The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (19 page)

“How did you come to be his daughter?” He asked abruptly.

“Wow,” she said, “you got right to the point there didn’t you?”

“Sorry,” he said by reflex, “I’m not sure when I’m expected to speak candidly and when I’m not. I’m working on it.”

“You’re getting pretty good,” Tomaz rumbled encouragingly.

“Thanks,” Raven said. “In any case – how did it happen? He seems very important. I wouldn’t think him the kind of man to adopt children just for the … well, just for the fun of it.”

For a long moment Leah didn’t say anything, and Raven worried she would refuse to answer. He knew some of Leah’s story: she had run away from Tyne, the home province of Rikard, Prince of Lions, to escape a family that had beaten her almost to death for disgracing them. She’d been left bloody and broken, her deep-seated hatred the only thing keeping her alive. But other than those details, spoken in a moment of anger, he had been able to learn nothing. She was extremely close-mouthed by nature, and even more so about her past.

Though to be fair, you’ve been just as reticent about yours.

“When I left Tyne,” Leah said abruptly, “Davydd was there on a mission for the Rangers. He’d run three years before … he’s my blood brother. We’re from the same parents.”

Raven nodded slowly, watching her intently, knowing this was a delicate moment. If he said or did anything to offend her, she’d clam up and he’d never know anything else about her.

Why do you care so much anyway?

He ignored that inner voice, hoping it would go away and stop bothering him.

“When he ran, my family was disgraced,” she said, not looking at him. “They lost a lot of power. Much prestige. They became something of a bad joke. And then word came that he’d joined the Kindred, that he’d been seen in a raid only a few miles outside the city. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was there with Lorna and Tomaz, helping destroy the granaries the Lion tries to build each year in secret. Rikard came to visit the city the next week, and the Empress was with her, for the first time in years. She never leaves Lucien anymore – why she came to Tyne I don’t know. But then … well you know what happened then. I forgot to bow, my parents, already disgraced, were cast out of the Most High and relegated to the status of Elevated.”

She frowned and cleared her throat heavily, and Raven saw Tomaz looking at her with concern. She continued, voice steady, though she seemed to be rather intently not looking at Raven.

“After that, I ran. And knowing Davydd was rumored to be nearby, I went in the direction of the grain fields. I don’t know what happened next. The memory … I don’t think I was really in my right mind.”

“You were whipped almost to death when we found you,” Tomaz rumbled quietly, “I’m surprised you remember anything at all.”

 
Leah smiled at him – well, grimaced really– and then stopped walking. They were outside a large manor on a street near the center of the city, close to the Capitol building. She turned to face Raven.

“And that’s all you’re getting out of me,” she said, arching an eyebrow and pointing a threatening finger at him. Her heart wasn’t in it though, he could tell.

On a sudden impulse he stepped toward her and held out his hand to pat her shoulder, the way Tomaz was fond of doing. Immediately her hands fell to the two long daggers she kept sheathed at her waist and her face turned ugly. He pulled back as if burned, and froze, dropping the reins of his horse and holding up his hands defensively. They stood like that for a long moment, looking at each other.

She’s lived her whole life since then with nothing but Tomaz and those two daggers to keep her safe. A Rogue, a rebel, fighting against her family.

He tried to imagine doing what she did – going back to the places he’d lived as a child, maybe even seeing people he knew, knowing he’d been cut out of that life completely. Fighting against his family … how had she managed to separate the two pieces of herself? How had she done it?

“I don’t know if you heard,” he said slowly, “but something similar happened to me. Mother tried to kill me. Big giant rescued me in the woods. Apparently it’s more common than we’ve been led to believe. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a whole rash of giant-rescuing operations being run all throughout the Empire. Really now, I think it could be a thing.”

For a long moment she just stared at him, her hands still on her daggers, and then slowly, very slowly, a smile curved up the corners of her mouth.

“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I turned out just great as a result. I mean, I killed my brother and a bunch of other people before orchestrating the downfall of the greatest city in southern Lucia, but on a personal level I’ve been told I’m really improving. I think soon people will move me up from ‘evil’ to ‘morally confused’. Maybe someday I’ll even just be ‘annoying’. It’s a stretch, but I’m optimistic.”

Her eyes were smiling at him, twinkling around the edges, and without warning he felt himself smile too. He noticed suddenly that she had a splash of freckles across her nose that he’d never seen before. They blended in perfectly with her olive skin, making them almost invisible.

And then it was awkward.

They sprang apart at the same time, taking a step back from each other and speaking random strings of nonsense words.

“Yes, right,” he said turning to the house.

“Yeah,” she responded, motioning toward it.

“So that’s where you grew up?”

“Correct.”

“Davydd too?”

“That would also be correct.”

“It certainly looks –”

“You two are ridiculous,” rumbled Tomaz, pushing past them and walking up toward the door of the manor after tying off Mary. Raven and Leah, carefully not looking at each other, tied off their horses as well, and followed him.

