“Thank you, I would.” She accepted a cup that Tilly poured with her own hand, and took a sip, before she answered her hostess’s first question. “Even if Stellan was looking for a husband for his niece, Tilly, I doubt Aleki is in the running. He’s more than twice Kylia’s age.”
“Tides, he’s not going to let her marry for love, is he? It would be just like that fool man to do something so stupid.”
“You think marrying for love is stupid?” Arkady asked curiously.
“Don’t you?”
She hesitated before answering. “Actually, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Tilly told her. “If I’d had my way when I was seventeen, I’d have married one of my father’s grooms. His name was Neron. I was so in love with him, I thought I would die when I was told I couldn’t have him.”
“Did he feel the same way?”
The widow shrugged. “I like to imagine he did, but the truth is, about three months after my father found out about us and forbade him to see me again, he married a girl from his village, moved back home and that was the last I ever saw of him.” She sipped her tea and smiled. “Hardly the stuff of epic romance.”
“Do you ever regret it?”
Tilly shook her head. “Not a moment of it. I don’t regret falling in love with a groom any more than I regret marrying Aleki’s father. I’ve had a good life, Arkady, and I’ve lived every moment of it in the style to which I’m sinfully habituated. Even better, my dear husband had the decency to pass away while I was still young enough to enjoy being a widow, but not so young that I needed to remarry. I have a decent, hardworking son, determined to keep me in the manner to which I’m accustomed, and delightful, terribly well-connected friends like you to keep me on every reputable invitation list in town. It’s all worked out rather swimmingly, in fact.”
“You’re an evil old cynic, Tilly,” Arkady laughed.
“Better to be an evil old cynic than a cynic at your age,” she scolded. “You need to fall in love, my girl. Hard. It would do you the world of good.”
“What makes you think I’m not in love with Stellan?”
“Hmmm…,” Tilly said, feigning deep thought. “I think it comes down to two words…Jaxyn Aranville.”
“You really are an evil old cynic,” Arkady accused, frowning.
“I’m right though. You need to have an affair, girl. And I don’t mean some discreet little assignation once a week, all done in good taste and decorum. I mean something that makes you foolish. Something so consuming you’d throw your whole life away for it. I’m talking passion. A screaming, tear-my-clothes-off-and-take-me-now-you-brute sort of fling. Preferably with someone totally inappropriate.”
Arkady shook her head. “And exactly what would that achieve?”
“You’d know you’re alive, Arkady.”
“I’m content with other, less dangerous indicators that I’m alive,” she replied. “You know: breathing. A pulse. That sort of thing.”
“They’re just proving you’re not dead,” Tilly corrected. “That’s a whole world away from being alive, my girl.”
Arkady smiled. “I don’t know why I listen to you, Tilly Ponting. You’re a shameless meddler and you give the worst advice of anybody I’ve ever met.”
“But that’s why you love me,” Tilly chuckled, patting Arkady’s hand across the table. “So tell me, dear. If you didn’t come for my advice on matters of the heart, what are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to you about the Tarot.”
“You want to know more?”
“About the characters on the cards, yes.”
“How did your last interview go?”
“It was…interesting.”
Tilly looked at her cannily. “But your immortal is not so easily tripped up?”
She shook her head. “Not so easily.”
Tilly rose to her feet and crossed the room to the sideboard. She opened a drawer and pulled out another deck of cards similar to those she had loaned Arkady and then came back and began laying them out on the table.
“Engarhod,” she said, as she dealt the cards. “Emperor of the Five Realms. His wife, Syrolee, the Empress. Elyssa, the Maiden. Tryan, the Devil. Pellys, the Recluse. Lukys, the Scholar. Rance, the Hanging Man. Krydence, the Judge. Taryx, the Warrior. Sometimes they call him Tyrax—”
“Slow down!” Arkady begged. “I’m not going to remember all of this. He mentioned Pellys, though.”
“The Recluse?”
Arkady nodded. “Cayal claims Pellys was a recluse because someone had him decapitated. His head grew back afterwards, but without his memories. That’s why he was a recluse.”
