The Palace of Impossible Dreams

by Jennifer Fallon

  Chapter 10

  Declan vanished for two whole days after his grandfather died, leaving Stellan alone in the cabin with Nyah. The little princess fretted the whole time Declan was gone, worrying that something had happened to him.

  Stellan fretted too, but for entirely different reasons.

  The Duke of Lebec had never had to survive on his own before. Since birth, the slaves and servants who took care of his every want, his every need, had surrounded him. As the only adult here, and with the responsibility for an eleven-year-old girl suddenly thrust upon him, Stellan found himself having to learn how to cook, how to clean and—even more difficult than that—how to deal with a precocious, homesick child.

  Despite Stellan’s awkwardness around the physical act required to make a child with Arkady, he had always wanted to be a father. At least he had come to that realisation over the past few years.

  Pity I didn’t realise it sooner, he decided, mentally kicking himself for his naivety. He might have been less eager to follow the advice of all his well-meaning friends, from the king down to his Crasii servants, who’d all agreed he was too young for such a responsibility. They’d all encouraged him to send Kylia away when she was the same age Nyah was now, after her parents were killed in a boating accident and he’d found himself her guardian. Of course, he’d been much younger then, much less sure of himself, and desperately afraid that if he let his young niece stay in Lebec, sooner or later she would discover his secret and, however innocently, expose him.

  The guilt resulting from that selfish decision haunted Stellan. Declan’s revelation that Kylia was more than likely dead, and the young woman he had welcomed into his home was the immortal Diala, had all but gutted him. He was devastated to think he’d not recognised his own niece, riddled with remorse that he had opened his home to an impostor, and unreasonably jealous to learn that she and Jaxyn were in cahoots with each other.

  Against all reason, that hurt the most. The idea that while he was swearing his heart to a young man he considered his soul mate, his soul mate was conspiring against him, and possibly even sleeping with the creature posing as his niece.

  How they must have laughed at his ignorance, at his earnest desire for something that had proved even more unattainable in reality than it had in even his worst nightmares.

  How many times had Arkady warned him to be careful?

  That made him an even bigger fool, he feared. His wife had spotted Jaxyn for a fraud from the first moment she met him, and yet she’d tolerated his presence and lied to protect them both. Had she laughed about him too, behind his back? Had she shared her amusement at the antics of her foolish husband, blinded by love and the charming good looks of a young man over whom he was making a complete fool of himself?

  And if she had shared his folly with someone, was that someone her childhood friend, Declan Hawkes?

  It was that thought—more than finding himself responsible for Nyah; more than realising he was now a dispossessed pauper and would likely have a death sentence hanging over him, had the rest of the world not believed him to be already dead—which gnawed at his gut: the idea that behind those all-knowing eyes, Hawkes was blaming him for the fate that would now befall Glaeba.

  Or he was laughing at him. Stellan wasn’t sure which was worse.

  He had no more time to dwell on his misfortune, however. The door slammed open and Nyah pushed her way into the tiny cabin, lifting the bucket onto the table with a slosh of chilly water.

  “That cascade is sooo cold,” she complained, dropping the rope handle. “It nearly gave me frostbite.”

  “It’s probably fed from snowmelt coming from further up the mountain,” Stellan said, smiling at her exaggeration. He held up the remains of the turnip he’d been chopping for their dinner while mentally berating himself for all the foolish decisions he’d made over the past ten years. “Did you want turnip stew, turnip stew or turnip stew, this evening, your highness?”

  Nyah pulled a face. Like Stellan, she was used to much finer fare, and heartily sick of turnips, which seemed to be the only vegetable Maralyce bothered to store in her larder. “Is that all that’s on the menu, Lord Desean?” She rolled her eyes. “Tides, and I was so hoping we could have turnips for dinner too.”

  Stellan frowned. “You should watch your language, young lady. It ill becomes a princess to speak like that.”

  “Declan says ‘Tides’ all the time.”

  “Declan’s not a princess.”

  “Glad you noticed.”

  Stellan jumped a little at Declan Hawkes’s unexpected reply. Nyah hadn’t closed the door behind her, so he’d had no warning they were no longer alone. He certainly hadn’t realised Declan was back from wherever it was he’d been.

  “You’ve returned.”

  “Two piercing observations in as many minutes,” Declan said, sounding impressed. “Pity you weren’t so sharp a year ago when you met your new Kennel Master.”

  Stellan gripped the handle of the vegetable knife a little tighter, and chose not to rise to the provocation, mostly because he knew the criticism wasn’t undeserved.

  Declan shut the door and turned back to the table, leaning forward to see what Stellan was chopping. “Oh, look, turnips. Who’d have thought?”

  “You didn’t catch us anything edible then,” Stellan inquired, “while you were off in the woods, communing with nature?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve been gone for days, Declan,” Nyah said. “Didn’t you get hungry?”

  “Apparently I don’t have to worry about starvation any longer.”

  There was an odd note in Declan’s voice, something that spoke of barely contained anger; maybe even fear.

