“You’re a pretty big sleep-talker, princeling,” Leah said, ruffling his hair and giving his head a playful push.
“We certainly learned a bit more about your feelings for a young lady by the name of… Monsunne, was it,eshendai?”
Leah let out a laugh like the peal of a bell, as bright and golden as the day. The Prince felt his cheeks burn, and he lay back down on the litter.
“I’m going back to bed,” he said, mortified.
“I think not!” roared Tomaz. “I want to know more about this Lady’s magnificent bosom!”
“I did not say that!” the Prince protested, sitting bolt upright and pointing at Tomaz severely with an outstretched finger. The big man just smiled and shrugged. The Prince caught Leah stifling a laugh out of the corner of his eye.
“Don’t encourage him,” the Prince said. He looked around and realized he had no idea where they were and said as much.
“A few days past Lake Chartain,” responded Tomaz.
“PastLake Chartain?”
“Indeed,” Tomaz rumbled. “We’ve hauled your skinny butt nearly a hundred miles. But it’s fine, we know Princes need their beauty sleep.”
“And what,” the Prince paused and cleared his throat before continuing. “Happened after… after…”
He broke off and left the sentence unfinished.
“You mean after you saved this girl’s worthless hide?” Tomaz asked. Leah stooped, picked up a pebble, and threw it at him. It glanced harmlessly off his massive shoulder.
“Just say that again,ashandel,” she taunted. “I can take you.”
Tomaz pretended to cower in fear. Leah laughed.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” the Prince asked, bewildered.
“What do you mean why are we in a good mood?” Leah asked. “You might defy death and certain torture everyday back in the great big capital city of Lucien, but out here, being spared all that is cause for celebration!”
“But aren’t we still being followed?” he asked.
“Not so far as we know,” Tomaz said. “We did some serious scouting and found that those Defenders were the only ones who knew where we were, and you,” the big man looked back over his shoulder at the Prince, “you certainly dealt with them.”
“Yes,” the Prince said, his mood darkening as vague shapes and images came back to him, his own memories of the memories that he had absorbed from the men he had killed.
Suddenly he felt immensely tired and ravenously hungry. Leah seemed to have anticipated this—she passed him a small hunk of bread and cheese and a waterskin. Without even thanking her, he tore into the food, and drank heavily from the skin. He wondered how long it had been since he had eaten, and how many days he had lain unconscious after… after he had killed the Defenders.
The food turned to ash in his mouth, and his appetite left him. He saw Tomaz and Leah exchange a significant glance.
“You never told us the exact details of what you could do,” Tomaz said. “Would have been nice to know. Come in handy in a fight.”
“Yes… well, that’s why I don’t kill unless I have to,” the Prince said quietly. Both of the Exiles were looking at him intently now, and, reluctantly, feeling every word pulled from him like a splinter from under his fingernails, he attempted to explain.
“The Raven Talisman connects me to the life of everything around me. But human life—human life is somehow more than everything else. Brighter, more intense. When a person dies, well, when I kill someone, their life… I absorb their life. Geofred always said he was more inclined to think it was their soul, since I don’t just absorb their physical qualities, but also what makes themthem. Memories, fears, anger, happiness. One time I even absorbed a rash. Damned inconvenient.”
He was studying the grassy ground of the forest to his right, not wanting to look at the two Exiles. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he felt ashamed talking about this with them. As if he were talking about something dark and unclean, something that would never enter polite conversation.
“And after a certain time,” Leah said gently, “the memories fade?”
“Yes,” the Prince said slowly, not knowing why he continued to speak, but feeling compelled to do so. “Impressions of them remain, though. Memories of those memories. The first time, it was bad. The first state execution I took part in. The man had… taken a woman by force.”
The Prince felt more than saw the girl tense, and he couldn’t bring himself to look up at Tomaz, to see how the big man was reacting.
“I relived every action for an hour. I lived in his skin. I was too young to know anything about right or wrong, really, but I knew that something about it was monstrous, and still I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t push it away. The experience was… unpleasant.”
