Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (7 page)

“The Silver Knight?” It’s the first I’ve heard of him.

“The Bringer. He leads his father’s mortal army.”

“Of course.” I shiver. United at last.

“We have companies all the way along the border, from coast to coast, patrolling and keeping them back, and so far…” He trails off, frowning. “Obviously this can go no further.” He looks at me warily.

“My lips are sealed.”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he was toying with us. I reckon if he planned to invade, he’d do it. But this? Sending small parties to harass us, engaging in back and forth with the Council? He knows we’re running scared, and that we can’t beat him. It’s a game to him. Lortune was locked down straight away, and the first we heard of it was the message he sent to the Council to say it was done and he’d declared himself uncontested king.”

“So you think he won’t invade?”

“Not yet. His main focus now seems to be destroying the temples and killing the devout in Lormere. He’s taken against the Lormerian Gods in the worst way.”

“Why, though? Why is he targeting holy people?” I’m not religious, few here are, but the idea of burning down temples and butchering nuns and monks makes me feel queasy. It’s like hurting children. They’re harmless, mostly.

“Burn all the food, and people will starve, weaken, and turn on one another. Destroy the temples and their acolytes, and the people will have nowhere to turn, no sanctuary, no charity. No hope. Especially somewhere like Lormere. They’re already distraught because their living Goddess has vanished; it’s child’s play to him at this point.” He pauses, disgust coating every word. “What he does, to the pious… It’s awful, Errin.”

“What does he do?” I don’t want to know, but the question is ready on my lips before I can stop it. And from the speed Kirin replies at, he knew it too.

“He cuts out their hearts. Men, women, seminarians, novices, altar servers. He doesn’t discriminate, doesn’t care how old they are, or how young. He has the hearts cut from the bodies, and he puts them on display in the town squares. He has men guard them so they can’t be claimed. The birds can get at them, and the rats. But not the people. The bodies are thrown in pits, and they’re denied the Eating. He’s outlawed that too; there’s a price on the Sin Eater’s head. A good one. She wasn’t loved anyway, from what I’ve heard. Given the price she’ll fetch, I reckon he’ll have her before Midwinter Day.”

I stop moving. “Why? Why is he doing this?” I’m sickened by it, by the bestial, savage cruelty of it.

“Because he’s a monster. Because the Lormerians are mice who spent years cowering under their royals and their Gods, afraid of their own shadows. They couldn’t have made it any easier for him if he’d strolled up to the doors of the castle and knocked. They haven’t done a thing to fight back. They’re too scared, too busy praying for salvation. And because he’s trampling across Lormere unheeded, our Council has had to make sure he won’t get the same chance here.” He glances down at his uniform and his fire falls away, leaving him looking more like the boy I used to know. “Why are you still here? You should have been evacuated this morning, shouldn’t you? We were told all civilians would be gone today. Which hut is yours? Come on, I’ll speak to your mother now; we can try to get you out this afternoon.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I say swiftly. “You need to get back to your camp. Your leg needs proper attention.”

“Surely you can patch it up. Isn’t that what you were training for?”

“You need a physician to look at it, not an apothecary. Why don’t I meet you somewhere later on? We can arrange what to do then. Come, I’ll see you back to the road.”

Kirin leans forward and peers into my eyes. “What are you up to, Errin Vastel?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. I know you. You’re hedging me. What’s going on?”

“If you must know, Mama is sick.” I feed him the same line as I fed Unwin. “I can’t move her yet. As soon as she’s better, we’ll go. But I don’t want to risk her on the road, or in a camp, as she is.” It’s as close to the truth as I dare. “We’re keeping a low profile until then.”

“Maybe we can move her to the barracks. It’s a safe distance from the woods. We’d be on hand to keep an eye on her while she’s recovering. I’ll come now and we’ll—”

“Your leg.” I talk across him and he scoffs, raising an eyebrow at me. I force myself to look into his familiar, friendly eyes. “I’m scared of wounds left alone,” I say quietly. “You know why. It doesn’t take long… A puncture wound…”

“Oh, Errin.” Kirin looks wretched, and I feel horribly, horribly guilty for playing that card. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now and have it patched up. Then I’ll come for you. Gods, if I’d known you were here I would have come sooner and got you out, you know.” He shakes his head. “Why would Lief turn down the farm for this?”

I stare at him. “What? What are you talking about?”

“The farm, we all… Wait. You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what? Tell me,” I insist when he shakes his head.

