The Immortal Prince

by Jennifer Fallon

  “I can see that.” He embraced the old man. “You take care, all the same. I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I’m back in Lebec so it may be a while before I see you again.”

  “I’ll get a message to Tilly if I need anything.”

  Declan glanced at the table for a moment and then turned to his grandfather. “Don’t your Crasii friends ever get suspicious at how well you live?”

  “Most of the poor sods down here are too hungry to question their luck.”

  “Well, you need to be careful,” he warned. “You don’t want some fool deciding you’ve got a fortune stashed in here and turning the place over.”

  “I can look after myself, Declan.”

  “I know you can, Pop,” he assured the old man. “But I worry about you, all the same.”

  The old man patted Declan’s shoulder, shaking his head. “You’ve got other things to worry about, lad. The Tide is turning and the Immortal Prince has reemerged. My fate comes a poor second to that.”

  “The king has ordered me to torture a confession out of him.”

  Shalimar’s expression darkened at the news. “Then you be very, very careful, my boy. Any day now, Cayal’s powers will return. You don’t want that happening while you’re waving a hot branding iron under his nose.”

  “Maybe I’ll get a tale out of him,” Declan suggested. “Like the ones he’s been telling Arkady. She went out to the prison yesterday, so I’m told, to hear the rest of his story before she has to surrender him to me. In fact, she was gone again this morning, even before I left.”

  Shalimar seemed unsurprised. “Cayal should have posed as a bard, not a wainwright. Even the Lore says he spins a good yarn.”

  “I wonder,” Declan mused, “what tale he’s telling her now…”

  Chapter 53

  That night we spent in Marivale turned out to be quite important, but only in hindsight. I didn’t realise at the time, of course—one never does—that I was witnessing the precursor to a pointless death for which I actually felt, for a time at least, quite guilty.

  The only other incident of note that night happened when I went out to the stables to check on my horse. As I approached the arched entrance of the stables, my breath frosting in the crisp air, I heard voices. I stopped in the shadows near the entrance. From where I was standing, I could make out only a male figure—presumably the stableboy, given he was brushing down Jaxyn’s chestnut gelding.

  “…and it’s not as if you haven’t been looking for an excuse to leave Marivale since you were…oh…five years old…,” the lad was complaining.

  A moment later, Amaleta stepped into my line of sight, leaning on the rail, watching the young man at work. They were of an age, I guess, and more than friends, given the late hour. The lad seemed angry. I could tell that even from where I was standing.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Ven.”

  The young man brushed the horse with hard, even strokes, venting his rage in the mundane, repetitive action. “Who says I’m mad at you?”

  “You have nothing to worry about…”

  “I see. You want to go with them. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’d rather be enslaved by the Tide Lords than stay here and marry me.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “You think you’ll do better as a Tide Lord’s whore than you will as my wife? Is that it?”

  “No!”

  “Don’t you know what will happen to you, Amaleta?” Ven warned. “They’ll use you as their plaything and then one day, when you fail to please them any longer, they’ll toss you aside and you’ll end up a pitiful breeding cow on a Crasii farm somewhere, carrying abominated animals in your womb. You’ll be raped and impregnated time and again, just so the Tide Lords can have animals who’ll talk to them.”

  “They offered me a job,” Amaleta retorted, clearly angered by his lack of understanding. She pushed off the rail and glared at him. “They want me to look after the little girl. I’m nobody’s whore, Ven Scyther. Not the Tide Lords’ and not yours, either. Besides,” she added, crossing her arms defensively, “if I…insist on certain conditions—”

  “Conditions!” Ven snorted. “You don’t put conditions on the Tide Lords, Amaleta! Slave or freeborn, they own us, body and soul. The best you can hope for on this world is to avoid coming to their attention.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Ven? Refuse them?”

  “If you’re so sure they truly want to hire you, not enslave you, then yes, that’s exactly what you should have done.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple. And you’ve made your choice. Them or me. You chose them.”

