The Palace of Impossible Dreams (61 page)

And then, finally, with another Tide Lord to help him die, Cayal could return to Jelidia and find the welcome arms of oblivion.

“They're gone.”

Ambria was sitting at the kitchen table sewing and didn't look up when she spoke. Arkady wasn't sure how Ambria knew she was there, but the immortal seemed neither surprised nor concerned that Arkady was soaking wet. It was raining outside, the raindrops pattering on the thatched roof, thunder rumbling lazily in the distance. Arkady was drenched but the rain was warm and she wasn't particularly cold. If anything, it felt very appropriate. The weather matched her mood perfectly.

It had another advantage too. When you'd been drenched by a downpour, it wasn't possible to tell tears from raindrops.

“I saw them heading off in a boat with Tiji and Azquil just before the rain started,” Arkady said, taking a seat opposite the immortal, wondering if Ambria would complain she was dripping on her kitchen floor. “Do you know how long they'll be gone?”

Ambria shook her head. “Not exactly. Could be as long as a month, though, if they want to cover all the coastal villages. Plenty of time for you to make yourself scarce.”

Arkady stared at Ambria, wondering how the immortal knew what she was thinking. Telepathy was not a skill she thought the immortals owned. On the other hand, Ambria may not have a clue what Arkady was thinking and was simply kicking her out. The Outpost was her home, after all, and Arkady hadn't really been invited to stay.

“Do
you
think I should leave?” she said, hedging around the question.

Ambria shrugged. “Up to you, I suppose. If it was me . . . well, I know what I'd do, but then I have the advantage of several thousand years of experience dealing with the likes of Cayal and his ilk. You might
like
learning things the hard way.”

Arkady smiled thinly. “I think I've seen the error of my ways in that regard, my lady.”

Ambria bit off the end of the thread, shoved the needle through the hem of her sleeve to get it out of the way, and smoothed out the seam of the shift she was sewing before she bothered to answer. “Then you have two choices, as far as I can tell. Stay here, get on my nerves for the next month or so, then leave with Cayal and your friend when they get back, go
to Jelidia with them and meet up with Lukys. You can console yourself with the thought that when they finally come to blows over you—as they inevitably will—it may or may not end in a Cataclysm that destroys civilisation as we know it provided it happens quickly enough and it's not High Tide when they turn on each other.”

“And my
other
option?”

“Get away. Now. While you still can.”

“Where would I go?”

“Anywhere you want, I suppose.” The immortal studied her for a moment. “You strike me as the resourceful type. There's a whole world out there to get lost in, Arkady. Trust me, I've done it often enough to know.”

But were you trying to avoid a lover? Did your heart ache like this?
Arkady wondered silently. “You were married to Krydence once, weren't you?”

The change of subject seemed to take Ambria by surprise. She hesitated and then shrugged. “So?”

“Was immortality what drove you apart?”

“Krydence will sleep with anything that walks,” Ambria said. “That's what drove us apart.” She sighed and shook her head. “Tides, don't look to me for advice about affairs of the heart, girl. I've lived far too long to care for romance. The only thing I can tell you as an absolute is that there is no possible way to be happy if you get involved with an immortal.”

“Not even for a short time?”

“Define
short
,” Ambria said. “You'll find you and I have a rather different perspective on that.”

That was true. And maybe Ambria was the wrong person to ask advice of. She certainly didn't seem bothered about Arkady's fate one way or the other. But Tides, it hurt so much. Arkady needed to talk to someone, even an immortal who couldn't have cared less.

“I can't believe Declan did a deal behind my back like that.”

“What? You would have preferred he asked you first?” She smiled as she turned the garment over, looking for another seam that needed stitching. “I can't believe you're getting all wounded about it. Their arrangement struck me as being an eminently workable solution to a potentially awkward situation for everyone involved.”

“That's because you aren't the one being traded, my lady.”

