The Gods of Amyrantha

by Jennifer Fallon

  Far from complaining about it, Kylia actually encouraged him, making noises about how a good wife would never stand in the way of her husband enjoying time out with his friends. Warlock suspected her tolerance was inspired by impatience with her immature young husband, rather than any desire to be an understanding wife. For a woman as old as Diala, with her tastes and experience, Mathu must have seemed a trying prospect, indeed.

  Not quite as cavalier as Diala regarding the dedication of all Crasii slaves, Jaxyn had made himself known to Warlock within days of his arrival, to ensure the Crasii would do what his companion had not bothered to ask. As Warlock was taking a tray back to the kitchens from the royal apartments one evening, about three days after he’d joined the royal household, the Tide Lord had cornered him in a quiet hallway.

  He’d glanced up and down the hall to be sure they were alone and then stepped so close to Warlock the big Crasii was forced back against the wall.

  “Do you know what…and who…I am, Cecil?” Fearful Jaxyn might remember the name Warlock from Arkady Desean’s anecdotes around the dining room table in Lebec Palace while she’d been interrogating Cayal, he’d agreed to be known as Cecil while spying for the Cabal. Hearing Jaxyn call him by that name just made Warlock hate it even more.

  The question was asked with quiet menace, Jaxyn’s eyes boring into Warlock’s as though they, and not the returning Tide, were the source of his power. Although he was taller than the Tide Lord, at that moment, Warlock didn’t feel like it.

  “To serve you is the reason I breathe,” Warlock had replied. Then he’d added for good measure: “My lord.”

  He didn’t try to hide his terror. Jaxyn not only sensed it, he probably expected it.

  “Then you understand my presence here is a secret until I choose to make it otherwise?”

  “I assumed as much, my lord,” he agreed, “when I noticed nobody showing you or your companion the respect you truly deserve.”

  Warlock had no idea why he’d tempted fate so blatantly with that reply. When he thought about it afterward, he realised he’d been behaving as if he wanted the immortals to know they had no power over this particular Crasii, even though he knew the knowledge would kill him.

  Fortunately, Jaxyn seemed oblivious to the irony in Warlock’s tone. “You will say nothing until I command it,” he’d ordered. “About me or the Lady Diala.”

  “To serve you both is the reason I breathe, my lord,” Warlock assured him solemnly, while noting that Jaxyn had, in his arrogance, given away the identity of his immortal companion. “I will await your command.”

  Jaxyn had studied him closely for a few moments longer, as if trying to decide how genuine Warlock’s subservience was, before stepping back to let the slave continue on his way.

  With admirable calm, his heart pounding in his chest so loudly it was a wonder Jaxyn couldn’t hear it thumping, Warlock had walked back along the hall, only just beginning to realise how dangerous a game he had been coopted into.

  The immortals were biding their time—even without Jaxyn admitting as much to him, Warlock knew that—waiting for the Tide to return sufficiently so their powers were unassailable. They were old hands at this. The immortals knew the perils of making their move too soon. It might take the Tide years to return fully. In the meantime, they were prepared to play a waiting game.

  Jaxyn and Diala had designs on the Glaeban throne. That was a given.

  All that remained was to discover exactly how they intended to go about taking it and then he could go home to Boots and be there when his pups were born.

  Warlock agonised over the Tide Lords’ intentions every time he was forced to spend time in their company, fearing it would take too long to discover their plans, or that they were so complex and devious, Declan Hawkes would keep finding reasons to delay his return to Hidden Valley. This morning was particularly trying and a complete waste of time. He wasn’t learning anything useful. He was playing fetch for Diala—or rather Princess Kylia, he reminded himself—in the gardens below the palace bordering the lake, during her game of malletball with Jaxyn and Queen Inala.

  Malletball involved players trying to hit a wooden ball through a series of wooden arches set into the lawn in a very specific sequence. The player who managed to get their balls through the course in the fewest number of hits was the winner, but one could score extra points by knocking an opponent’s ball out of the way. This was Kylia’s favoured tactic, and one she frequently misjudged, which meant the ball often went wildly off course. Every time it happened she would laugh delightedly, turn to Warlock, point in the direction of the ball and say, “Fetch, Cecil, fetch!”

