The Immortal Prince (28 page)

Sunlight smells different,
Warlock decided, taking another deep breath, as if it would somehow last beyond the meagre hour they had been allocated in the open air.

As she promised she would, the Duchess of Lebec had arranged for the inmates of the Row to be allowed out of their cells once a day for exercise. Not wishing to appear as if she favoured either Cayal or Warlock, the duchess had apparently insisted all the prisoners should be included. The Warden, for his own reasons, agreed to accommodate her request, so the prisoners of Recidivists' Row had been allowed out of their cells for an hour. It seemed a gift more precious than gold.

For a wonder, the sky was clear this morning; the sun shining brightly, even here beneath the shadowed walls of the prison yard. Until he took his first breath of unfettered air, Warlock hadn't realised how much his confinement was affecting him. Although the walled yard wasn't that large and was surrounded by a wall-walk patrolled by human guards armed with crossbows and leashed feline Crasii who seemed anxious to test their claws on any prisoner foolish enough to make a sudden movement, the ability to take more than four steps before hitting a wall felt almost like true freedom.

The suzerain reacted curiously to his liberty, Warlock observed. Although he had been confined in the Row for weeks, Cayal showed none of the ill effects that afflicted the dozen or so other inhabitants. His skin colour remained good, his weight hadn't changed, despite his poor diet; his hair wasn't falling out or growing in corkscrews, a sure sign of scurvy. His muscle tone remained healthy, his eyes clear. There was no sign of swollen, bleeding gums or loosened teeth and he moved fluidly and easily, apparently not afflicted by the soreness and stiffness of the joints that affected many of the other human prisoners who shuffled around the yard, trying to make their tired limbs work.

But then why would he?
Warlock thought.
The suzerain are immune to the diseases that plague normal men.

“What are you staring at, gemang?”

Breathing hard, Warlock rose to his feet as the suzerain approached. He'd paced a circuit of the yard a dozen times now, and was resting before he repeated the exercise, appalled by how weak he was becoming through forced inactivity.

“Nothing.”

“I'll wager I know what's bothering you,” Cayal suggested, jerking his head in the direction of the nearest guard above them.

This close, Warlock could smell the Tide Lord. His scent filled the air, strong and dangerous…a blatant warning to anybody who knew the signs. And Warlock wasn't the only Crasii who sensed the danger. He glanced up at the wall-walk. It seemed the guards were having trouble with their felines this morning; had been ever since Cayal had entered the yard. Only Warlock and Cayal understood the reason. The humans just thought the felines were being fractious.

“Your presence disturbs them,” Warlock remarked.

The suzerain smiled and looked up at the wall-walk. “Want to have some fun?”

“Exactly what do you mean by
fun
?”

“I mean how much fun would it be to give one of those felines a run around the yard?”

Despite himself, Warlock bared his teeth in a grin. The suzerain was right. It would be a great deal of fun to chase a feline. “You'd have to get her down here first.”

“That's the easy part.”

Warlock's smile faded. “And the moment I made a move in the direction of a feline, one of the guards would probably put a crossbow bolt through me.”

“How about that?” Cayal said with an ingenuous smile. “A game where everybody has a good time.”

Warlock turned his back on the Tide Lord. “Find another way to entertain yourself, suzerain. One that doesn't involve killing me.”

“Don't you dare turn your back on me, gemang.”

Warlock stopped dead in his tracks, as Cayal's order sent a shiver of fear through him. It wasn't what he'd said, so much as the way he'd said it. And the ancient language he'd spoken. It reverberated through Warlock as if his body was a harp string that had just been plucked.

Before he knew what he was doing, Warlock turned back to face Cayal.

“My lord,” he found himself saying.

The Tide Lord nodded with satisfaction. “Better. Now bow to me, gemang. Show the whole world who is really the master here.”

Warlock shook his head, shocked by how little effort it took to defy the order. According to everything he'd been taught, every instinct he owned, he shouldn't have been able to refuse a Tide Lord anything. He shouldn't have even been able to contemplate the idea.

“You are the past, suzerain,” he declared defiantly. “You have no power over me or my people any longer.”

“I
can
make you,” Cayal warned in a low voice. Nobody was paying any attention to their confrontation. The other prisoners were too involved in their own exercise and the guards on the wall-walk were busy trying to calm the restless Crasii.

