The Palace of Impossible Dreams (31 page)

“You're Glaeban?”

He nodded.

“And you've not been long in our ranks, I'm guessing.” Arryl studied him in the flickering light. “You're fair bristling with raw power, though, aren't you?” She glanced at Arkady. “I couldn't heal anyone that fast with the Tide only partially up, and I've been practising for thousands of years. Who else knows about you?”

“Only Maralyce.”

“Declan, what's going on?”

“She a particular friend of yours?” Arryl asked, jerking her head in Arkady's direction, speaking about her as if she wasn't actually there. “Or do you just make a habit of rescuing damsels in distress?”

“She's a friend.”

“Seems you know a few more immortals than you let on, young lady.”

Confused and totally at a loss to explain what was going on here, Arkady glared at the blonde immortal. “I'm sorry, but you condemned me for knowing
two
immortals. Telling you I knew more of them wasn't likely to help.”

“I'm not surprised you didn't mention this one, though.”

Arkady looked at Declan who seemed very uncomfortable with this odd and totally inexplicable conversation.

Arryl smiled. “Tides, she doesn't know.”

“I don't know what?” Arkady demanded. “Declan? What is she talking about?”

“Your friend here is not what he seems, my dear,” Arryl said.

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” the exquisite blonde immortal replied. “This man—this friend of yours who would defy the wrath of the Trinity, just because he knows he can, I suspect—this Glaeban you know as Declan Hawkes, is one of us.”

“One of
you
? What do you mean—
one of you
? How could he be
one of you
?” Arkady looked to Declan, waiting for him to protest, waiting for him to deny Arryl's ludicrous suggestion, but he said nothing. “
Declan
?”

His eyes were focused on Arryl, as if he was seeing something Arkady couldn't. And then he turned to look at her. “I'm sorry.”

Comprehension dawned on her slowly. The remembrance of her pain, her rescue and the agony of being completely healed . . .

She took a step back from him. “Tides, you're immortal.”

“Not by choice.”

“Few of us are,” Arryl said, lifting the torch a little higher. She stepped forward and did something completely unexpected. She extended her hand toward Declan. “And I'm guessing you've a lot of questions Maralyce wouldn't answer.”

Declan nodded, studying her outstretched hand with caution. Arkady kept staring at him, trying to see if there was anything different about him, but there was nothing. In the flickering torchlight he was the Declan she remembered. Her friend. The Declan she'd loved since childhood.

How could he possibly be immortal?

“You'll make enemies of most of us, eventually,” Arryl warned. “But for now, before we jump to conclusions about each other, let us—for a time, at least—be friends.”

“I want your word no harm will come to Arkady.”

“You have it.”

Warily, Declan accepted her hand. “Then for a time—friends.”

Arryl smiled. “And now, since that's taken care of, let's go somewhere we can talk. The Eternal Flame has been extinguished for six thousand years, Declan Hawkes of Glaeba. I want to know how you managed something nobody has been able to do since then.”

Declan nodded and then turned to Arkady, his eyes full of fear. She knew him so well; it wasn't hard to guess what he was thinking.
Will she hate me? Will she look at me differently?

Arkady stepped closer and put her hand in his. Since she'd seen him last she'd been sold into slavery, willingly whored herself to a mass-murdering member of the Senestran Physicians' Guild to keep herself out of a brothel and murdered a few score innocent Crasii herself.

On balance, Declan's new status as an immortal seemed quite tame by comparison.

“Where are we?”

“Back at the Outpost.”

Tiji pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around. It was dark, a single candle flickering on the table beside the bed, but sure enough, the walls of her small room were the rough planking of the Outpost, rather than the bamboo walls of the cottage in Watershed Falls. Her head was pounding, she had a gnawing emptiness in her belly and felt completely wrung out, but the cramps and her blurry vision were nothing more than a distant memory.

“What are we doing back here? What happened? Last I thing I remember was visiting the Port Traeker doctor.”