He swallows, unable to meet my eye. “Ulrik told Lief we’d help; half the town was ready to pitch in to save the farm. We’d buy it, then he could pay us back.” He looks at me with pity. “Your father was respected, loved even. We wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to one of our own, but Lief refused us, said you didn’t need charity and that he’d found work, and a new home for you all. Then you were gone, and no one knew where to.”

“I—” I can feel my mouth is hanging open as I turn alternately hot and cold. “He wouldn’t… He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t take us from our home to come here.”

“We thought you’d all chosen it. A fresh start, away from bad memories.”

“I didn’t know any of this.” The buzzing returns and I have to shake my head to clear it. We had a choice and Lief chose this? “I didn’t know at all. I thought… I thought no one cared.”

“You thought Lirys – or I – didn’t care?” The hurt in his tone is plain and it shames me. “What about Master Pendie? What about the Dapplewoods? Ulrik? How could you think that?”

I shake my head, unable to speak. Why would Lief do that? Why drag us halfway across the country to live in Almwyk when we could have stayed at the farm? He loved the farm, he took the loss harder than even Mama, so why choose to leave it? What about “family first”? If we’d stayed there, Mama would be… He would be…

“Errin, I know how much you loved Lief. We all did.” Kirin’s words break into my thoughts and I look at him. He opens his mouth to speak again, but then stops abruptly, looking over my shoulder.

Two soldiers are jogging to us. Both stop and raise their hands in salute before one gasps, staring at Kirin’s bound calf.

“Are you hurt?” he asks Kirin.

“I’m fine, Kel.”

The soldiers look at me with undisguised curiosity.

“You’re lucky to be alive, miss,” the soldier, Kel, tells me. “When we saw you come running towards us we thought you were a ghost at first. What were you doing in the woods?”

“She’s a camp follower,” Kirin says swiftly, and the two soldiers exchange a knowing glance. “With the healers, she was collecting willow bark for her stores. I’ve already questioned her and extracted her word that she’ll not stray there again,” he adds tartly. “So what happened?”

“We saw them off. Killed three of theirs, but they killed two of ours, and wounded two more. Three more.” Kel nods respectfully. “We didn’t know what had happened to you, but Cam said he saw you go down.”

“I’m fine. Cam, send word to bring the bodies of our men back to the camp for burning. Leave the enemy as a warning to others. Kel, wait over there for me. I’ll need aid getting back.”

I look up at Kirin in surprise at the power in his voice. The two soldiers salute and turn away, throwing me a coy glance before they do. I wait until they’re well out of earshot before I speak.

“They listen to you.”

He clears his throat and refuses to meet my eye. “I’m a second lieutenant.”

“Congratulations,” I say, and he snorts. “Are there camp followers?” I think of the women who follow after the armies in stories. They’re not usually healers. Not in a traditional sense, anyway.

“We have a few.” He ducks his head.

“Oh.” My skin heats at the implication, and then I feel foolish for behaving like a child. I live in Almwyk, for Oak’s sake. “Well, I suppose it must be a comfort…”

He glares at me. “I’m betrothed, thank you,” he says shortly, and then swallows so violently it’s audible.

“What?” I say. “Really? So the harvest dance…?”

When a shy smile curves his cheeks, I move without thinking and launch myself at him, flinging my arms around his neck, remembering too late that he’s injured. He overbalances and moans, gripping my cloak to keep himself upright, panting slightly with the pain, his face greying once more. When I pull away I see Kel studiously ignoring us.

“Kirin, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, are you all right?” He tries to scowl but can’t keep the grin from his face at the same time. It makes him look grotesque. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you both.” I can’t stop smiling. I’d forgotten what it was to smile like this. My cheeks ache with it and it feels wonderful.

He holds me at arm’s length, his whole face glowing. “I know it’s stupid, with all this. But…” He shrugs. “We’re to wed in spring. Lirys will want you there.”

“It’s the best thing I’ve heard in ages,” I say, and I mean it. More than once I saw them together from the window of the apothecary. The idea of them as a couple and happy fills me with hope.

“Go to her,” he says. “Go home. Your real home.”

A rush of longing twists my insides. To go home … to Tremayne … to my apothecary. All my life, it’s all I wanted… Could I? I could confide in Master Pendie, look into a proper cure, or some way of controlling Mama… Of all people, he would understand. I could take up my apprenticeship again. My dream flashes through my mind: me back in the apothecary, the man standing beside me… Then I remember the mob at the door, only this time I imagine they’re not there for me, but for Mama. Torches burning as they demand I give them the beast to put down.

