Tomaz grabbed the Prince by the scruff of the neck and pulled him toward the door until the Prince began to walk on his own.
Once in the hallway—a short stone corridor lined with torches in wall brackets—they turned right, the Prince following the lead of the Exiles, as he had no idea where they were. Both Tomaz and the girl had pulled their hoods and masks back on, though the Prince was unsure what help that would be since he, the top security prisoner, was with them.
They rounded a corner and were presented with a set of iron bars that spanned ceiling to floor.
“Shadows and fire, this wasn’t here before,” the girl cursed.
Tomaz motioned the Prince and the girl out of the way, obviously ready to attempt to break through the bars.
“Wait!” the Prince said. He stepped forward.
“We don’t have time towait, princeling,” the girl said with exasperation.
The Prince ignored her and continued examining the bars. Near the top of the farthest right bar, he saw what he was looking for.
“There,” he said, pointing.
It was a small mark most people would have missed, but one the Prince had been trained to notice on all things. It was a red tear-shaped droplet of blood. The sign of the Bloodmages.
With an awkward, jerky movement, trying to avoid hitting the bars with the manacles still dangling from his wrists, he reached up and touched the symbolwith his thumb. The bars shot up into the ceiling, leaving the hallway clear. The Prince motioned for them to follow him through.
“How did you do that?” the girl asked.
“Bloodmages draw their power from all seven Talismans,” he said. “As long as I’m connected to the Raven, nothing they make can keep me out, even if the entire Empire is hunting me. That’s why Tomaz could break my chains—they were just metal. If they had been enchanted, they wouldn’t have been able to hold me. Now, don’t we have somewhere to be?”
The girl brushed past him, Tomaz following quickly behind. They rounded another corner as a group of guards came into the corridor twenty yards farther up. Luckily, they hadn’t spotted them, or else they thought that they were all Lesser Seekers, the Prince hiding behind Tomaz’s conveniently large bulk. The Prince and the Exiles rounded another corner, and came to a small staircase, leading upwards. Two guards were stationed at the bottom, and they caught sight of the three immediately.
“Stay where you are!” one of them called, but it was too late. The Prince and the girl, side by side, hurtled forward, taking the guards by surprise. Falling back on his training again, the Prince used the same joint-locking technique he had used on the Death Watch soldier what seemed so long ago now. The man fell in a heap at the Prince’s feet, but as the Prince turned away, the man reached up and pulled his foot out from under him.
He fell flat on his face, slapping his hands against the ground to absorb the shock of the blow. Stars winked at the edges of his vision, but as he looked up, he saw a dagger sticking out of the Exile girl’s boot. He lunged for it, caught the handle, and spun, slicing the guard’s bicep, rendering his arm useless.
The Prince rolled to his feet, crouching over the guard, staring into the man’s frightened eyes. This was good—now he would be stronger and faster. He raised the dagger high.
His mind flashed back to the Death Watch soldier in the mountains.
With a growl of anger, he flipped the dagger up into air, grabbed it dexterously by the blade guard, and smashed the end of the hilt into the man’s temple, knocking him out cold but leaving him alive.
He rose, dagger still in hand, and turned to see the Exiles staring at him.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” the girl asked.
The Prince, nerves considerably on edge after his imprisonment, responded so viciously he was nearly snarling. “I don’t kill unless I have to, remember? That’s an Exile’s job.”
If he had expected her to look hurt or stung or affected at all, he was sorely disappointed. She simply stared at him, her face cold and dispassionate.
Tomaz muttered something to her that he couldn’t hear, something that sounded like “worth the trouble.”
Before he could ask, there was a sound behind him, and they all whirled to face it. A number of men rounded the corner, some dressed in the black of the Searchers. One pointed at them and gave a cry.
“Quickly,” Tomaz said, “up the stairs!”
The Prince held out the dagger to the girl, offering it back, but she shook her head.
“Keep it—you’ll need it.”
The three of them made their way up the stone staircase, disappearing around the first curve. They continued to climb for ages, going around and around and always upward.
The Prince, kept in confinement for a week, tied to a wall, and fed little more than starvation rations, felt his strength ebbing away as his feet began to drag like lead weights. The Exiles began to pull ahead of him. Gasping, he hurried to catch up, hearing the alarm bells still ringing in the distance, knowing that this was his only chance to escape.