“True enough,” the immortal conceded. “We all look at the world through our own eyes. Yours seem a little more sensitive than most.”

Arkady shook her head. “The irony is, Cydne used to accuse me all the
time of not acting enough like a slave. Of not thinking like one. And, you know, he was right. I
never
felt like a slave. Not for a moment. Not the whole time I had to walk around half naked, working like a drudge from dawn 'til dusk, at the beck and call of a man who wanted to use my body to relieve his own frustration, mostly because he was scared of his wife. Not for an
instant
 . . . until I heard those two had done a deal to decide who got to have me.”

“Do you love Declan?”

“I thought I did. Until a few hours ago.”

Ambria smiled. “Then that's a
yes.
You don't fall out of love with someone in the space of a few hours. A few centuries will take care of it, though.”

“Even if I do, that doesn't ease the hurt much.”

“Only because you won't let it.”

Arkady looked at her askance. “So . . . what are you saying . . . love conquers everything?”

“Of course it doesn't!” the immortal scoffed, taking the needle from her sleeve to resume her sewing. “Love causes no end of grief. It causes more pain than war, and more wars than religion. We'd all get along much better without it, I'm sure.”

“What are you suggesting I do, then?”

Ambria fixed her attention on her sewing. “I'm trying very hard not to suggest anything,” she said. “I've no wish to be responsible for you. Or what you do. But I will tell you this. Cayal desperately wants to die and he believes your friend Hawkes can help him. He won't let anything stand in the way of that, particularly not a woman.”

“Are you saying he'd harm me?”

Ambria laughed. “Harm you? Tides, woman, he murdered a couple of million people putting out a fire. Have you no concept of what they're capable of?”

She shook her head in denial. “
Declan
would never do anything like that.”

“Nor did Cayal set out to drain the Great Inland Sea. This is not about good or evil, Arkady, it's about misguided intentions. If you stay, one of those boys is going to do something stupid. I'm fairly certain you know that. You just want me to tell you that you're wrong.”

Ambria wasn't wrong, however. Arkady knew that.

If she stayed, deal or no deal, her presence would become a bone of
contention between two immortals capable of breaking the world in half with their rage.

Even if she could forgive Declan, even if she could find it in her heart to understand what had driven him to make such a dreadful bargain with her life, she didn't want to be responsible for that sort of destruction. Worse, she didn't want Declan to be responsible for doing something like that.

Arkady would die eventually. Her remorse would end with her death.

Declan was immortal now. Any regrets he had would follow him into eternity.

“Do you think the amphibians would take me back to Port Traeker?”

“They might,” Ambria said, her tone giving nothing away. “If you ask them nicely.”

Arkady rose to her feet, wondering how she could get a message to the amphibians. There must be some way to call them, she supposed. They always seemed to know when they were needed. “Then I'll be out from underfoot as soon as I can arrange it.”

“As you wish.”

“Will you give Declan a message for me?”

“Of course.”

“Tell him I said not to follow me.”

“Think that'll stop him?”

“I don't know,” Arkady said, her way clear for the first time in months. “I only know I can't remain here and be responsible for what might happen between Cayal and Declan if I stay.”

The weather grew increasingly cooler as winter progressed. A bitter chill permeated the air and people remarked on its severity. Snow blanketed the streets of Herino and for the first time in living memory the Lower Oran began to freeze.

Jaxyn watched it happen, cursing the time it was taking. The Tide wasn't up far enough for him to do much more than give winter a helping hand, and he couldn't sustain it for long. Jaxyn knew the peril of holding on to the Tide too long, just as he knew the consequences of messing with the weather too much. He wanted a cold winter, cold enough to freeze the Great Lakes, but not so that it messed everything up. That would mean he'd spend the next High Tide sheltering from the century's worth of violent storms he'd unleashed on Amyrantha with his impatience.

He needed to
coax
winter along, not force it.

