'You know the location of Hidden Valley?' The feline male was clearly sceptical of his claim.
'I've been there.'
'So it's likely everyone there is dead.'
Declan shook his head. 'I've known about Hidden Valley for a long time. Long before ... this happened to me. I've no interest in harming the Scards who live there or of informing any other immortal of its location. Believe me or not, as you will, old man. But I can promise you this: if you don't agree to help me now, you're staying in the cage, and when Jaxyn asks me why you're not with the others, I'll tell him.'
Taryx considered that for a time and then nodded. 'Then let me out of here, suzerain. I want to die free.'
It was less than an hour after he arrived at the Lebec estate that Declan figured it was time to move close enough to be sensed by the other immortals in the palace. By then, every Crasii on the estate had silently gathered on the lawn below the terrace where Arkady used to eat her breakfast. Every single Crasii, including the amphibian pearl divers, the field workers, the sick, the nursing females with their pups and kittens, and every house canine not actually on duty, was on their knees with their backs to the palace, facing their new master.
Declan commanded them to silence and waited.
It didn't take long for the other Tide Lords to sense his presence and come to investigate. Declan remembered Cayal's reaction when he'd first met him, how he'd immediately grabbed for the Tide when he sensed the threat from another Tide Lord. Declan was trying to avoid that happening here with Jaxyn.
He wanted to make a point, not get into a fight.
Not surprisingly, Jaxyn emerged onto the terrace bare moments after Declan sensed him, followed a moment later by two women whose gentle ripples were almost swamped by Jaxyn's powerful presence on the Tide. One looked no older than a seventeen- year-old girl. He knew who that was — Diala, the immortal who'd been posing as Stellan Desean's niece and managed to marry herself a king. The other woman he didn't know, but he figured it must be Lyna.
They stared at Declan, and at the scores of Crasii kneeling silently at his feet.
Declan didn't need to say anything. The ripples on the Tide he couldn't help but cause and the prostrate Crasii said it all. When Jaxyn didn't reach for the Tide and start tossing lightning bolts at him, Declan figured it was safe to move closer, the
kneeling Crasii scurrying out of his path as he walked toward the terrace.
When he reached the steps he stopped and looked up at them. He said nothing. At this point, there wasn't much he could say.
'Tides,' Diala said, after a long moment of tense silence. 'It's the spymaster!'
Declan met Jaxyn's suspicious gaze evenly.
'If you want to stop Cayal killing himself and causing the end of the world,' he said, 'then we have to talk.'
CHAPTER 36
Cayal was still standing on the balcony, letting the snow swirl around him. The conditions had calmed as the day warmed up a little, but it was still bitterly cold, the wind so sharp it cut through everything, even registering with Cayal who was all but immune to the vagaries of the weather.
He felt Elyssa approaching long before she burst into the room. He braced himself for it, reminding himself of what was at stake here. If anything, being with Elyssa was likely to strengthen his resolve. There was no chance he would change his mind in her company. No chance he would want to live a moment longer than he had to, trapped in a union that was going to be as brief as it was pointless.
Even in the throes of passion, there was nothing to be gained by an immortal getting married. No relationship was going to last for eternity ... except maybe Lukys and Coryna's apparently eternal devotion. He wasn't sure how, but they seemed to have managed it.
Cayal smiled as the door slammed open and Elyssa stormed into the room. I wonder if Lukys and Coryna vowed to love each other no matter what ... even if one of them turns into a rat.
'Are you laughing at me?' Elyssa demanded, when she saw him smile.
'I'd never dream of it.'
'Then why are you smiling like that?'
'I was thinking of something else,' he said. 'Never fear, Elyssa, there is nothing about you that makes me
laugh. Was that Tryan just now I heard yelling like a fishwife?'
She nodded, smiling triumphantly. 'I told him we were getting married.'
'He took the news well, then.'
Elyssa pulled a face. 'Pay no attention to him. He hates you just on principle. He says it's because he thinks you're going to break my heart.'
