The Chaos Crystal (32 page)

Declan's amusement faded as he realised it wasn't such an outrageous notion. The immortals had been around for a very long time. Whatever their individual character flaws, they understood how much easier it was to work within a country's existing infrastructure. Nations were made up of more than kings and queens and palaces. They were made up of people — farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, soldiers, tailors, felters, weavers, bakers, carpenters, fletchers, shopkeepers and beggars; even the prostitutes that plied their services on the corners of every street of every city Declan had ever visited. Nations were a complex tapestry of interwoven threads; of landlords and tenants, shopkeepers and their customers, craftsmen and their apprentices. Nations were economic as much as political entities.

War disrupted the flow of commerce and made things harder to govern. Coups by strangers the populace considered undeserving of power, or worse — those who helped themselves to a nation's wealth — tended to give rise to resistance movements that invariably enjoyed the support of the now-feeling-very-put-upon population, making the country all but ungovernable. The people needed to feel safe. Or — even if they didn't join the resistance — they tended to hoard their money rather than spend it. And for a nation to grow, people
needed
to spend their money, not flee with it or hide it under the mattress.

For that reason, Declan now realised, Syrolee's original plan to take control of Caelum had centred on Tryan marrying the heir to the throne. When that scheme was thwarted by Ricard Li — and Nyah, the young Caelish heir herself, it had to be said — the immortals modified their plans.

Tryan had married Nyah's mother, the queen, instead. He didn't have the crown, or even power in his own name, but he was effectively ruling the country in Queen Jilna's name. And in the end, that was all that mattered really.

Jaxyn and Diala had done the same thing in Glaeba. Jaxyn hadn't tried to take the crown by force. He'd disposed of King Enteny, certainly, but only because the old king would never have ceded any power to a man like Jaxyn Aranville. But his son — Prince Mathu — had been allowed to live. Easily led by his immortal wife, Declan had once feared Mat would be murdered in his bed as soon as the immortals had no further use for him. But then he realised Mathu
did
have a use. Upon his father's death, he was Glaeba's true king. Jaxyn and Diala could rule through him and nobody would raise an eyebrow over Mathu's right to sit the throne.

Had the ice not broken and Mathu drowned, he'd probably still be king.

There had been no sign of Jaxyn, or Diala, or even Lyna, who was apparently now posing as Jaxyn's fiancee. No reports of seeing them. No sign of what had happened to them. Declan wasn't surprised. Any order the immortals issued to the Crasii to conceal their presence would be slavishly adhered to.

They were not dead, that was certain, but they'd lost their front man. With Mathu gone, they had no claim on the throne and no way to regain it. Jaxyn had long ago burned his bridges with Stellan Desean, so if he wanted Glaeba he was going to have to take it by force. And that was something nigh impossible to achieve now his Crasii forces had been decimated by his unsuccessful invasion of Caelum.

For that reason also, Declan knew, Stellan Desean might well find himself Glaeba's king before the day was out. Not because of his persuasive arguments or any other pressure he might think he could bring to bear; it was just so much easier for the immortals here to bring Glaeba to heel with the help of the rightful heir to the throne at the helm. They may even give him enough freedom to maintain the illusion that Glaeba remained an independent sovereign state free of immortal domination.

But it
would
be an illusion. Glaeba and Caelum were both lost, in the control of the immortals. Declan knew that for a certainty. Whatever way he wanted to spin it, Stellan Desean, if he took the throne of Glaeba, would owe his crown to his new immortal masters.

To serve you is the reason I breathe.

Stellan might be human rather than Crasii, but — king or no king — he would learn the meaning of that phrase soon enough.

Cayal and Kentravyon were up at the palace too, doing their own deals with Elyssa, which was one of the many reasons Declan wasn't. That wasn't his fight either.

He wasn't even sure he knew exactly what his fight was any longer.

Declan had come here to find Arkady but he had no idea what had happened to her. She might already be dead — as Stellan feared — or she might have fled into the city when Chikita let her escape — which was the smart thing, and therefore the most likely thing Arkady would do. Or she might have been desperate to attempt a return home to Lebec and decided to risk crossing the ice on foot. If she'd done the latter, Arkady was dead as sure as the sun was rising over the lake this morning.

Somehow Declan couldn't bring himself to believe she would have been so foolish.

But her location remained a mystery and one it might not be wise to try to solve. He'd come to Caelum to rescue her from Jaxyn — something she'd managed without any help from him at all. Even if he found her, it might not be a good idea to reveal that fact. Not with Cayal here.

Right now, wherever Arkady was, she was probably better off without the added complication of immortals.

Besides, there were other things to take care of, Declan thought, as he stared across the water at the distant blur of mountains that marked his homeland. The Cabal would hear within days — perhaps even hours, if their spies in Cycrane had access to carrier birds — that Declan Hawkes lived. More than that, they would have heard Declan Hawkes was going to live forever.

He wasn't sure what the Cabal would do about that. He even allowed himself a small smile as he realised that the one thing he could guarantee they
wouldn't
do was hunt him down and kill him.

But the Cabal would want an explanation for what he was quite sure they were going to consider the ultimate betrayal.

And Declan felt the need to give them one. He wanted Tilly to know he hadn't asked for this; hadn't even imagined it could ever happen to him. And yet, here he was, the enemy. He had become everything he was raised to despise. He wanted the Cabal to know he hadn't sought this. He wanted them to know that given a choice between immortality and death, he'd have chosen death in a heartbeat.

Or would you?
a traitorous voice in his head asked softly.
You say that now, but if you were given a
choice, would you really have chosen death over eternal life?

