Tomorrow's Kingdom (49 page)

Reaching into the rags, she lifted up her wailing infant son and held him to her chest with a depth of gratitude that only a mother who had lost and found a child could ever understand.

Then she heard the thump of an arrow. Looking up, she saw General Murdock and Mordecai in the rowboat. The general was calmly notching another arrow in the bow while Mordecai—wrapped in the cloak that Murdock had been wearing earlier—was grimacing and awkwardly pulling on one of the rowboat's oars.

Clutching Baby Finn to her, Persephone scrambled back to where Azriel lay unmoving, his legs half covered by the rapidly rising water.

“Get up, Azriel,” she begged as another arrow whizzed so close to her head that she felt the feathers brush her cheek as it flew past. When Azriel did not answer, she gave him a gentle shake and tried again. When that didn't work she gave him a vicious pinch on the leg and screamed, “
GET
UP
OR
I
SWEAR
I
'
M
GOING
TO
—”

Gasping like a drowned man coming back to life, Azriel clumsily manoeuvred himself up onto his hands and knees and staggered to his feet. Casting an anxious glance over her shoulder in the direction of the rowboat—which was now so close to shore that she knew Mordecai and Murdock would be upon them in a moment—Persephone placed her free hand on the small of Azriel's back and was about to give him a shove in the direction of the quay when she saw that it was completely under water. Looking around, she realized that the narrow strip of beach upon which she, Azriel and the baby had landed was totally cut off from the path that would have led them back up to the safety of the palace.

And since they could not possibly scale the cliffs, there was nowhere to go but into the treacherous sea caves.

“
COME
ON
!” she shouted, grabbing Azriel's hand and tugging him toward the base of the caves.

His lips white and his blue eyes dimmer than she'd ever seen them, Azriel nodded and wordlessly staggered after her.

“
CLIMB
!” she shouted, pointing to the lowest cave and giving him a little shove to get him going.

As best he could, Azriel did as she bid. It wrenched at Persephone's guts to watch him stumble and slip, and to see the rocks in his wake smeared red with his blood, but she shoved and prodded and shouted until at last they reached the mouth of the lowest cave. Wishing they could
have climbed higher but knowing they were lucky to have made it this far, Persephone pushed Azriel forward into the darkness. As she started in after him, she felt a searing pain in the back of her thigh. Looking around, she saw that she'd taken an arrow in the leg. And judging by the markings, it wasn't just
any
arrow, it was the kind of arrow New Men used to use when they went hunting Gypsies.

It was a poisoned arrow.

Without giving herself time to think about how much it was going to hurt, Persephone grabbed hold of the shaft with her free hand and yanked hard. The groan she emitted as she did so was horrible even to her own ears, and it was not just caused by the pain of the extraction. It was caused by the burning sensation that had already begun spreading outward from the wound—and by the knowledge of the fate that awaited her when the poison took hold.

The despair that might have overwhelmed her at that moment was only held in check by the sound of Baby Finn's plaintive cry. He breathed, she breathed and Azriel breathed—and as long as there was breath, there was hope.

“Come on, Azriel,” said Persephone, trying to sound confident in spite of the fact that she could hear the nonetoo-distant sound of Mordecai shrieking at Murdock to climb faster. “We won't go so far into the cave that we can't find our way out again. We'll just go far enough to find somewhere to hide.”

But like so many things in her short, hard life, things didn't work out the way Persephone had planned or hoped, because they'd hardly taken ten steps into the cave before they were swallowed up by darkness. With the half-hysterical thought that this was probably why they were called the
treacherous
sea caves, Persephone tried to retrace their steps in the hope of finding another, betterlit path. But she could not and before long she knew that even in the unlikely event that Mordecai and his trusted henchman lost Azriel's blood trail, she and her little family were lost in more ways than one.

During her time in the mines, Persephone's worst nightmare had been that she would die alone, lost in the darkness. She knew now that worse by far would be to die lost in the darkness with those she loved best in the world by her side—to listen to the fading cries of her child and to the terrible, rasping breaths of her dying husband.

Trying hard not to notice the unnatural thirst that was beginning to build in her throat—and also to remember her old promise to herself that she'd never again lie down and wait for Death to claim her—Persephone gave Baby Finn a fierce kiss and then reached up to brush from her face several strands of drying hair that were being ruffled by the breeze.

Then she froze.

The breeze!

Heart pounding, Persephone gave Azriel a firm push in the direction of the breeze. As he began to stagger forward, Persephone could hear the sounds of their pursuers drawing ever nearer, but she could also feel the breeze growing stronger, and she could see the darkness thinning, and so she found herself beginning to hope against hope that they might actually escape and reach help in time to save them all.

Unfortunately, it was this hope that caused her to drive Azriel onward so relentlessly that when the tunnel curved sharply and ended without warning high in the wall of what appeared to be a vast cavern, he was going too fast to stop.

The only thing Persephone heard after she screamed was the thud of his body hitting the ground below.

Far below.

SIXTY-EIGHT

P
ERSEPHONE WAS HALFWAY
down the narrow dirt incline that hugged the cavern wall when she saw Azriel's broken body slowly slide into the glowing tidal pool at the bottom of the cavern. Frantically running over to the pool, she set Baby Finn down on the ground a safe distance away and then jumped into the water in the hope that she might save Azriel from drowning.

Just before she hit the water, she noticed the banyan tree growing at the water's edge.

And then she was in the water and tingling strangely all over—most especially at the back of her thigh where she'd been hit by the arrow.