  “I love you, Ven.”

  He stopped brushing the horse and turned to look at her. “Cast me aside if you must, Amaleta, but don’t add to the insult by lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying to you, Ven! I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here and marry you and grow old and die here in Marivale.”

  “Then go back in there and tell them you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I can’t. Not now. If I refuse, we don’t know what they’ll do.” She smiled tentatively. “Anyway, I won’t be gone for that long. They just need someone to mind the little girl. After they reach wherever it is they’re going, I’ll come home and it will be just like it was before. We can still be married. It might only be a few days that I’m gone, maybe a few weeks…”

  “And if one of them wants more of you than your services as a nurse-maid?”

  “Then I’ll close my eyes and pretend it’s you,” she told him with a mischievous smile. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. Whatever else this girl was, she clearly had a sense of humour, even if her boyfriend didn’t. Perhaps Jaxyn had done her a favour in offering her work. This girl hadn’t jumped at the opportunity out of fear, I realised. She was looking forward to the adventure.

  As if his anger wearied him, Ven tossed aside the brush and walked over to the rail. He leant on it with a sigh, touching his forehead to hers. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

  “And I can’t bear the thought of going. But it won’t be long…”

  He kissed her, cutting off her assurances. Amaleta slipped her arms around him and pulled him even closer. When they finally came up for air, Ven buried his face in her thick dark hair. “If you ever need me, I’ll come for you,” he murmured, so low I could barely hear him. “If it means killing an immortal, I won’t let them harm you.”

  “Don’t say that, Ven. You can’t kill them and I can’t fight them. We just have to make the best of things.”

  “But you must fight!” he insisted, taking her by the shoulders, his eyes boring into hers, demanding a pledge she clearly did not intend to give him. “It’s what they really want of you, Amaleta. They’re predators. You must fight them with every last breath in your body!”

  Amaleta shook free of him, raising a brow curiously. “You’d rather have me raped?”

  “That’s not what I meant…”

  “Isn’t it? Suppose one of the Tide Lords does decide he wants me, and I try to fight him off? What do you think will happen to me then, Ven? Is that what you want? To see me broken, or even killed, just to keep your male pride intact?”

  He bristled at her tone. What an arrogant young fool, I thought.

  But Ven was just getting warmed up, it seemed. “If you really loved me, you’d not even think of letting another man touch you! Mortal or god! You’d die first.”

  “If you really loved me, you’d tell me to do whatever I must to survive!” Amaleta retorted. “And then you’d promise to keep on loving me, no matter what I had to do to ensure that I returned to you whole and unharmed!”

  “She has a point, you know.”

  Amaleta jumped back from the rail in fright as I stepped out of the shadows. The poor girl looked shocked, but the look on Ven’s face was priceless. I hadn’t intended to become involved, but I was getting a little fed up with Ven’s insi
stence that I was some sort of evil rapist roaming the countryside looking for young girls to corrupt, when in fact I was nothing of the kind.

  That I was actually roaming the countryside looking for a quiet place to murder a six-year-old child made Ven’s suggestion quite ridiculous, but the irony was lost on me at the time.

  “My…my lord! We didn’t see you there!”

  “That much is obvious.”

  “This is my betrothed, Ven,” she said, glancing at her beloved with a look that begged him to hold his tongue. Not that it was likely to do much good. I got the distinct impression that once Ven was riled, it was impossible to reason with him.

  I looked the stableboy up and down. “It really would be foolish of your girl here to refuse one of us, if we took it into our minds to have her,” I said, walking up to the rail of the stall where my mare was stabled. The beast moved to the rail and nuzzled my shoulder. “On the other hand, at the risk of shattering your rather sordid little fantasy, my friend, there are surprisingly few of us who entertain themselves raping peasant girls. Our pleasures are far more sophisticated and a great deal more complicated these days.”

  “He meant no offence, my lord,” Amaleta mumbled, hanging her head in fear. Understandably, I thought. Krydence and Rance had killed men for less.

