SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows)

by Jenna Waterford

  Though it was exactly what he’d feared, the shock of seeing his innocent friend in such straits froze him in his tracks, and he stared, helpless, into Pol’s glazed, terrified eyes. Terac’s hand closed fast on his shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to make bone-deep bruises.

  “Do exactly as I say, and I’ll let him go,” the man promised, speaking softly. Seductively.

  Michael tried to shrug away the man’s bruising hand to no avail, but he felt strangely, inordinately calm. Words came to his lips, and he knew he meant them more than any he’d ever said before. “I’m going to make you sorry you ever even thought about touching me.”

  Terac gave a laugh that was half cough and his grip loosened. His nervousness filled the room. Now, while he’s off-balance, Michael told himself, and he took a deep breath, glanced at Pol—who seemed too dazed to realize what was going on—and turned to face Terac, bracing himself.

  “Listen to me.” Michael focused everything he had on his abuser. It was precious little—only what power he’d been able to regain since the night before—but his powers had somehow saved him from Lorel Burk; they’d helped him save those horses; they’d healed all those people.

  They can nikking well help me now.

  “I want you to sleep.”

  Terac stared at Michael, his expression slack with shock at the transformation his victim had undergone.

  “Go. To. Sleep.” Michael said each word with as much force of mind behind it as he could spare. After a long, stretched-out, silent moment, Terac sank to the floor, one hand reaching out to balance himself. He moved as if in a dream. But he moved so slowly, Michael wanted to stamp in frustration.

  “Sleep!” he insisted. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, and he wiped it away, trying not to let his attention waver.

  Terac blinked, slowly, repeatedly. He was seated now, and slumped forward, his arms braced on his loosely-crossed legs

  “What...’r you...doing?” Terac managed to ask, his words interrupted by more slow, exhausted-looking blinks.

  “Just sleep,” Michael breathed. His head pounded, and his own vision blurred. Please.

  “No,” Terac breathed, the only warning Michael had before the man heaved himself to his feet like an angry dog. He bellowed, “I won’t let you go!” and rushed at the boy, his hands outstretched.

  The tattoo’s poisoned magic flared to life, stabbing countless needles into Michael’s arm. The pain tore a scream from his throat and shattered his concentration.

  Terac tackled him, throwing him back toward the ground—a dangerous maneuver in such a cramped space—but Daren had tested him far too often on this sort of move for his reflexes to fail him now. Michael shifted, throwing his meager weight to one side and causing Terac to land on his side and take most of the force of the fall which included bashing his side into yet another of the ubiquitous shelves.

  Giving him no time to recover, Michael grabbed two handfuls of the man’s hair and slammed his head into the floor, stunning him. Without waiting to see if that had knocked the man out, Michael repeated the slam, harder, feeling sick and dizzy from the echoes.

  The shock seemed to break Terac’s thrall and the pain from Michael’s wrist eased, though he still felt the fading echo of the violence he’d done to Terac. He’d moved with Terac’s twisting and had ended up straddling the man’s body, pinning the man’s arms with his knees.

  Terac wasn’t quite unconscious and looked up blearily into Michael’s face. The boy still held the man’s head in his hands, and he narrowed his eyes, once more focusing everything he had on his nemesis.

  His head felt as if it were filled with broken glass, but he couldn’t stop. To save Pol and himself, he had to get Terac out of the way.

  I have to get out of this mess and find Jary. Together, they could figure out some way to get away from this horrible place, but first, Michael had to get away from Terac.

  But Daren and Harly’s plan...

  Before he remembered Nylan, Michael had been too afraid to even think of helping. Terac has to be gone, though. They’re right about that. Their plan will never work if he’s alive.

  And he was one of the only people who ever got close enough to the legendary Duke of Reyahl to do anything about him.

  They want me to kill him.

  Michael didn’t think he could do that, but he might be able to stop the duke from being able to fight back.

  He knew that wouldn’t be good enough—not even good enough to allow him to escape—but... I won’t think about that. If I have to kill him...I’ll...figure that out if I have to.

