SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) by Jenna Waterford Read Free Book Online Page B

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.”
    The man snorted and sat down on a stool. He