He’d thought Vail was only giving him the ability to take the baby safely to Tanara. He’d thought—for the entire journey—that he’d be able to go back to his life as a Templar. The other Sensitives had known the moment they’d seen him that this was not to be so.
So I stayed there. Working harder than everyone else. Again. He’d tried to cram years and years of training and experience into far-too-few moons. He’d hated being the newest, the worst, the weakest. He wanted to catch up to everyone else and be even better than their best.
But his Call came too soon, and he still felt new and weak and stupid. I’m not ready. Everyone can see that. Why can’t Vail?
The king spoke again, interrupting his gibbering thoughts. “They aren’t letting anyone in.” His usual robust, room-filling personality seemed dimmed and almost sad. Jarlyth wished he could ask why. Shouldn’t he be happy about this?
The king gestured at the door almost as if he wanted to throw something at it. “They’ll have to open up for you.”
Jarlyth lifted his chin in acknowledgement and turned to face the door. My destiny. Shize but Vail has a nasty sense of humor. He knocked and forced himself to be firm about it though his insides felt like water.
A woman’s voice, sounding harassed, called out, “Who’s there?”
“I’m from Tanara Priory.” He shouted to make sure he was heard through the heavy wood of the door.
A clatter and muffled voices followed this, but after another moment, the door began to open. It seemed to be opening itself, and Jarlyth thought there must be a wizard inside until he saw the tiny hands struggling to pull the door wide enough for him to pass through.
He was not allowed to touch the door to a birthing room. Only appointed handmaidens were supposed to do that, so he waited, feeling cruel, while the small, blonde girl-child finished her task.
“Please enter, sirra,” she said at last, and she gave him a very dignified curtsey. A woman’s sobs could be heard in the background, but the girl’s face hid any emotions she might be feeling about this.
“My lady,” he replied and stepped across the threshold.
The first thing he saw, once he’d been sealed with the women inside the birthing room, was a cascade of red-tinted water pouring into a basin as the midwife wrung out a cloth.
Blood, Jarlyth thought. And there seemed to him to be a lot of it. But was it too much for a birthing? He’d witnessed animal births before but never a human one. Let alone a royal birth.
“Why won’t he come?” the queen demanded. Though she sobbed, her voice rang with anger rather than misery nor did her sobs seem to be due to her labor pains.
Though they do hurt. Vail! Realizing he no longer needed to leave himself open to follow the Call, he concentrated and found his silent center and almost laughed with relief when the queen’s shared pain vanished from his body. Poor women...poor Queen Veda. He wondered why no Sensitive healer attended the queen to at least lessen her pain, but the queen soon gave him a clue.
“Where is he, Bairbre?” The sobs were gone as if they’d never been, and the queen’s voice now sounded truly angry. He knew at once that she wasn’t referring to the child she struggled to bring into the world when she spoke of this unnamed “he.”
“Hush, Veda.” The midwife dabbed gently at the queen’s face with another cloth. “You mustn’t worry about that right now.”
“But I need him. I need him here with me. I begged him...” She bit into the words as if she wanted to tear something to pieces. “He should see our child being born.”
The midwife cast a quick glance at Jarlyth, though he hadn’t moved away from the door and had determined to stay well out of the way until it was time. The woman’s eyes were full of worry and exhaustion and not a little fear that this young, unknown man bore witness to the queen’s ravings.
It isn’t the king she’s calling for. If it were, she’d only have to let him in.
The queen spoke freely—probably too freely—around the midwife. Jarlyth knew the story—that the women were the dearest of friends, inseparable even when Veda had traveled to Serathon to marry King Teodor the year before.
“I wish to Vail you could forget him,” the midwife whispered.
Another spasm and the new royal child took one step closer to life.
“I love him, Bairbre. And I want him so much...I can’t think of anything else.” The queen said this in a feverish rush, whispering the words she dared not say aloud even in the birthing room with only her dearest friend present. And her unborn child’s goddess-appointed warder.
“Yes, I know. You think of that man but not your husband nor your babe,” the midwife snapped. “Who’s ready to be born, now, whether you’ve a thought to spare him or not.”
