He shrugged, not sure what else to tell her, lamenting the fact he wasn’t better at delivering bad news. “He’s not suffering anymore. That’s something, I suppose.”
Arkady fell silent, and lay her head on his shoulder again, but made no attempt to move out of his arms, which was remarkable because he was expecting her to leap across the room in fright the moment she realised where she was. But she stayed put and when she finally spoke again, it wasn’t to ask after his grandfather.
“Are you really immortal now, Declan?” she asked softly.
Tides, how do I tell her about this? “I’m afraid so.”
She seemed much less concerned about it than he was. “I thought I’d dreamed that bit. Actually, I was kind of hoping I’d dreamed most of the past few months.”
He let out a short, bitter laugh. “I know that feeling well.”
“Are you angry with me, Declan?”
That question took him completely by surprise. “Me? Angry with you? Tides, Arkady, what have I got to be angry at you about?”
She sighed forlornly. “Where do I start? I got caught up with Kinta and Brynden. I ran into Cayal again and because of that, I got myself sold into slavery, and you don’t want to even think about how I survived that. And then you had to follow me halfway around the world to rescue me, the irony being I probably wouldn’t have needed rescuing, except apparently I was mass-murdering innocent Crasii in my spare time, your little pet, Tiji, among them.” She smiled sadly. “Tides, Declan . . . angry at me? I can’t believe you’re still speaking to me.”
“Take more than a few dead Crasii to make me hate you, Arkady,” he said. On impulse, he bent his head to hers and kissed her briefly on the lips, if only to reassure her that he meant what he said. He knew he’d made a mistake the moment he did it, because she went rigid in his arms.
“Declan . . .”
Tides, here it comes . . . you’re my best friend . . . you know I love you . . . but you’re my friend . . . And I really can’t deal with you being immortal . . .
“It’s all right, Arkady. I understand.”
She pushed herself up until she was leaning on his chest. The thin shawl across her breasts that Arryl had given her in Watershed Falls had slipped during the night. It was doing little to conceal them and nothing to lessen the feeling of her body pressing against his. With her face only inches from his, she looked him in the eye. “I’m not the person who left Glaeba, Declan. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve had to do to survive.”
He was amused by the notion that he’d worried every day since leaving Glaeba about Arkady’s reaction to discovering he was immortal, and now when he had finally found her, she was worried about what he’d think of her. “I don’t care what you’ve done, Arkady. If you and I start judging each other, neither of us is going to come out of the exercise looking too good.”
“Do you forgive me?”
He kissed her forehead and squeezed her comfortingly. “There’s nothing to forgive. You did what you had to do to stay alive. Nobody can ask more of a person than that.”
“So, is this new-found tolerance because you’re immortal now, or because I’m lying on top of you half naked?”
“Oh, you noticed you were half naked, did you?”
She smiled at him. “You know, when I was dying, tied to that wretched tree in Watershed Falls, I only wanted to see one person.”
“And you ended up with me. I’m sorry.”
Arkady’s smile faded. “Don’t tease. I’m trying to tell you something important here. If you’re going to make light of my epiphany, I won’t share it with you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “By all means, share your epiphany.”
“Well, I was thinking about Cayal.”
Oh, I so wanted to hear that . . .
“I was thinking about him and Gabriella. About how sad it was he was never able to be with the one true love of his life, even for a short time.”
“Didn’t she drop him like a hot rock at the first sign of trouble and then marry his brother after his sister exiled him? Sounds to me like he was better off without her.”
“But that’s just it. Do you think he’d be quite so suicidal or depressed now if he’d known love, even once, rather than lost it?”
“I have no idea,” he said, looking at her with concern. She wasn’t kidding when she said she wasn’t the same person she’d been in Glaeba. The Arkady of old would have scorned the notion of a man pining for lost love for thousands of years. He wondered if it was her recent brush with death or her months in slavery that had affected her so profoundly. “And to be honest, Arkady, there aren’t words to describe how little I care about whether or not the Immortal Prince still has a broken heart after eight thousand years.”
