by Hal Emerson
I was his goal this whole time.
Henri Perci continued to stare at him, even in death.
“No. No – no – NO – YOU’RE EVIL, YOU HAVE TO BE!”
He struck out at the dead body, slashing at the neck again, cutting further through the flesh of the corpse. He hacked again and again, then dropped the sword, and struck out with his fist, catching the corner of the man’s chin. The violence sent Henri Perci’s head flying in an arc through the air, his golden hair and beard still gleaming in the light. And though the man was gone, his body a crumpled headless corpse before him, his memories continued to play, and as they rolled through him, image after image, Raven’s rage died, and despair took its place.
What have I done? I have killed a good man.
No, he was evil; he killed men who didn’t deserve to die. Commander Wyck, those Kindred you couldn’t save –
And I’ve killed men. Leah has killed men. Tomaz, Davydd, Autmaran. There is blood on all of our hands, and why are we any less dirty than Henri Perci?
I did it for good reasons, ever since I became one of the Kindred, I did it for good reasons. I did it for what I believe in, what I knew to be right –
And so did Henri Perci.
“SHUT UP!” he roared at himself. Kindred around him looked up sharply and then backed away. The battle had ended. As soon as Henri Perci had been slain, the rebel Kindred had either thrown down their weapons in surrender or broken off in smaller groups that scattered through the city streets. But even as the area around them cleared, more soldiers had just emerged from the tower on the Black Wall that led to the secret staircase. These men were Imperials, dressed in the tan and gray of Dysuna, Prince of Wolves, and the Kindred rushed to meet them, the captain in black and silver shouting orders.
Henri Perci fought for what he believed in – he gave his heart and soul, his very life, his family, all of his connections to the Kindred, because he believed in his heart of hearts that what he was doing could save them. How is he different from me, the Exiled Prince? How can I condemn him? How can I feel justified in killing him?
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”
He sank to his knees, and the bloodlust began to curl around him again, breaking through the enforced calm that had frozen him inside. The new heat wrapped around him, enfolding him in its arms like a sweet mother, cooing to him in a voice like a rasping, burning sigh. His guilt and shame pounded in his ears; his disgust, both with himself and the world in which he lived, grabbed him by the throat and choked him until his vision began to spin.
This could have been me. Any of these people – all of them – they all could be me! Everyone I’ve ever killed!
Something twisted inside him, and suddenly the pieces of the world seemed to fall into place. Something came forward from deep within his heart, from the darkness that he had held so long at bay, some black kernel of hatred and fear that he had walled off and cordoned away from the rest of his mind. It expanded, like rising dough, and began to push against the wall he had made to keep it back, making the brick and mortar crack and give. Thoughts broke through the chinks in the stone, slithering into his conscious mind like serpents.
No … he did deserve to die. And he is no different from me, or anyone. Of course not. It makes sense – he’s no different because we all deserve to die. All of us. Everyone.
He looked up at the world around him, black and twisted, and embraced it. The wall inside him that had so long held back the part of him that enjoyed the death and the madness, the part of him that was his Mother, disappeared, crumbling into a thousand motes of dust, all to be blown away in the wind of thought.
He was consumed totally, and when he next raised Henri Perci’s sword, it was as something different, something dark. He was the Seventh Child, the Reaper of Men, the Lord of Death. He smiled and shivered as a strange euphoria settled over him, and all his doubts disappeared; all of his anger and hatred melted like mist before the rising rays of a black dawn. This was where he belonged: here, in the center of battle. This was what he was born for – what his Mother had bred him for. Raven was gone, that identity he had constructed as he’d tried to flee who he truly was. He was his Mother’s son now, through and through.
He smiled, and set about his work.
Chapter Four: Blue Lines
Leah broke through consciousness the way a swimmer breaks through the barrier between sea and sky.
She sat up with a shattering breath that rocked her entire frame, clutching her head in her hands as she wiped furiously at her ears and face, trying to pull something off, something that had kept her down, kept her hostage. Her heart lurched into motion, feeling somehow rusty and dis-used, and the world spun around her.
Blue lines crossed her vision, and glowing forms and figures resolved themselves out of nothing. They spoke to each other, in words too low to hear, and then dissipated again, gone as fast as they had come. More sounds came to her, echoes of voices that sounded far away, and the sensation of a man’s warm fingers caressing her face –
The images disappeared and the world around her resolved into a field hospital. She was on the floor, covered in blankets. She realized she was still clutching her face, and she let go and tried to breathe.
Calm down – try to remember. What is happening; where are you?
She thought back as recently as she could, and remembered walking into the Imperial Cathedral with Raven and Tomaz … but the rest was gone. The details of the situation evaded her, and a sense of foreboding began to spread through her limbs, making her jumpy.
If you can’t remember, then you can’t remember. Focus elsewhere.