“Of course. You’re right,” the queen whispered. She sank back onto the pallet, looking exhausted. “I’m sorry.”
The child came quickly after that, as if only the queen’s inattention to his impending arrival had been holding him back.
The strength of the mystic bond that would tie Jarlyth to this boy for the next ten years expanded to fill the room the moment the prince was born.
“Give him to me!” Jarlyth stumbled across the room. “In Vail’s Name, let me have him.”
“In Vail’s Name,” the queen repeated, though she seemed unaware of the meaning of the words.
Expressing a sturdy post-natal misery, the baby wailed much more loudly than Jarlyth had thought possible for such a tiny thing. The midwife rushed through the preparations needed in order for him to face his new life outside his mother’s womb, and she handed him over as quickly as she could. Her urgency reflected Jarlyth’s emotions exactly.
The moment he accepted the blanket-wrapped baby from the midwife, the wails stopped. He stared down into the tiny face, which now regarded him fuzzily but calmly, and fell in love.
Somewhere in the background, he thought he could hear Vail laughing.
“It’s so black.” Jarlyth marveled at the infant’s shock of thick, unruly hair.
“SanClare black, aye,” the woman agreed.
He almost blurted out the obvious response to this but managed to stop himself. But I thought the king wasn’t his father—
“Don’t mind if it all falls out,” the midwife said, brisk. “Babies born with hair don’t often keep it.”
“You’ll take care of him, then?” the queen rasped, and she seemed to see Jarlyth clearly. “Please...promise me you’ll take care of him.”
Jarlyth nodded to emphasize his sincerity. “I promise you all that I’ve promised Vail Herself. She sent me to him, Your Majesty. I can make you no better promise than that.”
“Yes.” But she’d already begun to fade away again. “It is best this way. Tell him I love him. Tell him I tried.”
“His name is Nylan,” the midwife said softly, distractedly. “Nylan Voyavel SanClare.”
The royal family name was said without any hesitation, giving Jarlyth a fresh clue as to who the boy’s real father might be. A frightening clue, especially coupled with the child’s night-black hair. He didn’t pursue it but bowed in the queen’s direction and then again toward the midwife.
“Thank you, Majesty, milady.”
As he turned around to leave, he caught a glimpse of the girl’s small, pale face staring at him from behind a curtain partitioning the room. He made another bow to the tiny girl. “It was an honor, my lady.” The child stepped away from the curtain and curtsied back, her face still a study in solemnity.
As a farewell for a prince as highborn as the one he now cradled in his arms, Jarlyth found this ominous.
# # #
CHAPTER ONE
Bairbre Llorka and her daughter Flannery sat awaiting them in the hotel’s parlor, surrounded by a daunting pile of boxes.
“Presents!” Nylan squealed, and he ran ahead of Jarlyth. He stumbled to a stop a few lengths from the Llorkas, a grumpy look flitting across his lovely face. “Stop shouting,” he grumbled.
>
Jarlyth rolled his eyes. “They aren’t shouting. You’re being rude.”
Nylan’s shoulders moved as if he were trying to shrug off his warder’s words. “I can’t help it.”
“You can help it if you’d wait for me.” Jarlyth caught up and rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Stop acting spoiled, or we’ll go back to the priory.”
Nylan whirled around to look up at him, distraught. “But it’s my birthing-day. It isn’t fair, Jary—”
“Your Highness,” Bairbre Llorka said, laughter in her voice. “Shall we start over?”
The boy blew out his breath with overdramatic vigor, straightened, and turned a blinding smile on the Llorkas. “Hello,” he all-but sang.
Flannery giggled, covering her mouth with her hand to try to hide this reaction, but Nylan grinned back at her. He grabbed Jarlyth’s hand and pulled his warder along as he hurried to join them.
He stopped right in front of Flannery and held out a drawing he’d done for her of the cats who trailed him everywhere around the priory. The ensuing fuss she and Bairbre made over it was not unwarranted. Nylan could draw very well.
