The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (11 page)

“I am sorry for using such a trick,” Crane said. He did indeed look contrite, though also pleased. “But you are well versed in courtly ways, and I needed to know if indeed your affection for Ashandel Banier was real.”

Raven felt his anger sputter and die and realize he’d been played.

“Do not do that again,” he said coldly, his voice and face a mask of emotionless stone.

“I do not think I will,” Crane said, watching him carefully. “But you know as well as I that you
did
betray him once.”

Raven felt himself go cold, but he had no retort to this. Crane was right – he’d once played Tomaz for a fool in order to escape from him in the Elmist Mountains. But that was a long time ago now – it almost felt as if it had been another life, one as far away and unknowable as the icy tops of the mountains surrounding them.

“Fine,” Raven conceded, suddenly very unenthusiastic about this conversation. He was starting to reconsider his heretofore good opinion of the Wise Elder. “Now that you’ve insulted me, why don’t you get to the purpose of this charming visitation?”

“I apologize that we seem to be getting off on the wrong foot,” Crane said, looking a little worried now. “I was trying to put you at ease, though it seems to have had to opposite effect.”

“Indeed,” Raven said with a brutally short smile of acknowledgement.

“Then I will come to my point,” Crane said quickly. “I’m here to tell you I hope to sway your choice. I want you to be a part of the Kindred, and since I know that we have yet to convince you of your place among us, I thought I should mention that there is information we have that might be of great interest to you.”

Raven’s ears pricked up. Information – that was the one kind of currency with which he might be willingly bribed.

“What do you mean?” He asked slowly. He watched Crane’s face carefully, but the man gave nothing away. Was he bluffing? Outright lying? After all, what information could he possibly have that the Empire did not?

“What I mean to say is that there are things we know about the Raven Talisman that no one but the Empress knows.”

“You gave me information freely enough when I was recovering from the battle at the Stand,” he said, still examining Crane’s face for any sign of emotion, any trace of an expression that would tell him what the man was truly thinking.

“Indeed I did,” Crane said. “I felt that after what you did for us, we, the Kindred and the Elders, owed you that much. It was information known by many, but it was important that it be shared with you at the time.”

“But now you’re telling me that in order to learn more I need to make a bargain with you? I need to willingly give up my freedom and swear allegiance to the Kindred?”

“You mistake me,” Crane said quickly. “I do not mean to hold the information hostage – quite the contrary; should you wish to know more about yourself and the power you carry, then I will gladly point you in the right direction. But if I were to do so, I would be giving you a great secret … knowledge that the Kindred have kept safe, even from ourselves, for almost a thousand years. It is not knowledge that can be given lightly, and as such it would require a guarantee of a sort that you would not take that information and use it against us. It is not that I expect you to do such a thing – but we both know that you are, quite rightly I would think, wary of giving yourself to one cause or another at this time. Particularly so soon after what you suffered at the hands of your family. But I think you could find a place among us. Leah’s father, General Goldwyn himself, has even expressed interest in continuing your education.”

“My education?” Raven asked, taken aback by the seeming non-sequiter.

“Indeed,” Crane said, smiling slightly at the shocked look on Raven’s face. “It is a tradition among the Kindred to continue education into your adulthood, until you’ve decided on a trade or your teacher has pronounced you schooled enough to be a teacher yourself. Goldwyn has expressed interest in taking you in, after hearing about your fight with Ramael at the Stand and also having his daughter vouch for you.”

“What did Leah say?” Raven asked.

“I do not know the details,” Crane said, “but it is a simple thing to understand – the girl does not make friends with fools. Her father knows this, in fact he probably taught it to her, and when he heard you traveled in her company I would assume he asked for her evaluation of you. I can also assume the evaluation was good – or else he would not have expressed interest in you.”

I wonder what she said about me?
Raven thought to himself. Their interactions together covered everything from friendship to betrayal, and as such he hoped she had left out some of the more interesting plot points.

“But we have gone off the subject,” Crane said, his reedy tenor returning calmly but forcefully to the topic at hand. “I cannot allow you to learn more about your Talisman, or about your place as Aemon’s Heir, if you do not first swear to the Kindred. It is … unfortunate. I will admit that I see something in you that I have not seen in many people, and I am inclined to trust you, but I cannot do so without proof. It would be putting too many lives at risk.”

Raven looked carefully at Crane, concealing his feelings as best he could, trying to keep his face impassive, and reminding himself forcefully that he did
not
care what this man thought of him. Not at all. Not one bit.

“What do you mean, you see something in me?” Raven asked.

“I mean that you have it in you to be a great man,” Crane said, his voice almost like a sigh, as if he’d been holding that sentence in for too long and letting it go was like releasing a burden. “I have been carefully trying to distance myself from you, knowing your past and knowing that you have yet to choose a side in this conflict between Empire and Kindred. I know that, for now, you side with us, and that is enough for some things. But I cannot tell what you will do next. It is as if you stand on a precipice, where a single wrong move will send you falling into darkness, while a cautious, careful step will bring you back to safety.”

