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

slowly subsiding, but he felt so very strange. It was as if someone were slowly wrapping cotton gauze around the edges of his life. He tried to remember the color of his favorite shirt and couldn’t. He tried to remember what Flannery Llorka looked like. And couldn’t.
    “ Don’t do this to me.” He stared up at the woman, helpless. “Please.”
    “ It’s for the best, believe me,” she assured him. “I wish someone had done the same for me at your age.”
    She lifted him from the ground once more and turned him to face the Breach. “Now, go, before the sun disappears. Walk into the Breach, and don’t look back.”
    Nylan stiffened, but he felt no shock at the woman’s words. For some time, he had expected this ax to fall. He lifted his chin in a final defiance.
    I don ’t care. It doesn’t matter. I remember this much, at least. I am a prince of the blood of SanClare and Voyavel. I am a Sensitive, gifted by Vail. I have survived so far in spite of them. I will survive this.
    “ I will.” This only made sense after everything else. Someone wanted him out of the way. Maybe he even knew who this person was, but his memories were fragmenting, and he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
    But the Breach he remembered. Jary— don’t let me forget him, dear Vail, don’t let me forget —had told him stories about it and about how it had been used as a punishment for important criminals, highborn traitors, and rebels. A long time ago.
    Jarlyth had said that n o one knew for sure what happened to people sent through, but maybe they didn’t die. Nylan supposed that somewhere his murderer was consoling himself with that possibility.
    “ Don’t turn back.” The woman’s flat voice interrupted his confused, dazed reverie. “Or we’ll have to kill you.”
    Of course. Nylan nodded again, once, collected himself, and started off. He climbed down the steep slope to the crater’s bottom, even more covered in dirt and grime by the time he reached it. He paused for a moment and dusted himself off, then turned to face the Breach once again. Its thrumming had grown much louder, screaming in his head now, and he clenched his teeth against its noise.
    Tears stung his eyes, but the bitter, frightening glee he ’d felt so briefly at the prospect of his own death was gone. Death walked beside him. His life was almost over. It seemed to be unavoidable now.
    He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. At least he would go out like a prince. And at least when it was over, he’d be with Jarlyth again.
    He expected it to hurt and had almost asked the woman if she thought it would. He’d thought better of that just before the words escaped his mouth, but he was still afraid.
    The glints of light were sharp -edged, it was said. He didn’t know if this was tale or truth. The pirates had navigated around them in their little boats and seemed to fear making contact. Would stepping into the Breach cut him to pieces?
    “ Maybe it’ll be quick.” Nylan needed to hear a voice, even if it was just his own, thin, frightened one.
    The roar in his head blotted out everything, and he barely heard himself. The Breach loomed before him, just a couple of lengths away. A few more steps, and he’d be in it. Stabbed to death on its shards or punctured as by a thousand arrows.
    He inhaled deeply and took a long, last look at the world. More and more of his memories faded with each passing moment, too, and he wanted to fight the spell, but he was too tired.
    “ Let’s get this over with,” he breathed, and he stepped from shattered land to shattered air.
    Nylan had been caught in a current once, long ago. He and a few other Sensitive children had been playing in a seemingly gentle stream that ran through Tanara Priory and poured out into the Gulf of Souls, and he’d taken only a few steps past the safe boundary in order to catch a straying, floating toy. He’d been sucked under so fast, he hadn’t had time to scream or