Azquil sat on the edge of the pallet and smiled comfortingly. “Well, you won't have to worry about him or his
makor-di
again. The Trinity took care of them.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”

“That tonic they were handing out so generously. It wasn't a cure, Tiji; it was mostly wood alcohol with a bit of cream and a few herbs thrown in to mask the smell.”

“But that's a poison . . .”

“Which is what they were counting on. Apparently, the Physicians' Guild's plan was to kill the disease at its source. Literally.”

“That's monstrous!”

Azquil nodded and took her hand in his. “Thank the Tide we arrived when we did, or you'd be dead by now.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then her eyes widened as she remembered at least one thing that had happened in Watershed Falls that morning. “Tides! The doctor. He gave me the tonic! I drank it! Lots of it!”

Azquil nodded. “I know. By the time we arrived you were already unconscious.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know to come looking for me?”

“I didn't,” he said. “It was just luck we found you when we did.”

Luck. Or perhaps fate.
Tiji wasn't so dismissive of either, lately. “I thought you and Tenika would be gone for weeks.”

“We planned to be. After I left you at the cottage, I brought the tonic here, with the intention of helping the Trinity with their healing work. Arryl and Medwen started using the tonic on the less serious cases in some of the nearer inland villages, hoping it would ease the burden on their healing powers. The Tide's still on the rise, you see, and there's a limit to what they can do magically. But everyone who took the tonic died, and much more rapidly than one would expect swamp fever to take them. It took us a few days to realise why, and as soon as we did, we headed back to Watershed to confront the doctor. By the time we got there, you were almost dead.”

Tiji tried to recall what had happened this morning—Tides, was it
only
this morning—after she arrived at the clinic, but she couldn't remember much beyond the doctor giving her that burning tonic and that wretched feline telling her to move along. “What happened to him?”

“The doctor? We strung him and his wretched
makor-di
up on the Justice Tree for the gobie ants to feed on,” he said, with unaccustomed savagery.

“And how is it that I'm still alive?”

“Arryl saved you.”

“With Tide magic?”

He nodded.

“You let a
suzerain
use
Tide
magic on me?”

“The alternative was to let you die, Tiji.”

She was horrified. “What if they've done something to me? What if they've changed me so I have to obey them, or something? What if . . .” Azquil silenced her fears with a kiss. It took her so completely by surprise, she forgot what she was going to say. “Um . . . what if . . . they made me . . . not love you anymore,” she added lamely, when they came up for air.

“I didn't know you loved me in the first place,” Azquil said with a grin.

Oh, Tides, I didn't mean to say that
 . . . “Well, it's just I . . . I mean, I meant . . .”

Leaning forward and taking her gently by the shoulders, he kissed her again, his delightfully flickering tongue making her heart pound. “It's all right, Tiji. You don't have to apologise,” he breathed against her skin. “But you do have to get better.” He let her go, stood up and offered her his hand. “And I'm guessing you're probably starving, given you've kept nothing down for the past day or so.”

Tiji nodded, as she realised the gnawing emptiness in her stomach really
was
hunger and not just a reaction to Azquil no longer kissing her. “I think I
might
be a bit peckish, now you mention it.”

“Then let's go fix some food,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Ambria's still in Watershed Falls with Arryl and Medwen. I'm not sure they'll be back tonight, so we have the run of the place. Let's go raid the Trinity's larder.”

Tiji smiled and nodded, feeling her skin colour flicker. Azquil was too much of a gentleman to remark on it, though.

Smiling at him, she let him take her hand and lead her back through the house to the Outpost's large, homely kitchen, where—as if they were an old married human couple—he began to fix her dinner.

“So . . . what is this?” Tiji asked, as Azquil placed the steaming bowl on the table in front of her.

“Grasshopper and cockroach stew,” he said. “With a bit of small human child thrown in for good measure. Ambria has a couple of them hanging in her larder.”

