“We don’t allow people to leave our lands. Once someone has crossed through the Pass or over the mountains with us, they must remain in Vale unless the Elders agree that they can leave.”
“And how long would that take?”
“It’s not a matter of time,” she said. “It’s a matter of trust.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and then to Tomaz waiting farther up the trail. He reached back with his mind and felt the army of the Empire still following behind them. The choice appeared very simple on its face: go forward with the Exiles, or be captured and likely taken to his death.
And perhaps it was that simple. What other choice did he have?
“Fine,” he said. “Fine.”
She held his gaze, and he realized that she knew how much the decision meant. She nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said.
Together, they turned their horses again and continued on. Leah waved to the group ahead of them to continue. A shiver ran through the Prince that had nothing to do with the cold. His mind tried to whirl into action, but he stopped it. He couldn’t think right now.
They came to the bridge not too long afterwards. It was a simple thing, made of wood and rope coated in tar and resin to provide a steady footing. It was thick enough and wide enough that the horses could cross, and the Prince was surprised at the quality of the construction. They all dismounted and blindfolded their mounts in preparation for the crossing.
As he stepped onto the wood and began to lead his horse across, his heart pounded in his chest. The bridge was barely fifty feet across, and it was sturdy enough that he felt no worry of falling, even though they were suspended better than a thousand feet in the air and below them yawned a shadowy abyss. No, what had his heart knocking against his ribs was the realization of what he was doing. That with each step he was further confirming his decision.
Once they were on the other side, Tomaz and Lorna destroyed the wooden restraints that held the bridge in place, and then began to saw through the ropes that held it up. After a quarter of an hour, with the sharp sound of snapping fibers, the rope unwound and split, and the bridge fell into the chasm, crashing and resounding off the steep stone walls. The four Exiles all breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, but the Prince did not.
He followed them as they made their way through the mountain pass on the other side of the chasm, and soon they began to make their way back downward, this time on the other side of the mountain range.
For the first time in the history of the Empire, a Prince of the Realm had peacefully crossed into the Seventh Principality.
Chapter Seventeen: The Lands of the Kindred
As they rode, the Prince began reviewing what the Imperial scholars had told him about the lands of the Kindred, and also what he had been able to glean from forbidden texts in the secret Fortress Libraries that held the accounts of the generals who had attempted to invade the Kindred’s sanctuary.
What it came down to was that while the Empire had far superior numbers, strategists, and resources of war, they could not bring these things to bear on the Kindred. The Pass of Roarke forced the Empire to invade through a single narrow point that thinned what force could immediately be brought to bear. A number of times, a sea-based attack had been tried, but the shores that bordered the land were a series of treacherous cliffs and murderous tides, impossible for a large force to navigate. What sea-going the Kindred did conduct was run out of secret harbors in hidden bays that were similarly defensible by a small and dedicated force.
But even these obstacles the Empire should have been able to overcome with enough time and men. What held them off was the ingenuity of the Kindred themselves, and their enchanted defenses.
Any invading army that managed to pass beyond Roarke, through the mountains, and into the land of the Kindred found itself wandering aimlessly through lands that turned from desert to forest overnight. Rivers would erupt from bare rock, cutting an army in two. Days and nights were not fixed: darkness would fall sometimes hours after the sun rose, and sometimes day would continue on for an entire week.
The only man who had been able to successfully invade the Kindred lands was the Prince of Oxen, and only because he had pushed his army with no concern for his men’s wellbeing. Twice he had invaded with a force numberingin the hundreds of thousands and tracked down the Exiles, and twice he had been repulsed, his army too worn down by attrition to win the day.
The Prince had never heard more than wild speculation as to how the Kindred were able to manipulate the land. Some said it was an ancient magic that had existed before the Empress had come from across the sea; others said that one of the servants who had come with Her had betrayed Her and taken Her secrets to the farthest part of the Empire. Still others, the most zealous of Her followers, insisted that it was the Empress’ will to allow the Exiled Kindred to remain, and that She would, on a day of reckoning, lead an army into the heart of the Kindred lands and wipe them from the face of the earth, turning illusion into reality.
The Prince didn’t know what to believe, except that he was about to learn for himself what it was like to travel the Seventh Principality.
Once they had descended from the mountains, he was informed by the Exiles that the city of Vale, nexus of the Exiled Kindred’s power, was located barely more than a full day of travel from the Pass of Roarke. The Prince reined in his horse abruptly and the others all stopped to look at him.
“What?” he asked in shock. “That’s impossible!”
The red-eyedeshendailaughed; the sound rang out with a rich baritone quality that, again, seemed to mock the Prince.
“I thought you said he was one of the Most High,” the young man said to Leah. “I thought he’d be more intelligent.”
The Prince’s blood boiled, and he had to fight to keep his hand from reaching for the dagger at his belt. Tomaz seemed to have read the Prince’s mind and broke in hastily with a deep rumble.
“The magic of the Council of Elders makes it so that anyone without an Anchor is unable to see through the protections we have in place. It’s the greatest of our defenses against the Empire.”
Davydd, still chuckling, rode on ahead with Lorna, and the Prince followed sullenly, Leah and Tomaz hanging back with him.
“What’s an Anchor?” he asked.
“It’s a kind of totem, unique to each person who carries it,” Tomaz responded. He gave the Prince a brief look of interest mingled with excited anticipation. “I wonder what will happen to you without one.”
