The Prince of Ravens

by Hal Emerson

  Chapter Four: The First Ray of Sunlight

  The Prince felt chills run up his back. The Death Watch.

  Obviously, it was a ploy, a gamble by one of his siblings, either to frame another of the Children or to remove him from the capital for a period of time. But which of his siblings would make such a drastic move? And could they have actually employed the Death Watchmen? It would be a risky move, something that could be traced back to them eventually. The Watchmen cared little about revealing their motives - and they, like all creatures of Bloodmagic, were bound to the Children and the Empress.

  But had they truly intended to kill him? No, that couldn’t be. Paralyze him - that was all they could have done. To kill one of the Children, that was an impossibility. These Exiled, they were lying to sow seeds of doubt in his mind, of that much he was certain.

  Symanta was part of it at the very least, he realized – she had delivered the Summons. Symanta, as Prince of Snakes, would have known instantly if she had been told a lie, even a lie of omission. Whoever had tried – succeeded, corrected the Prince – in having him removed from the Fortress at Lucien had gained Symanta’s temporary loyalty. It was unlikely she had acted on her own – this plan had too much open audacity for her; she enjoyed pulling strings in the shadows. Rikard perhaps?

  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he needed to return to the Fortress and deal with whichever of his siblings had forged a Summons and had him attacked. Whomever had done this didn’t matter yet - what mattered was that he return to confront them. The Children were forbidden from killing one another, and if Mother found out … She would be very angry. A spasm of fear flashed through the Prince’s mind as he thought of what She might do.

  “Release me,” the Prince commanded the Exiles, “and I will allow you to leave the Empire unmolested.”

  The word’s pained him, but necessity required that he return to the Fortress as soon as possible, and he couldn’t do that with two Exiles in tow.

  “No,” Tomaz responded promptly.

  For a moment the Prince was struck dumb by the man’s flat-out refusal.

  “I am the Prince of Ravens, Exile,” he said, gathering his wits. “The entire Empire will be looking for me; they will find me, and you will die slowly and in excruciating pain for holding me. Release me, and I will conveniently forget you. You are lucky I’m even offering this once. I warn you, do not refuse me again.”

  The Exile girl gave him a strange look, but neither of them spoke.

  “What?” he snapped at her.

  “You almost made me believe you there,” she said. She and Tomaz exchanged a glance and then she shrugged, turned her back on him, and began to tear a blanket into strips with her dagger. Seeing this, the Prince realized that he might not actually be in control of the situation.

  “What are you doing?” he asked her, his voice controlled but his mind shaking.

  “Binding you,” she replied simply.

  Partly out of anger and partly out of fear, the Prince lost control of himself.

  “ENOUGH!” he roared, his voice cracking out like a whip, using what he’d learned watching his brother Rikard marshal his troops. “You will release me, and you will go! You will be grateful that I am offering you this mercy, and you will forever remember the glory of the Empire on which you have turned your backs!”

  The girl had jumped back from the blanket, and stood staring at him with wide eyes. For an instant the Prince thought he had won as she sheathed her dagger; she took a step forward, her eyes locked on his, her mouth slack, and triumph, along with a small measure of relief, surged through him as he saw her submit to his will.

  But having focused all of his attention on her, he had completely forgotten about the big man holding him, and the next thing he knew, he was lifted into the air, turned upside down, and dunked headfirst into a barrel of salty brine set next to the table.

  The water burned as it rushed up his nose and filled his mouth, the salt choking him. For a brief second he fully believed that the big man meant to drown him, but just as the thought crossed his mind he was hoisted back up into the air, sputtering and coughing.

  “He’s just a boy,” the Prince heard the man say through water-clogged ears, “even if he’s a son of the Empress. A boy that needs to be taught some manners.”

  Once more he was dunked into the barrel, and once again the salty water burned his eyes, his nose, his throat. He was pulled back out, given time for a single hacking, wheezing breath, one that ripped through his lungs like fire, and then he was again submerged. After the third time he was pulled up and dropped onto the wood floor, his knees and elbows striking the hard, unyielding planks and sending streaks of pain through his arms and legs. As his head cleared and his ears drained, he heard laughter and saw through teary eyes the girl doubled over, arms wrapped around her stomach. His cheeks started to burn and he opened his mouth in fury - but before he could speak, a rough piece of cloth was slipped neatly between his teeth and tied off around the back of his head. He let out a muffled sound of protest, but the big man ignored him and tied his hands together behind his back, using wide strips of fabric from the shredded blanket.

