“I’ve witnessed your power over the Crasii plenty of times, Jaxyn. I’m even moderately impressed by it. Does that make you feel better?”
He smiled. “I think you need a demonstration.”
“You can make them jump through hoops, I get it.”
“Who’s your favourite?”
“What?”
“There’s a score of Crasii here with us and you know most of them by name. Which one do you like the most?”
She shivered, hoping it was the icy darkness that made her shudder. “That’s an absurd question.”
“Very well, which one is the most loyal? Which one would you trust with your life?”
Arkady didn’t want to play this game but she was fairly certain there was no way to avoid it. “Chelby, I suppose.”
“The canine? He’s your best tracker, isn’t he?”
“You know that. It’s why you brought him along, isn’t it?”
“Be it on your own head then,” Jaxyn said, rather ominously. He turned and called over his shoulder, “Chelby! Come!”
Obedient as ever, the canine hurried across their small camp to the fire. “My lord?”
Jaxyn withdrew the knife he carried from his belt. The knife he’d used to mutilate Cayal—not to kill him, so much, as slow him down, Arkady realised now. He held the knife out to Chelby, who accepted it with a puzzled look.
“Sire?”
“Cut your throat,” Jaxyn ordered calmly.
The canine blinked, but made no objection.
“No!” Arkady cried, leaping to her feet.
Chelby looked at her, his eyes glistening, shaking his head, but he didn’t even hesitate before raising the knife. Around them, the felines stopped to watch, every one of them staring at the canine with dark, questioning eyes. Chelby was visibly distressed by Jaxyn’s command, yet inexorably, his hand was moving upwards, the knife getting closer and closer to his throat.
“Jaxyn, stop this!”
“You wanted proof, didn’t you?”
“You can’t do this! Make it stop!”
Jaxyn watched her closely, apparently amused by her distress. The knife Chelby held was pressing against his throat, a bead of blood already forming around the tip.
“Tell you what, I’ll stop him, if you’ll make a deal with me.”
“Whatever you want! Just stop it! Now!”
Jaxyn studied her for a moment longer and then turned to the canine. “Halt.”
With a great deal of relief, Chelby dropped the knife. He was visibly shaking, his ears flat against his head, his tail hanging limply between his legs, and obviously in a great deal of distress.
“What deal?” she demanded, wishing she could comfort the poor creature, but she suspected any sympathy on her part toward the Crasii would just make it harder on them.
“I’ll not tell your husband you were a willing accomplice to Cayal’s escape, if you don’t say anything about who I am.”
“What would be the point of making a promise like that? As you said, if I tell Stellan you’re a Tide Lord, he’ll just think I’m crazy.”
“On the off-chance he actually thinks you’re not, I’d like to cover myself. As you say, it doesn’t suit me to rock the boat just yet.”
“Do you truly have your eye on Glaeba’s throne?” she asked. “Is that why you singled Stellan out? What were you planning, Jaxyn, to kill the other heirs ahead of Stellan and rule through him?”
“More or less.” He shrugged. “Of course, things are a little different now. I’ve realised there are other ways to the throne besides through your husband. They may even prove quicker. I can navigate the corridors of power without magical help, you know.”
She glared at him suspiciously across the fire. “What are you up to, Jaxyn?”
He smiled. “As if you didn’t already know! Weren’t you listening in while Cayal and I were discussing my evil plans for Glaeba?”
“You actually have an evil plan, then? How foresighted of you.”
“You can mock me all you want, Arkady,” he told her, scooping the knife Chelby had discarded off the ground. “Sooner or later, you’ll be kneeling at my feet, begging for my mercy, remembering there was a time when I was actually willing to give it, and you rejected me.”
He turned his back on her but had only taken two steps before she called him back. “Jaxyn!”
“Your grace?” he enquired, looking over his shoulder.
“I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” he demanded as he turned to face her again, making sure he was extracting the promise he wanted.
