SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows)

by Jenna Waterford

  “Don’t touch me,” Jarlyth snapped, and the hand shot back as if it had been slapped away. His reaction had been automatic, but Jarlyth knew he’d made what could turn out to have been a fatal mistake. Stupid. That was stupid. All he may have needed was to touch me to remember.

  “He was sick off and on all the way here,” George said. His eyes were wild with hysteria, and Nylan looked up at him, his worry deepening.

  “George, what’s going on?” A note of fear bled into his voice. He seemed to be almost pleading with the man. “I don’t understand. Why are you acting like this? Did I do something to make you angry?”

  A powerful-looking man with a shaved head and a deceptively sleepy expression appeared, shoving away the crowd that had gathered around their little tableau. “Michael,” he barked. “Everything all right?”

  The boy reached up automatically, and the man pulled him to his feet. “I don’t know.” Nylan still looked worried. “This is George’s friend. He passed out.”

  The man grunted. “I’ll look after ‘em. Lord Fitch is asking for you.”

  Nylan’s expression went blank at this, but he nodded and vanished into the crowd.

  By the time the Red Boar’s strong-arm decided he wasn’t sick or hurt, Jarlyth had lost all track of Nylan—until he saw the boy being guided up the Red Boar’s gaudy staircase by a man who’d apparently just paid him for a bit of his time.

  George looked even more ill than Jarlyth felt. “Was that really him? Have I really been—?”

  “What is it about you? Why was he so desperate for you to want him?” Jarlyth demanded.

  George’s last bit of spine melted away as he slumped onto the table. “It’s just that I promised to help him.” He dropped his voice to a low whisper. “If he ever got enough money together to pay all the bribes plus his passage, I said I’d help him leave here. He wants to go to Mirthia and start over. They don’t have heretics there or brand people. Streeters are illegal. I think he thinks it’s Vail’s Country.”

  “So he pretends to like you, plays up to you...so that you’ll help him.”

  “Yes. And so I’ll keep his secret,” George admitted. “I’m a bastard. I blackmailed the Prince of Sorrows.”

  “You are a bastard,” Jarlyth agreed bitterly. “You blackmailed a child.”

  # # #

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Pol was waiting for him by the Red Boar’s back door when Michael was ready to leave just before dawn the following morning. Michael froze several steps away, staring at his friend as if he didn’t recognize him, as Pol stepped into the dim morning light filtering through the sole window, a determined expression on his face.

  Michael had no idea what to do or think. This was the first time Pol had broken the unspoken agreement the boys had maintained ever since Michael had come to the Red Boar. They’d always pretended this part of his life did not exist.

  “What are you doing here?” Michael’s humiliation burned up his neck and across his cheeks, and not only at being caught having just left his last patron without having so much as washed his face. He’d taken a long drink of sevillium after the debacle with George, and its effects had yet to entirely wear off.

  After everything that had happened that night, he’d been unable to face going with anyone without something to blunt the edges. The man with the stupid cards had been upsetting enough, but George’s behavior had been almost frightening, and George’s friend... What was wrong with him? What did he want from me?

  At first Michael had resisted using Terac’s sevillium, but the pain had simply been too much to bear. After his last, disastrous attempt at healing, he’d finally given in and opened the blue glass bottle.

  Sevillium worked like a magic spell, relieving not just his physical pain but also blurring his memories. It was a relief to be this numb and this separate—such a relief that, with each taste, it became harder and harder to resist taking it all the time.

  Nothing mattered to him when he was under the drug’s influence, and even when he tried to work up some emotion toward some particularly repulsive aspect of his life—such as the horrors of being Terac’s slave—he ended up not caring. Michael tried to save the drug for the worst nights, but what he considered worst was fast becoming a very broad category.

  Pol moved toward him. “I’m sorry, but I had to talk to you, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since...” He hesitated, his hand reaching up to tangle itself in the already-tangled curls at his forehead. “Ever since you started taking that stuff.”

