The Palace of Impossible Dreams (32 page)

“
Declan
!”

Tiji flew across the narrow patch of ground between them, ready to hurl herself into his arms. She had so much to tell him . . . about her journey here, her news about the Immortal Prince, about finding the other chameleons, about the suzerain . . .

She skidded to a halt a few feet from him, as it occurred to her that he already knew about the suzerain, because he had arrived with them.

And then she noticed the stench, the rank aroma of immortality that her Scard nose could not deny.

“Tides . . .” she murmured, taking a step backward. “No . . .”

Azquil and the suzerain were staring at her in surprise. Arkady looked relieved for some reason. Declan . . . Declan just looked filled with regret.

“You know this child?” Arryl asked.

“It's a long story,” Declan said, his eyes fixed on Tiji. He reached out his hand to her. “Tiji . . .”

“Don't you touch me!” she spat, her eyes filling with tears. “You're not Declan Hawkes.”

Declan looked at her helplessly and then threw his hands up and glanced at Arkady, as if he'd known all along how she'd react to meeting him like this, and was telling the duchess
I told you so.
“I'm sorry, Tiji.”

Sorry
! She couldn't believe he was apologising to her. Declan Hawkes, her saviour, her hero . . . he stank like a suzerain. It was the ultimate betrayal.

He had joined the ranks of the enemy.

Sorry?
It was going to take a damn sight more than a simple
sorry
to make things better between them.

Tiji turned away, storming back toward the Outpost, unable to bear looking at Declan. Azquil hurried after her, grabbing her arm before she could disappear inside.

“Tiji, wait . . .”

She shook free of him, her eyes blurred with tears. “You asked me earlier if I'd rather have died today, Azquil, and I said no. I lied. I wish you
had
let me die.” She turned and pointed an accusing finger at Declan. “Then I wouldn't have to deal with him.”

Leaving Declan to explain, Tiji fled, not into the house, but into the surrounding jungle, where the cacophony of insect noises was so much louder and might have some hope of drowning out her tears.

Ambria's kitchen was a homely place, about as far from the majestic marble temples of Tide Lord legend as it was possible to get. Arryl lit a few more lamps and indicated they should sit at the long, scrubbed wooden table. She sat opposite Declan and Arkady, who hadn't left his side since he'd found her as if she was afraid that if she lost sight of him, he'd disappear. The young male chameleon had gone in search of Tiji.

“Do you think Azquil will be able to find her?” Arkady asked, as she took a seat beside Declan. He thought she was making conversation rather than genuinely inquiring about Tiji's fate. Azquil, after all, was the one who'd tied her to that tree and she was probably glad not to have to face him just yet.

Arryl nodded. “He'll find her. I'm not certain we'll see either of them again for a while, though. They can be emotional little creatures, the chameleons, and they don't forgive easily.” She looked at Declan. “She appears to have quite a bit to forgive.”

“I would have counted Tiji among my best friends until a few minutes ago,” Declan said. “And I can't, for the life of me, imagine how she finished up here in the first place.”

“I think she was following me,” Arkady said.

Arryl shook her head. “She was brought here by the Retrievers.”

“Who?”

“A team of specially trained chameleons,” the immortal explained, standing up to poke around the stove to see if it was alight. “They search for chameleons stolen as younglings. They found her on the streets of Elvere, I believe. Would anyone else like some tea? I'm going to make a pot, anyway.”

Only Arkady indicated she wanted tea. Arryl bustled around the stove for a moment, got the kettle heating and then stared at Declan in a very disconcerting manner.

He stared back and said nothing.

After a moment, Arryl shifted her gaze to Arkady. “And you. What brings you to the Senestran Wetlands?”

She hesitated before answering. “It's a long story.”

“Believe me, my dear,” Arryl said, “everyone here can afford the time.”

