The Chaos Crystal (37 page)

'I heard her telling Tryan on my way here. She's going somewhere with the other two immortals who

got here yesterday — you know, the one with the crazy eyes and the cute one she keeps drooling over.'

Stellan couldn't quite hide his smile. 'The
cute
one she keeps drooling over?'

'Well, he
is
cute. Sort of,' she said. 'And Elyssa's
sooo
in love with him.'

'I assume you're speaking of Cayal? The Immortal Prince?'

'Is that who he is?' she asked, quite impressed. 'Wow.'

'How do you know Elyssa is in love with Cayal?'

"Cause they're getting married.'

That was news to Stellan. 'They
are?'

Nyah nodded. 'She was just busting to tell someone. Made me promise not to tell anyone else, though, but I think she just meant the other immortals. I don't think she'd mind me telling you.'

'Well, just in case, let's not mention that you've told me, eh?' Stellan was amazed by the news, and it drove home to him what he'd always suspected — the immortals took care of their own business first. Anything else — even when it involved the fate of nations — came a poor second to that. 'Did she say where she was going?'

Nyah shook her head, but before she could add anything more, they were interrupted by raised voices in the hall. Stellan couldn't quite make out what the yelling was about, but it was Tryan and Elyssa doing the shouting. Of that, Stellan had no doubt.

Nyah hopped off the bed and ran to the door, opening it a crack to peer outside.

'Get away from there,' Stellan scolded.

'Don't you want to know what they're fighting about?'

'No!' Stellan lied. 'Of course not. Now come away from that door.

'Was a time you were prepared to wash the
continent in blood for it!'
Elyssa's voice screeched,

close enough now for them to hear her clearly through the crack in the door.

'What do you think they're arguing about?' Nyah hissed in Stellan's direction.

'And you're willing to give it up for a good fuck!'
Tryan's voice bellowed back, so loud that Stellan had no trouble hearing him through the tiny opening Nyah had created.

'Is he talking about the Bedlam Stone, perhaps?' Nyah asked, grinning in that guilty way all children did when they were exposed to words they'd not normally encounter in polite conversation.

'I have no idea,' Stellan told her sternly, as he stuffed the rest of his shirts into the bag and turned to gather his shaving gear from the dresser. 'Now close that door. No good is going to come from you eavesdropping.'

'It's not eavesdropping if you can hear them on the other side of the Great Lakes,' Nyah said with a grin, but she did as he bid. With a great deal of reluctance she closed the door, before turning to him with a smile that was all too knowing for one so young. 'But you
do
want to know what they're fighting about, don't you?'

He really didn't want to admit to a smug twelve year old that he was almost as curious as she was to know about what the immortals were up to. 'Perhaps
...
maybe.'

'Cayal would know.'

His heart skipped a beat. 'You are not to go anywhere near the other immortals, Nyah. Do you hear me?'

'Why not?'

Stellan glared at her. 'You are going to get yourself killed, young lady, if you insist on becoming involved in things that are no concern of yours.'

'You
could
find out what's going on, though,' she suggested with a sly grin. 'I mean, they need
you.
You're the new Glaeban king.'

It was unsettling, being manipulated so blatantly by a child. 'You should return to your lessons, your highness, and leave well enough alone.'

Nyah wasn't so easily deterred. 'My lessons have been suspended. We're at war.'

'The war is over,' Stellan informed her. 'Your lessons will no doubt resume any moment now. So go, and leave me to my packing.'

Nyah's face fell at his unfriendly tone. She stared at him for a moment and when he seemed unlikely to relent, she turned back to the door, her shoulders slumped. There was no sign of anyone outside any longer when she opened it. The little princess glanced up and down the hall for a moment before turning to look at Stellan with eyes too old and weary for one so young. 'I thought we were friends, Stellan.'

'We are friends, Nyah,' he assured her. 'That's why I'm not going to let you get yourself killed over something that doesn't concern you.'

'Everything that happens on this continent concerns me,' she said, drawing herself up like a young queen. 'I'll be Queen of Caelum someday.'

'Then it's your duty to ensure you live long enough to help your people, Nyah,' he advised. 'And leave me to help mine as I see fit.'

Nyah thought on that for a moment and then nodded. 'Good luck, then, Stellan,' she said with depressing finality. 'Apparently, as I'll be at my lessons, I won't see you again before you leave. I hope one day we can meet again, when you are king and I am queen and we can decide things for our people because it's the
right
thing to do, and not because it's what the immortals want us to do.'

Before Stellan could respond she slipped through the door and closed it softly behind her, leaving him with the uneasy feeling that the sharpest leader of her

people he was ever likely to encounter had just left the room.

With his bag packed and a few moments to spare, Stellan found himself pacing his room impatiently, waiting on the appointed time to leave. The argument he'd caught so little of between Elyssa and Tryan still bothered him, as did Nyah's suggestion that the newly-arrived immortals might know what it was about.

He told himself it was none of his business for a good ten minutes before he let out a curse, shouldered his bag and stalked from his room in search of Elyssa.

She wasn't in her room, but Cayal was there, leaning over the precious map Elyssa had so painstakingly traced from the pattern on the back of the ancient Lore Tarot she'd found at the bottom of the cliff at Deadman's Bluff.

Stellan hesitated on the threshold. Although the immortal had been a prisoner in Stellan's gaol for months at one time, this was his first face-to-face encounter with the Immortal Prince. This was the man for whom Arkady was prepared to defy the king. The prisoner she had committed forgery and treason to save from torture at the hands of the man Stellan would have bet his whole duchy that she
was
in love with — Declan Hawkes. Stellan was never quite sure
if
Arkady loved Cayal or had just been smitten with him. Perhaps she was intrigued by him; perhaps he'd cast some mystical Tide spell on her to get her to cooperate. Whatever the reason, Stellan found himself unaccountably nervous when Cayal turned at the sound of the door opening.

