The Gods of Amyrantha

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Not if we’re acting under the orders of Caelum’s true heir, who we need to get out of the city tonight, by the way. Over the border by tomorrow night would be even better.”

  If he returned to Glaeba through Maralyce’s mine, Declan could do what Ricard Li wanted, but travelling through the mine was no easy thing, as his current disreputable state could attest to. He doubted a spoiled child raised in the Caelish palace, whose most common form of exercise consisted of walking up and down an enclosed gallery with the other ladies of the court, would have the stamina or the fortitude to negotiate her way through the darkness of the mine.

  “She’ll never make it,” Declan said.

  “We can stall any pursuit for another day, perhaps…”

  “That’s not what I mean. The way I came into Caelum…it’s not for the faint-hearted. I doubt your little princess here would survive the first hour before she’s screaming at me to bring her home.”

  “I can do whatever I have to, Master Hawkes,” Nyah declared, squaring her shoulders. “All you need do is keep me safe.”

  Declan recognised that look. Even if Ricard wasn’t standing there threatening him with this absurd plan, the child was set on it. But as Shalimar was fond of saying, sometimes the best way to be rid of a stupid idea is to follow it through to its most absurd conclusion. He turned to Nyah. “You’d have to agree to follow my instructions, your highness. Without questioning them. Without arguing about them.”

  “I can do that,” she said with a nod.

  “And you’ll have to cut your hair.”

  “What?” both the princess and the spymaster said at the same time.

  “The best disguise is to dress you as a boy. Even if I could get you across the border, I’d still need to get you through the city first.” He turned to Ricard. “Cut her hair, smear a bit of mud on her face and dress her like a boy. We’ll be able to walk down the main street in broad daylight and I guarantee, nobody will suspect who she is.”

  Ricard thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “He has the right of it, your highness. Dressed as a boy, you’d be much safer.”

  Nyah glared at Declan rebelliously for a moment and then she nodded. “If I must.”

  “I think it’s a good idea. You’ll find it easier crossing the mountains in trousers, too.”

  Well, that plan to deter them from this idiocy worked well, didn’t it, Declan? He sighed. Tides…now I’m talking to myself. Maybe that blow on the head did more damage than I thought.

  He turned to Ricard, shaking his head, not caring about the pain. “This will never work. She has no concept of what she’s getting into, Ricard.”

  “No, but she’s pretty clear on what she’s running away from,” the spymaster replied. “So are you, I’m fairly certain. Don’t you think it’s worth the life of a child to put yourself out a little?”

  “My king is dead. I need to get back to Glaeba. By the fastest route possible. What you want will mean adding days, perhaps weeks to the trip. And what, in the name of the Tide, am I supposed to do with her once I get there, anyway?”

  “Keep her safe until we send for her.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “When we’ve killed the Grand Duchess of Torfail and her son,” Ricard announced.

  Declan stared at him for a moment and then closed his eyes. Tides…this is a nightmare…they have no idea who they’re dealing with.

  “Well?” Ricard prompted. “We don’t have all night for you to debate this with yourself, you know, Hawkes.”

  Opening his eyes, Declan glanced at the child again, with her spoiled pout and her pretty, crumpled dress. But even if she was the most obnoxious brat that ever lived, no child deserved what awaited this girl. Underneath it all, he suspected, she was quietly terrified. And smarter than she looked if she had the sense to run from a Tide Lord.

  “By the time this is done, Ricard Li, you’ll be sending me copies of your own intelligence reports, to save me the trouble of spying on you myself, you’ll owe me so many favours.”

  The older man smiled. “You’ll do it then?”

  Declan nodded, regretting the action for much more than just the pain it caused in his head. “I’ll do it.”

  “There!” Ricard said to the princess. “I told you I’d find a way out of this for you, your highness. It’s all settled. You’re going to Glaeba.”