The Llorkas had moved to the town just outside Tanara Priory’s gates shortly after Nylan’s mother passed away. The queen had lingered for almost three years after his birth, growing ever more fragile and sickly until, it was whispered, she simply faded out of life altogether. She had never been well enough to make the journey to Tanara to see her only son. She had never even held him.
But the Llorkas were as good as family to Nylan. Better than every single one of his real family, except Queen Tristella, Jarlyth thought.
Nylan’s maternal grandmother seemed to be attempting to make up for the loss of his mother and the distance separating them by sheer volume of attention. She wrote to her grandson and heir a minimum of once every quarter-moon and sent practical, useful, and interesting gifts almost as often. Considering that each letter or package then had to cross the Breach-shattered ocean and travel hundreds of posts to reach Tanara Priory, this required a level of dedication Jarlyth found reassuring. At least one family member cares about him.
After a decorous wait while the hotel staff served a very formal tea to them all, Nylan was let loose on the boxes. They were soon all opened, the presents inside unwrapped, and the detritus of torn paper and ribbons carried away by the efficient staff. To Jarlyth’s disgust, most of the gifts were from courtiers seeking preemptive influence on the boy.
Though not the heir to the throne of Serathon, he was his mother’s only child, which made him heir to his grandmother’s throne in far away Voya. And I suppose he is heir to his true father’s throne as well. Vail protect us all.
Jarlyth cut himself off from thinking about this dangerous subject and returned his attention to the gifts. The sheer number of presents dismayed him. “We’ll have to have most of this sent on to the priory, Nylan,” he said. “Pick out what you want to keep with you.”
Bairbre settled her cup back in its saucer, very precisely, and Jarlyth braced himself for the question he knew she was about to ask. “Have you your prince-name yet, Highness?” Neither she nor her daughter would just know the name the way someone born in Serathon or even Edoran would, once Vail chose to reveal it. The magic didn’t work that way.
Nylan’s face fell a bit, but he pretended it hadn’t and shook his head. “Not yet,” he replied. “But I’m sure it will be soon.”
Jarlyth almost blew out his breath in relief. Good for him. A reward’s in order for that answer.
The lack of a prince-name at this late date deeply upset Nylan. He’d even cried himself to sleep only a few nights before, though that had been due to several recent upsets all piling up on him. The king had failed once more to keep his promised visit; Durran had shown up but had spent the entirety of his short visit talking to Jarlyth, all but ignoring Nylan; and Nylan’s favorite fellow Sensitive, Simon Constantine, had reached his own tenth birthing-day and left the priory for good. His elusive prince-name had simply been the trigger for the boy’s tears.
“I’ll call you Prince of Charms anyway,” Flannery teased, and Nylan beamed at her. It was the name he wanted most of all, though Jarlyth had warned him over and over that he wouldn’t get to pick.
So obvious, the intention seemed all but visible in the air before him as Nylan changed the subject. “Can Flannery put this on for me?” He held up a gold hair-clasp sent by his Voyan grandmother. It was very likely enchanted to stay where it was put and was beautifully engraved.
Jarlyth smiled and reached over to rest a hand on Nylan’s shoulder, bolstering the strength of his protection so that Flannery could touch the prince without her thoughts and feelings invading the boy’s mind.
This was almost a ritual. Nylan loved to have Flannery pay attention to him, and she loved to play with his beautiful, black hair. Though he was just eight years old, his hair had already grown down his back. It took some time to braid it, which is what Jarlyth usually did for everyday. His own hair was almost always pulled back and wrapped in the Templar style which kept it out of the way of his sword.
He’d taken to carrying the sword once more almost on the moment of his first return to Tanara Priory with Nylan. If Vail had chosen him to be a prince’s warder—if Vail had chosen a Templar apprentice for this duty—she must have done it for a reason. Throwing away his Templar training had suddenly seemed like a foolish, petulant thing to have done, and he’d taken it back up along with his sword.
