The Gods of Amyrantha (56 page)

Declan hesitated before replying. 'What if you
had
a choice? What would you do then?'

'I don't see one.'

'That wasn't the question.'

The duke seemed a little confused. 'Are you asking what I'd do if I had a chance to save Arkady? Or a chance to save myself?'

'Both.'

Stellan sighed, shaking his head. 'Your optimism is admirable, but I don't see any way out of this. You must do what you can to save Arkady. I will do what I can to buy you the time you need to do it.'

I ought to let you rot in here,
Declan thought, both irritated and impressed by this wretched nobleman's insistence on throwing everything away for the sake of someone he really wasn't in a position to help. Arkady's fate, although hastened by the actions of her husband, was out of his control now. It mattered little to Arkady's future what happened to Stellan Desean.

But Jaxyn's words chilled Declan to his core.
She knows.

Arkady was in danger for much, much more than being Stellan Desean's wife.

'Let the trial go ahead,' he advised. 'Arkady's not here and I've not heard anything to indicate she's even

on her way from Torlenia, as yet. If you want to buy me the time to help her, that's the best I can do at the moment.'

Letting go of the bars, Stellan nodded. 'Thank you.' 'Don't thank me, Desean. I haven't thought of anything yet.'

Declan left the prison on foot, sending his carriage back to the palace without him. He needed to think. He had a decision to make.

It was raining as he turned away from the gloomy prison walls. The storm wasn't a particularly harsh one. The lightning was sporadic, the thunder muted, the rain more of an irritant than a downpour. Declan pulled his collar up, thrust his hands into the pockets of his long coat, and headed away from the prison toward the docks where only a few months ago he'd helped Stellan Desean rescue Prince Mathu from his own folly at the Friendly Futtock.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

His promise to Tilly notwithstanding, Stellan Desean's importance had little to do with his friendship with Lady Ponting or even his marriage to Arkady. With King Enteny dead and Mathu still childless, Stellan was Glaeba's heir. It was unlikely Diala was interested in providing her husband with another heir any time soon, and she certainly hadn't conspired with Jaxyn to take the throne just so she could hand it over to her own child.

Even if she had planned such a thing, Jaxyn would never stand for it.

No, this plan of the Tide Lords with their eye on Glaeba required the removal of all viable contenders to the Glaeban throne, one way or another.

Which means,
Declan realised in a flash of inspiration,
that's all I really need to do to solve the problem.

The answer was so elegantly simple, when he thought about it, he was surprised it had taken him this long to come up with the solution.

In order to save Stellan Desean, Declan decided, and with luck, thwart the plans of Jaxyn and Diala had for Glaeba's throne, the former Duke of Lebec was going to have to die.

CHAPTER 56

When Arkady regained consciousness she was no longer surrounded by a terrifying vortex of swirling sand. It was dark when her eyes flickered open. From the feel of the hard stone beneath her, and the muffled, distant howling of the wind, she realised she was in some sort of cellar. She could hear the sandstorm raging beyond the thick walls, but she was safe from it.

She opened her eyes a little wider. A torch flickered fitfully in a bracket on the wall above her head, another near the entrance to the cavern, leaving the room in as much shadow as light. She was half sitting, half lying on the floor of a dark, cavernous hall, her head resting against someone's shoulder, strong arms holding her safe from the nightmare. She closed her eyes again, relishing the feeling for the moment or two it took to register the fact that someone was holding her and then she sat up in a panic. On the floor beside her lay Tiji, her shroud discarded, apparently asleep. There was a bruise on the Crash's cheek and a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.

'Careful!'

She scrambled free and turned to find she hadn't been hallucinating earlier.

'Cayal?
What happened? Where are we? What's wrong with Tiji?' Arkady leaned over and shook the Crasii, to no avail. 'Tiji?' The Crasii didn't respond. Worriedly, Arkady shook her a little harder. 'Tiji? Can you hear me?'

'I had to knock her out.'

The Immortal Prince was sitting with his back to the wall he'd been leaning against, holding Arkady while she slept.

'Why?' she asked, not sure if she should be thankful or afraid to discover he'd rescued them.

'She's a Scard.' He pushed off the wall, climbed to his feet and walked to the corner where the luggage sacks they'd left tied to their saddle on Terailia were lying. He tossed the sacks aside and picked up the waterskin.

Arkady rubbed her gritty eyes and leaned over to feel Tiji's forehead. The Crash's scaly skin was smooth and cool to the touch and she seemed to be breathing normally. Arkady turned to look at Cayal. 'Was being a Scard reason enough for you to knock her unconscious?'

'You were the reason,' he said, in a tone that made her want to squirm with the memory of him finding her in the storm. He walked back to where she knelt over Tiji and squatted down beside them. 'Don't you remember? You were frantic and wouldn't move without her. Your little Scard here got hysterical when I tried to dig her out of the sand, so I had quiet her down. How are you feeling?'

Arkady hoped he was talking about her physical condition. She certainly wasn't in the mood to discuss the conflicted emotions she had to deal with every time she confronted this man. 'Like I've been scrubbed raw with a hasp file. Where are the others?'

'They're probably dead by now.'

Arkady stared at him. 'Dead?'

'I suppose.'

'But you don't know for certain?'

Cayal shrugged 'If this storm keeps up much longer it wouldn't make any difference, even if I did know.'

Cayal's calm and detached appraisal of the fate of the rest of the caravan left her breathless. She scrambled to her feet. 'Can't
you
help them?'

He looked genuinely puzzled by her question. 'Why would I want to?'