  “No use talking if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head,” the big man said.

  The Prince began to shout muffled retorts through the coarse wool cloth, using the worst language he had ever heard from the Commons. However, when he realized how undignified he looked, he stopped and instead sat in sullen - dignified! - silence, watching the Exiles murderously.

  How dare they?!

  As the girl’s laughter tapered off, the big man examined him with a critical eye.

  “What if we take him with us?” he mused. The girl straightened up and also eyed the Prince, with a bold, frank audacity that was simply infuriating.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Ashandel,” she replied. “The Elders would love a chance to interrogate one of the Children, if that’s really who he is. Particularly Elder Ishmael. So would I for that matter. But we’ve got more than three fourths of the Empire still to cover until we’re back to Vale - and how are we going to sneak past Roarke of all places to get there?”

  The big man shrugged and smiled. “I just provide the ideas, remember?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You wanted to scout this far into the Empire even though I said it was foolish to come so far twice in one year,” the giant rumbled. “I’m enough of a man to know when I’ve been proven wrong. Foolish or not, your gamble just paid off. I don’t think either of us can crack him,” they both glanced at the Prince, who was following this conversation quite avidly, “and that means we either let him go or we take him with us.”

  “Or we kill him,” the girl said. The Prince stiffened at the cold calculation that entered her voice as she spoke these words, and from the look on her face he was entirely certain that this was indeed a viable option. The big man frowned, but said nothing. As the Prince watched her thinking the situation over, memories of his brother Geofred, the Prince of Eagles, hatching a plan came to mind: she had the same cold, distant, objective look. He just hoped she wasn’t as ruthless.

  Abruptly she turned and crossed the room to the corner next to the door, and knelt on the wooden floor. She pried up a loose board, heavily warped by time and weather, from under which she pulled a number of items, chief amongst them a large roll of parchment and two travel-sized paperweights. The Prince watched as she deftly unrolled a large, detailed map across the table. After the second it took to reorient himself (the map was upside down on his side of the table) he realized it was a map of Lucia. The girl saw him looking, reached over to grab her cloak, and bunched it at the end of the table to block his view. With a mocking smile, she bent over the map, her eyes flying back and forth across the parchment. She then began using a bit of string as a measuring tool, all the while muttering to herself and absentmindedly stroking the side of her face.

  “Here … then here … and if we skirt ar
ound the lake … ”

  She pulled out a bit of charcoal from a pocket hidden in her sleeve, and began to write what the Prince assumed were calculations of distance on the wooden surface of the table. The Prince sat up straighter, but her strategically placed cloak made the motion useless: he still couldn’t see a thing. He sat back and watched the girl carefully.

  When she was finished, she remained bent over the table, eyes scanning the map and her notes a second time, before finally speaking.

  “Two months,” she said, looking back up at Tomaz. “Give or take a week depending on what the patrols look like around Roarke. And that’s at top speed - if we want to save the horses, we’ll need to factor in another week or two at least.”

  “That long?” he asked. She nodded and motioned toward the Prince with her head. “I figure he won’t make it easy, and we’ll have to take every back trail and sheepherders road we know. I wouldn’t bother, since even though he’s going to fight us along the way, we can get him through the Empire with speed, but there’s one variable I can’t predict.” She looked directly at the Prince. “Eventually they’ll realize they failed, and they’ll come after him again. When, or where, or how, I cannot say, nor I think can you. But they will – and when they do, all seven hells will break loose. I don’t know why it hasn’t happened already; maybe we’ve just been lucky and they don’t know for sure what happened. I doubt that’s the case, but whatever is happening, they will be after us, and this will turn into a race to the finish. No doubt his absence has already been noticed in Lucien, and you know how fast rumor travels. The Tyrant and her brood are going to want to end this as quickly as they can. We’re going to have to watch our backs every moment of every day from now until Vale, and we’ll have to avoid all main roads and cities. But with luck and planning, we’ll slip right past them.”

  The Prince responded with a low, mocking laugh of real amusement and opened his mouth to try to speak around the gag, but before he could do so Tomaz once more lifted him into the air and thrust him headfirst into the barrel. When he was brought back up, he found himself hanging suspended in the air, dripping foul-smelling water.

  “ARGH!” was the only response the Prince could make through his gag, which was now soaked with salt water mingled with sweat and dirt. It was disgusting.