She examined herself quickly, and found nothing broken. There were various scrapes about her and several painful but non-threatening burns. She clapped a hand to her chest, over an ache that seemed to radiate from her heart, but was greeted by a rhythmic thumping that seemed perfectly in order. She tried to stand, and found that easy. The small, partitioned room around her didn’t spin, her stomach didn’t jump. Good. She took a step, and that was fine, though the old scar down the back of her leg pulled as it always did when she had been in one position for too long.
I’ve been lying here for over ten hours, she knew immediately. That was the only time that wound began to ache again.
And it was only then that she looked down at the ground, and realized she was surrounded by the dead.
Shadows and fire …
There were at least a dozen in the partitioned-off area in which she’d woke, crowding the square space set off by hastily-constructed barriers of torn tapestry. Each of the bodies bore a different wound, but all were to the chest or head, and all had obviously been fatal.
I … was I dead?
She stumbled out of the room, the images of blood and ruined faces chasing her, unable to think clearly. Just past the partition, she found herself among a number of other partitioned areas all situated in a large hall. There was a fire burning in a grand fireplace on the other side of the room, and huge cauldrons of boiling water were being heated inside, one for bandages and one for washing. The fire itself was roaring, but it looked as though it had only been recently stoked – someone must have given the order to light it again. She looked up and caught sight of a distant window that showed only a dark, black haze.
Haze?
Images flashed through her head of fire, and pieces of memories fell into place. The Cathedral of the Empress … she had been there with Raven and Tomaz and … the Prince of Eagles.
The thought of him hurt her, making her physically recoil, and memories flashed through her head that weren’t her own as her heart thumped painfully in her chest. The images were grainy and faded now, like detailed paintings corrupted by age, but they came to her. Memories of years spent with the Empress, hate and love for Her in equal measure. Desire for power, desire for control, and then weariness, like a thick, downy blanket, that fell on her and covered everything. Her own memories took over and she realized the Cathedral
had fallen down around her. But after that was all a blank – how she had gotten out, what had happened to Raven and Tomaz –
Raven.
More memories flooded into her from Geofred’s mind, fading and disappearing even as she grasped at them like a drowning swimmer eager for any bit of buoyancy. Images of him growing up, feelings of mingled pride and disgust … and more.
She staggered and caught at the pole of one of the partitions, steadying herself as a pair of Kindred in the white of Healers rushed past her with a gibbering, wounded man slung between them.
Prophecies.
“Shadows and fire,” she cursed to herself under her breath as one of them loomed large in her mind, the words of it rolling through her head as if newly spoken. “Oh, flaming shadows and bloody, bloody fire.”
She lurched forward immediately, moving through the partitions toward the fire, and then went nearly sprinting through the crowded hall beyond, ignoring the protests of Healers who were looking at her like they’d seen a ghost.
She had to find him, and find him now.
Her heart gave another painful lurch in her chest, but she ignored it. She reached the end of the hall, rushed through the doorway, and found herself at the top of a wide marble staircase that descended three levels to the ground floor. Healers rushed past her with more wounded, all gravely injured, and Leah realized she’d been in the intensive care ward, or whatever passed for such a place in a field hospital.
Geofred said I might not survive the transfer … was he right?
She rushed down the stairs, moving easily through the rushing tide of people, and realized that if she’d been knocked out, Raven might well have been too.
Damn. I need to know if he’s here.
She reached the first floor landing and seized the first Healer in white robes that passed her.
“Where’s Elder Keri?” she asked.
“She was checking on the Prince of the Veil,” the man said quickly, his demeanor that of a man watching a house burn around him as he tried to save the furniture, all the while hoping someone else would take care of the fire like they’d promised.
“Where?”
“That way – two rooms, then to your right.”
She released him and went the way he’d pointed. She passed a series of wounded and barely noticed, rushing through opulent rooms now stained with blood and sweat, all the while looking for a woman clad all in white with brown hair going gray at the temples. She was getting desperate: she needed to find Raven, and very soon.
He knows why his Mother tried to kill him, and it will drive him mad.
If the memories hadn’t already, that was. Geofred, for all his strength, had been a wounded man, held up only by a spiteful need to rig the game his Mother tried to play before it killed him. His final act had been one of vengeance, and with that over, he had no more reason to live.
And now, beating behind her temples, was a simple thought, one that ran deep through her. She knew it came from Geofred, and she knew, somehow without question, that it was right. It just made sense.
He needs the Blade. Without it, he’s a danger to us all.
She turned right into the hall that must be directly below the one she’d woken in not five minutes before, and realized it was full of hundreds of wounded, and scores of Healers. Finding Elder Keri in this would be an impossible task – she needed to go straight to the source and find where Raven had been placed for his own recovery. Her time was running out – if she couldn’t find Elder Keri, she would have to make do. She reached out and grabbed a passing Healer – a young man, tall with dark hair.
“Where is the Prince of the Veil?”
“I think he was placed back there,” the man said, brushing her off even as he motioned to the back of the hall. “I was just reassigned here, though, so I don’t –”
She left before hearing the end of the sentence – if he didn’t have any more information, then he didn’t have it, and that was the end of the conversation.