“Keep your confidence. For now.” He looked so smug Arkady wanted to throw something at him. “I’m not doing this for you, idiot. Stellan loves you, although I can’t for the life of me imagine why. It would destroy him to learn you were using him to gain the throne. The idea that by inviting you into his home, by trusting you…he might well have betrayed his king…it would probably kill him faster than the realisation he was conned by an immoral, ruthless killer with no scruples about sleeping his way to power.”
Jaxyn beamed at her as if she’d paid him a huge compliment. “My, you have been talking to Cayal, haven’t you?”
“Well? Do we have a deal?”
“Indeed we do, your grace.”
“Then let that be the end of it,” she agreed. “For now.”
He eyed her up and down suggestively. “Not interested in sealing our pact with a kiss?”
Arkady squared her shoulders, glaring at him across the fire. “Don’t push me, Jaxyn.”
“Push you?” he laughed. “You’re threatening me? Tides, but you’ve got balls, Arkady.”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “I believe you were the one who said he didn’t want to rock the boat? I may not be able to stop you in the long run, but trust me, I can capsize your cosy little rowboat for you now, Jaxyn, and long before you get a chance to navigate anywhere near the halls of power you seem so fond of.”
He studied her for a moment in the firelight, and then, somewhat to Arkady’s surprise, he bowed in acknowledgement of her power—however fleeting—over him.
“Then we have a truce, Arkady. For the time being.”
“For the time being,” she agreed, with a bad feeling that, far from helping her cause, she had just made a pact with the devil.
“Don’t even think of crossing me,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He studied her for a moment and then shook his head ruefully. “Actually, I suspect you’ll be dreaming of little else,” he concluded. “Maybe you do need reminding about what I can do, after all.”
Before she could stop him, Jaxyn turned on Chelby. He handed the knife back to the canine, hilt first, with a brusque command. “Do it. Now.”
Without hesitating, without a single objection, Chelby accepted the knife and—despite the anguish in the young canine’s eyes—with a single sweep of his arm he slashed himself across the throat. Blood sprayed both Jaxyn and Arkady as Chelby fell. Arkady screamed, stumbling backwards, soaked in the blood of the dead Crasii.
Even worse, the felines stood and watched as if frozen in place.
Jaxyn flinched distastefully and stepped back as Chelby lay twitching on the ground, his anguished eyes staring up at them as he silently bled to death at her feet. The immortal turned to Arkady. She had fallen to her knees, sickened by what she’d seen, numb at the thought of what it meant.
“Now,” Jaxyn predicted with satisfaction, “you begin to understand.”
Chapter 65
Three days after the King and Queen of Glaeba and their entourage left for their own palace in Herino with Mathu and Kylia in tow, Declan Hawkes formally requested an audience with the Duke of Lebec. Although he remained outwardly calm, Stellan was panic-stricken by the request. There was only one reason Stellan could think of that would attract the attention of the King’s Spymaster. Guilt about the lies he’d told, the lies he’d arranged for Tilly to tell…all of it had settled into an
uncomfortable lump in the centre of his chest that simply refused to go away.
There was no possibility he could deny the King’s Spymaster an audience. Any attempt to delay it, the slightest hint that the Duke of Lebec had something to hide, may be all that was needed to throw suspicion on himself. Declan might have no solid evidence at all of Stellan’s guilt. Any attempt to avoid him, however, could easily be the proof the spymaster was looking for to implicate the duke in all manner of treasonous activities, ranging from his affair with Jaxyn right up to lying about the whereabouts of his wife and concealing the fact that she had forged the release papers for a convicted murderer.
Hawkes stepped into his office at the appointed time, looking around at the murals with interest. Stellan indicated he should sit and took his own seat behind his desk, laying his palms flat upon the polished desktop so that Declan wouldn’t see them shaking.
