Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  “You weren’t waiting up for me, were you?” he asked when she rose from her chair to greet him.

  “No,” she lied easily. “I just wasn’t sleepy yet.” A yawn threatened to give her away, and she held it off by sheer force of will.

  To make her lie entirely convincing, she knew she should engage in some pleasant small talk, but anxiousness and impatience got the best of her. “Did they find anything in the Well chamber today?”

  It was taking longer than Kailee would have hoped for the workers to finish clearing the debris and reach whatever magic items she suspected lay beneath.

  Tynthanal hesitated just a beat before answering, and although she could not see the expression on his face, she imagined he was giving her a look of gentle reproach. She wasn’t even sure why she had lied and said she wasn’t waiting, except that she knew he thought she was being childishly optimistic in her hopes that the evidence found in the rubble would clear Mairah’s name.

  “We did indeed,” he told her. “Several things, in fact. We found a bag that was clearly Mairahsol’s, and also a wineskin filled with some kind of potion. I have sent it to the grand magus to analyze, although I suspect he will not have great success. He is one of those stubborn individuals who is still convinced of the inferiority of women’s magic, and I suspect the potion contains feminine elements, which he cannot see.”

  “Then why did you send it to him?” she asked, quite reasonably. “I would probably have more chance of figuring out what it is than he, and the Women’s Well Academy would almost certainly be your best option.”

  “I know,” Tynthanal agreed. “But I need the grand magus’s full and enthusiastic cooperation if I hope to fix our Well, and he’s the sort who would take offense at what he would see as a lack of confidence.” He made a short sound of frustration. “Pandering to fragile egos has never been my favorite thing, but I know I must learn to do it if I’m to have any success as regent. When he’s satisfied that he has had an adequate opportunity to examine it, then I will send it on to Alys.”

  Kailee was equally frustrated, though she wasn’t sure why she was so anxious to get her hands on that potion. She had crammed in as much magical training as she possibly could during the short months that she had lived in Women’s Well, but that hardly made her an expert. Mairah had been practicing magic for most of her life, and though Kailee’s talent was comparable, her experience was not.

  “I can bring it to you first,” Tynthanal said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I know you will want to look at it.”

  She shook her head ruefully. “You read me too easily,” she quipped, even as she cherished a spot of warmth in her belly. Her blindness—or, more accurately, the milky whiteness of her eyes that told all the world that her Mindseye was always shockingly open—had made her all but invisible to those around her for most of her life. Even her father, who unquestionably loved and cherished her, rarely saw her the way this virtual stranger did.

  “I can read you even when you’re not in the room,” he teased, holding up one of his hands. “Which is why I brought the notes we found stashed in Mairahsol’s bags back to the apartments with me.”

  Kailee let out a glad little cry and couldn’t resist the temptation to give her husband a quick hug. Immediately on the heels of that burst of enthusiasm came the realization that it was already late in the night, and that one thing she was not capable of doing with her Mindsight was reading. She rocked back on her heels and bit her lip.

  “I…I don’t suppose you’ve read them already and can tell me what they say?” she asked tentatively.

  Tynthanal sighed. “I’ve glanced at them,” he told her, “but only long enough to tell that interpreting them will not be a quick and easy task. There are more than fifty pages, and they appear to be in no discernible order. I can say with certainty that Mairahsol had no intention for anyone but herself to read and make sense of them.”

  “Oh,” was all Kailee could think of to say.

  “I thought perhaps you and I might go over them together. I think reading them aloud—or at least trying to—might help us make sense of them.”

  “Really?” she asked, cocking her head at him and hardly daring to hope he was being sincere.

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” he asked gently. “You know more of women’s magic than I, and you certainly were closer to Mairahsol than anyone. Who would be better for this purpose than you?”

  Kailee’s throat threatened to close up, and her eyes stung. She rarely gave in to the temptation of tears, but her husband’s surprising kindness and respect nearly undid her. She reached out and put a hand on his arm, admiring the feel of his firm muscles beneath her palm.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, embarrassed at how overcome she was by this small gesture that suggested he saw her as a valuable human being. She had not fully appreciated how much her family and even the household servants had treated her like a helpless child until Tynthanal had shown her what it was like to be respected as an intelligent adult. The urge to do more than touch his arm nearly moved her to incaution, but she forcibly stopped herself from throwing her arms around his neck. She had already hugged him once, and doing so a second time might be uncomfortable for both of them.

  Tynthanal was her husband in name only, and destined to remain that way. He could barely speak Chanlix’s name without his grief and longing leaking into his voice—a reminder that even if she wanted to come between them, she couldn’t. There was no room in Tynthanal’s heart for her.

  She would continue to be his wife and his friend and his ally, but she must never allow herself even a moment’s illusion that she might be anything more.

  “Shall we sit down and make ourselves comfortable?” Tynthanal asked. “If you’re half as tired as I am, we won’t be able to get very far tonight, but we can at least get started.”

