“AH!”
“HEY!” roared a voice like a crashing waterfall as the Prince jumped up and moved to attack the source of the hand, “don’t panic, it’s just me. It’s Tomaz. Don’t look around yet, just remember where you are and what’s going to happen when you open your eyes.”
The Prince realized what a fool he’d just made of himself, but then decided that, with his nerves as frayed as they were, he was lucky he hadn’t done something truly stupid. He took a deep breath and nodded beneath the hand, steeling himself.
“Right. Thank you, Tomaz.”
He opened his eyes and found himself in a world covered in a thick white blanket. He must have gasped, or made some sign, because Tomaz tensed, and asked him a question, but the words didn’t register as more than sound.
“Snow,” he whispered.
And so it was, piled high all around them. He had seen it before, particularly in the streets of Lucien when winter came, but the snow there was fast to melt, and often gray or black with the soot in the sky or the grime on the streets. Here he found himself in the middle of a picture that he had seen when he was barely old enough to walk, a picture of perfect, new-fallen snow. Everything was covered in the soft, white blanket, making the world look fresh and clean.
“What are you seeing?” asked a voice. He looked up at Tomaz and shook his head.
“Snow, I think. But like I’ve only ever seen it in paintings and drawings. And parts of it I don’t think I’ve ever seen. Then again, with all the… ”
Suddenly the Prince was conscious of Davydd standing nearby, and he changed the end of his sentence.
“… stories people have told me, maybe what I’m seeing is some kind of amalgamation.”
Tomaz nodded after a brief hesitation, understanding.
“Stories?” Davydd asked. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Only things you’ve seen can be shown to you—only memories.”
“He’s got an overactive imagination,” said Leah, coming up on the Prince’s other side. “And he certainly does hound people for stories. And tells them to you too, whether you want to hear them or not. We couldn’t get him to shut up on the way here—have you heard this one, have you heard that one.”
“He doesn’t seem too talkative now,” Davydd said. “He can’t have forgotten them all. But then again, stories are as easy to forget as identities.”
And then the young man’s red eyes fixed on the Prince’s black ones. The Raven Talisman grew hot, and somehow the Prince knew, though how he could not say, that Davydd was playing them all for fools.
He knewexactlywho “Raven” was.
The Prince’s hand twitched instinctively, about to move under his drape-over to grasp the hilt of his dagger, but he stopped. The red eyes were watchinghim closely—and watching him with unmistakable intelligence. How much did he know? How much did he guess?
And would he tell the Elders in Vale and have him taken by force?
Leah and Tomaz were both making up more excuses, but the Prince knew it was useless. Somehow something he had done had revealed his true identity, or maybe Davydd had simply heard rumors of the Prince of Ravens moving south and put the pieces together. He was one of the Exiles who operated in the Empire after all; who knew what sources of information he had access to?
But Davydd didn’t speak. He simply nodded and gave the impression that he believed what Leah and Tomaz were telling him, all while watching the Prince with his fiery red gaze.
“Well,” Tomaz rumbled, “let’s get going. Shouldn’t keep the Elders waiting.”
“Certainly not!” Davydd said, resuming his foolish ne’re-do-well older brother routine. The Prince was amazed at how easy the transition was, and how oblivious the others were to it. “Though I’ll bet five golden stags none of them but Crane remembers you even left.”
Tomaz and Leah laughed, though it was somewhat forced, and they all went about packing their temporary camp. As they did, Davydd went over and spoke in a low voice to Lorna. She made no sign that anything he said had any import, but the Prince found himself wondering if Davydd had already shared his suspicions with her.
Why wasn’t he making a bigger deal of it? No Exiled in their right mind would let the Prince of Ravens into the lands of the Kindred.
He means to turn me in. That must be it.
But what could the Prince do? He couldn’t go back, not now. Assuming he found his way through the illusions—a huge assumption, but for argument’s sake say he could—the bridge they’d come over was out. His only other option was equally impassible: even if he could make it through any Exiled patrols between here and the Pass of Roarke, upon arrival he would have to contendwith his brother Ramael, and that was not a confrontation he felt confident he would survive.
No, he realized as he mounted his horse and followed along behind the Exiles, the landscape flickering but he too lost in his thoughts to notice, there was nothing he could do but go to Vale and hope the Exiles all held their tongues.
Another thought came to him, one that whispered sweetly and deadly in the deepest corners of his mind: Davydd wouldn’t need to hold his tongue if the Prince silenced it for him. It was what Geofred would do. What any of the Children would do.
No, the Prince thought harshly.I do not kill unless I have to.