  Chapter 37

  Declan Hawkes had been right about one thing, Warlock mused, as he let himself into the royal suite, carrying Queen Kylia’s breakfast tray. Now he’d proved his credentials as a doting slave to the suzerain, he was never doubted again. Since the death of King Enteny and Queen Inala—where he’d stood by and done nothing to raise the alarm or try to prevent it—he’d been by Kylia’s side. Not once had she ever so much as glanced in his direction with an uncertain look, even when discussing the most treasonous of plans with her partner in crime, Jaxyn Aranville.

  The immortals were smart enough to insist only Crasii serve them in the royal palace. There were no mortal human ears around Jaxyn or Diala to overhear their plotting, no human eyes to witness their scheming, and no human hearts to be overcome by guilt or conscience. The Crasii were bred to be obedient to their masters and Warlock had proved he was that.

  The Tide Lords didn’t fear betrayal by their slaves because the Crasii were incapable of it.

  This morning was proving to be a perfect example of how things were in the palace these days. Mathu was long gone, up at the crack of dawn to deal with the numerous demands on him now he was the uncrowned King of Glaeba, so Kylia was taking her breakfast in bed, where she’d been joined by Jaxyn Aranville.

  As far as Warlock could tell, the two immortals weren’t sleeping together. He suspected this was because Diala didn’t entirely trust Jaxyn—a wise precaution—or perhaps the reverse was true. Given what the Immortal Prince had told Warlock and the Duchess of Lebec about this woman—known among even her own kind as the Minion Maker—not trusting her probably wasn’t a bad idea.

  Whatever the case, the soon-to-be Queen of Glaeba was sitting in bed, propped up by a mountain of pillows, while Jaxyn sat on the window seat chatting to her. Warlock placed the tray on her lap with a polite bow.

  “Will there be anything else, your majesty?”

  He’d stopped calling her “highness” the moment they’d found her downstream from the ruined dock, collapsed on the shores of the Lower Oran, about an hour after the royal barge was smashed against the wharf. Although she was sobbing and clearly distressed, Warlock knew it was an act. He thought she must have jumped clear when the boat first slammed into the pylons. Diala was immortal, so there was no danger of her drowning. She might, however, have had some trouble explaining away broken bones that healed within an hour or cuts that stopped bleeding and sealed themselves while you watched.

  “Just wait over there until I’m finished,” she said, waving a hand in the general direction of the other side of the room. “You can take the tray back to the kitchens when I’m done.”

  It was a habit of Diala’s to make her slaves wait around while she ate. Even more humiliating was her suggestion they might like to eat the scraps when she was done, something Warlock had been forced to swallow his pride to do, on several occasions.

  “As you wish, your majesty.”

  Diala ignored him after that, as Warlock retreated across the room to stand in the corner. Diala’s attention was fixed on Jaxyn and the conversation Warlock had interrupted with his arrival. “Mathu got a message last night. Stellan Desean is on his way home from Torlenia for the funeral.”

  “That’s hardly news. He’s the king’s cousin.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  Jaxyn shrugged, unconcerned. “It was a freak accident caused by an unseasonable storm. He won’t suspect anything.”

  “I’m not suggesting he’ll think Enteny and Inala’s death is anything else,” Kylia said, biting into her toast. “But with Enteny dead, doesn’t that ma
ke him heir to the throne, now?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Jaxyn frowned, rubbing his chin. “Don’t suppose you feel like getting pregnant in the next week, do you? Give young Mathu the heir he craves—not to mention so desperately needs?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He smiled. “Just a thought. We could kill Stellan, I suppose.”

  Diala shook her head. “Too many deaths too soon and people will start to talk. The Tide’s not up far enough for us to take this country on our own. Besides, killing him won’t solve the problem. Arkady is already pregnant, remember? She carries the Desean heir, so if Stellan dies, his son will be next in line for the throne after Mathu and we’re no better off than we are now.”

  “So? We kill them both.”

  “You can’t. Arkady’s staying in Torlenia. Stellan’s on his way back alone. I imagine he doesn’t want to risk her travelling in her condition.”

  Jaxyn was silent for a moment, pursing his lips. “The problem, then, is not killing the Desean line, but discrediting it.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  He looked at her, shaking his head. “Tides, Diala, you lived in Lebec Palace with us. You saw what was going on. You’re not that naive, surely?”

