SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows)

by Jenna Waterford

  Jarlyth could see the boy regretting his actions even as he pressed on. “You’ve been hanging around, watching him. Asking about him.” Nerves cracked his voice. “But you don’t do anything.”

  Frowning in confusion, Jarlyth looked closely at Pol. The boy seemed stressed to his limits, scared and angry and determined. What does he think I’m planning?

  “I’m not going to hurt him.”

  “Then why can’t you leave him alone?” Pol looked as if he might be a bit older than Nylan’s true age—and much older than Nylan seemed. “Everyone thinks it’s all right because he’s a streeter, but it isn’t!”

  If anyone will listen to the truth, it will be this boy. “I’ve been looking for him for a very long time.”

  “You’re disgusting!” Pol snarled and took a step back. “Do you know what it does to him? All he wants to do is die!”

  “I raised him,” Jarlyth continued as if Pol had not spoken. “I’m his warder. He was stolen away when he was eight years old. I was almost killed, and by the time I was aware of what had happened, he’d vanished. Moons had passed. The trail was so cold, I’ve just had to look everywhere for him. It’s taken a very long time.”

  “Oh, a long-lost relative?” Pol sneered. “I’ve never heard that one before. Are you his daddy?”

  Jarlyth closed his eyes and fought back the urge to vomit. He had believed his faith in Vail’s mercy could never be tested so badly as it had been when Nylan was taken, but witnessing what his life had become, how degrading and miserable every moment of every day was for the boy, Jarlyth briefly wondered if the goddess had been playing out a cruel game with his life, never meaning for him to succeed.

  Jarlyth looked back into Pol’s furious glare. “They starved him. We finally tracked the survivors down three years after, and they confessed. They’d had nothing but bad luck since taking him. Most of them were dead or broken, and I was glad they’d suffered. But still, all I could think about was that they’d starved him.

  “A couple of them had tried to... do things to him, but the captain had forbidden it. He’d protected him, but even he didn’t understand how much just being touched can hurt him. How painful their thoughts had to have been—like knives slicing away. He was at Tanara for a reason. My only purpose in life was to protect him. And I failed.”

  The boy’s face reflected his confusion and outrage at Jarlyth’s words. But he’s listening, Jarlyth thought, and he could see the doubt beginning to chip away at the boy’s righteous anger.

  “Such a pretty story.” Pol’s tone was derisive.

  “No. It’s an ugly story. It should never have happened.” Jarlyth dropped his gaze to stare unseeing at the cobblestones. “Someone betrayed us, and he’s suffered for it ever since. All I’ve ever wanted to do since that day was make it right.” He looked up and caught the wide, fearful eyes with his own. “If I have to die to do it, it won’t be too high a price to pay.

  “Why did you come after me?” Jarlyth asked into the following silence. “All the men who hurt him...why are you talking to me?”

  It was Pol’s turn to look away. “You stuck up for him tonight. No one does that. No one outside the Red Boar ever... Everyone’s afraid to help him because he’s a heretic. I thought maybe you were his...”

  He didn’t go on, and Jarlyth wondered what the boy could have thought of him. Nothing good, that was clear, but the man found his imagination was not up to creating a scenario to match the boy’s fears.

  To be so used to cruelty that a simple act of kindness is taken for scheming...this kingdom...these poor children...Vail should wipe it from the world.

  Jarlyth shook his head. “I swear to you in Vail’s name, I’d fall on my own knife before I’d ever hurt him.”

  “You sound like him,” Pol said softly. “Your accent. He never lost it. I’ve always thought it was so beautiful. Makes him sound like he’s from a story.”

  “Serathon.” At this, Pol sucked in his breath and took another step back. Jarlyth ignored the boy’s reaction. “That’s where we’re from: the other side of the Breach.”

  “You want to get him killed?” Pol choked. “You want to get yourself killed?”

  “Everyone here is from the other side of the Breach if you go back far enough.”

  “Shut up! It’s heresy!”