'Really?'
She shrugged. 'Well, no. Not really. Mostly he's mad at me because I told him I wasn't going across the lake to Glaeba with him and Mother, and he'd just have to conquer Glaeba without me.'
'You're not going with him?' Cayal asked in surprise. 'I thought you'd jump at the chance to gloat over Jaxyn's defeat. Tides, I know I would.'
She gave a short, cynical laugh. 'They have to find him first. Nobody's laid eyes on him or felt a glimmer of him on the Tide since the ice broke. Anyway, you said we needed the crystal before the Tide peaks. Who knows how long that will be? Do you really think we can afford to waste the time on a side trip to Glaeba?'
'You could tell me where the crystal is and I could go on ahead,' he suggested as casually as he could manage.
Elyssa's eyes narrowed, as she turned her gaze to the desk where the map had been resting before she left. 'Where is it? What have you done with my map?' Before Cayal could answer, she spied the crumpled-up ball of paper on the floor where Cayal had tossed it. 'What the...?'
Elyssa hurried across the room, scooped the map up off the floor and began trying to straighten it out. 'Why did you do that?'
'The map is useless, Elyssa. If you know the location of the crystal, just tell me where it is. There is nothing on that scrap of paper you're treating as if it contains the secret to the meaning of life to indicate
what it's showing. There are no points of reference, no landmarks ...'
'There are so,' she objected, laying the map down on the desk. She tried to smooth it out with short, impatient strokes. When that proved insufficient, she turned it over and tried to straighten it from the other side. 'I'm certain it's somewhere near Maralyce's mine. It makes sense that it is. She's been digging through those damn mountains for centuries, so she must know something. All we need to do is find this bluff here ...'
'What bluff?' He turned from the window and crossed to the desk. Elyssa lifted the map to turn it over the right way, but Cayal stopped her, frowning, as the light caught the almost transparent rice paper she had used to trace the map.
'Hang on a minute. Put it down the other way.'
'But it's backwards. I traced the map from the back of the Tarot cards this way.'
'And the Tarot was drawn by mortals specifically trying to hide the location of the crystal from us, wasn't it? Trust me, Elyssa, turn the map over.'
Elyssa shrugged and did as he asked, laying the map face down on the desk. The inked lines were much harder to see with the map this way up, but they were still visible. Cayal stared at the map for a time, and then turned it upside down and studied it for a little longer, his pulse quickening as he realised what he was looking at.
'I know where this is.'
She shook her head doubtfully. 'The map is upside down and back-to-front, Cayal. You can barely read the damn thing, let alone find anything on it.'
'But that's the point. The mortals who stole the Chaos Crystal originally would have gone out of their way to make this map unreadable to the casual observer. They would have expected one of us to come after it, and didn't want us to find it, even if we managed to get hold of the map. That's why they
broke it down into pieces on the back of the Tarot deck.'
Elyssa looked thoughtful, warming to the idea. 'I suppose once word got out the Tarot was the key to finding the crystal, they might have tried to take further precautions to confound us.'
Cayal nodded in ag
reement. 'Of course they would have. Tides, didn't you and Tryan terrorise the whole of Caelum and Glaeba a couple of thousand years ago, looking for it?'
She looked up sharply. 'I didn't think you knew about that.'
He shrugged, smiling at her. Now was not the time to give the impression he was passing judgement on his future bride. 'I didn't know you were specifically looking for the Chaos Crystal, but I figured you and Tryan must be randomly killing Cabal members for something other than your own amusement.'
Elyssa glared at him for a moment, annoyed by what he was implying, and then she shrugged. 'We never found it, and Tryan lost interest in the end.'
'Does he still feel that way?'
'He thinks I'm insane,' she said. 'He thinks you've learned of my interest in the Bedlam Stone and have come here for your own nefarious purposes — which have nothing to do with any lost magical crystal — and are using me and my interest in the stone to get whatever it is you want.'