Tilly looked at her in surprise. “He actually told you an immortal’s head grows back?”
“It’s apparently one of the benefits of immortality.”
“Did he tell what else happens?”
Arkady looked at Tilly with a raised brow. “Is something else supposed to happen?”
Tilly laughed. “There’s the legend that it’ll destroy the world, but I guess we got lucky. Good thing our headsman was away, eh?”
Arkady smiled at the very notion. “I tried to get Stellan to let me chop off one of Cayal’s fingers to see if it grew back so we could settle the matter once and for all, but he won’t let me do it.”
“How inconsiderate of him,” Tilly agreed.
She looked at her friend oddly. “You think I’m a barbarian, too, don’t you?”
Suddenly the widow smiled again, although it seemed a little forced this time. “No, I think I was right about you needing to have an affair. You really have cut yourself off from normal human emotions, haven’t you, dear?”
Arkady shook her head and pointed to the cards. “Just stick to the Tarot, Tilly, and stop trying to fix things that aren’t broken.”
The old woman dealt out another card. It was a picture of two lovers entwined in an intimate embrace. “The Lovers. Cayal and Amaleta.” Tilly laid it down quite deliberately, studied the card for a long, meaningful moment and then looked at Arkady with a raised brow. “If I was superstitious, Arkady Desean, I’d say there’s an omen here.”
Arkady rolled her eyes. “For the Tides’ sake, you read Tarot cards, Tilly. You think there’s an omen in everything.”
“Could be I’m right.”
“Well, I’m sure your Tarot lovers are the very embodiment of happily-ever-after, but they’re not going to help me much. Maybe you should tell me about this Emperor of the Five Realms,” Arkady suggested. “I’m quite sure the omens can take care of themselves.”
“The Lovers represent tragedy, not happiness,” Tilly corrected. “The legend goes that Cayal had already discovered the secret of immortality by the time he met Amaleta. After he fell hopelessly in love with her—according to the Tarot, at least—he took her up into the Shevron Mountains and there he asked her to marry him, promising her immortal life as proof of his eternal love. She was understandably nervous about making the transformation, but he begged her to trust him. Eventually, she agreed, and he set about making her immortal so they could share their eternity in perfect bliss.”
“Well, yes, Tilly,” Arkady said, smiling. “I can see what a tragedy that must have been.”
“It was a tragedy. Cayal got it wrong. Instead of giving Amaleta eternal life, he killed her.”
Arkady was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “That must have been rather awkward for him.”
Tilly was clearly not pleased Arkady wasn’t giving her Tarot the respect she felt it deserved. “They say his grief was inconsolable. According to legend, the Great Lakes are the result of the Immortal Prince’s tears.”
Arkady could no longer hide her amusement. “Odd, if we’re talking about the same Immortal Prince we have locked up in Lebec Prison. He doesn’t strike me as the weepy type.”
Tilly leaned back in her chair and stared at Arkady. “If you’re not going to take this seriously…”
>
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease,” she said, patting Tilly’s hand, realising she was very close to offending her old friend. “Please, tell me more. I don’t mean to scorn your Tarot. It’s just the academic in me has trouble dealing with the notion I’m being forced to rely on a deck of cards used for telling fortunes as my only dependable resource, that’s all. Tell me about the others. I’ll not laugh again, I promise.”
Tilly frowned, deliberating the sincerity of Arkady’s apology, before nodding and dealing out the rest of the cards. “The Tarot deserves respect, you know.”
“Of course it does.”
“People died to protect it, during the last Cataclysm.”
Arkady nodded solemnly. “I’m sure they did.”
Tilly glared at her. “Some of us go to a great deal of trouble to ensure this record of the true nature of the Tide Lords never fades from memory, Arkady. It’s a solemn trust that we take very seriously. If you’re going to scoff at it, you can find someone else to tell you about the Tarot.”