  Swallowing a lump that tried to form in her throat, Kailee forced a bright smile. “Yes, of course.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Star gave Ellin one last warm, encouraging smile before slipping out the bedroom door and closing it behind her. Ellin shook her head at that closed door, wishing she could somehow learn not to be so transparent to her lady’s maid. Most people who looked at her saw nothing but calm self-assurance, but even with her court mask firmly in place, Star always knew when she was troubled. Or nervous.

  “There is no reason to be nervous!” Ellin scolded herself. She was not a blushing virgin bride, and the activities of a wedding night were not altogether unfamiliar. She had never lain with Zarsha, it was true, and yet the sweating palms and racing heartbeat had taken her entirely by surprise. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to gain control of herself before the door to Zarsha’s adjoining bedchamber opened. He was the only other person who saw through her as thoroughly as Star did, and she couldn’t bear to have him see her like this.

  Wiping her palms on the diaphanous white nightdress that revealed far too much even with the extra cover of the dressing gown, Ellin drew in one deep breath after another, hoping to find some semblance of calm. She winced when the hinges of the adjoining suite door squealed, then turned to face the man who was now her husband without having found any hint of the calm she sought.

  Zarsha wore a heavy brocade dressing gown—brocade? He never wore anything so ornamental!—and a pair of velvet slippers. The dressing gown was cinched tightly around him so that she could not tell if he wore a nightshirt underneath.

  With a grin that looked a little strained, Zarsha glanced at the hinges that had so loudly announced his entrance. “It seems the servants missed one detail when they were preparing the consort’s suite for me,” he said in a tone that was meant to convey dry humor. But Ellin could have sworn she heard a shadow of her own nerves in his voice.

  “Perhaps they merely meant to ensure that you would not sneak up on me during the night,”
she quipped with forced levity.

  He chuckled. “And perhaps we’d best both dispense with attempts at humor. We’re neither one of us in the right frame of mind for it.”

  Ellin bit her lip and rubbed her hands on her nightdress again. Did Zarsha being nervous as well make her feel better, or worse? She honestly couldn’t tell. Her body ached with exhaustion after the long and grueling day, and yet she suspected she would get no wink of sleep tonight. She could only imagine how she would have felt if she were a virgin on top of it all. She’d been nervous when she’d slept with Graesan the first time, but it had been nothing like this.

  “We don’t have to do this tonight,” Zarsha said quietly, and she realized he was still standing in the doorway as if poised to retreat. “We’ve both had a very long day.”

  She dug up a scrap of her courage and looked him in the eye. “Do you not want to do this tonight?” she asked, though she knew the answer. Zarsha had made no secret that he desired her.

  His eyes took a leisurely tour of her barely concealed body, and there was no missing the lust that flared in them, although he still hesitated in the doorway. “I want to,” he said simply. “But I want you to want to, as well.”

  The corner of Ellin’s mouth twitched, this time with genuine—if perhaps a little harsh—humor. “Somewhere in Nandel, your uncle is squirming with some unexplained discomfort.” Men of Nandel were taught never to take a woman’s wants and needs into consideration. And they certainly wouldn’t dress in brocade.

  Zarsha snorted softly. “I am no longer a Nandelite, but a man of Rhozinolm. And even when I owed my allegiance to Nandel, I never would have dreamed of taking a woman to bed by force. Even my wife.”

  She frowned and cocked her head. “So what would our wedding night have been like if all had gone according to plan long ago and you’d taken me back to Nandel to marry me?”

  “You mean back when you hated me?”

  Shame heated her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze briefly to the floor. She was not at all proud of how she had treated Zarsha back in those days, when she had been so stubbornly in love with Graesan that she’d preemptively declared Zarsha the enemy and disliked him on principle. She wanted to assure him she’d never hated him, but she wasn’t sure that would be the truth.

  “Back when I didn’t know you,” she said. “When I hated what you represented and didn’t try to see who you really were.”

  “I would never have forced you to my bed,” he assured her.

  “Why not?” she asked with a curious cock of her head. “Nandel is hardly the only place where such practices exist. My own mother taught me that a wife is not free to refuse her husband’s attentions, and that was long before our engagement was planned.”

  Zarsha looked away, fidgeting with the sash on his robe. “It’s just…not my way.”

  If he hoped being evasive would dampen her curiosity, he was sorely mistaken. Especially when she could so clearly see the flush rising in his cheeks. “I know things aren’t fully right between us,” she said softly, “but surely you know you can confide in me.”

  “It’s an ugly story,” he warned, meeting her eyes only briefly.

  She bit her lip. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  He cleared his throat. “When I was twelve or thirteen, my father was stationed in the Midlands. I was working with a fencing tutor at the time, and he had a daughter who was only a couple of years older than I. She was…” His blush deepened. “Let’s just say that boys my age tended to make asses of ourselves whenever we caught a glimpse of her.”

  Ellin crossed her arms, suddenly regretting having asked for the story, afraid it would lead somewhere her mind did not wish to go.

  “Anyway,” Zarsha continued, “my tutor overheard a conversation between me and some other boys. We were being callous brutes, and the conversation shames me to this day. Even then, I did not find the idea of taking a woman by force appealing, but I made as many lewd and boorish comments as they, trying to get a laugh. I was the only Nandelite in our little circle of friends, and I put a shameful amount of effort into trying to fit in.”