Tiji hesitated, then spooned a healthy portion of the spicy stew into her mouth. “You're mocking me, aren't you?” she said, her words muffled by her mouthful of food.

He smiled and took the seat opposite her. “Just a little bit. And the truth is, I'm not sure what it is. I did find the meat in Ambria's larder. It could be a small human child, for all I know.”

“Just so long as it's not cockroach,” she said, reaching for the bowl of salt. “I draw the line at eating cockroaches.”

“But small human children are fine?”

“With enough salt.” She said it with a grin, deciding to play along. Tiji had never really had someone like Azquil to trade silly banter with before. Except Declan.

Tides, I should get a message to Declan
 . . .

Azquil laughed, and began eating his own meal. Ravenous, Tiji put all thoughts of her former life out of mind and wolfed down the stew, wondering how she'd go about asking for seconds, when she caught a whiff of something rank.

“Ambria's back.”

Azquil sniffed the air for a moment and then shook his head. “I can't smell anything.”

“You're used to the scent of them,” she said. “Trust me, there's a suzerain coming.”

“I really wish you wouldn't call them that,” Azquil said, frowning. “The Trinity are our friends.”

“
Your
friends, Azquil, not mine.”

“Arryl saved your life.”

“I didn't ask her to.”

“Are you saying you'd rather die than accept help from an immortal?”

Yes!
Tiji wanted to reply emphatically, but she had a feeling this was such a pivotal issue between them, she would ruin whatever hope she had of a future with this handsome young lizard if she said it aloud. So she shrugged, spooned the last of the stew into her mouth and hedged around the issue with a noncommittal, “Maybe.”

“You'll change your mind once you get to know them.” His head came up and he sniffed the air again. “You're right, though. They are coming.”

“They?”

“Arryl, and Medwen must be with her. The scent is too strong to be a lone immortal.”

Tides, that's all I need. A whole clutch of suzerain.

“I can't wait,” she forced herself to say with a smile. “I suppose I should thank Arryl for saving my life while I'm at it.”

“It would be a good start, Tiji. Are you finished?”

She nodded, showing him her empty bowl.

“Then let's take a torch down to the dock to meet them.”

Tiji smiled through gritted teeth. “Good idea.”

The nights were loud, raucous affairs out here in the wetlands, Tiji had discovered, and this night was no exception. The chirruping of insects filled the darkness, as millions of nocturnal creatures went about their business, apparently determined to share every intimate detail of their lives with all the other insects in the swamp.

Why else
, Tiji wondered,
would they have so much to say?

They heard the boat before they saw it, the splash of the amphibians towing it along the shallow channel only just audible over the racket of the insects. Azquil raised the torch and waved it back and forth to make it easier for the amphibians to find the dock. As the boat neared the outpost, Tiji found herself wanting to gag on the stench of the suzerain. Tides, this
was worse than when she'd hidden in the Ladies Walk of the Cycrane Palace in Caelum and listened in on the plans of the Empress of the Five Realms and her kin.

There were three passengers in the boat, although it was impossible to tell who they were in the dark from this distance. Tiji thought one looked male. The others were obviously women.

So I finally get to meet all three of the Trinity. What Declan and the Cabal would give to know what I know now
 . . .

Not wishing to get too close to these creatures that—by virtue of both instinct and training—she so despised, Tiji hung back as Azquil helped tie up the boat, exchanging a greeting with the amphibians before they swam off toward their homes further along the channel. She couldn't understand why Azquil thought so highly of the Trinity, certain there was no power in the universe, up to and including Tide magic, that could force her to like or trust a suzerain.

There were greetings all round and apparently some introductions, and then the boat passengers turned and headed for the Outpost. Tiji watched them warily, her caution turning to delighted surprise when she realised that the tall human woman wearing only a slave skirt and a hastily tied shawl around her breasts was Arkady Desean, and the man walking a pace behind her was . . .