  “No no,” said the big man, small black eyes twinkling, “my name is ‘Tomaz,’ not ‘Argh.’ Please try to get it right next time.”

  He dropped the Prince to the floor – which, from the height of the big man’s arms, was quite a long distance - and turned back to the girl. They resumed their conversation with the air of having just scolded a dog for barking.

  “The Council expects us back in a month,” he said, “is there any way we could shave some time off of that?”

  The girl shrugged, looking at the Prince.

  “Using the main roads like we’d planned, a month was reasonable with the horses. But we’ve got to go more than a thousand miles, hauling a reluctant Prince along the way. We can try, but if we get too close to any of the major cities, he’ll make trouble if the rumors don’t,” she said. The Prince almost grunted his approval of the statement, but received a warning in the form of a raised eyebrow from Tomaz and stopped himself. Once he realized what he’d just done, it only made him angrier, both at himself and the Exile. He was a Prince! He should be defiant to his last breath!

  But no … no, he wasn’t his brother Ramael, the Prince of Oxen, to fight something head on and win with brute strength. He would never be able to overpower the big man - particularly not in close quarters like this where he couldn’t maneuver and use his speed. He needed to bide his time. Let them take him where they would - he could wait.

  “Tomaz, it may take longer, but think of it. We’ve got the Prince of Ravens!”

  “So you don’t want to kill him anymore?” the big man rumbled back dryly.

  “I know how you feel about that, Ashandel,” she said and the Prince got the feeling she was choosing her words carefully. “But it’s my job to think from every angle. It’s a viable option.”

  “He’s just a boy,” Tomaz reminded her softly. The Prince saw the girl’s eyes narrow and her jaw clench in anger, but she let the moment pass. They shared a short, unspoken conversation, and then they turned to look at the Prince of Ravens as if contemplating what lay ahead of them. And then the tableau broke, and the girl turned to roll up the map.

  “If you say it’s the shortest time, then it’s the shortest time,” the big man said decisively, in a way that spoke volumes about his utter trust in the girl’s planning. “Now,” he continued, rubbing his hands together eagerly, “do you wish to tie him up or shall I?”

  The girl chuckled. “Go for it.”

  Barely a few hours later, the Prince had been properly bound and gagged, tied to a horse, and disguised as a member of the Commons – a particularly poor and shabby one, at that. They forced him into a new tunic – no, a shirt – that smelled of some kind of animal and bore several stains at which he decided not to look too closely, and maneuvered his feet into a pair of uncomfortable, over-large boots. At this point he had hopes that when they next passed someone, he or she would be alerted to his plight by this strange collection of clothing, not to mention the strips of blanket that now held his hands and feet immobile. But the two Exiles presumably foresaw this eventuality and threw a large dark brown cloak over him before pulling up the hood to obscure his face. He was left with just enough range of motion to turn his head and use his knees to steer the horse beneath him, but his hands were firmly restrained behind his back, and try as he might, he could think of no way out of the situation.

  “Comfortable?” The big man asked cheerfully.

  For the Prince, the rest of the day was a series of one humiliating event after another. The two Exiles did not seem at all concerned for his welfare as they traveled through the mountain passes, and with his cloak pulled up over his head in such a way that he couldn’t look up far enough to see over his horse at all times, the ride was decidedly uncomfortable. The beast they had given him was none too smart, and the Prince had the sneaking suspicion that since the girl Exile was holding the reins, he was being specifically led over the rockiest part of the terrain.

  Yet despite the situation, the indignities he was forced to suffer, the vague threat of death or violence that loomed over him should he try to resist, he could not help but take in, for the first time in his life, the beauty of the landscape through which they traveled.

  He was certainly far away from the capital city of Lucien, and the evidence was the large yellow-white ball of fire that hung incredibly in the sky above them. When the Exiles moved him from the inside of the wooden shack – which had turned out to be the ruins of a blacksmith’s house, explaining the presence of the barrel of brine and the wood stove – out to where the two horses were tied, he had stopped dead at the sight before him.

  The shack stood at the edge of a circle of small wooden buildings, possibly an abandoned town, all located in the center of a small clearing. The clearing was surrounded on all sides by plants as tall as buildings, plants that could only be trees, trees which he’d only seen in memories of other men and never truly considered real. They towered up into the sky, nearly as tall as some of the buildings in Lucien, and they left him dumb and awestruck.