'Because you
can?'
she suggested, reminding herself as she did,
this is why he's so dangerous. The reason he wants to die. He doesn't feel things like a mortal. He doesn't feel some things at all.
'Because you can walk through that storm with impunity and they can't?'

He shook his head. 'You're crediting me with heroic abilities I don't have, Arkady. That gale's been blowing sand over your travelling companions for the better part of a day and night. They're nothing more than featureless lumps in the sand, by now. Tides, I only found
you
because you panicked and tried to leave the only shelter you had.'

'But you found the camels,' she said, pointing to the sacks. The idea the rest of their caravan — Farek, with his endless 'hurry-hurry', the boisterous cameleers and the nervous young acolytes heading for Brynden's abbey — might be dead already was too unbearable to contemplate.

To think she might have survived when the others didn't was more troubling. That she survived because Cayal, with his god-like powers, had decided that she could live while the others would have to die, was even worse. That notion came with a burden of guilt she wasn't equipped to deal with.

'I didn't need to find the camels,' Cayal said. 'They found this place on their own. Camels are smarter than humans in a storm. They have enough sense to find shelter and stay there.' He thrust the waterskin at her. 'That was a really stupid thing you did, by the way. If I hadn't found you, you'd be dead, too.'

If you hadn't found me, I might be safer. And the others might have lived.

'I thought I was suffocating.'

'You probably were. Didn't make trying to wander about in a sandstorm any less dangerous, though. We're less than a mile from where you were standing,

by the way. Why didn't your guides just bring you here when they saw the storm coming?'

'I can't believe you just let them die.'

Cayal didn't answer her. Clearly, he didn't feel the need to justify anything he'd done. She glanced around, only now thinking to wonder where she was. 'What is this place, anyway?'

'Brynden's old palace.'

Arkady understood now, why Farek and his cameleers had refused to seek shelter in the ridge so close to where they'd dug in to weather the storm. 'They feared it was haunted.'

'Idiots.'

Arkady frowned, recalling Cayal telling her of this place when they were still in Lebec. Of his meeting here with Brynden and Kinta. With Lukys.

And of making love to Medwen in the chill darkness of Brynden's austere fortress.

She forced that image from her mind and looked around again, afraid Cayal might guess what she was thinking. 'How can this be Brynden's old palace? You said it was on the edge of the Great Inland Sea. We're a hundred miles or more into the desert here.'

'I emptied the sea the better part of six thousand years ago. The desert's spread, since then.' He squatted down beside her, pointing at the waterskin. 'Drink it slowly or you'll make yourself sick.'

She lifted the waterskin, tipped her head back, letting the tepid water stream into her mouth. It was stale and faintly metallic and tasted better than the most prized wine ever served in Lebec Palace. When she was done, she lowered the skin and looked at Cayal, as another thought occurred to her. 'Are you responsible for this storm?'

The Immortal Prince shook his head. 'No.'

'Can you stop it?'

'It'd be safer to let it run its course.' 'Safer for whom, exactly?'

'Everyone living in the southern hemisphere of Amyrantha, actually. Messing with the weather's a dangerous thing, Arkady. Believe me, I know.' He examined her more closely, reaching out to brush an errant strand of hair from her face. 'Are you sure you're all right?'

Instinctively, she flinched from his touch. 'I'm more concerned about Tiji.'

He dropped his had. 'She'll come to. Eventually.'

'Are you sure?'

Cayal sat back on his heels, frowning 'You think I
want
your Scard to die?' Despite his words, the contempt in his voice when he spoke of the Scards was disturbing.

'How do you even
know
she's a Scard, Cayal?'

He glanced down at the unconscious Crasii before answering. 'Better than half of all the reptiles were. The behavioural compulsion to obey us never really took with them. That's why we didn't pursue them as a species. Too hard to control. I was surprised to find you had one, truth be told. They were rare, even back when we were experimenting with them. Tryan thinks he got rid of all the Scards. He'll be peeved to realise he didn't.'

'She's not
mine,
Cayal. Quite the opposite. Tiji's the diplomat.
I'm
the servant.'

He shook his head, as if such a circumstance was beyond his comprehension. 'That's just wrong.'

She smiled wanly. 'How very Tide Lordish of you to think so.'

Cayal ignored the jibe and pointed at the waterskin. 'Drink some more.'

She did as he instructed, letting the moisture work its own particular magic on her parched throat, and then glanced around the cellar, wondering how long they would have to remain in the ruin. The danger of being effectively alone in this place with Cayal notwithstanding, she felt exhausted, dirty, gritty and yet — contrarily — safe for the first time since Stellan

had left Ramahn. That was a dangerous thing to allow herself to feel. Cayal wasn't her knight in shining armour. In reality, she was trapped in a long-forgotten ruin in the middle of a sandstorm in the Torlenian desert with a self-confessed mass-murderer who couldn't decide whether he loved her or hated her.

How can you possibly think you're safe here with Cayal?
she asked herself sternly.

'How long can we stay here?'

As if he could read her mind, he reached out to touch her cheek in a gesture that was as tender as it was dangerous. 'As long as you want to. The cisterns are full and the pack camels have most of your caravan's supplies still tied to their saddles.'

As long as you want,
he'd said, not
as long as you
need
to.
Arkady wondered if it was a slip of the tongue, a warning, or if she was reading more into his statement than it warranted.

Then she realised what else Cayal had said. 'Cisterns?'

He nodded. 'This place is fed by a hot underground spring. Always was. Brynden's one concession to luxury. His baths.'

Arkady's eyes lit up, and not only because she might have found an escape from Cayal for a time. 'There are baths here? And they're full?'

'Down on the next level,' he said as Arkady scrambled to her feet. 'Did you want me to show you?'