The Palace of Impossible Dreams (62 page)

Chikita dropped to her knees, awestruck by his power. “You truly are a god, my lord.”

Jaxyn looked down at her and smiled. “I know.”

When he returned to the palace, Jaxyn dismissed Chikita and sent her back to the kennels, a little irritated by her fawning appreciation of his god-like powers. If he had any doubt she was a Crasii, her mindless, blubbering appreciation quashed the last of his suspicions. The feline was visibly limping by then too, her feet frozen and possibly frostbitten. Which was rather useful, actually, because now Jaxyn had a pretty good idea of how long a feline could last on the ice before it began to incapacitate them.

Armed with that useful knowledge, and with his bodyguard disposed of, he headed for the Council Chamber, where at this time of day, with his queen by his side, King Mathu of Glaeba would be taking care of the business of state his wife and his Private Secretary deemed it safe for him to handle.

When Jaxyn arrived, Mathu was dealing with a dispute between the Duke of Blayken and his neighbour, the Duke of Callendale, regarding a border dispute involving access to a well that both men believed was vital
to the survival of their duchy. The dukes themselves weren't here, of course, just their advocates, and Mathu wore the pained look of a man desperate to escape a nightmare. He looked up with relief when Jaxyn opened the door, and then jumped to his feet.

“Is there a problem, Lord Aranville?” he asked hopefully as Jaxyn stepped into the chamber. “I can deal with these gentlemen another time, if you need me for something urgent.”

“I'm afraid I do require your urgent attention, your majesty,” he said, glancing at Diala who was sitting at Mathu's right hand, doing little to help him. She enjoyed seeing him struggle to rule his kingdom and would offer to help only insofar as it suited her to do so. Given how mind-numbingly boring this border dispute between Blayken and Callendale was proving to be, Jaxyn guessed she'd offered her poor husband no help at all.

Mathu smiled apologetically at the two men. “You'll have to excuse me, gentlemen. Perhaps we can take this up again next week?”

The ducal envoys looked displeased, but were in no position to argue about it. They gathered their papers, bowed a little impatiently, and left the room, leaving Jaxyn alone with the King and Queen of Glaeba.

“Tides, you're a sight for sore eyes, Jaxyn,” Mathu said, flopping back into his seat. He was wearing gloves and a scarf over his fur coat. “I was about to die of terminal boredom.”

Even here inside the palace, with a blazing fire going in the fireplace, the large Council Chamber was freezing. Diala, of course, wasn't bothered by the cold in the least, and wore a very fetching gown that set off her blue eyes and displayed an alarming amount of cleavage.

Jaxyn smiled. “Glad to be of service, your majesty.”

“So what do you want, Jaxyn?” Diala asked, leaning back in her throne. “Are the Caelish sailing across the Lower Oran in battle formation?”

Bitch.

“No, your majesty. Nobody is sailing
anything
across the Lower Oran. Nor are they likely to. It's all but frozen solid.”

Mathu smiled. “Well, that puts paid to any Caelish invasion to avenge their wretched kidnapped princess, doesn't it?”

“It's also an opportunity we'd be a fool to ignore, your majesty.”

Mathu frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Mat, that we can't
sail
across, but we
can
march.”

The king's eyes widened in surprise. “You mean march our army across the
lake
to Caelum? Can we do that?”

Even Diala seemed surprised. “I suppose. How do we know the ice can carry an army's weight?”

“It will,” Jaxyn assured her. “Trust me.”

Mathu was shaking his head. “But that's . . . it's . . . well, it's inspired! Tides, I can't believe nobody's thought of doing it before now.”

“The Lower Oran hasn't frozen in living memory,” Jaxyn pointed out. “But I'm assuming I have your permission to make the necessary arrangements?”

Mathu hesitated to give the order. “It means we'll be the aggressors.”

“Caelum has all but declared war on us now, Mathu. They've certainly made their intentions known. And they've refused to return Stellan Desean to us, even though they know he's a criminal and a traitor. I think we'll still command the moral high ground, as well as the tactical one, even if we strike pre-emptively.”

