Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  She laid the vial in Chanlix’s palm, then clasped her hands together in front of her to keep from fidgeting as Chanlix prepared the potion that held a modified version of the bloodline spell. Instead of testing whether the two individuals whose blood was combined could produce children, the spell would test whether the two individuals were related by blood.

  Chanlix activated the potion, then scraped about half of the dried blood into an empty vial. She held the vial out to Alys.

  “Do you need a pin?” Chanlix inquired as Alys took the vial.

  “No,” Alys said, removing a pin from her headdress. She quickly pricked her finger, then squeezed a drop of blood out and into the vial. Her stomach gave a little lurch as she watched that drop ooze down the side of the vial, making a visible path through the dry flakes that clung to the glass. She was not usually squeamish, but somehow the sight of her own blood mixing with what could be Delnamal’s made something inside her recoil.

  Handing the vial with the two samples to Chanlix, Alys replaced the pin in her headdress and stuck her finger in her mouth, though the bleeding had stopped already. She couldn’t bear to watch as Chanlix poured the activated potion into the vial and swirled everything around. She wasn’t even properly sure she could say what she wanted the test to reveal. She had been devastated to learn of Delnamal’s death, heartbroken at the realization that she would never have her revenge, never be able to confront him and punish him for Jinnell’s death. But there had also been an undeniable relief at knowing he was no longer out there, no longer threatening her life and the lives of everyone she still cared for. If he had survived the disaster at the Well…

  A soft, dismayed groan drew Alys’s eyes to the vial in Chanlix’s hand. A vial that was now filled with milky white fluid, which signaled a match. She could feel Chanlix looking at her face, gauging her reaction, but she could not tear her eyes away from the vial.

  “So,” Alys said softly. “Now we know.”

  Chanlix put the vial down and shook her head. “We know this is his blood,” she countered. “That is all we know.”

  “He is alive,” Alys said with a certainty she could not explain. “Xanvin spirited him away somehow. I am sure of it.”

  While Chanlix didn’t look as positive as Alys felt, there was a certain grim resignation to her voice when she said, “Perhaps Tynthanal can have another talk with Oona. If Delnamal survived, she would know. She would have to.”

  “You may be right,” Alys said. “But though I was never especially close with my stepmother, I did grow up in her household, and I know how she thinks. I’m sure she was not happy that Delnamal married a woman she considered beneath him, and she was likely as scandalized as anyone at court that they did not wait until she was out of mourning to wed. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d failed to consult Oona before spiriting Delnamal away.

  “Still, it can’t hurt to ask,” she concluded. “I will contact Tynthanal via talker as soon as I return to the palace. Do you…do you want to be there?”

  Chanlix smiled and stroked her belly, though it was impossible to miss the flare of grief in her eyes. “I think not. For the time being, I think a little distance is good for both of us. He needs to focus on Kailee and making the marriage work, and he won’t do that if he keeps mooning over me.”

  It was on the tip of Alys’s tongue to argue. In her estimation, Tynthanal had no interest in trying to make his marriage to Kailee into anything real, and distance was not going to change that. But perhaps Chanlix needed the illusion to help herself move on.

  “He will ask after you,” Alys warned, because she would be shocked if he didn’t.

  “Then tell him the baby and I are both well, and leave it at that,” Chanlix said firmly. “When the babe is born, I will be more accommodating, but until then…” She shrugged. “It’s just better this way.” Her voice cracked ever so slightly, belying the calm pragmatism of her words.

  Alys’s already broken heart broke a little more for her brother and her friend.

  * * *

  —

  Living on her father’s estate in Rhozinolm, Kailee had spent an inordinate portion of her life struggling with boredom. She had rarely been allowed to leave the estate, and when there were parties or dinners, she was forbidden to attend. Not that she would have wanted to, for it would have been impossible to ignore the discomfort the nobility of Rhozinolm showed around her. The only true social life she had known had been during her brief stay in Women’s Well, and she had never realized how deeply she’d hungered for it. Until now, when it was denied her once again.

  Oh, she’d known what she was giving up when she’d agreed to—nay, insisted upon—coming to Aaltah to support her husband. But it turned out that returning to the solitude of her old life was a great deal harder than she’d been prepared for.

  The only saving grace was that Tynthanal refused to treat her like an embarrassing secret. She joined him for every dinner, every ball, every reception, and he forcibly included her in every conversation. But he couldn’t force the nobility to accept her, and being tolerated was almost as bad as being shunned.

  Her days were long and tedious and dull. Several times, she’d tried inviting ladies who had seemed marginally more accepting to join her for tea, but those invitations had been politely declined. She didn’t dare tell Tynthanal she’d even made them, for she was sure that if he learned her invitations were being rejected, he’d intervene and somehow force the ladies to attend.

  It was her lady’s maid—a kind, matronly woman who had never shown any sign of being discomfited by her blindness—who had suggested she extend an invitation to Queen Oona, who was now considered the dowager queen with Queen Xanvin’s whereabouts officially unknown.