And then, after what seemed like a very long time, she was rising to the surface—and so was Azriel. And, unbelievably, he was no longer dying and broken but alive and more beautiful than ever.

Before Persephone could even begin to process what this meant, Azriel gave a shout of alarm and lunged for the edge of the pool behind her. He was fast, but General
Murdock was faster—so fast that by the time Persephone had turned around, he already had the baby cradled in his arm.

“Move and I will dash his brains out,” he said placidly.

Neither Persephone nor Azriel moved—they simply waited and watched as Mordecai grunted and lurched his way down the dirt incline and over to the edge of the pool.

Persephone watched the former regent's expression change from rage to amazement when he saw that Azriel was standing in the pool looking remarkably well for a man who'd recently been stabbed in the belly with a sixinch blade. Mordecai's eyes snapped to the banyan tree at the same instant as his hand flew to the locket around his neck—the locket that Persephone had given him, the locket containing the sprig that had never withered.

Mordecai's dark-eyed gaze returned to Azriel. “Out of the water, both of you,” he ordered.

Mindful of the General's threat to harm the baby, Persephone and Azriel wordlessly did as they'd been bid.

“Lift up your shirt, cockroach,” commanded Mordecai.

When Azriel lifted up his bloodstained shirt to reveal not a gaping belly wound but the white scar of such a wound long-since healed, Mordecai gasped and slapped his gnarled hand against his withered thigh.

“Of
course
!” he cried, his handsome face alight with something close to joy. “It was always assumed that Balthazar discovered the healing pool after a long sea journey
to
somewhere else. But it was after a long sea journey
from
somewhere else. He was returning home!
His ship was wrecked, and his entire crew lost in a storm exactly like the one that rages this day! And the sea itself was the frothing monster that chased him into the caves!”

Mordecai threw back his head and laughed like a boy. Then he quickly removed his cloak and robe. And after taking a last look at the poor crippled body that had ever caused him so much suffering, he awkwardly slid into the pool.

He stayed submerged for so long that Persephone began to think (well, to
hope
) that he'd drowned. Just as she was about to suggest this possibility to General Murdock in the hope that he'd set Baby Finn down and go investigate, however, Mordecai burst to the surface.

“I am well, Murdock!” he cried, sounding so utterly exhilarated that in spite of everything, Persephone found herself strangely moved. “I am whole! I am finally as I was ever meant to be!” Wading over to the water's edge, he planted two strong hands on the bank and hoisted himself out of the pool as easily as Azriel might have done.

Persephone could not help staring in amazement. The once skinny, twisted legs were now long and powerful; the once sunken chest was exquisitely muscled; the uneven shoulders were broad and straight.

It was a breathtaking demonstration of the power of the pool.

“You like what you see, don't you, Your Majesty?” asked Mordecai slyly, holding his hands wide as though to give her a better look.

When Persephone said nothing, only looked away, Mordecai laughed loudly before wagging his finger at her,
briskly striding over and pulling on the billowing black robe he'd been wearing beneath Murdock's cloak.

Then he clapped his hands together and said, “To business!”

“To business?” said Persephone warily.

“For starters, you'll give me that little dagger you're so fond of carrying around,” said Mordecai, holding out his hand toward her.

When Persephone hesitated, Mordecai gave a meaningful look in the direction of the baby and the man who'd threatened to dash out his brains.

With a glance at Azriel, who nodded, Persephone handed over the dagger.

“Good choice,” commended Mordecai. “Now, Your Majesty, my original plan was to murder you, your husband and your child and then disappear before I could be brought to justice, but that has changed. Indeed, everything has changed! I will still kill you, your husband and your child, of course, but I am not going
anywhere
.” Mordecai paused briefly to stretch and flex and admire his beautiful body. “Now that I've found the Pool of Genezing, there is not a nobleman in Glyndoria who will not prostrate himself at my feet for a single vial of these healing waters. And when I inform the great lords that the royal bloodline had been stamped out for good, they will trample each other in their eagerness to anoint me king that they might stave off disease and death! Noblewomen will flop down on their backs before me—by the gods, I will beget an
army
of half-noble bastard sons!” Clapping General Murdock on the back so hard that the General nearly dropped the baby, Mordecai said, “Don't you think I will make a splendid king, Murdock?”

“I do, Your Grace,” said General Murdock, sounding genuinely pleased for his master.

Mordecai briskly nodded the head that no longer seemed to sit so heavy upon his neck. “And I will not just be a king but a
warrior
king, Murdock. I will learn to wield a sword in a manner that shall make those who once mocked me for being a cripple tremble with fear.” He gasped theatrically as though he'd just been struck by a most marvellous idea. “Why, I could begin practising right now, Murdock! Give me your sword!”

With a thin smile, the General obeyed.

“Now, set down the brat,” ordered Mordecai, flourishing the sword this way and that.

The very instant Murdock had done as he'd been bid, Persephone and Azriel dove toward Baby Finn. With the speed of a striking snake, Mordecai slit Murdock's throat and set the bloody sword tip against the baby's belly.

“
HE
'
S
DEAD
IF
YOU
MOVE
ANOTHER
INCH
!” Mordecai screamed at Persephone and Azriel, stopping them in their tracks. Pressing the tip of the blade a little harder against the baby's belly to show them that he meant business, Mordecai looked down at the faithful servant to whom he'd entrusted his life so many times and calmly said, “Apologies, Murdock, but of late you've rather annoyed me with your cleverness.”