We can’t go home. We can’t be around normal people ever again. It’s too late.

I look up at him, smiling sadly. “Go, be a soldier. And see to that wound. We’ll talk soon,” I tell him.

“Stay out of the woods,” he warns. “Come to the barracks if you won’t tell me where to find you. Stick to the camp follower line.”

“Yes, Second Lieutenant,” I say smartly.

He gives me an unsoldierly salute and then turns, and Kel walks to his side at once, taking my place and helping him move stiffly away. The moment he’s gone from my sight my joy for him and Lirys starts to wane, and my thoughts turn back to my brother. What was he thinking? What was he planning? More than ever I want to see him, to ask him what the Holly he was playing at, dragging us here, leaving us here?

“Lief, where are you?” I say aloud as I approach the hut. “Come home. If for no other reason than so I can punch you for doing this to us. Just … come home.”

But all of my thoughts are pushed away the second that I enter the hut and see the door to my mother’s room, unlocked and wide open. I fly into the room, my heart in my mouth, relieved that my mother is still safely tucked in bed, until I hear the sound of a throat being cleared behind me. And when I turn, every single hair on my body stands on end.

His hair is silvery-white, and short, framing a face that could be cut from marble, it’s so pale and smooth. He looks carved, made, not natural. But the worst thing is his eyes, golden-amber and unblinking as they take me in. The skin around them is smeared with something black, coal dust or tar, and the gold burns out from it. Those eyes don’t belong in a human face. They belong in the pages of a book. In the face of the Sleeping Prince.

I freeze, terror rooting me to the spot, vivid, icy fear paralysing me even as my mind screams at me to run.

His eyes are wide, his hands reaching for the cloak thrown over the end of the bed, and suddenly I can move again. I don’t stop to think. I pull my knife out and lunge, thrusting the blade towards him to drive him from my mother.

He catches my wrist easily, squeezing until I drop the knife and cry out.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he asks, outraged, his voice husky and deep.

I realize to my absolute horror that I know his voice. That the man in front of me is my friend. The man I’ve been calling Silas Kolby.

No.
I try to wrench myself out of his grip but his long fingers are like a vice around my wrist. I panic and stop pulling, instead using my weight against him, throwing myself into him, trying to knock him down.

But it doesn’t work. Instead he grabs at my other arm and pulls it behind my back, catching both of my wrists in one of his hands. He moves behind me and pulls my back against his chest, so there’s no room to move, to lash out.

“Help me!” I scream, twisting in his arms and stamping my feet, bending backwards and forwards, throwing my head back into his chest, anything to get him off me. “Someone help!”

“Errin, shut up.”

The sound of my name on his lips feels like a punch to the stomach. My blood boils so violently I’m surprised he can touch me without burning.

“How could you?” My lungs fill with air and I scream again, scraping my throat raw. “How could you?”

He claps a gloved hand over my mouth. “Stop it,” he hisses insistently into my ear, but I continue to struggle, screaming into the glove, trying to bite him. I understand then that I’m done for; he’s overpowered me. But I can’t stop thrashing, can’t stop trying to fight, my body moving without my command as I writhe in his arms.
It can’t end like this. Please, please, if I can—

I look to my mother and it’s as though a bucket of cold water has been thrown over me. I stop struggling immediately, staring at her.

Her eyes are fixed on the flaking whitewash of the wall opposite the bed, and I see that he could kill me in front of her and she wouldn’t blink. He
will
kill me in front of her and she won’t raise a hand to stop him. And just like that, all of the fight goes out of me and I become limp in his arms.

He spins me round to face him, still holding my wrists in his long white fingers, his head tilted as his terrible golden eyes sear into mine. I start to tremble, my blood running cold.
I don’t want to die like this. Gods, please, I don’t want to die here, now. I don’t want this to be it. And Mama … I don’t want her to die like this.

I force myself to speak. To beg.

“Please let us go,” I say, my voice cracking. “I beg you. Please. I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I won’t say anything. Please let us go—” Then my control breaks and the words come out as a sob. “Please, please. Have mercy on us…” I’m shaking so hard now that I can’t speak; all my courage has left me. I’m afraid I’m going to wet myself; I’m afraid it’s going to hurt. I’m ashamed that I begged; Lief never would have. I can’t remember what you call a prince. “My Lord.” I try to bow as best I can. “Please, Your Grace…”

“What?” he says sharply, his words sounding as though they’re coming from far away. “What the hell, Errin?” Confusion colours his cheeks, suddenly making him look vulnerable, human. Then his face falls, and he blinks at me, once, twice, before letting go of me so fast that I stumble. Before I’ve had time to right myself and pick up my knife, he’s grabbed his cloak, flinging it angrily around his shoulders and pulling the hood up, covering his hair. I can still see his face, though. His eyes.