Arkady glanced at Declan for a moment and then took a deep breath. “All right, then. It goes like this . . . My husband was the Duke of Lebec. For reasons too complicated to go into, we were exiled to Torlenia. Trouble is, he had a lover who turned out to be your friend Jaxyn. Oh, and the girl we thought was his niece turned out to be Diala. While we were away, the King and Queen of Glaeba died in an accident, so my husband returned home for the funeral. Kinta invited me to stay at the Royal Seraglium in Ramahn while he was gone. Then we got word my husband had been arrested and stripped of his title and estates. Figuring Jaxyn was behind his downfall, I asked Kinta for asylum. She sent me into the desert to stay with Brynden, but I met up with Cayal along the way—”

“You
what
?”

“Let her speak, Declan,” Arryl scolded. She turned to Arkady. “Please . . . tell us the rest of your remarkable tale.”

Arkady looked as if she was biting back what she really wanted to say, merely complying with Arryl's instructions out of politeness. Declan put his hand over hers encouragingly, but all he could think was,
Tides, she's been with Cayal again.

“When I got to the abbey, Cayal and Brynden talked and agreed that I would stay at the abbey while Cayal went off to fetch Lukys, because Cayal thinks Lukys has found a way for him to die,” Arkady continued. “As soon as he was out of sight, Brynden sold me to a slaver in Elvere, because he's still angry with Cayal. That's where I was batch-bought by the Senestrans. As I didn't fancy being passed around the crew for their entertainment, I offered myself to the ship's doctor on the voyage here. After we docked in Port Traeker, he kept me on as his assistant because my father had also been a physician and I knew enough of his trade to be useful to him. About three weeks ago the Senestran Physicians' Guild sent us here to the wetlands to implement their grand plans for the eradication of swamp fever.” She took another deep breath. “That's about it really.”

The immortal was staring at her in amazement. Declan wasn't sure what to say, but one thing he was certain of—Arkady's explanation was meant for him as much as it was for Arryl.

And she's been with Cayal again.

Arryl shook her head in wonder. “You've met all those immortals in the past few months?”

Arkady nodded. “I met Cayal first . . . actually, that's not strictly correct.
Jaxyn was the first, followed by Diala, but I didn't know who they were until after I met Cayal.”

The immortal shook her head in despair as she turned to lift the boiling kettle from the stove. “It doesn't take them long, does it? The Tide's barely turned and they're already on the move.”

There didn't seem to be an answer to that, and Arryl didn't seem to expect one. She filled the teapot, took two cups from a shelf, and sat down again, waiting for the tea to draw. After a moment, she turned to Declan. “And what's your story?”

“Arkady's one of my oldest friends. When I heard she went missing I came looking for her.”

“Aren't you leaving out a few important details? Like you being the Glaeban spymaster?”

“How could you possibly know that?” Arkady asked in surprise.

“Tiji would have told her,” Declan answered, not taking his eyes from Arryl's. “And yes, I was Glaeba's spymaster. Until . . . circumstances intervened.”

“Ah,” she said, pushing a mug of steaming tea across the table to Arkady before taking her own seat. “About that . . . would you like to tell me
how
?”

“I was caught in a fire.”

Arryl's eyes narrowed doubtfully. “Just an ordinary, everyday fire?”

Declan allowed himself a small smile. “I'm not sure if I'd call it ordinary or everyday. We burned the entire Herino Prison to the ground in the process.”

“And somehow, you emerged immortal?”

Declan nodded. Arkady turned to Arryl. “You were the keeper of the Eternal Flame for centuries,” she said. “How could an ordinary fire make an ordinary man immortal?”

“You're assuming he's an ordinary man,” Arryl said, studying Declan closely.

“I think that has something to do with it, actually,” Declan agreed.

“What?” Arkady asked with a thin smile, the first he'd seen since he'd found her tied to that wretched tree. “You think you're something special, do you?”

“My grandfather was Maralyce's son.”

Arkady stared at him in surprise but said nothing more. The news about Shalimar appeared to have rendered her speechless.

“And your parents?” Arryl asked.

Sitting beside him, her hand in his, Arkady sipped her tea and said nothing, but he could feel her gaze on him, questioning and curious. He could sense no animosity from her, though. She'd certainly taken the news he was now immortal a great deal better than Tiji had.

