SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (31 page)

“
You feel that, don’t you?” the man asked, reverent. “You feel it more completely than I could ever imagine. That book tells me a great many things about your kind. The most intriguing thing it talks about is how you feel.” His hands moved to rest on Michael’s bare shoulders.

“
You feel that, too? You feel my hands, their warmth, the texture of my skin against yours. And I, of course, feel your warmth and your smooth softness. But you feel, or should I say
experience
, my feelings as well, don’t you? So that if I touch you like this—” and he ran his fingers lightly along the insides of Michael’s arms “—you’ll feel my excitement. Intermingled with your own feelings, I wonder? Or do you somehow know the difference. Tell me.”

“
I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael rasped though every word the man said was true. He saw into Terac’s mind quite clearly, as the nightmares accumulated, gathering for their next attack, and what he saw froze the blood in his veins. What he felt from the man frightened him far more than a hundred Lorel Burks or a thousand Robyn Vaznels, for Terac knew what he was doing, and he knew what it would do to Michael. He made no effort to fool himself or rationalize his actions. He embraced his vile, bloody desires and willingly did anything and everything he had to do in order to fulfill them.

Terac shook his head, a pitying expression on his face.
“Poor little thing. Poor little whore. So lost and alone in this filthy world...I am sorry. I wish there were another way, but I’ve gone much too far to stop now. I’m
so close
, I can almost taste it. The power you’ll give me is more important than any brief suffering you may endure.”

# # #

CHAPTER TWENTY

Michael came to slowly, irritated by the persistent Voice whispering in his ear. For several blessed moments, he felt no pain and didn’t remember that he should, but when he tried to sit up, everything came back to him in a bright, knife-edged flash. He slumped back bonelessly onto the ground, panting for breath and trying not to vomit again. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, covering everything in its metallic haze.

He hadn
’t thought he would survive what Terac had done to him.
Experiments...he called them experiments.
He wasn’t sure he
had
survived them. The way he felt at this moment didn’t seem to promise longevity.

He looked down and saw a blood
-soaked rag wrapped around his thigh. Numerous cuts on his hands and arms and chest still bled, too.
He stabbed me.

The kiss had only been the beginning.
Along with the chains there had been knives—
Don’t
think about it...just...don’t...think...

The man had
used the knives in ways his mind couldn’t even go near without his body wanting to vomit—to purge itself of the horrors the man had forced him to experience.

At some point when
Michael had been far past doing anything but sobbing, the man had driven one of the larger knives into his leg, saying as he did so, “I do not want you to run from me again.”

H
e was so calm through the whole thing, even when I was begging him.

Michael
closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing. Pain had grown quickly into a sourceless thing, screaming to his brain from everywhere, making it almost impossible for him to inventory the wounds he’d suffered, though one thing was too obvious to miss even through the pain.

Oh, Dear Vail, I think it
is
broken.
His arm lay useless beside him, a dead weight. He’d panicked after the first “experiment” and had tried to escape the shackles, struggling to pull his hands free and cutting his wrists badly in his terror. The man’s eyes had widened in delight at the display but almost in the same breath, he’d slammed his fist into Michael’s arm. The sound of the bones snapping still echoed through his brain, but it was the casual carelessness with which Terac had done this that stunned him. The pain of it had knocked Michael out—he didn’t know for how long.

.:
You’re in the street,
:. the Voice told him. .:
You have to find help.
:.

“
Shize. It’s you again? Why can’t you ever leave me alone to die?”

.:
You aren’t dying yet! You aren’t far from the Red Boar. It’s only a few lengths away.
:.

Lengths.
Might as well be posts. Can’t move any farther. So tired. Hurts too much.

.:
You have to move! You can’t stay where you are—You’ll die!
:.

The Voice sounded uncharacteristically frightened, and
Michael knew he must be in a very bad way.
I must really be dying.
He almost laughed when he realized all he felt at this thought was relief.

His cruel memory flashed with images of his ordeal which rang like blows against his senses.

Terac picking up the knife, talking calmly and sanely all the while.