“I know, and that’s not why I’m telling you this. It just got me to thinking, you see, about life in general. And some of the decisions I’ve made. Some of the things I’ve done and what I’d do if I had my time over again. I don’t want to end up like Cayal.”
He studied her curiously in the faint dawn light seeping through the cracks in the walls, a little uncomfortable with how intimate this conversation was getting. “So, let me see if I’ve got this right. There you are, tied to a tree covered in thorny spines, slowly bleeding to death from a score of stab wounds, delirious from dehydration and sunburn, just waiting for the flesh-devouring ants to come eat you alive, and you decide you don’t want to be suicidal. Fair enough. Probably not how I would have handled it . . .”
She slapped his chest in annoyance. “Stop it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You’re making fun of me.”
“You’re right. I’m not sorry. I am making fun of you. I promise to stop interrupting.”
She flopped down beside him and crossed her arms grumpily. “I was going to tell you I was sorry I’d never told you how much I loved you,” she said. “But you’re being a bastard about it, so now I don’t think I will.”
Ah, but do you love me as a friend or a lover? That’s the question . . .
“I wouldn’t have believed you anyway,” he said aloud, fairly certain being flippant wasn’t helping his cause but unable to think of anything more profound to woo her with. Declan wished he had even an ounce of romance in his soul. That’s probably what attracts her to Cayal. He’s had thousands of years to think up exactly the right things to say . . . “You don’t love me at all. You’re always marrying other men, running off with them . . .”
“That’s a terrible thing to accuse me of!”
“But true, nevertheless, you’d have to agree.”
She turned to look at him again, grinning. Tides, why does nobody else understand me like she does? “You know, Stellan told me once I should take you to my bed and put you out of your misery.”
“A good wife would have listened to her husband,” he said. “Shame on you for not doing as he commanded.”
She smiled briefly . . . and then the moment was lost, her thoughts turning to her husband. “Tides, poor Stellan. I wonder what’s happened to him? I wish I knew whether he was alive or dead.”
Declan debated lying to her and then figured there wasn’t much point. Besides, Stellan’s power had always been the thing Arkady lusted after, not Stellan himself. Arkady was here in his arms, after all. He doubted her husband could come between them now.
“He’s alive,” Declan assured her. “And safe for the time being. Everyone in Glaeba thinks you’re a widow, however.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“He’s the one who pulled me out of the prison fire.”
Her brows shot up in surprise. “Does that mean he’s finally admitted to himself that the Tide Lords exist?”
Declan nodded. “Between what happened to me and meeting Maralyce, he really didn’t have a choice.”
“You took him to meet Maralyce?”
“Stellan’s had a few epiphanies of his own, lately.”
“I’m
becoming quite taken with epiphanies. And I don’t ever want my life to flash before my eyes like that again . . .” she punctuated her words with a kiss that was neither chaste nor friendly and Declan thought he might die from wanting her, immortal or no, “. . . and see it filled with so much regret.”
Declan couldn’t think of a single thing to say which didn’t sound either trite or ridiculous, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he wrapped his fingers in her thick, dark hair, drew her close, and kissed her again, relishing the feel of her in his arms, in his bed, her body pressed against his, wondering how this reality could be so much better than his dreams. Whatever had happened to her these past few months—however profound her epiphany—the change in her was remarkable. The Arkady of his youth would have slapped him had he tried to kiss her like that. The new Arkady seemed much less reticent, much more anxious to make up for lost time.
She kissed him back so wantonly it left him gasping . . . even as a small, insidious, unwelcome worm of doubt crept in . . .
Suppose she’s just doing this out of relief? Out of gratitude?
Out of some misguided notion that she somehow owed him something?
Tides, suppose she really is taking Stellan’s advice and “putting me out of my misery”?
