The Immortal Prince (20 page)

 

Chikita was confined to a cage at the back of the longhouse, normally reserved for felines on heat that Stellan didn't want mating with any of the males. They walked the length of the empty dormitory behind Mitten, past rows of narrow beds piled with furs and blankets, as if each Crasii was trying to own more bedclothes than their neighbour did. Stellan always found it intriguing that the Crasii slept on top of their bedclothes, rather than under them, even in the dead of winter. It was a feline thing, he guessed. They didn't like to be covered. Even in battle they eschewed armour or any other sort of protection, preferring the freedom of movement that came with fighting in nothing but their own skin.

The Crasii jumped to her feet as soon as she spied Stellan and Mathu approaching, grabbing at the bars of her cage, her tail whipping back and forth angrily as she growled at them.

“You lied!” she accused, before Stellan could utter a word.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You told me if I won the fight I'd be free!”

“Actually, I believe the duke told you that you could enter his service,” Mathu corrected, obviously alarmed by the feline's aggressive tone. “Crasii weren't meant to be free.”

“Step a little closer, human,” Chikita suggested with a snarl. “Then we'll see who was meant to be free.”

“Settle down, kitten. You're in here for your own protection,” Stellan assured her, putting his arm out to prevent Mathu from doing exactly what the feline suggested. In her current mood, she'd rip him from neck to navel if he got in reach of those claws. “It'll take a few days before the others get used to your scent. Once they do, you'll be free to join your comrades. Until then, and until you've recovered from last night's fight, you're better off where you are.”

Chikita glared at him for a moment and then looked past him. She hissed at Mitten, growling low in her throat.

“And you won't be going anywhere until
that
stops, either,” Stellan warned.

“I am a fighter,” Chikita announced. “You would have me acting like a house cat.”

“Which is marginally better than being torn to shreds by a bear for the entertainment of a room full of bored humans, I would have thought.”

Chikita's eyes flashed with defiance, but her tail slowed and she seemed to calm down a little. “I will wait then, until my lord commands me.”

Stellan frowned, thinking her capitulation a little quick. “That's a much better attitude to take.”

“Will I be permitted to meet him soon?”

“Meet who?” he asked. He had no idea what the Crasii was talking about.

“Chikita is just nervous because she's new,” Mitten explained, glaring at the young female. “She is pleased to meet both her lord and her prince. She doesn't mean anything else.”

“But I can smell—,” the feline objected, but Mitten cut her off impatiently.

“She can smell Taryx, your grace,” the Crasii told them with a shrug. “It's making her a little jittery.”

“Everything will be fine once you're used to the place,” Stellan assured her. “Mitten will see to it you have anything you need.”

“Of course, your grace,” the older Crasii agreed with a subservient bow.

A little unsettled, but at least satisfied that his new slave was well in hand, he turned and headed back out into the sunlight. Mathu followed him, stopping on the top step of the porch to look out over the Crasii village.

“Is it my imagination, or was there something very odd going on just now,” he asked, “between those two Crasii?”

“No,” Stellan replied. “You weren't imagining things.”

“So who do you think she can really smell?”

Stellan shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe she's coming on heat.”

“I met a man once,” Mathu told him, “who decided to find out what a feline on heat was like.”

“That'd be a rather dangerous game to play.”

Mathu nodded. “It was. I mean, she looked human enough—if the light was low and you didn't mind the idea of fur instead of bare skin—but those claws…” The young prince shuddered. “He said it was amazing. Trouble is, he damn near bled to death finding it out.”

Stellan grimaced. “Never seen the attraction in fornicating with another species, myself. Even an almost human one. There's something innately repulsive about the very idea.”

Mathu clapped him on the shoulder, amused rather than surprised. “You really are a staid, unadventurous old prude at heart, aren't you, cousin?”

Stellan smiled. “I guess I must be,” he agreed, idly wishing the rest of the world was as easy to convince of that as Mathu Debree.