He had no answer to that question, but in the course of his idle musing, he discovered he had come to at least one conclusion. Whatever happened to Glaeba, whoever claimed its throne, the former king's spymaster had unfinished business there.

Declan glanced around the wharf on which he stood, hoping to find some method of transport across the lake. Theoretically, he supposed, he could have jumped on a broken slab of ice and ridden it across the water the same way he'd ridden Kentravyon's carpet and Cayal's section of roof-thatching across the ocean. But Declan was after a more traditional mode of transport. He wasn't ready to let a magic carpet ride across the lake announce his presence quite so publicly.

He glanced at the work party of canines. One of them had a small rowboat, a craft about the same size as the dinghy Stellan Desean had stolen when they escaped the prison fire in Herino that had immolated Declan and made him immortal. It would take him most of the day to row his way to Glaeba, but he could always fall back on the Tide, he supposed, if he tired of the physical effort.

Declan frowned.
Tides, I'm starting to think like
one
of
them.

'You there!' he called down to the canine in the dinghy. 'Come here!'

The Crasii complied without question, turning from his task of poling the corpses toward the shore. He laid the pole across the bow, picked up the oars, and rowed over to the wharf where Declan was standing.

'I am taking your boat,' Declan informed him, as it bumped gently into the pylon.

The canine didn't even think to question his right to commandeer the craft. 'To serve you is the reason I breathe, my lord,' he said with a bow before standing carefully to toss a line onto the wharf. Declan caught it and waited for the Crasii to climb up to the wharf.

'I am leaving now,' he informed the canine. 'If anybody asks where I am, you're to say you haven't seen me. Is that clear?'

'To serve you is the reason I breathe, my lord,' the canine repeated, in complete awe of him.

Declan frowned. He was in no mood for fawning Crasii this morning. 'Go help the others with the bodies,' he ordered, mostly to be rid of the creature.

The canine bowed again and hurried away to join his companions on the shore. Declan turned and made his way backwards down the narrow ladder to the water. He jumped into the dinghy, which rocked dangerously as he landed, and then took a seat and picked up the oars.

As the sun climbed over the edge of the Chevron Mountains on the Glaeban side of the lake, he dug deep into the water and turned the boat for home.

CHAPTER 31

Arkady woke to the sound of distant laughter. For a while she didn't realise what she was hearing. It seemed a strange sound, pleasant yet distant and somehow totally unconnected to anything in Arkady's world. It was a tinkling sound, full of joy and good humour; a sound contrasting so starkly with the dark nightmares that haunted her dreams, it didn't seem real.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the sudden light. Before she left, Boots had pulled back the leather door of their underground chamber to air the place out. Daylight streamed through the entrance at the top of the stone steps, making the lair uncharacteristically bright.

And it was empty. Arkady rubbed her eyes, wondering how long she'd been asleep. She hadn't meant to doze off. Boots had gone out to see if she could hunt up something to supplement their diet of jerky and hard cheese. She was feeding three pups, after all, and was starting to feel the strain. Boots needed meat. Fresh meat. And she'd left Arkady watching over her pups while she went hunting.

Arkady was still exhausted by her escape from the battle and her subsequent trek through the woods. Her feet hurt and she was emotionally wrung out from all that had happened to her these past weeks, since discovering her father still lived. Abandoning him to die was something she didn't want to think about, mostly because she simply didn't have room in her

heart to deal with it. Arkady had walled off her grief and her guilt; putting it aside for a time when she could afford to indulge it. She heard the giggling again and sat up. The noise — and what it meant — began to register in her mind. It sounded like the pups. But they weren't anywhere she could see.

'Oh, Tides,' Arkady swore, pushing herself to her feet. She winced as she put her weight on them, the stone floor icy against her blisters. 'Ow, ow, ow!' she exclaimed with each step, as she headed toward the stairs, wondering how far the pups could have gone while she dozed off. She could hear them laughing, so she guessed it wasn't that far. They could only crawl, after all, and only shakily at that. But she knew Boots would be furious to learn she'd let the puppies out of her sight, just as she understood how important it was their hideout maintain its deserted appearance. Their safety lay in staying hidden. Their safety lay in no passers-by — either hunters in the woods or fishermen on the lake — realising there was anybody living in these ruins.

She heard the giggles came again, and Arkady realised the sound wasn't coming from upstairs in the main hall of the ruins, but from behind her. She turned and cocked her head. The odd acoustics of the place were confusing, making the sound appear to be coming from a different place every time she heard it. She began to worry, too. She remembered Shalimar, Declan's grandfather, telling her on countless occasions that the only time you truly had to worry about children was when they went unexpectedly quiet or when they were laughing out of sight when they should be otherwise engaged.

Arkady frowned and looked around the small hall with its countless shadow-filled nooks and crannies, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. Then she spied the barricade Boots had built around the stairwell which led even deeper into the ruins. It had crumbled last night when the tremor caused by the

shattering ice had dislodged the stones. Wincing on her painful feet, she hobbled a little closer to the dark maw and again heard the distinct sound of giggling.

Tides, how had they gotten down those stairs
without breaking their necks?

She stared down the stairwell, but it was too dark to see anything. 'Missy? Dezi? Tory?'

They didn't answer her of course, but they did fall silent for a moment.
For pity's sake, they're not even
three months old! How can they fall into such a guilty silence at that age?

There was nothing for it, she realised. They were too young to come when called, and whatever had them giggling down there in the darkness of the lower level was obviously far more enticing than any incentive this strange human — who'd suddenly appeared out of nowhere last night — could offer them. Arkady hobbled across to the fire-pit and lit one of Boots's precious torches from the coals. Once it was burning brightly, she limped back to the stairwell, stepped over the crumbled barricade, and began to descend the stairs.