It was painstakingly slow work. Every night, when the rest of Herino slept, Jaxyn would stand on the balcony of his room in the palace, looking out over the darkened city and the lake beyond, and plunge into the Tide. With his senses stretched as far as they could go, he would feel out the atmosphere. He would reach up into the clouds, give the air a push, seek out differences in the air pressure somewhere else and carefully nudge them in the right direction.

The result of all this delicate and careful manipulation of the Tide was the coldest winter Glaeba—and Caelum for that matter—had ever experienced.

And a frozen lake. One that should soon be solid enough to march an army across.

He stamped his foot on the ice, pleased to feel the solid, unyielding surface beneath his feet.

“Another few weeks and we'll be able to walk all the way to Cycrane.”

“Your grace?”

Jaxyn hadn't realised he'd spoken the thought aloud. He glanced over his shoulder at the feline bodyguard who'd spoken. Her name was Chikita, and although she acted like a loyal Crasii, there was a spark of intelligence in her eyes that made him wonder, sometimes, if there wasn't a bit of Scard in her too. Still, from the moment she'd fought that snow bear in Lebec
and been won by Stellan for his kennels, she'd passed every test Jaxyn had set for her, and if she was a Scard, she'd slip up sooner or later. They all did in the end.

“How long do you think it would take to walk an army across the lake?” he asked the little ginger feline. “Assuming it was frozen solid?”

“That would depend on the army's footwear, I suspect, your grace. At the very least, at a walk, it would take the better part of two days, but barefoot, a feline's feet would be frostbitten long before they arrived on the other side.”

Jaxyn frowned, concerned at both the point she raised and that she had the wit to raise it. “Can you skate?”

“You mean like human children do? When they're playing on the ice?”

He nodded. The Crasii thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “I've never tried, your grace, but I suppose it's really just a matter of balance.”

Jaxyn turned to study the ice thoughtfully, wishing he had a sizable human army rather than a feline one. Humans, at least, could wear boots for protection against the cold and have some chance at arriving at their destination in a fit state to fight. He would have the Tide's own job getting the felines to wear anything on their feet and still be able to fight effectively, even with his ability to order them to die at his command. And logistically, where was he going to get the cobblers to knock up a few thousand specially designed feline ice boots on short notice, anyway?

Still, the thought gave him a small measure of comfort. If he was having trouble figuring out how to get his army across the frozen lake, they'd be having the same problems in Caelum. Assuming the thought of attacking across the ice had even occurred to those unimaginative fools.

He turned and glanced at Chikita, wondering if her comment about the frostbite had been prompted by the fact that he'd had her standing out here on the ice for the better part of an hour. Her feet must be numb by now.

“If the felines wrapped their feet in rags, would that be sufficient protection, do you think, to get them across?”

“Skin or fur would be better, my lord.”

Jaxyn nodded, thinking she had the right of it. He looked around the frozen Lower Oran and smiled, pleased with his work. Although it wasn't yet frozen solid, it wouldn't be long now before one could walk from Glaeba to Caelum in a straight line.

And nobody—not the mortals of this country, nor the immortals trying to seize power across the lake—had any idea it was his doing.

That was the beauty of something so subtle. After a time, it took on a life of its own. The whole continent was now trapped in the coldest weather it had ever experienced, and he hadn't touched the Tide for days.

He smiled, pleased with the way his plans were progressing. “I think, Chikita, there's going to be rather a lot of recrimination and blame shifting in Cycrane a few weeks from now. Right before we storm the palace, I suspect. And not for a minute will those fools in Caelum realise I am the cause of their downfall.”

The feline smiled in open admiration. “You mean this ice is your doing, my lord?”

He nodded. It was stupid, bragging about it to a feline, but Chikita was Crasii. Who was she going to tell? Besides, Jaxyn felt he deserved at least a pat on the back for thinking up something so fiendishly clever. Diala was too stupid to appreciate the subtlety of what he'd achieved, even if she'd been the sort to award him any credit for their victory, in the first place.