“Sounds good to me,” he said, and pulled his own blanket over himself and lay back, his head pillowed on his crossed arms.
The Prince sat staring into the fire for a long time, wondering what he was going to do when morning came.
Chapter Sixteen: Choices
Morning dawned with the Prince still holding watch, his mind whirling with thoughts. He hadn’t been able to sleep, and, in any case, he felt he owed a full night’s rest to Tomaz and Leah for carrying him all this way.
Leah was the first to stir, waking with a luxurious stretch like a cat. She opened her eyes and rolled over, taking in the banked fire and the sleeping form of Tomaz, and then the Prince.
“Have you been on watch all night?” she asked, sleep coloring her voice. The Prince couldn’t help but smile at the unfeigned surprise in her tone.
“Yes,” he said. “It felt fair. I’ve been sleeping for a while, after all.”
“Huh. All right,” she said. Then in one fluid motion, she rose to her feet, the blanket dropping off of her, and she walked over to wake Tomaz. The Prince went to the saddlebags and pulled out more cheese and bread for breakfast. He was pleased that his hands weren’t shaking.
They ate their meal in silence, enjoying the food and the brisk morning air.
“What’s our plan for moving on?” the Prince asked, bracing himself.
“We’re going to make for the Pass of Roarke,” Tomaz said. “There’re a few passes through the mountains that we can use to cross—they’re usually patrolled by rotating squads of men from Roarke, but if we’re quick we’ll be able to make it across the border before they even know we’re there. Then we head to Vale–”
“No,” the Prince said.
Leah and Tomaz stopped eating.
“What do you mean no?” Leah asked, eyes flashing.
“I mean you were right, Leah, I’m not one of you,” he said quietly. “I can’t let my personal injustices at the hands of the Empire make me believe rebellion isthe right course of action. So, I won’t be going with you through the Pass. I won’t be going to Vale.”
They sat staring at him with incredulity.
“The Empire is good,” he said emphatically. “It’s good for the people who live under its rule, it’s good for the development of the land, it’s good for the majority. And while you’ve saved me on multiple occasions, I will never rebel against the lawful rule of the Diamond Throne. I—I am… grateful,” the word caught in his throat, but he forced it out, “and you have given me much to think about. But my place is in the Empire. I am a Prince of the Realm as long as I bear the Raven Talisman, and I cannot turn my back on my responsibility.”
A long silence followed this pronouncement. Finally, the girl stood up, staring at him, and the Prince knew that she felt vindicated. Here he was making all of the arguments that she had made last night.
“And what about the slave auction you saw in Banelyn?”
He flinched back, as if she’d physically hit him. The memory came back to him, unbidden, and he was once more nauseated.
“Yes, I know you saw it, I know you were there,” she said. “You’ve seen the kind of men the Empire employs, scum like the Defenders. You saw that they were going to take me to Formaux and would have held me and tortured me until I was dead, simply because it would hurt my father and give them leverage. You’ve seen now what your Empire does to people!”
“Yes!” the Prince snapped back, “and that is why I am needed here! I can’t just run away from all of that, I can’t just give up and leave the Empire to run off and become a rebel. Do you know how many of the Most High ever leave Lucien to see the Empire? How many ever leave their own Province to visit a neighboring one if they do not need to? If I can make them see the world they’ve unknowingly created, then I can make the Empire better!”
“And when you return and they kill you, what then?”
“What does it matter to you, anyway? I thought it was too risky to bring me back to your precious Vale in the first place!”
The shout came out of him before he could stop it, and Leah took a step back, apparently surprised by the hurt and reproach she heard in his voice. He took a deep breath. This arguing was getting him nowhere.
“In any case, you’ve gotten your wish. I’m not going with you.”
“Your intentions are good, princeling,” Tomaz rumbled, a look of near panic on his face, as if things were quickly getting out of hand. “But you had never left the capital city yourself until a very short while ago. You do not know how this world works. As soon as your name was taken from you, you were made into an outcast, and even if you wish to return to change things for the better, there are men and armies after you as we speak. You’ve killed Defenders. You’ve destroyed Death Watchmen. The life of a Bloodmage is on your hands. You’ve defied your Mother’s orders to return to the capital, ignored the commands of a Seeker, and saved the lives of two Exiled Kindred.”
The Prince shook his head. This was wrong. It was all wrong.
“I can’t just run away. I can’t turn my back on my people, on the Empire.”
“It has turned its back on you, princeling.”
