'Not here — he's in Caelum.'
'And are you at liberty to discuss the intentions of your new immortal friends, or did you just drop by to gloat?'
'That's not fair, Tilly.'
'Nothing in this life is, I've discovered,' she said, rubbing at her temples. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Declan was stunned to see they were full of unshed tears. 'Tides, Declan, I've known you since you were a boy. I've watched you grow up. I've nurtured you. I even had hopes that you'd become Guardian of the Lore someday. That maybe you'd be the one who would succeed where generations of us have failed in bringing
about an end to the Tide Lords. And here you are, sitting across the table in my parlour — one of them. I don't know what to say.'
'You think I did this on purpose?'
'No,' she conceded, rising to her feet. She began to pace in front of the fire, her arms wrapped around her body against the cold night air, which the banked fire did little to warm. He waited in silence for her to digest the information, certain this was almost as hard for her to come to grips with as it had been for him.
After a while Tilly turned to look at him. 'What does it feel like?'
He didn't need to ask what she meant by it. 'I'm not sure I can describe the feeling, Tilly. I can sense the Tide all the time. And feel the others on it when they're near.' He didn't really want to elaborate much more than that. The raging blood-rush he felt when he was wielding the Tide, the itching, the tormented need to relieve the tension any way he could afterward — that was something she didn't need to know about.
'Can you actually wield the Tide?'
Declan hesitated, not sure if he should answer that question. He'd betrayed the Cabal by simply becoming immortal. To admit he was a Tide Lord into the bargain might be more than Tilly could handle.
Tilly was a canny old bird, however, and took his hesitation for exactly what it was. 'Tides, if you're Lukys's son and Maralyce's great-grandchild, I don't suppose there's a chance you could be anything but a Tide Lord.'
He looked away, unable to meet her eye. 'It's not like I asked for this, Tilly.'
'And yet you have it,' she said, turning to study him curiously. 'Why did you come here tonight, Declan?'
He shrugged, not entirely sure of the answer to that question himself. 'I thought you deserved to know the truth.'
She shook her head, not accepting his answer. 'Why bother? As you were so quick to point out when you arrived, the truth would have found its way to me, sooner or later. That's not why you're here.'
Declan wondered why he'd ever thought he could get anything past this shrewd old woman. But if he couldn't fathom his own motives for coming here, he could, at least, tell her the truth. 'Lukys claims he can kill a Tide Lord.'
Tilly didn't seem surprised. 'We discussed this the last time Ryda ... Lukys was here. He said then that Cayal might have found a way to die.'
'He also suggested we help him achieve it, if you recall, which makes a great deal more sense in hindsight.'
Tilly shook her head unhappily. 'Tides, he must have had some fun at our expense.'
'He wasn't lying, though,' Declan told her. 'He really is planning to help Cayal die, only it's a sideshow to what he's really planning, not the main attraction.'
'Killing an immortal is quite a sideshow, Declan.'
'It's worse than you think,' Declan told her. 'According to Kentravyon, opening the rift that will kill an immortal is a dangerous business. It may well destroy Amyrantha in the process.'
'Rift?' Tilly said with a puzzled look. 'What rift?'
It was dawn by the time Declan had told Tilly everything he knew. He related the story about how Lukys's failed experiments to transfer an immortal from one body to another had resulted in Coryna's mind being transferred into a rat. He told her about the palace in Jelidia, the Chaos Crystal, their belief that Elyssa had found it — or at least knew where it was — Cayal's plans to die and Lukys's plans to restore Coryna using the body of his new wife, Oritha. He told her what he knew of his own origins; of how
he would have been a likely vessel for Coryna's consciousness, but for the twist of fate that saw him born a male. He told her about Shalimar dying, and how he'd ridden a magic carpet over the ocean to return to Glaeba.
He told her everything he could recall, everything he'd learned about the immortals in the past few months. Once he started talking, he couldn't stop. It felt cathartic, almost penitent, as if by confessing everything somehow Tilly would forgive him for becoming immortal.