  “Sleep,” he breathed and spread his fingers out to their healing positions on either side of Terac’s face. “Just sleep, now.”

  Terac blinked, his eyes staying closed a few tics longer with each blink. Michael hoped desperately that this would work. I don’t want to have to kill him—I don’t want to kill anybody!

  A wave of pure fury swept through him, aimed in several directions at once—at Daren and Harly for putting this idea in his head in the first place, at Pol for getting caught, at Terac Nalas for everything, and at Jary for not being here when he needed him.

  And where’s the nikking Voice now when it would actually be helpful?

  A long, silent moment passed before he realized where it had gone. Oh, Vail. It was me the whole time... Shize.

  The Voice had always seemed to know more than Michael knew, so if the Voice had been Nylan, then maybe he could figure this out himself. Maybe...

  “Michael?” Pol rasped, finally waking up. He’d been dangling, his weight on his wrists, and now struggled to get his feet under him.

  “It’s all right, Pol,” Michael said quickly, not wanting to be distracted.

  Terac made a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, and his body moved feebly but as if he were trying to throw Michael off. It wouldn’t be long before Michael’s slim advantage was lost.

  “Please. Sleep,” Michael whispered the appeal.

  .:Jary, where are you? Please, I need help.:. Silence was his only answer. Silence had always been his only answer.

  How stupid. Now I miss the Voice.

  “What’s happening?” Pol asked, a note of panic in his voice.

  “Pol, please,” he breathed, and Terac stirred a bit more. “Just sleep.” Michael leaned forward to look directly into Terac’s stunned eyes. His head swam, and his vision sparkled as if it had been his head slammed into the floor. Oh. It was. So much had happened in just a few, short moments, he’d already forgotten that.

  Michael slumped forward even more, his hair—completely free of its braid—falling all around his face. He tasted blood on his lips and could feel it running from his nose. He was a mess, but he had to stay awake and focus. He couldn’t let his exhaustion and weakness ruin this one chance. So much depended on this one chance.

  “Michael—” Pol began yet again, but just as he did so and just as Terac seemed to have at last succumbed to Michael’s spell, the door leading out to the main part of the house—the door that Michael had never before seen open—flew wide, slamming into the wall, the crash accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps.

  A voice rang out. “Terac? Something’s happened! You—!” It cut off abruptly.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” the voice said, now flustered. “I didn’t realize.” The footsteps scuffled away a few steps before they stopped again.

  “...Michael?”

  Michael looked up at the intruder and into the shocked eyes of a familiar face.

  “Leovar.”

  # # #

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Daren gave a slow nod in reply to Jarlyth’s threat. With a murmured, “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” he turned and went back into the inn.

  Jarlyth let go of the breath he’d been holding in anticipation of much more of a fight from the strong-arm. The lack of anything but words put him off-balance and made him wonder exactly what the man’s interest in Nylan was.

&nb
sp; He’d had enough of feeling caught-out and impotent, however, and in spite of Pol’s admonition to stay put, he dashed off in the direction the boy had gone, determined not to wait one tic longer.

  It took only moments for him to realize Pol had been right to make him wait. Fensgate beyond the glowing street of brothels and gaming hells sank into dim, stinking, barely-populated confusion.

  He got turned around almost immediately and had to backtrack more than once to find a familiar starting point. He didn’t find Pol nor any sign of Nylan and soon he feared he would never even find his way back to the Red Boar.

  As the minutes rushed by, he became more and more angry at himself and his failures. But a voice more filled with despair than he could imagine interrupted his own spiraling misery.

  .:Jary, where are you? I’ve nikked things up so bad.:.

  It was so faint, he almost believed he’d imagined it, but he called back immediately.

  .:Nylan! Where are you?:.

  Even as he sent the question, however, he found himself moving, following his instincts and tracking the call to its source.

