Nylan coughed a laugh at this and pulled back, still breathing hard but more in control. He looked up into Jarlyth’s eyes, his own golden-hazel gaze blurred by unshed tears. “Karon was Princess of Sorrows, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Jarlyth agreed. The one good example of the breed, she’d also been the first many times over. First to have a princess-name, first SanClare, founder and first ruler of the One Kingdom, first to beat back the waerloks. So many firsts, in fact, histories often referred to her as The First. And so far, she’s the only Sorrows whose story has a happy ending.
“All right.” Nylan nodded and turned back to face the room. The children, seeing his solemn face, subsided and seemed to remember why they’d gathered in the first place.
One of the younger ones snatched up a nearby package and darted across the room to meet Nylan. She handed it to him, smiling. “Happy birthing-day!”
His smile bloomed, genuine this time, and an unvoiced, collective sigh eased the tension from the room. The warders all exchanged quick glances, relieved and worried and scared and hiding it all from their charges.
Jarlyth slipped from the room to pull himself together. He fell back against the wall just beyond the door. His entire body shook with fear and anger and nauseated dread. It might almost have been better if Nylan had turned out to have no prince-name at all. That would have proven him to be a bastard and no true SanClare—an impossible outcome, for no one in generations had looked as SanClare as Nylan did—but the alternative... Jarlyth could no longer entertain even a pretense of a doubt over the identity of Nylan’s true father.
Savoni SanClare...the Blood Emperor. Prince of Sorrows. Waerlok. Warrior. Destroyer of Worlds. This last name had been settled on the man by hysterical broadsides after the fall of the One Kingdom almost three centuries before. Savoni SanClare had started the war that ended the One Kingdom, but he had hardly destroyed any worlds.
No, his great-uncle did that a century before when the Breach tore Seladyn to pieces. Seladyn had been a beautiful, prosperous land, or so all the tales said. Now it was so barren and desolate, it was called Worldsend. That great-uncle had also been a Prince of Sorrows.
And now so is Nylan. Shize. But he was strong—his reaction to the news proved that—and Jarlyth’s eyes stung with his own unshed tears. I’m so proud of him. He’ll be a wonderful prince. A wonderful king.
A few days later, after the excitement died down, Jarlyth arranged a morning for just the two of them. Tension defined every line of the boy’s small body, and he needed a break badly. He needed to get as far away from everyone as it was possible to go.
Winters ran mild along Serathon’s southern coast, and in the sheltered cove where the priory had been built, it could be almost summery. To Jarlyth’s relief, the day he’d chosen turned out to be especially beautiful. The wind blew softly across the beach as the sun cleared the eastern horizon. The sky was pure blue and speckled with flights of birds rather than clouds, and the distant glints of light from the Breach sparkled over the water to the west.
At this distance, no one would have guessed the Breach was such a nightmarish thing. A spidery crack in the surface of reality, it had ripped apart a kingdom and damaged the Ashlian Ocean and the Gulf of Souls to the point where no ship could sail those waters without a wizard navigator. Within a year of its creation, the Breach had divided the world, separating the One Kingdom from its western colonies hundreds of posts away. But this morning, it glittered prettily, and the sight of its sparkling made Jarlyth smile.
The horses they’d ridden to reach this remote spot had wandered a little way away to graze idly on the scrub grass. Jarlyth, doubting he could have chosen a more beautiful morning for this excursion, brushed his hair out of his eyes and smiled at his young charge.
Nylan, for his part, was oblivious to the beautiful day. Instead, his attention was completely absorbed by the piles of sand his warder had been attempting to shape into some semblance of Karonsmoor Castle, though they looked little like that magnificent place. He ran gentle fingers along the top of one of the sand pile wings. “Where’s my room?”
“Rooms, actually. That’s why they call them your ‘royal apartments’ and not your ‘royal room,’ Nylan.” Jarlyth grinned as the prince shot him a disapproving look, his eloquent black eyebrows dipping down and almost meeting over his nose before he gave in and echoed Jarlyth’s grin.