When he was done, Tilly said nothing for a time as she digested what he'd told her. When she finally spoke, her words shocked him. 'You have to see this through, Declan.'
'Excuse me?'
'Don't you remember me telling you last night that I'd hoped maybe you'd be the one who succeeded where generations of us have failed in bringing about an end to the Tide Lords? Maybe I was right. Maybe the way to finally take the immortals down isn't to fight them as we've been doing unsuccessfully for thousands of years, but to do it from the inside.'
'If I help them kill an immortal, I'll be helping them find a way to kill me, too, Tilly.'
She smiled tiredly. 'You were prepared to die for the cause when you were mortal, Declan. Are you not prepared to do the same now you're immortal?'
'Did you miss the bit about the risk to Amyrantha? Kentravyon says that opening this rift and channelling so much power through the Chaos Crystal could destroy the world.'
'Isn't Kentravyon the madman nobody trusts and few believe?'
'That doesn't make him wrong, Tilly.'
'Perhaps not,' Tilly sighed. 'Tides, I wish I had all the answers you seek.'
He smiled wanly. 'You mean you don't?'
She seemed to appreciate his poor attempt at levity. 'That's just a carefully rehearsed facade I put on to keep you young 'uns in line. Truth is, Declan, I never expected to see the Tide turn in my lifetime. It's been a thousand years or more since the last High Tide. When I agreed to train as the Guardian of the Lore, my predecessor even went so far as to assure me it probably wouldn't happen for another thousand years. And yet here we are. The Tide is turning and already we've had a taste of what's in store for us.'
She rubbed her eyes wearily. 'Tides, how many died on the lake yesterday because only three Tide Lords joined forces to end a war that was — if you have the right of it — just getting in their way? And for no better reason, if what you're telling me about this magic crystal is true. How many more will be dead by the time the Tide peaks? And even if they don't find this crystal, how many more will die when the inevitable squabbles between your new friends result in some catastrophic disaster that will wipe out millions more souls? You worry about the eventual destruction of Amyrantha, Declan, and yet, if you look around, you'll see it's already happening, little by little.'
She closed her eyes for a moment and massaged her temples again. Declan wondered if he should order her Crasii to bring her some tea. They had been here most of the night, after all. 'Perhaps when I wake up it will still be last spring and these last few months will prove nothing more than a particularly vivid nightmare.'
Declan sympathised with her distress, but he hadn't come here to hear Tilly lament her own woes. 'What do you want me to do?'
She opened her eyes and let out a sigh filled with resignation and regret. 'I told you. See it through.'
'You want me to risk every man, woman and child on Amyrantha on the off-chance I can find the way to kill an immortal?'
'Of course not,' she said. 'But it gets down to this, my dear. You say Arkady encouraged you to consort with the immortals to learn their plans. And she was right. You've told me more about the Tide Lords in the last few hours than we've been able to learn in the last thousand years, not because you're a brilliant spymaster, but because you're one of them now. We need you among them, Declan, to aid them in their quest for death if it will help us, or to stop them if they're going to endanger Amyrantha to t
he point of destruction.'
'No pressure then.'
She smiled. 'You can do this, Declan. Anyway, what else have you got on your hectic schedule at the moment that's more important?'
'I want to find Arkady.'
Tilly shook her head sadly. 'She was out on the ice, Declan. She'll be long dead by now, dear.'
'She got away.'
'How do you know?'
'I spoke to the Scard who let her go.'
The old lady remained unconvinced. She threw up her hands in a gesture of helplessness, leaving Declan with the uncomfortable realisation that he really was alone.
'I suppose, when it gets down to it,' she said, 'you're beyond my orders now. You need to find your own path, Declan, and decide what course of action you're going to be able to live with, because in that, at least, you no longer have an option.'
CHAPTER 34
'We won the war!'