  As Crasii were supposed to consider it an honour to be singled out by a suzerain, rather than an insult, Warlock had no choice but to hurry eagerly after the ball and retrieve it for his mistress, placing in on the ground by her feet, his tail wagging, all but panting for her approval, giving the impression he hungered for nothing more than a pat or a kind word from her.

  In truth, Warlock wanted to tear her throat out with his teeth.

  It wouldn’t have killed her, he knew that, but it certainly would have made him feel better in the thirty or so seconds he’d have to live after attacking a member of the royal family before the felines of the royal guard cut him down.

  Warlock lost count of how many times he’d played “fetch” by the time Prince Mathu arrived. The young man was looking bleary-eyed and more than a little worse for wear, squinting in the bright summer sunlight reflecting off the raindrops glistening on the grass from an earlier rain shower. Kylia thrust her mallet at Warlock and ran to him, the moment she spied her husband, leaving the Crasii standing there fantasising about how it would feel to crush a suzerain’s skull with it.

  “Mathu! You’re up!” She stood on her toes, kissed his check and beamed at him. “Good morning, my love.”

  “And about time, I would have said,” Queen Inala remarked with a disapproving frown. The king might not be aware of Mathu’s nighttime forays into the city, but it seemed Queen Inala wasn’t so ill-informed.

  “Good morning, Mother,” Mathu replied over the top of Kylia’s head. He kissed his wife on the mouth and then turned to Jaxyn. “I see you’re out and about early, Lord Aranville. I’m impressed.”

  “Never was one for lying in late,” Jaxyn said with a laugh. “Life’s too short to waste it sleeping.”

  Life’s too short, Warlock echoed silently, trusting in the human inability to read Crasii facial expression to hide his scorn. By all accounts, Jaxyn was the better part of nine thousand years old. To hear him mocking mortality so openly made Warlock grip the handle of the mallet tighter. The urge to hit something immortal with it was proving almost too hard to resist.

  “Pity my son doesn’t seem to share your enthusiasm for life, Lord Aranville,” the queen remarked with a frown. “How late were you out last night, Mathu?”

  “Don’t know.” The prince shrugged.

  “Oh, Mother!” Kylia said with a laugh. “Don’t pick on him! Mathu’s allowed a little fun, isn’t he? Once he’s a father, he’ll have to be quite boringly responsible.”

  “She has a point, your majesty,” Jaxyn added. “You shouldn’t blame him for wanting a little freedom now.”

  “Once he’s a father?” the queen repeated with a raised brow. “Is there an announcement you’re planning to make, Mathu?”

  Mathu looked down at Kylia in surprise. “I don’t know, is there?”

  “Not yet,” the young princess replied with a coy smile. “But we’ve been practising a lot, so maybe soon…”

  As Warlock watched the humans talking among themselves as if the Crasii wasn’t even there, he was struck by how easily the immortals lied, how easily they were able to slip into the skins of their stolen identities. They never once hesitated, never once faltered. Had Warlock not known every word coming out of Jaxyn’s and Diala’s mouths was false, he would have been just as fooled as were the queen and Prince Mathu.

/>   I have to get a message to Declan Hawkes, he reminded himself, as Kylia flirted with Mathu and Jaxyn needled the queen for entertainment.

  Since Jaxyn had confirmed the identity of the female immortal impersonating Princess Kylia, Warlock had not had an opportunity to pass the message along. He’d barely stopped working, in fact, and time off was not something one bothered to award their slaves unless they were sick.

  Warlock gripped the mallet handle wistfully, wondering if he could arrange to get a message to the spymaster the next time he was sent to the kitchens. Or maybe he’d run into Tiji. There were no other Scards he knew of in the palace, and he was fairly certain it was because there weren’t any other Scards, not that he was being kept ignorant of their identities. Scards were rare; that’s what made him and Boots so valuable to the Cabal.

  If Declan Hawkes had access to more Scards, Warlock reasoned, he’d have the palace riddled with them.