“Some of us?” Arkady asked with a smile. “Tides! You make it sound like you’re part of some giant conspiracy to keep the knowledge of the Tide Lords alive.”
Tilly continued to glare at her. “Some secrets are worth protecting, Arkady.”
“Secrets?” This was starting to get a little bizarre and it was certainly the first time Arkady had ever seen Tilly so serious. While she knew Tilly deliberately cultivated the idea that she was nothing more than an eccentric widow, Arkady had always believed it was all part of her plan to avoid another marriage. It never occurred to her that Tilly might be doing it for any other reason. And certainly not for something as trivial as a deck of Tarot cards.
Picking up the nearest card, Tilly handed it to Arkady. “I’ve said too much already. Let’s get on with this.”
“Tilly,” Arkady asked curiously, “do you actually believe the Tide Lords are real?”
The old woman was silent for a moment and then she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. You’re the one supposedly interrogating an immortal. I think what you believe is rather more important at this stage.”
Her answer surprised and disturbed Arkady a little. She’d never seen her old friend like this before. “I’m sorry, Tilly,” she said. “I don’t mean to mock you or your beliefs.”
“Let’s start then,” Tilly said, rather more frostily than Arkady was expecting, “with the Emperor of the Five Realms…”
It was past lunch by the time Arkady arrived at the prison, the day overcast and gloomy. She was led through the depressing halls to Recidivists’ Row without ceremony, the guards so used to her visits by now they addressed her by name as she passed by.
When she reached the Row, she was surprised by how pleased both Cayal and Warlock were to see her. Cayal’s smile in particular was rather unsettling. He seemed disturbingly eager and, for a moment, Tilly’s suggestion about indulging in a screaming, tear-my-clothes-off-and-take-me-now-you-brute sort of fling with someone totally inappropriate flashed through her mind.
Idiot, she told herself sternly. It was easy to forget she was their only contact with the outside world other than the guards. For these prisoners, she was a window into a realm from which they were excluded, probably for the rest of their lives. That was why they were so glad to see her, she reminded herself. If Cayal seemed to eagerly approach the bars whenever she arrived, it was just because she was the only respite he had from the boredom of his incarceration. If his eyes widened when he looked at her, if his gaze lingered longer than it should, if his smile seemed a little too familiar, it meant nothing—no more than her own quickening heartbeat meant simply that she despised being in this place where her father had perished.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. Sorry I’m late.”
“You have no need to apologise to us, my lady,” Warlock informed her gravely.
“Oh…I don’t know,” Cayal disagreed. “I kind of like the idea myself.”
“You would,” the canine rumbled, retreating to the back of his cell.
Cayal turned his attention to Arkady. “So, what is your excuse for being late, then?”
She frowned at his impudence. “Don’t push your luck.”
“I don’t really care, anyway.” Cayal seemed distracted. “But I’ve been thinking.”
“How nice for you.”
“I think we should trade.”
“Trade for what, exactly?”
“The rest of my story, in return for a bit of fresh air. I’m going crazy locked up in here.”
“I thought that was the whole point of your claim to be immortal, Cayal? To prove you’re crazy?”
He shrugged. “That’s your idea, not mine. I want out of here. Even if only for a few hours a day. Tides! Even the gemang wants out of here. You arrange it for us, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
It seemed an unlikely offer, but she wasn’t sure it was one she could refuse. It was hard to avoid the feeling this man was manipulating her. “Will you tell me who sent you here? Who you work for?”
“I’m a Tide Lord,” he reminded her. “I don’t work for anybody.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Very selfless of you to include Warlock in your request for fresh air and exercise.”
“Maybe I’m planning to escape and I need the gemang to help.”
“If you want to enlist my help to escape, suzerain,” Warlock remarked from the cell across the way, “not calling me gemang would be a good start.”
Arkady couldn’t help but smile. “Your magically created race of adoring slaves really isn’t performing to specifications, is it?”
“Wait ’til the Tide turns,” Cayal suggested. “Then you’ll see.”