He glares at me fiercely, his golden eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “I’m not the Sleeping Prince, Errin.”

My chest heaves as I watch him, poised to move if he does, his words ringing in my ears until all the meaning is lost from them. My heart still beats triple time. I watch him warily.

“Gods…” His eyes are bright inside the rings of black, feverish. He looks … he looks distraught. “Really? You truly thought—?” He runs his hands through his hair, knocking the hood back, before his forefinger starts to tap his thumb, the motion so fast it blurs.

And that small, familiar movement takes the edge from my fear, making me feel ashamed, because it’s a gesture I know so well. It’s anxious, fretful, nervous, Silas. I’ve seen him do it dozens of times.

I know then that I want to believe him. I want this to be a simple misunderstanding. But I can’t believe him. Not yet. Not completely. Because there’s too much that doesn’t add up, and I’m still shaking, and my lungs are still pumping as though I’ve been running for miles.

My gut is still telling me to run.

I look at him – really look at him – at his strange eyes and his hair and his face. For three moons I’ve watched his lips, but now I can see the small bump in the bridge of his nose, his forehead, his white eyelashes and eyebrows. His hairline is a deep widow’s peak. His skin is an opaque white, not like flesh. I can’t see the veins beneath it; there are no impurities, no freckles or spots. No shadow on his jawline. His eyes are the colour of honey, liquid and amber, and I find myself caught in them.

“I’m not the Sleeping Prince,” he says again, jolting me from my thoughts.

“All right,” I say, after a long moment.

“Do you believe me?”

I can’t nod.

“Do you?” he demands.

“Be fair,” I say quietly. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you without the cloak. And you look… You must know what you look like. What would you think, in my place?”

He looks away from me and bites his lip before his eyes meet mine again. “I can explain, a little, at least. If you’ll hear me?”

I nod, and some of the tension leaves his eyes.

Until he looks me up and down.

“Why is there blood on you?” he asks in a strange voice.

I lift my hand to my ear, but the blood has dried. “Oh.” I try to keep my voice level. “I ran into some trouble, in the woods.” I look at him, watching for any sign that he knows something about it, that the men who attacked me might have even been there for him.

“When were you in the woods?”

“Now. I … I saw you there. A moment before I was attacked.”

He frowns and a line forms between his eyebrows. I watch as the shape of his eyes changes with it, and I realize I have no idea how to judge what he thinks from his face. I don’t know him at all.

He looks at my mother, who gives no indication she knows we’re there, and then grasps my elbow gently to lead me from the room. I flinch at the contact, and he lets go immediately, the corners of his mouth tightening. I follow him as he stalks out of the room, bending to pick my knife up first. He locks the door and nods at the bench, as though I’m the guest. My heart still thumps too hard as I turn my back on him, but I sit down and fold my hands in my lap, trying to look calm. By turn he looks anything but calm. His eyes rake over me, his fists clenching and unclenching by his side.

“What happened? Were you attacked?”

“No,” I tell him, raising a still-shaking hand and starting to pluck twigs and dead leaves from my hair. “You said you were going to explain. So explain. Let’s start with you telling me how you got in here. And why.”

He looks down. “The front door was open.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“It was once I’d opened it.” He attempts a smile but I keep my own expression stony, waiting.

When he says nothing, I rise, collecting a cloth from the washing line and the pipkin, the water inside cold. Carefully I begin to clean my bloodied ear. “You have about thirty seconds before I start screaming for the guards again.”

“I wanted to make sure she was all right,” he says quietly. “After yesterday.”

“Why?”

He ignores the question. “I wasn’t trying to intrude.”

“Entering a house that isn’t yours and then opening a locked door is the definition of intrusion,” I say. “So if you weren’t
trying
to intrude you should have left the door closed and not come in.”

He looks at me and nods. “I’m sorry.” His head lowers like a boy caught with his hand in the jam jar. In the wintry light his hair and skin glow, making him look like a ghost.

“What are you?” I ask without thinking.

“I’m not a ‘what’.” His head snaps up to look at me, his golden eyes flashing with outrage. “I’m a person, same as you. Not a thing. And not the Sleeping Prince.”

“Sorry,” I say, looking at the floor. “I’ve just … the only time I’ve ever seen anyone like you was in the stories about … him.” Sitting opposite the Sleeping Prince’s double makes it hard to say his name. “It’s different.”

