The Palace of Impossible Dreams

by Jennifer Fallon

  She frowned. “You smell wrong, Declan.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  Tiji shook her head. “You don’t understand. Immortals smell . . . off . . . to the Scards. Like something rotten. You learn to recognise the smell and associate it with danger.” She looked up at him apologetically. “You smell like danger, Declan.”

  “So we’re friends, only if I stay downwind?”

  Tiji wasn’t amused. “You’re not making this any easier, you know. And the smell of you all is driving me mad. Tides, the three of you stink like something died in you, and is rotting from the inside out.”

  “There’s only two of us here,” he reminded her. “Me and Arryl. The others have gone to Port Traeker.”

  Tiji lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Then one of them is on the way back,” she said. “Because I can smell three of you.”

  Even before she’d finished speaking, Declan felt it too—the disturbance on the Tide that meant another immortal was near. This was different to anything he’d felt with Arryl, Medwen or Ambria, however. This wasn’t a gentle rippling of the Tide; it was much more violent, much more powerful.

  Arryl must have felt it too, almost as soon as Declan had. She looked up, and then hurried down from the veranda toward the dock, much more experienced than Declan at picking the direction the disturbance was emanating from.

  Arkady and Azquil followed her. Arkady, who could sense nothing about the approaching immortal, looked curious rather than worried, as she stopped beside Arryl on the small wooden dock to greet the newcomer. Azquil, on the other hand, had adopted the same alert stance Tiji was holding—his posture hovering somewhere between absolute stillness and panicked flight.

  “Who is it?” Declan asked, wondering if Tiji had encountered any other immortals during her time in the wetlands.

  “I don’t know.”

  That worried Declan. He’d been trying to kid himself for months now that if he kept his head down he might be able to go through eternity without ever encountering another immortal. But he was wrong, and this just reminded him how wrong he was.

  Tides, it’s as if we attract each other . . .

  The boat Arryl was obviously expecting resolved out of the mist a few moments later, pulled toward the dock by two amphibians who were barely visible in the murky water. As it neared the dock, the single passenger rose to his feet, nimbly jumping to the dock without waiting for the boat to be secured.

  Despite being too far away to hear what was being said, Declan’s blood ran cold at the sight of him.

  He recognised him immediately. This was not just any immortal come to visit his sisters in the Senestran Wetlands. He walked straight past Arryl, said something Declan was too far away to hear and then stopped in front of Arkady.

  If Declan was in any doubt about the identity of their visitor, it was gone the moment the man, after exchanging a few words with her, took Arkady in his arms and kissed her like a returning lover.

  It was Cayal, the Immortal Prince.

  Chapter 41

  “So, is Desean dead yet?”

  Jaxyn turned to face Queen Kylia, surprised she’d ask something so dangerous where anybody could overhear her. Fortunately, the hallway of the Herino Palace was deserted, the distant rumbling of another thunderstorm the only thing likely to interrupt them.

  Things had been tense between Jaxyn and Diala since he’d introduced Lyna as his fiancée. To add to Diala’s frustration, he refused to explain why no sooner had he announced he was marrying his cousin, he let her run off to Torlenia, supposedly on a shopping expedition. Diala was too conniving to ask him outright, of course, but it gave Jaxyn a small measure of comfort to realise that not knowing what he and Lyna were up to was driving her quietly mad.

  “You’re not very familiar with the concept of subtlety, are you, your majesty?”

  Diala smiled and looked around. “There’s nobody here but us immortals.”

  “You hope.” He took a step closer, wishing there was a way to be rid of her, frustrated beyond words that he couldn’t think of one. Until there was, he had to keep pretending she was a part of his plans. But the Tide came back a little more each day. There would come a time, very soon, when he no longer needed to play these games with her. “Apparently Elyssa has taken Cecil into her service, rather than Tryan.”

  “And the first thing she did was countermand any order you gave the wretched creature? Tides, Jaxyn, I can’t believe you imagined that wasn’t going to be the first thing she did.”