Which is pretty much right on the money, Cayal thought, although he was careful to give Elyssa no hint of what he was thinking. Time to distract her. He reached out and touched her face tenderly, smiling at her the same way he smiled at any woman he was trying to coerce into doing what he wanted. 'Tryan has never appreciated you, Lyssa. Or your intelligence.'
Elyssa visibly preened at his compliment. She turned her face slightly and kissed the palm of his hand. 'You appreciate me, don't you, Cayal?'
'In ways I'll never be able to put into words,' he told her honestly. He dropped his hand, resisting the temptation to wipe her kiss away on his trousers. 'What happened with your search for the crystal back then?'
'We knew the Cabal had hidden it, so we were looking for a map ... you know, a rolled-up bit of charred parchment with a big red X on it, marking the location of the Bedlam Stone. It wasn't until I heard, years later, that it wasn't a map as such, but the Tarot which held the secret to the location of the crystal that I decided to go back and try to find the last really ancient Tarot I remembered seeing.' She stared down at the crumpled map traced off the back of the Lore Tarot. 'Where is this, do you think?'
Cayal stabbed at the map with his finger, indicating the only recognisable landmark on the page. 'The Temple of the Tide.'
'It can't be. You destroyed that when you decapitated Pellys and annihilated Magreth.'
He shook his head. 'You're talking about the Temple of the Way of the Tide. This is the Temple of the Tide. The one Diala and Arryl set up here when you were in Tenacia playing god with the Crasii.'
'The one where Fliss committed suicide?' she asked, watching him closely for his reaction.
'She didn't commit suicide,' he corrected, a little surprised that even after all this time, he still felt the need to clarify how his daughter had died; still felt the need to stress it was an accident and not a deliberate act on her part. Or anything to do with him. 'Fliss died accidentally, trying to become one of us.'
Elyssa smiled nastily. 'Perhaps she should have spoken to Lukys before she tried to set herself alight. He seems to have figured out how it's done.'
Bitch. 'It's ancient history now,' he said with a shrug.
'And so is that temple.'
Cayal shook his head again. 'Maybe not. It was a substantial building. And it was quite high above the waterline when the valley flooded.' He didn't bother to add that he was the one who had flooded the valley by dumping the entire inland sea from Torlenia in it. They both knew how the Great Lakes were created. 'It's not that far from here, actually. Less than a day if we follow the shoreline by boat.'
Elyssa's eyes widened in surprise. 'Are you serious?'
'Do I look like I'm in a particularly jovial mood?'
If she noticed the edge in his voice, she chose to ignore it. 'Then we could leave first thing in the morning.'
'Why can't we just go now?'
'I have things to organise. I have some puppies I'm breeding to take care of. Some of us have responsibilities, you know.'
Cayal look at her curiously. 'You don't want to take a side trip to Glaeba because we haven't got the time, but you're prepared to wait a day so you can play with a litter of Crasii puppies?'
She smiled at him a little sheepishly. 'It does sound a bit ridiculous when you put it like that. Did you really want to leave today?'
'Now,' Cayal said. 'You organise us a boat and I'll fetch Kentravyon.'
Her face fell. 'Do we have to include him?'
'Do you want to explain to him why he's not included?'
Elyssa shook her head. 'Not particularly. Kiss me before I go, then. So I know you really love me.'
Cayal didn't hesitate to give her what she wanted, aware that Elyssa was suspicious enough of his motives to be watching for the slightest hint he wasn't fully committed to her. So he pulled her to him and kissed her long and lingeringly and when she was breathless — more from happiness than impending suffocation — he let her go and smiled at her intimately. 'Don't be long.'
She stared up at him, her eyes shining. 'I love you, Cayal.'
'I love you too, Elyssa,' he lied with absolute sincerity. And then he let her go, feigning reluctance. 'I'll meet you at the docks in an hour. Don't leave without me.'
'Don't worry, lover,' she assured him. 'I'll never leave you behind. Not ever.'
