There was a series of scraping and banging noises as eleven chairs were pushed roughly back from the large round table by eleven elderly men and women. The Prince noticed that they each wore an ornamental dagger on a chain around their necks, but none reached for it.
“How dare you enter this sanctuary?!” a voice roared to the Prince’s left. A man rushed toward him, wearing green-and-black armor with gold gilding along the edges. The Prince caught a glimpse of a portly face and a mustache before he swung the valerium sword, catching the man on the temple with the flat of the heavy blade and knocking him unconscious.
The silence after the man fell to the floor was deafening. The Prince moved forward swiftly, kicking the man’s curved dagger away with his boot as he passed. The dagger clattered across the rough stone floor of the council chamber, where the only noise now was heavy breathing.
The Prince rounded the table, eyes locked on a single Elder who sat at the far side of the table, in a chair larger than the others. This old man was the only one of the twelve in the room who had remained seated, and the Prince saw that there was no fear in his eyes, even though he sat unarmed in the face of an assassin.
As the Prince passed each Elder, he noticed that their faces showed anger, defiance, and above all pride. There was no fear, no resignation. A few of them had even moved in front of their chairs and assumed a defensive stance as if ready to fight him even without weapons, though none of them looked to be younger than sixty at best.
But the Prince didn’t stop to engage any of them. He simply walked past them. As it became clear what his intention was, though, the Elders moved to block his way.
“You shall not approach Elder Crane,” one of them said, the only one who had drawn his dagger. This Elder was male and tall, taller than the Prince, back straight even in age, and he had dark blue eyes that demanded obedience. The Prince raised his sword to dispatch him, but before he could, a voice spoke.
“Please, Warryn,” Elder Crane said. “Let him come.”
The others looked back in surprise, but the Prince simply continued on, passing between them until he stood in front of the dignified leader.
The Prince gripped his sword in both hands, fell to one knee, and drove the blade into the ground. The valerium metal cut through the stone with a shower of sparks, leaving the blade half-buried.
“I have no time to ask for absolution, nor do I much care if you would grant it. You are in my mind rebels, criminals, and outlaws, but to you I am something much worse.”
He spoke quickly but clearly. There was very little time left.
“I am not a runaway from the families of the Most High who has come to you with information, as has been reported. I am the Prince of Ravens, Seventh Son of the Empress of the Diamond Throne of Lucia, heir to the lands of the Exiled Kindred should I recapture them for the glory of the Empress and the Empire of Ages.”
He rose and pulled off his shirt, exposing the black markings of the Talisman. Dead silence rang through the hall. He took a deep breath and forced himself to continue, staying calm and remaining cogent of his actions.
“I renounce that claim. I renounce my claim to the Diamond Throne; I renounce my claim to the Seventh Principality; and I renounce my claim to citizenship in the Empire of Ages, ruled by the Empress, known as the nation of Lucia.”
If the silence had been great before, now it was profound. Each face bore the same look of shock—every face but the face of the head Elder, this Elder Crane, who was studying the Prince intently. The man’s eyes, such a light blue that they were almost white, were looking at him in a strange way—as if seeing something familiar, and yet unexpected.
The Prince reached down and pulled the valerium sword from the ground. It slid out as easily as it had gone in, the metal so sharp that not even stone could bind it. The Prince held it horizontally across his open palms and knelt.
“My brother, the Prince of Oxen is no more than a half day’s march from this very spot. The Talisman that my Mother bestowed upon me allows me to sense his arrival, and it is my belief that he has in place a tracking spell that is leading him straight toward us and through your land’s defenses. I and four others killed a Daemon in the Roarke Mountains not three days ago and have remained in close proximity ever since. If a tracking spell is in place, Ramael would be able to track us even through your enchantments. He will find this place, and he will attack. If you evacuate this valley and fall back to a more secure position, you have a chance to fend him off, but from what I have seen of this city, should you stay here you will be slaughtered, every last man, woman, and child. He is ruthless and will stop at nothing until the will of the Empress is fulfilled and each of you lies dead. If you run, and run fast, you have a chance.
“As a token of my honesty, I pledge myself and whatever aid I can give to the Exiled Kindred until the Prince of Oxen and his invading army have been repulsed.”
He extended the white sword and waited for the Elder’s response.
Before it came, the double doors swung inward, and men and women in heavy armor accompanied by Rogue and Ranger pairs in gleaming silver, gold, and green flooded through the doors. A Spellblade spotted the Prince, and before anyone could react, a dagger was flying across the intervening space, faster and straighter than an arrow.
“STOP!”
The powerful voice reverberated around the room, and the Prince was left staring at a dagger that hung quivering in midair, point forward, not a hair’s breadth away from his right eye.
Slowly, Elder Crane rose to his feet. Silence filled the room as everyone present took in the sight of the old man and the young Prince. Crane reached up and grabbed the hilt of the dagger. The Prince waited, sweat beading on his face and in the small of his back.
Crane pulled the dagger away.
“How much time do we have?” the Elder asked quietly. The Prince just barely stopped himself from letting out a sigh of relief.
“Two hours at most before his scouts arrive, and the main army can’t be more than two or three hours behind that,” the Prince said, his voice carrying clearly through the room.
For a long moment, the Elder stood staring at him as if he were trying to memorize the Prince’s face. What was the old man thinking? The blue eyes set in the lined face seemed to be weighing and measuring his entire life. The Prince was reminded forcefully of his Mother, and though he told himself that this man, this traitor, could never rival the Empress, he knew, somewhere deep inside himself, that a confrontation between the Elder and the Empress would be akin to a war between gods. There was power in this man, far beyond what the Prince had expected.
Finally, the old man broke the gaze and the Prince let out a ragged breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. There was another commotion at the door, and the Prince looked up to see Tomaz and Leah, bound and gagged, brought into the room. Leah was kicking and fighting with all her might, and while Tomaz did not struggle, no one seemed to want to lay a hand on him.
“What is this?” Crane asked.