The manor was tall and wide, located on a small rise in the center of the valley, just a natural fold in the ground that placed it at a slightly higher level than some of the buildings around it. Raven looked up as he entered and saw a kind of balcony constructed on the top level with a well-cared-for wooden railing. From up there you could most likely see half the city.

The first impression Raven had of the building was its openness. It had a high ceiling, with little to no furniture in the main rooms, giving it an airy, unrestricted feeling. The walls were painted with strange multi-hued lines, both horizontal and vertical. All of the walls he could see were covered with them, even up the large winding staircase on the right that led off to a second level. It didn’t really look like paint though, now that he came to think of it, it looked like –

Books.

Raven audibly gasped, breath coming in through his mouth in a rush, his head spinning, all thoughts of anything else forgotten.

Every spare surface of wall had been shelved and covered with books. Leather-bound, wood-bound, paper-bound, blue, red, black, green, so many types and sizes and shapes that he could barely hold it all in his head.

“We’re in the court!” Called a voice ahead of them – it sounded like Davydd.

Tomaz and Leah continued on underneath the stairs and second level walkway, and Raven followed, still dumbstruck by the hundreds, no
thousands
of books that this house contained. Hallways branched off to the left and right and he saw these were lined as well; his mind reeled at the thought of one man owning this many books, wondering how many in total there might be. He found himself in a lofted room full of chairs and soft couches with a huge open doorway leading out onto a beautiful courtyard. Tomaz and Leah had already left by the door, and he hurried to catch up with them.

He passed into the courtyard through two large doors, bordered on both sides by huge sheets of glass – literally
sheets,
stretching from floor to ceiling, with no metal to hold them together. How was it they didn’t break under their own weight?

Tall trees grew in the corners of the courtyard and all around the edges, providing privacy from the outside world. The ground was soft grass, carefully trimmed, with walking stones that led from the door to the paved center, where was located a large stone structure that covered a circular seating place. Four walkways were spaced out evenly around the circle so people could come and go, and the white stone seats were covered in deep purple cushions.

“Hello!” Called Davydd, lounging across a whole section of the seating area.

Lorna was seated nearby, playing with a long stick, pushing at something in the center of the circle. As Raven approached and Tomaz moved out of his line of sight, he could see Lorna had built and was stoking a fire in a quite ingeniously crafted round pit with high sides that protected it from wind and rain.

Now that the sun had set, the air was indeed becoming quite cold, and Raven was grateful for the fire.

“What do you think of the place?” Davydd asked languidly.

“It’s … very different from what I’m used to,” Raven said honestly, thinking of his chambers in the Fortress of Lucien. This was about as far from that gothic, contained interior as possible.

“You’re all here!” Called a voice behind them, and they turned to see Elder Goldwyn come through the doors, walking with a brisk step. He was wearing spectacles now, and it made him look like the archetypical scholar.

Davydd and Leah got up and embraced him, making Raven feel strange and awkward. Public displays of affection were strongly discouraged among the upper classes of the Empire. The Empress herself had never shown him physical affection where others could see. Nor had she ever really in private.

Goldwyn joined them at the fire, explaining that Elder Crane had only needed to speak to him about a meeting the next day at the Capitol where the ceremony would be made official.

A Blood Ritual,
Raven thought. His hackles rising, he tried not to give any sign of what he was thinking. His mind flashed back, unbidden, to the Bloodmage ceremonies he’d had to preside over as the Prince of Ravens. Each one was burned into his mind; one did not forget horrors like that.

They say their magic is different. Is that possible?

“There is something on your mind,” Goldwyn said, breaking into Raven’s thoughts. The man was looking at him as he took his place by the fire between Leah and Davydd.

“Go on – out with it!” Davydd said with a huge grin. “There are no secrets here – it’s one of the rules we all have to abide by.”

“Rules to which we must abide,” Goldwyn corrected.

“Yeah, rules we have to abide by.”

“To be fair,” Leah said, eyes twinkling, “we didn’t tell him beforehand.”

“Too bad,” Goldwyn said with good humor, “maybe next time he’ll learn to ask questions before entering strange houses.”

Tomaz and Lorna rumble-chuckled and Davydd grinned, watching his father with plain, undiluted adoration.

Raven, caught off guard and not wanting to say what was really on his mind, cast around frantically for a topic. The Elder’s eyes struck him suddenly: unlike his children, Goldwyn’s eyes were not a bright, piercing color. They were soft and inviting – more than that, they pulled you, made you want to tell him things. They were the color of an early morning sky after rain and just before the sun.

“He – you aren’t their real father,” Raven said. He realized as the words left his mouth that this was not at all what he should be talking about. He immediately started working through other things he could say, trying to find a way to backtrack, but Goldwyn spoke before he could.