  “There was a chance she wouldn’t. Or that Tryan would have claimed them. Tides, they could have finished up serving Engarhod.”

  “The chance was slim to none.”

  “I still don’t know for certain that she has countermanded my orders.” He shrugged. “But to be on the safe side, I’ll arrange his assassination by more conventional means. It’ll take a little longer, but he’ll be dead soon enough.”

  “So you gave away a pair of perfectly good breeding canines for nothing.”

  “Maybe not. They were a gift from Tilly Ponting, remember. That sly old bitch isn’t as stupid as she likes to make out. I’m not sorry to be rid of any gift of hers.”

  “They weren’t a gift to you,” Diala pointed out with a pout. “They were meant for me and Mathu.”

  “Then I probably did you a favour. Was there anything else? I have work to do, you know.”

  “Aren’t you always the busy one these days?” Diala smiled condescendingly. “I find your conscientiousness quite marvellous, actually. Mathu and I can’t thank you enough for working so hard to keep Glaeba safe for us.”

  There will come a time, you stupid, shallow little bitch, when you’ll regret treating me like your minion. “I live only to serve, your majesty,” he said with a mocking bow, making no attempt to keep the scorn from his voice. “And now, unless you’re here to report the Caelish are sailing across the Lower Oran in battle formation, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Hmmm . . . about that,” Diala said. “You don’t seem to be putting much effort into preparing us for war. I mean, shouldn’t we be gathering the fleet or something?”

  “I have everything under control.”

  “So you say,” she said.

  “I have everything under control,” he repeated. “When the time comes to attack, we’ll have everything we need, where we need it.”

  “So we’re going to attack Caelum, then, and not wait for them to attack us?”

  “We’ll do what we have to.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “But it’s all you’re going to get from me, my dear, so you might as well stop asking.” And with that, he turned and continued down the hall to the office of the King’s Private Secretary without waiting for her reply.

  Patches was waiting for him when he let himself into the office. The canine had been sorting the mail and arranging it for his lord’s perusal. This was the part of his job that Jaxyn despised. It was also the part that he knew he couldn’t risk neglecting. One learned a great deal about how a nation was faring going through the mundane correspondence of the king.

  “Tides, how much more is there?”

  “This pile here, Lord Aranville,” the canine scribe replied, pointing to a depressingly large stack of papers on Jaxyn’s desk. “And I have the latest dispatches from Lebec.”

  Jaxyn sighed heavily and took a seat at the desk. Taking on the duties of the King’s Private Secretary may have given him almost unlimited power to act in the king’s name, but he’d failed to take into account the amount of work involved. Added to the responsibility he now had for the Duchy of Lebec, he often found himself at his desk from dawn until close to midnight. It irked him no end, the problem made worse by the fact that the one person he should have been able to entrust with some of the load was too busy playing at being queen.

  Jaxyn would remember that when the time came. If Diala thought he was going to put up with her lounging around the palace, amusing hers
elf by tormenting the Crasii and making Mathu dote on her, she had another think coming.

  “Is there nothing there from my fiancée?”

  Jaxyn itched for Lyna to return. Even if she didn’t find Arkady, giving Diala a rival should be enough to shake her out of her torpor. And it would be good to have somebody he trusted to delegate some of the more delicate matters involved in securing oneself a kingdom. Assuming of course that he could trust Lyna, which remained to be seen. The last he’d heard from her she was heading for Elvere. That might mean she was on Arkady’s trail, or it might mean she’d decided to throw her lot in with Brynden. He thought that unlikely, however. Brynden was a self-righteous and unforgiving bastard. Lyna’s former profession as a whore meant she was sullied in his eyes, even if she hadn’t taken a penny for her favours in several thousand years.

  “No, your grace. Nothing. There is a missive from Lord Devale in Port Traeker, however, congratulating you on your appointment as Duke of Lebec, and assuring you of his family’s continuing loyalty and support.”

  “Why in the name of the Tides do I care about Devale’s continuing loyalty and support?”