  And maybe I’d be allowed to go home to Boots.

  It was all just speculation, though, so Warlock stood there on the damp grass, waiting for the humans to resume their game, imagining he had some power to save the world from the devastation these Tide Lords would bring down upon his world once their powers returned.

  And trying to convince himself that even if he couldn’t stop them, perhaps the Cabal of the Tarot had something up their sleeve; some way of preventing these amoral, unfeeling monsters from once again destroying Amyrantha.

  When that proved to be too depressing, he tried to cheer himself up by imagining what his pups might look like when they were born.

  Chapter 16

  It wasn’t often that Tilly Ponting came to Herino to visit Declan. Although she kept a house in the capital, it was used mostly by her son, Aleki, when he was in town for various business reasons relating to his estate.

  The wedding of the Duke of Lebec’s niece to the Crown Prince of Glaeba had been sufficient incentive to bring her south from her home in Lebec, but as a rule, if one wanted to see Lady Ponting, one expected to visit her, not the other way around.

  When Declan received her summons—as any request to visit the Guardian of the Lore invariably was—he was still debating which was more important: Visiting Caelum in the north to see for himself if the Empress of the Five Realms and her dangerous Tide Lord offspring were making themselves at home there. Or dropping everything to travel south to Torlenia to warn Arkady that in all likelihood her new best friend, the Imperator’s Consort, was the immortal Kinta in disguise.

  Despite how often he denied it to Tiji, the chameleon Crasii had read him far too well. No matter how logical it might be to head north to Caelum, he desperately wanted to go to Arkady. Declan had let her down once before, when they were children. He didn’t intend to let it happen a second time.

  Tilly’s unexpected arrival, he hoped, would make his decision easier. She was the Guardian of the Lore, the Head of the Pentangle and therefore the head of the Cabal of the Tarot. There was nobody better placed to advise him about the wisest course of action, and Declan knew he needed her counsel.

  “I need you to find your grandfather for me,” Tilly told him, once the pleasantries were dispensed with. It was very late—the same day of her summons—but that had more to do with Declan’s schedule as spymaster than any deliberate attempt on his part to act in a clandestine manner. He’d arrived by an anonymous hired cab which waited out front, even now. The driver didn’t mind the wait. He didn’t know who Declan was but he knew the sound of a heavy purse when he heard one and in this quiet, exclusive neighbourhood, he was safe enough dozing in his seat, waiting for his customer. Declan had smiled as the cabbie settled down to wait, obviously convinced his passenger had an amorous assignation planned with the lady of the house.

  All thoughts of what his driver might be imagining fled at Tilly’s announcement, which she made as she led her late-night guest into the parlour, where the fitful light of a single candelabrum on the table cast dancing shadows over the room, shrouding the detail of the furnishings in darkness and making the old lady appear quite sinister.

  Declan gazed at her in confusion. “I wasn’t aware he was lost.”

  Expecting a smile, he was more than a little alarmed when Tilly nodded, her expression grim, indicating he should take a seat at the table.

  “I don’t suppose he’s lost in the truest sense of the word,” Tilly replied as she took the seat opposite. “But I haven’t heard from Shalimar in almost two months, Declan. I’m starting to get worried.”

  “Send someone around to check on him, then,” Declan suggested, wondering why such an easily solved problem would bring her to Herino. “He’s probably engrossed in something he’s working on and lost track of time. You know how he can be.”

  “He’s not in Lebec, Declan,” Tilly informed him. She hesitated, and then added, “I sent him to look for Maralyce.”

  Declan stared at the old lady for a moment, not sure what shocked him most—that she would attempt such a foolish thing, or that she might send his aging grandfather into the mountains to attempt it for her.

  “What, in the name of the Tide, possessed you to…” he began, too angry to finish the sentence. Tilly was the leader of the Cabal and deserved his respect, but right now Declan’s fists clenched so tight they whitened with the effort of remaining still.

  “We’ve always known the rough area where Maralyce’s mine is,” Tilly explained with an apologetic shrug. “After Arkady described the terrain to you following her kidnapping, we were able to narrow it down even further. In fact, we were able to provide Shalimar with almost the exact location.”