“Then of course you have my permission. Tides, it's brilliant, when you think of it. Their fleet is ice bound. They'll be sitting across the lake, fretting about the weather, while we're marching across a force twice the size we could manage to sail across. And four times the size of anything they can throw at us.”

So you're not a complete tactical moron
, Jaxyn concluded silently. “You have the right of it, your majesty.” He bowed respectfully. “And with your permission, I'll begin to make the necessary arrangements.”

“Do we have the forces to make this work?”

“If I call up the armies of every duchy in Glaeba, we'll be sitting in Cycrane, deciding where best to display Stellan Desean's head, no more than a month from now.”

“Provided the Caelish don't get wind of what we're up to,” Diala said.

Jaxyn shrugged. “Even if someone sent them a message today, detailing our plans, they don't have the resources to defeat us. They never have.”

“I was thinking more about them finding some
other
way to subvert our strategy?”

She was asking if Tryan or Elyssa could do anything with the Tide to thwart them. Jaxyn shook his head. “They won't have time.”

Diala frowned, not entirely convinced. “But if there was some sort of freak . . . storm?”

“It would only serve to aid us, not them.”

Oblivious to the true meaning of their conversation, Mathu smiled.
“Tides, it's not often one can stage an invasion confident the weather is on their side, is it?”

“Glaeba is truly blessed,” Jaxyn agreed.

“Have you found an assassin yet?”

“I'm still working on that, your majesty,” he said.

“Let's not,” Mathu said with uncharacteristic bitterness. “Let us defeat Caelum and then make Desean face me. On his knees.”

Diala smiled. “I like that plan.”

You would, you vindictive little bitch.

“It shall be as you command, sire,” Jaxyn promised, and then he turned and left the Council Chamber, his thoughts not on Stellan Desean, but on where he was going to get enough skins to protect the feet of his feline army as they crossed the ice into Caelum.

Dressed as a free woman, Arkady found the streets of Port Traeker a much less daunting affair than they had been when she was dressed as a slave. Men bowed to her and stepped aside to let her pass. Doors were held open for her, lesser beings pushed aside so she could be served first. She wasn't dressed as a duchess, she wore only the simple shift Arryl had loaned her at the Outpost, but she was free and that meant she was a real person again, not a chattel to be bought and sold.

Or traded.

But even a free woman needed to eat. Arkady had no money, no papers, the wrong colour eyes and an accent that immediately branded her as a foreigner. She did, however, have a small sack of polished nacre beads. Ambria had given them to her with a gruff goodbye and the assurance that she would be able to sell them in the gem markets when she reached Port Traeker. It wasn't much, and even Ambria wasn't sure how much a ticket on a ship sailing out of Senestra was worth, but it was better than the only other way a destitute woman had of earning money.

Arkady was done with trading her body for the necessities of life.

The problem she had now, of course, was that it was dark, the gem markets wouldn't open until tomorrow morning, and she needed shelter. She didn't want to try trading one of the beads for a room, for fear it would alert the ever watchful thieves of Port Traeker to the fact that she carried something valuable. So her options were to risk sleeping in the streets or try the only other place she could think of where she might find a sympathetic reception and a bed for the night, dangerous though it was to try.

Arkady had left the Outpost the same day as Arryl and Medwen, Cayal and Declan, Azquil, Tiji and Tenika. Plenty of time for her to reach Port Traeker. Plenty of time for her to find a way out of Senestra. Plenty of time to lose herself somewhere no immortal, even with magical powers, could find her.

Izzy and Lenor, the two amphibians who'd rescued Tenika from the Delta Settlement, offered to take her to Port Traeker. Having made her position quite clear, Ambria made no attempt to stop her leaving, although Arkady did try to convince Jojo to come with her. But the feline Crasii refused, preferring to stay at the Outpost and wait for the others to come
back. She had found immortals to serve. She wasn't willingly going to leave them, unless one of them commanded her.

