The Immortal Prince (18 page)

The Crasii shrugged. “What would be the point?”

“To go on living?” Stellan suggested.

“So that weasel can make me fight again in a month when I'm recovered?” she asked, glaring at Stellan's companion. “I'd rather be put out of my misery now.”

“Everyone is wagering on the bear.”

“Then they'll win,” she replied, apparently unconcerned.

“What's your name?”

“Chikita,” she replied proudly. “Out of Kamira, by Taryx.”

Stellan's eyes widened in surprise. This Crasii's pedigree was impeccable. Not the sort you'd expect to find in a place like this. “You're one of Taryx's cubs?”

“You've heard of him?”

I own him,
Stellan was tempted to reply, but he wasn't sure how she would react to such news. Instead, he nodded. “I have several of your siblings in my service.”

Chikita shrugged. “Tell them I said hello. Just before a snow bear ripped me to shreds.”

“It's time to go, your grace,” the bookie insisted. “The other patrons grow impatient.”

“Let them wait,” Stellan told the man, and then turned back to Chikita, intrigued how such a pedigreed feline had fallen so low. “If you had sufficient incentive,” he asked curiously, “could you take him?”

“That stupid bear? In three minutes flat,” Chikita assured him.

It was an unlikely boast, but the feline's confidence might not be misplaced, Stellan thought, given her line. “I'll wager a hundred gold fenets on the Crasii,” he told the bookie.

“The odds on Chikita winning are one hundred to one, your grace,” the man informed him with a frown. “If she wins, that would break the house.”

“No need to break the house,” Stellan said. “If she wins, I'll take her off your hands. A feline Crasii, even one able to take down a Jelidian snow bear, isn't worth anything near a thousand gold fenets. You'd be getting the better end of the deal.”

Given that Stellan had the power to shut him down and run him out of the city on a whim, the man had little choice but to agree. He didn't seem too worried about the deal, however. He could only lose the bet if this feisty little Crasii defeated a snow bear. There was a sound reason the odds were a hundred to one
against
that happening.

“As you wish. It's your loss.”

“There,” Stellan announced, turning back to the Crasii. “If you beat the bear, you will belong to me and you won't have to fight in the arena again. Is that sufficient incentive for you?”

The Crasii looked him up and down with a disparaging glare. “I don't have to fight again, eh? Why? So you and your friends can sate your noble curiosity with a little bit of bestiality? Thanks, but I think I prefer a quick death at the hands of the bear.”

This Crasii was lucky, Stellan thought, that he was married to a woman like Arkady, who'd taught him tolerance of the Crasii in a manner rare among his class. Any other man in his position would have had her run through for her temerity.

“Do you know who I am?”

“You keep slaves, so you're rich, that much is obvious. You're probably highborn. You may even be important.”

“I am Stellan Desean. Duke of Lebec.”

She seemed unimpressed. “Then I guessed right, didn't I?”

He sighed patiently. “If you win this fight, you will enter my service. As I have no interest in bestiality, that leaves me with little option but to place you in my guard, a position you are uniquely suited to and where I already have in excess of two hundred other feline Crasii slaves—some of which are members of your own family—all of whom seem quite content in my employ. Of course, if you'd rather die at the hands of a hungry snow bear for the entertainment of a warehouse full of bloodthirsty human gamblers, be my guest.”

Stellan turned away. He had barely taken two steps before she called him back.

“Are you really the Duke of Lebec?”

He turned to look at her. “I am.”

“Do you mean it? About joining your guard?”

“Yes, I mean it.”

She thought about his offer for all of thirty seconds before she turned to the fight master, her ears up, suddenly all smiles. “You'd better rethink your odds, you old swindler. I think I just found an incentive to go on living.”

The man jerked his head in the direction of the snow bear, who was being wheeled toward the arena. He smiled knowingly. “It's not me you have to convince, kitten.” He shrugged. “It's the bear.”

When it wasn't raining, Arkady often took breakfast on the terrace at the rear of the palace, overlooking the gardens. She loved the view of the lake, the crisp breeze that blew in off the water early in the day and the feeling that over all this, she was queen.

The day they married, Stellan had brought her out here on the terrace at sunset, after the guests had all left and they were finally alone. “You're effectively the Queen of Lebec, now, you know,” he'd told her, putting his arm around her. “You're not going to make me regret this, are you, Lady Desean?”

“No,” she assured him, still not used to her new title. “You've kept your end of the bargain, Stellan. I'll keep mine.”

Stellan's end of the bargain had been a pardon for her father and his release from Lebec Prison as soon as they were married. A messenger had been dispatched with the appropriate paperwork from the wedding reception by her new husband as soon as the formalities were over. They were still waiting on word from the prison that he had been released. Arkady's side of the bargain had been to provide Stellan the appearance of a happy family life and eventually an heir.

As it turned out, neither of them had been able to fulfil their promise to the other.

Arkady's father had died before the messenger could deliver his release papers and six years later, through no fault of Arkady's, Stellan still had no son to inherit his title.