Tilly Ponting's house in Lebec was set at the end of a cul-de-sac not far from the lake's edge in the more exclusive part of Lebec City. It had been her town house before her husband's demise; her family seat being located some forty miles northeast of the city. After her husband died, she'd moved into the city full time. Tilly was a social creature and while she enjoyed the wealth that came with being one of the landed gentry, she wasn't all that interested in spending time on the land.

A well-trained canine Crasii showed Arkady through the house to the morning room, where Tilly was indulging her latest hobby. The widow had decided several months ago that she had some talent as an artist based, apparently, on a passing comment an art tutor made to her when she was a girl. Now that she was free to pursue whatever hobbies she desired, she had decided to discover the hidden artist within, who had been—she'd assured Arkady—stifled by years of repressive marriage and suffocating conformity. When Arkady arrived at the house, Tilly was staring pensively at her latest canvas, paintbrush in hand, and appeared to have been in that position for some time. A large ginger cat slept curled on the table beside the easel, the tip of its tail resting in a pot of blue paint.

“What do you think, Arkady?” Tilly asked, turning to greet her guest. “Should I call this
Mist on the Lake
or
Ocean at Rest
?”

Arkady considered the painting for a moment. “How about
Big Blue Blob
?”

“You are cruel beyond imagining, Arkady,” the older woman replied. And then she smiled. “Although a little more tactful than my son, I have to say, who suggested naming it the
Ode to My Complete Lack of Talent.
”

Arkady laughed and took a seat at the table. “How is Aleki? I haven't seen him in ages.”

“He's fine,” Tilly sighed, putting down her paintbrush and taking the seat opposite Arkady. “He loves being a farmer. I despair of him ever finding a decent wife.”

Arkady smiled. Only Tilly Ponting would consider her son's dedication to his family's massive estates
farming.
“I thought you were trying to arrange a union between him and Davista Brantine?”

“It was a disaster,” Tilly lamented. “My son is a bore and Davista is a silly girl. Don't suppose Stellan's interested in marrying Kylia off, is he? Would you like some tea?” she added, indicating the silver tea service on the table.

“Thank you, I would.” She accepted a cup that Tilly poured with her own hand, and took a sip, before she answered her hostess's first question. “Even if Stellan was looking for a husband for his niece, Tilly, I doubt Aleki is in the running. He's more than twice Kylia's age.”

“Tides, he's not going to let her marry for love, is he? It would be just like that fool man to do something so stupid.”

“You think marrying for love is stupid?” Arkady asked curiously.

“Don't you?”

She hesitated before answering. “Actually, I hadn't really thought about it.”

“I've thought about it a lot,” Tilly told her. “If I'd had my way when I was seventeen, I'd have married one of my father's grooms. His name was Neron. I was so in love with him, I thought I would die when I was told I couldn't have him.”

“Did he feel the same way?”

The widow shrugged. “I like to imagine he did, but the truth is, about three months after my father found out about us and forbade him to see me again, he married a girl from his village, moved back home and that was the last I ever saw of him.” She sipped her tea and smiled. “Hardly the stuff of epic romance.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

Tilly shook her head. “Not a moment of it. I don't regret falling in love with a groom any more than I regret marrying Aleki's father. I've had a good life, Arkady, and I've lived every moment of it in the style to which I'm sinfully habituated. Even better, my dear husband had the decency to pass away while I was still young enough to enjoy being a widow, but not so young that I needed to remarry. I have a decent, hardworking son, determined to keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed, and delightful, terribly well-connected friends like you to keep me on every reputable invitation list in town. It's all worked out rather swimmingly, in fact.”

“You're an evil old cynic, Tilly,” Arkady laughed.

“Better to be an evil
old
cynic than a cynic at your age,” she scolded. “You need to fall in love, my girl. Hard. It would do you the world of good.”

“What makes you think I'm not in love with Stellan?”

“Hmmm…,” Tilly said, feigning deep thought. “I think it comes down to two words…Jaxyn Aranville.”

“You really
are
an evil old cynic,” Arkady accused, frowning.