  He shook his head. “None of us had any idea my tutor overheard, and I could not understand why he seemed so harsh and angry with me during our next lesson. When I finally dared to ask him, he…” Zarsha shuddered. “I won’t describe the details, but he put on a very convincing show of trying to rape me.”

  Ellin gasped and covered her mouth, eyes going wide in horror.

  “He didn’t actually do anything,” Zarsha hurried to reassure her. “As soon as he knew I understood what he was threatening, he let go of me and asked me to imagine what it would be like to be a girl and live constantly with such a specter hanging over me.” He shuddered, finally meeting her eyes once more. “I was too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened, though I stopped the fencing lessons until we moved once more. Once the initial shock wore off…Well, let’s just say that I understand too well the horror and hopelessness of being overpowered like that and would never do it to someone else. It was a hard lesson, cruelly delivered, but it was certainly effective.”

  Ellin’s heart ached for Zarsha’s loss of innocence, but she couldn’t help admiring him for using that trauma to make himself a better, kinder man. Not everyone would have taken the lesson so…constructively.

  Zarsha forced a grin as he smoothed the dressing gown. “I am nothing if not a master of pillow talk, wouldn’t you say?”

  She took a couple of steps closer to him. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about it,” she said, hoping the confession signaled the beginning of true forgiveness. He reached out and took her hand, raising it to his lips.

  “Do you want me to go?” he whispered as he brushed a kiss across her palm.

  Ellin looked into those striking blue eyes of his. Eyes that had already shaken off the terrible memory and darkened with desire.

  “I think…” she said, then bit her lip quickly before finding her courage once more. “I think that is not what I want. Not at all.”

  “I am delighted to hear that,” he rasped, then pulled her into his arms.

  * * *

  —

  Alys admired Chanlix’s fortitude as the Lady Chancellor of Women’s Well led her through the halls of the Academy and into the office she still maintained at the back of the building. She had given up her larger, grander office to the woman who had been named grand magus in her place—a former abigail by the name of Rusha, who had won the honor because of her impressive magical talents. It was Rusha who had invented the fearsome spell they called Vengeance—a spell that could only be triggered by women’s Kai and that struck its male victims permanently impotent. Both Alys and Chanlix were somewhat leery of the appointment, for Rusha’s judgment and ethics had proven questionable in the past, when she’d tested Vengeance on a man who was to all intents and purposes an innocent. Rusha seemed to have blossomed and changed since being freed from the Abbey, however, and both Alys and Chanlix had agreed she deserved a second chance.

  In the late stages of Alys’s two pregnancies, she’d found it cumbersome and exhausting even to balance the household books—something she could ordinarily do while practically asleep—yet so far Chanlix showed no sign of slowing down.

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t be taking it easy?” Alys asked, unable to stop herself. Chanlix had already spent the entire day fulfilling her duties as chancellor, and Alys felt guilty asking her to come to the Academy after hours. However, she required discretion, and there was no one she trusted more than Chanlix.

  Chanlix gave her a look of exasperation as she gestured Alys into her office, leaving the honor guards who dogged her footsteps to wait in the hall. “Really, Your Royal Highness,” Chanlix said, “you are worse than a husband. I’m pregnant, not ill.”

  Alys swallowed the urge to fuss more, des
pite an almost overwhelming need. As hale and hearty as Chanlix seemed, they were both well aware that a pregnancy for a woman of Chanlix’s age was fraught with potential dangers. In private, Alys would admit to herself that she was terrified on her friend’s behalf, although she tried her best not to let that terror show.

  Chanlix closed the office door and waddled over to her seat behind the desk. She sat with an audible sigh of relief and rested her hands on her swollen belly. The woman fairly radiated contentment, though Alys was sure she was more than ready to have the ordeal of childbirth behind her.

  “You can’t expect me not to fuss,” Alys said with a fond smile. “I’ve never been an auntie before.”

  Chanlix raised an eyebrow at her, and Alys grimaced.

  “Delnamal’s child doesn’t count,” Alys said, though it was uncharitable of her to hold the infant’s parentage against him. “I may technically be his aunt, but I will never be his auntie.”

  “He’s an innocent baby,” Chanlix chided her. “And he is your blood. Don’t you think—”

  Alys waved her friend’s words off. “I won’t pretend it’s fair,” she said, “and maybe someday I’ll be able to look at the child and not see Delnamal. But that day has not yet come.”

  Chanlix flashed her a sympathetic smile, and something inside Alys relaxed. She suffered from not a small amount of guilt for her feelings toward the infant king, and it was comforting to find that Chanlix—despite her gentle disapproval—did not condemn her.

  “Well, let’s have it, then,” Chanlix said, reaching her hand across the desk.

  Reluctantly, not sure she wanted to know the results of this test, Alys withdrew the vial of dried blood that had arrived via flier from Aalwell. The blood Tynthanal had found outside the Well chamber. The blood that her gut already insisted came from Delnamal.