“Warm,” the Prince responded simply.
Tomaz chuckled. “Well, that’s the most important thing,” he said, and then he turned away to start prepping the evening fire.
Their journey continued, and as it did there were a few nights when, restless, the Prince and Tomaz would spar. The first night, Tomaz had thought he was joking.
“Princeling, I’m sorry, but I could break you in two with a hard sneeze.”
“Then do it,” the Prince said, adding a biting, taunting twist to the words that he had learned from Leah. She laughed as he said it.
“Fine,” the ex-Blade Master said as he rose to his feet. “But no blades. We can use staves if you want to find some likely-looking branches.”
After some searching, they found some. And, as predicted, the Prince was soundly beaten several times in a row.
“Again!” he said, after being knocked down by the big man’s staff. He could already feel bruises forming on his arms and legs where the wood had struck him, but he was ready for more. It felt good to be active. The cuts on his wrists, and the wounds he’d received from the Death Watchmen, had all healed well, and he felt whole. He had been too long away from the practice yard, anyway, and knew that he was in desperate need of exercise.
Obligingly, the big man readied himself again.
Most every night from then on found them at it again, and though the Prince struck the big man a number of times, he never landed a serious blow. Tomaz, though big as a small hill, was faster than the Prince would have predicted, and never tired. It seemed as though he could move forever. He reminded the Prince of his brother Ramael and his sister Dysuna. Ramael, the Prince of Oxen, had a similar build and, bearing the Ox Talisman, could perform feats of strength that were impossible for a common man. Dysuna, the Prince of Wolves, never tired—in fact, she never rode a horse because she could run the length of the Empire without stopping for food or rest.
Leah, on the other hand, refused to spar.
“Why not?” the Prince asked, trying to remember the way she had taunted him about something else a few days earlier. “Are you poultry?”
“Chicken,” she corrected him. “Am I chicken.”
“Yeah,” he said, “well, are you?”
“Sure, princeling,” she said, too sweetly. “You tell yourself whatever you need to to keep your manhood intact.”
And throughout it all, the Prince held onto his anger. And slowly, as the girl had predicted, it began to eat away and dissolve his doubts and guilt and shame. And as time continued to pass, hope grew in him that he might be able to free himself from the Empire entirely.
They made camp a day outside Lake Chartain, and he fell asleep fully at peace for the first time that he could remember.
When he woke, it was to find a Defender of the Realm holding a sword to his throat, silhouetted against the rising sun.
Chapter Fourteen: What You Use It For
He yelled in surprise, but the cry was cut short when the sword pressed deeper into the skin of his neck.
“None of that now, little Exile,” the Defender breathed into his face, smelling of garlic and rancid meat, a combination so disgusting that the Prince almost emptied his stomach. But he swallowed and held back, and was able to steal frantic glances to his right and left in an effort to locate Leah and Tomaz.
Their bedrolls were empty. There was no sign of where they’d gone.
He tried to understand what was happening, but the pieces didn’t seem to fit together. How had this happened? It was just past dawn, and the shadows of the forest still lay long and cool across the campsite. The fire was still banked, and their bags were stashed where they’d left them the night before. There didn’t appear to be any sign of a disturbance.
“Don’t worry, your friend is here, too.”
The Defender grabbed a hank of his hair and, careful to keep the sword close, pulled him upright. The Prince was able to turn further around, and finally he caught sight of Tomaz.
His heart lurched and skipped a beat before beginning to pound more insistently. The big man was sitting calmly on the ground, though he was neither tied nor bound and no sword or dagger threatened him. Instead, a man dressed all in black, head shaved and arcane symbols tattooed into his skin, stood over him, holding a blood-red crystal into which Tomaz was staring helplessly.
A Soul Catcher. A Bloodmage.
“NO!” the Prince cried, suddenly heedless of the blade at his throat. The Bloodmage threw up a hand, and immediately three Defenders closed in on the Prince, all equally unwashed and dressed in the notorious red-and-brownuniform, with insignias of the triliope on their chests. They held him down, despite his thrashing.
“How… how?” he asked no one in particular.
“Came on you in the night,” said one of the Defenders. “Shulmun there, our Bloodmage, he sensed you a ways off and said we’d wait for dawn, and then he’d come and hypnotize the guard and we’d have the other two of you no problem. Happened just like he said.”