“Not at the moment, you can't,” Warlock said, growling low in his throat, his confidence growing with every moment he defied the instinctive Crasii urge to blindly follow Cayal's instructions. “It's Low Tide. If you had any power, you'd not be here. You'd be looking for a way to enslave the entire world, not trying to get yourself killed in some grubby Glaeban gaol, or playing along with these humans you think you're so much better than. Your time may come again, suzerain, but it's not now and until it does come again, I will bow to no one, especially not you.”

The Tide Lord's eyes flashed dangerously, but he made no move toward Warlock. Perhaps he understood the futility. Attacking another prisoner would just mean a beating, and given there were a half-dozen testy felines not ten feet above them, it would probably mean being ripped to shreds into the bargain. Knowing one could survive such an attack didn't lessen the pain of it and Warlock guessed Cayal wasn't fool enough to bring that down upon himself, just to take a swing at a gemang.

“You'll live to regret saying that,” Cayal warned, instead.

“Not as long as you will, suzerain.”

If the Immortal Prince had a response, Warlock never got to hear it. At that moment, the gate into the yard swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges and another guard appeared with the news that the Duchess of Lebec was here to visit the prisoners.

 

They were not led back to their cells, but to the Warden's office, the variation in routine a worrying departure from the norm. There was no reason Warlock could think of that would require either his presence or Cayal's in the Warden's office. Neither of them had done anything to incur the wrath of the Warden, and the duchess had seemed happy enough when she left the prison yesterday. He glanced at Cayal as they were escorted through the dank, labyrinthine halls but the suzerain's expression was unreadable. He might not even be worried. Cayal hadn't been here long enough to know when something was amiss.

When they were shown into the Warden's office, Lady Desean was waiting for them. Warlock looked around with interest, the smell of furniture polish and old leather sharp in his nostrils, reminding him of home.

Only I have no home now,
he told himself harshly,
other than a small cell on Recidivists' Row.

Warlock hadn't been in this office since the day he first arrived in Lebec Prison and was introduced to the Warden, who made a point of greeting all his charges personally, to inform them of the perils of making trouble while a guest in his establishment. The room seemed unchanged, it certainly smelled the same, but Arkady Desean reeked of fear, although she was outwardly calm and the Warden gave no indication that he thought anything odd about her demeanour.

“I have news for you both,” the Warden announced, watching the prisoners closely as they stood to attention before him.

“You've finally seen the light, so you're going to release me?” Cayal suggested.

Lady Desean rose to her feet, and held out a folded document, sealed with the ducal signet of Lebec. Oddly, it was to Warlock that she offered the document, not Cayal. “Close, but it's not you who's been pardoned, Cayal. It's your companion.”

Warlock stared at her, certain he must have misheard the duchess. He took the document warily, reading it through twice to assure himself it really was what she claimed, then he looked at her, slack-jawed with shock.

Arkady smiled. “Don't look so surprised, Warlock. Your assistance has been most valuable these past few weeks and after I brought your case to my husband's attention, he reviewed the details of your sentence. In light of the extenuating circumstances of your crime, he decided to pardon you.”

“You pardoned the gemang?” Cayal exclaimed in disgust. “For what? Not growling at you?”

“You're not doing much for your own chances of a pardon,” the Warden pointed out with a frown.

Cayal looked at Arkady. “But I'm not getting a pardon, am I?”

The Duchess of Lebec shook her head. “Quite the opposite. You're to be handed over to the King's Spymaster, Cayal. His majesty believes you'll be rather more forthcoming under torture. I am here merely to escort you back to the palace where Declan Hawkes awaits your arrival.” She turned to the Warden. “Have him chained, would you, Warden, before we leave? I have a squad of felines with me, but I don't want to take any chances.”

“Of course, your grace.” The Warden hurried to the door to organise it. Cayal glared at Arkady, but she paid no attention to him, turning her gaze on Warlock, instead.

“You have a great opportunity to make a better life for yourself, Warlock,” she told him. “Don't waste it.”

“I won't, your grace,” he promised, still not really believing she had arranged a pardon for him. “Nor will I forget your kindness.” There was no doubt in his mind that this unexpected bounty was due entirely to her. “I cannot thank you enough for your intervention with the duke.”

“Oh,
please
…,” Cayal muttered beside him.

The duchess turned to him then, looking somewhat amused by his reaction. “You disappoint me, Cayal. I thought you'd have something more to say about Warlock's pardon. The gemang is released while the Tide Lord remains a prisoner? Doesn't that irk your immortal little heart, even a tiny bit?”