“Right here.” Jarlyth poked a finger into the sand at the far eastern corner of the east wing. He scooped up one of the cats who had accompanied them that morning and who seemed about to step on the west tower, and set her down again well away from the sand castle. Jarlyth could picture the rooms in his mind for they had once been Nylan’s Great-Aunt Primrose’s, and she had been Jarlyth’s mother’s second cousin. His mother had often taken advantage of this royal connection when Jarlyth was a small boy.
Nylan tugged on Jarlyth’s sleeve. “Let me see, Jary. Please?”
Jarlyth reached over his shoulder to check on his sword and Nylan copied him, laughing. They both knew it was a “give-me-a-moment” gesture he made when thinking or stalling. He grinned at Nylan’s teasing. “All right. This time.” Jarlyth pulled his memories of his great aunt’s apartments together and tried to organize them. Nylan, unlike most other Sensitives, didn’t even bother to close his eyes. His powers were very strong and even the Prior had been heard to say he thought Nylan the most powerful Sensitive he’d ever known.
“He can smell the flowers others are sniffing,” the man had said, and most of the warders had laughed, thinking this an exaggeration. Jarlyth knew better.
“I don’t want everything all pink.” Nylan made a valiant effort not to sound disappointed.
Jarlyth laughed at his wincing expression. “You look like you’ve eaten something sour.” he teased. “But don’t worry. You can have them decorated any way you wish. I’m remembering them from when your Great Aunt Primrose lived in them. She was very fond of pink and ruffles and flowers everywhere.”
“It isn’t so bad.” Nylan’s attention shifted away from Jarlyth’s remembered images and back to the sandcastle. “But I like purple! And green and red and gold and—”
“Sounds very imposing,” Jarlyth teased.
“No, it won’t be!” Nylan exclaimed, so caught up in his new plans, he missed Jarlyth’s joking tone. “I’ll show you when we get back. I’ll draw it for you, and you’ll see. It’ll be really nice and warm and comfortable.”
Jarlyth grinned. “Warm, huh? That will be nice.” Nylan always seemed to be cold and in need of an extra blanket or a pullover or coat. His describing something as warm was akin to describing it as a paradise. “I hope I’ll get to see it after you finish redecorating. It’ll be something, I’m sure.”
Nylan looked up into his warder’s face, his bright golden-hazel eyes wide with worry. “You’re going to be there, aren’t you? I’ll need you to help me.”
Jarlyth silently cursed his carelessness. Keeping a secret from Nylan was difficult and took discipline. He wished again that he hadn’t learned who Nylan’s father really was, but the boy was far too young to know. Time enough for that disillusionment later. Someday I’ll have to tell him the truth. If I don’t, and he finds out some other way, he’ll hate me forever.
“I want to be there, Nylan. But we’ll have to wait and see. The king may not want me around. He’ll want to be the one who helps you. That’s what parents do.” Liar, he told himself. The king doesn’t care, and he won’t care about him any more just because he’s in the castle. But his warning to Nylan was still true. Just because he might not want to honor his vow to his late wife to take care of her child, that didn’t mean the king would want Jarlyth to continue in his role as caretaker instead.
Nylan seemed mollified by Jarlyth’s answer. “He’ll want you around,” the boy said firmly. “I’ll tell him he has to let you stay.” He ran his finger along the sandcastle wall again. “And your rooms can be right here next to mine.” He looked
up, making what Jarlyth had come to think of as his Prince Face—one eyebrow raised and a small, indomitable half-smile—and added, “You can have them decorated any way you wish.”
He continued on in that same vein for some time, describing what he imagined his life would be like in Karonsmoor. “Healer Bairbre and Flannery can live here.” He pointed at the tower. Jarlyth was fairly certain the Wizard Royal’s traditional quarters were located in that particular tower, but he didn’t mention this. It would be good to have established allies nearby—the boy was right about that.
The sun was reaching up into the sky, beginning to outshine the glints of Breach-light spangling the distant southwestern horizon by the time Nylan had assigned various bits of the castle’s sand-pile wings to every person he knew. Emphasizing the hour, the faint toll of the priory bells reached them.