  Warlock wondered what they were talking about. They both seemed to know what it would take to bring down the Duke of Lebec, but—rather inconveniently—didn’t feel the need to explain it for the benefit of the spy standing in the corner of the room. Warlock hadn’t known about the duchess being pregnant, either. He was glad to hear it, certain she must be delighted by the news.

  Diala swallowed another mouthful of toast and washed it down with a sip of tea before she answered Jaxyn. “If you tell Mathu about Stellan’s sexual proclivities, you’ll have to admit your own involvement with him. What’s the point of bringing Stellan Desean down, if you go crashing down with him?”

  “But I was his innocent victim,” he said, smiling in a manner that made Warlock’s blood run cold. “He’s so much older than me, after all. And he’s a duke. How could I refuse him? He forced himself on me. Over and over and over. It was…terrible.”

  Diala laughed. “Tides, Jaxyn, you’d better look a little more put out than that, if you’re planning to convince anybody you were being taken by force. It does pose an interesting question, though.”

  “What question?”

  “Well, with dear old Uncle Stellan playing for the other team, I wonder how Arkady got pregnant?”

  Reeling a little from this startling news about the Duke of Lebec, Warlock expected Jaxyn to reply with something flippant, but his reaction was quite the opposite. The Tide Lord closed his eyes for a moment and then began to swear in a language Warlock had never heard before. He cursed for a full minute, Diala looking on curiously, before he finally stood up and began pacing, his anger a palpable force Warlock could feel from the other side of the room.

  “Tides, I should’ve guessed,” Jaxyn eventually said in Glaeban.

  “Guessed what?” Diala asked, anxious to discover—as Warlock was—what had prompted his unexpected outburst.

  “Who fathered a child on her.”

  “It wasn’t you, was it?”

  He glared at her. “Think about it, Diala. She was interrogating Cayal every day at the prison and then she conveniently disappeared into the mountains with him for a week.”

  Warlock’s heart sank at Jaxyn’s words, certain he had the right of it. He’d seen the way Arkady and Cayal reacted to each other. Their eventual mating wasn’t only likely, it was probably inevitable.

  Without the advantage of Warlock’s first-hand knowledge of their relationship, however, Diala scoffed at the very idea. “You think Cayal is the father of her child? How do you figure that? When you got back from your heroic little rescue mission, you told me you saw no sign of any affection between them. You said Cayal couldn’t have cared less that you’d come for Arkady.”

  “I’d forgotten who I was dealing with,” Jaxyn said. “The man who’ll walk away from any soul on Amyrantha—once they’re of no further use to him—and the Queen of the Liars herself. Tides, Arkady has faked being the love of Stellan’s life for the better part of seven years. She wouldn’t even break into a sweat pretending there was nothing going on between her and Cayal.”

  Diala seemed more amused than worried by the idea. “It makes no difference, Jaxyn. If you expose Stellan for what he is, the scandal will ruin his whole house and Mathu will have no choice but to disinherit him, along with any child Arkady might be carrying, regardless of who fathered the brat.”

  “I’ll bet he was laughing at me the whole time.”

  Diala rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, can we not get all tied up in knots over Cayal and what he may or may not have been thinking three months ago? I thought you’d be long past caring what he did, anyway.”

  “I would be,” Jaxyn said. “If only he’d stop doing it around me.”

  “Doing what?” Diala asked. “He’s crazy, Jaxyn. Has been for a thousand years or more. He wants to die, for pity’s sake, and he seems to have chosen making you dedicate your life to being rid of him as his method of achieving it.”

  “He’s up to something.”

  “He’s always up to something. We’re all up to something.” She leaned back against the pillows with a sigh. “It’s what we do, Jaxyn.”

  Diala’s reassurances did little to soothe the agitated immortal. “This is Glaeba. Cayal’s traditional stomping ground. If he was planning to make a comeback with the Tide returning…”

  Diala smiled, picked up the teacup. “Ah, yes, I can see now, how he must have been sitting there in Lebec Prison planning to take over the whole country from his cell…still, he is crazy, I suppose.”

