The Palace of Impossible Dreams (10 page)

With Mathu gone, Stellan could have been king.

Then again, Jaxyn realised, even with Stellan as king, that would have made Arkady queen, not him.

Which reminds me
 . . .
where is the magnificently disdainful Arkady?

It was more than a month since he'd sent his people to Torlenia to bring Arkady home. According to their last message, they still hadn't found her. He wasn't surprised she'd gone into hiding on learning her husband had been arrested.

He was astonished, however, that she remained at large.

Arkady had no resources, didn't speak the language and was altogether too inflexible to survive in a foreign country on her own, Jaxyn believed. Which meant either some ill had befallen her and she was dead, or she'd had help.

But who would help her?
She hadn't been in Ramahn long enough to make the sort of friends who would court war with a neighbouring nation to aid her, and no Glaeban citizen living in Torlenia would risk a charge of treason by helping her, either.

Were it not for the fact that Jaxyn was certain Declan Hawkes was dead, he might have confronted the spymaster about her, knowing that—even ambitious as he was—his long history with Arkady and his unrequited love for her, might be enough to tempt him into betraying the crown.

Did Hawkes set up something before he died?
An escape route, perhaps, in case something went awry while Arkady and her husband were in exile?

Was the dead spymaster's hand in this, even from beyond the grave?

“Tides, Jaxyn, are you even listening to me?”

Jaxyn blinked as he realised Diala had been talking to him all this time. “Pardon?”

“You haven't heard a word I said, have you?”

He shrugged, hoping she considered his inattentiveness a sign of boredom rather than worry. “Perhaps if you said something worth listening to, I'd take the time to pay attention.”

“I was telling you that if you want Mathu to declare war on Caelum, you're going to have to produce something resembling solid evidence that they're planning to attack us first.”

“Well, I would,” Jaxyn said, “if I could get word from the spies I've planted in their palace.” Jaxyn pushed off the windowsill and began to pace the room. “Why does he care, anyway? Caelum has insulted us. They've accused us of kidnapping their wretched princess. We've plenty of reason to go to war with them.”

“I've told Mathu that. You've told him too. All he says is ‘Stellan would pursue a diplomatic solution first before he'd start banging the war drums.' ”

Jaxyn rolled his eyes impatiently. “How noble of our young king to worry about Stellan's opinion now, when the last thing he did for his cousin was to trump up charges against him, disinherit him and put him on trial for treason.”

Diala smiled nastily. “You're the one who trumped up the charges
against Stellan, Jaxyn. Now his poor, dear cousin is dead, Mathu's feeling quite remorseful about the whole sorry episode.”

Jaxyn didn't doubt for a moment who had planted the notion of remorse in Mathu's easily impressionable head.

This has gone on long enough
, Jaxyn decided. He needed to speak to Mathu. It was time Diala learned the influence
he
had over the young king was as powerful as her own.

“Well, just be sure you don't console him too well,” he said, heading for the door. “We're going to have to do something about Syrolee and her wretched clan soon. War may be our only option.”

“If Tryan and Elyssa decide to stop squabbling long enough to work in concert,” Diala called after him, “they'll destroy this place and every mortal in it and you won't be able to do a thing to stop them. What will happen to your sorry little kingdom then?”

Jaxyn stopped, his hand on the latch. “That'll only happen if we don't get in first and declare war on them before the Tide peaks. Oh . . . but we can't go to war now, can we, because
you've
decided to prove your power over the idiot child, by advising against it.”

Diala pushed herself up on her elbows, glaring at Jaxyn. She hadn't thought about the likelihood of a confrontation with the immortals scrabbling for power in Caelum in those terms, apparently.

“Get out.”

“Gladly,” he said, opening the door. Then he smiled as he drew on the rising Tide and added, “By the way, I don't think your boy there is looking too healthy.”