'Yes?'

'I was looking for Lady Alyssa,' he said, using the mortal name she was known by here in Caelum and not its immortal equivalent.

'She's not here,' Cayal said, turning back to study the map.

He was younger than Stellan was expecting — at least he seemed younger. And he was every bit as good- looking as legend held him to be. No wonder Arkady had been attracted to him. And that Nyah called him the 'cute one'.

'Are you expecting her soon?' Stellan inquired.

Cayal looked up again, stared at Stellan for a moment and then straightened and turned to face him curiously. 'You're the duke, aren't you? Arkady's husband?'

Stellan nodded and stepped into the room. 'Yes.'

The Immortal Prince smiled. 'You know she was completely wasted on you, don't you?'

Well,
Stellan thought silently,
that saves me a whole
lot
of
wondering about how much Arkady told you about me and her life as my wife, doesn't it?
He shrugged. 'Yes, I suppose she was.'

'They tell me she was out on the ice when it broke,' Cayal said, watching him closely. 'Do you think she's dead?'

'I hope not.'

'You seem to be taking it well.'

'You've known me for under a minute, sir,' Stellan said. 'How can you tell
how
I'm taking it?'

Cayal smiled again. 'Fair point. For myself, I think she's alive. That woman has a knack for survival that borders on magical.'

'Well,' Stellan replied evenly, 'who'd know more about that than you?'

The Immortal Prince eyed him oddly for a moment. 'So you know about us. Puts the deal you've done with Tryan in a whole new light.'

'I am a pragmatist, sin'

'I worked that much out when I learned why you married Arkady,' he said with a wry smile and then he glanced down at the map. Apparently the Immortal

Prince had better things to do with his time than grieve for Arkady. 'Elyssa tells me you're the genius who discovered the truth about the Lore Tarot map.'

'It was an accident, I can assure you.'

Cayal glanced sideways at Stellan. 'Do you believe the map is genuine?'

'I have no idea.'

'Do you have any idea what part of the continent the map indicates? Or, for that matter,
which
continent it is?'

'No.'

'Would you tell me if you did?'

'If I thought there was something in it for Glaeba,' Stellan answered quite honestly, 'I'd tell you anything you wanted to know.'

Cayal seemed to welcome his candour, but his appreciation was short-lived. He turned back to the map, shaking his head. 'It's nonsense, you know. She said she had a map that gave the location of the Chaos Crystal. The Tide is on the rise and the flanking map turns out to be useless. There's no recognisable landmarks, no scale
...'

And you agreed to marry her for it,
Stellan thought silently, taking a certain degree of perverse pleasure in Cayal's pain.

Without warning, Cayal snatched up the map, crushed the rice-paper into a ball and tossed it across the room. When he realised Stellan was standing there watching him, he shrugged. 'Sometimes the deals you make when you're desperate simply aren't worth what you get in return, Desean.'

The Immortal Prince turned his back on Stellan and walked to the long glass doors that led to the balcony. He threw them open, letting in a blast of icy air and snow and simply stood there, as if he was enjoying the blizzard he'd invited into the room.

Stellan wasn't sure if he was expected to answer him. In the end, deciding he'd be safer not getting

into any further conversation with the Immortal Prince, he bowed politely, just in case the man had some sort of magical ability to detect disrespect — or pity — and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

CHAPTER 35

Dawn found Declan roaming the streets of Lebec, clad in a hooded cloak he'd stolen from a cloak stand in the foyer of a brothel in the Lebec slums while the patrons were too drunk to notice. For once he didn't fear being recognised. The wind-driven snow swirling around the streets kept most people indoors. Only the truly motivated and the truly desperate were out in a dawn like this.

Declan barely noticed the cold as he trudged through the snow with his shoulders hunched, his thoughts deep and dire, while he contemplated the end of the world.

If Kentravyon was to be believed, the annihilation of Amyrantha was the inevitable result of Lukys activating the Chaos Crystal to restore Coryna to human form. As he'd warned Tilly, Cayal's subsequent death (which Declan was more than a little dubious about, anyway) was a sideshow to the main event. The question of whether or not the world really might end when the crystal was activated was academic really. But when it came down to it, Declan was more inclined to believe a madman with no particular axe to grind over a suicidal manic-depressive immortal who'd lie about anything (up to and including the end of the world) if it meant he was finally going to be allowed to die.

Would Lukys — Declan still couldn't bring himself to think of the immortal as his father — really risk an entire world for one person? What happened to the

noble sentiment that the good of the many outweighed the good of the few?

Is Lukys, for the sake
of
his one true love, prepared
to break a world in half?

If he was, then the chances were excellent he would succeed. Lukys had Maralyce, Cayal, Kentravyon and possibly Elyssa on his side — and Pellys, if he was focused enough. But Lukys seemed doubtful about that. And Arryl and Taryx were there. Five Tide Lords and two lesser immortals channelling the power of the Tide at its peak.

Stopping them would be akin to trying to stop the Tide.

It would take more power than Declan could ever hope to command. Unless
...

Declan faltered for a moment as a dreadful thought occurred to him. Lukys had gathered a half-dozen Tide Lords to channel the power he needed to restore Coryna.

How many Tide Lords would it take to stop him?

The idea was thrilling and terrifying at the same time, but with a sinking sensation that left him nauseous, Declan realised he may have hit on the only chance he had of preventing the end of the world.