  Oona was nearly as much of a social pariah as Kailee, although for very different reasons. From what Kailee had heard, she’d been a respected and popular member of the minor nobility, but her reputation had taken some damage when she had married Delnamal without having completed a year of mourning for her previous husband. It had not helped that Delnamal had been a wildly unpopular king—and after the disaster at the Well, Oona had lost any social standing she might have had.

  In her darkest moments, Kailee had believed Oona would also issue a polite rejection. Even after the dowager responded in the affirmative, Kailee had been sure she would cancel at the last moment. So when a footman appeared in the informal parlor of the royal apartments and informed her that her guest had arrived, she felt momentarily flummoxed.

  “Shall I show her in?” the footman asked when Kailee’s surprise stole her voice.

  “Yes, of course,” she hurried to say. “And bring the tea tray, if you please.”

  Kailee was not used to feeling shy, but she found herself fussing at her clothes, smoothing nonexistent creases and touching her hair to make sure it was all tidy. She heard footsteps in the hall, then saw the white glow surrounding two figures who were moving closer to her. One figure was smaller than the other, and Kailee knew that would be Oona, so she turned her smile in that direction.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, dipping into a respectful curtsy. “How good of you to come.”

  “It was good of you to invite me, Your Highness,” Oona replied. Unlike many others at court, there was no sneering undertone in Oona’s voice when she used the honorific. “There are those who believe that a woman in mourning should not receive any social invitations.”

  Kailee scoffed, although there was some truth to the dowager’s words. The older generation considered it unseemly for a woman in mourning to be seen to enjoy her life in any way, but thankfully the custom of socially burying a grieving widow was falling out of practice.

  “I’m afraid I’m shockingly uninterested in doing what is considered proper when I don’t believe it’s right,” she said, displaying the candor that many found as distasteful as her blindness.


  Oona chuckled softly. “I have heard that about you.”

  Kailee smiled. “No doubt. Won’t you have a seat?”

  She waved Oona to a comfortable sofa and took a seat herself on the opposite end, neatly stepping around the sharp corners of the coffee table. Oona said nothing, but Kailee could almost feel her curiosity.

  “When one cannot see inanimate objects,” she said, “one learns to make mental maps of where said inanimate objects reside.”

  In Rhozinolm, where she had been forced to pretend her Mindseye was demurely closed at all times, relying on those mental maps had been the only way she’d been able to navigate her father’s estate. But here in Aaltah, Tynthanal had already begun making different accommodations for her in the royal apartments, and he had dismissed the fiction of her total blindness from day one.

  Thinking a certain level of candor might help her create a bond with the dowager queen, Kailee decided to be more open with Oona than she might ordinarily have been.

  “It helps that the table is made of Aalwood,” she admitted. “There’s enough Aal in it that I can see it clearly.” The wood was so densely packed with Aal she could even make out the floral design carved into its trim.

  In any other kingdom, using Aalwood for an inanimate piece of furniture would have been an extravagance. As prized as the wood was for its beauty, it was its potential for magic that made it Aaltah’s most prized export. But here in Aaltah, it grew plentifully enough for Kailee not to feel impossibly self-indulgent furnishing the apartment with it.

  Oona’s aura shifted ever so slightly, showing just the tiniest hint of discomfort with the idea that Kailee’s Mindseye was open. Kailee stifled a sigh of disappointment and suffered a pang of longing for the acceptance she had experienced in Women’s Well. Certainly there were people living there who still scorned women’s magic and felt uncomfortable with it being openly embraced, but they had been very much a minority.

  The discomfort of the moment was broken when the footman returned with the tea service. Both Kailee and Oona sat quietly while the service was laid out and a cup of fragrant tea poured for each of them.

  “You were aware that my Mindseye is always open, were you not?” Kailee asked when the footman departed. Oona’s teacup rattled in her saucer, betraying her surprise at Kailee’s indelicate words.

  “Yes,” Oona murmured, taking a hasty sip of tea.

  Kailee raised her own cup to her lips, felt the heat radiating from its contents, and decided she would save herself the scalding. She put the tea on the Aalwood table, giving Oona another moment to come to grips with her bold conversational style.

  Oona sighed, then put her own cup down, as well. “Clearly, we are not mincing words today, so I suppose I’ll come right out and ask you: am I here because Prince Tynthanal asked you to speak with me?”

  Kailee felt the heat rising in her cheeks and mentally chided herself for not realizing how Oona might take the invitation. She was well aware that Tynthanal’s first gentle attempt to ask Oona about Xanvin’s mysterious departure had not gone especially well. It was no surprise Oona thought he had assigned his wife the task, and that the invitation to tea had been more of a summons than a social call.

  “Not at all,” she hastened to assure Oona. “I believe my husband will want to speak with you again, but I had no ulterior motives in inviting you.” Now that Alysoon had confirmed that the blood they had found at the Well was Delnamal’s, Tynthanal had every intention of questioning Oona once more about the night the Well had been damaged, but so far he had not had a chance.

  Oona shifted in her seat, her skirts rustling with the restless movement. “Even women who were once my closest friends no longer make social calls or invite me to do so,” she said with no small amount of suspicion in her voice. “I find it hard to credit that the wife of the prince regent would do so without reason.”