Declan wanted Arkady to love him, not pity him, or feel indebted to him for all his years of faithful service. And he wasn’t entirely certain that Arkady was simply treating him the same way she must have had to treat her slave master these past few months. She might well do something like that. It certainly hadn’t taken her long to work out how to survive as a slave.
In his dreams there had never been any doubt about Arkady’s love. When she finally came to him, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. There wasn’t supposed to be any questions . . .
Overwhelmed by suspicion, he pushed her away. Tides . . . I can’t believe I’m doing this . . .
Arkady looked surprised, hurt, and more than a little embarrassed. “Declan . . . Oh, Tides, I’m so sorry . . .”
“For what?”
“I didn’t mean to throw myself at you like that . . . I only meant to . . .”
“What? Put me out of my misery?”
She sat up and retied the shawl around her breasts, a gesture that was as disappointing as it was final. “That’s a cruel thing to suggest.”
Declan studied her closely, wondering what self-destructive impulse was making him do this. He didn’t know and couldn’t stop himself, in any case. “You could have had me any time you wanted me at the mere crook of your little finger, Arkady. Why now?”
“Because I thought you loved me.”
“I’ve loved you all your life and you’ve known it too. It never did me any good before now.”
“You saved my life, Declan.”
“And you’re happy to sleep with me to discharge the debt, is that it? Or does saving your life mean I own you now, and you’re doing what’s required of you to keep me happy?”
Arkady’s eyes glistened. “You know, I thought immortality hadn’t made the slightest difference to you. But I was wrong. It’s turned you into a heartless, selfish prick.” She scrambled over the top of him, climbed to her feet, straightened the tiny slave skirt and shawl she wore and let herself out of the storeroom, slamming the door behind her so hard the whole wall shook with the force of it.
Declan watched her leave without saying a word. Once she was gone, he folded his hands behind his head to ponder the stupidity of what he had just done.
What had possessed him to question her like that? To question his good fortune?
He had, for a fleeting moment, had everything he ever wanted, in his arms, willing and wanting him . . .
And then he’d pushed her away for . . . what?
Declan cursed himself in every language he knew. He had, quite possibly, ruined any chance he had with Arkady.
Why? For an assurance she loved him? When had that ever mattered?
Declan couldn’t think of words to describe what kind of fool he was. Even more painful was the knowledge that when she was astride him and he was drowning in the taste of her, for the briefest of moments—in what he feared would be a very long, tormented life—he’d been utterly and completely happy.
Chapter 38
“Ah, you’re awake, I see.”
Arryl was in the workroom, pouring water from the large, cast-iron kettle into a deep tub filled with molluscs. There was no sign of Tiji and her chameleon friend.
The immortal looked up from her work as Arkady entered the workroom. She looked no older than twenty-four or twenty-five. By Arkady’s reckoning, she had to be at least ten thousand years old.
“Did you sleep well?”
Arkady nodded. “Like the dead.”
The immortal smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. But I know how exhausting magical healing can be, for both the person wielding the Tide, as well as the recipient. I’m not surprised it wiped you out for a time. Is Declan awake?”
“I’m not sure he slept.”
Arryl didn’t seem surprised. “Did you want some tea? Feel free to help yourself in the kitchen.”
“Thank you, my lady. What I’d really like is some decent clothing, if you can spare it.”
Arryl cast her gaze over Arkady’s slave skirt and nodded. “I don’t blame you, dear. You’re fortunate—or perhaps, unfortunate—to cast a rather striking figure dressed as a Senestran slave. It must have caused you quite a bit of trouble in Port Traeker.”
Cydne’s orderly, Geriko, and his endless compliments about her breasts—not to mention his unsubtle hints about sharing his bunk—immediately leapt to mind. She nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I latched on to Cydne Medura.”
“He was the lesser evil?”
“So it seemed at the time,” Arkady said, taking a seat at the work table.
