope for him.
And still, knowing this, he turned his horse toward the path that led down the mountain.
The horse began to trot, and the path fell away, and suddenly, not knowing why, maybe just wanting one last impression 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 the mountain.
He watched them go in his mind’s eye, feeling their life dwindle as they rode away. They were almost gone. Gone forever.