  Jarlyth’s vision turned red as a directionless fury overtook him. “You people have perverted everything in your mania to avoid magic. You’ve taken the gifts Vail gave to help us all and convinced yourselves they’re something despicable. He’s a healer, damn it all to the Fires! He was born to save people’s lives! And look what you’ve done to him!”

  Pol looked as if Jarlyth had slapped him. “I would never have done this to him. I don’t think he did anything wrong! But I don’t have any power! I can’t stop what they’ve done. I can’t change it! I can only try to help, and I haven’t helped at all. I’ve just made it worse. He’s been hurt so badly.

  “And now this man—this highborn—has him trapped, somehow. He won’t tell me. He won’t talk about it.”

  “He marked him,” Jarlyth said.

  “With a tattoo. Most whor—” Pol blushed as he realized what he’d almost called his friend. He continued, pushing past his embarrassment and gesturing at the back of his right shoulder. “Most streeters have a tattoo here to say who protects them. Michael has his Red Boar tattoo there...but this one’s on his wrist and right down onto the back of his hand, and everyone knows about it. This highborn is just showing off, doing that. Daring anyone to try and stop him.

  “Look, if you’re telling the truth, you have to save him. He isn’t going to last much longer...and I wouldn’t want him to have to.”

  His emotions were so open and clear, that Jarlyth could sense that Pol loved Nylan and wanted nothing more than for his friend’s life to be good again. This confession of an understanding of his friend’s utter despair came as a major sacrifice.

  Jarlyth and Pol continued talking, Pol still wary but his desperation making him take the chance that this particular stranger just might be one who could make a difference. While Jarlyth told Pol the story of Michael’s life before he came to Camarat, Pol told Jarlyth his friend’s story since his arrival.

  Jarlyth had managed to gather a few pieces of the information already, but this telling by a friend who loved and defended him was by far the kindest version Jarlyth could hope to hear. Even so, the story was so wretched, he found himself alternating between wanting to commit mass murder and suicide.

  Much to the surprise of both, the carriage pulled up into the same shadowed alcove from which it had departed some time before. The footman jumped down, opened the door, and all but lifted a small, fragile-looking figure out, setting it on the ground with an oddly deferential care.

  When it seemed safe to let go without the boy collapsing, the footman returned to his place and the carriage pulled away, leaving the boy standing where he’d been left, swaying unsteadily.

  Jarlyth moved, meaning to go to Nylan’s aid, but Pol grabbed his arm and whispered, “Wait.” With the physical contact, the boy’s mind opened up completely to Jarlyth, and he nearly wept at the revealed love and concern, helplessness and fury Pol felt for his friend.

  The carriage turned a corner and disappeared, and Pol darted across the cobblestones, taking Nylan’s arm and trying to lead him back to where Jarlyth still stood.

  “You have to talk to this man,” Pol insisted. “I think he knows you—who you were before.”

  Nylan was clearly not connecting with anything around him. His pain and despair were so strong, Jarlyth could feel them across the distance separating him from the boys. Blood stained his neck, a thin, crusted line slicing the skin below his jaw, a smear of drying blood beneath and bruises all around it. Nylan was as pale as anyone Jarlyth had ever seen. He barely looked like the same boy who had danced so happily such a short time before at the festival.

  “Please,” he breathed. “Just let me go home.
” He pulled free from Pol’s gentle grasp and limped away.

  Pol seemed about to call after him, but Jarlyth said, “No. Let him go. I’ll speak to him tomorrow once he’s rested.”

  “He’ll probably be too blurred by then. He takes sevillium—”

  “I don’t want to bully him,” Jarlyth said. “I don’t want to do anything to make things worse.”

  Pol stared at the man, his face reflecting the shift in his thoughts. He’d wanted Jarlyth to be for real before; he now believed him and had begun to hope.

  # # #

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Michael awoke to find himself still dressed and curled up on top of his cot. His memories of the night before were jumbled up, worse than confused, and in that confusion, he’d neglected to take his ritual bath. Now he felt as if he had defiled his one retreat from the world.

  His body throbbed, the myriad wounds inflicted by Terac the night before all singing out as one unified hurt. There were bloodstains on the blankets, and he knew his clothes must be a mess, very much in need of washing and maybe beyond salvaging. He sighed, wincing at the pain this caused, but there was no way around any of it. He’d have to wear his old clothes tonight.

