The Palace of Impossible Dreams Read Online Free

slavery.”
    â€œYou didn’t
let
her do anything. This human woman you fret about so, is not your responsibility.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “Can you not see that, Tiji? Can you not see how conditioned you are to believe their self-serving lies? This woman was your master, and yet, when an ill befalls her, you somehow believe it was your fault.”
    â€œI should have done something!” she insisted, pulling her hand away. This guilt wasn’t going anywhere soon and she needed to explain—even to someone who patently didn’t care about the fate of the Duchess of Lebec—why she felt responsible.
    â€œWhat could you have done?”
    â€œI . . . don’t know.” And that was the rub. There was probably
nothing
she could have done to prevent Brynden taking his revenge on Cayal by selling the one person on Amyrantha the Immortal Prince seemed to care about into slavery.
    â€œTell me what happened.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause this is bothering you so much you’re barely eating. Perhaps, if I understand better . . .”
    Tiji smiled, feeling her skin flicker in a multi-coloured blush. “Actually, me not eating has more to do with your cooking, Azquil, than my despair.”
    â€œEven so,” he said, smiling, “it’s eating you up. You will never be truly free until you have put this behind you.”
    He was probably right, so Tiji took a deep breath and gave Azquil an edited version of what had happened since she’d left Glaeba. She told him of the death of the King and Queen of Glaeba; about how Arkady had been disinherited because her husband was implicated in their deaths. She told him of Arkady’s friend, Chintara, the Imperator’s Consort, who’d arranged to hide Arkady in the Torlenian desert at the Abbey of the Way of the Tide, without actually mentioning that Chintara was the immortal Kinta. Or that Kinta’s lover, Brynden, the Lord of Reckoning, was holed up in the abbey, awaiting his chance to take Torlenia as his own, once the Tide returned.
    She told them of running into Cayal, the Immortal Prince, although she didn’t refer to him as that. She called him Kyle Lakesh, the name he’d been using when he was a condemned prisoner in Glaeba. She told Azquil how Kyle had saved them from a sandstorm and then escorted them to the abbey, where he was heading anyway to ask a favour of an old enemy.
    And then she told him of the deal between Kyle and the monk at the abbey (neglecting to mention the monk was actually the immortal Brynden), resulting in Arkady being left with him as a hostage, while Kyle went to fetch another . . . friend . . .
    And then she explained how she was supposed to meet up with Arkady in Elvere, only to discover the monk had betrayed Kyle and sold Arkady into slavery.
    When she finished her tale, Azquil searched her face with concern. “And you somehow think this is your fault?”
    â€œI should have followed Arkady. I know I probably couldn’t have stopped Bryn . . . the monk, selling her into slavery, but I could have bought her out of it again. I had diplomatic papers on me and she’s a member of one of Glaeba’s most prominent families.”
    â€œThen don’t you think someone else will go looking for her?”
    â€œAnybody else looking for Arkady at the moment is likely to want her arrested or dead,” Tiji predicted grimly.
    â€œThen your duchess is probably safer where she is.”
    â€œWhat do you mean,
safer
? She’s a slave, Azquil! Who knows
what
they’re doing to her.”
    Azquil wasn’t moved. He shook his head. “You claim you were well looked after as a slave. In fact, you almost resent having been granted your freedom, you’re so adamant on that point. Why, then, do you assume this human woman’s slavery will be any more onerous than you insist yourswas?