Other than their discussion in the kitchen, and her uncomfortable offer of the beads, Ambria said little about her decision to leave. Arkady was fairly sure the immortal would be glad to see the back of such a troublemaker.

The trip to Port Traeker was uneventful, leaving Arkady the time to wonder if she was doing the right thing. A part of her ached to be with Declan again, but the sense of betrayal she still felt was overwhelming. To discover that immortality had made Declan as venal as the rest of his Tide Lord brethren was heartbreaking. She'd trusted him; thought he wanted her because he loved her, not because he needed a convenient outlet for his lust after working the Tide. His turnabout made sense now. One minute he'd rejected her because he thought she was acting like a whore. The next he'd forgiven her, promising to put the past behind them.

After
he worked the Tide. After he discovered what it did to him.

When Arkady acting like a whore was just what he needed.

He was no better than Cayal. No better than Jaxyn.

Actually, he's worse
, Arkady decided bitterly.
Jaxyn and Cayal at least know they are bastards. Tides, they're almost proud of it.

But Declan . . . Declan thinks he's still one of us. Still thinks there's some noble purpose to his actions . . .

“
So, what happens if you get all the power in the world?
” she'd asked him when they were children.

“
I dunno. I think it would be fun, though, to find out
 . . .”

The memory burned like acid. And Arkady had her answer.

The clinic where Cydne once worked in Port Traeker was much as Arkady remembered it. She wouldn't have come here had she any other place to go, but the closest thing Arkady had to a friend in Port Traeker was the slave Geriko. He might turn her in the moment he saw her, or he might be able to help her. Geriko knew people. He knew people who might know the best place to sell the beads. He might, if she was really lucky, not immediately report her and have her taken back into custody as a runaway slave.

Of course,
that
was assuming Geriko was even still at the clinic. Assuming it hadn't been staffed by another physician from the guild, by now, who'd sent the Medura slaves back to the family compound and staffed it with his own people.

Her fears proved groundless, however, when she knocked on the clinic door a few hours after sunset, and it was opened a few minutes later by a bleary-eyed Geriko.

“Kady?” he exclaimed in surprise when he realised who was standing on the threshold. “What are you doing here? Out of uniform?”

“Can I come in, Geriko?”

“Of course!” He stood back to let her enter, glancing up and down the dark street before closing and locking the door behind her. “Tides, you're a popular woman.”

She lifted the shawl from her head with a puzzled look. As a disguise it wasn't very effective, but it gave her the illusion of being hidden. “What do you mean?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving. What do you mean, Geriko? Why am I so popular?”

“Come on,” he said, lifting the lamp from the side table by the door. “Let's get you some food while we talk. You're even skinnier than you were before you left.”

A little concerned, Arkady followed Geriko down the hall and out into the kitchen at the back of the clinic. There was no sign of any patients. The whole place looked as if it had been closed since they first left for the wetlands.

“Thought they would have killed you along with Cydne,” he said, opening a large clay pot to pull out a half loaf of bread.

“They nearly did,” she said, taking a seat at the table. “You heard about what happened, then?”

“Bits of it. Kinda hoped your old master found you before the troubles started.”

“My old master?”

Geriko nodded, handing her the bread. “Glaeban chap, he was. Said his name was Aleki someone . . . I guess he didn't find you.” Geriko frowned then. “You know, if they catch you posing as a free woman, they'll hang you.”

Arkady nodded, but didn't bother to tell him she
was
a free woman now. The missing slave brand might be a bit hard to explain away.

“You said I was popular,” she reminded him. “Was that just because of . . . my Glaeban master?”

“Tides, no, we've had all sorts of people lookin' for you. Last one even left you a letter.” He scratched at his beard thoughtfully for a moment and then vanished into the darkened hall toward his quarters. Arkady bit into the bread, wondering who else could have found her here.

And why they hadn't been around when she
wanted
to be rescued.

Geriko reappeared a few moments later with a letter, sealed, Arkady was astounded to discover, with the Glaeban Ambassadorial seal, one identical to the seal Stellan had used in Torlenia.