SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (4 page)

Nylan couldn
’t find his silent center; he couldn’t block out the pirates’ minds; but that also meant he couldn’t shut his mind to anyone seeking him.

If the wizards are looking for me, they shouldn
’t have any trouble
, but he’d felt not even the lightest glimmer of a magical touch from across the waters.

Oh, Vail, I
’m too young for this. I’m too young to be alone. Please let them find me. Please let them!

But days passed and nothing changed except the portion-size of his two daily hunks of bread.

On the ninth day of his ordeal, a storm overtook the ship, tossing him around his tiny cell unceremoniously. Thunder cracked as if it were right on top of the ship; lightning flashed so often, the world seemed to move in odd, flickering jerks; and water dripped down on him through the creaking boards that made up his cell’s ceiling.

When at last the storm began to die down,
Nylan curled up in his damp, threadbare blanket and tried to sleep and forget where he was. For once, he didn’t want any more food, and he felt cold and ill and sore, exhausted and defeated.

The rattling of the door woke him from his
hard-earned slumber, and he sat up, startled, as the door swept open to reveal not the captain but the young pirate from the first day.

“
What are you doing here?” Nylan flinched back into the corner of his cell, trying to escape the burning hatred radiating from the man.

He growled out a taunting reply.
“The captain’s a bit busy, what with the storm and all, and I thought ye might need some comforting.”

He leaned in and grabbed the boy
’s arms, lifting him to his feet as if he were a cloth doll. Then, with no more warning, he threw him back against the cell wall.

Nylan
’s head hit with a loud crack, and he felt the world drop out from under him as hundreds of stars burst into life around the edges of his vision. When he was able to focus again, he found himself pinned against the wall with the man’s unshaven face rubbing against his like coarse sand scratching away. The pirate’s hands moved down, undoing buttons and stroking the boy’s chest; and his tongue pushed at Nylan’s lips, forcing its way into his mouth.

Face flaming, Nylan
’s shock held him motionless against the assault. His stomach hurt as if he’d been struck again, and he wanted to throw up. The man loosened his hold for a moment as he stood back, and his eyes raked over the boy’s body. He licked his lips and sneered as he moved in again.

“
No!” Nylan shrieked. He tried to dart around the man, but he was starving and weak while the pirate was well-fed, strong, and used to the ship’s movement. He caught Nylan easily and shoved him back against the wall again.

“
Such pretty spoils,” the pirate growled. The world hadn’t righted itself, and Nylan’s head throbbed like a pounding hammer where he’d hit the wall. Something warm and sticky trickled down his neck, frightening him even more. “And rules say I’m owed.”

“
Why?” Nylan managed.

“
I lost a brother to yer protector.” He said this as if his assault were only a logical reaction to such a loss. But the man’s mind replayed his memories of that moment, and Nylan saw that he’d stabbed Jarlyth in the back just as Jarlyth had delivered the death blow to his own opponent.

“
But you killed Jary—my protector,” Nylan argued. He struggled against the man’s bruising hands, trying to use the moves Jarlyth had taught him, but the man just laughed and tightened his grip.

“
Don’t matter,” the pirate replied. “My brother’s worth more’n your protector, and I’m owed. He died to save ye, so I figger if I nik ye bloody, he’ll’ve died for naught an’ we’ll be square.”

Th
ough he wasn’t sure what the man’s words meant, his thoughts were far too clear for Nylan not to understand what the pirate intended to do to him.

He
sank his fingernails, grown long and broken in captivity, into the man’s cheek and scratched him as hard as he could, feeling the cuts burn across his own face as he inflicted them.

The man lurched back, clutching at his bleeding face.
His fury lashed out like a hand and slapped Nylan back into the corner. He crouched there, holding his head in his hands and sobbing.

.:
Jarlyth! Jary, where are you? He’s hurting me, and I don’t know what to do. Help me! Please!
:.

Nylan flailed and kicked and struggled when the man came at him again, but it was no use.
His own screams rang in his ears, and he lost all sense of why he was fighting. He only knew that he must fight.

But the man was too strong, and he pinned Nylan to the floor and hovered over him, breathing in heavy gasps.
Sweat poured down his face, tinged red by the bloody scratches Nylan had inflicted.

He wiped at his face, his anger pulsing, filling the tiny room, and he growled,
“That’s just more you owe me, ye little bastard!” as his hands reached for the drawstring of Nylan’s trousers.

Nylan stared into the man
’s eyes, horrified by everything he saw there, everything he felt boiling in the man’s mind and heart. Never before had he faced such relentless cruelty, and he lay helpless, too terrified even to cry.

Something rushed past Nylan, right in front of his eyes, and he suddenly couldn
’t draw breath. The man’s eyes widened then froze as his head fell from his body. As a searing pain sliced all the way through his neck, Nylan opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The weight of the man’s body collapsed onto Nylan’s chest and blood poured over everything.

His eyes met those of the pirate captain who stood over him with a bloodied sword, and the look of disgust on the man
’s scarred face shifted to blank shock.

Can
’t breathe oh Vail blood everywhere help me Vail please he’s dead Vail help me breathe please BREATHE!

But there was no way out that he could find.
He’d been looking right into the man’s eyes.

I
’m going to die.

T
rapped in the dizzying downward spiral the man had disappeared into so abruptly, he convulsed from the effort of trying to breathe, trying to scream. The captain shouted orders, looking as panicked as Nylan felt, and the body was lifted off of him.