He closed the door on a stream of most un-queen-like profanity, as the blind masseur collapsed against Diala, bleeding from his eardrums as the unbearable pressure Jaxyn had induced made them explode up into his brain.

Declan vanished for two whole days after his grandfather died, leaving Stellan alone in the cabin with Nyah. The little princess fretted the whole time Declan was gone, worrying that something had happened to him.

Stellan fretted too, but for entirely different reasons.

The Duke of Lebec had never had to survive on his own before. Since birth, the slaves and servants who took care of his every want, his every need, had surrounded him. As the only adult here, and with the responsibility for an eleven-year-old girl suddenly thrust upon him, Stellan found himself having to learn how to cook, how to clean and—even more difficult than that—how to deal with a precocious, homesick child.

Despite Stellan's awkwardness around the physical act required to make a child with Arkady, he had always wanted to be a father. At least he had come to that realisation over the past few years.

Pity I didn't realise it sooner
, he decided, mentally kicking himself for his naivety. He might have been less eager to follow the advice of all his well-meaning friends, from the king down to his Crasii servants, who'd all agreed he was too young for such a responsibility. They'd all encouraged him to send Kylia away when she was the same age Nyah was now, after her parents were killed in a boating accident and he'd found himself her guardian. Of course, he'd been much younger then, much less sure of himself, and desperately afraid that if he let his young niece stay in Lebec, sooner or later she would discover his secret and, however innocently, expose him.

The guilt resulting from that selfish decision haunted Stellan. Declan's revelation that Kylia was more than likely dead, and the young woman he had welcomed into his home was the immortal Diala, had all but gutted him. He was devastated to think he'd not recognised his own niece, riddled with remorse that he had opened his home to an impostor, and unreasonably jealous to learn that she and Jaxyn were in cahoots with each other.

Against all reason, that hurt the most. The idea that while he was swearing his heart to a young man he considered his soul mate, his
soul
mate was conspiring against him, and possibly even sleeping with the creature posing as his niece.

How they must have laughed at his ignorance, at his earnest desire for
something that had proved even more unattainable in reality than it had in even his worst nightmares.

How many times had Arkady warned him to be careful?

That made him an even bigger fool, he feared. His wife had spotted Jaxyn for a fraud from the first moment she met him, and yet she'd tolerated his presence and lied to protect them both. Had she laughed about him too, behind his back? Had she shared her amusement at the antics of her foolish husband, blinded by love and the charming good looks of a young man over whom he was making a complete fool of himself?

And if she had shared his folly with someone, was that someone her childhood friend, Declan Hawkes?

It was that thought—more than finding himself responsible for Nyah; more than realising he was now a dispossessed pauper and would likely have a death sentence hanging over him, had the rest of the world not believed him to be already dead—which gnawed at his gut: the idea that behind those all-knowing eyes, Hawkes was blaming him for the fate that would now befall Glaeba.

Or he was laughing at him. Stellan wasn't sure which was worse.

He had no more time to dwell on his misfortune, however. The door slammed open and Nyah pushed her way into the tiny cabin, lifting the bucket onto the table with a slosh of chilly water.

“That cascade is
sooo
cold,” she complained, dropping the rope handle. “It nearly gave me frostbite.”

“It's probably fed from snowmelt coming from further up the mountain,” Stellan said, smiling at her exaggeration. He held up the remains of the turnip he'd been chopping for their dinner while mentally berating himself for all the foolish decisions he'd made over the past ten years. “Did you want turnip stew, turnip stew or turnip stew, this evening, your highness?”

Nyah pulled a face. Like Stellan, she was used to much finer fare, and heartily sick of turnips, which seemed to be the only vegetable Maralyce bothered to store in her larder. “Is that all that's on the menu, Lord Desean?” She rolled her eyes. “Tides, and I was
so
hoping we could have turnips for dinner too.”

Stellan frowned. “You should watch your language, young lady. It ill becomes a princess to speak like that.”

