“I think so too,” the girl said, “and then we can give them our report in person.”
“And what about me?” the Prince asked.
Both Leah and Tomaz looked away. He felt his heart sink.
“Am I prisoner of war?” he asked quietly. “Will your report call me Raven, a runaway son of the Most High, or the Prince of Ravens, a treasure trove of knowledge should you manage to pull it out of me?”
For a long time, Leah looked blankly at the ground, and the Prince realized that, just as he had been struggling with the realization that she, while an Exile, could be a good person, she was going through a similar battle, trying to reconcile him as the person who had saved her life and the Prince that she hated for oppressing her people.
“I see no reason to make the final choice today,” Tomaz rumbled softly, looking now at Leah with tender regard. “Go home. Sleep on it—I think that’s what we all could use. And tomorrow, the three of us together,” he looked at the Prince, including him, “will decide the best way to move forward. The Council will not see us for a few days at least, no matter how urgent we tell them our message is.”
For a long time, Leah remained silent, and then, slowly, she nodded. Tomaz looked at the Prince, and he nodded as well. Like it or not, he couldn’t force the issue.
“We’ll meet tomorrow at midday,” Leah said abruptly, “at the Bricks.”
This apparently meant something to Tomaz, because he nodded, and then, without another word, Leah was off, riding down the hill in the same direction Davydd had gone.
“Well then,” Tomaz said cheerily, his tone completely at odds with everything the Prince was feeling at that moment. “Follow me!”
He urged his horse into a brisk walk, and the Prince followed suit, moving down the hill at a slight angle to the city. The Prince, lost in his thoughts, didn’t notice that they were taking a trail that branched off the main road until he looked up and realized that the city was now hidden by a screen of tall pine trees, which, the Prince thought harshly, knew what they were doing and had kept their green needles instead of changing them for red and gold.
“It’s a bit small, and it’ll be snug with two of us,” Tomaz said. “But I think it’ll be all right.”
They continued down the road, made of hard-packed dirt, a decent way. They came to an opening in the trees, and the Prince saw a wooden cabin with a tall stone chimney off to their left in the shade of a large tree with white bark and fading red leaves. A path, which looked as though it were accustomed to being well cared for but was currently in disrepair due to its owner’s absence, led from the dirt road up to the front door.
The cabin itself was actually rather large—but then again, so was Tomaz. They dismounted, tied their horses to a hitching post, and approached the door, the giant sweeping fallen branches and leaves off the path with his huge boots as they went. When they reached the front door—a slab of wood over twelve feet tall—the big man pulled out a dull silver key from a breast pocket inside his leather jerkin, inserted it into a dull silver lock, and pressed down on the latch. The door swung open easily, though the hinges squeaked, another sign that Tomaz had been absent for several months.
The Prince’s first thought upon entering was that he had somehow shrunk. Everything was Tomaz-sized, and as such it made him feel like he’d returned tochildhood and had just entered an adult house for the first time. The cabin was made of three rooms—the first was the main room, which contained a large couch, an equally oversized rocking chair, two rugs made of some kind of furry—hairy?—animal hide, and several hunting implements that hung about the walls. Visible off to the left was a corner room taken up almost completely by an enormous bed and an equally gigantic carved wooden dresser, on top of which was a water basin, a mirror, and various shaving implements. Off to the right was a small door—this one only some ten feet tall—that led to a kitchen full of bright, polished silver pots and dark black pans.
“Well, this is it,” the big man said, and the Prince realized that Tomaz was nervous to hear what he thought of it all. “Like I said,” he continued, “we might be a little squeezed, since it’s just the three rooms, but I’ve only ever had myself living here, so—”
“It’s perfect, Tomaz,” the Prince said. And truly it was, all else aside. It was no luxury apartment in the Fortress of Lucien, but it had a lived-in feel to it that was immediately comforting, and it carried with it the sense of a hard-won, well-lived life. The Prince smiled, feeling true affection for the big man, and Tomaz, after taking a minute to confirm that this wasn’t sarcasm, positively beamed back at him through his beard.
“Well,” Tomaz said gruffly, swinging his arms back and forth unnecessarily, “let’s get the bags unpacked, eh?”
And with that he nodded once, swung his arms to and fro one more time, and then turned and went back to the horses, moving with a jerkiness that was half pride and half self-consciousness. The Prince stifled a smile and followed theashandelout to the horses.
Once they had unpacked, the Prince helping Tomaz since he really didn’t have anything of his own that he wasn’t wearing, it was well past midday, and they were both ravenous. Tomaz took the Prince out back and set him tochopping wood, even though there was a large pile already stowed against the back wall of the cabin.
“That’s for winter,” Tomaz rumbled when the Prince mentioned it. He’d taken the time to trim his beard properly, instead of the hasty shavings he’d done when on the road, and now he truly did look like a giant warrior-woodsman from some half-remembered legend. His long black hair, which the Prince noticed for the first time was graying ever so slightly at the temples, had also been combed and pulled back, though it was so thick and wild that “combed” was a relative term.
“Never touch the stockpile unless you have to,” Tomaz said. “Always chop fresh wood when you can still get it. Now get me some good-sized logs so we can start a fire and get a stew going. I’m going to see what kind of meat I can find us.”
He set off into the woods, a longbow that was nearly eight feet long over his shoulder.
The Prince’s stomach rumbled, but he ignored it and set to work with the simple axe. It was easier than it looked—as long as he put the wood pieces on the stump the right way, he was strong enough to split it in half with a well-aimed blow. Before long, he’d worked up a sweat, and he was glad to see Tomaz coming back through the trees with a small deer and a trio of rabbits. The deer bore evidence of an arrow wound; the rabbits looked like they’d be caught in some kind of trap.
“That’ll do nicely,” the big man said, eyeing the Prince’s work with the wood. “Take some kindling and four or five logs and set up a fire like I showed you in the fireplace.”
The Prince did as told, all the while grateful to have something to do to keep his mind off the situation at hand. His thoughts kept trying to stray to Davydd and Leah, imagining what they might be telling members of the Kindred about him as he sat there in the woods and helped cook dinner. But as soon as he wasin front of the fireplace, trying to remember exactly how to make a fire, those thoughts went away again.
In no time at all it seemed, though by the setting sun it was several hours after they’d entered Vale, Tomaz had cleaned the rabbits, chopped and sliced a number of roots and herbs the Prince couldn’t begin to know the names of it, and slid everything into a large black pot that could have been used by the Prince as a slightly undersized bathtub. The Prince, who had finally managed to construct the fire and get it lit, sat down on the large, well-stuffed couch, and found himself idle for the first time since arriving.
Immediately, like the bubbles rising to the surface of the stew, his thoughts of Davydd and Leah and the Kindred Council of Elders returned, floating to the top of his mind and releasing little bursts of fear and panic that he knew would build into something dangerous if he didn’t dissipate them quickly.
“You said once that Leah is a Spellblade,” the Prince said, picking a topic at random. Tomaz was bustling around in the kitchen, putting things away and also keeping an eye on the stew. “What does that mean?”
“Ah, well… some of it is secret. A ritual is involved that I don’t fully understand as I’ve never been a part of it—but the effect is that a man or woman, one that has decided to give their life to the cause of the Kindred, is bound to a weapon. It is traditional foreshendaito do this—though it isn’t necessary. I never liked the idea—what happens if my sword breaks? Or it’s stolen? No, I’ve seen too much battle and used too many weapons to pick one. But Leah—and her brother with that sword of his—both became Spellblades.”