Warlock liked Arkady Desean for many reasons, not the least of which was the disdain with which she usually handled Cayal. Unfettered by the instinctive need to obey, she was free to turn her back on him. And she did. Frequently, despite the undercurrent of tension that ran between her and the Tide Lord.

He wondered if Arkady realised that to a Crasii, whenever she went near the suzerain she smelled like unbridled lust. Warlock wasn't sure if the suzerain could actually smell it on her, or even consciously sense it, but he could tell it affected Cayal. He could see it in the way he looked at the duchess. The self-conscious way their body language echoed each other's movements, even though neither seemed aware of it.

What strange creatures humans are,
he thought.
They give off a scent they don't even have the ability to detect. What's the point of that?

“What irks me is that you're freeing a Scard,” Cayal replied, his lips curling in disgust. “We used to put them to death.”

“Well, when the Tide Lords are ruling the world again, Cayal, you can execute all the Scards you like,” Arkady told him. “Unfortunately, my husband is in control of the world you inhabit at the moment, and he's about to hand you over to the king. So say goodbye to your cellmate, Cayal. The King's Spymaster awaits you.”

The door opened and a guard came in carrying leg-irons, which—on the Warden's orders—he proceeded to clamp around the suzerain's ankles before Cayal could come up with a suitable reply.

Still clutching his precious and totally unexpected pardon, Warlock stood back and watched as they chained the Immortal Prince, hand and foot, and then led him away, wondering how long such a creature would allow himself to be treated like a common criminal.

Not much longer,
he guessed.
The novelty of incarceration has long worn off. He's getting impatient.

Arkady turned to Warlock to say goodbye. He wanted to warn her, feeling he owed her that much. He wanted to tell her to be careful. He wanted to tell her chains were useless against a man who had the power to break a continent in half when the Tide was at its peak.

But he knew there was nothing to be gained by delivering such a warning. She was human. Her kind had very short memories, unlike the Crasii who guarded their oral histories to be sure they would never forget. She didn't even believe the Tide Lords were real. There was no point trying to warn her of the danger of something she didn't think existed.

Besides,
he consoled himself,
chances are we'll all be long dead before the Tide turns again; long dead before Cayal and his brethren emerge from hiding.

Warlock clung to that thought as Cayal met his eye one last time.

“We'll meet again, gemang,” he promised ominously.

“Only if
your
luck runs out, suzerain,” Warlock replied.

Cayal was led away, after that, followed by the duchess and the Warden, leaving Warlock alone in the office, a ducal pardon in his grasp, still getting used to the idea that he was suddenly and unexpectedly free.

Arkady sat opposite Cayal as the coach jerked into motion, her expression blank, her heart pounding so loud it was a wonder he couldn't hear it over the rattling of his leg-irons. She wasn't sure how much longer her courage would last; surprised it hadn't let her down yet. It was vital she give the appearance everything was normal, and more importantly, that her arrival at Lebec Prison with orders to escort the prisoner to the King's Spymaster was the express wish of her husband, the Duke of Lebec.

Arkady had tried—within the limits of the king's orders to hand Cayal over to Declan Hawkes—to arrange things so that later, when she was questioned, her actions might be dismissed as the amateurish meddling of a woman. Arkady knew how the men of Glaeba thought. Although she doubted Declan would be fooled, she knew the king would be outraged, but she was gambling on him believing her when she announced she'd simply been trying to help.

It would set her cause back years, she knew, to admit such a foolish thing, but it seemed worth it for the greater good.

No man deserved to be tortured for any crime. Despite the danger she was certain he represented, she refused to be a party to this man being broken. Arkady couldn't say why, exactly, but she felt more strongly about this than any other cause she had championed since she forced her way into the palace all those years ago to demand Stellan release her father after he was arrested.

She'd been unable to save her father, in the end. She didn't intend to let another man die for no good reason.

Warlock's pardon had almost been an afterthought. As she was sitting there at Stellan's desk, the ducal signet heavy in her hand, it had seemed a pity to waste the opportunity. She couldn't risk defying the king's orders by trying to pardon Cayal, but Warlock meant nothing to Enteny Debree. If things went wrong, some good at least, she consoled herself as she forged Stellan's signature, would have come from her interference.

She wished she could be as clear on her reasons for aiding and abetting a confessed murderer to escape. Although she was silently listing the justifications in her head, she knew there was no acceptable reason for doing this. She was defying her husband, her king, even her own common sense.