Stellan looked up and frowned at the little princess as she let herself into his room and bounded over to his bed where he was stuffing the few clothes he actually owned into a bag he'd borrowed from one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
It seemed odd, seeing Nyah back in petticoats and ribbons, after the time she'd spent in the mountains with Maralyce, dressed as a boy. In a futile attempt to make her look more like a young princess and less like a street urchin, this morning her ladies-in-waiting had dressed her entirely in pink. She wore pink ribbons in her hair, too, holding back two small pigtails that were too short to do much of anything but stick out directly from the side of her head, making her look faintly ridiculous.
Stellan gave no indication he thought that way of her, but he had a feeling she knew, because she pulled the ribbons from her hair impatiently as she spoke, and stuffed them into the cuff of her sleeve. Outside, it was snowing. Stellan wasn't looking forward to the trip across the iceberg-ridden lake in a storm, despite the fact it meant finally returning home.
'Thousands of Crasii died out there on the ice yesterday, Nyah. I'd hardly call that winning.'
'But the Glaeban king is dead. Now you're their king. You should be happy.'
'In theory, I'm their king,' Stellan agreed, taking a seat on the bed beside the bag so that he was eye to eye
with her. 'But it remains to be seen what the people of Glaeba have to say about it.'
'Lord Tyrone told Mama he's done a deal with you. That you're going to be Glaeba's king because you agreed to acknowledge Caelum as Glaeba's sovereign master.'
'I'm aware of the conditions, Nyah,' Stellan said with a heavy sigh at the concessions forced from him by Tryan and Syrolee. Word of the new agreement hadn't taken long to get around the palace if Nyah already knew about it. 'I was there during the negotiations, you know.'
Calling them negotiations was a bit of a misnomer. Stellan had listened while the immortals had told him how it was going to be. There had been neither need nor opportunity for any input from the new Glaeban king.
'Why did you agree to their demands if you don't like the terms?'
'Because enough people have died already, Nyah, and the alternative was very unpleasant.'
'But the honourable thing to do —'
'Is to save lives,' he cut in before she could finish. 'I didn't think the people of Glaeba would appreciate me sacrificing their lives over an obscure point of honour.'
That sage piece of advice delivered, he stood up and returned to his packing. Tryan had a barge at the ready and they were planning to be gone inside the hour. Hard as it was to believe, he would be home inside a day, returning as her king to the country he'd fled as a fugitive a few months ago — which made the fact that he was packing a few clothes into a borrowed bag more than a little ironic. Stellan could have ordered a Crasii to pack for him, he supposed, but he found them unsettling now, here in this palace full of immortals. They made him feel more than a little foolish for ever thinking the Crasii were his to command.
'I don't think they're going to appreciate the alternative to your obscure point of honour, Stellan, when it comes down to it,' the little girl pointed out with insight far beyond her years. 'Isn't surrendering your country to a foreign power, like, you know ... treason?'
'Not if you've lost a war, have no forces left to fight and the alternative is to watch your nation razed to the ground.'
That answer, although unpleasant, seemed to satisfy her. She sat on the bed, swinging her legs over the edge in the spot he'd so recently vacated, and smiled brightly. 'Can I come to Herino with you?'
'I would have thought you'd seen enough of Glaeba.'
'Please, Stellan, let me come. I won't get in the way. I promise.'
'Why would you want to, Nyah?'
She shrugged. 'There's nothing else to do here except watch Syrolee's husband drink our cellar dry, Mama mooning over Tryan while he does whatever he likes with the country, Krydence and Ranee harassing the serving girls, and Syrolee marching around the palace bossing everybody about like she owns the place.'
Stellan thought it interesting that Nyah was starting to refer to the immortals by their real names rather than the names they'd assumed as part of their mortal disguises. Before he could warn her to be more cautious, however, she added, 'And with Elyssa going away, there'll be nobody around to care what I'm up to. Was she very angry when you told her you'd lost Tabitha Belle and the puppies?'
'I haven't told her yet,' Stellan admitted, hoping to be gone before anybody noticed they were missing. 'How do you know Elyssa's going away?'
'I heard her telling Tryan on my way here. She's going somewhere with the other two immortals who
got here yesterday — you know, the one with the crazy eyes and the cute one she keeps drooling over.'