  “Lord Devale is our ambassador to Senestra, your grace. I believe his wife, Lady Loriny, is also a distant cousin of the Desean family.”

  Ah, that made sense then. About once a week Jaxyn received a similar note from some nobleman he’d never heard of, assuring him they were loyal supporters of the crown. It didn’t mean they were, of course, only that they did not wish to be tarred with the same brush as Stellan Desean. The former Duke of Lebec had died an accused murderer and risen again as a traitor. Even if they were secretly sending him money, publicly these people wanted everyone to believe they were firmly behind the new Duke of Lebec and supported the king’s actions in this matter. To do anything else would be treason and these men were anxious not to be seen to commit treason—even if they were up to their necks in it.

  “Do you think Devale knows Stellan’s still alive?”

  “The letter doesn’t mention Lord Desean at all.”

  “He’s what prompted it though, I’ll be bound.” Jaxyn shrugged and turned back to the pile of correspondence on his desk. “Draft a letter for me to sign. Tell Devale the king appreciates his support and never doubted his loyalty. You know what to say . . . Tides, we must have sent a score of them by now.”

  “Of course, my lord. What about the rest of the Lebec dispatches?”

  Jaxyn sighed again. The scribe was holding the letters from Lebec, a packet of documents that didn’t seem nearly as large or depressing as the pile on his desk. “Is there anything interesting in that lot?”

  “I’m not sure what his grace would consider interesting.”

  Curse these wretched creatures and their desire to please. It interfered significantly in getting a straight answer out of them.

  “Is there anything in the pile out of the ordinary,” he amended, hoping that would prompt a useful answer.

  “Only the letter from the Warden at the Lebec Prison.”

  “What does he want?”

  Patches rifled through the letters and withdrew the document in question. He placed the rest of the pile on the desk and opened the letter. “My dear Lord Aranville . . .”

  “I don’t want you to read the whole flanking letter to me. Just tell me what he wants.”

  The scribe was silent for a moment while he scanned the contents of the letter. “It seems the Warden wants to know what to do with Prisoner Two-Eight-Two.”

  “What’s so special about Prisoner Two-Eight-Two?”

  The canine read on for a moment and then shook his head. “The letter doesn’t say, your grace. It merely states: ‘as you are no doubt aware, Prisoner Two-Eight-Two has been held at the pleasure of the former Duke of Lebec for some seven years now. With the demise of the former duke, I would like to know your intentions regarding this man’s continuing incarceration. Should I continue to keep him incommunicado? Shall I arrange a trial? Should I release him?’ He signs off with ‘hoping to receive your orders in this delicate matter as soon as possible,’ your grace. That’s all it says.”

  Jaxyn leaned back in his seat thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea who he’s talking about?”

  The scribe shook his head. “The Duke of Lebec, or of any other province for that matter, has the power to incarcerate any person they consider a threat to the crown, and may incarcerate them for as long as they wish without trial, if they consider it to be in the best interests of their province or of Glaeba.”

  Jaxyn’s eyes lit up. “They do?”

  “It’s a seldom-used power, my lord. One has to be very sure the confinement will pass the court’s scrutiny if the prisoner or their family appeals to the king.”

  What a pity Jaxyn hadn’t known about that tidy little loophole when they’d caught Cayal. He’d have advised Stellan to do exactly that—lock him up and throw away the key—and then the Immortal Prince would never have met Arkady and managed to escape.

  In hindsight, it probably wouldn’t have worked. Cayal had been posing as a Caelishman, so there was all that nonsense going on with the Caelish ambassador. And Declan Hawkes had got involved when the immortal didn’t die after they tried to hang him, which messed everything up, because Hawkes was the one who’d recruited Arkady . . .

  Tides, it would have been nice if somebody had thought of it, though . . .

  “If this man has been locked up for seven years, then I’m guessing there’s nobody on the outside willing to make too much noise on his behalf. Does the king know about this?”

  The scribe shrugged. “There would be no need for a duke to advise the king in such a matter, unless he believed the prisoner was a threat to the crown.”

