Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  Chanlix snorted softly. “Yes, that’s why you are here at this hour looking over Rusha’s notes when she already gave us a full accounting of her research after our council meeting this morning.”

  Sighing, Alys sat back and pushed the notes to the side, meeting her lady chancellor’s mildly disapproving face. It was true that the two of them and Rusha had already met privately to discuss the research in greater detail than Alys deemed necessary for the rest of the council to hear.

  “The fate of all of Seven Wells may rest on this spell,” she said. “My interest in studying the details of Rusha’s notes has nothing to do with not trusting her and everything to do with me wanting to make the best, most informed decision I can.”

  “Uh-huh,” Chanlix said with undisguised skepticism.

  Alys huffed. “Look, I wouldn’t have appointed her to the post of grand magus if I didn’t trust her, and I have no cause to quibble with any of the work she’s done since. She’s been thorough and discreet, and I believe her to be on the right track.”

  “Then why are we here checking up on her notes?” Chanlix asked quite reasonably.

  “We aren’t,” Alys responded with an ironic twist of her lips. “Sometimes I think you must keep watch at your window to see if I set foot anywhere near the Academy.”

  Chanlix clucked her tongue. “I can’t help it that Chantynel’s nursery window faces the front entrance. Nor could I help noticing the lights going on and your honor guardsmen standing sentinel.”

  Alys hadn’t expected her visit to the Academy to go unnoticed—it was impossible for a sovereign to go anywhere unnoticed—but she hadn’t considered that Chanlix would come to join her. Which was probably a sign of just how distracted she was, for this was not the first time her lady chancellor had noticed the lights in the Academy going on after hours and come to investigate.

  “You should be spending this time with Chantynel,” Alys said, then instantly regretted what had come out sounding like scolding.

  Luckily, Chanlix did not seem offended. “I was watching her sleep when I saw the lights.” She shook her head and looked down at her hands. “I know better than to do that,” she said softly. “In the quiet of the nursery, with nothing to do but look at her, I have a bad habit of falling into melancholy.” There was just the faintest hint of a rasp in her voice, but she forced a smile and met Alys’s eyes once again. “Checking up on you is a pleasant distraction. And Chantynel’s nurse has a talker so she can let me know if she wakes while I’m gone.”

  Alys wished she could say something to console her friend. Chanlix had seemed to be flourishing in her role as lady chancellor while she’d been pregnant, and although it was impossible not to notice that she missed Tynthanal, Alys had convinced herself that Chanlix’s heart was on the mend. That had changed since Chantynel’s birth, and though Chanlix still admirably executed her duties to the Crown and was clearly a doting mother, completely besotted with her daughter, her sadness was plain to see. Especially on days when she had spoken with Tynthanal.

  “I wish…” Alys started, but found she couldn’t put into words all the many things she wished could be different for her dearest friend. And her brother.

  Chanlix smiled again, this time more genuinely. “Yes, don’t we all. But come now, tell me why you’re visiting the Academy in the middle of the night to study Rusha’s notes if it’s not because you distrust her work.”

  Alys shifted ever so slightly in her seat and instantly knew she should have fought off the urge, for the look in Chanlix’s eyes sharpened. Chanlix knew her too well not to recognize the sign of disquiet. Which meant she was unlikely to accept an attempt to deflect her interest, but that wouldn’t stop Alys from trying.

  “You know that if I hadn’t become sovereign princess, I would happily have spent the rest of my life at the Academy studying magic,” she said. “I wanted to delve into the spell in more detail than it’s sensible to ask for when everyone has so much important work to do.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Chanlix said. “I was worried you might be here looking for evidence that the purgative will need to be triggered with sacrificial Kai.” There was no missing the suspicion in her voice, and she was watching Alys’s face with far too much attention.

  Alys tried to keep her expression entirely neutral, but the narrowing of Chanlix’s eyes showed her she’d failed. Her pulse fluttered a moment in something like panic at being caught out, though she shrugged in a way that she hoped looked casual despite everything. “Well, you have to know that is an important question to find an answer to.”