Nylan leapt to his feet and spun toward the sound. “I’ll be late for class!” He seemed about to dash in three directions at once as he looked around for his horse.
“Calm down,” Jarlyth laughed. “That’s just morning meal, and we’ve had that. We’ll be back in time for your—” His laughter died as Nylan whirled again, toward the beach. The boy’s face went white, and he thought, oddly detached, So that isn’t just a figure of speech.
Jarlyth turned to see whatever it was that had so terrified his charge, reaching for his sword without thinking, and so he met the first attack prepared for it.
#
Their thoughts roiled up as suddenly as a squall, flipping Nylan’s attention away from the bell. The surprise had spun him toward the noise. Shock at what he then saw froze him in mid-turn.
.:Where did they come from?:. Nylan thought the question at his embattled warder.
.:Run. NOW!:. Jarlyth shot back.
And Nylan understood that this was bad. Worse than bad. This was— Oh, Vail. He tried to run, but it was no use. There were so many men—pirates, Nylan guessed. Six or seven of them, maybe more, and all shouting, all running at them with upraised swords gleaming in the morning sunlight, looking—with the lightning-like glimmering flaring out behind them on the horizon—as if they’d run right out of the Breach itself. We don’t have a chance.
The pain stabbed into him hard, and he gasped, falling headlong onto the sand where he rolled onto his back, clutching at his arm.
.:Jary?:.
“Don’t look, Nylan. Just don’t look!”
Nylan obeyed his warder’s command as he had done all his life. He squeezed his eyes shut and fought against every impulse to open them. More pain slashed at him, seeming to come from everywhere, and he screamed. .:There’s too much, Jary. I can’t block it out!:. A hand grabbed his arm, pulling an even more desperate shriek from him.
“Shut up,” a stranger’s voice snapped. “Nobody’s hurtin’ you, boy.”
.:Nylan? Are you all right?:.
.:No! He’s touching me! Jary, HELP ME!:. But Jarlyth didn’t answer. Vail, let him be all right, please let him be all right, PLEASE!
“Don’t touch me.” Nylan tried to pull away, but the man’s mind had already tumbled into his, and everything hurt now. The noise and the feelings and thoughts and sensations—it was all unbelievable. Unimaginable! He’d had no idea this was what Tanara existed to protect him from. The man must know who he was or, failing that, what he was. “You’re not supposed to touch—”
The man ignored him, pulling him up from the sand.
“Stop it!” Nylan opened his eyes to glare up at the man and tried to sound severe and princely.
But the man only lifted him as if he weighed nothing, and Nylan found himself slung over the stranger’s shoulder like a feed sack. This even more inescapable contact made everything much, much worse. I’m going to be sick, Nylan thought, and he was. A tic later, his so recently-eaten picnic morning meal decorated the man’s back. This was not at all how he’d imagined his first battle. I didn’t even hit him.
He reached out for the comfort of Jarlyth’s beloved presence. It had always sounded clearly through Nylan’s senses, but the stranger’s mind screamed over everything else, amplified by the man’s physical contact, and only the faintest hint of Jarlyth’s sounded through the maelstrom.
“Let go of me,” the boy managed, and he tried to kick free of the man’s hold.
The brief, spiraling vertigo he’d long been taught preceded a death caused him to falter, and he sobbed out a cry of agony.
He’s killing me he’s killing me he’s killing—!
A new terror distracted him, and he redoubled his efforts to block out the minds around him. .:Jary?:. His warder’s mind soothed him for a fraction of a moment, and Nylan breathed again. I’ll be all right as long as he’s all right.
Another death caught him unprepared, and he went boneless, slipping from his captor’s grasp. The man stopped and eased him down to the sand where he collapsed completely, retching up bile. The third and fourth deaths came almost at the same moment, hitting him like huge, relentless fists, and nearly caused a fifth death with Nylan’s own.
He reeled back and tried to stand—tried to run—but he fell onto the sand again without having moved very much. He clutched at his head, distantly amazed at just how much pain he was suffering, and ignored the tears pouring down his cheeks. His captor caught him up and slung his slender, unresisting form over his shoulder once more.
