The hot desert wind of the afternoon swept through the sandstone cliffs with a low moan, gently stirring the hem of his robe.
Prince stopped.
He turned around and said, "What did you lie to me about?"
"Your father told me the truth."
"He said you were his proudest son. He never said you had listened to slander, nor did he say you fled Alabasta."
"He said he feared your ideals would destroy the Nefertari Family, so he personally poisoned your dinner, with a dose precise enough that even the royal physicians could find no flaw."
"He personally arranged your death, personally chose the clothes for your funeral, and personally read the eulogy before your coffin."
Prince was silent for a long time. The wind flipped up the edge of his hood, revealing a section of his chin and half his lips, pressed into an extremely thin line.
Then he laughed.
Unlike that enigmatic faint smile from before, this was a far more complicated smile.
It was the kind of expression someone wore when they discovered that a person they had hated for decades had ultimately done something that left them unsure how to keep hating them, every emotion on their face reduced to indecipherable static.
"I never thought that old man would actually swallow his pride and tell the truth."
He pushed back his hood, revealing his entire face. The faint scar beneath his left eye gleamed white in the noonday sun.
"So what I want to know is, how did you come back from the dead?"
Prince's expression changed, but Barlow continued pressing him.
"After you came back to life, did you learn something?"
Prince narrowed his eyes. The ease on his face faded away, like the lingering warmth of a desert evening rapidly draining from the sand.