“Interesting room, I’ve always thought,” the young man remarked, making himself comfortable in one of the ivory-legged chairs. “Artwork’s quite impressive.”
“My great-grandmother had the murals done long before I was born,” Stellan explained, relieved to be talking about something harmless. “The artist was quite a character, I hear. Used to have tantrums and run screaming through the place claiming he couldn’t possibly work under such trying conditions. According to my father, they ended up locking him in here and refusing to let him out until the job was done.”
Declan smiled. “It’s a good story. Do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “There’s probably a grain of truth there somewhere.”
“Lot of myths are like that.”
“Do you think so?” Stellan asked, not sure of the purpose of the discussion. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that Declan was making idle conversation.
“I know so,” Declan chuckled, and then he sobered a little. “Dangerous things though.”
“Myths?”
“Aye. They make people forget.”
“I would have thought their purpose quite the opposite,” Stellan disagreed. “Aren’t myths the reminder of things we shouldn’t forget?”
“You’re confusing myths with morality tales,” Declan told him. “They’re the parables you want to pass on to your children. You know…it’s bad to steal, lying will bring you nothing but trouble, you’ll get devoured by hairy spiders if you don’t eat all your vegetables…that sort of thing.”
“I remember the hairy spider tale,” Stellan laughed. “When I was a small child, I had a Crasii nanny with a knack for storytelling. First time I refused to eat my vegetables, she had me too scared to sleep.”
“Well, I never had a Crasii nanny, but I grew up quite convinced there was a family of tiny assassins living under the floorboards, ready to scuttle out in the dead of night while I was asleep and do me in if I so much as thought about sneaking out the window of my bedroom.”
“Your grandfather told you that?” Stellan asked in surprise. Although he’d never met Shalimar Hawkes, to hear Arkady speak of him, Stellan had always thought the old man a candidate for sainthood.
Declan smiled at Stellan’s expression. “I was a bit of a handful, back then. I think Pop decided scaring me into staying put was the most expedient way to get a good night’s sleep.”
“I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything, Declan.”
“Ask Arkady, if you don’t believe me,” he suggested. The spymaster seemed amused. And far more relaxed than Stellan was expecting. “Even now, memories of those tiny assassins will do me in, every time.”
“I’ll have to remember that the next time I want to intimidate the King’s Spymaster.” The pleasant, nonthreatening nature of their conversation was straining Stellan to breaking point. Declan did nothing without cause. He certainly wasn’t the sort to indulge in this kind of idle chatter.
“Now myths are another thing altogether,” Declan mused. “They’re the stories we don’t believe are true because they seem too fantastic to be real.”
“Did you have a particular myth in mind?”
“The Tide Lords are a good example,” Declan replied, and then he added calmly, “and there’s a particularly good one I heard recently about a duchess letting a murderer go free.”
Stellan stared at Declan trying to determine if the man was fishing for information or if he actually knew something. If he suspected anything at all, a lie now might be fatal.
But if the spymaster was only guessing…
Stellan couldn’t risk it. He swallowed the lump in his throat and shrugged. “Things are not always what they seem.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“You want an explanation, I suppose?”
“Let’s start with the facts,” Declan suggested. “Arkady isn’t upstairs resting as you and Lady Ponting assured the king, is she?”
Fighting to keep an outward air of calm, Stellan hesitated and then decided that for once, he’d be better served by the truth. Or at least part of it. “No, she’s not.”
“So she’s not pregnant then, either?”
“She may be. I haven’t asked her recently.”
“And the prisoner she had released from Lebec Prison with your authorisation? Where is he?”
“If I’m lucky, he’s wherever Arkady is, she is still alive and he’ll let her go when he no longer feels threatened.”
Declan seemed a little surprised. “You mean you knew about this?”
Stellan raised a brow at Declan. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“His release was more than a little irregular, your grace.”