“Not to me.”

“Well, it is to me,” I say. “Just … Silas, think about it. For three moons I had no idea what you looked like, no idea about you at all. You won’t tell me anything; I have no idea where you come from, or what you’re doing here. You both showed up at the exact same time, and until recently no one else knew you were here. You have unlimited money; you have secret tasks. And I saw you in the woods before I was attacked, Silas. You were there, minutes before. With someone. I saw you meet them and then I lost sight of you. Then I come back here and see your hair, and your eyes. Can you blame me for what I thought?”

Silas looks at me and shrugs, before shaking his head.

“My family is originally Tallithi, generations back,” he says quietly, his voice oddly bitter. If I didn’t know any better I’d think I’d hurt him. “I inherited my astonishing good looks from them. Moon hair, the Godseye. That’s what they call it, in Lormere. Tallithi features, you can look them up in any of the history books. It’s less common to see someone with one or both now, I’ll grant you that. But it’s because we stay out of the way. We’re conspicuous enough as it is.” He crosses his long legs like a schoolboy and rests his elbows on his knees. “Obviously, since the Sleeping Prince’s return, it’s essential for me to keep my appearance hidden. People might overreact.”

I swallow, my skin heating, and the two of us fall silent. I lower my head and look at him subtly through my lashes, trying to reconcile the man I’ve known for the last three moons with the one before me now. He’s absolutely not what I expected him to be and it makes me feel embarrassed. I look up to see him watching me closely in return, as though I’ve caused the new dynamic in the room, not him.

“What are you thinking?” His words startle me.

“I just… You’re not how I imagined you.”

He reddens and says “Oh” in a way that makes me blush too.

“What’s the black stuff for, around your eyes?” I ask hurriedly, trying to brush past the odd moment.

“It helps keep them shadowed. In case anyone came close enough to peer up there.”

I feel my skin heating again. “Of course.” We lapse back into an awkward silence, him toying with the fingers of his gloves, me looking anywhere but at him.

“What about your family?” I ask him. “Are they… Do they look like you? I just… It’d be good to know, in case I bump into anyone else like – I mean – with your colouring.”

He looks down into his lap, his hands fidgeting before he speaks, his voice measured. “Well, my father’s dead. He had an accident while working.” There’s the briefest of pauses between his words, and I feel my eyes widen with the realization that we share this common sadness. “My mother lives with a group of women near the East Mountains. I lived with her, until recently. Then I came here.”

“From Lormere?”

“Yes.” He looks away, and then back at me. “I left before the Sleeping Prince arrived.” I hear an edge to his voice.

“You don’t have a Lormerian accent.”

“If I had it might have saved you thinking I was that … thing.” He looks at me sharply and then looks away.

“You don’t get to be cross with me, Silas. It’s not fair. You know it isn’t.”

He nods.

“Is your mother safe, in Lormere?” I ask after a moment.

“Yes, she’s fine. They all are. Thankfully the temple they live in is remote, and well hidden.”

“She lives in a temple? Is she … Has she taken orders?” He blinks and then nods hesitantly, and Kirin’s terrible words about what the Sleeping Prince is doing to the holy people come back to me. “Oh Gods, Silas. You have to get her out of there.”

“She … can’t leave yet.” He looks down at his hands. “She’s fine, though. The person I met earlier was a messenger from her.”

“Silas, this is serious. If he – if the Sleeping Prince finds them, he’ll… He shows no mercy.”

“She’s bound to the temple, Errin. She can’t leave.” I open my mouth to speak but he interrupts. “I know, Errin. Believe me, I know what he’s doing there. But … she has a job to do. There are things that need to be moved from the temple before he has chance to destroy it. It’s important.”

“Things? Things that are more important than her life?”

“She would say so, yes. Records. History.”

I shake my head. I know it’s common in Lormere for widows to join convents, but he has to understand the danger of it now. This is his mother, for the love of the Oak. Nothing in the temple can be worth what the Sleeping Prince will do to them if he finds them.

“Silas—”

“It’s why I’m here. This is my link in the chain. I’m helping her get the artefacts and documents over the border while we still can.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I say. “Are all of you insane? What if you were caught skulking around? What if someone saw you without the cloak? They would think exactly what I did. No artefacts are worth this – the risk is too great – can’t you see that?”

“It’s less risky for me to be here than it would have been to stay there. Trust me.” He bites his lip as soon as the words have left his mouth, and looks away again.