  I looked at Ven curiously. “Why do you mortals flatter yourselves so much thinking that we have nothing better to do than lust after your women?”

  “I’ve seen a Crasii farm,” Ven said. He probably figured he was already dead. Unlike the felines, you can only kill an ordinary human once.

  I shrugged, knowing there was no defense against such an accusation. “If we indulged in even half the atrocities ascribed to us we’d barely have time to eat.”

  Ven took umbrage at my patronising tone. “When the Tide turns someday, you’ll eat those words, my lord,” he predicted angrily.

  “Then let’s hope they’re well-seasoned,” I replied. “Now, if you’re quite finished cursing the cruelty of me and my kind, do you think you could arrange a blanket for my horse? She doesn’t like the cold.”

  Without waiting for either of them to answer, I patted the mare, and then turned and left the stable.

  Just before dawn the following morning, I slipped from my bed and made my way through the sleeping inn, my footfall preternaturally loud on the slate floors of the villa. I stepped outside into a light mist spreading from the river a few hundred yards to the north. The edges of the fog were tinted pink as the dawn bled into the sky. The night before, I’d spied a narrow staircase on the left that gave access onto the flat roof of the inn. I took the steps two at a time, anxious not to miss the sunrise.

  From the rooftop, I could just make out the flat, red tiled roofs of the rest of the village, many of them, like the inn, with decks that served as extra living space during the long, hot Tenacian summer. Feeling dawn approach, I turned my back on the village and faced the east.

  The Tide Star was just beginning to inch its way over the horizon, a fact I could feel, rather than see. Even without consciously touching the Tide, I could sense it stirring with the rising of the Tide Star. The Tide Lords and the Tide Star are inextricably linked in a manner that few—even among the immortals—understand. Lukys taught me to appreciate that.

  And to acknowledge it, once in a while.

  Without the Tide we’re helpless. It’s the ability to use the Tide—not immortality—that makes a Tide Lord superior to other immortals. The ability to touch it, manipulate it and thrive on it…to bend the Tide to our will.

  That’s what it is to be a Tide Lord.

  The Tide Star was rising quickly, drowning out the night. With a faint smile of anticipation, I closed my eyes and took several deep, calming breaths, and then I plunged into the Tide.

  It’s hard to describe swimming the Tide. Swirling colours always fill my mind at first; a kaleidoscope of confusion that it takes me a moment to sort out. During High Tide there are always dangerous eddies in the current to trap the unwary, too. Diving in without being certain you’re grounded in reality is a dangerous mistake. So I waited and let the waves of magic subside, slowly resolving themselves into some semblance of order before I cast my senses out further. Surfing the Tide, coasting over the waves of magic that emanate from the Tide Star, is something I knew how to do by instinct. From the moment I first felt Lukys manipulating the Tide the day he slammed Syrolee back against her throne, I’d been aware of it.

  “What does it feel like?”

  I opened my eyes. Fliss was staring up at me, shivering in her nightgown.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “I heard you sneaking out. Are you surfing the Tide?”

  “I didn’t sneak out,” I said. “I was trying not to wake anyone. And yes. I am surfing the Tide. At least I was until you interrupted me.”

  “What does it feel like?” Fliss repeated curiously.

  “I’m not sure I can describe it,” I replied. “You’re a Tidewatcher, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose,” Fliss agreed with a nod. “But I could never do it properly. Aunt Elyssa used to tell me I was too stupid to do it right.”

  Probably, I thought, because while other Tidewatchers were skimming the Tide, only able to sense it, but not affect it directly, you were actually in contact with it. It was no surprise to discover she’d never been able to master the skills her Tidewatcher cousins had learned. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Freezing,” the little girl admitted, crossing her arms and rubbing them briskly.

  “Then go back inside.”

