by Hal Emerson
The Prince of the Veil
Book Three of the Exile Trilogy
Hal Emerson
Copyright © 2014 Bradley Van Satterwhite
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is dedicated to those of you who have read this far.
Raven, Leah, and Tomaz are lucky to have such faithful companions,
And I am too.
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Heir of Theron Isdiel
Chapter One: The Guardian of Banelyn
Chapter Two: As Luck Would Have It
Chapter Three: The Raven Prince
Chapter Four: Blue Lines
Chapter Five: Loyalty
Chapter Six: Commander of the Gate
Chapter Seven: Waking
Chapter Eight: Council Matters
Chapter Nine: The Clock Ticks
Chapter Ten: Good Use of a Tent
Chapter Eleven: Traveling North
Chapter Twelve: Something to Lerne
Chapter Thirteen: Innocence
Chapter Fourteen: The Final Road
Chapter Fifteen: Tyne
Chapter Sixteen: The Plains of al’Manthian
Chapter Seventeen: The Battle of the Plains
Chapter Eighteen: Why?
Chapter Nineteen: Elders
Chapter Twenty: A New Light
Chapter Twenty-One: Crowned
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Final Charge
Chapter Twenty-Three: Lucien
Chapter Twenty-Four: Lucky Scoundrel
Chapter Twenty-Five: Innocence Lost
Chapter Twenty-Six: Exiled Guardian
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Raven Ascending
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Wolf of Eldoras
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Seeing
Chapter Thirty: Immovable
Chapter Thirty-One: Prince of the Veil
Chapter Thirty-Two: After
Epilogue
Glossary
About the Author
Prologue: The Heir of Theron Isdiel
In the first year of the discovery of the new continent of Lucia, the seven Heirs of Theron Isdiel lost their memories.
It was gradual at first. It went unnoticed, and to many seemed indistinguishable from the simple kind of fading that occurs with distance and time. A goodly number of them had perished when they’d been flung upon the rocks and shoals of the shoreline, and while they’d managed to salvage many of their provisions and arms, their documents had been beyond saving. What was left of the expedition had come to shore and been unsurprised when the shock and horror of that night had drowned out their memories, and during the next weeks and months spent learning to survive off the land they’d found they had little occasion to think of home as anything other than a vague, unreachable haven.
But during that time, while they learned to survive in this older land, this untamed world, the process began to accelerate. Many of them began to notice it by the end of their first winter, several months after their ill-favored landing. By this point there was no way to stop the process, if ever there had been. They tried desperately to record what they could, but nothing of import seemed to remain, and what little parchment they had been able to make of animal skin was quickly filled, leaving thousands of memories to die on the vine. By the end of the first year everything that had happened before they had crossed the Sea was lost to them, as if a surgeon had come with a razor in the night and removed the memories with a progressive series of stealthy, numbing cuts.
It was the First Daughter, the First Heir who led the expedition, who felt the loss most keenly. The voyage was her first command, and Theron Isdiel, the Diamond Empress, had entrusted her with the command. But as the memories faded, memories of receiving her commission, of standing tall and proud on her ship’s prow as thousands cheered for her, memories even of the Empress’s face, she fell into a black despair that wouldn’t lift. She couldn’t see beauty, couldn’t hear laughter, couldn’t even live without thinking all things had been sweeter in that other land.
Calling it homesickness would be to err. It was not so simple a thing, nor was she so simple a person. She was defined by her ambition, more than anything, and when she lost her goal, when she lost where she came from, she lost the anchor preventing her from floundering on the hidden shoals of greed and jealousy that lay about the narrow strait she had to sail. And with that anchor lost, she crashed against those rocks, and her good intentions broke into a thousand pieces of madness. The dark and hidden part of her ambition came to fill the waiting void, creeping in slowly and silently, a fog that formed in the night and hung heavily throughout the following dawn.
She fought it, though; she did not go down without a fight, it must be said. She knew the perils of this path, and she knew … someone had told her … that if she strayed from virtue into vice she would never find her way back. Others could, but not her. The Seventh Bearer, the one they all looked up to, he could do it. He had wisdom in him. But not her, and because she knew it, and knew the others knew it, she feared their silent words, the things they must be saying to each other about her leadership, and the fear inside her began to twist and morph into anger and resentment. It was their fault, after all. It always had been. They must have done something wrong on the way here – she was not to blame. She was pure and always had been.
Slowly such thoughts began to feed on each other in a twisted circle, and a terrible idea began to take shape at the center of the rising maelstrom.