Well, Tilly had told me I needed to take a risk…

“You look worried,” Cayal remarked, dragging her attention back to the jolting carriage and alerting her to the fact that she was letting her concern reflect on her face. “Surely the duchess is not troubled over the fate of a convicted murderer?”

“You could tell me the truth about who you really are, Cayal. Then there wouldn't be a need for me to worry.”

“So you admit you're worried.”

“Yet again you dodge the question.”

“I don't mean to, truly,” he told her, shifting to a more comfortable position with a rattle of chains. He looked very out of place against the carriage's plush red leather upholstery in his rough prison uniform and leg-irons, and his eyes seemed even bluer and more piercing away from the gloom of Recidivists' Row. “But I do resent the accusation that I've lied to you, Arkady.”

“Of course you do. How heartless of me to not believe your perfectly reasonable tale of how you survived being burned alive without a mark. What
did
you do after you realised Diala had immortalised you, by the way? We never did get to that part.”

“It didn't really occur to me I was immortal at first.”

She raised a sceptical brow at him. “The whole ‘I survived being burned alive' incident didn't give it away?”

“You really are a terrible cynic, aren't you?”

“Did you know hesitation and avoidance are the two main indicators that someone is lying?”

“Who told you that? One of your brilliant academic colleagues?”

“My father, actually. He was a physician. You'd be surprised how often people lie to their physicians.” Despite herself, Arkady smiled at the memory of him. “He used to say that three months after the King's Ball there were more pregnancies in Lebec caused by holding hands than there were during the rest of the year from actual intercourse.”

“So at least
one
member of your family has a sense of humour, then?”

“Had,” she corrected. “My father is dead.”

“He's lucky.”

“I'm glad you think so.”

“Death is a gift, Arkady. Don't mourn your father, rejoice in his mortality.”

Arkady frowned. “Rejoice?”

“You really don't know how lucky you are, having the ability to die.”

“I can't imagine why you think dying is lucky.”

“Then let me give you an example. Not long after I was made immortal, Lukys came to see me…”

“Lukys the Scholar?” she asked.

Cayal wasn't amused. “Tides, woman, can't you forget your wretched Tarot even for a moment?”

“It's my natural cynicism,” she explained as the carriage jolted along the road toward Lebec. “Every time you name another character from the Tarot, you do nothing but reinforce the absurdity of your tale.”

“The absurdity is your refusal to believe me,” he replied. “But that's beside the point. You asked why I said you should rejoice for your father. I was going to tell you about Lukys. And Pellys.”

“The one who had his head chopped off?”

He nodded. “Even
before
he lost his head, Pellys was a little strange. He used to hang around the temple in Magreth a lot. It was the only way he could be close to Syrolee and his children, I suppose. I mean, he wasn't exactly welcome at the palace.”

“Why not?”

“He was married to Syrolee when she was made immortal, a circumstance our future empress found more than a little awkward once she realised the opportunities fate had suddenly presented her with. She set him alight with the Eternal Flame and went off and married Engarhod, thinking that would be the end of him.”

“But he survived it?”

“Obviously.”

“What did he do about Syrolee?”

“Not much he could do, by the time he worked out what had happened to him. Remember, I first met Pellys a little over a thousand years after he was immolated. He was still hopeful, I think, back then, that Syrolee would come to her senses, dump Engarhod and return to him.”

“But she didn't?”

“And is never likely to, either, but he doesn't remember much of it these days, so it's not the problem it was back then.”

Arkady couldn't help but smile. “That's right, you decapitated him, didn't you, and his head grew back without his memories?”

“Tides, you were actually listening, for once. Will wonders never cease?”

She frowned. “What has any of this to do with the ability to die?”

“I was getting to that. You see, Lukys came to visit the temple not long after Diala had immolated me. I was watching Pellys in the temple gardens trying to catch the goldfish in the fountain.”

“Well, yes, I can see how
that
must have changed your perspective on things.”

“You'd be surprised,” he said, impatient with her sarcasm. “Lukys and I were talking on the terrace. He's a real Tide Lord, by the way, not just immortal. And one of the few I respect…but that's another story. Lukys was the first immortal who took the time to warn me about what I'd gotten myself into. I believe that day was the first time anyone suggested I might be one of the few who could fully manipulate the Tide. Diala certainly wasn't going to tell me magical power was one of the side effects of the Eternal Flame, particularly as she didn't have a lot of it herself. I hadn't even
tried
to do anything magical, at that point. I'd only just been informed of the quest she had in mind, which would restore me in the eyes of my family.”