  And the sun! It was there, right there above him! It shone through the trees, casting deep green shadows over the clearing and in some places breaking clean through the canopy overhead in straight, spearing shafts of brilliant white, brighter than anything he’d ever seen. The colors surrounding him on all sides were more vibrant than he ever could have imagined, more moving than he could have guessed from the memories he’d seen or the books he’d read.

  “Keep moving, princeling,” the Exile girl had said, pushing him forward. He’d stumbled over a floor that was not stone or packed dirt but a mixture of soil and grass and growing things - things of wonder. He’d felt as though he were
walking through the incredible landscape of a madman’s fantasy.

  Once he’d been securely fastened to one of the horses, of which there were only two, leaving the girl to walk, they left the clearing, and the Prince saw that the trees went on as far as he could see in all directions. The sheer size and scope of the area - the forest, he thought excitedly - astonished him. It was nearly as big as a city, if not bigger!

  The Exiles took him through the trees, and after a brief span of time they moved into a long pass that was entirely formed of rock on both sides. The rock was uncarved but for the work of the elements of rain and wind and the passage of time, and it was beautiful in a stark, harsh way. Loose bits of gravel crunched under the horses’ hooves, and the sounds echoed and bounced around the pass as it ascended higher into what the Prince soon came to realize must be a mountain. As they rounded a jut of stone, a gust of wind threw his hood back, and he turned to catch sight of a long stretch of green land laid out below and behind them, covering small hills and stretching an immeasurable distance. The clouds of Lucien weren’t even visible; for all the Prince knew, he had somehow been transported to the other side of the world.

  But as the day wore on, the novelty died, and the Prince returned to brooding upon his situation. The Exile girl, seeing him look around so avidly, had pulled the hood of his cloak all the way up and tied it more tightly in place, effectively narrowing his world to the horse and the earth passing beneath him. Time continued onward and the saddle began to rub him the wrong way, and he felt blisters start to form on his backside. He had ridden a horse before, of course, but never for so long. The swaying of the beast soon made his back unbelievably sore, and after a few hours his legs began to pound with a dull, insistent ache.

  But even all of this the Prince would have been able to endure, had not insult been added to injury. Sometime past midday the Exile girl led the horse around a rather large boulder stuck squarely in their path, and the horse swerved too quickly; the Prince’s momentum kept his body going forward, and with a muffled shout of surprise, he tumbled off the side of the beast as a strap gave out with a loud snap. As if this wasn’t enough, he couldn’t even fall to the ground with dignity; since he had been bound to the saddle, the saddle went with him, and he ended up riding underneath the horse for at least ten paces, his shouts and cries muffled by the gag, before the girl noticed and burst into raucous laughter. Finally, Tomaz, chuckling, came back and righted him.

  They stopped when the sun set, and the Prince was untied from the saddle and deposited under an overhanging outcrop of rock. He threw his head back with a jerk and the hood fell off to reveal that they were at the bottom of a ravine filled with trees and spiny purple-flowered bushes. The big man came over and, after allowing the Prince to relieve himself, tied him to a scraggly tree growing through the cracks in the rocks off to the side with just enough slack to lie down and sit up as he wanted.

  The Prince ached as he had never ached before. His head was pounding from lack of food and water, his mouth tasted awful from the still-salty cloth gag, his back was on fire, and his legs felt as though they’d taken on the shape of a saddle and would never return to their previous mold. Nevertheless, he sat up straight and pretended he was unfazed. He knew the Exiles knew he was pretending, but he pretended right back that they didn’t. He was a Prince, no matter if he had been tied to a horse all day and led through a forest and helplessly tied to a tree for the night. Yes, he reminded himself forcefully, in spite of all that, he was still a Prince.

  Dinner was simple: the Exiles produced bread and cheese from their packs and water from somewhere the Prince couldn’t discern, and Tomaz ate the remainder of the huge leg of meat he’d been cooking that morning, breaking open the bone when he’d finished in order to get at the marrow. A small fire was made, carefully sheltered from the biting wind that stung the Prince with cold as it whistled through the ravine. He huddled against his tree - a tree! - under the rock outcropping, still trying to be a Prince as best he could.

  The two Exiles talked softly to one another, in large part ignoring the Prince but occasionally glancing over to be certain he wasn’t making trouble. The Prince repaid them in kind, keeping to himself and his own thoughts. He began to make a list of all he had learned about them, hoping he’d find something of use.