  “And then you sent him into the mountains, alone and unprotected, to face down a Tide Lord with the Tide on the turn?”

  Tilly shook her head. “It wasn’t like that, Declan. He wasn’t alone. Aleki saw to that. He had two bodyguards and plenty of supplies. And Maralyce isn’t dangerous.”

  “She’s an immortal, Tilly,” he reminded her, too angry to award her the title she deserved. “And a Tide Lord. You can’t use the words Tide Lord and not dangerous in the same breath. You taught me that before I could walk.”

  “Maralyce has tried to help us in the past.”

  “Not killing us with quite the same enthusiasm as her immortal cronies doesn’t actually qualify as helping, you know.”

  The old lady smiled. “You see the world so clearly, Declan. Are there no grey areas for you?”

  “Not when it comes to the Tide Lords,” he said, fear for his grandfather making him reckless. “What were you thinking, Tilly? My grandfather? And a Tide Lord? Is there some secret suicide pact you members of the Pentangle have sworn that I don’t know about?”

  “No,” she said, more than a little defensively. “But there is an expectation in the Cabal that one will do whatever is asked of them without complaining about it, young man. A lesson you seem not to have learned yet.”

  “I pull my weight,” he reminded her. “And I’ve never done anything other than what was asked of me. But that doesn’t mean you can toss away the life of the only family I own for the good of the cause.”

  Tilly threw her hands up impatiently. “Oh, do stop being such an idiot, Declan. Shalimar chose to do this, and to be honest, I don’t blame him. Do you know how much we would gain if Maralyce was willing to champion our cause once more?”

  “She didn’t champion it the last time, as I recall.”

  “That’s your trouble, Declan, you don’t recall.”

  “But the Tarot says—”

  “Whatever we need it to say,” Tilly cut in. “If we’d recorded Maralyce’s efforts to help humanity, it would bring the wrath of her immortal brethren down upon her like a firestorm.”

  Declan smiled then, deliberately goading her. “So now you’re telling me this wretched cause to which I’ve dedicated my whole life is a lie?”

  Tilly wasn’t amused. “Everything is a lie, Declan. Every one of us is steeped in them. The truth—the only truth—is that whi
ch we choose to reveal. There’s a reason there’s the Lore and a Tarot, you know.”

  Declan nodded. He did know. “The Tarot is for the Tide Lords so they think we’ve got it wrong, and the Lore for the future, for the day we finally find a way to defeat them.”

  “Ah, then you did listen to the odd thing your grandfather tried to teach you?”

  “I listened, my lady. I just wasn’t prepared for there to be quite so much difference between them. I was always under the impression the Tarot was deliberately based on loose fact to give it a ring of authenticity.”

  “And so it is,” she agreed. “But there are some things that are too inflammatory to be recorded at all.”

  “Maralyce helping humanity being one of them, I suppose?”

  She nodded. “Truly, Declan, I’m not afraid Maralyce has hurt your grandfather. I’m more afraid he’s come to harm in the mountains.”

  “Then can’t you send someone else after him? There’s any number of Scards sitting in Hidden Valley twiddling their thumbs. You could send some of them, couldn’t you?”

  “I can’t risk sending any Crasii, Scard or otherwise, after him, Declan,” she said, shaking her head. “If he has found Maralyce’s mine, and there’s even the remotest chance she might help us, I don’t want to ruin our chances by making her deal with the Crasii. She despises them; thinks they’re abominations. And that’s a rumour Arkady was able to confirm without a doubt. No, whoever I send after Shalimar has to be human and in a position to negotiate if your grandfather can’t.”

  “I’m the King’s Spymaster, Tilly. I can’t just drop everything to go charging off into the mountains after my grandfather. And it’s not that I don’t want to, you know that. But since we’ve had Cecil working in the palace, we know for certain that it’s Diala posing as Kylia here in Glaeba, which means any day this whole city might go up in flames. Tiji had a run-in with the Empress and her lot in Caelum and now it looks as if Kinta may be posing as the Imperator’s Consort in Torlenia.”