“Eshendai, now is not the time!” Tomaz said. He turned to the Prince.
“If you come with us, you live,” he said bluntly. “If you stay here, you die.”
The girl and the Prince were almost nose to nose, glaring hatefully at each other. The noise of a far off grate swinging open came from outside the door, and then sounds of feet tramping across a corridor above them.
“I would rather die than become an Exile,” the Prince said finally.
The girl pushed herself off of him and spun, glaring at Tomaz. The big man moved forward so quickly he was a blur until suddenly the enormous bearded face appeared above the Prince.
“Where there is life,” the big man rumbled, “there is hope. Do not turn your back on us, we who are trying to save your life, the same way that they have turned their backs on you. There are times when bad things happen. We cannot stop those things, no matter how hard we try. But what makes a man a man is that he continues on, regardless. That he stands up again, and that he learns from what has knocked him down.”
The Prince felt something shift deep in his gut, and he blinked several times, breaking eye contact with Tomaz. There came more sound from outside the cell, and the girl made an impatient sound, but Tomaz held out a hand to her and she fell silent.
“Where would I go?” the Prince asked, his voice very small.
“You would go with us,” Tomaz said, earnestly.
“To the land of the Exiled Kindred?” the Prince scoffed. “Where I’ll be treated as a prisoner of war? Where I’ll be tortured for information if I decide not to give it willingly?”
“I should have known you’d be an idiot like this,” said the girl.
“And what would you do in my place?” he snapped back.
The girl stared at him, her nostrils flared. But then she looked down slightly and seemed to truly consider the question. When she looked back up, her eyes were blazing once more. “I would live,” she said. “I would live just to spite those thrice-damned bastards that want you dead.”
The Prince held her gaze for a long moment, and the anger he’d felt, the pain, hardened into something sharp and strong. It cut him, but it gave him strength.
“Fine,” he said. “Unchain me.”
“Fantastic,” the girl said. “He better be worth this trouble, Tomaz.”
The sounds outside the cell became louder, and it became clear that the Seeker’s headquarters was in an uproar. An alarm bell began to ring.
“They’ve discovered our presence,” Tomaz said grimly.
“How?” the girl asked. “We stored the Searchers—”
“No doubt my cell is enchanted,” the Prince said. “Bloodmages could have placed enchantments around the door and the lock.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” the girl hissed.
“I didn’t know you were coming!” the Prince retorted venomously.
There was the sound of a key scraping in the lock, and the Prince fell silent. The girl and Tomaz switched places, the girl taking position beside the door in the shadows, and Tomaz approaching the Prince, grabbing the chains that were holding him in place. Clenching them in his enormous fist, Tomaz threw his full weight against the restraints. With a screech like a dying animal, the chains came out of the wall in a shower of powdered stone and mortar.
The door opened and three guards entered with swords already half drawn. Tomaz and the Prince, still in chains but no longer tethered to the wall, kept a safe distance away. The guards saw them and immediately spread out in formation, coming further into the room. They never even saw the Exile girl.
There was a blurred series of movements, and then all three men lay motionless on the floor, the girl standing calmly over them as she sheathed her daggers.
Shadows and light, she’s good.
There was a strange tugging sensation on the Prince’s arms, and he turned to see Tomaz pulling apart the links of the chains with fingers the size ofsausages, once again accompanied by the tortured scream of metal. Not two seconds later, the Prince was left only with the manacles and a bit of chain hanging from each.
“Shadows and light,” he whispered, astonished.
“You’re welcome,” Tomaz responded.
“We need to leave very quickly,” the girl said, looking into the corridor. “There are going to be a lot of people here very soon.”
