The Princess of Sorrows
Jenna Waterford
Copyright Jenna Waterford 2014
THE PRINCESS OF SORROWS
by Jenna Waterford
The Princess of Sorrows
Copyright © 2014 by Jenna Waterford
All rights reserved.
Cover design: CanaryNoir
Photo credit: Poprugin Aleksey/Shutterstock.com
No part of this book may be used, stored, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-131-007739-5
First edition
THE PRINCESS OF SORROWS
“Your father, my lady, is dead.” The sorrow in Usían’s eyes belied the impassivity of his words, and Karon almost drew him down to sit beside her and her First Born so he could share fully in her grief.
But there is no time for grief, Karon told herself, not realizing she’d gripped Clare’s hand too hard until the boy’s pain hissed unwillingly through his lips.
“Love, I’m sorry.” She smoothed her son’s aching fingers as if she were petting a cat.
Clare’s eyes brimmed with tears he would not shed, and Karon took courage from the boy’s strength. She pushed herself up from the chaise with difficulty, pretending the weight of her seventh pregnancy rather than sorrow made her clumsy.
Usían followed her to the window. “It is early, lady, but the snows have gone.”
Karon saw the offer hidden within her kinsman’s words and accepted it with a slight inclination of her head. “Go. My brothers must have their orders, else we won’t be prepared when my husband makes his move.”
Her brothers would see to it that this news took its time reaching her husband Toin’s ears. They would give no aid to the man whose marriage treaty had held Karon captive to their father’s naïve hopes for peace for so many years.
Three nights later, Toin’s excited restlessness told Karon he’d at last learned the news, though she wondered if her husband’s twitching might have another cause: Taggart, his pet waerlok, had killed very recently and had dared to take his place at the high table still reeking of blood, with the tang of stolen power and burnt air coming off of him like a lightning strike’s leavings.
Karon suspected Taggart’s flagrant disregard for the dignity of the high table was meant to slight her. The waerlok knew she detested him and took every opportunity to flaunt his power. She suppressed a glare and looked away from Toin, whose indulgence allowed Taggart and his bloodthirsty apprentices to hunt down the harmless Danae. Feeling the weight of this injustice on her shoulders, Karon whispered a prayer to the Twin Gods for the waerlok’s victim, only the latest innocent she’d failed to save in this gods-less place.
This waerlok-riddled place.
Toin’s short-cropped hair stood on end, showing signs of how often his hands had rubbed their way through it. His eyes twinkled with secret mischief, but he seemed determined to wait for the end of the meal—as tense as a hunting cat all the while—before addressing his men.
Karon watched Toin through her lashes as she kept her eyes downcast, feigning the dull-wittedness these SanEdora tribesmen preferred in their women. Stupid, giggling, useless things who wouldn’t know a sword’s hilt from its blade.
Karon caught Taggart’s avid gaze straying to her sister-in-law Larel’s eldest, Síle. The wispy little chit had been promised to the blood-stained waerlok as a prize, though she’d barely reached her fourteenth year. Toin’s plans for an elaborate ceremony had taken over much of the servants’ time this moon. Though this distraction served Karon’s plans, she still pitied the child her fate.
At last, Toin cleared his throat and stood to call everyone’s attention. “A rider from SanSerath arrived this morn bringing sad news.” The murmur of voices faded from the hall. “My dear wife’s father, Dekon, prince of the SanSerath, has gone to the gods.”
Noise roared up from the men of the hall and even the women’s whispers hissed more loudly than usual. Karon sat frozen. Now the words had been spoken. Now it was real. I need to go home... I want to go home.
“Dear wife.” The lilt in Toin’s voice and the snap in his eyes told Karon his patience was as false as his concern. “All of SanEdora share your Sorrows this day.”
Karon frowned at him, confused. Had he really just said that to her? Was he truly mocking her at this moment? She had not thought Toin would stoop so low.
At a loss for how to reply without starting a battle she was not yet prepared for, Karon said nothing. After a long, awkward silence, Toin coughed out a laugh and turned back to the crowd.
“Have you ever seen such a wonder?” He waved a hand toward her. “A woman with naught to say!”
Karon schooled her face, striving to maintain her accustomed impassivity. A single blink betrayed her fury, but she breathed in through her nose to calm her mind and banish thoughts of the seven different ways she could use her husband’s outstretched arm to make him howl for mercy. Her warrior skills, too, remained her secret.
“Sweet Karon.” Toin wheedled as if they were discussing some little favor he wished of her. “You must have something to say to this news?”
