The Immortal Prince by Jennifer Fallon Page A

to the prison had taken the better part of an hour, during which Arkady got very little out of either Timms or Flanel—the two men Declan Hawkes had sent to escort her—about Kyle Lakesh. All they would tell her was that she would see for herself what he was like when she met him, so Arkady turned her attention to the scenery rolling past the rain-splattered windows of the carriage and let her mind wander.
    It was early spring and the countryside was in full bloom, the lush fields bursting with new life, the trees glistening with traces of last night’s thunderstorm that had washed the world clean. On her left, the silver waters of the Lower Oran glittered in the broken beams of sunlight that managed to pierce the clouds, white sails dotting its mirror-like surface, set against the hazy blue outline of the Caterpillar Ranges in Caelum on the distant shore of the lake. The most impressive of the Great Lakes, the Lower Oran boasted the largest freshwater body on the entire Glaeban continent, not to mention the highest concentration of population.
    Twelve of the nation’s most powerful city-states fronted the Lower Oran, although few were as rich or powerful as Lebec. Stellan’s ancestors had expanded their territory well into the mountainous regions to the east of the Great Lakes and claimed the vast mineral and timber wealth that came with it. As they passed through the crossroads leading to Clyden’s Inn and the mines beyond, Arkady wondered how many people toiled in the mountains to produce the wealth she enjoyed. It made her feel a little guilty.
    Arkady had seen the mines of Glaeba. Her father used to take her there sometimes, when she was a small child, as he tended to the miners who might never have access to a physician in the normal course of events. The tall, forested slopes held little mystery for Arkady.
    It was the existence of the Waste which kept Arkady and her fellow historians awake at night. There seemed no logical reason for such places to exist. There were many of them. She’d received a number of letters from a colleague in Torlenia who was investigating the same phenomenon in his country where vast tracts of land had been rendered uninhabitable during the Cataclysm. Nobody knew what had caused the Cataclysm or why the effects had been both widespread and yet so localised. Millions of people had died—later generations had found the mass graves to prove it—and yet even the skeletons they’d dug up gave no hint of how they’d perished. All the historians knew was that more than a thousand years ago a great many people had died, and that there had been enough survivors left to bury them. Other than that, their fate and what had devastated so much of every continent on Amyrantha remained a complete mystery.
    Of course, it was such mysteries that gave the Tilly Pontings of this world all the ammunition they needed, Arkady lamented. It was people like her who fed the rumours and the appetites of fools who’d settle for any explanation that involved the supernatural.
    Arkady, being a rational and logical person, considered such beliefs to be utter nonsense and it was part of the reason she was looking forward to meeting Kyle Lakesh. The more Arkady thought about it, the more she realised how dangerous this man was, and not simply because he was a cold-blooded murderer. If word got out that the hangman had failed and the survivor was claiming to be immortal, every crackpot in Glaeba—and beyond—would be lining up to shout “I told you so.”
    That wouldn’t happen if Arkady Desean had anything to say about it.
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    The carriage finally rattled through the forbidding gates of Lebec Prison, forcing Arkady to concentrate on more immediate concerns. Flanel—or Timms, she couldn’t tell them apart—handed her down from the carriage where the prison Warden was waiting to greet her.
    â€œYour grace!” he exclaimed, bowing excitedly.