  It put Stellan’s own woes into perspective. He was worried people thought him a fool; at worst that they might consider him a traitor. Declan Hawkes was having to contend with the unexpected and unwanted realisation that he was now a member of a very exclusive club that he not only despised, but had been actively working against for most of his adult life.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked, although they both knew he didn’t mean food. Declan was searching for answers, even more than Stellan was. His dilemma, in the general scheme of things, was far more traumatic.

  “No, but I’ve made a decision.”

  “You’re leaving.” Stellan didn’t know how he knew that. He just did.

  Declan nodded. “I’ll do what you asked. Or part of it, at any rate. I’ll go to Torlenia and try to find Arkady.”

  “And the part you’re not planning to do?”

  “Bring her back.”

  Stellan nodded. He was neither surprised nor particularly disturbed to learn of Declan’s plans. He could offer his wife nothing now, except a life of hiding, as the world unravelled around them with the rising of the Tide.

  Declan, on the other hand, was one of the rare few now, one of the power-brokers. The tables had turned completely. The duke she’d married for protection was powerless and penniless, while the childhood friend without connections or wealth could now stride the halls of power with impunity. Declan had the power to protect Arkady.

  And he loved her—whether he was willing to admit it or not.

  “You’re not coming back?” Nyah understood what Declan was saying, even if she didn’t pick up on the undercurrent running beneath the adults’ words.

  “Isn’t much point really,” he told her, taking a seat at the table.

  “But what about me?” she asked. “I can’t just stay here in the mountains until I die of old age.”

  “I was thinking about that too.” Declan looked up at Stellan. “You should take her home.”

  “Me? I’m a wanted man. And take her home to what, exactly? I thought you took her from Cycrane in the first place to save her from a marriage to an immortal with his eye on the Caelish throne? If I take her back, wouldn’t that just be handing her over to her enemies?”

  “Let’s not!” Nyah suggested vehemently.

&
nbsp; Declan was unmoved. “One way or another, the immortals are going to try to take the Caelish throne, and Nyah’s absence, which has probably slowed them down a little, has only staved off the inevitable rather than prevented it.”

  “But we can’t prevent it,” Nyah said. “That’s why Ricard Li asked you to hide me here in Glaeba in the first place.”

  “And the longer you’re gone from Caelum, the more chance people start believing you’re dead. Once they believe that, the throne is anybody’s for the taking.”

  Stellan nodded in reluctant agreement. “I take your point, Declan, but I still don’t see the reasoning behind it. How will returning Nyah to Caelum prevent precisely what you removed her to avoid?”

  “We took Nyah from Caelum to prevent her getting married to Tryan. If we send her back and she’s already married, then there isn’t a problem. She can’t get married to two men at the same time.”

  “No, but widows can marry whenever they want. And I imagine that would be the fate of any young man foolish enough to accompany Nyah back to Caelum and announce he’s her husband. Who did you have in mind as this walking corpse, anyway?”

  “You.”

  Stellan put down the vegetable knife. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious.”

  “I’m already married.”

  “Actually, you’re dead, Desean. You don’t even own that name any longer. So we’ll make one up for you. We’ll give you a history. I can get word to a few people I can rely on and can probably even send you over the lake with a few trustworthy retainers. You can grow a beard. I can show you how to bleach your hair. Tides, now I’m immortal, I can probably command a whole bunch of Crasii to lie about who you are and claim they’ve been in your service for years.”

  “But there are people in Caelum who know me, Declan. The queen knows me.”

  Hawkes dismissed his concerns with a wave of his hand. “People see what they want to see, Desean. Trust me—you’re dead and died in prison a suspected sodomite. Nobody will associate the crown princess of Caelum’s new husband with the dead and dishonoured sodomite from Glaeba.”

  “What’s a sodomite?” Nyah asked.

  Stellan gave Declan a look and then turned to Nyah, but before he could say a word, Declan said, “It’s the reason you’ll be safe with Stellan as your husband.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “I believe Declan is trying to tell you I won’t force myself on you, Nyah, because even if I could come to terms with the Caelish custom of having sexual relations with children, my preferences lie elsewhere.” He met Declan’s gaze defiantly. One thing this nightmare of recent months had taught him was that he was over lying about who and what he was, even to a child.

  Nyah looked at him in disgust. “You mean you prefer . . . like . . . old people?”

  Declan choked and turned away.

  “What?”

  “Well, you said you don’t agree with our custom of marrying when we’re still children, and that your preferences lie elsewhere. Does that mean you’d rather, you know, do it, with old women?”

  Declan looked fit to burst something. And despite himself, Stellan smiled. Good intentions were one thing, but sometimes the reality was just too difficult.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said with a sigh, not daring to look at Hawkes, who was trying desperately not to laugh. “My wife . . . she was . . . almost thirty. And still it wasn’t enough for me.”

  “That’s really quite sick, you know, Lord Desean.”

  “I know. But I just can’t seem to help myself.”

  “As for you,” she said, punching Declan in the arm as she turned away from Stellan, the matter apparently disposed of as far as she was concerned. “How does a man know something like how to bleach hair?”

  “My mother was a whore. I lived in a brothel until I was ten.” He leaned a little closer and said with a conspiratorial smile, “I can tell you all manner of ladies’ beauty secrets.”