“I'm right though. You need to have an affair, girl. And I don't mean some discreet little assignation once a week, all done in good taste and decorum. I mean something that makes you foolish. Something so consuming you'd throw your whole life away for it. I'm talking passion. A screaming, tear-my-clothes-off-and-take-me-now-you-brute sort of fling. Preferably with someone totally inappropriate.”

Arkady shook her head. “And exactly what would that achieve?”

“You'd know you're alive, Arkady.”

“I'm content with other, less dangerous indicators that I'm alive,” she replied. “You know: breathing. A pulse. That sort of thing.”

“They're just proving you're not dead,” Tilly corrected. “That's a whole world away from being alive, my girl.”

Arkady smiled. “I don't know why I listen to you, Tilly Ponting. You're a shameless meddler and you give the worst advice of anybody I've ever met.”

“But that's why you love me,” Tilly chuckled, patting Arkady's hand across the table. “So tell me, dear. If you didn't come for my advice on matters of the heart, what are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you about the Tarot.”

“You want to know more?”

“About the characters on the cards, yes.”

“How did your last interview go?”

“It was…interesting.”

Tilly looked at her cannily. “But your immortal is not so easily tripped up?”

She shook her head. “Not so easily.”

Tilly rose to her feet and crossed the room to the sideboard. She opened a drawer and pulled out another deck of cards similar to those she had loaned Arkady and then came back and began laying them out on the table.

“Engarhod,” she said, as she dealt the cards. “Emperor of the Five Realms. His wife, Syrolee, the Empress. Elyssa, the Maiden. Tryan, the Devil. Pellys, the Recluse. Lukys, the Scholar. Rance, the Hanging Man. Krydence, the Judge. Taryx, the Warrior. Sometimes they call him Tyrax—”

“Slow down!” Arkady begged. “I'm not going to remember all of this. He mentioned Pellys, though.”

“The Recluse?”

Arkady nodded. “Cayal claims Pellys was a recluse because someone had him decapitated. His head grew back afterwards, but without his memories. That's
why
he was a recluse.”

Tilly looked at her in surprise. “He actually
told
you an immortal's head grows back?”

“It's apparently one of the benefits of immortality.”

“Did he tell what else happens?”

Arkady looked at Tilly with a raised brow. “Is something else
supposed
to happen?”

Tilly laughed. “There's the legend that it'll destroy the world, but I guess we got lucky. Good thing our headsman was away, eh?”

Arkady smiled at the very notion. “I tried to get Stellan to let me chop off one of Cayal's fingers to see if it grew back so we could settle the matter once and for all, but he won't let me do it.”

“How inconsiderate of him,” Tilly agreed.

She looked at her friend oddly. “You think I'm a barbarian, too, don't you?”

Suddenly the widow smiled again, although it seemed a little forced this time. “No, I think I was right about you needing to have an affair. You really have cut yourself off from normal human emotions, haven't you, dear?”

Arkady shook her head and pointed to the cards. “Just stick to the Tarot, Tilly, and stop trying to fix things that aren't broken.”

The old woman dealt out another card. It was a picture of two lovers entwined in an intimate embrace. “The Lovers. Cayal and Amaleta.” Tilly laid it down quite deliberately, studied the card for a long, meaningful moment and then looked at Arkady with a raised brow. “If I was superstitious, Arkady Desean, I'd say there's an omen here.”

Arkady rolled her eyes. “For the Tides' sake, you read
Tarot
cards, Tilly. You think there's an omen in everything.”

“Could be I'm right.”

“Well, I'm sure your Tarot lovers are the very embodiment of happily-ever-after, but they're not going to help me much. Maybe you should tell me about this Emperor of the Five Realms,” Arkady suggested. “I'm quite sure the omens can take care of themselves.”

“The Lovers represent tragedy, not happiness,” Tilly corrected. “The legend goes that Cayal had already discovered the secret of immortality by the time he met Amaleta. After he fell hopelessly in love with her—according to the Tarot, at least—he took her up into the Shevron Mountains and there he asked her to marry him, promising her immortal life as proof of his eternal love. She was understandably nervous about making the transformation, but he begged her to trust him. Eventually, she agreed, and he set about making her immortal so they could share their eternity in perfect bliss.”