  “So the righteous and oh-so-irritatingly-upstanding Stellan Desean threw someone in gaol without a trial and threw away the key? Who’d have thought? Does this prisoner have a name?”

  “The letter only refers to him as Prisoner Two-Eight-Two, your grace.”

  “Write back to the Warden. Tell him he’s to continue the current arrangement with Prisoner Two-Eight-Two until I’ve had a chance to interrogate him myself, the next time I’m in Lebec.”

  “As you wish, your grace.”

  “And when you’re done with that, tell the new spymaster I want to see him.”

  “To serve you is the reason I breathe,” Patches said with a bow.

  Jaxyn wasn’t listening, however. All he wanted to know was if Rye Barnes, the man he’d elevated from the ranks of torturer to spymaster, knew where to get his hands on a reliable assassin.

  Chapter 42

  Eight thousand years of immortality had taught Cayal to be sceptical of fate or destiny. When he stepped off the small boat and onto the Outpost’s tiny dock expecting to find Arryl, Medwen and Ambria, and found Arkady waiting for him instead, he wondered briefly if he’d been wrong all this time.

  There didn’t seem to be any other way to explain what she was doing here.

  Arryl was standing a couple of steps in front of the Glaeban duchess, which meant Lukys’s directions had been spot on, although there was no sign of either Ambria or Medwen, and no sense of them on the Tide, either. He hardly cared about that, given who he had found in this Tide-forsaken place.

  He leapt out of the boat and jumped onto the dock, drinking in the sight of Arkady, who seemed almost as shocked to see him as he was to see her.

  “Cayal!”

  It was Arryl, and not Arkady, who found her voice first. The Sorceress of the Tide sounded stunned, which wasn’t surprising. Her presence here, and that of her sisters, was supposed to be one of the best kept secrets on Amyrantha.

  “Hello, Arryl,” he said absently, his gaze fixed on Arkady. He didn’t care that he’d found Arryl, or where the others might be hiding. The sight of Arkady drowned out all other concerns, making him blind even to the pull of the Tide which was warning him there was another immortal in the vicinity.

  “Tides . . . how did you find
us?” Arryl’s voice trailed off when she realised he wasn’t listening to her. Given how long she and her friends, Medwen and Ambria, had been hiding out in the Senestran Wetlands, he guessed she was probably appalled at how easily he had located them. He imagined it would come as an even greater shock to her when he informed her that Lukys had known of their whereabouts for centuries.

  But at that moment, Cayal didn’t care about Arryl’s distress or what she thought of his arrival. With eyes only for Arkady, he walked toward her instead. She made no move to come closer, but neither did she shy away from him.

  Cayal stopped when he reached her, searching her face for some hint of what she was thinking; what she was feeling. Why was it every time I think I’ve put this woman out of my mind, she reappears?

  “Hello, Cayal,” she said after a time.

  “Arkady.”

  “You’re starting to develop a talent for turning up in the most unexpected places, aren’t you?”

  “I bow in deference to the master.”

  That comment brought a faint smile to her face, which was all the encouragement he needed. He took her in his arms and kissed her on the mouth. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then her arms tightened around him and she kissed him back.

  After a time, he touched his forehead to hers, drinking in the nearness of her. “Tides, you’ve no idea how many times I’ve dreamed about you,” he said in a voice only she was close enough to hear.

  He expected her to respond in kind, but she just shook her head. “You’ve a very dull life, indeed, Cayal, if that’s all you have to dream about.”

  “I missed you.”

  “Missed me? You told me you were trying to forget me. Why so glad to see me now?”

  “I’m fickle,” he said with a shrug. “So don’t worry. I’ll probably go back to despising you soon enough.” He smiled again, kissed her briefly, took her by the hands and then turned to Arryl, only then noticing there were others waiting at the Outpost. Two of them were chameleon Crasii he dismissed as unimportant. The other male, at first glance, appeared human, and vaguely familiar . . .