The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (17 page)

The figure of Henri Perci stood up – he had been sitting with the officers in the first row of the Odeon, and in the space of several steps he made his way onto the stage.

“We have been gathered together to discuss the possibility of choosing a new leader of the
Kindred!
” He roared to the crowd. He, unlike Autmaran, had no trouble speaking to this many people – he looked like a perfect statue come to life, a hero from a fairy story. What need did he have to be nervous?

“That
thing
sitting there is nothing but the sad, castoff spawn of our loathed enemy! I would rather die by my own hands than place myself under his rule!”

“HOW DARE YOU?!”

Raven jumped in surprise as Leah shot to her feet and began shouting back pure vitriol at Henri Perci. He was convinced that if she hadn’t been separated from the man by thousands of Kindred she would have drawn her daggers and leapt for his throat, so vicious was her reply.

Tomaz looked like he’d been poleaxed, but Leah’s tirade seemed to bring him back to himself. He stepped forward and slammed a huge booted foot into the wood of the stage with a resounding
crack!

“SILENCE!”

His staff shone momentarily with bright white light as the runes flares up, and then died again. The thunderclap of noise quieted the gathered Kindred, and this time the big man stepped forward onto the stage himself, towering over even Henri Perci, staring at them with eyes like black stones; he exuded an air of ominous disapproval, like a father who has seen his children consistently disobey a very simple rule.

“Remember where you are,” he growled out, looking through them all with a careful eye. “Remember that this is a sacred space. Remember that you are
adults
and that you should treat each other as such.”

His eyes scanned the crowd and came to rest on Leah, at whom he raised a single eyebrow in a withering expression of disappointment that made the Exile girl blush, quite uncharacteristically. Raven didn’t respond – he was still in shock.

Crane came forward to the edge of the stage and raised his hands, his own surprise, if he had been surprised at all, very well concealed.

“Now that the nomination has been revealed, we must ask if he will accept.”

“He’s not even one of the Kindred!” Henri Perci objected loudly. “He has yet to be accepted as one of the Exiled!”

“In fact he
is
one of the Kindred,” Crane corrected, locking eyes with Raven, eyes that sparkled and shone with a sudden light. “He swore the oaths to me on our return from Roarke, not two days ago.”

Silence. Even Perci seemed to find nothing he could say to this – he simply stood there, mouth gaping open. Everyone turned again to look at Raven, and he suddenly felt as if he were no larger than a bug on the end of a shoe. They all seemed to expect something of him, and so, not knowing what else to do, he stood. The motion was hesitant and awkward; he felt dangerously off-balance, and briefly entertained the notion of running away and never looking back. His heart was beating in his throat and he couldn’t get a full breath.

How does Rikard speak to crowds like this? How can anyone overcome the terror of speaking to so many people all at one time?

But he did his best to compose himself. He looked down at Crane, who was looking up at him with no expression, save for his twinkling eyes.

Did he know what Autmaran was planning? Was that why he was so ready to push me to swear the oaths and become one of the Kindred? Did they work this out together?

He pushed those thoughts away; they weren’t important now. He took a deep breath, and thought for a long moment, though the answer was obvious to him – it was the only one he could give. He had known immediately there was nothing else to tell them, nothing else he could say but:

“No.”

As he said the word, all the hope seemed to go out of Autmaran, and Raven felt as if he’d stabbed the man in the back. He wished that, at least for the Major, he’d been able to see himself as this person they thought they needed. But that part of his life was over now – he would never be a Prince again.

“No, I do not accept.”

Raven sat back down, while the Kindred broke into furious conversation, having largely forgotten that he existed in a literal sense, talking about him instead as an abstract entity.

Leah was still next to him, and for a while they didn’t say anything, both uncomfortably sitting and watching the Elders talking animatedly among themselves. Strangely enough, it looked largely as if the topic at hand had been forgotten, and some other matter had come up, something that all of them seemed to find of interest.

“Why didn’t they call for Goldwyn?” He asked suddenly, then remembered he was talking to the man’s daughter. “I mean – your father. Why not make him Prince of the Veil? He was the leader Autmaran talked about who would invade the Empire … I thought he would nominate him.”

“Because he was already Prince once,” she said. “He was the third to survive.”

“Oh,” Raven said, not knowing exactly how to respond. “And … if you’re the Prince once, and survive, you can’t be called again?”

“That’s right,” Leah confirmed. “It would be like giving out a death sentence … it’s not a title that brings much joy. I don’t know why Autmaran is so convinced we need one.”

They fell silent again as the Kindred continued to talk furiously to each other – shouts rang out around the Odeon, but no one called on Raven, and the Elders were still engaged in conversation amongst themselves. Tomaz looked exasperated, but he kept looking over his shoulder at the stage, waiting to quiet them all until the Elders were ready to speak.