  Jaxyn was not amused. “Don’t mock me, Diala. You underestimate Cayal. You always have.”

  “And you’re jealous of him,” she said. “Although I’ve never really understood why.”

  To Warlock’s surprise, Jaxyn didn’t even try to deny Diala’s accusation. “It’s because he always gets what he wants.”

  “I don’t know,” Diala said with a shrug. “He doesn’t seem to be having too much luck with this ‘goodbye cruel world’ campaign of his, so far, does he?”

  Jaxyn turned on her. “Tides, how can you be so dense? Suppose Cayal does eventually find a way to die?”

  “Then we’ll be well rid of him.”

  “Then we’ll no longer be immortal,” he pointed out, impatient with her lack of comprehension. “If one of us can die, Diala, we all can. Think about that.”

  Clearly, Diala hadn’t thought what Cayal’s successful suicide might mean to the rest of them, but even now, she seemed far less concerned than her companion. “It’s all hypothetical, Jaxyn. He’s been trying to kill himself for more than a thousand years and he hasn’t succeeded yet. I’ll worry about no longer being immortal when he does.”

  Jaxyn stared at her for a moment and then threw up his hands, muttered a curse under his breath and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see Mathu. If I’m going to expose Stellan Desean as deviant, I’ll need to do it before he gets here.”

  Diala smiled. “Well, try not to look too thrilled while you’re describing all the gory and graphic details, Jaxyn. You don’t want Mathu thinking you enjoyed it.”

  Jaxyn stopped and turned to face her, his eyes full of anger. “Are you threatening me?”

  Warlock thought that a rather silly question. There was an implied threat in her words that even he got.

  “I’m just saying…you need to be careful, that’s all.”

  The Tide Lord shook his head, smiling dangerously. “Diala, my precious, if you so much as hint to Mathu that I was a willing participant in Stellan Desean’s perversions, I will order every male Crasii in the palace to swear you’ve been having your way with them on a daily basis, starting with your tame hound, Cecil, over there in the corner. If you think o
ur young king won’t like what I’ve been up to, imagine what his reaction will be to that.”

  Diala’s smug expression faded. She glanced at Warlock. “Cecil, I am your mistress. You were given to me. You are not to follow the orders of Lord Jaxyn, is that clear?”

  “To serve you is the reason I breathe, my lady,” he replied, wishing they would leave him out of it.

  “Cecil, come to heel!” Jaxyn countered, which left Warlock in an untenable position. He was a Scard, and not naturally inclined to do anything these monsters ordered him to do. Worse, he had no idea how a real Crasii would react to two such conflicting orders from those he was compelled to obey. He hesitated, knowing his indecision could be fatal, and then decided to do as Jaxyn commanded.

  He crossed the room to where Jaxyn waited, and then bowed. “My lord?”

  Jaxyn gave Diala a triumphant look. “See? They’ll do whatever I ask.”

  “He had to think about it, though,” she said, apparently putting her Crasii’s indecision down to the conflicting orders he’d been given, rather than the fear that he might not want to obey them at all. “Cecil, come away from him.”

  This time he didn’t hesitate. He dutifully walked to the bed, and once again, treated Glaeba’s future queen to a courtly bow. “As you wish, your majesty.”

  Diala gave Jaxyn an I-told-you-so sort of look, but Jaxyn didn’t try to countermand the order again. Instead, he muttered another curse in the language he’d used earlier and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Diala smiled, turning her attention to Warlock. “You’re mine, Cecil. Pay no attention to him.”

  “To serve you is the reason I breathe, your majesty.”

  “And if anybody ever asks you about it, you’re to say you’ve seen Jaxyn looking at other men, the way decent men look at pretty women.”

  You treacherous little bitch.

  “As you wish, your majesty.”

  She smiled even wider, pleased with his obedience. “There’s a good boy, Cecil. Would you like to eat my crusts?”

  Chapter 38