She turned and headed for the door, stopping on the threshold long enough to offer him a smile and an intimate little wave of her fingers as she let herself out of the room.
Cayal kept the smile on his face until the door closed, and then sagged against the desk. Don't worry, lover. I'll never leave you behind. Not ever, she'd promised.
'Don't you threaten me,' he muttered.
CHAPTER 37
Warlock was dying.
Arkady could see it in his eyes. Even if the stench from the wound in his belly didn't give it away — which was enough to make Boots gag every time she changed the bandages they'd fashioned from the hem of Arkady's petticoat — it was in his eyes.
Boots was beside herself and the pups were fretting in sympathy with her distress, although they didn't understand the reason for it. It was two days now since Arkady had stabbed Warlock as he searched the ruins for his family. Her poor aim meant she'd stabbed him in the gut — a slow and painful way to die, made all the worse by the knowledge that the woman who killed him was the same woman who had once set him free.
'Did you want me to fetch some more water?' Arkady asked softly, as Boots pulled the covers back up over Warlock. The fur on his forehead was damp with sweat, even though the fire-pit here in Boots's underground lair barely took the chill from the air, let alone making it warm enough to cause someone to perspire.
'No, I'll do it,' Boots said, rising to her feet. 'You can keep an eye on the pups. Assuming you can manage that without trying to kill them, too.'
Boots had been like this ever since the stabbing. She was unrelenting in her censure. Arkady had struck without thinking, as far as she was concerned. Without thinking and without taking the time to establish if the
intruder she was so anxious to destroy was actually an intruder and not the father of Boots's puppies.
Not that Arkady could really blame Boots for her anger. It was her fault. And if she'd waited a moment longer before striking, instead of being trapped here with three pups, on the wrong side of the lake, in a foreign country with no friends and no hope of rescue, nursing a dying Crasii, they'd be leaving in the small boat Warlock had tied at the edge of the lake.
That wasn't going to happen now. They were stuck here until Warlock died.
Boots snatched the bucket and headed up the stone steps to the surface. Arkady checked on the pups, who were across the room playing with that damned skull they'd found in the lower levels. They were rolling it across the floor to each other, giggling as the gentle blue glow waxed and waned when it left the clutches of one pup and neared another. Arkady thought the artefact too valuable to allow babies to be playing with it, as well as more than a little creepy,
particularly the way it glowed around the pups and changed colour to a sickly green whenever Boots went near it.
Or maybe I'm just jealous, she thought. Because when I touch the damned thing, nothing happens at all.
Warlock muttered something incomprehensible, distracting her from the pups. She hurried over to him and knelt on the floor beside the pallet where he lay, picking up the rag soaked in snowmelt they'd been using to wet his lips. With his intestines laid open, there was no question of giving him food or water, but they could ease his thirst a little with the wet rag without him actually swallowing anything.
'Can I get you something, Warlock?'
His eyes opened slowly, fixing on her as if he had trouble focusing. 'The pups ... are they ...?'
'They're fine,' she assured him. 'Absolutely perfect.'
'They are Crasii,' he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
Arkady smiled down at him. 'I know they are,' she said soothingly. 'The most beautiful little canines I've ever —'
'No!' he said, gripping her arm weakly. 'You don't understand, my lady. You must help Boots ... keep them out of the hands of the suzerain. They are Crasii.'
It took a moment for her to grasp what he was telling her, but when she finally realised what he meant, she sat back on her heel, shocked. 'But how can that be? Both you and Boots are Scards, aren't you?'
'Crasii throw Scard pups all the time,' Warlock told her, struggling to speak. 'Why is it odd to think the reverse can't happen to Scards?'
'So if you run into any immortals ...'
'Then our babies will betray us,' he said, his voice strained.
'I'm so sorry, Warlock,' she said, leaning over to wipe his brow. 'If I'd known it was you ...'
'I would not have expected you to remember me, my lady,' he assured her, every word an effort, his forgiveness all the more poignant for its generosity. 'Our acquaintance was brief and more than a year ago.'
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