  Nyah’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “ ’Course, it won’t be enough to tempt your new husband, what with his sick preferences and all . . .” Declan was talking to Nyah but he was grinning from ear to ear, and looking straight at Stellan.

  Stellan glared at him, but decided not to buy into the argument. Nyah had an explanation and Declan was having a little fun at his expense. This could have gone a lot worse.

  “Can you pierce my ears? Mother would never let me do it.”

  “Ears? Tides, I can show you how to pierce your nip . . . well, maybe not. But I suppose we can’t do much damage if we just do your ears.”

  “Then do it elsewhere,” Stellan commanded, as much to gain some time to think as from his desire to have some space to prepare dinner. “I’ll call you when the food is ready.”

  They needed no further prompting to leave. Declan seemed to understand he wanted time alone, and Nyah was now set on having her ears pierced.

  “Did you really grow up in a brothel?” Nyah was asking as Declan herded her outside.

  Stellan didn’t catch his answer. Declan closed the door and left him alone in Maralyce’s small mining cabin with his turnips and the spectre of a future filled with lies, deception, a sham marriage and the threat of constant discovery.

  Except for the turnips, he decided, nothing much has changed.

  Chapter 11

  “I wish to speak with you,” Cydne Medura announced on the evening of their last night onboard ship. “About your future.” The Senestran coast was in sight, the weather muggy and warm and the crew busy preparing the ship for their trip through the reefs and into the sheltered harbour of Port Traeker, on tomorrow’s tide.

  Arkady looked up from the tray of surgical implements she was gingerly retrieving from the bowl of boiling water she was using to sterilise them. He’d spoken in Glaeban, something he only tended to do if he wanted to have a meaningful discussion with her. Although she’d been learning the language, Arkady’s Senestran still wasn’t good enough to hold a conversation of any substance in it. “You mean I have a future?”

  “You must stop answering back like that,” he scolded. “Such a response when we get home will get you whipped.”

  “Yes, master,” she replied.

  “And taking that tone with your betters will only make things worse.”

  “Well, that’s my problem, you see,” she said. “I’m not used to having betters.”

  He stared at her for a moment with a puzzled frown and then shook his head. “I see, you are being funny. This is your Glaeban sense of humour, yes?”

  “I’m sorry, master,” Arkady said, nodding meekly. Cydne had been remarkably good to her, and she didn’t want to alienate him. It was just with Senestra so close and the future so uncertain, she was desperate.

  Now was not a good time, she reminded herself, to let her desperation manifest itself as sarcasm. She had been remarkably lucky so far. Cydne Medura treated her with cautious disdain, torn between her status as a slave and his attraction to her obvious education, something unheard of in his world, where female slaves in particular usually didn’t know how to read.

  “I have been thinking about what to do with you when we make port.”

  “Your wish is my command, my lord.”

  Cydne shook his head. “I wish I could believe that, Kady.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged, choosing his words carefully. “You are not a slave, Kady. Not in your heart. You speak the words of obedience, but you don’t mean them.”

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.”

  “You’ve humoured me, Kady, because, in your mind, I am the lesser of two evils. I worry about what will happen to you when you are confronted with a less understanding master.”

  “That’s kind of you, sir, but you really don’t have to worry about me. I’ll find a way to . . . survive.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You were going to say escape, then, but thought better of
it.”

  “No I wasn’t.”

  “Kady, I’m not sure how to impress this upon you, but you really must watch your attitude in Senestra. You are no longer a noblewoman. You are no longer a physician’s daughter. You are a chattel and you must behave as such. There is no escape. You are a branded slave and you will always be a slave. You must begin to accept this.”

  “I’ll try to bear that in mind.”

  Cydne shook his head. “No, you won’t. I can see the defiance in you, just in the way you stand. You will not survive, unless . . .” He hesitated, and then, for no apparent reason, he blushed crimson.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you learn to do as you’re told.”

  Arkady was fairly certain that wasn’t what Cydne had been planning to say, but she didn’t press the issue. Rather, she decided to get the conversation back on track.

  “You said you wanted to talk about my future.”

  He nodded, as if glad for the change of subject. “I have it in my power to see you are placed in my care when we leave here.”

  Arkady stared at him in surprise. “But I thought I was just a wretched batch-bought slave? Aren’t we the lowest of the low in your country?”

  “Naturally—being makor-di—you would not be permitted to serve in the household, but I have duties as a physician that take me into the more . . . undesirable parts of the city on occasion, to treat those less fortunate.”

  “You mean Crasii slaves.”

  He nodded. “Among others. Admission to the Physicians’ Guild in my country requires proof of one’s altruistic intentions. I am always in need of a well-trained assistant to work in my clinic and accompany me on my requisite visits into the rural areas of Senestra. With your skills, you would be suitable. Although you would have to learn to speak our language better.”

  “So they make you take turns in treating the poor?” Arkady was surprised to hear it. Except for Cydne Medura, her experiences with the Senestrans thus far had been less than favourable. She was astounded to learn they could be compassionate. “That’s not a bad idea, really.”