“It was a little irregular,” Stellan agreed. “But you know Arkady better than anyone. She was convinced she was close to exposing him. When the king ordered him to be handed over to you, she begged me for one last chance to question him. I saw no harm in it, so I sent her to the prison with a release order and a Crasii escort, so that she could question him on the return journey, before handing the prisoner over to you. They stopped to water the horses at Clyden’s Inn and the prisoner escaped, taking Arkady hostage and somehow subverting the escort. As soon as I learned about it, I sent Jaxyn Aranville and another dozen Crasii after them. If you don’t believe me, speak to the owner of Clyden’s Inn.”
“I already have,” the spymaster admitted.
Almost faint with relief that he’d chosen to tell most of the truth, Stellan shrugged. “What more can I tell you?”
“You can tell me why you lied to the king about Arkady.”
That charge was much harder to dodge, but Stellan hadn’t entirely wasted the time since Declan asked to see him just fretting about it. He had his answer at the ready; didn’t even hesitate before providing it. “I’m surprised you have to ask,” he said with a smile that spoke much about what he thought of the spymaster’s reputation. “You must be aware I have arranged for Mathu to marry my niece. There have been some very delicate negotiations going on between me and the king. I wasn’t about to jeopardise them by letting him know I’d done anything as foolish as putting my own wife in the power of a madman. The king gets distracted easily, Declan. You know that. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the betrothal.”
Declan nodded, apparently accepting his explanation as a perfectly legitimate reason, which, for any other noble family in Glaeba, it probably was. Fortunately, only Arkady had any idea Stellan wasn’t happy about Kylia’s engagement.
“Do you need help finding her?” he offered.
“Thank you, but I’m still hoping Jaxyn will prevail. He’s a resourceful lad, knows the area quite well and is very fond of Arkady. I’m sure he won’t rest until he’s brought her home.”
“And what of Kyle Lakesh?”
“Lord Aranville has orders to take whatever actions are necessary to rescue Arkady. If that includes killing an escaped convict, then so be it.”
“I admire your restraint, your grace,” Declan remarked, watching him closely. “I think—in your place—I’d
be climbing the walls with worry.”
“If only I had the luxury,” Stellan replied. “It’s considered weakness among the highborn to display emotional extremes, you know. The idea is drummed into us from infancy. Apparently, letting on that we own even the most basic human feelings makes us appear weak in front of the peasants.”
“Then I’m glad I’m a simple peasant,” the spymaster said. “Not sure I’ve the courage to maintain a stiff upper lip.”
“I’m not sure any of us have,” Stellan agreed. “One just has to learn to fake it.”
“And how much faking are you doing, your grace?” Declan enquired.
The lump in Stellan’s chest relocated itself in his throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“You lied to the king about your wife. You’ve lied about her being pregnant, which means you’re going to have to lie to him again when her belly fails to swell. Seems to me, you’re pretty good at this game. Makes a man start to wonder where you got the practice.”
“I don’t like what you’re implying, sir.”
“Any more than I like what I’m seeing here,” the spymaster replied. “In my experience, where there’s one lie, there’s a whole raft of others beneath it and it’s my job to bring such lies to the attention of the king, not to mention the fact you are married to a woman I consider one of my closest friends. If there’s something going on here, that jeopardises either one of them…well, I’m sure you can see my dilemma.”
“If you’re trying to insinuate that I’m somehow involved in some plot against the king…,” he sputtered with convincing indignation.
Declan held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m insinuating nothing of the sort. I’m just concerned, that’s all. You’re an important man, Duke Stellan, a close friend—and relative—of the king. I find it disturbing to think you might be involved in deceiving him. For whatever reason. A man can lie to his liege for purposes other than treason, you know.”
Stellan felt the blood drain from his face, certain there was no way Declan Hawkes could miss such a blatant sign of his guilt. Did he know everything? About Jaxyn? About the others before him? About the sham of his marriage to Arkady? Had she told him? And if she had, why wait until now before saying anything about it?
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