  Kailee considered her response for only a handful of heartbeats before she chose brutal honesty, as was her wont. “I didn’t say it was without reason, just that it was without ulterior motive.” She held up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I know no one here but my husband, and I have yet to meet anyone who will speak more than the barest minimum to me because my eyes make them uncomfortable. Every invitation I have sent out has been declined. Conventional wisdom suggested that you would not wish to socialize with me when you so distrust my husband, but I make a habit of ignoring conventional wisdom, so I invited you to join me for tea.”

  She did not mention her awareness that Oona was as much of a social outcast as she herself was, but she was sure Oona could make that inference on her own.

  “There is nothing more sinister in my motives than loneliness,” Kailee finished. Deeming the tea was finally cool enough to drink, she retrieved her cup and took a cautious sip.

  Oona did the same, and Kailee had the suspicion they were both using that moment to gather themselves. Kailee wasn’t sure what she’d expected of this visit, but she’d certainly been hoping for something less awkward and uncomfortable.

  “I did not mean to be unkind,” Oona said softly.

  Kailee blinked. “You weren’t. I should have realized how you would interpret the invitation and made it clear that it was purely social. I’m used to being a nobody, not the wife of a prince regent.”

  Oona scoffed. “I don’t imagine you were ever a nobody.”

  “I might as well have been,” Kailee retorted. “For as long as I can remember, people said—within my hearing—that I belonged in the Abbey. That I was an embarrassment who should be kept out of sight. I’m sure there are a great many people in this court who feel the same, and I have no doubt that people are even now muttering that Tynthanal should divorce me.”

  Kailee knew for a fact that her father was terrified that such would happen. Kailindar never would have agreed to let her marry Tynthanal if he hadn’t been under the impression that she would live in Women’s Well, where divorced women were not forced into an abbey. Just as she knew that Tynthanal would never condemn her to the Abbey of Aaltah.

  “Anyway,” Kailee continued, “my point is that I am not used to guarding my words or my actions, and sometimes that makes me careless, for which I apologize.”

  “You’ve no need to apologize,” Oona assured her. “I was not alarmed by your invitation.”

  Kailee grinned. “Merely suspicious.”

  Oona coughed delicately and took a sip of her tea.

  “We are sisters-in-law,” Kailee said. “I have a feeling we are both in need of allies at court, and that we can help each other.”

  “That may be,” Oona agreed. “But though I refuse to hold with the old traditions and lock myself away for a year, I also don’t want to make myself vulnerable to even more gossip. One visit for tea will be seen by many as obedience to a royal command, but I must be circumspect. I don’t wish to be unkind, but…”

  Kailee told herself to ignore the stab of disappointment at yet another rebuff. “But being seen socializing with me would be another black mark on your record.”

  Oona sighed. “The court can be a vicious place when you are in disfavor.”

  “You don’t have to explain that to me,” Kailee reminded her, and was unable to keep the edge out of her voice. She should not be allowing this to hurt her feelings. She’d known what she was getting into when she’d come to Aaltah, and had always counted herself as strong and resilient. But it seemed her stern mental talking-to did nothing to ease the ache of rejection.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Delnamal emerged from the bridle path that led through the woods and let out a quiet sigh of relief to see the manor house. His legs were groaning in protest at what had turned out to be—for his frail body, at least—an epic journey that had pushed him to his breaking point. Leaning heavily on his cane, he took a moment to breathe slowly and deeply, resting up for the final effort of making
his way home.

  He grimaced. The manor house was not home, would never be his home. It was merely a way station, a place to stay safely hidden while he recuperated. His home, his true home, was in Aaltah, and today’s successful walk—however taxing it might have been—proved that he was ready to begin contemplating how he might restore himself to his former glory. He doubted he would ever come close to regaining the strength he had once taken for granted, but he had now gotten into the habit of forcing himself to exercise every time he had the strength to do so. Today’s walk had been the longest he had yet managed, and the improvement was heartening. He could already feel his strength ebbing, knew that by this evening he would have another one of his fits. But he could clearly see that his exercise regime was strengthening him. Now, he didn’t lose all his progress when the cycle of waxing and waning hit its nadir.

  When the manor house was in sight, Delnamal found that he had pushed his body to its absolute limits by walking the looping bridle trail that was, all told, less than a mile long. His progress might be noticeable and heartening, but he had the stamina of a sickly old man.

  He had to stop for rest three times before he reached the veranda, and at that point his legs gave out entirely. He collapsed into an uncomfortable metal garden chair and closed his eyes as his heart pounded and he drew in one labored breath after another. He was thankful his mother and the servants stayed inside. Perhaps he had finally trained them to stop asking if he was all right every five minutes. Their hovering was driving him mad, and though his temper no longer rose to the surface with the same ease and frequency it once had, he was still capable of calling it up at will—as the footman who had last tried to give him unwanted help had discovered. Delnamal suspected his mother had sold some of her jewelry to bribe the man into silence over the injuries Delnamal had given him; his cane, he found, could inflict a surprising amount of damage even wielded by frail hands.