  He was out of sevillium, but a bath would do until he could buy more. And a bath would be very welcome.

  Struggling to his feet, careful not to disturb the sleeping Cyra, Michael crossed the tiny distance from the foot of his cot to the narrow window. It appeared to be almost sundown, and he felt a distant disappointment. He’d hoped it was earlier and that he could find some excuse to go back to sleep for another few hours. He wished there were some way he could sleep forever. He looked out the window and down the three floors to the alley below. Would it be a long enough fall to kill him if he dared to jump? He wanted to jump. He wanted to try it. It took everything he had to keep from pushing open the glass and stepping out into the air.

  But to do so would mean Pol’s life. So he had to find some way to go on. He would endure if doing so meant Pol would be all right.

  #

  With George now hiding out on the ship in fear of his wrath, Jarlyth had to make his own way through Fensgate. He couldn’t bear to go back inside the Red Boar and watch as Nylan chipped off parts of his soul to sell, so he waited nearby in an out-of-the-way spot Pol had recommended to him. From there, he could see everything—all the comings and goings—but Nylan had yet to make an appearance, though it seemed all the rest of the street’s many sordid activities were well underway.

  As Jarlyth waited, he struggled to think of some way to reach the boy. It didn’t make sense that Nylan had forgotten his past—forgotten everything! As a member of the House of Voyavel, his memory should have been perfect, and it had been perfect. Before.

  Time passed. Jarlyth noticed that Pol was watching him, looking more disappointed each time he saw him standing, useless, in the same place.

  It was clear to Jarlyth that Nylan was unwell—living in this magic-hating world as a Sensitive, and, Jarlyth suspected, as something rarer and more fragile still, had been slowly killing the boy since his first steps had been taken on its shores. Maybe that’s what’s affected his memory.

  And now, after what he’d seen last night, he worried that Nylan had been badly hurt. Perhaps even now he was in need of help or care and no one knew!

  As if that thought had summoned him, Nylan appeared beneath a nearby street lamp. He moved unsteadily, and Jarlyth could feel his pain. His so-called master had hurt him badly, indeed. He shouldn’t even be out of his bed.

  But those sorts of luxuries always meant money to someone living as basic, street-level a life as Nylan did. Taking a night off meant losing a night’s worth of earnings which would have to be made up somehow, usually by working even harder the next night. The very thought of that must have driven most back out to ply their trades in spite of any hurt or misery they were feeling.

  Nylan looked painfully fragile, as if a harsh word would shatter him. The cut on his neck had already begun to heal, but Jarlyth knew there were any number of similar wounds hidden beneath the boy’s worn clothes.

  He moved to intercept Nylan as the boy walked toward the Red Boar, but the boy kept moving toward Jarlyth, apparently unaware that the man was there. His exhaustion seemed undiminished from before, in spite of whatever rest he’d found in the intervening time, and his limp was pronounced. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to anything, and when Jarlyth took the final step into his path, the boy nearly ran into him.

  “Excuse me.” Nylan took a step back as he focused on his surroundings. When he saw who Jarlyth was, he took another step away and looked as if he were about to bolt.

  The accent was unmistakable, though it had been softened by time. Something else had happened, too, adding a rough, damaged rasp to his voice.

  The manners were also unmistakable, so deeply ingrained in the boy that even having fallen to such a place in life, the words automatically came to his lips. “Please. Thank you. Excuse me.” Jarlyth tried not to think about it.

  “What do you want?” Nylan had decided not to try running. Jarlyth could sense the boy’s weariness even more clearly at this little distance, and he knew Nylan would not have been able to put much space between himself and any pursuer.

  “I want to help you.” Jarlyth wanted to kneel down and look Nylan in the eye, but he didn’t think the gesture would be taken as intended.

  Nylan didn’t waste energy sneering at the words. He simply sighed. “Then please just go away. There isn’t anything you can do to help even if you really did want to.”