  He ended up in a few dead-ends trying to follow the direct-line of that faint voice, but he backtracked determinedly until he rounded a final corner only to find a young man who was definitely not Nylan. The man had somehow climbed to his feet and was now struggling to stay standing, bracing himself against a lamppost. Even in its dim, flickering light, Jarlyth could see the blood soaking the man’s hair and most of his shirt.

  It’s the musician. George said his name was—

  “You’re Varian, aren’t you?”

  The young man nodded, then stopped, buckling under the pain. Jarlyth moved quickly to catch him, throwing a limp arm across his shoulders and catching the young man around the waist to help him stand. “Dear Vail! What—?”

  “I’ve gotta get to Harly...tell him what happened. He said I had to tell them—”

  Nylan was nowhere to be seen, but from what he could sense from the chaos of the man’s pain-filled thoughts, Varian knew something about where Nylan had gone. In any case, he needs a healer. I can’t leave him here.

  With Varian’s faint but clear directions to guide him, they made their way back to the Red Boar much more quickly than Jarlyth would have imagined possible from his own circuitous route away from it. Varian burned with determination, as if on a mission from Vail Herself. In the midst of this determination, Jarlyth caught a glimpse from the young man’s mind of Nylan—desperate and terrified—trying to send a message.

  Dear Vail, what has Nylan gotten himself into?

  Daren, his face a thunderstorm, hurried up to them as they approached the Red Boar. A few of the girls trailed after him as well as a curly-haired, dark-skinned man.

  “Varian!” One of the girls rushed up to him and attempted to staunch the blood with a flimsy scarf. “Honey, what happened to you?”

  The young man ignored her, his eyes locking on the dark-skinned man. “He has Pol. Michael was scared to death. He’s gone, too, now.”

  “Pol!” exclaimed the man who Jarlyth guessed to be the boy’s Uncle Harly.

  “Did you know?” Varian’s eyes burned with pain and desperation. “Did you know who his master is?”

  “Varian,” Daren began, his hands held out as if to beg for calm.

  “Did you know?”

  Harly didn’t seem able to meet the musician’s eyes, but he nodded. “I’d seen that mark he left on Michael’s wrist before. He wasn’t trying to keep it much of a secret.”

  To Jarlyth’s shock, the young man hurled himself at the man, his arms flung out in a grotesque parody of an attack. Harly and Daren caught him, fending off his flailing and pinning him, trying to make him calm down before he did himself further injury.

  “Stop it, Varian,” Daren insisted. “You know we couldn’t do anything against the Duke of Reyahl. Michael knew it, too.”

  Varian’s struggling stopped as he collapsed, coughing, in the strong-arm’s grasp. “You just let him go back over and over again, and you still take his money.” He spat out the words but his voice held more tears than anger. “You nikking bastards.”

  Jarlyth had stood frozen through this entire exchange, but now he had a target. He drew his sword from its scabbard in a smooth, lightning-fast arc, the tip coming to a stop, hovering inches from Harly’s nose.

  “Pol is your child?” he asked, ice-calm.

  Harly swallowed, his eyes crossing briefly as he focused on the sword’s point then returning to normal as he looked up into Jarlyth’s unforgiving gaze. He nodded once. “Michael is yours.”

  Jarlyth didn’t bother to answer. They could all see the truth written in his eyes. “Where do I find this Duke of Reyahl? He has much to answer for.”

  #

  As if Michael had hit him, Prince Leovar staggered away, a hand flailing for support. He was so stunned by the sight of Michael, he didn’t notice Pol dangling right behind him.

  Michael’s eyes flickered over to Pol’s, catching his friend’s startled expression, and thought as clearly and pointedly as he ever had.

  .:Get him.:.

  Pol’s expression went from startled to an almost comical shock, but he moved quickly, his battered hands gripping the chains above the shackles as he lifted himself with muscles made strong by his work, and flipped his legs up, catching Leovar around the throat and hauling him backwards, slamming him to the floor.