“You tell me of my father’s death, dear husband,” Karon said in the soft, breathy voice she used to make the SanEdora men think her as weak as their own broken females. None had ever heard her true voice. “I do not know what to say to this, but I pray the gods carry him to their country.”
SanEdora’s disregard for the gods’ laws still surprised her, though she’d had many years of living with Toin’s blasphemy to grow used to it. His pretended pity barely concealed mockery, but when he ventured, “Another Sorrow to add to your basket, my princess?” his scorn could not be mistaken.
Hers was not the only indrawn breath hissing around the room at these words. To show such contempt for my goddess-gifted title...
Karon did not otherwise react. She clasped her hands over her belly to smooth fingers clenched and longing to beat the smile from his face and murmured, “As you say.”
Toin threw back his head and laughed the forced, hearty guffaw he gave when things were not going as he wished them to. “Princess of Sorrows!” he jeered. The crowded hall shifted and roiled like waves in stormy waters. Two or three men gave barks of uncomfortable laughter. The few servants threading their ways through the crowd, carrying platters and fetching for the guests, scurried back to the kitchen to escape the sacrilege.
Karon felt oddly heartened to see that no one but Toin appeared to find this game amusing. She almost pitied her husband. He always did foolish things when he felt weak and stupid. “So I am called, husband, thanks be to Vail.”
“Look at me when I’m speaking!” His tone changed from forced merriment to fury, startling Karon. She bolted to her feet, a reflex of her years of training to be ready to face any enemy standing.
Her eyes met Toin’s wild, almost panicked stare, and her chin jutted in a preemptive flinch as his hand flew out, the palm catching the side of her face. He did not strike her hard, for she moved with the blow. Still, he struck her forcefully enough to bring stars to dance at the edges of her vision. Flecks of spittle beaded her cheek and Toin’s stinking breath choked her as he screamed, his face almost against hers, “First Born of the First Born! You think to rule your tribe, my lady? Do you?”
Silence followed Toin’s question, and Karon thought, They must all long to hear my answer. She felt herself trembling but allowed her body its rage since she knew it would be seen as fear. “It i
s the law of the gods, husband.” A glint of the steel that was her true voice cut through her pretense of weakness. A murmur that might have been approval ran through the crowd. “I am my father’s heir.”
Foolish enough to think he’d won some sort of power from striking her, Toin laughed at her words. His attention shifted to his waerlok, and Taggart stood to address the crowd.
“Though we mourn your loss, my princess, the death of Prince Dekon is the beginning of a new era for SanEdora.” Taggart turned his broken-toothed smile fully on Karon, seeming to savor the moment as he would a kill. “No one has seen a god in years. They are dead, my dear lady, and your SanSerath are no more.”
A loud chorus of gasps sounded from all around the room, the shock palpable as the waerlok spoke his blasphemies. Taggart’s smile twisted with satisfaction. “All the law you need know is that Prince Toin is your husband. All that was yours became his the moment you wed.”
Feigning a boredom his glittering eyes belied, Toin waved Taggart back to his seat and turned to Karon once more. “Go. Make your prayers and watch-fires to honor your father.”
Karon staggered away a step, shuddering slightly as she held herself back once more—but not for much longer, so the gods will it—before turning to stumble out of the hall. The look on Taggart’s face as she passed him made her clutch at her stomach protectively.
Clare stood waiting to catch her, a long lock of blackest-night hair hanging over one glaring eye. He wrapped a thin arm around her waist, and, as always, his sturdiness surprised Karon when he managed to steady her.
The gallery’s draftiness made for a welcome change from the close hall, and Karon took a long breath to regain her composure. Clare searched her face and relaxed a little when he saw she was not badly hurt.
“I hate him, Mother,” the boy whispered. His high, childish voice should never have wanted to say such a thing about his father, but Toin had raised his son as he had been raised—ignored, belittled, cuffed, and humiliated. Unlike Toin, Clare had seen the cruelty as his father’s weakness, not his own, and had never been goaded by rejection into begging for its opposite.
“Let’s go see the children,” Karon said. “I must say good-eve to the twins, else they won’t sleep.”
She and Clare moved along the walk built to allow passage amongst the buildings while keeping the trailing skirts and furs free of the ever-present muck the rainy climate created, and Clare tripped on an uneven plank. Karon caught him before he tumbled into the mud. The boy blushed a burning pink, his pale skin so like her own; the color seemed even brighter in the gray light of the waning late-winter day.
“I’m meant to catch you!” His voice trembled with tears or fury—she didn’t know which.
“You do, my love,” Karon said, her hand tightening on his shoulder. “I’ve yet to fall.”