“I’m breathless with anticipation,” she assured him. “Tell me about Diala. In the Tarot she is the High Priestess.”
“Arryl was High Priestess.”
“What was Diala then?”
Cayal smiled sourly. “We used to call her the Minion Maker.”
“The what?”
“The Minion Maker,” he repeated. “That’s what she did, Arkady. Diala sought out likely minions for the Tide Lords and then trapped them into an eternity of servitude.”
Arkady’s brow furrowed. “Minions? I don’t understand.”
He stared at her for a moment and then smiled. “You don’t seriously think every one of those names in your pathetic Tarot was actually a Tide Lord, do you? How many cards have you got there? Twenty or more? No world could survive that many jaded lunatics looking for ways to entertain themselves.”
“Who are they then, if they’re not immortal?”
“Oh, they’re immortal,” he assured her. “They just can’t manipulate the Tide very well. Mastery over the Tide is a skill only a few of us have.”
“You mean some of them have no magical power.”
“Some power. Not a lot. And it varies.”
“Will you tell me about them?”
“Will you speak to the Warden about us getting out of here for a bit each day?”
“That depends on how cooperative you are.”
Cayal smiled. “Then pull up a chair, Arkady. As I told you before, it’s a very long story.”
Chapter 25
Where were we? That’s right—freezing to death in the meat locker at Dun Cinczi. The door had opened…
Squinting in the painfully bright light, I really began to worry when I realised the silhouette in the doorway was my sister, Planice, the Queen of Kordana.
You may wonder why I wasn’t sighing with relief, thinking rescue was at hand, given I was the queen’s brother. Planice was a good fifteen years older than me. We’d never been close. I think her resentment of me was because it was my birth that had finally killed our mother. She was only fifteen when our mother died and along with her title, Planice had inherited a clutch of nine siblings that included a newborn babe needing care and attention. As she lacked any real maternal instinct, I’d been a n
uisance she was forced to deal with most of her life. And it wasn’t as if I’d been a particularly easy child. In fact, my only real use had proved to be as a convenient groom for the daughter of a much-needed ally, once I’d grown.
Until now, that is. Until I’d unwittingly given her the excuse she was looking for to be rid of me, something that only just occurred to me as I warily stepped toward her.
“Planice…thank the Tides you’ve come…”
She responded by backhanding me, her royal signet tearing the frozen skin from my cheek. The blood was warm on my face as I fell backwards against the hanging carcasses, hurt more by her reaction to my plight than her blow.
“Idiot!”
I staggered to my feet, only just starting to appreciate the trouble I was in. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the consequences of killing a man. And it wasn’t as if I expected no cost for my actions. But to anger Thraxis was one thing. To annoy the Queen of Kordana was another thing entirely.
“I can explain…”
“You killed Thraxis’s only son over some woman you’ve never laid eyes on before?” she screeched, almost as angry as Thraxis himself. “Two days before you’re to marry the daughter of one of our most tenuous allies? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“It was an accident…”
“I ought to hang you, you dangerous little fool!” she shouted, her face red with fury.
I ought to hang you, she said, giving me a glimmer of hope. Given the mood she was in, I’d been expecting her to say: I’m going to hang you.
“So why don’t you?” I asked, dabbing at my bloody cheek.
“Because Thraxis is demanding it,” she informed me. “And I can’t afford to have any dun lord in my kingdom telling me who I should and shouldn’t kill.”
“But Planice…”
“Shut up, Cayal, I’m not interested in anything you have to say. Much as it grieves me, you’ll get to live.” Before my relief at this reprieve had time to register, she added coldly, “But only because I’m making a point here, not because I care one scrap about you. And even if it does suit me to let you go on breathing, nothing says I have to put up with you at my hearth. You are banished, Cayal of Lakesh,” she decreed, assuming a formal air. “You may take the clothes on your back and a weapon to defend yourself and leave the borders of Kordana by sunset tomorrow. If you are still within my borders by then, or if you ever attempt to return, you will be hunted down, like the vermin you are, and killed without mercy. Do you understand?”
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