“Declan says ‘Tides' all the time.”

“Declan's not a princess.”

“Glad you noticed.”

Stellan jumped a little at Declan Hawkes's unexpected reply. Nyah hadn't closed the door behind her, so he'd had no warning they were no longer alone. He certainly hadn't realised Declan was back from wherever it was he'd been.

“You've returned.”

“Two piercing observations in as many minutes,” Declan said, sounding impressed. “Pity you weren't so sharp a year ago when you met your new Kennel Master.”

Stellan gripped the handle of the vegetable knife a little tighter, and chose not to rise to the provocation, mostly because he knew the criticism wasn't undeserved.

Declan shut the door and turned back to the table, leaning forward to see what Stellan was chopping. “Oh, look, turnips. Who'd have thought?”

“You didn't catch us anything edible then,” Stellan inquired, “while you were off in the woods, communing with nature?”

“No.”

“You've been gone for days, Declan,” Nyah said. “Didn't you get hungry?”

“Apparently I don't have to worry about starvation any longer.”

There was an odd note in Declan's voice, something that spoke of barely contained anger; maybe even fear.

It put Stellan's own woes into perspective. He was worried people thought him a fool; at worst that they might consider him a traitor. Declan Hawkes was having to contend with the unexpected and unwanted realisation that he was now a member of a very exclusive club that he not only despised, but had been actively working against for most of his adult life.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, although they both knew he didn't mean food. Declan was searching for answers, even more than Stellan was. His dilemma, in the general scheme of things, was far more traumatic.

“No, but I've made a decision.”

“You're leaving.” Stellan didn't know how he knew that. He just did.

Declan nodded. “I'll do what you asked. Or part of it, at any rate. I'll go to Torlenia and try to find Arkady.”

“And the part you're
not
planning to do?”

“Bring her back.”

Stellan nodded. He was neither surprised nor particularly disturbed to learn of Declan's plans. He could offer his wife nothing now, except a life of hiding, as the world unravelled around them with the rising of the Tide.

Declan, on the other hand, was one of the rare few now, one of the power-brokers. The tables had turned completely. The duke she'd married for protection was powerless and penniless, while the childhood friend without connections or wealth could now stride the halls of power with impunity. Declan had the power to protect Arkady.

And he loved her—whether he was willing to admit it or not.

“You're not coming back?” Nyah understood what Declan was saying, even if she didn't pick up on the undercurrent running beneath the adults' words.

“Isn't much point really,” he told her, taking a seat at the table.

“But what about me?” she asked. “I can't just stay here in the mountains until I die of old age.”

“I was thinking about that too.” Declan looked up at Stellan. “You should take her home.”

“Me? I'm a wanted man. And take her home to what, exactly? I thought you took her from Cycrane in the first place to save her from a marriage to an immortal with his eye on the Caelish throne? If I take her back, wouldn't that just be handing her over to her enemies?”

“Let's
not
!” Nyah suggested vehemently.

Declan was unmoved. “One way or another, the immortals are going to try to take the Caelish throne, and Nyah's absence, which has probably slowed them down a little, has only staved off the inevitable rather than prevented it.”

“But we
can't
prevent it,” Nyah said. “That's why Ricard Li asked you to hide me here in Glaeba in the first place.”

“And the longer you're gone from Caelum, the more chance people start believing you're dead. Once they believe that, the throne is anybody's for the taking.”

Stellan nodded in reluctant agreement. “I take your point, Declan, but I still don't see the reasoning behind it. How will returning Nyah to Caelum prevent precisely what you removed her to avoid?”

“We took Nyah from Caelum to prevent her getting married to Tryan. If we send her back and she's already married, then there isn't a problem. She can't get married to two men at the same time.”

“No, but widows can marry whenever they want. And I imagine that would be the fate of any young man foolish enough to accompany Nyah back to Caelum and announce he's her husband. Who did you have in mind as this walking corpse, anyway?”