It didn
’t help. All he wanted was to breathe again, but it had been too long since his last breath, and the darkness closed in, finally swallowing him whole.

The next thing he knew, he struggled up from unconsciousness, rolled over
the side of the bed, and vomited before nearly blacking out again. His head hurt more than he ever would have thought possible. The usual, constant mutter of voices now sounded like shouts, and his throat ached horribly.

He didn
’t notice the softness of the bed he lay on nor the improvement in his surroundings, taking it all for granted in the few moments after waking and before he remembered where he was and what had happened to him.

.:
Jary, I feel so sick. And I had such a horrible dream.
:.

“
I thought you wouldn’t wake,” the pirate captain said softly. His hands were gentle as he eased the boy back onto the pillows and wiped his face with a cool cloth. Nylan wanted to fight him off or scream at him, but he found he just didn’t have the strength to do more than glare at the man.

“
That’s why he told you not to look. Isn’t it?”

Nylan
closed his eyes and let himself wilt into the bed’s soft pillows. He didn’t answer for several moments as his memories reasserted themselves. The feel of the sword slicing through him, the feel of the man’s last, panicked tic of life, suffocating, the head falling, the blood...

Everywhere
...Vail, it was everywhere.

H
e wanted to scream and not stop until he went mad or until they gave up and let him go.

Maybe they
’d take me back home.
But he knew this thought was silly and impossible even as it ran through his head. Besides that, he couldn’t dissolve into hysterics. A SanClare prince wouldn’t do that.

At last, he whispered
an answer. “If a Sensitive looks into the eyes of someone who is dying, he can become trapped and die, too.”

“
Why didn’t you die, then?” The man frowned.

“
I don’t know.”

“
You must be very strong.”

Tears stung Nylan
’s eyes. “No,” he breathed. “I’m very unlucky.”

“
You were unconscious for days. I thought you were dying.”

Maybe I should have.
Holy Vail, what’s happening?

“
What are you going to do to me?”

The captain hesitated.
“We’ve reached our destination,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

Nylan opened his eyes, releasing a single tear, and met the captain
’s pitying gaze. “Why should you be sorry? You’ve just done your job.”

“
I no longer believe you deserve your fate.”

Nylan sensed the change in the pirate captain
’s feelings, but he didn’t understand it. And how could he, an eight-year-old, priory-bred child, have done anything to have deserved any of this? Nylan looked away.

“
Where are we?” he asked. “What happens to me now?”

“
Worldsend.”

The word sent a chill through Nylan
’s veins.

Once called Seladyn when it had been a beautiful, lush land and the home of several prosperous settlements, Worldsend had been devastated by a cataclysmic magical battle
that ended the Second Blood War four centuries before, and it had never recovered. Now it was home to pirates, outcasts, rogue warlords, and very little else.

The tale of Seladyn
’s demise was much told in Serathon, but Sensitives and apprentice wizards learned it very young, the better to impress upon them the responsibility their powers carried.

“
And what happens now is that we take you there and collect the rest of our payment.”

Nylan swallowed, noting distantly that his throat felt better already.
“Who’s paying you?”

“
I don’t know. Nor do they know who I am. We dealt with each other through an intermediary.”

I wish he
’d stop. I wish he were cruel again. It would be easier.

“
Why did you kill that man?” He decided he’d found out enough about his future.

The revulsion he
’d seen in the captain’s eyes was back, thick in his voice. “Chelna was always an animal. I had forbidden anyone to touch you. He disobeyed.”

“
But, I’m just a prisoner,” Nylan pressed. As vile as he’d been, it still seemed wrong that the man was dead. Nylan couldn’t forget what it had felt like, what that split-tic horrified realization had felt like when the man knew he’d been killed and that it was too late.

He closed his eyes and swallowed against the urge to throw up
again.
Vail, have mercy on me...have mercy on him, too.

“
He was one of your men. He said he was owed—”

“
I know!” the man barked, and Nylan flinched, eyes open and staring in fear. But to his surprise, the big, violent, blood-soaked pirate seemed embarrassed.

“
He was owed, but he’d no right to decide his own payment.” He looked away from Nylan’s eyes. “‘Sides. It’s disgusting. Raping children. I’ve never allowed it when I could stop it happening. And you’re suffering enough.”

Nylan waited in silence for a long time, watching the pirate who
’d begun to move around the cabin, shifting things in a distracted pretense of tidying.

Vail, he
’s scared. He’s embarrassed, too.
He could feel the waves of emotion rolling off the man, and it baffled him. He’d been so callous and decisive before. What had changed?

“
Are you in trouble, now? Because of what happened?” Nylan couldn’t imagine the man was afraid of him. There had to be some other reason for this sudden fear.

The pirate
’s shoulders stiffened, and he turned back to face his captive. His mouth opened, and Nylan could almost hear the words, “How did you know?” but the man didn’t say them. His mouth snapped shut, and he shook his head, instead, chagrined.

“
Triple-damn me for a fool,” he swore softly. “If I’d had any idea who they wanted me to snatch, I’d have told them to go to the Fires.”

Nylan didn
’t quite believe this professed ignorance. He guessed it was more that the man had not realized just what he had undertaken by agreeing to kidnap the Prince of Sorrows and was now regretting it.

“
You could take me back,” he suggested, very softly. “I’m sure my father will pay you for your trouble.”