  Tomaz. Big, tall, wide, strong. Beard - perhaps good to grab hold of in a fight. The Prince’s eyes flicked to the greatsword that was now slung across the man’s back. That was the Prince’s biggest problem. However, even though the man was uncannily fast and agile for his size, he couldn’t be as fast as the Prince, who was naturally lighter and leaner. If it came to a fight, the Prince would need to get in close and then get away quickly. He filed all of this away and moved on to the girl.

  No name as of yet. Shorter than Tomaz, but not short. Not tall either. In fact, she was of a height with the Prince, give or take an inch either way. Lithe, spry. Unlike the mountain of a man she sat next to, the Exile girl was slight, lean, and quick. He could tell from the movements she made that she possessed a grace and dexterity that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Szobody Dancers of his Mother’s court. They’d be evenly matched, though he was certain he would be stronger. He’d need to keep her at a distance if he fought her, and only close when he was sure of a strike.

  And then he reached out through his Talisman, and felt their lives.

  It was harder to do this with ordinary people. The Children and the Empress left deep impressions on the world around them, and when they were near it was as easy for the Prince to see and sense the essence of their lives as it was for any man or woman to see and sense the heat and light of a burning flame. But ordinary people were more difficult. The Prince could always sense them, could always feel the lives of people pressing against him everywhere he went, but to truly reach deep and grasp a sense of what their life felt like, that took much more concentration.

  He reached out first to Tomaz. The impressions the Prince got were never coherent thoughts, more like jumbled sensory perceptions, so when the Prince delved into Tomaz, flashes of red crossed his vision – the sound of steel ringing together – determination and a profound, serene patience – a percussive, insistent beat – smells of mint and lavender – the feel of rough leather –

  He moved to the girl – swirls of green and silver light – the sound of steel cutting silk – the silent second after a symphony ends – the smell of newly trodden dust mixed with fresh honey – old pain – grim laughter – a quiet, secret sense of wonder -

  With a significant effort of will, the Prince pulled back, managing to remain calm and to keep his breathing soft and quiet. There was nothing remarkable about them, and separately they were just two more ordinary people.

  Together though, the Prince realized, the Exiles would be next to unbeatable. They complimented each other perfectly – even just looking at them and listening to them talk made that clear. The girl spoke with a fluency and vocabulary that showed she was the planner, the thinker, while the big man spoke with a slow deliberateness that showed he was the pragmatic conservative, the cautious ring of stones that contained and directed her fiery intelligence.

  And one fact had become increasingly clear to him during the day’s journey – these two ordinary people were very good at remaining unseen. The big man was always ranging behind, covering their tracks, while the girl kept a constant eye out for anything ahead and often picked out winding roads that took them up small creeks, over hard rocks, and around soft patches of dirt and grass. What was more, the quick skill and efficiency with which they had chosen this place to rest for the night, how the big man noted the opening of the ravine though it was narrow and the sky dark, how the fire was made in such a way that it barely smoked, it all added up to show they were as comfortable and at home in this mountain landscape as the Prince was in the stone halls of his Mother’s Fortress.

  The chances that he was going to be rescued by an outside presence seemed slimmer by the hour
. He tried to think up plans of his own, but each one met with problems, once again because of the way the Exiles fit together: every weakness he observed in one of the two was countered with strength in the other. Tomaz was not overly intelligent, but the girl was. The girl was hot-tempered and the Prince was fairly certain she could be lured into making a false move if he played on her pride, but Tomaz, even when chastising him, seemed to exhibit no predictable spikes of emotion save good-natured humor. No, unless the two were separated, he stood no chance of escape.

  So how to separate them?

  “Finished with your dinner, princeling?”

  With a start the Prince realized the girl had rounded the fire and was standing in the shifting shadows not far off.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Well what should I call you?”

  “I have no name,” he responded with proud defiance. While at the Empress’ court in the Fortress this was a sign of dishonor, here among those who refused to live by Her laws he felt a the glow of pride knowing that he was still loyal to Her word.

  “You have no name,” the girl repeated, tasting the words. “Well, that’s quite interesting and everything, but it’s time to sleep.”

  She pulled the gag out of a pants pocket.

  “Do you really insist on gagging me in my sleep?” the Prince asked in exasperation. “What do you think I’m going to do? Sleep shout?”

  The girl didn’t listen to him, but grabbed a hank of hair, yanked his head back, and forced the gag into his mouth. But as she turned around, she paused. She turned back.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. Her eyes were glowing strangely and a smile played at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll take the gag off - and keep it off - if you answer one question.”

