The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (62 page)

“Don’t listen,” Davydd hissed, startling the Prince, whose hand had begun to waver. “Think about what my father would say. Think about what this man has done – think about the people you will save by taking this one life!”

“Yes,” Tiffenal mewled, taking up where Davydd had left off, “kill me and save countless others. And soon you will kill two to save three, five to save ten, fifty to save a hundred, and then,
then
you will know pain as I have known it, and you will hate this life, and wish yourself dead as all of those you killed.”

“Don’t listen to him!”

“Yes,” Tiffenal mocked, “listen to the boy, he knows all the answers! He, with his many years of wisdom!”

Davydd and Tiffenal continued to shout, but silence was the only thing the Prince heard. It wrapped around him suddenly, cocooning him, and the importance of the moment seemed to die, and a simple, warm feeling came to him then, and words echoed in his mind, coming to him across the long divide of months, ringing as if newly spoken:

Be the Prince you were meant to be – the one the world needs.

He pulled back the sword, and swung.

The blade bit deeply into Tiffenal’s neck, cutting off the Fox’s words, and he watched as the golden light flickered and died in his brother’s eyes. Strength flooded into him, along with the biting, metallic smell of blood, gushing hot and dark from Tiffenal’s failing body, running down the Prince’s arm, pattering to the ground like the soft murmur of rain.

And then the memories. But this time the Prince was prepared, having gone through Ramael’s death, ready for the crystal clear memories of centuries worth of torture and cruelty. Bracing himself, he let his mind go blank, allowing his brother’s life to wash into him like a torrential flood.

Pain – and then the feeling that his mind had been split in two. There was another consciousness there, another mind, as Tiffenal’s memories came rushing in, searing him with their clarity, forcing his own mind to work twice as hard for lucidity; a drowning swimmer struggling under the weight of another’s body.

Something is wrong
.

The sensation of pain increased, as if hooks had been sunk into both sides of his mind and were being pulled viciously in opposite directions. But the memories continued to play: growing up under the painful tutelage of Rikard, the only solace his stoic twin sister Dysuna; the realization that he took pleasure in the same kind of pain that had been inflicted on him; the long years spent neglecting the wider world, focused only on his own city and the perfection of his art …

And then the Prince heard screams echoing in his head and he sobbed under the sound of their pain; the screams of thousands of men and women subjected to Tiffenal’s affections.

Screams echoed by Davydd Goldwyn, who was doubled over in agony as his hands clutched the skin of his face – skin that was burning, blackening, sloughing off from the heat of a bright, gold fire.

The Prince cried out, fighting through his brother’s memories –

He tripped over something as he moved toward the Eshendai, something white and long, that skittered away across the floor with the clatter of metal …

Aemon’s Blade.

Numb with shock and confusion, the Prince looked down at the blade he was still holding in his hand, the blade coated with Tiffenal’s blood, and realized it wasn’t his. Wider and heavier, with a thick crossguard and a heavy pommel shaped like a long, curved fang …

Davydd’s sword.

“AHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!!! OH GOD!”

As if bidden to return by the Eshendai’s screaming, the memories attacked him with terrible power, and the Prince dropped the sword, sickened by the intensity of the images, harsh and brilliant in their clarity; images of men and women killed and tortured in terrible ways that left him shaking and teetering on the verge of insanity. A young boy disemboweled and artistically hung up as a decoration. A man whose head had been replaced by a pig’s. A woman forced to endure rape after rape until she died. The Prince turned and vomited onto the spotlessly clean audience chamber floor.

But he’d known what he was up against. He’d known what his brother was capable of, he’d known he would see this. He knew he’d experience his brother’s pleasure at seeing such things as if it was his own, feel the duality in his mind, the split between himself and his brother. Davydd, however, had not. And now he was being forced to endure nearly two centuries of a life lived in deep and dark depravity, all while being burned alive by the Talisman of the Fox.

For that was what was crawling along his neck, up his burned and blackened chin, as if molten gold had been injected into his veins, burning him from the inside, cursing him.

The Prince rushed to Aemon’s Blade. His hand grasped the wire hilt, cold against his skin, at direct odds with the heat of the memories rushing through his mind. Turning, he stumbled and limped his way over to Davydd, his limps jerking as if pulled by invisible marionette strings, as if some vestigial part of Tiffenal was still with him, trying to gain control over his body.

He placed a hand on Davydd, and reached through the Raven Talisman, cradling Aemon’s Blade, trying to force the pain from the other man as he had done to Tym in Vale.

Immediately, the pain in the Prince’s own body doubled, and he was nearly sick again. A cold, draining weakness fell over him, but the flesh on Davydd’s face continued to smoke, and the young man continued to weep. The Prince, sobbing now as well, reached deeper, pushing life into Davydd – and as he did, he felt his own face begin to prickle and burn, as if it had been sunburned, and then harsher, as if he were inches away from a heated piece of metal.

But the effort was too much, and his vision began to darken, and he was only just able to hang on to consciousness. The Prince took a deep breath, one that shook and quivered like a house in a heavy storm, and kept pulling anyway, focusing now on the Fox Talisman, trying to pull it out of the Eshendai.

“It was supposed to go to me,” he said under his breath, through gasping, panting convulsions of effort. “It’s my burden, not his!”

