He felt alone, so glaringly obviously alone, even as he knew the fate of two nations hung upon what he did in the next few hours. But his anger and his resentment had begun to deepen into hatred; hatred of what or who he could not say, perhaps of the world, hatredatthe world for making him choose, for constantly demanding that he choose what he wanted and who he wanted to be, right here, right now. And that hatred fed his anger, and his anger turned around and fed the hatred, until in the end he was lost in a spiral of hopeless, unending pain.
Let it happen, he thought savagely. I have no duty to anyone anymore. There is no one here I care about, no one in the world who truly cares about me. I am the Prince of Ravens. I feed off of death. Let death come, even if it comes for me.
So when Tomaz awoke and set the leftover stew over the fire, he asked if the big man would like to spar.
“Certainly,” Tomaz said, looking surprised but also excited. “I didn’t know you liked to get beaten so often. Would wound my pride if it happened to me.”
The Prince smiled at the big man’s joke, feeling a true touch of affection for him. It would be good to spar with Tomaz one last time. So, after breakfast, Tomaz led him down the mountainside, and into the city of Vale itself.
The city, as the Prince had seen when they’d entered the valley, was a huge, sprawling thing; and as he walked through it, the chimneys of the bakeries slowly taking their first smoky breaths and the shop windows rubbing sleep from their eyes and opening themselves to customers, he knew that if there was a good place to spend his last day, it was here.
Children ran in the streets, herded along by various haggard-looking mothers, and the Prince wondered vaguely where they were going. It was a surprise to him, as it had been in Banelyn, that they were allowed out in public, especially before they’d reached puberty, but this was Vale, and the Kindredwere certainly strange people. The Prince felt numb to surprise now in any case—he was just existing. He would make no choices; he would feel nothing. Let the choice be someone else’s this time; let the world decide without him.
The sparring arena was on the east side of the city, and as they made their way down the broad main street that cut through the center of it all, they passed large buildings that slowly grew in size until they resembled the houses of the Most High, though here they were simply out in the open for anyone to see and approach. The largest of them, at the end of a long artificial pond, was made of white stone painted with green and gold highlights and framed by columns and sculptures. The large domed roof had a single spear-like flagpole at its top, though no flag was raised there today.
When they finally reached the sparring arena, the Prince saw that it was located amidst a large barracks and training ground. The arena itself was a large stone building, capped by a dome that was painted with various murals of Kindred fighters. One of them was a huge bull of a man that looked vaguely like his brother Ramael, but with pure white hair. The Prince of Ravens reached out again and felt the still-growing point of light in the back of his head. Somehow Ramael had found a way around the enchantments that had held him at bay for so long. The Prince wondered idly how, but then let the thought go. It didn’t matter. He would take no sides and see what happened.
They entered the arena and found that it was separated into five large sections, one main, central area, which was a platform with raised stone seats immediately surrounding it, and four smaller areas situated outside that perimeter.
“Practice arenas,” Tomaz said, nodding to the four smaller areas. “Each is for a different art. Back corner is archery, back left is axes, hammers, and larger weapons, the one on our right is the unarmed ring, and the one on our left is the sword and dagger arena.”
“Sword and dagger?” the Prince suggested.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” the big man said with a grin.
Together they moved forward. The Prince felt oddly at peace.
Tomaz pulled out his greatsword, which he’d brought from the cabin, and then selected and attached a thick leather edge-guard that would prevent the blade from slicing. Even guarded, though, the weapon was still a formidable thing, and the Prince realized this would be a much better example of actual combat between the two of them.
The Prince approached the rack of spare practice swords on the side of the sparring platform and looked through them. He’d always fought best with a single-sided long blade, but most of these looked like typical double-edged broadswords. There were one or two falchions, a handful of long hand-and-a-half swords, a slew of thin rapiers, a row of daggers of all shapes and sizes, and at the end….
The Prince reached out and grasped the copper-wire-bound hilt of a long, slightly curved, single-sided sword made of creamy white metal. It was thinner than a broadsword, and slightly longer. The blade was oddly bright, almost shining as it took in the smallest hint of light, amplified it, and threw it back. From different angles it looked alternately like a ceramic antique and a razor-sharp surgical implement. It was an elegant weapon, that much was certain, and it carried with it a haughty, proud air, as if the sword itself knew its value.
“Valerium?” the Prince asked, turning to Tomaz. He held the sword out for the big man to see, and as he did he felt the extra weight of which Leah had spoken—the sword was a good few pounds heavier than a typical broadsword.
“I thought this was rather valuable?”
Tomaz was looking at the sword curiously too.
“It is. The store of valerium metal is well guarded, but then again, if you’re going to use one in real life, then you need to use one in practice, so there’s always one or two floating around. Most of the time it’s only for Ranger or Rogue training, but it looks like they found a spare since I‘ve been gone. If it’shere, you might as well use it. I’ve never much liked it—the weight feels wrong to me. I’m like the girl. Steel’s always been good enough for me, and I suspect it always will be.”
The Prince peered closely at it and saw that the blade was sharp—not a practice sword at all. He pointed this out to Tomaz and said as much, and the big man just smiled.
“You can’t dull valerium once it’s been sharpened, at least not down to the point where it’s safe to hit someone with in the sparring ring. It’ll get less sharp, but it will never be dull. No matter how much you use it. Maybe not always sharp enough to kill, but certainly sharp enough to leave a nasty cut. Throw an edge guard on it and let’s get going.”
“Will it work?” the Prince asked dubiously, eyeing the razor-sharp edge and remembering what Leah had told him about the metal.
“The guard’s lined with a thin bit of metal,” Tomaz said, tossing him one made for single-edged swords. “It’s light enough so you don’t truly feel it, and it’s good to train with a bit of extra weight anyway. The leather’s just on the outside, so when I smack you upside the head you get a bit of cushioning from the blow.”
Tomaz grinned evilly and settled himself into a ready stance. The Prince slid the guard onto the blade and hefted the sword in one hand.
Strange. Now that he was in a ready stance, it didn’t feel all that heavy. Heavier than a normal sword perhaps, but in the Prince’s opinion most swords were too light anyway.
A few people who had also come to the arena first thing in the morning were gathering around the slightly raised platform, some of them squatting down to watch while they waited their turn. The Prince settled into the opening stance of Tiger Stalks the Deer, the sword held loosely by his side, his right leg forward, but his weight back on his left. Tomaz, seeing this, shifted to Bear Defends the Hill, and began to circle to the right. The Prince felt a momentaryglow of satisfaction knowing that they were both using Imperial sword forms: if one had to fight, it might as well be in a civilized manner.
The Prince began to move as well, circling away from the big man, trying to keep an even distance between them. His mind was blank and controlled. There was no anger, no emotion at all. He was simply reacting.
Tomaz changed directions and rushed forward, sword swinging in from the side in a brutal move known only as The Reaping. The Prince saw it and, instead of countering, took a single step back, felt the blade pass in front of his chest, and then spun around and moved past Tomaz.