  Chanlix folded her arms over her chest and gave Alys a sternly maternal look, although Chanlix was a year younger. “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why you’re here perusing Rusha’s notes in the middle of the night. If she concludes the spell will need—or even might need—sacrificial Kai, I’m sure she’ll tell us.”

  Alys’s hands had clenched into fists in her lap without her even noticing, which made continuing to try to deflect pointless. “Very well, then. I’m looking at her notes because deep down in here”—she thumped her chest—“I believe that to get that Rhokai out of Delnamal and back into the Well will require a sacrifice.”

  “And you believe you are that sacrifice,” Chanlix finished for her, somehow managing to look both angry and frightened at the same time. “Because you hate Delnamal so much that you would like to be personally responsible for defeating him.”

  Alys gave a self-deprecating sigh as she looked down at her hands. Her stomach felt sour, her hatred for the man who had killed her daughter sitting inside her like a poison. Rotting her from the inside out. She thought fleetingly of Duke Thanmir and his gentle not-quite-proposal, and of her continued inability to see a future in which she might genuinely consider it. Delnamal had stabbed her through the heart, and she felt like the knife remained within her, burrowing deeper. One day, it would pierce what was left of her soul, and she had little hope that Delnamal’s death—as gratifying as it might be—would heal the damage.

  She blinked away incipient tears and raised her head to meet Chanlix’s eyes. “It is not a comfortable thing to live with hatred,” she said quietly. “I keep worrying that it will have a corrupting influence on me, that it might turn me into someone bitter and vindictive and I might not even notice it happening.”

  Chanlix patted her hand, and Alys was pathetically grateful for the simple touch.

  “You are no more bitter and vindictive than anyone would be in your position,” Chanlix assured her, “and a good deal less so than many.”

  Alys smiled. “Says the woman who wants him dead almost as much as I do.”

  Chanlix shrugged. “There are few who would mourn his death, and I am not among them. But I would mourn yours. More than you know.”

  “I sincerely hope it won’t come to that,” Alys said, willing her friend to believe her—even though she didn’t believe herself. “But you’re right to think that I fear it might, and if it does, I have to be ready.”

  Chanlix’s expression was no longer one of sympathy, but one of stern warning. “Tell me you’re not looking for an excuse to escape your grief,” she said with a knowing look at Alys’s black gown.

  Alys let out a shaky breath. “I swear I’m not,” she said with all the conviction she could muster. “I believe the purgative will most likely work with either masculine or feminine Kai, but it is my duty to plan for the worst. And if it does come to the worst, then I know it is my duty as a sovereign to find a volunteer rather than perform the sacrifice myself.”

  That it wasn’t enough to convince Chanlix was clear from her lady chancellor’s expression. But she must also have heard the implacability in Alys’s voice, for she refrained from continuing the discussion.

  “Very well, then,” Chanlix said briskly, the corners of her eyes tight. “We will speak no more of it.”

 
Somehow, Alys doubted that was true.

  * * *

  —

  “You look terrible,” Jaizal said with characteristic Nandelite bluntness as soon as she and Leethan had a moment alone in the Zinolm Well safe house that was—for the time being, at least—their new prison. Jaizal had spent an additional three days in Falcon’s Ridge before being escorted to the city to join Leethan in their necessary but galling isolation. The hardships of their journey were still written in her frail frame and her hollow cheeks, and Leethan was thankful her oldest friend had made what was deemed a full recovery, with no fingers or toes lost to the frostbite. Someone had provided her with a modest, though nicely made, dress to replace the men’s clothes she’d worn from Nandel. Leethan, too, had a new wardrobe, provided for her by the Crown.

  “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” Leethan asked her friend with a small smile.

  A maid entered the cozy parlor in which they had retreated to talk, and Leethan was delighted to see the steaming pot of tea she had not thought to order. She was so many years removed from being waited on by others that it never would have occurred to her to ask, and she had to stifle her instinctive need to reach for the tray before the maid set it down.

  The maid smiled at her and at Jaizal, as if unaware that they were lowly Unwanted Women who expected no interaction whatsoever with polite society. Of course, since they were no longer dressed like abigails, it was likely easier to ignore their history.

