Arkady’s next meeting with Chintara was due several days after Tiji arrived from Glaeba with her disturbing news that Declan Hawkes suspected the Imperator’s Consort might be the immortal Kinta.
She wasn’t nearly as nervous about the meeting as she thought she might be. Perhaps it was her previous friendship with the consort. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Kinta was merely immortal, rather than a Tide Lord capable of tearing the world apart in her wrath. Maybe she was becoming jaded with the whole notion of Tide Lords. Arkady smiled at the thought, glancing through the perforations at the front of her carriage. She turned to look at the little chameleon.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked, lifting the shroud so she could see the Crasii without obstruction.
“Stay in the doorway long enough for me to slip in behind you before they close it,” Tiji replied. “And if you could keep their attention from the door, that’d be good too. It’s hard to stay camouflaged when I’m on the move.”
“And after we’re inside?”
“Forget about me, your grace.”
Arkady frowned, acutely aware that she was leading this strange young Crasii into terrible danger and feeling a responsibility for seeing she made it out again in one piece. “Is there nothing else I can do to help?”
Tiji shook her head, as she lifted her thin linen shift over her shoulders unselfconsciously, and laid it on the seat beside her. Arkady tried not to stare. It wasn’t easy. The naked chameleon was humanoid in form, but her silver-scaled skin and complete lack of hair marked her as something quite alien.
Tiji seemed to know what Arkady was thinking. “This is what I do, your grace. And I mean it when I say you have to forget I’m there. You’ll give the game away if you’re constantly looking around the room trying to find me.”
“Won’t Kinta be able to sense you?”
“We’re not even sure it is Kinta, your grace.”
Arkady smiled. “Won’t Lady Chintara be able to sense you?”
“No more than she can sense any other Crasii.”
“And if she really is who Declan fears she is?”
“Then we’ll get a message back to Glaeba, your grace, and wait until we see what the Cabal has to say about it, before doing anything else.”
That made sense. Arkady was relieved. She wasn’t sure how she’d deal with orders to confront another immortal, no matter how friendly she seemed. “How will you get back to the embassy?”
“I’ll find a way.”
“I could send a carriage…”
Tiji seemed amused by the suggestion. “I think a carriage parked outside the royal palace emblazoned with the Glaeban coat of arms would kind of give the game away, don’t you?”
“I could send a hired cab,” Arkady said.
The Crasii smiled in appreciation, but she clearly didn’t seem to think she needed help. “I’m grateful for the offer, really I am, your grace, but I’ve done this sort of thing before. Truly, I can find my own way home.”
Arkady studied the Crasii for a moment, wondering where she found her confidence. She seemed so small, so fragile, her long slender limbs so naturally graceful, yet so delicate. “Does Declan have you doing this sort of thing often?”
“It’s what I am, your grace. And when you think about it, there’s not a lot of other useful occupations for a chameleon Crasii.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Not unless I do something stupid. And I do have an unfair advantage over humans when it comes to sneaking in and out of places I don’t belong, you know.”
Arkady shook her head in bewilderment at the Crasii’s blasé attitude. “I’m not going to rest until I know you’re safe.”
“Which is very nice of you, your grace, but unnecessary.”
“I can see why Declan is so fond of you,” Arkady told her with a smile.
“Funny, I could say the same about you,” Tiji replied with a grin, but before Arkady could ask what she meant, the carriage rocked to a halt inside the entrance to the royal seraglium.
Arkady dropped the shroud back into place and turned her attention to the door, which opened before she could stop the doorman outside from doing his duty, but when she turned to warn Tiji to hide, the little Crasii had vanished, leaving only the slightest warping in the upholstery. At least Arkady imagined she could see where the Crasii had been sitting only a few moments before, but it was impossible to be certain, so she took a deep breath, offered her shrouded hand to the doorman and stepped out of the carriage.
“Ah! Arkady! You’re here at last. What do you think of these?”
After shedding her shroud and handing it to Nitta, Arkady crossed the main hall to where Chintara was standing by the central couches, studying several bolts of cloth spread out over the sofas for her examination. There must have been a score of them, all thin, expensive, almost transparent silks, exquisitely dyed, some in geometrical patterns and some worked with gold thread in delicate floral sprays.
“They’re lovely,” Arkady said, as she stopped to examine them. “What are they for?”
“I’m having a dress made for a very special occasion. I like the gold, but the blue might suit my colouring better, don’t you think? Or the burgundy?”