“Your stalling isn't achieving anything, Cayal. Every mile takes us closer to Lebec Palace and Declan Hawkes.”

“I'm not stalling; I'm trying to explain something to help you, Arkady.”

“Oh…my mistake…
do
carry on.”

He scowled at her, but continued his tale. “Lukys and I were talking when suddenly Pellys cried out: ‘I got one!' I looked over and there he was, dripping wet, grinning like a fool, holding up a fish in his left hand. It was gasping its last few breaths, then finally went limp, either from suffocation or the strength of his grasp—I can't say which. Pellys studied the fish for a moment, and then with a gentleness that shocked me, he kissed the dead creature and tenderly placed it on the ground beside the fountain. It sent shivers down my spine, watching him do that. He stroked it for a moment longer, smiling beatifically, and then he forgot all about it and plunged his hand back into the pool to resume his game.

“It made my blood run cold, watching him with those fish. I don't know how long he'd been at it, pulling fish out of the pond, but there was quite a pile of carcasses on the ground. In the end, I turned to Lukys and asked, ‘Why is he doing that?'”

“What did he say?” Arkady asked before she could stop herself, a little annoyed at how easily Cayal could pull her into his imaginary world.

Cayal leaned forward a little, his gaze holding her in thrall. “
‘Because he's immortal,'
Lukys told me.
‘Pellys can't experience it for himself, so he likes to watch things die.'
”

Arkady stared at him for a long, silent moment and then she laughed. “So what you're telling me is that you're
all
psychotic killers, you immortals? Not just you?”

Cayal leaned back in his seat, turning to look out the window, clearly annoyed with her. “How long until we reach this palace of yours?”

Arkady glanced out of the window at the budding spring pasture rolling past the carriage. The lake shimmered in the distance, a silver smudge on the horizon in the bright sunlight. “A while yet.”

Leaning his head against the side of the carriage, Cayal closed his eyes, feigning sleep. Arkady studied him for a time, at war with herself over this man's future. She need do nothing, she knew, and all would be well. She could deliver him to Declan, suffer him telling her off for being a fool, for taking such a risk by transporting the prisoner herself with only an escort of a dozen Crasii, but that's all that would happen. Life would go on. She and Stellan would take up their post in Torlenia and forget all about the man who claimed to be immortal.

Or she could rely on her gut instinct, something that didn't come easily to Arkady. Even as a child, Declan was the one who trusted his instincts. Arkady had always been the one who wanted proof. Taking risks was something she resisted. Perhaps that was why they had complemented each other so well, when they were younger. Declan was the adventurous one, Arkady the voice of reason. She'd kept him out of trouble and he'd coaxed her out of the cocoon of her father's tiny, comforting house and into a world of which she was terrified. Declan's grandfather used to call her the sensible one, the one who tempered his beloved grandson's recklessness. The trait had followed her into adulthood. She was a scholar, now. She gathered facts, evidence, proof, before she came to a conclusion. This feeling that all the evidence was wrong, that her dependence on logic might let her down, was an alien sensation, one that left her almost physically ill.

Suppose Cayal really
is
immortal?
that annoying, illogical voice in the back of her mind teased.
Suppose the Crasii legend of their creation by the Tide Lords is more than a myth? Suppose the Tarot is actually based on fact?
Was it even possible? Her last conversation about the Tarot with Tilly suddenly leapt to mind.
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,
Tilly had told her.
It's a solemn trust that we take very seriously.

Are the Tide Lords real?
A discovery of such magnitude would dwarf anything that insufferable misogynist Harlie Palmerston had come up with, including his much-lauded
Theory of Human Advancement.

“What was the quest?” she asked abruptly.

Cayal opened his eyes and stared at her blankly. “What?”

“You said you were given a quest,” she reminded him. “Something to restore you in the eyes of your sister. Something that would convince her to revoke your exile and allow you to return to Kordana to marry Gabriella. What was it?”

He looked away. “You think I'm a liar. Why should I tell you anything?”

“Pretend your life depends on it.”

Cayal thought on that for a moment and then smiled sourly. “If only you knew how much I wish it did.”

She shrugged, as if it didn't matter to her, one way or the other. “It'll be a while yet, before we reach the palace. We might as well pass the time pleasantly.”

“You think hearing about my life is pleasant?” He seemed amused by the notion.

“Well, it's certainly entertaining.”

Cayal smiled. “I'm going to miss you, Arkady.”

Somewhat to her surprise, Arkady managed to stop herself from replying:
I'll miss you too, Cayal.