And the sun! It was there, right there above him! It shone through the trees, casting deep green shadows over the clearing and in some places breaking clean through the canopy in straight, spearing shafts of brilliant gold, brighter than anything he’d ever seen. The colors of the landscape were more vibrant than he ever could have imagined, and more stirring to something deep inside him than he ever could have guessed.
“Keep moving, princeling,” the Exile girl had said, pushing him forward. He’d stumbled over a floor that was not stone or packed dirt but a mixture of soil and grass and growing things. He’d felt as though he were walking through the incredible landscape of a madman’s fantasy.
As they left the clearing, the Prince realized that the trees went on as far as he could see through the narrow vantage point of his hood. The sheer size and scope of the area—the forest,he thought excitedly—astonished him. It was nearly as big as a city, if not bigger!
Soon after leaving the clearing, they moved into a long narrow corridor of rock cut through the forest. The rock was uncarved but for the work of the elements and the passage of time, and it too was beautiful in a stark, harsh way. Loose bits of gravel crunched under the horses’ hooves, and the sounds echoed and bounced around the pass. The pass took them higher up what the Prince soon came to realize must be a mountain.
They rounded a jut of stone, a break in the high wall of the pass, and a gust of wind threw his hood back. He immediately turned to look out over the side of the mountain, and his breath caught in his chest. Green hills stretched out all the way to the horizon, and above them was a blue sky scudded with white and gray clouds.
Blue. The sky wasblue.
But as the day wore on, the novelty dried up, and the Prince returned to brooding upon his situation. The Exile girl, seeing him look around so avidly, had pulled the hood of his cloak all the way up and tied it more tightly in place, effectively narrowing his world to the horse and the earth passing beneath him. The saddle began to rub him the wrong way, and he felt blisters forming on his backside. He had ridden a horse before, of course, but never for so long. The swaying of the beast soon made his back unbelievably sore, and after a few hours his legs began to pound with a dull, insistent ache.
But even all of this the Prince would have been able to endure, had not insult been added to injury. Sometime past midday the Exile girl led the horse around a rather large boulder stuck squarely in their path, and the horse swerved too quickly; the Prince’s momentum kept his body going forward, and with a muffled shout of surprise, he tumbled off the side of the beast as a strap gave out with a loud snap. As if this wasn’t enough, he couldn’t even fall to the ground with dignity; since he had been bound to the saddle, the saddle went with him, and he ended up riding inverted beneath the horse for at least ten paces, his shouts and cries muffled by the gag, before the girl noticed and burst into raucous laughter. Finally, Tomaz, also chuckling, had come back and righted him.
They stopped when the sun set, and the Prince was untied from the saddle and deposited under an overhanging outcrop of rock. He threw his head back with a jerk and the hood fell off to reveal that they were at the bottom of a ravine filled with trees and spiny purple-flowered bushes. The big man came over and, after allowing the Prince to relieve himself, tied him to a scraggly tree growing through the cracks in the rocks, with just enough slack to lie down.
The Prince ached as he had never ached before. His head was pounding from lack of food and water, and his mouth tasted awful from the disgusting cloth gag. His back was on fire, and his legs felt as though they’d taken on the shape of the saddle. Nevertheless, he sat up straight and pretended he was unfazed. He knew the Exiles knew he was pretending, but he pretended right back that they didn’t. He was a Prince, no matter if he had been tied to a horse all day and led through a forest and helplessly tied to a tree for the night. Yes, he reminded himself forcefully, in spite of all that, he was still a Prince.
Dinner was simple: the Exiles produced bread and cheese from their packs and water from somewhere the Prince couldn’t discern, and Tomaz ate the remainder of the huge leg of meat he’d been cooking that morning, breaking open the bone when he finished in order to get at the marrow. A small fire wasmade, carefully sheltered from the biting wind that stung the Prince with cold as it whistled through the ravine. He huddled against his tree—atree!—under the rock outcropping, still trying to be a Prince as best he could.
The two Exiles talked softly to one another, in large part ignoring the Prince aside from occasional glances to check he wasn’t making trouble. The Prince repaid them in kind, keeping to himself. He began to make a list of all he had learned about them, hoping he’d find something of use.
Tomaz. Big, tall, wide, strong. Beard—perhaps good to grab hold of in a fight. The Prince’s eyes flicked to the greatsword that was now slung across the man’s back. That was the biggest problem. If it came to a fight, the Prince would need to close distance, strike fast, and then get away quickly before the giant could use it.
What about the girl? No name yet. The giant just used that strange title,eshendai,when he addressed her. Shorter than Tomaz, but about the same height as the Prince. Lithe, spry—unlike the mountain of a man she sat next to. Her movements were sharp, quick, and deliberate, even when just tying down a saddle. In a fight, he would be stronger, but she might be faster. They’d be evenly matched, if she had training. He’d need to keep her at a distance if he fought her, and only close when he was sure of a strike.
And then he reached out through his Talisman and felt their lives.
It was harder to do with Baseborn. The Children and the Empress left deep impressions on the world, and when they were near it was easy to sense the essence of their lives, as easy as it was for any man or woman to feel the heat of a burning flame. But ordinary people were more difficult. The Prince could always sense them, could always feel their lives pressing against him everywhere he went, but to truly reach deep and grasp them took concentration.
He reached out first to Tomaz. The impressions that came through the Talisman were never coherent thoughts, but more akin to jumbled sensoryperceptions. So when he delved into Tomaz, flashes of red crossed his vision, and then a litany of sensations.
The sound of steel ringing together—determination and a profound, serene patience—a percussive, insistent drumbeat— smells of mint and lavender—the feel of rough leather—
He pulled back, and breathed to let the impressions go.
He moved to the girl.
Swirls of green and silver light—the sound of steel cutting silk—the silent second after a symphony ends—the smell of newly trodden dust mixed with fresh honey—old pain—grim laughter—a quiet, secret sense of wonder—
He pulled back again, centering himself in his own mind. He managed to remain outwardly calm and to keep his breathing soft and quiet. There was nothing remarkable about them, and separately they were just two more ordinary people.
Together though, he realized, they complimented each other perfectly. Even just looking at them and listening to them talk made that clear. The girl spoke with a quick fluency that showed she was the planner, the thinker, while the big man spoke with a more considered deliberateness that showed he was the pragmatic conservative. She was the fire and he the ring of stones that helped contain and direct her.
And one fact had become increasingly clear to him during the day’s journey—these two ordinary people were very good at remaining unseen. The big man was always ranging behind, covering their tracks, while the girl kept a constant eye out for anything ahead and often picked out winding roads that took them up small creeks, over hard rocks, and around soft patches of dirt and grass. What was more, the quick skill and efficiency with which they had chosen this place to rest for the night, how the big man had noted the opening of the ravine though it was narrow and the sky dark, how the fire had been made in such a way that it barely smoked, it all added up to show that they were ascomfortable in this mountain landscape as the Prince was in the stone halls of his Mother’s Fortress.
The chances that he was going to be rescued by an outside presence seemed slimmer by the hour. He tried to think up plans of his own, but each one met with problems, once again because of the way the Exiles fit together; every weakness he observed in one of the two was countered by a strength in the other. Tomaz was not overly intelligent, but the girl was. The girl was hot-tempered, and the Prince was fairly certain he could lure her into making a false move; but Tomaz, even when chastising him, had exhibited no predictable spikes of emotion save good-natured humor. No, unless the two were separated, he stood no chance of escape.
So how to separate them?
“Finished with your dinner, princeling?”
With a start, he realized the girl had rounded the fire and was standing in the shifting shadows not far off.
“Don’t call me that,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, what should I call you then?”
