The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (30 page)

She looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. Did she think he was lying? Trying to pin the blame on someone else?

“Henri Perci? Well, that’s quite an accusation. Do you have proof of this?”

Leah and Tomaz looked at him anxiously, but he shook his head slowly. His hands balled into fists. He wanted to
punch
something.

“No,” he said, careful to keep his voice steady. Showing anger here would do nothing but hurt his case, making him look like a liar or a vindictive fool.

“Then you still have to talk to Elders Spader and Ekman,” she said, very matter of fact. “They’re waiting for you right now at Elder Goldwyn’s manor – they sent word to send you there when you woke.”

“The Elders?” Tomaz asked. “Surely this isn’t something that needs to be taken up with them directly. I accept responsibility for him, and as it is a first time offense, it can’t be a matter serious enough to involve the Elders in –”

“He’s a ward of the state since he has no family here,” Elder Keri said sternly, her kind, motherly exterior gone to expose the protective caretaker underneath. “Until he reaches his Naming, he’s under the care of the Elders, and he goes to them directly when he breaks a law. Dopalin is a dangerous substance, particularly if ingested by a skilled swordsman, you know this. If he’d been triggered, particularly with his …
abilities
… we may have had a massacre on our hands.”

“Triggered?” Raven asked, his breathing suddenly coming short and fast. What did she mean by that? A
massacre
?

“I claim him,” Tomaz said immediately, without the slightest hesitation. “He will be my family, and I will take full responsibility.”

“That’s very kind of you Tomaz,” Keri said, her face softening noticeably. She looked truly touched. “But you know it’s not that simple. First of all, you’re an Ashandel, and you’re forbidden from taking on any children until you’ve been moved off active duty. That you and your Eshendai would vouch for him means a great deal, though. Take him to Elder Goldwyn’s manor, speak for him in front of Spader and Ekman, and go from there. Normally I’d have to have him escorted, but if you will take him yourself, then we can forgo that.”

“Right,” Tomaz said, though he looked grim. “He has your leave?”

Keri nodded, and that was all Raven needed to throw back the sheets covering him and swing his legs over the side of the bed.

As he did the room spun again, just enough that he had to pause and take a slow, steadying breath. Tomaz rested a hand on his shoulder and offered to help him stand, but he waved the giant off.

He came slowly to his feet, assuming the straight-backed stance that had been bred into him, and realized he was once again shirtless. He looked down and saw he had pants on, which was a good start, but was a little self-conscious of the fact Leah was standing not three feet away from him.

Elder Keri gestured with a small smile to a trunk at the foot of the bed. He moved to it, threw open the lid, and saw inside his boots, his cloak and tunic, and Aemon’s Blade. He pulled them all on, hesitating slightly when he grasped the Blade, and then they were off, heading out the door at the end of the recovery ward as Keri moved to check on Tym.

“So it was Perci, you’re sure of it?” Tomaz asked as soon as they were out of earshot of Keri and her Healers.

“Yes,” Raven said darkly as they turned left and made their way to a staircase leading down. He could see out a window that they were on a floor only one flight up
 
- he supposed that made sense. It would be difficult to have the trauma recovery ward
too
high up lest people needed to be moved. “He drugged me and offered to take me for a drink – he said he wanted to bury the hatchet. He kept repeating that phrase.”

“To bury the hatchet has a double meaning among the Kindred,” Tomaz rumbled. “In peace times it means putting aside your feuds, but in war it means attacking your enemy when they don’t expect it.”

“Burying a hatchet in my back,” Raven said, making sense of the phrase for the first time.

“Why would he take you for a drink though?” Leah asked, looking a little confused. “If he’d wanted to do you real harm, he’d have just actually hurt you.”

“He didn’t want to hurt me,” Raven said as they crossed the Kindred hospital’s foyer toward the main door amid a rush of other activity. “He wanted me to hurt myself.”

“He wanted to make you look like a fool at the very least,” Tomaz said, nodding. “Which is why he put you in the Lazy Duck.”

“That’s a stupid name for a tavern by the way,” Raven said.

“No denial here,” Leah agreed.

“The Rose and Pearl is much better,” Tomaz said. “Though I haven’t been there in … wow, I haven’t been there in at least a decade now. More – a decade and some change.”

“So he took you there and left you to make it look like you’d drank too much and then gone about town making a fool of yourself,” Leah said. “Even though he knew full well you might have done something to hurt yourself or to hurt an innocent person on the street.”

“It’s what I would do if I wanted to destroy someone’s good name,” Raven said. Thinking about it objectively, the plan was tactically brilliant. Minimal risk on Perci’s part, maximum chance of something going wrong for Raven.

They’d left the hospital now and found themselves on a large, wide street that looked to be located somewhere near the center of town. They turned down a side street, and despite Raven’s new, hard-won knowledge of Vale, he was soon completely lost. Leah and Tomaz obviously knew where they were going though, so he gave up trying to track the streets and focused his mind on the problem of Henri Perci.

“What did Keri mean when she said I could have been triggered?”

Tomaz and Leah exchanged a quick glance that spoke volumes.