“I do not need to be saved,” Raven said, trying to focus on the one negative thing the man had said so that he didn’t have to deal with the positive.

Shadows and light, he thinks I could be a great man? What does he mean by that? Is he trying to sway me with flattery?

“I have said too much and offended you,” Crane said, watching him, “I apologize for doing so.”

“I should be apologizing,” Raven said, surprising himself with the words.

What are you doing?
He asked himself, suddenly confused.

“I’ve been rude to you,” he continued, “making you wait for an answer. I have never been good at making hasty decisions. I need time to think, often too much time by the standards of others … but there is no life for me in the Empire. Even if I wished to return there, such a thing would cost me my life. The Kindred are the only ones who have offered me safety … I would like to join you, if you will still have me.”

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
Roared a voice in the back of his head, the voice of the old Raven, the Raven who had been a Prince, who still thought of himself as a Child of the Empress, who would not give into the reality of the world around him. Things had changed – he needed to accept that.

This is wrong, and you know it! I am a Prince of the Realm, even in Exile, I am –

“I am one of the Kindred in all but name anyway,” Raven said out loud. “We might as well get it over with and make it official.”

Crane looked a little taken aback by the sudden change, but to his credit he seemed to take it in stride. His long, thin face split into a wide grin, and he suddenly looked as if fifteen years had fallen off of him. The transformation was so abrupt and unexpected that Raven found himself overcome with the urge to smile back.

“Very well,” said Crane, “then it is a simple matter to make it official.”

Raven nodded, thinking he would swear an oath and it would be over. But, to his surprise, Crane reached into an inner pocket of his long, dark gray robes and pulled out a small lump of something white, no bigger than a pebble.

“You must swear by this,” Crane said, holding it out to him.

Raven took the small lump of metal – for that was what it was, not stone as he’d originally thought – and examined it, turning it over in his hands.

“It is raw Valerium ore,” Crane said, watching Raven carefully.

Raven nodded to himself, having suspected as much. The metal was rare, and only found in the Kindred lands. They used it to make powerful weapons that could cut through magic constructs such as Daemons that, until Davydd Goldwyn had shown him differently, he’d assumed were all but invincible. This lump was barely as large as the last digit of his smallest finger, but it was still likely very valuable.

“What am I supposed to swear?” Raven asked, wary.

“Hold it between your hands and I will tell you,” said Crane.

Raven did as he was told, suddenly aware of the fact they were both riding horses and swaying back and forth as they traveled. He made sure to keep a tight grip on the Valerium – it would not do to drop the thing.

I’m about to declare myself one of the Exiled Kindred, aren’t I?

The thought caused something akin to nausea, mixed with a healthy dose of panic, to settle in the pit of his stomach. It slowly started to spread, vicious and stealthy, down his limbs, pooling in his extremities, making his fingers and toes feel heavy and unresponsive.

“It is very simple,” Crane said quietly. “You swear to protect the Kindred lands and the Kindred people. You swear to take no action that will bring harm to others of the Kindred. And finally … you swear to reject the Empire and the tyranny it stands for.”

Immediately, Raven felt himself bristle at the sentence, and he almost expected arrows to come flying out of nowhere, or perhaps bolts of lightning to descend from the cloudless sky, striking the man down where he stood, impaling him for his blasphemy. Surely the Empire was everywhere; surely such words could never be spoken for fear of divine reprisal.

But time passed and none of these things happened, though the hairs on the back of Raven’s neck were still standing on end. He’d seen his Mother do things that should never have been possible – he would never pretend to know what she could and could not do.

“Very well,” Raven said quickly, afraid that he would lose his nerve if they didn’t get this over with quickly.

“Repeat the oaths after me. I swear to protect the Kindred lands and the Kindred people.”

Raven paused. Seventeen years of training by the Imperial Scholars, seventeen years of life with the Children, seventeen years of demi-god status as a Child himself, rebelled against any such act.

But he had to do it. It was time.

He said the words, repeating the oath back to Crane, holding the Valerium ore. As he finished speaking the skin of his palms began to tingle, and he opened his hand to look at the brilliant white ore. It hadn’t changed … maybe the feeling was all in his head.

“And now the final step,” Crane said, pulling out a small needle, “we need a drop of your blood to bond you to the Anchor, and it to you.”

Raven pulled back as if burned.

“My
blood?
” He asked, shocked. Only one kind of thing – only one kind of
oath
– would need to be sworn and sealed in blood.

“Bloodmage,” he hissed, and moved to pull his horse away, reaching already for the sword tied to the saddle behind him. This wasn’t Elder Crane at all, but a Bloodmage imposter – one powerful enough to create a false face, one trying to make a bold attempt –