She fought within herself for days on end. The Seventh Bearer, who she had charged with exploring this new land, saw their misfortune all as an opportunity. He had begun to preach to the others the virtues of what they’d been given – the chance to create new lives of which they could be proud. They’d been given a gift, he said, the likes of which others could only dream. And with each new word he spoke, she hated him that much more. He saw the world through eyes clouded with dewy drops of hope and wonder; he saw the world as one deluded, as a madman. They had left their true home, and there was no going back now, back to the … to the….
But she couldn’t remember. How could she not remember? It had been exciting, she knew that, or at least thought she did. The Seven Heirs of Theron Isdiel, seeking knowledge, seeking experience, seeking new lands and strange adventures.
But they had always planned to go back. Always. She was sure of it. She was. And now… now they never could.
Why am I the only one of us who still cares?
Water fell on Alana’s head as she passed beneath the trees of the lush forest that crowded the upper banks of the sea and harbor they had found, the thoughts still running through her mind, over and over in an unbreakable loop. As night fell, the skies had grown crowded with heavy black clouds that shouldered at each other, jostling for position over the ocean, with only the heaviest making their way inland to let loose their burden. Alana was glad of the water; it helped wash away the taste of tears.
This is the last time I cry. It is the last time I care.
She wanted to return to a home she didn’t remember, a home none of them remembered except in the most vague terms. They all knew simple things – they could read and write still, though the name of the language evaded them, and the teachers who’d given them the knowledge
would have passed before them unnoticed. They knew each other from the interactions they’d had in this new land, and the few scraps of parchment they’d managed to recover or recreate bore what they believed to be their names. They could use the weapons they’d found in their possession, even Praxas with his enormous maul, but they remembered nothing of training.
And nothing of home. All that was left of that land, the only fleeting glimpse of it, was a deep-seated hope in Alana’s heart that she would return. There was something there for her, something that beckoned.
She left the edge of the forest and walked into the encampment, smoothly acknowledging the guards who bowed their heads to her in their red and brown armor. She moved between the makeshift lean-tos that had been built as more permanent winter shelters, passed beyond the long wooden storage sheds and cooking halls, until she reached the center of camp where large canvas tents were still used as shelter. She moved toward one such tent, a large one made of thick, heavy canvas with a water-resistant coating of wax and sap, and brushed aside the entrance flap.
She steeled her nerves, and told herself this was the only way.
Warmth hit her first, and then light, both coming from the brazier that stood in the center of the tent, allowing heat to build throughout the enclosure even as the icy wind and rain lashed it from the outside. The tent was a dull eggshell color, and shadows played fitfully across the canvas walls as the brazier’s light met the hard outlines of roughly crafted wooden desks, tables, and chairs.
Oliand, the short, spry man who she remembered as Fifth Heir – what does that mean? Heir to what? – and the one who wore the Aspect of Luck about his neck on a thick leather cord, looked up at her as she entered. He was the only one there. Good, it was as she hoped.
I have to do it. I have to get home.
“Alana,” said Oliand with his easy, mocking smile. He’d tried to bed her ever since their memories had begun to fade. She had never let him near her, knowing it was somehow wrong even before they had rediscovered they were related.
“And how are you this fine evening?” His eyes glowed gold in the light of the brazier and the oil lamps. Alana glanced down at the table he was bent over – a hastily constructed wooden affair made from the planks of the ship that had born them here and broken them on the rocky shore, later fortified with boards cut from oak and pine trees. There were maps there, no doubt the ones he’d been commissioned to make with their precious supply of parchment. They showed the harbor they’d found, the surrounding area, and an area some miles south of them that was deeply wooded and led to a distant range of mountains. Someone had scribbled the words “Hell mist” there, no doubt in reference to the recent expedition that had been lost for days in a fog that had seemingly sprung from nowhere.
The Hellmist Mountains … a fitting name.
“I find myself strangely cold,” she purred in answer to his question, favoring him with a smile that showed something akin to a veiled promise. At least, as much of one as she could come up with. She’d never seduced someone before.
At least not that I remember.
His eyes caught that promise, and glowed a deeper gold.
“Well, then you’ve come to the right place, my dear,” he said, leaving the table and approaching her. “Stand here, by the brazier.” He grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her forward, gently but firmly. “It’s much warmer here.”
Her clenched fist twitched beneath the fabric of her long, concealing sleeve, but the rest of her remained sweet and supple, allowing his hand to skim down the curve of her back and rest at the top of her hip.
“You’re soaked through,” he said, surprised. “How long have you been out there?”
He pulled back and took the top of her cloak in his hands. She shrugged out of it and let him whisk it away in a flash of movement, leaving her standing in just her form-fitting white garments. They too were soaked through, a fact that was not lost on the roving eyes of Oliand.
“Here, my love,” he cooed, coming up behind her and pressing himself against her back as he maneuvered her in front of the fire. “Stand like this; the fire will warm you from one side, and I from the other.”
Her skin crawled as he said it, and her hand grasped the hidden handle up her wide sleeve.
