The Prince looked at the big man, taking in his appearance. He looked the same, that much was certain. He squinted, and the man stayed where he was. Tomaz reached out a hand and briefly squeezed the Prince’s shoulder.
“Go on,” he said. “I promise I’ll still be here when you open your eyes.”
The Prince, still unsure, took a deep breath and let his eyelids flutter closed. He reached through the Raven Talisman, searching… and there it was. To his surprise, Tomazdidfeel like Tomaz… and more. Much more. The Prince couldn’t understand it, but it felt like something out of his childhood… no, that couldn’t be. His mind was still hazy, and he was confused. But what was important was that the Elder was telling the truth—the man was alive. And he was certainly Tomaz.
“But how?” he repeated, opening his eyes.
“What you call the Raven Talisman is known to the Kindred as the Aspect of Life,” Crane said. “It is my belief that when you refused to accept the death of your friend, you forced the life you had absorbed from him back into his body.”
The Prince stared at him blankly for a long moment.
“What?”
“When you absorb a person’s life,” the Elder said, “they live on in you, yes? Correct me if I am wrong, for all I know comes secondhand, and you bear the burden of the Talisman each day. But when you take a life, does not that lifebecome a part of you? If so, it may be that under the right circumstances, you can bring them back as well. When you took his life, Tomaz was a part of you. He was still alive in a sense, and you carried the strength and the power of enough men to force those memories and that strength back into him.”
“But why couldn’t he do it before?” Leah asked. “He’s killed men before, and I’ve never seen him do anything like that.”
“I believe the answer lies there,” Crane said, motioning to the sword that had been laid, in its sheath, on a table by the Prince’s bed on top of a neatly folded pile of his clothing.
“A sword?” Leah asked.
“Look more closely,” Crane said.
Leah leaned in, brow furrowed in concentration. A change slowly came over her, and she gave an uncharacteristically large gasp of surprise and turned to stare at the Prince, one hand holding the pit of her stomach. The Prince looked at her dumbly, his head still feeling like it was full of cotton. To his surprise, she crossed to his bedside, grabbed a handful of his hair, and pulled his face close enough to hers that they were almost nose to nose.
“How did you get it?” she asked.
“It’s—it’s the sword I got back in Vale!” he spluttered, trying to understand what had caused such a reaction.
She released his head and jabbed a finger at the sword.
“This is Aemon’s Blade! It’s not justasword; it’sthesword! The first valerium blade!”
The Prince’s first thought was that she was making a joke. She had picked an odd time to do it, but… yes, certainly a joke. Aemon’s Blade should be somehow… special. But this—it was just a plain sword. Yes, it was made of valerium, but it had a simple handle wrapped in copper wire to prevent slippage, a strong but simple cross guard, and a plain oval pommel to counter the weight of the long, curved blade. It was just a sword.
“That’s impossible. Why would you say such a thing?” he asked.
She reached over and tried to grab the sword.
There was a flash of light, and she was flung backwards into Tomaz’s arms, unharmed but obviously shaken. She shook her head and refocused her eyes on the Prince.
“How?How?”
He had no answer. He could only stare dumbfounded at the blade.
“I heard a few soldiers talking about the battle between him and the Prince of Oxen,” Tomaz said slowly, scratching his bearded chin thoughtfully. “It seems at one point he was thrown into the Temple. The Temple of Aemon. The Prince of Oxen followed him and brought the entire place down. There’s hardly a column left standing. One of the only things they found in the rubble was a plain valerium blade.”
“I lost my sword,” the Prince said thickly, “but I found it again.”
“It wasn’t your sword,” said Elder Crane, hands folded behind his back, a strange look on his face. “It was Aemon’s.”
“But… how was I even able to touch it? Leah told me it was buried where he died because they couldn’t move it.”
Crane looked at him for a long moment before glancing at both Tomaz and Leah.
“I will now tell you something that I must ask you not to repeat outside this room. It is information that is known only to the Council of Elders, and perhaps a handful of others. I would askeshendaiGoldwyn andashandelBanier to leave, but what I have to say concerns them, too.”
The Elder took a deep breath as if steeling himself.