As soon as he and Nylan were settled into a routine, he’d arranged for sparring partners. He met with at least one of them every morning outside the priory gates. He did not have much free time, but all the warders took turns minding each other’s charges in order to give each other breaks. To pay them all back, he spent a lot of time minding their charges. Nylan claimed he was the most popular warder in the entire priory.
Flannery fussed with Nylan’s hair, freeing it from the braid first and combing through it with her fingers.
Nylan wriggled with delight at the attention. “Feels good.”
“I’ll do a lot of braids and gather them back,” Flannery suggested. They were only four years apart in age, and the girl, usually so dignified, seemed to love the opportunity to be truly childlike when she was with the prince.
Her mother gave her a quelling look. “Lord Denara’s arm will get very tired, dear.”
Flannery shot an apologetic glance at Jarlyth, and he shrugged. “How about a braid on each side,” he suggested.
Too soon for Nylan, the ornate clock hanging over the fireplace in their private parlor chimed, signaling the time for their return to the priory. Flannery hurried to finish up the last braid before adding the clip as the final flourish.
All the way back to the priory, Nylan never stopped touching his hair, feeling the texture. For all that he’d been buried beneath gifts, he only carried back three books and a stuffed wildcat toy. The books were from Flannery; the toy was from his Voyan grandmother.
He may act spoiled sometimes, but he isn’t really. Thank Vail. A spoiled prince could be the worst bully, and Jarlyth had no intention of allowing that to happen to his charge.
“I wish we could stay out longer,” Nylan said when they reached the priory gates. Wistfully, he looked back to watch the trolley clang by.
“I know. It won’t be this way forever.”
“Two years is a long time, isn’t it?”
Not long enough. For their first ten years, Tanara Priory’s boundaries encompassed a Sensitive child’s entire world and their families were known through letters and visits only. Their warders, chosen by Holy Vail Herself, arrived miraculously at their births and became their mother, father, and siblings for those next ten years.
And bodyguard, in my case. Jarlyth automatically reached a hand over his shoulder to check on the sword he wore slung across his back almost all the time. Nylan, used to the gesture, ignored it.
“It is a long time,” Jarlyth agreed. I only
have two years left. On Nylan’s tenth birthing day, he’d be sent back to Karonsmoor Castle. To a family he didn’t know and which had never shown much interest in him. To a place he’d never been. To a world he wouldn’t understand, no matter how much Jarlyth tried to teach him in order to prepare him for Court.
But those are worries for another, far-off day. Today, there is cake. And Nylan loved cake.
The other children were gathered and waiting in the dining hall. A much more reasonable pile of presents awaited Nylan there, too, and a modestly-decorated though very large cake. Jarlyth took the boy’s books and stuffed toy from him, and Nylan had taken only a step or two away to go join his friends when the revelation hit.
Nylan’s prince-name filled Jarlyth’s head as if Vail Herself shouted it at him—never had Durran’s prince-name insisted itself at him with such force—and Jarlyth was nearly sick. The other warders and Sensitives looked startled and off-balance as well, but the most alarming reaction came from the children.
“You’re the Prince of Sorrows!” shrieked the girl whose life Jarlyth had saved almost ten years before. Her shock ricocheted around the room, infecting the other children.
“Center, damn it,” her warder ordered and ran across the room to her.
Too late. Oh, shize, it’s too late.
Nylan recoiled, his dismay strong enough to bring tears to Jarlyth’s eyes. His mouth moved, shaping the word, “No.”
The children broke into complete chaos then, and warders spread out into the room to each claim his or her own charge and try to restore order. Some of the children were too young to understand the problem and sang the name excitedly, delighted by this taste of holy magic, but the rest cast wary, worried, or even pitying looks at Nylan and clung to their warders.
Which is what Nylan did. He stumbled back and whirled, flinging himself into Jarlyth’s arms. His small body heaved with breaths swallowed to keep tears from falling.
Jarlyth slowly dropped to his knees and caught Nylan in an enveloping hug. He stroked raven hair and whispered soothing nonsense. The priory cats gathered around, a few of them miaowing, and the worried-faced one who was Nylan’s favorite tried to climb into the middle of their hug, purring loudly.
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 2