“Look,” said Leah, speaking quickly, not looking in his direction. “No one turns down this position. I think you were right to do so – but you need to know you may have seriously offended a large portion of the Kindred.”

“What?”

“Usually the nomination is a formality,” she said. “You wouldn’t have been chosen. It would have been more … politically correct to have accepted the nomination and then let the motion be defeated.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t want anything to do with it. You keep telling me the Kindred value honesty and openness – well now they have it.”

“You have a fair point,” she said, speaking calmly, trying to mollify him, “and I have no problem with you turning it down. I just wanted you to know. So from now on … be careful.”

Raven looked around and saw a number of Kindred, some who had already been shouting against him before, looking even angrier now that he’d refused the nomination. He looked away quickly, facing forward, trying to appear invisible, wishing he could disappear.

“Why
did
you turn it down?” She asked.

“I don’t think you have a chance,” he said evasively, not wanting to get into the details. “I would never
chose
to fight any of my brothers and sisters … and an invasion would throw you straight into Dysuna and the province of Tibour. If you had twice her numbers, you’d still be lucky to come out of that place with a single man left. All who enter the grasslands die. And even if by some miracle you fended her off, there would have been enough time by then for Rikard to summon his legions, and my brother is such a thing that no mortal man can stand against. He is the closest among us to a god, like Mother.”

He paused and swallowed heavily.

“Closest among
them,
” he amended, more for her sake than for his. He knew who his siblings were, the proof of it was branded into the skin of his back, and he was not likely to forget it anytime soon. But she didn’t have that constant reminder, and for her it was easier to forget.

Leah was silent as the conversation among the Elders went on, Elder Warryn apparently making a long speech now, one spoken softly to the other Elders that didn’t carry beyond the stage. The other Kindred were beginning to get restless, and more of them now had noticed this conversation taking place and were starting to murmur questions to each other, wondering what it could be about.

“I agree with you,” Leah said.

He looked at her, surprised, but then realized he shouldn’t be. She was proud, true, but Leah was, above all things, coldly pragmatic, and not given to self-deception. She would be among the first to admit invasion did not favor the Kindred.

“What would you recommend we do though?” She continued. “What do you think is the best way forward for us, now that we have Roarke?”

Raven thought about it, and then decided to speak his mind:

“I think Roarke may be an unnecessary burden on the Kindred,” he said. “I think that –”

“I wish to say something,” said the pompous voice of Elder Warryn.

Everyone quieted immediately, and all turned to look at him, even some who had already stood and begun to make their way to the exits, assuming the Forum was over. They all paused and turned back, curious about what was happening.

“I speak now with a heavy heart,” Warryn said, some of his uptight officiousness gone. The tension and weight Raven had seen in him earlier was out on display now for all to see.

“As many of you are aware, I had a … disagreement, with a member of the Kindred while camped outside Roarke.”

Raven froze again.

Shadows and light, this cannot be happening to me.

“The subject of that conversation is unimportant,” Warryn continued, “though I still wish to stress that what I said I said out of love for the Kindred and duty to my home land, with no personal stake in it whatsoever. My whole life I have dedicated myself to this position –”

There was a soft throat-clearing noise that came from Elder Spader, forcing Warryn to cut off his rambling self-exaltation.

“–but in a few short minutes that was all ruined. And now, I stand before you, to say that while I have done no real wrong, I am a man of my word. And as such, with my display of passion for the Kindred cause against what I deem a very dangerous and deranged young man, I violated one of the oaths, sworn by the Elders, and, as a man of my word, I am bound to …”

“Pompous, stuck-up, officious windbag.“

It was Leah who had muttering this string of adjectives under her breath, staring daggers at Warryn. Raven had to admit he agreed with her, though he decided he shouldn’t voice his own opinion – some of the Kindred were still looking at him dangerously.

“And as such,” Warryn continued, slowing down now as he got to the end of his speech; the man’s mouth was pursed in such intense disgust that he looked like he’d swallowed a whole lemon, “I am stepping down. I am hereby officially renouncing my position as the Elder of State.”

At first no one seemed to understand what was really going on. Some seemed to think it was a joke and laughed, but these outbursts were quickly absorbed and contained by the profound silence around them. Some looked relieved – Autmaran looked downright
joyful
for a moment before quickly covering it up – and some, Henri Perci among them, raised voices in protest, though Tomaz stood and glowered at those who did and they quieted themselves quickly.

Elder Warryn took the dagger, the
sambolin,
from around his neck, and bowed his head, looking very displeased and hiding it poorly. From the looks of the other Elders though, this was something they were forcing him to do, and something they all agreed on.

Autmaran stepped forward, surprising everyone.

“In his place I nominate General Goldwyn,” he said quickly, before anyone could stop him.

There was a moment of quiet as this suggestion penetrated, and then slowly murmurs rose in agreement, building louder and louder.