  Fighting against the faint wave of dizziness and nausea his Sensitivity forced him to share with the prince, Michael crawled away from Terac and dragged himself up to his knees and then to his feet. He lurched over to the open door and closed it again, making certain it was locked.

  “Shize.” Pol stared at Michael, wide-eyed. “Is that the Leovar?”

  “My one and only.” Michael wiped his bloody nose and mouth with his sleeve. He looked down at his erstwhile lover—who was out cold—and felt not even a twinge of pity that Pol had put everything he had into taking the man down. “Did you see where Terac put the keys?”

  Pol shook his head. “I think I might have been too busy swearing at him to notice.”

  Michael cursed his body for its weakness as he made his slow, limping way around the room, searching for the keys. He checked first in the unconscious Terac’s pockets, fearing the entire time that the man would wake up and grab him again, but he finally found them half-buried under papers and scrawled notes on the central worktable.

  “Are you going to kill him?” Pol asked as Michael dragged a chair through the mess of the room so he could stand on it to reach the shackles.

  “I don’t know.” Michael glanced back at the unconscious man. “I don’t want to kill anybody.”

  He changed the subject as he climbed up to unlock the first shackle. “Thank Vail you were here. I was too done in to do anything about Leovar.”

  Pol tried to shrug but just nodded his head when the attempt failed thanks to the awkward angle of his arms. He gasped in relief as Michael managed to unlock the first shackle, then muttered, “Glad not to be entirely worthless.”

  Michael gave Pol a quickly-fading smile as he dragged the chair a few steps over, beneath the other shackle. This one unlocked much more easily, but once he’d freed Pol, the last remnants of his strength evaporated. The roaring in his head reached a deafening volume, and the key dropped from his fingers.

  Pol caught him as he swayed and nearly fell, lifting him down from the chair. “You sit here,” the older boy ordered. “Rest a minute.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Michael argued though he let Pol guide him onto the seat. He felt as if he might throw up and leaned over, closing his eyes against the vertigo.

  “We need to make sure neither of these highborns can follow us and cause trouble or mess up your escape,” Pol countered.

  Michael couldn’t argue with that but didn’t know what to do, either. I can’t kill them.

  “Why hasn’t anyone else knocked on the door?” Pol looked around a
t the room as if he hadn’t seen it before.

  “No one interrupts the duke when he’s here,” Michael replied, his eyes still closed. “I’ve never even seen that door open before.”

  “Leovar said something was wrong. Surely they’ll send someone else for him and not just the prince?”

  “His servants are completely terrified of him,” Michael said. “None of them would even think of disobeying his orders. I think it’d have to be someone like Leovar to dare interrupt him, no matter what.”

  He could hear Pol rifling through the mess, searching for something—Michael couldn’t guess what. After a moment’s silence, he changed the subject. “What did he do to you?”

  “Chained me up and knocked me around a little,” Pol replied. His voice sounded odd. Embarrassed. “Mostly, he talked about you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Michael whispered. “He only hurt you because of me.”

  “I know,” Pol growled. “Bastard told me all about it. I can’t believe you were so stupid!”

  Michael’s head shot up, and he stared, open-mouthed, at his friend. “What did I do?”

  “You let him blackmail you!” Pol said. “For me! How could you be so reckless? Why do always have to be such a nikking little martyr?”

  “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Michael struggled to stand, but his vision darkened, and his legs gave out, dropping him back onto the chair. He swallowed back nausea and took a deep, steadying breath before continuing more quietly. “This was nothing. He would have cut you to pieces if I hadn’t shown up. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “No. Of course not.” Pol trembled with anger. “But you’ll do it. You’ll take it. All the pain, all the torture, all the misery—you’ll do it. Because, I can’t handle it! I can never help you. I can’t be trusted to even know what you’re protecting me from!”

  “Pol...”

  “I wanted to protect you.” Pol looked away from Michael’s shattered expression and returned to his search. “But you’d never let me help. And I know it’s my fault...I know it’s all my fault. But I wanted...I would have liked the chance to fix it.”