Stellan couldn't quite hide his smile. 'The cute one she keeps drooling over?'
'Well, he is cute. Sort of,' she said. 'And Elyssa's sooo in love with him.'
'I assume you're speaking of Cayal? The Immortal Prince?'
'Is that who he is?' she asked, quite impressed. 'Wow.'
'How do you know Elyssa is in love with Cayal?'
"Cause they're getting married.'
That was news to Stellan. 'They are?'
Nyah nodded. 'She was just busting to tell someone. Made me promise not to tell anyone else, though, but I think she just meant the other immortals. I don't think she'd mind me telling you.'
'Well, just in case, let's not mention that you've told me, eh?' Stellan was amazed by the news, and it drove home to him what he'd always suspected — the immortals took care of their own business first. Anything else — even when it involved the fate of nations — came a poor second to that. 'Did she say where she was going?'
Nyah shook her head, but before she could add anything more, they were interrupted by raised voices in the hall. Stellan couldn't quite make out what the yelling was about, but it was Tryan and Elyssa doing the shouting. Of that, Stellan had no doubt.
Nyah hopped off the bed and ran to the door, opening it a crack to peer outside.
'Get away from there,' Stellan scolded.
'Don't you want to know what they're fighting about?'
'No!' Stellan lied. 'Of course not. Now come away from that door.
'Was a time you were prepared to wash the continent in blood for it!' Elyssa's voice screeched,
close enough now for them to hear her clearly through the crack in the door.
'What do you think they're arguing about?' Nyah hissed in Stellan's direction.
'And you're willing to give it up for a good fuck!' Tryan's voice bellowed back, so loud that Stellan had no trouble hearing him through the tiny opening Nyah had created.
'Is he talking about the Bedlam Stone, perhaps?' Nyah asked, grinning in that guilty way all children did when they were exposed to words they'd not normally encounter in polite conversation.
'I have no idea,' Stellan told her sternly, as he stuffed the rest of his shirts into the bag and turned to gather his shaving gear from the dresser. 'Now close that
door. No good is going to come from you eavesdropping.'
'It's not eavesdropping if you can hear them on the other side of the Great Lakes,' Nyah said with a grin, but she did as he bid. With a great deal of reluctance she closed the door, before turning to him with a smile that was all too knowing for one so young. 'But you do want to know what they're fighting about, don't you?'
He really didn't want to admit to a smug twelve year old that he was almost as curious as she was to know about what the immortals were up to. 'Perhaps ...maybe.'
'Cayal would know.'
His heart skipped a beat. 'You are not to go anywhere near the other immortals, Nyah. Do you hear me?'
'Why not?'
Stellan glared at her. 'You are going to get yourself killed, young lady, if you insist on becoming involved in things that are no concern of yours.'
'You could find out what's going on, though,' she suggested with a sly grin. 'I mean, they need you. You're the new Glaeban king.'
It was unsettling, being manipulated so blatantly by a child. 'You should return to your lessons, your highness, and leave well enough alone.'
Nyah wasn't so easily deterred. 'My lessons have been suspended. We're at war.'
'The war is over,' Stellan informed her. 'Your lessons will no doubt resume any moment now. So go, and leave me to my packing.'
Nyah's face fell at his unfriendly tone. She stared at him for a moment and when he seemed unlikely to relent, she turned back to the door, her shoulders slumped. There was no sign of anyone outside any longer when she opened it. The little princess glanced up and down the hall for a moment before turning to look at Stellan with eyes too old and weary for one so young. 'I thought we were friends, Stellan.'
'We are friends, Nyah,' he assured her. 'That's why I'm not going to let you get yourself killed over something that doesn't concern you.'
'Everything that happens on this continent concerns me,' she said, drawing herself up like a young queen. 'I'll be Queen of Caelum someday.'
'Then it's your duty to ensure you live long enough to help your people, Nyah,' he advised. 'And leave me to help mine as I see fit.'
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