But they'd remained friends through all of it.

Two misfits with only the other to understand us,
Arkady often thought.
Strange how these things work out.

“All alone, your grace?”

Startled by the unexpected interruption, Arkady jumped to her feet as Mathu Debree climbed the steps leading down to the lawn, glad the young man couldn't read her thoughts. He was dressed in riding boots and a crumpled shirt and had obviously been out and about for some time this morning.

“Your royal highness!”

“Please,” he urged, “don't get up on my account. I don't mean to disturb your breakfast. May I join you?”

“Of course,” she said, pointing to the wrought-iron chair opposite hers on the other side of the small table. “Would you like something to eat?”

“I've eaten already,” he assured her, taking the offered seat. “I was up early with your husband, riding around the estate. He had something else to check on so he asked me to meet him before we head down to the slave pens to see how his new Crasii is settling in.”

“Stellan has a new Crasii?”

“He won her last night at the fight.”

“Must have been an interesting fight.”

“It was disturbingly quick, actually,” the prince remarked with a frown. “Do you think we should worry about how vicious the Crasii are?”

“In my experience, they're only vicious when you mistreat them.”

Mathu smiled. “Ah yes, I've heard about you, Lady Desean. Champion of the weak, the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. The common-born daughter of a bleeding-heart physician who scandalised the entire nobility of Glaeba by appearing out of nowhere and somehow snagging one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. You're the wrong person to ask about the savagery of our slave races, aren't you?”

“You sound as if you disapprove of me, your highness.”

“Far from it,” he laughed. “I think you're a breath of fresh air. And please, you've welcomed me into your home, Arkady. I really would prefer it if you called me Mathu.”

“If you insist…Mathu. But I'm more interested to know why you think the Crasii are so vicious?”

The prince's smile faded. “Last night I saw a feline Crasii kill a Jelidian snow bear twice her size with nothing other than wits and claws. Have you ever seen a bear baiting? They chain the bear in the middle of the pit and then let the Crasii loose. She has to dodge it, kill it or die. Only this one didn't even try to dodge it. She tricked it into looking away, ran up its back and then ripped its jugular open with her claws.”

Arkady frowned. “Thank you, Mathu, for sharing that image while I'm eating.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. It's just it occurred to me last night that if they ever took it upon themselves to revolt, we'd be in a lot of trouble.”

“Then perhaps you should prevail upon your father to make cruelty to the Crasii a crime, Mathu, rather than a hobby for jaded noblemen.”

He studied her curiously for a moment. “I'm surprised to hear you defend them so staunchly, Arkady. Weren't the Crasii the reason your father died in prison?”

“My father was arrested for being part of an underground movement helping wounded and terrified slaves escape brutal masters. It's the fault of the men who terrorised their Crasii into fleeing that my father was forced into such a role, and their fault he died in prison. The Crasii are the victims, not the aggressors.”

“But they were Scards…”

“A Scard is any slave who refuses to obey his master, Mathu. At least by our definition. That doesn't make them inherently evil.”

“By
our
definition?”

“To the Crasii, it's quite a different thing. A Scard is actually a Crasii not compelled to follow the orders of the Tide Lords. It has nothing to do with their human masters. The inability to worship their creators was a flaw the Tide Lords sought to eradicate, according to Crasii lore, which is why the Tide Lords discarded them, hence the slang reference to Scards. They obey us because they choose to, Mathu, not because they have to.”

“How do you know so much about them?”

She shrugged, seeing no harm in telling the tale. It wasn't as if it was a secret. And the key to any successful lie, she knew well, was to stick as closely as possible to the truth. “I wanted to be a physician like my father, but they wouldn't let me study medicine at the university because I'm a woman. The only course open to me was history, because it's common—even acceptable—for women to research their own or their husband's family background to prove how well connected they are. With my father sheltering runaway Crasii, I had to pretend I was studying them to remove suspicion about why there were so many seen coming and going from our house. My feigned interest became a genuine one.”

“Until your father was arrested.”

Arkady shook her head. “I'm not the only human in Glaeba interested in the Crasii. There's a whole department dedicated to researching their origins at the University of Herino. Harlie Palmerston, the author of our much-lauded
Theory of Human Advancement,
is among its leading lights.”

“You're the only one who's had a family member arrested over it, though.”

“There've been plenty of other people arrested for aiding runaways,” she assured him. “And many more the authorities prefer to ignore. You just don't hear about them in polite society.”

“Because their daughters usually don't marry into the Glaeban royal family?” Mathu asked with raised brow.

“Exactly!” Arkady declared with a smile. “That's how Stellan and I met, you know. After they arrested my father, and I'd had no luck getting him released through normal channels, I came charging up here to the palace to demand the Duke of Lebec do something about it.”

“I always thought you and Stellan were childhood sweethearts.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “Not exactly. I'd met Stellan before when we were children. My father was sometimes called to treat his father, when the old duke was still alive, if the palace physician was away. I decided our previous, albeit tenuous, relationship was all the invitation I needed to barge into his library to inform the Duke of Lebec exactly how I thought he should run his duchy.”