  The Prince tensed. He should have known she was going to try to bribe him. All the same … what could it hurt? The question might be something of great import to her that gave away little. And what was the worst she could do? She’d just gag him again if he didn’t answer.

  “I untie the gag,” she repeated, “and keep it off if you answer just one question.”

  The Prince thought it over for another moment, chewing on the salty, dirty, wet piece of cloth, and finally nodded.

  The girl walked over and undid the knot.

  “What’s your name?”

  The Prince, mouth open, ready to speak, closed his jaws with a snap and glared at her.

  “Hmm,” she said with a smile. “Told you he wouldn’t make one up, Tomaz – he’s too proud for that. Don’t know why someone would be proud of having their name taken from them, but then again I’m just an Exile. Well, pay up Ashandel.”

  The big man grunted and a small coin arched through the air into the girl’s hand. The Prince’s temper got the better of him.

  “I have no name,” he said defiantly. “I have no name because the Empress herself, guardian of the Diamond Throne, heir of Theron Isdiel from across the Ocean, chose to take it from me! I am a subject of the Empress, and until the time comes when she chooses to restore my name, I wear my un-identity with pride. I have committed sins against the Empire, and once I have atoned for them, I will be restored to my rightful place. Glory to the Empress! Glory to the Diamond Throne on which She sits! Glory to the legacy of Her Empire and Her Will!”

  He normally wouldn’t have added the Three Affirmations; it was an extravagance used mostly by Defenders of the Realm, the most zealous members of the Empire‘s armed forces, but it felt good to reaffirm his loyalty in the presence of these outlaws.

  If he had expected the two Exiles to cower, however, he was gravely disappointed. The air did still, and the joviality of the situation died. But instead of looking chagrined, the girl stood up, walked to him, and slapped him full in the face.

  The Prince was stunned. No one outside the Children had ever laid hands on him outside of the Training Grounds in all his seventeen years, and now not only had he been struck, but by an Exile! A girl Exile!

  “You want to know what the glory of the Empress is?” she snarled at him, her face barely inches from his. “Because I can tell you the glory of your Empress!”

  A big hand laid itself on her shoulder, and she was gently pulled back.

  “This is neither the time nor the place, Eshendai.”

  The girl turned on her heel and stormed off up the ravine and into the tree line, though the Prince silently noted that when she “stormed” she made next to no noise whatsoever.

  No wonder we can never catch them, the Prince thought, somewhat absently. His ears were still ringing from the slap - the girl was strong!

  The big man knelt down in front of him. Instead of putting them at eye level, this only seemed to emphasize the man’s size as the Prince still had to tilt his head back a considerable distance to look him in the eye.

  I do not feel belittled by this man’s presence the Prince reminded himself. I’m the Prince of Ravens! No man is above me!

  “If I were to give you a piece of advice as a friendly person, then I would suggest keeping that mouth of yours shut,” the big man said, “but being a supremely stupid prince, you’d probably ignore friendly advice. So, I shall speak in terms that I know a prince will understand.”

  As he paused, the Prince realized that the big man was idly playing with a thick piece of wood that seemed to have fallen off a nearby tree. The Prince searched his mind … a branch? Yes, a branch. That is, when Tomaz held it in his huge fist, it looked like a branch. Yet it was as big around as the Prince’s arm, and perhaps would have been more properly called a small log.

  “Listen carefully. I am committed to bringing you back to my people. For personal reasons having to do with trouble my conscience tends to give me, I wish to do so without harming you. However - ”

  The big man held the branch up in front of the Prince’s eyes.

  “That girl that you continue to antagonize is the closest thing to me in this world.”

  With a muffled crack, the wood snapped right down the middle as he closed his fist. There was a series of dull pops as his knuckles cracked, adding their own support for the statement.

  “And I care about her well-being much more than I care about you.”

  The fist opened and the remnants of the branch fell to the ground. The giant brushed off his hands and leaned in closer, so close the Prince almost gagged on the overwhelmingly masculine musk that rolled off of him in waves.

  “You are coming with us. Whether you arrive whole or in pieces is up to you.”

  The big man shoved the gag into his mouth, tied it off, and rose abruptly.

  “Sleep well,” he said with his customary cheerful smile, white teeth shining out from his neatly trimmed beard, and walked over to his place by the fire. The Prince, limbs shaking ever so slightly, turned jerkily over and tried to find sleep, though one thought did cross his mind:

  So he does get angry.