The Palace of Impossible Dreams (53 page)

“Tabitha and the pups are in there,” the female told them, pointing to a cell at the end of the corridor; then she added as an afterthought, “your highness.”

Nyah waited until she'd turned and was headed back up the torchlit corridor before she hurried forward and stepped into the cell. Stellan followed her, squinting a little in the darkness. The pups in question were sleeping on a pile of furs, just inside the door, watched over by their dam—and presumably Warlock's mate—Tabitha Belle.

The female looked up as they entered. She ignored Nyah, however, and jumped to her feet. “Your grace!”

Stellan hadn't expected to be recognised quite so readily by some canine he'd never met before, but then he looked a little closer and his jaw went slack with shock. “Boots?”

“Shhh!” she hissed, pushing past him to look outside the cell and make sure they couldn't be overheard. When she'd satisfied herself they were truly alone, she turned back to him. “Around here, I'm Tabitha Belle.”

Stellan was gob-smacked. “But . . . Tides, are
you
Warlock's mate?”

“Who's Warlock?” Nyah asked, on her knees looking at the sleeping puppies. “Can I pick one up?”

“I'd prefer you didn't wake them,” Boots said, before turning back to look at him. “How is it you know Warlock?”

Her stance was defensive, her tail high, her teeth almost bared. She was frightened, he realised. “I met him in Lebec,” he said. “He asked me to check on you. I'm not here to harm you or your pups, Boots.”

Boots seemed to relax a little. “You came to see him at the Watch-house.”

Stellan nodded. “He knew my wife. She spoke very highly of him. An opinion I'm assuming you share, given you're here with him.”

Boots shook her head. “I like him, your grace. Sometimes, when I can't help myself, I
really
like him. But I wish I'd never met him.”

Stellan glanced down at the pups. Nyah was leaning over them, willing them to wake, but she wasn't touching them. “I'm sure you don't mean that. You'd not have these little treasures, otherwise.”

Unaccountably, Boots's eyes filled with tears. “Tides, that's the cruellest twist of all.”

“What do you mean,” Nyah asked, looking up at her with a frown. “They're gorgeous.”

“And they are Crasii, your highness.”

“Well, of course they are,” Nyah said, rolling her eyes. “How long before they wake, do you think?”

Boots didn't answer the little princess. Her gaze was fixed on Stellan, who at first didn't understand why this Crasii was so upset at having three perfectly healthy Crasii pups. And then it occurred to him. Boots and Warlock weren't just Crasii; they were Scards.

“Tides, Boots, I'm so sorry.”

“Can you help us?”

He shrugged. “I don't know . . .”

She was quietly desperate as she said, “I have to get them away from here, your grace. I have to get them somewhere safe. Somewhere there are no suzerain.”

“What are their names?” he asked, unable to think of anything more profound to say.

“Despair, Torment and Misery,” Boots told him, glancing at her babies. “Elyssa named them.”

She turned her tormented gaze on Stellan. The irony of the situation didn't escape him. Once he could have given Boots anything she desired, and she'd run away, only to find herself here, reliant on him once more.

And now, when he was all but helpless to aid her, she needed him the most.

Stellan nodded and gripped her shoulder encouragingly. “I've no notion of how I can, but I will help you, Boots. And your pups. And Warlock too if I'm able. I give you my word.”

Impulsively, Boots hugged him. “Thank you, your grace.”

He patted her awkwardly and smiled, hoping it made him look confident, wondering when he was going to learn to stop making promises to people that he didn't know how he was going to keep.

“End it now.”

For the third time in the past few days, Declan woke with Arkady in his arms, only this time he didn't question his good fortune. He opened his eyes, blinking in the unexpected sunlight streaming through the window, wondering what had woken him. Arkady was sound asleep, her back to him, snuggled into the hollow of his body as he lay on his side next to her. Her breathing was deep and even, and when he pushed himself up on his elbow, he noticed the faintest hint of a smile playing around her lips.

Blinking, Declan looked toward the door. Cayal was standing there, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching them sleep. There was no telling how long he'd been there, but Declan was fairly certain now what had woken him.

“What did you say?” he asked softly, gently moving away from Arkady as he spoke to avoid waking her.

“The Fyrennese had a saying once—the old ones, the ones Brynden comes from.
End it now.
It's what you should do at the moment of ultimate ecstasy.”

Declan looked around for his trousers, wondering where Arkady had tossed them the night before.

“Why?” he asked, spying them across the room.

“Because once you've reached the peak, it's all downhill from there, old son. So you might as well end it now and save yourself a long and disappointing life.” Cayal watched him cross the room to retrieve his clothes, and then added with a sour smile, “Ooops . . . you can't die, can you? Guess you'll need to brace yourself for the long, disappointing part.”

“Do you
want
something?” Declan asked, determined not to rise to the provocation. He picked his trousers up off the floor, turned his back to Cayal and pulled them on.

“You.”

“For what?”

“Time's a-wasting, Rodent, while you live out your little fantasy with the girl of your dreams. We've only got a few days before the dreaded Merchant Marines come back. We've got work to do.”

“What kind of work?”

“You need to learn a few things or I'll have to perform all the heroics.”

Declan turned to stare at the Immortal Prince, wondering if he was trying to needle him again, or if Cayal was serious.

Cayal smiled. “Finish getting dressed. I'll meet you outside.” Then he glanced at Arkady's sleeping form and sighed. “Tides, but she's gorgeous. Of course, there'll be prettier ones you'll meet in the future. Forever's useful like that. Prettier, smarter, better in bed . . .”