“Well, yes, Tilly,” Arkady said, smiling. “I can see what a tragedy that must have been.”

“It
was
a tragedy. Cayal got it wrong. Instead of giving Amaleta eternal life, he killed her.”

Arkady was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “That must have been rather awkward for him.”

Tilly was clearly not pleased Arkady wasn't giving her Tarot the respect she felt it deserved. “They say his grief was inconsolable. According to legend, the Great Lakes are the result of the Immortal Prince's tears.”

Arkady could no longer hide her amusement. “Odd, if we're talking about the same Immortal Prince we have locked up in Lebec Prison. He doesn't strike me as the weepy type.”

Tilly leaned back in her chair and stared at Arkady. “If you're not going to take this seriously…”

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't tease,” she said, patting Tilly's hand, realising she was very close to offending her old friend. “Please, tell me more. I don't mean to scorn your Tarot. It's just the academic in me has trouble dealing with the notion I'm being forced to rely on a deck of cards used for telling fortunes as my only dependable resource, that's all. Tell me about the others. I'll not laugh again, I promise.”

Tilly frowned, deliberating the sincerity of Arkady's apology, before nodding and dealing out the rest of the cards. “The Tarot deserves respect, you know.”

“Of course it does.”

“People died to protect it, during the last Cataclysm.”

Arkady nodded solemnly. “I'm sure they did.”

Tilly glared at her. “Some of us go to a great deal of trouble to ensure this record of the true nature of the Tide Lords never fades from memory, Arkady. It's a solemn trust that we take very seriously. If you're going to scoff at it, you can find someone else to tell you about the Tarot.”

“Some of
us
?” Arkady asked with a smile. “Tides! You make it sound like you're part of some giant conspiracy to keep the knowledge of the Tide Lords alive.”

Tilly continued to glare at her. “Some secrets are worth protecting, Arkady.”

“Secrets?”
This was starting to get a little bizarre and it was certainly the first time Arkady had ever seen Tilly so serious. While she knew Tilly deliberately cultivated the idea that she was nothing more than an eccentric widow, Arkady had always believed it was all part of her plan to avoid another marriage. It never occurred to her that Tilly might be doing it for any other reason. And certainly not for something as trivial as a deck of Tarot cards.

Picking up the nearest card, Tilly handed it to Arkady. “I've said too much already. Let's get on with this.”

“Tilly,” Arkady asked curiously, “do you actually believe the Tide Lords are real?”

The old woman was silent for a moment and then she shrugged. “It doesn't matter what I believe. You're the one supposedly interrogating an immortal. I think what you believe is rather more important at this stage.”

Her answer surprised and disturbed Arkady a little. She'd never seen her old friend like this before. “I'm sorry, Tilly,” she said. “I don't mean to mock you or your beliefs.”

“Let's start then,” Tilly said, rather more frostily than Arkady was expecting, “with the Emperor of the Five Realms…”

 

It was past lunch by the time Arkady arrived at the prison, the day overcast and gloomy. She was led through the depressing halls to Recidivists' Row without ceremony, the guards so used to her visits by now they addressed her by name as she passed by.

When she reached the Row, she was surprised by how pleased both Cayal and Warlock were to see her. Cayal's smile in particular was rather unsettling. He seemed disturbingly eager and, for a moment, Tilly's suggestion about indulging in a screaming, tear-my-clothes-off-and-take-me-now-you-brute sort of fling with someone totally inappropriate flashed through her mind.

Idiot,
she told herself sternly. It was easy to forget she was their only contact with the outside world other than the guards. For these prisoners, she was a window into a realm from which they were excluded, probably for the rest of their lives. That was why they were so glad to see her, she reminded herself. If Cayal seemed to eagerly approach the bars whenever she arrived, it was just because she was the only respite he had from the boredom of his incarceration. If his eyes widened when he looked at her, if his gaze lingered longer than it should, if his smile seemed a little too familiar, it meant nothing—no more than her own quickening heartbeat meant simply that she despised being in this place where her father had perished.