As soon as she mentioned the Fortress, the world gave another lurch, this time so violent that the Prince felt his stomach protest and bile rise in his throat.
He was in a long stone corridor, tapestries on either side of him depicting famous battles, a small alcove to his right holding a gaudy golden chalice.
The forest—jungle?—returned, and the Prince abruptly leaned over the side of his horse, feeling he was about to retch.
“Whoa there,” Tomaz said, reaching over and holding onto the neck of the Prince’s shirt. “What did you see that time?”
“Fortress,” he managed to get out, breathing heavily, his stomach slowly settling back down.
“Interesting,” Leah said. “Is it because I mentioned the Fort—?”
“Don’t say it!” the Prince snapped. The world did a half-lurch, but the Prince was able to squint his eyes and keep himself in the jungle. “How long is it going to take to get to Vale?”
“We’ll have to camp for the night, and then we’ll get there early morning tomorrow.”
“Shadows and light,” he cursed. They lapsed into silence and the Prince noticed that the forest had begun to shift unsteadily at the edges of his vision. Atwist in the contours of the land reminded him vaguely of a stream he’d seen in the Elmist Mountains.
“Keep talking,” he pleaded as a stream suddenly sprang into being and ran alongside them.
“About what?” Tomaz asked.
“Anchors,” the Prince said at randomly. “How are they unique?”
“It’s the nature of valerium,” Tomaz responded.
“You mentioned that before. What is valerium?”
“It’s a type of metal,” Tomaz began. He was cut off abruptly by Leah.
“It’s a type ofalloy,” she corrected.
“Well, why don’t you tell the man about it?” Tomaz responded with a grin, motioning her to continue. She smiled apologetically but kept talking.
“A type of metalworking that takes iron ore and combines it with pure valerium ore—only found in the mines east of the city of Vale—at extraordinary temperatures. When the alloy cools, what’s left behind is then reheated and oxidized—the same way that steel is made—and the result is a pure white metal that is denser than steel and can be honed to a razor’s edge. It’s powerful. A weapon made of valerium is as much better than the best Tynian steel as steel is over the copper or bronze weapons people used at the beginning of the Cumrunian Era, which was nearly a millennium before—”
“No history lessons,” the Prince said through a tightly clenched jaw. “Why don’t you use it then?”
“It’s deadly against any kind of magic and stands up well against other weapons. But it’s extremely difficult to wield, owing to the fact it’s heavier than steel and that if it’s struck just right, the blade shatters.”
“What?” the Prince asked. “I thought you said it was denser than steel?”
“It is,” Leah’s brow furrowed as she continued, trying to remember, “but something about the way the blades are forged makes them brittle when struck at the right angle. That’s why all valerium blades are curved and single-sided. Itactually makes better axes than swords—you saw Lorna’s? Good—but daggers made from it are terrible. The smaller the metal, the weaker the alloy, for a reason that I knew at one point but I can’t remember. Daggers made from it are good for throwing, but not much else. They’re just too heavy for quick work. And the swords made from it have never felt right to me. So, I stick with steel. I’ve never had problems.”
The Prince nodded. He had been trained in single-edged swords and found them easier to wield then their double-edged cousins, but if you could handle daggers like the girl could, why bother with anything else?
“So Anchors are made of valerium. How do you make it unique to a person?” he asked. The conversation was helping him keep his mind off the shifting landscape, which had settled for the moment on a narrow mountain pass that must be from the Elmist Mountains, and he wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
“When the metal is forged, the first person to touch a drop of their blood to the Anchor becomes linked to it.”
The Prince looked up sharply and the world spun round him. He closed his eyes for a second before speaking to let the vertigo pass.
“Blood magic?” he asked.
“Not the way you think of it,” Tomaz rumbled.
“Bloodmages are a corruption of the art the Council has perfected.” Leah said hotly. “Their magic involves blood of others, sacrifices, even sometimes—”
“I know,” the Prince said, and then lowered his voice. “It’s me, remember?”