Terac slashing the palm of
Michael’s hand and sucking blood from the cut.

Terac reciting completely incomprehensible poems or spells or something and during each, a new wound.

“Who’s there?”

Michael
flinched awake again, fear spurring him into movement. He tried to crawl away—panic dictating his actions more than any sense—but he only drew the person’s attention to himself.

Pol knelt beside him.
“Michael?”

Michael
breathed in his friend’s confusion and fear and breathed out a previously undiscovered calm.
So...at last I’ve found Pol. Too late, but I’ve found him. He would’ve known better this time, too. Why didn’t Vail give me any of his sense?

“
Dear Vail, what’s happened to you?”

“
Pol—It’s all right. It’ll be all right when I’m dead.”

“
What? You aren’t going to die!” The older boy slipped one arm gently around Michael’s shoulders and the other under his knees, staggering a little as he stood even under Michael’s slight weight. Michael sucked in his breath sharply as his vision went gray.

“
Sorry,” Pol said. “I know it hurts.”

When
Michael could focus on something besides the pain once more, he lay on the bed in his Red Boar suite. There were several people in the room with him and a great deal of seemingly directionless activity.

Daren
shouted over all the commotion, issuing orders in an uncharacteristically strident voice. “Pol, go for a healer. Don’t let him put you off.”

“
Take a horse!” Risa added.
She’s crying.
“Give it to the healer if he needs it.”

“
Yes. Good! Do as she says, lad!”

“
Will he be—?”

“
Don’t stand there yakkin’, lad. Go!”

Nella
’s voice somehow broke through the din. “I found his pack, Daren. It was right on the street where Pol found him. There’s five hundred clinks here!”

A frozen silence followed this, lasting several beats.

“That isn’t possible,” Risa said. “That’s more’n a year’s profits.”

“
It’s right here!”

“
Well, and it’s his, then, ain’t it?” Daren barked. Michael opened his eyes just enough to see the strong-arm grab his pack from Nella’s hands.

“
I wasn’t going to keep it!” she protested and flounced off.

“
Daren?” he breathed. “I don’t think it’s going to matter. If I die, you can all divide it up, all right?”

Risa nearly leapt on him, anger and fear warring for dominance within her.
“You aren’t going to die, Michael! You’re going to get well, and then we’re going to go after the bastard that did this to you!”

He shook his head feebly.
“No. Can’t. I was stupid, Risa.” He took a breath, closing his eyes against the pain. “I didn’t think about anything...but the money.”

I must
’ve passed out again,
Michael thought. The healer had arrived and was examining him. His face was vaguely familiar, and Michael wondered from where. Had he been at Landsend Charity one of the several times Michael had been a patient there? Or was he a Red Boar patron?
Or is he mine?

“
I’ll have to set this arm, and he’ll need sewing-up on his leg here and here...and on his arm here. And bandages here and here and...Shize! What in all the hells happened to him?”

“
Don’t know,” Daren muttered. “He wouldn’t say.”

“
Ah.” The healer smiled into Michael’s barely-opened eyes. “He’s awake. How do you feel, my boy?”

“
Like all the hells happened to me,” Michael breathed.

The healer
’s smile turned bleak. “And so they seem to have done. I’m sorry, but they’re going to happen for a bit longer.”

“
I know. It’s all right...” It took him several moments to gather his strength for the question. “Am I going to make it?”

The healer had taken
Michael’s hand in his own to examine it, opening his mind quite clearly to Michael’s senses. A harsh, breathtaking wave of frustrated fury swept over Michael, and he nearly lost consciousness again. The healer’s anger, however, wasn’t directed at Michael.

Stupid, self
-righteous bastards! Calling such a child a heretic. He’s barely more than a baby. They’re as responsible for this as the monster who held the knife. Killing him on the spot would’ve been kinder than branding him and throwing him to such scum to use up.

But all the healer said was,
“Yes. You’ll be just fine.”