You cannot do this. You cannot do it – there must be another way.
I have no choice.
It was so easy, what she did next. It was all like walking through a dream. She turned and embraced him, giving herself to him the way he’d always wanted. Their lips met, his moving against hers with passion. She took what he gave her and followed his lead, knowing this was about him, not her.
They moved to the bed in the corner, and she pushed him down onto it. She needed her arms free, couldn’t let herself get trapped. She embraced him again, then unlaced his shirt and looked down at his chest – at the topaz gem in the rock fixture.
“Take it off,” she whispered in his ear.
He pulled back slightly to look at her, suddenly wary.
“Why would you want that?”
She pulled up closer and whispered once more in his ear, as she moved her hips against his, stoking his excitement.
“Because I don’t want you to think you’re getting lucky.”
He chuckled, low and throaty. The smell of his breath was like honey and cloves, with a trace of the harsher jab of alcohol. He’d been drinking mead. Her skin began to crawl so badly it was as if insects had begun to writhe just below the surface, and she suddenly felt dirty in a way that a hundred baths could never clean. But she kept herself from showing her repulsion. She had begun – she couldn’t stop now.
“I’ll take it off,” he said with twinkling eyes, “if you do it first. I don’t want you giving me Commands; I’m in charge now.”
She smiled outwardly.
It will come to violence after all.
She slowly undid the soft cord that held the top of her tunic closed, and unlaced it. His eyes left hers to follow her motion, as she’d known they would. Men were so easily led when they thought they were doing the leading. She pulled her own Aspect out from between her breasts, trailing the heavy stone surrounding the sharp edges of the glittering diamond seductively across her skin. She felt something leave her as she hung it from the bed nearby, and she almost whimpered in pain. The world’s colors were suddenly dull and empty in this lesser state, and the raging sounds of wind and rain were frightening in their intensity. How could people live in a world where they weren’t sure their word would be obeyed?
Oliand followed suit and removed his own Aspect, hanging it next to hers on the post. A change occurred in him – his movements became less fluid, his motions less confident, and his eyes turned from a pure, radiant gold, to a soft, dull brown.
The color of excrement.
Revulsion rose up in her again as she contemplated this man below her – this man who thought he could dare to possess her, she of all people, the First Heir of Isdiel! – but she forced the nausea down.
He will not take me. It will end long before that.
He bent his neck and thrust his nose into her cleavage, rooting around like a pig in a sty, and as he did, he shifted his weight in just the wrong way.
He had trapped her hand, and his own was slowly running up her side. His arm encircled her, and she realized that he had not been joking when he’d said he was in command now. He was not as big and strong as Praxas, not even close, but he was still bigger and stronger than she, and right now that was the only difference that mattered.
It has to be now.
She kneed him in the groin, though from the way their bodies were entwined, the angle was such that the blow was only hard enough to cause mild discomfort. He let out a chuckle and loosened his grip on her arms, recoiling just enough to show her a smiling face that took the action to be a joke. Before he could say a word she pulled the concealed dagger from the hidden sheath in her sleeve and buried it in his stomach.
He jerked in shock, a
nd recoiled from her, going immediately for the discarded Aspects, and she followed him, digging the knife in deeper, cutting through his entrails with a swift, diagonal motion that spilled the contents of his stomach out onto the floor as he tried to twist away.
His face was a pale mask of shock. He grabbed for the Aspects, but she was too fast. Just as his hand hooked around the leather cord, she spun and threw him across the room. He stumbled, blood pouring out from beneath his hands, and fell on the brazier. But before he could make a sound, she spun, threw her own Aspect, the Aspect of Command, around her neck, and spoke to him in the ringing tone of ultimate authority:
“Make no sound!”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the smell of burning flesh filled the room in seconds, as her brother screamed in silent pain and flailed uncontrollably. Tendons stood out hard and sharp along his neck, and his whole body was wracked with pain as he tried to roll away from the burning coals and found himself unable. The Aspect he had hooked with his finger fell in the flames beside him, and began to burn as well.
She raced forward and grabbed it, snatching it out of the fire as Oliand grabbed at her dress; he managed to seize a fistful and tore off half her bodice as he fell to the ground.
He didn’t move.
Smoke curled up from his body, twisting and writhing in the air like the lovers Oliand had hoped they would become. Strange. She had always thought the smell of charred flesh would smell horrific. It was nauseous, but … captivating.
What have I become that I can think such thoughts?
She wasn’t done yet – she needed him to live a little longer at least. She knelt beside him and did something she hadn’t done since they’d first landed here, since that first death that she had tried to stop, that death on the beach. Her mind flowed back, remembering how Aemon had succeeded where she couldn’t, something he had repeated over and over since their landing.