  “Pol thinks this highborn has you trapped.” Jarlyth knew it was a provoking thing to say, but he needed to keep Nylan’s attention.

  Nylan flinched as if he’d been slapped. “Pol told you that?” He sounded stunned and made a visible effort to shrug off the hurt and pretend indifference.

  “I can help you,” Jarlyth said very softly, letting go of his center in hopes that Nylan would feel his sincerity. “You don’t have to stay here anymore.”

  Nylan’s flat-voiced response disappointed his hopes. “And where will you take me? Away from all of this? Do you have a house in the country? Someplace private? Secret? Just for the two of us?” He said this as if reciting things he’d heard hundreds of times before.

  “It’s not like that at all.” Jarlyth felt desperate to find the right words. “You were stolen away from Tanara when you were eight years old. I’m your warder! I’m responsible for you. I’m here to take you back to your family—back home.” Nylan looked at him, seeming almost bored. “I’ve been searching for you for years... I’m sorry it took so long.” Jarlyth shifted uncomfortably, unnerved by Nylan’s empty stare. He had clearly heard every promise anyone could make over the years. Nothing Jarlyth could say would ever convince him.

  Nylan sighed again and looked away across the street. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything; just away. “You seem nice enough, but you’re wasting your time. I have a rule. I don’t do that sort of little fantasy. I’m not going to be your long-lost anything. So you need to go find someone else, ‘cause it isn’t going to be me. Ever.”

  Jarlyth wanted to scream. He ran his hands through his hair in pure frustration and then reached over his shoulder to check on his sword, an automatic gesture. When he refocused on Nylan, the boy was staring at him.

  “What did you—Why did you just do that?” Nylan whispered. It took both of them a moment to realize he had not asked the question in the same dialect they had just been speaking.

  “Nylan—” Jarlyth began, but the boy cut him off.

  “No.” Nylan backed away and held out his hands as if trying to ward off an attack. “No.”

  “Wait!” Jarlyth shouted, but Nylan turned and ran.

  Swearing under his breath as he ran after Nylan, Jarlyth tried to keep up, but the boy’s panic had given him great speed, and his familiarity with the area allowed him to lose himself in the labyrinth of Fensgate almost i
mmediately.

  Jarlyth lost all track of where he was, scrambling after any clue as to where Nylan had gone, when his distraction allowed an attacker to take him by surprise, barreling into his right side and almost knocking him to the ground. He spun away from the attack and into a defensive stance, his sword in his hand without a conscious thought having put it there, only to find himself about to run Pol Rayvin through while one of the Red Boar door-guards stood helplessly just beyond him, staring in shock at the sword.

  Pol didn’t seem to even see the sword, spitting out a stream of furious questions. “What did you say to him? What did you do to him? I thought you were going to help! If you’ve hurt him—!”

  “Pol,” he shouted back, exasperated. “I promise I did nothing! I’m still here, aren’t I? Not dragging him off?”

  “He ran away--!” Pol noticed the sword, held slack and out of the way by the man, and swallowed, his eyes widening, but he pressed on. “He was terrified. What did you say?”

  Jarlyth nearly snarled in frustration at this interruption, but Pol would not be put off with an easy reassurance. “I think he remembered something. From the look on his face, I’d guess he was too confused or frightened by it to think straight, so he ran.”

  Pol glared at him but calmed. “All right. I’ll go find him. You stay here in case he comes back. Don’t scare him again!”

  The boy took off into the darkness, but the door-guard had been joined by yet another figure who only flicked a glance at the sword before speaking. “So you’re still around, then?” It was the same man who’d taken over when he’d blacked out at the Red Boar—Vail, was it only two nights ago? George said his name was Daren. The strong-arm pretended idle curiosity, but Jarlyth sensed an avid interest that set him even more sharply on his guard.

  “If you’re trying to steal away Michael for yourself, you need to reconsider. There’s more than a few powerful people who wouldn’t take kindly to losing that one.” He regarded Jarlyth steadily, gauging him as an opponent. The man didn’t give away much, but Jarlyth didn’t think he’d be pleased to lose the boy, either—whatever use he made of him. Jarlyth didn’t want to think about that.