He spoke softly, explaining what he was doing
as he began to clean the blood away to get a better look at Michael’s wounds. He was trying to be soothing, but Michael felt the man’s shock spike through him like fire as he cleaned the blood from Michael’s right hand, uncovering an arcane design tattooed around his wrist like a shackle.

“
Holy Vail Over Us,” he gasped. Risa inhaled sharply, and she and Daren exchanged wary looks. Terac had stabbed the design into Michael’s flesh all at once with his horrifying magic. The pain had ripped a scream from him that still rang in his ears.

F
rom the reaction of the three adults, Michael now knew it meant something terrible, something dangerous.
At least now they understand there won’t be any revenge.

Only someone very highborn and very powerful
—someone who was completely unafraid of any repercussions—would’ve had the nerve to so blatantly display his mark. The witch-seekers would find plenty of reasons never to discover a royal heretic. Since the tattoo marked him as the duke’s possession as surely as the brand marked him a heretic, it was all but certain they would overlook the mark on Michael’s arm as well.

Daren carried
Michael back to Senna MaGlen’s just after midday. Harly had seen to it that Michael’s landlady was informed of his condition and, at Pol’s insistence, had made arrangements for his nephew to be allowed to visit whenever he wanted to.

Michael
’s broken arm would be useless for more than a moon, and his other injuries rendered him practically helpless. The knife wound on his leg was the worst of them all, having damaged the muscle, and the healer had said nothing definite about that. Michael suspected he’d have a limp.

Ma Fitz met Daren at the servants
’ door and gave Michael a pitying smile. She shook her head at the sight of him. “Blessed Vail protect us. How do you feel, poor little thing?”

“
I’ve felt better,” Michael said. Daren had asked him, whispering the question during a stolen moment of privacy, if Michael couldn’t heal himself.

I wish I could,
he thought. But as best he could tell, his healing powers worked by taking the pain and hurt into himself and away from whomever he was healing. Since he was the one who’d been hurt, there was nowhere for his own injuries to go.

Now
Daren’s grumbling, angry emotions roiled around him, trampling over everything else including his own feelings. Daren’s thoughts were still shadowed.

He wished they
’d hurry up and take him to his room so he could sleep again. It was small comfort to him that Daren seemed to care about what had happened to him beyond how it upset his plans to use Michael’s powers. He even seemed to have his own sort of pity for the heretic whore he carried in his arms, but Michael was weary of being pitied. Even Terac had done that, and what good had it done?

Ma Fitz followed them up the stairs to
Michael’s tiny room beneath the rafters while Daren issued orders as if he had the right. “Don’t let him leave the house for the next moon without Pol or me being with him. And Harly don’t want him coming back to work for at least that long. Healer said so, too.”

Michael
bit into his lip to keep from crying out in despair. A whole moon doing nothing! His clink would drain away while he ate and slept and did nothing to replenish it.

How much of his savings would vanish in a moon?
Too much, he feared. The idea of using the money Terac had given him made him ill, but if he didn’t use it and didn’t accept it, the money to pay for a moon’s worth of idleness would have to come from his Mirthia savings.

Daren settled him in his cot
. The extra blanket he’d been wrapped in for the trip over from the Red Boar was tucked in around him without comment. Again without comment, Daren hung up Michael’s cleaned and mended clothes on their nails, gave Cyra an idle pat, and left.

“
I can’t do this anymore,” Michael whispered to Cyra as tears filled his eyes. “I’m too stupid. I’ll get killed next time. I’m lucky I didn’t this time.” The cat nestled down beside Michael, purring as she pressed her warm body against him.

“
Or unlucky.” He fought back thoughts of the tattoo and what it might mean. “What am I gonna do now? What
can
I do now?”

#

Pol proved his friendship over and over again during this period. If Pol hadn’t come to see him every day, Michael would never have been able to leave his room. Pol helped dress his wounds, helped him down and back up the stairs, helped him dress, helped him do almost everything.

O
ne day, however, Pol didn’t come, and when Michael called out, “come in,” to the person knocking on his door, the unexpected arrival sent a sick cascade of almost-remembering through him of another door, another unexpected person coming through it.