She hurried down the central corridor created by the recently hung sheet-partitions in the direction the young man had indicated, dodging Healers and wounded Kindred alike. Turning a corner at the end of the row, she found herself in a large space covered in blankets and makeshift beds. There were at least a dozen Kindred here, most of them on their backs with bandages wrapped around their heads, and some deathly pale, one in the process of vomiting, helped by a Healer.
Concussion ward, she thought grimly. That doesn’t bode well.
One of the Kindred stirred from another, smaller alcove to her left. She turned, hoping for Raven. The form sat up in a strange, jerky fashion, before falling back partially onto the mound of blankets behind it. Leah came forward, and, as the movement of passing Healers blew a curtain back, light from the hall’s distant fire filtered through the shifting pattern of bodies and fell on the patient’s face.
“Elder Keri?”
The woman barely managed to right herself as a rictus of pain spasmed across her face. Leah dove forward, reaching her just in time to keep her from falling back again.
“Elder, what happened?”
“The Prince,” she groaned. “I told him he couldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t listen. He has a concussion, and more than that – something is wrong with him, something deeper. I need to get to him; he needs to be brought out of whatever is taking him over from the inside. His eyes were terrible. I’ve never seen anything like that before –”
The woman cut off, and for the first time seemed to realize to whom she was speaking. Her eyes went wide and bulged outward from her face; her surprise was so great that Leah was suddenly afraid the woman would faint.
“You’re dead!”
Leah, taken aback by the accusation, retreated a step, leaving Elder Keri to stand under her own power. The woman swayed, but managed to keep her feet, and even stumbled forward a step, her hands reaching out.
“Are you real?” the Elder asked, her eyes hungrily devouring every contour and detail of Leah’s face and body, which was still clothed in the light black and green armor worn by the Kindred Rogues.
“Yes,” Leah said impatiently, “I’m real. I’m alive. I woke not five minutes ago among dead bodies.”
“You were there because your heart stopped,” Keri said, succeeding in coming forward and grabbing the younger woman’s wrist. She searched for a pulse, felt it, and seemed too stunned to believe even that. She unceremoniously thrust a hand down the front of Leah’s leather cuirass with the detached professionalism of a life-long physician, and felt Leah’s heart beating against her palm.
“That’s not possible,” she said, staring wonderingly at Leah. “You were dead – I checked you myself.”
“Well, I’m not,” Leah responded. “I need Raven – where is he?”
“Gone,” the Elder said immediately, her eyes clouding over as she thought back. “He struck me so I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. And then he left.”
“Why would he do that?” Leah asked, completely thrown. Raven was never needlessly violent.
“I told him you were dead,” Keri said, “then he said he had to go fight, had to be with the soldiers for whom he was responsible. You have to find him – bring him back here, something is wrong with him –”
Leah stopped listening as Keri continued on, the words echoing in her head, bouncing around madly. She felt a rush of energy go through her like a wave, and all other thoughts left her but Raven. She began to move away, only vaguely aware that Elder Keri was still speaking, hobbling along behind her on unsteady legs, but Leah wasn’t listening. She sped up, breaking into a run down the hall.
I can’t be too late. I won’t believe it.
As she ran she searched among the Healers for one bearing the colored, striped sleeve of an orderly: she needed someone with information. There – a short woman with dark brown hair and clean hands.
“Where is Aemon’s Blade?”
“Wha – what?”
“Aemon’
s Blade,” she said, speaking as slowly as she dared. “The white Valerium sword the Prince of the Veil carries. Where is it?”
“I – I don’t – know –”
“Then who does?”
The orderly pointed immediately out the door of the hall, back toward the front entrance of the manor. “They-ey set up a command center – in-n the courtyard; whoever it is should be –”
Leah was gone before the girl could finish, running flat-out now that she had a direction, knocking aside wounded and Healers alike. She shouted before her, calling for them to clear the way, but her voice was drowned out by the clamor of pained cries and urgent pleas for help, for mercy, for deliverance from the certain death the Wolf had brought to them.
Dysuna’s force must be on the Wall, or close to taking it. That’s where Tomaz will be – and if I know anything about the damn princeling that’s exactly where he is too, despite whatever wounds he has.
Whoever gave men brains had done a shoddy-ass job of it.
“Move!”
The chastised group sprang apart, leaving her way through the front door clear. She bounded down the steps of the walk, taking the barest fraction of a second to notice where she was and re-orient her internal map. The sun had indeed set, and the black haze above her was a combination of smoke and swirling storm clouds, ready to break at any moment. She was in the Inner City, with the mountainous ruin of the Cathedral of the Empress not a hundred yards away. The streets were made of beautiful paving stone, but nearly every space was covered with makeshift smithies, tents and quarters for the fletchers, runners and servants, and a hundred other trappings of a city under siege. A horse ran by, riderless, and no one seemed to care.
“You!” called a voice. Leah turned at the sound and saw a woman in white with red-blonde hair motioning to her. “Are you wounded? Healed? What?”
“Healed!” Leah called back. “I’m fine – who is in charge of the armory?”