  Michael shook his head and tried to step past Pol, but the older boy caught his arm. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

  Michael yanked free of Pol’s loose grip on his arm and pushed through the door leading out onto the alley behind the inn. Unsteady, he almost tripped over the threshold, but the cold air struck him like a slap across the face, and his focus sharpened a little.

  “I just got tired of hurting.” He wasn’t sure Pol had followed him, wasn’t sure anyone was listening.

  Pol circled around to stand in front of Michael again, desperately trying to hold his friend’s wandering attention. “What kind of an answer is that?”

  Michael leaned against the wall, not wanting to have this conversation, not wanting to even think.

  “What are you doing?” Pol’s voice broke. “You’re just throwing your life away.”

  Michael exhaled until it felt as if not one bit of air remained in his body. Weariness weighted him down like a rain-heavy cloak. He didn’t think he could feel any more exhausted.

  “I don’t have a life.” It was hopeless. Everything was hopeless. Even George has gone all strange now...even if I could get enough money together again...even if I was crazy enough to risk Terac’s revenge...I don’t think George wants me anymore. He’ll never help me if there’s nothing in it for him. “You should have let me die that night.”

  Pol shook his head, his voice anguished. “No, I couldn’t. I can’t! You’re my best friend! My little brother, my family, my—”

  “I’m a whore, Pol.” The word hung in the air between them, breaking the final piece of their pact. “I’m a whore, and I’m a heretic. You can’t save me from what I am.”

  “You shouldn’t be here!” Pol insisted.

  Michael glared up at his friend, the sevillium blur burned away in a flash of hysteria and fury. “I wouldn’t be here if you’d let me die.” He pushed away from the wall, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt cuffs before yanking up the sleeves to reveal the scars he usually took pains to conceal.

  “I wanted to die, but you wouldn’t let me!” He almost shoved his wrists in Pol’s face. “And now I have to live like this every day! I have to pretend it’s all fine and smile at these men and act like I want them to nik me when all I want to do is die! Why is that so hard to understand?”

  “I’m sorry.” Pol wiped at the tears running down his cheeks without seeming to notice them. “I never thought it would turn out like this. I just couldn’t let you die. You looked so... I felt like it was all my fault.”

  Michael stared at him, exhausted by his friend’s suffocating concern. “I’m not your responsibility, Pol.”

  “If not mine then whose? You don’t take care of yourself. You aren’t careful—”

  “Why should I be?” Michaels hands curled into fists at his side, his helpless rage resolving into true anger at Pol for forcing him to talk about truths he’d much rather forget. “This is all I’ll ever be. Maybe I want it to be over with as soon as possible.”

  He turned and limped away down the alley, expecting Pol to chase after him with every step, but all that followed him was a heartbroken plea of, “Michael, wait.”

  Michael made it to Senna Maglen’s in a haze of hurt and anger, but as he descended the area steps, he remembered that the upcoming night was the Festival of Kings. It was a shattering anniversary for both him and Pol, and it made sense to him now why Pol had chosen this night to confront him though the underst
anding didn’t help lessen the hurt.

  Still, it was hard to believe so much time had passed. Had it really been three years since he’d first encountered Terac Nalas as a nearly starved-to-death eleven-year-old? Three years since he’d failed to take his life in that wet, glittering cul-de-sac? Three years since he’d become in fact, as well as in practice, a whore?

  He’d avoided the festival the last two years, not wanting to be reminded of that awful night. He’d escaped to his room instead, reveling in the utter silence of the empty house and the extra few hours the holiday gave him to read and sleep, but he knew this year would be different. Terac would want to commemorate their first meeting. He would send for him; he might even come to the festival again; he might even...

  Michael closed his eyes, feeling as faint as the heroine of some romantic novel. What if Robyn is with him? How will I stand it? He sat down abruptly on the rain-wet steps and felt the water seep through his clothes, but it was all at a distance. The next night loomed in front of him, terrifying and unknown.

  Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to stand and go into the house, into the familiar, comforting scullery. He took his bath, but he was too upset for even that ritual to have its usual, calming effect. There was no chance he could avoid whatever would happen. Michael knew he’d have to play his part. He’d have to go to the festival and wait for Terac to find him.

  #

  Jarlyth followed the sounds of music down the deserted streets of Fensgate. He’d heard about the Festival of Kings from almost everyone he’d spoken to since his arrival in Camarat, but he’d had no idea how complete the participation was. Not a shop was open; not a streeter plied her trade.

  He’d emerged from the room he’d taken at the small inn somewhat down the street and across from the Red Boar to find no one in the building and no lights coming from the windows of the buildings nearby.

  He’d taken a nap, planning to be rested and at his best for the night so that he could find some moment to talk to Nylan, but now he could see that the festival would be all that anyone was interested in. The sun was setting and, for all he could tell, the world might have ended while he’d prepared for the evening.

  He hurried down the street, following the distant sounds of music and the growing noise of the crowd. He hoped he could find the right words to say to prick Nylan’s memory and make him understand that he was someone who could be trusted.

  I can’t blame him if he doesn’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me if I had lived his life. And even if he did remember me, why should he trust the man who let all of this happen to him?

  The festival seemed to be well underway by the time he reached its outskirts. People were crowded around tables and stalls, talking and eating and laughing as if this weren’t the most wretched slum anyone had ever seen.

  Jarlyth tried to blend in and pass without comment through the crowds, but he was too different and glances and stares followed him as he went. Nettled, he grabbed a roll from a nearby table and turned away from the nearest cluster of whispering strangers.

  And with that turning, he emerged into the glittering center of the festival’s activity where he found several couples twirling in a joyous dance. The music was familiar—an obvious relative of the faire tunes of his own youth in rural Serathon.

  Once long ago, this entire western side of the Breach had been settled by those fleeing the vicious, magic-driven Blood Wars which eventually tore the One Kingdom—and all the rest of the countries there—to pieces. Little did they know that somewhere in their midst was the direct heir to the great SanClare bloodline which once ruled that fabled land.

  He soon spotted Nylan dancing with a pretty girl, and his were not the only eyes drawn to the pair. Nylan’s limp seemed to have vanished in the gracefulness and speed of the dance, and as the music flowed from one song and into the next, some dancers stepped out of the swirl and others joined it, but Nylan and his partner didn’t pause. For this moment, at least, Jarlyth knew that Nylan was happy. It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

  As Jarlyth watched, however, a man pushed through the crowds and when Nylan danced by him, he caught the boy’s arm, halting the couple abruptly and sending an angry ripple through the spectators. The man then said something to the boy that drained all his happiness away and turned the angry ripple to a low growl.

  Jarlyth reacted without thinking, striding through the crowd which took one look at his face and parted before him like water. He reached the man in tics, grabbing his arm in a similar fashion to the way the man had grabbed Nylan and hauling him a few steps away.

  Jarlyth leaned in and whispered, “I have a sword that’s longing to see some use. I shall delight in letting it get to know you as intimately as I’m sure you wish to know that poor boy over there. You know who I mean? That child whose fleeting moment of joy you just destroyed?” It was a threat he was perfectly prepared to carry out. “Shall I draw my sword now so you may see what you have to look forward to?”

  The man yanked his arm free, tripping and falling to the ground as he tried to scuttle away. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled off through the crowd, casting several terrified looks back to see if Jarlyth was following, though all that pursued him were a few thrown objects and the taunting laughter of the crowd.

  Jarlyth realized the music had stopped during this incident only when it started up again. He turned back to see Nylan watching him warily while the girl tried to persuade him back into the dance.

  Jarlyth held the boy’s gaze for just a moment, then gave him a small bow before turning and walking pointedly away. He wanted Nylan to trust him, but he realized this was very unlikely. With some luck, however, he might convince the boy that he was not someone to be feared.