But the golden lines wouldn’t retreat. They didn’t even slow, but continued their inexorable creep across his face.

“DAMN!!” Roared the Prince, as he fell backward, stumbling to his feet. The cold left him, and so did the burning sensation on his face. He spun and cursed again, Kindred and Imperial slurs mixing together, as the memories continued to pound inside his head.

-
Well darling, how do you feel after the irons? Please be specific now, this record will be kept for my own pleasure after you’ve expired –

- How many men have had their turn? Very well, I suppose we shall end it, she won’t be good for any more. Would you like to do the honors Jalyn, or shall I? I so enjoy the sight of spoiled blood –

- “Geofred came to pay me a visit,” Tiffenal said. Dysuna, Prince of Wolves, walked toward him, her slow, steady, loping pace both dangerous and highly efficient, not wasting a single step.

“Did he now?” She growled at him. “He came to see me as well, I’m to be the lid that keeps them sealed in Banelyn. I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know they’re going to try to get past me.”

“Are you seeing this?” Davydd rasped through clenched teeth.

The Prince of the Veil turned and saw that the Eshendai was sitting up, peering at the Prince through a haze of what must have been indescribable pain.

“The Prince of Eagles is waiting in Banelyn. It’s a trap.”

“You can see it?” The Prince asked in amazed horror.

“They’ll all be killed,” Davydd gasped out, only managing to remain seated upright with a supreme effort of will. Raven went to him then, and grasped his hand, helping to support him. “It’s a trap, the Eagle anticipated it all.”

“He told Tiffenal to kill Goldwyn,” the Prince said, seeing the same memories.

–
Geofred stood and Tiffenal felt a spike of annoyance and pure, very unbrotherly anger. He didn’t hate Geofred as much as he hated Rikard –
anger, hate, shame, guilt, fear
– but he certainly didn’t like him. If anything, he tolerated him. Why did he have to be here anyway? He was ruining the whole day.

“How did you know to look into this line of the future?” Asked Tiffenal, curious in spite of himself. His brother, despite his vast intellect, was only one man and had to focus on certain things in order to see them.

“The Death Watchmen laid a trap in the Roarke Mountains,” said Geofred. “The trap did not succeed – but one of them was left intact. It was pushed over a cliff, and lost its arm along with half its torso, but the skeletal structure of the spin remained in place and so the enchantments held. It reported back, told me that our darling little brother had forgotten to finish it off, and that the Ox Talisman had been passed to another.”

This surprised the Fox – it was an unexpected twist. He liked unpredictable things though … ooooh, what fun they could be!

“They’re only a step away from being provoked into all out war,” Geofred continued. “We need only push them over the edge. It is time to use the secret tunnel, the one Symanta discovered for the Seekers. Go through it, steal a sambolin, and kill the Elder.”

“Which one?”

“Whichever you like,” the Eagle said dismissively. “But one that will whip them into a rage.”

“And then what?”

“Burn Roarke and return here,” Geofred continued, light gleaming off of his tattooed, bald head. “Little brother will come to you – he’ll see you as his responsibility. You know how predictable he is. You should be able to deal with him – if your luck holds of course.”

“If my luck held, you wouldn’t be here, and the little sparrow would be dead.”

Geofred frowned, just a small downward twitch at the corners of his mouth, but it made Tiffenal smile like a cat –
PRIDE, laughter, elation
– he bared his teeth in a feral grin, gold flashes flickering in and out or his vision, showing him the way the strings of fate were pulling the Eagle even now.

“Just hold them,” Geofred said, turning and leaving the audience chamber. “And we will end this once and for all in Banelyn.”

“Happy massacre,” said Tiffenal cheerfully.

“You disturb even me sometimes,” said Geofred as he
 
-
 

“… GODDAMN PRINCE WAKE UP!”

Raven snapped out of the memories, though they continued to play through his head, pounding against his skull, and saw Davydd almost standing, every inch of him shaking with the effort of working through the pain of his ruined face.

“
Go to them!
” Davydd hissed, his expression a terrible mask of burnt flesh and feral determination. The gold lines were growing, spiraling out from his neck, creeping across the burnt flesh, hardening it, blackening it.

“We need the information to be recorded,” the Prince said, “we need all of what Tiffenal knows – ”

“I can do that,” said Davydd, “I have the memories too. Now get the – ”

He cut off as the golden lines glowed brighter, and he cried out, making a noise the Prince hadn’t known a human throat could produce: half mewling cry for mercy, half shout of mad defiance.

The doors burst open behind them and the sound of fighting echoed through – the Prince turned and saw the rest of the infiltration force dispatching the last of the guardsmen, coming toward them led by Lorna; when she saw Davydd her face went a white, ashen color, and her round eyes, normally so expressionless, filled with fear. She ran forward and grabbed him, cradling him in her arms. He looked up into her eyes, tried to say something, but his wounds were too much, the pain of the Talisman too great, and his eyes began to close. But just when it looked like he was about to succumb, he let out a groan of sound that tore from his throat like a living thing, crashing around the audience chamber, and he rose again, pushing himself against Lorna, leaning forward, held up by pure spite and power of will, and stared the Prince dead in the eye.