The Chaos Crystal (36 page)

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 the 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?'