“It doesn’t just make you say your mind, does it?” Raven asked. “If someone had attacked me … I would have attacked back. I would have killed them, on the spot. That’s the danger of the drug, that’s why it’s illegal. And with the Raven Talisman … I would have been out of control and unstoppable. What is the penalty for murder among the Kindred?”

“Death,” Tomaz said, eyes hard as stone. “A life for a life.”

“What would have happened if I’d had more?” Raven asked.

“More?” Leah asked, surprised. “You were at the limit – if you’d had any more, you would have gone insane, maybe even died. You certainly would have gone off on everyone in the drinking house.”

He told me to drink more. He was trying to kill me.

He almost told them, but then refrained. Something told him that this was information he had to keep to himself – if he told either of them, they’d go straight for Henri Perci. It was bad enough as it was – let them think he’d only been the victim of a drugging, not an attempted murder.

And when the time is right, I’ll deal with him myself.

“But you didn’t have more,” Leah said. “So let’s focus on the task at hand – pinning this on Perci, not on you.”

“Is there any way to trace the dopalin back to him?” Raven asked.

“He’s too smart for that,” Leah replied, speaking quickly. “Likely he never had any contact with the people who got it for him – the plant it’s made from isn’t hard to get, it grows all over the valley, though it’s hard to refine. Once you manage it though, you don’t need anything besides a heat source to melt it into a liquid form.”

“And anyone could have done that,” Raven concluded. She nodded.

“I have half a mind to make him disappear,” Tomaz rumbled with such venom that Raven felt chills go down his spine as these words confirmed his fears. “I don’t care what the law says, he did it, and who knows how many lives could have been lost.”

“You’ll ruin your life, and make Perci a hero,” Raven said, speaking slowly, making sure the big man was listening to him. “That’s exactly what he wanted in the first place, to ruin me and the people I’m close to.”

“Then what do we do?” He growled; his jaw was clenched so tight veins were starting to throb along his neck.

“Nothing,” Raven responded quietly. “Like Leah said, I got lucky. Davydd found me – if he hadn’t, who knows what would have happened. As it is, no one got hurt – so we all escaped unscathed. That’s the worst outcome for Henri Perci – he went through all the trouble, took a risk, and nothing happened.”

“No, something did happen,” Leah said, “you saved a boy’s life. Everyone is talking about
that
, not about anything else. The only ones who know you were on dopalin are the Healers, the Elders, and us. The Healers swear oaths not to discuss anything that’s happening with a patient, and the Elders wouldn’t talk about it outside of themselves. So as long as we don’t tell anyone, then no one will know. Perci’s plan completely backfired.”

“Who’s to say he won’t try again?” Tomaz asked. The expression on his face was still dark and severe, and Raven was forcibly reminded that this man was a BladeMaster in all but name. He felt a strange, reluctant flash of pity for Perci. Tomaz was not a man you wanted as an enemy.

“If we tell the Elders, won’t they be watching for anything strange that might happen?” Leah asked, though she seemed less than certain.

“They’ve got a whole nation to run,” Raven said. “I doubt they’ll have too much time to spare for me. No – I just have to make sure I pay more attention. I’ll be careful.”

“It’s funny,” Leah said to Tomaz, “he keeps miss-speaking and saying “I” instead of “we”. That’s a strange quirk don’t you think?”

“Strange indeed,” Tomaz replied,” but certainly not in an endearing way.”

“
We
then,” Raven conceded, though they were right that he’d been trying to avoid bringing them into this. What would happen if Henri Perci tried something else and it got one of them instead?

“We’ll talk about it later,” Tomaz said. “We’re here.”

Raven looked up and saw they were standing outside Goldwyn’s manor. Leah stepped up and knocked, rapping her knuckles sharply against the hardwood door.

“Who calls?” Asked a feminine voice from the other side of the door.

“Marcy, it’s Leah,” she said, “I’ve got Raven with me – the Elders are expecting us.”

The door opened and Raven saw that a number of men and women in dark gray clothing were stationed inside.

“Who are they?” Raven asked Tomaz quietly.

“Aides to the Elders,” the giant replied as softly as he could, sounding for all the world like a bumblebee caught inside a window. “Each Elder has at least two, though most have more. They handle sealed letters, official notary work, things like that.”

Raven found his mouth suddenly dry again. Was it possible they would find him guilty and provide him with a sentence of some kind? He couldn’t prove Henri Perci was the one who’d drugged him, couldn’t prove anything besides that he’d ingested dopalin, which was a crime.

They entered the manor through the familiar book-encrusted entrance hall and found themselves steered by the Aides through a door to their right that led down a long corridor to a study. Inside were Elders Spader, Ekman, and Goldwyn. Their faces all bore unreadable expressions.

“Raven, son of Relkin,” said the female Aide who’d spoken at the door, announcing him to the Elders. She stepped aside and let them enter – at least, she let Raven
enter.

“I would strongly suggest you move,” growled Tomaz.

Raven turned and saw that the first Aide and a number of others had formed a barrier between the big man and the interior of the room, and looked quite unafraid of him.