  It may have been that I was touching the Tide when I spoke to her, but for the first time, I sensed the Tide swirling around Fliss and what I saw chilled me to the core. She was a dark speck in an ocean of light and her presence seemed to draw every lurking shadow to her. I’d never seen anything like it. Never felt anything so terrifying.

  Unaware of my thoughts, Fliss slipped her hand into mine and squeezed it. “I don’t care what Syrolee says about you. I think you’re nice.”

  I stared at the child, shaking my head. “You know, I’m not surprised the empress wants to be rid of you. She probably got sick of you repeating her every word.”

  “Does the empress want to be rid of me?” Fliss asked.

  Tides, sometimes I just open my big mouth without thinking…

  I smiled. “I’m joking, Fliss. Let’s go find that new nurse of yours and get you dressed. We’ve a long ride ahead of us today.”

  “But didn’t you want to keep watching the Tide?”

  “I think the Tide is safe enough for now.”

  Fliss smiled up at me trustingly. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Uncle Cayal.”

  “So am I,” I said with a smile.

  You can add hypocrisy to skills I’ve mastered over the years, too.

  Later that morning, as I was saddling my mare for the journey south, I turned to find Amaleta on the other side of the stall, clutching a small leather bag. She seemed smaller than she had yesterday, and nervous. Her dark hair was neatly braided and she wore a rough woven cloak over practical woollen trousers and a plain linen shirt. I looked around, but there was no sign of her belligerent young fiancé.

  “All ready to go?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Where’s your betrothed?”

  Amaleta’s nervousness deepened into tangible fear at my question. “I…I’m not sure, my lord. Did you want him for something?”

  “He’s not planning to make a scene when we ride out this morning, is he?”

  “He won’t be a problem, my lord,” she promised. I knew she was lying, but didn’t know what else I could do. Silently, I cursed Jaxyn. He should have made some enquiries about the girl before hiring her. Perhaps then, he might have learned about her passionate and rebellious fiancé.

  I was in no mood for passionate and rebellious fiancés, either.

  “Then it’s time we got moving. We’ve already wasted half the morning.
If you’ve any more goodbyes to say, you have about five minutes to get them done.”

  Amaleta curtsied inelegantly and hurried from the stable.

  Ven was there to see us off, but the young man did nothing more than lean against the wall of the inn with a sullen glare as he watched his beloved ride away. The chill of the morning had softened into cool sunlight, the cloudless sky pale and washed out by the muted colours of winter. I led the way into the narrow village street. Jaxyn rode beside me. Amaleta came last, with Fliss perched in front of her saddle, waving to her family and the villagers who had come to see us off. The crowd was much smaller than the previous evening. Many of the villagers were out in the flax fields at this time of day. The economic necessity of earning a living outweighs even the chance to look upon a god, I suppose.

  “You don’t need to pay her, you know.”

  I looked at Jaxyn blankly as we moved off. “What?”

  “The girl. You don’t actually have to pay her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because to do this job right, my reluctant and squeamish old friend, you’re probably going to have to kill both the nurse and the child,” he pointed out in a conversational tone. “When you finally get around to it, that is.”

  “I wasn’t the one who hired the nurse,” I reminded him. “Maybe you should kill her yourself. Just don’t get any other ideas about her.”

  He looked at me in surprise. “What makes you think I’d be interested in a rustic, ill-educated innkeeper’s daughter?”

  “Leave her be.”

  “Why? Have you staked a claim already?”

  “I mean it, Jaxyn.”

  “And what are you going to do if I ignore you, Cayal?” Jaxyn asked. “Kill me? You’re starting to amass a bit of a backlog, old son.”

  I grinned as a much more entertaining revenge leapt to mind. “Touch Amaleta and I’ll do worse than that. I’ll destroy your reputation. I’ll start a new religion in your name. Better yet, I’ll have Brynden do it. He’s good at that sort of thing. I’ll have him add you to his list of worthy deities in Torlenia. I’ll have him declare you the Lord of Reformed Drunks and Virgins.”