“Fortunate for you that Stellan has a sense of humour, I suspect.”

“Indeed,” Arkady agreed. The rest of the story she left to Mathu's imagination, quite sure he would fill in the romantic details for himself, no matter how far removed from the truth they might be.

It was at that moment that Stellan himself appeared on the terrace from the dining room behind them with Jaxyn. He waved both the prince and his wife back into their seats when they made to rise, kissed Arkady's cheek and then helped himself to one of the pastries on the table. “So, I turn my back for a moment and find you working your devious wiles on my wife, eh, Mathu?” Stellan joked.

“To no avail,” Mathu lamented. “Arkady seems more interested in educating me than entertaining me, I fear.”

“Ah…but what an education it would be,” Jaxyn suggested with a wink, making both Stellan and Mathu laugh.

“And one we don't have time for,” Stellan warned. “Did you still want to come down to the barracks and meet Chikita, Mathu?” He turned to Arkady and added by way of an explanation, “I won myself a feline Crasii last night.”

“So Mathu informs me. Is she breeding stock?”

“A bit early to tell. She's a fighter, though, that's for certain. One of Taryx's line.”

“Then don't let me keep you, dear. And don't let this new Crasii of yours work out unless she's up to it. I imagine she didn't escape a Jelidian snow bear without some injuries.”

“A few, but nothing too serious,” he agreed. “Are you coming, Jaxyn?”

“Tides, no!” he exclaimed, collapsing into one of the vacant chairs. “My head is still pounding. You go on ahead. I'll stay here and see if my devious wiles are any more effective on your lovely wife than Mathu's.”

Stellan kissed her cheek again, smiling. “Sorry, darling. It seems to be the morning for it. Will you be in for lunch or are you heading back out to the prison?”

“I thought I'd pay another visit to our immortal.”

“Then I shall look forward to another entertaining anecdote at dinner tonight. Come on, Mathu.”

The duke and the young prince headed down the steps and across the lawn toward the slave quarters. Jaxyn helped himself to a cup of tea from the pot sitting on the table and then turned his attention to Arkady.

“Don't bother,” she told him, before he could utter a word.

“Pardon?”

“Don't bother trying your ‘devious wiles' on me, Jaxyn Aranville. Stellan told me about your offer. And I can promise you, there is more chance of Kyle Lakesh proving to be immortal than there is of me
ever
sharing a bed with you, no matter how noble the cause.”

“I'm disappointed in you, Arkady.”

“I'll just bet you are.”

“No, seriously. I thought you genuinely cared for Stellan.”

“I do care for him. That's why I'm counting the days until you tire of him and move on to something more enticing.”

“Stellan loves me.”

“Something I'm sure he'll live to regret.”

Jaxyn leaned forward on the table, looking at her earnestly. “Stellan would love a son of mine like it was his own.”

Sad, but true,
Arkady thought, although her expression betrayed no hint of what she was thinking. “You'll have to come up with a better argument than that to convince me,” she told him.

“Are you a virgin, Arkady?”

“I
beg
your pardon?”

“Are you a virgin?” he repeated, curiously. “I mean, there was no hint of any previous lovers before Stellan, or the king would never have allowed the marriage. And there's never been as much as a whisper of scandal since the wedding, which means either you're discreet beyond imagining, or there's been nothing to be discreet about.”

“You have some nerve, Jaxyn…”

“You know, I think you might be,” he said, relaxing back in his chair as if astounded by his own brilliant deduction. “Tides! That would explain so much!”

Arkady smiled serenely, refusing to dignify his accusation with a reply. “You truly are a fool, Jaxyn Aranville.”

“And you're afraid,” he retorted, sounding very certain of himself. “You're a twenty-six-year-old virgin who's terrified of men.”

“Am I?”

“Of course you are! That explains why you married Stellan. I mean what could be safer than marrying a man who will never, ever, want you? No wonder you're so damned frigid.”

“And shouting this accusation out across the terrace is going to make me melt into your arms to correct this deplorable state of affairs
how,
exactly?” she enquired.

Jaxyn glanced around guiltily for a moment and then fixed his gaze on her with a sly smile. “You're a cool one, Arkady, I'll grant you that.”

“Far cooler than you,” she advised, rising to her feet. “You'd be wise not to forget it, too.”

Arkady turned for the dining room door, but she stopped on the threshold, certain that if she didn't put an end to Jaxyn's speculation, she was never going to hear the end of this. “And for your information, I haven't been a virgin since I was fourteen years old. That the king doesn't know about my past is merely proof that given the right incentives, even the King's Spymaster will hold his tongue.”

She left Jaxyn sitting on the terrace, staring after her in surprise, smiling to herself as soon as her back was turned.
Living a lie is getting easier by the minute,
she mused. Or maybe it was because she'd been taking lessons from the master of all liars lately: Cayal, the Immortal Prince.