  #

  Michael watched George’s friend disappear back into the crowd, stunned by his extraordinary kindness. But it probably isn’t kindness. Michael had been the target of calculated kindnesses before, bestowed by men wanting him to be grateful as part of some twisted fantasy.

  He realized Nella was urging him back into the dance, and he allowed himself to be persuaded, though the brief moment when he’d actually forgotten everything but the dancing was over, and he doubted he could recapture it. The first man had not been Terac—at least Michael was fairly certain he hadn’t been—but his proposition had been too explicit to shrug off.

  Horrible man, he thought. And he smelled. He’d never have said yes to the man’s offer under any circumstances, but he hated that men felt they could say anything to him. He hated that his obvious discomfort with the man’s proposition had given the man so much pleasure. He hated that he’d been so caught out and right in front of everyone.

  And, most of all, he hated that Terac would be there. He had probably witnessed the scene unfold. He might even be angry about it. Angry that another man had approached him; angry that another man had defended him.

  Recently, Terac had become prone to fits of jealousy. Jealousy which manifested itself as weird, intense fury over Michael’s “inconstancy”—as if somehow it had ever been otherwise. As if it could be. It was insane behavior. Michael couldn’t imagine what Terac was thinking, but it frightened him.

  When the next song ended and the musicians took a break, Michael decided to leave. He’d risked enough that day, and he did not wish to be dragged away from the festival or chased in full view of everyone. Best to slip away quietly and let Terac have his entertainment. If Michael turned out to be wrong about his master’s intentions, he could go back to his room and have a nice, long sleep.

  But he had not been wrong. Robyn stood in front of him, dressed in common clothes and unmasked. The crowd had thinned here and no one took any notice of them.

  “Running away?” Robyn looked hopeful.

  Michael’s gaze dropped to the ground, and his voice came out in a timid-sounding rasp. “I’m too tired to run anymore.”

  “Pity,” Robyn murmured. He motioned for Michael to come with him, and the boy obe
yed.

  “I think of that night often,” Robyn said. “Of both nights. There is no one like you.”

  Unfortunately, Michael thought, miserable. Or perhaps not. For that meant there was no one else who would be forced to endure what he had to. He wouldn’t wish Robyn or Terac on anyone. Not even on themselves.

  The plain, black carriage sat in shadow, and Michael felt an irrational hatred of carriages well up behind his eyes, burning and threatening to bring on tears.

  He wanted to scream, to beg, to run away, to call George’s friend to his aid—but this was inevitable; inescapable. They would have dragged him from his cot had he tried to hide out from them there.

  Terac did not deny himself anything.

  Michael had learned that the hard way.

  #

  Jarlyth had tried to stay out of Nylan’s way after that strange encounter. He didn’t want the boy to think he was a suitor, but this meant he had to follow Nylan from a greater distance than he liked. Shortly after the incident, the musicians took a break, and Nylan slipped away from the festival. Jarlyth followed, but by the time he realized that he wasn’t the only one following Nylan, it was too late. He was too far away to overhear, and there was no way he could intervene without seeming threatening. It looked as if the rendezvous might even have been planned, and Jarlyth could only watch, helpless and miserable, as the carriage drove away into the night.

  “What are you doing?”

  Jarlyth whirled, his hand making an abortive grab for his sword before his better judgment converted that into a feint. He’d been followed as unwittingly as Nylan, and he felt caught out and foolish.

  He thought to lie but something about the boy’s face stayed him. “Trying to help,” he confessed. “And failing completely,” he added in a mutter.

  It had to be Pol. In the time he and George had remained at the Red Boar after that first, horrifying reunion with Nylan, Jarlyth had forced George to help him uncover as much of Nylan’s history in Fensgate as was possible to learn. He had heard of this boy; young man, really. Pol had saved Nylan’s life more than once. They were friends.