Nylan’s mind reached out, stretching out as far as he could manage and then a bit farther still. .:Please, Jary! Don’t leave me!:. He felt the receding edge of his warder’s presence and tried to follow it, tried to reach it with flailing mental fingers, but it slipped away from him.
The ensuing shock came almost as a blessing, insulating him from the inescapable horror of the truth. For the first time in his brief life, he was completely alone, unprotected from the minds which now surrounded him and which only meant him harm.
Jarlyth was dead.
# # #
CHAPTER TWO
Nylan had a confused impression of being carried onto a small boat and rowed out to sea, but the press of bodies and minds around him was too overwhelming. The man who had carried him away from Tanara never released him, and the rough handling and constant, forced contact with the man’s violent mind became more and more physically painful as time passed.
The pain became too great to bear, and a long time passed before it subsided enough for Nylan to begin taking notice of his surroundings again. He found he’d been left alone at last, and the constant movement of the tiny room around him and the sharp, briny scent in the air told him that the pirates had taken him back to their ship. He saw how torn and stained his clothing had become and shuddered. The once-fine garments hung in such tatters he could barely be said to be dressed anymore. It had all happened so fast. Too fast.
He decided not to try to stand up just yet. There were no windows, though regular slits in the door let in enough light for him to clearly see his surroundings. The ceiling slanted low over him even though he was sitting down and very small, besides. His cell seemed no bigger than a closet.
The pirates’ noise rumbled dully in his head, and Nylan made a vague attempt to block them out. His shock had not entirely worn off yet, and he was able to look at all that had happened as if he had not been the one it had happened to. But it still didn’t make any sense.
I can’t believe this. I thought we were supposed to be safe. He’d never heard of anyone invading Tanara Priory before, and he’d always been led to believe he and all the rest of the priory’s inhabitants were too far away from the wars and raids that plagued the rest of Serathon, his father’s kingdom, to ever have to worry about them.
It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been messing around with that sandcastle, we would have gone back sooner. Jary wouldn’t be dead, if...
He bit hard into his lip and tasted blood, but he kept his tears from falling. He was a SanClare prince. He would be strong and make Jary proud of him, no matter what the pirates did.
His cell door opened out
ward, startling him. A brief frown creased his forehead as he wondered why he hadn’t sensed the pirate’s approach, but that thought quickly vanished, chased away by his terror. The man who had carried him off now stood over Nylan, a cruel smile twisting his dirty face which was also marred by a very recent wound slashing across his cheek down to the tip of his chin. Jary did that.
“Well,” the man said, an unnerving look glittering in his eyes. “All hail the Prince of Sorrows, indeed.”
Nylan suppressed a flinch at the sound of his royal sobriquet. He hated his prince-name. No Sorrows had ever had a good or happy life, and most of them ended up destroying something before they died. But he supposed this likely explained what was happening to him now.
“They never mentioned just how beautiful you are,” the man continued, taking a swaggering step farther into the tiny cell and squatting down in front of him so his face was only inches away from Nylan’s. “It’s all I can do to keep my men away from you. They ain’t seen a woman in moons.”
Nylan had the odd feeling the man expected him to say “thank you,” but instead, the boy lifted his chin and stared back, playing at a defiance he didn’t feel.
Though he wished for it desperately, he had no reason to expect rescue. No one at Tanara would even begin to look for him or Jary for hours, and once they did find Jary’s body, what could they do? There were no wizards at Tanara to cast finding spells. And even if one could be found nearby to help, why would they look for him rather than assuming he was dead? His father had never so much as visited him, and his grandmother was too far away to know he needed help. Still, he knew he must trust in Vail. A miracle could happen. He was a prince, after all...that had to mean something.
“Too good to speak to a lowborn merc?” the man demanded, grabbing his upraised chin in bruising fingers to force his attention. “I’m the captain of this ship, if that means anything to a pampered landling prince like you.” The physical contact opened the man’s mind wide to Nylan’s knowing again, but he understood little of what he saw and felt. The emotions were harsh and mostly unfamiliar; the images violent and bloody. He closed his eyes and wished closing his mind’s eyes were as easy.
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 3