Arkady hesitated before she replied, recalling Cayal once describing Kinta as someone who favoured leather over cloth. The delicate fabrics laid out before them seemed a far cry from the tastes of that woman. Maybe Declan was wrong about Chintara. Maybe she wasn’t an immortal at all. Maybe she was just someone who happened to be blonde and statuesque with an interest in the history of the immortals.
It could be argued that, except for her hair colour, Arkady fitted the same description.
“What’s the occasion?” Arkady asked, resisting the temptation to glance around to see if Tiji had followed them inside.
“I’m meeting an old…acquaintance. I want to make a good impression.”
“I’m sure you will, my lady,” she assured the consort.
Chintara didn’t seem nearly so certain. “We haven’t seen each other for a very long time and we didn’t part friends. I want to make sure everything is perfect when we renew our acquaintance.”
“What were you wearing the last time you saw him?”
Chintara was silent for a moment, and then she looked at Arkady, shaking her head. “I’m not sure I was wearing anything at all.”
Arkady smiled. “Your last meeting wasn’t here in Torlenia, then?”
The consort frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Torlenian dress codes would make such a circumstance virtually impossible, wouldn’t they?”
“You really are a sharp little thing, aren’t you?”
“It’s a logical enough conclusion, my lady.”
“And one most women would have been too busy judging me to come to. But you’re right. It wasn’t here. It was…somewhere else.”
“With less rigid dress codes?”
Chintara allowed herself a small smile. “Yes, with much less rigid dress codes.”
“I’m guessing this friend is someone you knew before your marriage to the Imperator, then,” Arkady prompted, wondering if she could coax an admission out of Chintara about her true identity.
Are you really an immortal, my lady?
Why yes, Arkady, I am an immortal hiding here in the royal palace, waiting until my lord and master returns…
“Oh, Tides…”
“I beg your pardon?” Chintara gasped, a little shocked by Arkady’s uncharacteristic curse.
“I’m so sorry, my lady,” she hurriedly replied, trying to think up a reason for her outburst. “I just thought of something I should have done before I left home this morning.”
“Really?”
Arkady shrugged, which gave her the short time she needed to concoct her excuse. It wasn’t difficult. She was a practised liar. “I had a new Crasii arrive from home the other day and I’d arranged to meet her this morning so I could organise for her to start her duties. I forgot all about her. She’ll still be waiting for me in my sitting room, I suppose.”
“Then you have nothing to be concerned about. It is the nature of Crasii to wait on their masters. Literally and figuratively.”
“You don’t have many Crasii servants here, I notice.”
“They have their place, I suppose.” Chintara shrugged, refusing to be drawn on the subject. “Which one?”
“My lady?”
“Which fabric? Before you decided your Crasii was the most important thing in the world, we were discussing which fabric I should choose.”
Arkady dutifully turned her attention to the bolts of cloth. “To be honest, my lady, I’m not sure what difference it would make.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, if you’re not meeting with your husband, then you’ll be wearing your shroud, won’t you? You could be dressed in a hair shirt and hobnailed boots and your friend will never know.”
Chintara was silent for a moment and then she shrugged. “This will be a special occasion. I won’t be wearing a shroud.”
“In that case,” Arkady replied with a great deal of caution, “shouldn’t you ask yourself what he remembers about you most? And if you want to remind him of that? Or did you want to turn his mind from something that is—quite possibly—a painful memory, perhaps?”
For a moment, Chintara let a wistful smile flicker over her face. “You’re a very insightful woman, Arkady. And you make a valid observation. I shall have to think on this some more, before I decide.”
“Well, if it comes down to it, my favourite is the green,” she said, pointing to a bolt of emerald green cloth worked with delicate gold flowers, instead of asking: Is the dress being made for you to greet your immortal lord and master when he returns? which is what she really wanted to know.
Surreptitiously, Arkady glanced around the room, but of course, she could see no sign of Tiji. And she needed to find the Crasii; needed to speak with her. She had to know for certain if Chintara really was Kinta.
Because it occurred to Arkady at that moment that if this woman truly was the legendary immortal warrior Kinta, then the pieces were rapidly falling into place. Chintara’s lord and master wasn’t the callow boy Stellan had described. She was preparing for her Tide Lord lover to return.
All that remained for Arkady to discover was which Tide Lord lover.
Brynden, the Lord of Reckoning?
Or Cayal, the Immortal Prince?