“That assessment proved to be spectacularly wrong, didn’t it?”
There was no way to deny Arryl’s accusation, so Arkady didn’t try. She wasn’t sure what time it was. Not long after dawn, she guessed, wondering if Tiji had come back to the Outpost or spent the night in the wetlands. She sighed as she remembered what she’d done to Tiji’s new-found people. Tides, how many did we kill?
Arryl didn’t seem too concerned with apportioning blame, fortunately. She finished filling the bowl with boiling water and returned the kettle to the small stove in the corner of the room. Having been born and bred in Lebec, where freshwater pearls were one of the province’s major industries, Arkady recognised the tools of Arryl’s trade. She was harvesting nacre, the iridescent lining of oyster shells, known in Glaeba as mother-of-pearl.
The room was filled with sacks of mollusc shell, containers of beads and tiles and shelves of beautifully wrought trinkets, waiting to be set into silver or gold for the ladies of Port Traeker. There was another table against the wall that looked suspiciously like an apothecary’s workbench, which seemed curious. The nacre made sense, though. Arkady remembered Cayal telling her once that Medwen, in particular, was a glass craftswoman of some renown. Apparently, during this low Tide, she’d decided to add the craft of making nacre jewellery to her repertoire.
Arryl smiled at her reassuringly as she studied the workshop. “I’ll speak to the chameleon elders. I’m sure we can convince them you were as much a victim in this unfortunate affair as they were.”
She frowned at the immortal. “Will they be all right, my lady? The chameleons, I mean. Cydne was right about one thing: he does come from a very important and wealthy family. They won’t let his execution go unavenged when they learn how he died.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Arryl said, stirring the molluscs with a long stick to ensure they were completely submerged. “Medwen and Ambria are already on their way to Port Traeker to explain to his family and the Physicians’ Guild too, I suppose, the circumstances surrounding the tragic accident that killed the scion of House Medura. They’ll deal with any potential trouble his family might cause.”
“I didn’t think the Lady Medwen, or the Lady Ambria, was that magically gifted.”
Arryl laughed.
“Did I say something funny, my lady?”
“Who told you that? Cayal, I suppose? Tides, that man sees the world through such self-absorbed eyes.”
“I’m sorry, but what I meant—”
“You meant you don’t believe either of my immortal sisters has the power to wreak the sort of vengeance Cayal indulges in when he wants to bend the world to his will,” Arryl said, not letting Arkady finish her apology. “And I laughed, Arkady, because you seem to assume that’s the only thing we do. Did it never occur to you that ten thousand years of experience teaches one skills other than the wanton destruction of civilisation as we know it whenever we don’t get our own way?”
“To be honest, my lady, I don’t think I did.” Arkady smiled sheepishly. She knew better than to make assumptions like that.
What happened to Arkady the reasoning, careful academic? she wondered. Did I lose her along with my clothes and any morals I once used to own?
Arryl appeared to be quite forgiving. “Then let that be the first thing you do now the Tide is on the turn, Arkady. Start thinking about us immortals as people, not only gods or monsters.”
“And what is Declan now?” she asked curiously. “A god or a monster?”
The immortal shrugged and threw a handful of salt into the bowl from a small sack on the shelf behind her. “That’s really up to him, I suppose. I imagine, like the rest of us, he’ll end up a little bit of both.”
Arkady looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Declan’s not evil.”
“Not to you, perhaps, but I’d hazard a guess it wouldn’t be too hard to find plenty of people who disagree with you. He was the King of Glaeba’s spymaster, wasn’t he? At least that’s what Tiji told Ambria.” When Arkady didn’t deny the accusation, she nodded, her point proved. “Trust me, he didn’t hold down that job because he was filled with the milk of human kindness. Your friend may be a good and noble man to you, Arkady, he may even believe that of himself, but based on his past, I’d not be holding out any great hopes for his future as an immortal.”
The Palace of Impossible Dreams Page 27