“Who are you trying to convince, Cayal, me or yourself?”

To Declan's surprise, his question seemed to hit a nerve in the immortal. Cayal pushed off the doorframe, the snide smile replaced by genuine irritation. “Don't keep me waiting, Rodent.”

The door slamming shut, ever so slightly, made Arkady stir. Pulling on his shirt, Declan squatted down beside the bed and kissed her forehead.

“Shhh . . .” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

“I heard voices,” she mumbled.

“It's nothing. You should sleep while you can.”

She snuggled down in the middle of the narrow bed contentedly. “I love you, Declan.”

“Even in your dreams?”

Her eyes still closed, she smiled as he pulled the sheet over her to keep the insects at bay. “Apparently.”

“Go back to sleep, Kady.”

“I never got to sleep in . . . when I was a slave.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow and had a dreamy quality that indicated she was only half awake.

“Then sleep until midday, if you want, sweetheart. You're not a slave anymore.”

“Mmmmm . . .” she replied.

Declan kissed her forehead again and stood up. He studied her for a moment longer, wondering at the good fortune that had finally brought Arkady to him, a little disturbed to realise Tiji's suspicions about his reasons for becoming immortal weren't that far off the mark.

Although he'd had no choice in the matter, Declan wasn't entirely certain that, had he been offered one short lifetime with Arkady in return for his mortality, he wouldn't have taken the deal.

“How many senses do you have?”

Declan shrugged, fairly certain this was going to be a trick question. “Five.”

“Name them.”

He rolled his eyes, but answered Cayal's question. Declan was learning, very quickly, that Cayal had his own unique way of teaching, which mostly involved making the student feel like a complete imbecile. “Taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell.”

“What about the others?”

“What others?” Declan asked, as he knew Cayal expected him to.

“You can sense the Tide, can't you? You can't feel it. It's not tangible so you can't touch it. You can't see it, or hear it. And you certainly can't smell it.”

Declan had to concede he had a point. “So we have
six
senses?”

“Not even close.”

“What else is there?”

“What about your understanding of where you are?”

Declan looked around the clearing the Immortal Prince had led him to in order to continue their lessons and then fixed his gaze on Cayal. “I hardly think knowing I'm standing in a jungle clearing, a half-hour walk from some tiny village in the Senestran Wetlands, counts as a sense.”

“Are you trying to be an ass, or are you really that stupid?”

“I must be stupid,” Declan said. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Cayal studied him in silence for a moment, the Tide rippling around him, perhaps debating how to proceed. When he spoke again, it was in a much more conciliatory tone, which drove home to Declan just how much more Cayal needed him than he needed Cayal.

“I was talking of proprioception—your awareness of where you are in relation to everything else around you. Most people don't even spare it a thought, but there's a reason you bump into things when you're drunk that you'd miss if you were sober.”

Declan considered the idea for a moment and then nodded. “All right, I'll pay that one.”

“You'd better,” Cayal warned. “It's far more important for a Tide Lord to be conscious of himself in relation to everything around him when he's wielding the Tide than for some poor sod getting pissed at the local tavern before he goes home each night.”

“There are more, I take it?”

“Equilibrioception: the sense of balance.”

“Isn't that the same as proprioception?”

“Not at all,” Cayal said. “Proprioception is about what's around you. It's external. Equilibrioception is internal. It's what keeps you upright. And like proprioception, it's very easily disrupted by alcohol—among other things—which is why, when a man is drunk, he falls over just as much as he bumps into things.”

Despite himself, Declan found himself intrigued by Cayal's lecture. And surprised by the depth of Cayal's knowledge. It was easy to forget this man had been alive for eight thousand years. Clearly, he'd not spent all of them sleeping around, stealing other men's wives or causing cataclysmic natural disasters.

“What are the other senses, then?”

“Nociception,” Cayal said, a little less abrasively, now that Declan was paying attention. “The ability to feel pain.”

“I never thought of that as a sense.”

“It's an amazingly useful sense, actually. Particularly when you're trying to convince someone to do things your way.”

“You mean you can torture someone by manipulating his nociception with the Tide?”

Cayal smiled. “You're going to stay true to type in immortality, aren't you?”

“Meaning . . .?”

“You've just worked out that you can affect a man's perceptions by manipulating his senses with the Tide. I find it fascinating that it took you until the sense that'll allow you to torture a man, before you came to that conclusion. I'll bet you were just the bestest little spymaster ever, weren't you?”

Declan was intrigued enough with the possibilities of this new-found knowledge that Cayal's needling barely registered. “I know what pain does to a man,” he said. “And how useless is it. A man will say anything to stop being hurt.”

“Not if he believes the consequences of you catching him in a lie are worse than what you're doing to him,” Cayal said. “You have to own him first, break him completely, before you can rely on anything a man under torture will tell you.”

Declan studied Cayal curiously for a moment. “You say that like you know it for a fact.”

Cayal smiled. “I didn't completely waste all those years as a Holy Warrior, you know.”

“So how do you affect someone's senses using the Tide?” Declan asked, not sure he wanted to hear the details of how many men Cayal might have tortured over the past few thousand years, and not because he was squeamish. Mostly, it was because the more time he spent with him, the more he discovered how much he had in common with the Immortal Prince, and that realisation was a bit more than he could deal with right now.