Had Cayal really found a way to die?

“My mother was a whore,” he said, forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand. “I could have been fathered by any one of a thousand men.”

Arryl quickly came to the same conclusion Maralyce had. “But you think he's an immortal?”

“That's as near to an explanation as I can come.”

“But it doesn't make sense,” Arkady said, finding her voice. “I thought you could only make immortals by setting them alight with the Eternal Flame?”

“So did I,” Arryl said. “And it's certainly the way
we
were all made. But all of us, as far as we know, were ordinary humans before we were immolated. If he's right about who fathered him, and he's Maralyce's grandson, then he was more than half immortal to start with.”

“Or your precious Eternal Flame wasn't so special after all,” Declan said. “At least, that's what Maralyce implied when I asked her about it.”

Arryl looked shocked. “She
said
that?”

“She said it suited them for everyone to believe it. She wasn't nearly so surprised as you are, that an ordinary fire did this to me.”

“Who did she mean by
them
?” Arkady asked.

That question silenced the room for a moment. Eventually Arryl shrugged. “I'm not really sure. There's always been a question over how Maralyce was made. And some of the others too, like Pellys and Kentravyon . . .”

“Cayal told me Pellys was made when the brothel in Cuttlefish Bay burned down because the fire was started by the Eternal Flame.”

“I always believed that to be true,” Arryl agreed. “But then, we always assumed Pellys was mortal to begin with . . .” She hesitated, her expression grim. “Tides, if that's true, and there really never
was
anything particularly special about the Eternal Flame, imagine the fun Diala could be having, setting fire to anything that takes her fancy.”

“Perhaps that's
why
they had you believing it was magical,” Arkady said. “To prevent immortals like your sister from making too many more of you. I mean, you assume so much. Accept so much. And yet there's no proof—”

“Arkady . . .” Declan said, recognising the danger signs that indicated Arkady was about to get on her high academic horse.

“Let her speak,” Arryl said, her expression anything but accommodating. Declan cringed to think of what might happen if Arkady angered this woman. “I'm interested in how this death-dealing Glaeban slave who's been alive for all of an eye-blink has worked out all about us immortals, because, of course, unlike her,
we
haven't spared the idea a single thought in a thousand years.”

He looked at Arkady fearfully, but Declan should have known better than to worry about her. Arkady wasn't intimidated by Arryl. “What I was
going
to say, my lady, is that you assume the Eternal Flame landed on Amyrantha when that meteor hit Engarhod's ship in Jelidia. But think about it . . . what are the chances of that particular meteorite hitting a single ship in the middle of the ocean? And then Lukys and Engarhod who—with a single rat, wasn't it?—somehow worked out it was the fire that must be responsible? Because, naturally, you'd know it was the
fire
responsible for your miraculous survival, and not any one of a thousand other factors.”

“What are you saying? That we don't even know our own history?” Arryl asked.

“What I'm saying, my lady, is that immortals are just as prone to allowing facts to fall into myth as us mere mortals—and not seeing what is right in front of them. If Declan became immortal because he survived being burned alive by ordinary fire, it doesn't automatically follow that all fire will make humans into immortals. Perhaps Declan really
was
more than half-immortal to start with, and you need the right combination of ancestors before the fire will work. For that matter, are you sure you even
need
fire? If you've the right bloodline, surely drowning would be just as effective as immolation to trigger immortality.”

Arryl stared at Arkady for a moment as she calmly sipped her tea and then turned to Declan. “Who
is
this woman?”

Declan glanced at Arkady and smiled, thinking even if he
was
going to live forever, Arkady lecturing an immortal on the fallacy of her beliefs of her origins was a memory he'd carry with him into eternity. “You'll have to forgive my friend. She likes logical explanations for everything.”

“So do I, as a rule,” Arryl said. She sighed, shaking her head. “Your appearance in our ranks is going to create more than a little stir, Declan, because your friend is correct. Your mere existence throws into doubt everything we know to be true about ourselves and how we were created.”