  “Cook thought you might like a nice cup of tea after your long journey,” the maid said to Jaizal before turning to Leethan with a hint of anxiety. “I hope you do not find this…presumptuous.”

  “Of course not,” Leethan responded, feeling a nearly hysterical urge to laugh. She wondered if the small handful of servants assigned to this house even knew her true identity. Perhaps they had no idea that she was the former Abbess of Nandel and thought she was some visiting dignitary. Which would certainly explain why no one seemed to look down their noses at her. “Please thank Cook for her thoughtfulness.”

  “We have a maid? And a cook?” Jaizal marveled when the young woman had retreated.

  “Footmen, even,” Leethan confirmed, “although I suspect they are guardsmen in disguise.”

  Jaizal chewed her lip as she took a seat before the merry fire and poured herself a cup of tea. “I did think the fellow who greeted my carriage had a rather…military bearing for a household servant.”

  Leethan swallowed a yawn and decided she needed the cup of tea as badly as Jaizal. She had not slept peacefully since arriving in Zinolm Well, the old dream sneaking up on her each time she drifted off. Never before had she had it more than once in a year, and now she was having it every night! Her head ached constantly, and though she was technically getting a full night’s sleep, she awakened each morning feeling worse than she had when she’d gone to bed.

  “You had the dream again,” Jaizal said, and she did not phrase it as a question.

  Leethan rubbed her eyes and sipped the tea, hoping it might wake her up. “It’s that obvious?”

  “To someone who’s known you as long as I have? Yes. Although frankly, I’ve never seen you look this peaked afterward. Are you still unwell from the journey?”

  Leethan put the tea down and tried to assess her own physical well-being. Was the hardship still telling on her body? It was hard to know when she felt this wretched.

  “I don’t think the journey has anything to do with it,” she said. “It’s just…” She let out a soft groan. “I’ve had the dream every night since I’ve been here.”

  Jaizal’s eyes widened. “Every night?” she cried in evident dismay.

  Leethan nodded. “But there’s more,” she said almost reluctantly. She’d known from the first recurrence of the dream that she would tell Jaizal all, that no one would be able to understand her creeping sense of dread like Jaizal would. And yet she felt an almost superstitious fear of speaking about it. As if speaking of it would make it real.

  “Well, what is it?” Jaizal prompted when Leethan’s voice faltered.

  Leethan let out a shuddering sigh. “I noticed a detail I’d never noticed before,” she said, wincing gingerly as if the words hurt. “I noticed that one of the three men at the end is carrying Waldmir’s sword.” Jaizal gasped. “And that the woman facing him has a bent little finger.” She raised her own hand with its crooked finger.

  Jaizal shook her head in denial. “That cannot be!” she protested. “You would have recognized Waldmir’s sword long ago if that were true. And you certainly would have recognized yourself!”

  That was what Leethan had told herself when she’d awakened from the first dream, but now she was not so sure. “I don’t suppose it matters,” she said, rather unconvincingly. “It doesn’t change the substance of the dream.”

  Jaizal snorted. “You told me you first had that dream when you were fifteen years old. Well before your marriage arrangement was even an inkling in your father’s mind.”

  Leethan shivered and said nothing, for she had in truth suffered the dream twice before laying eyes on Waldmir for the first time. If the man in the dream had always been Waldmir, and the woman standing across from him had always been her, then…

  Jaizal’s shoulders slumped as she sat back in her chair, her already pale face now ghostly white. “You think the dream may be prophetic,” she said in a bare whisper.

  Leethan rubbed at her eyes as if she could scrub the thought out of her own brain. “There are no such things as prophetic dreams,” she mumbled. Three days ago, she would have said so with much more conviction. “The Mother of All communicates with her seers through visions, not dreams. And no vision I have triggered has shown me anything like that terrible battle or the strange encounter between those three men and those three women.”

  Jaizal frowned fiercely. “Every man—and most women—in Nandel would tell you that visions don’t exist, that they are merely hallucinations produced by women with troubled minds or outsized ambitions. Does that make it true?”

  Leethan squirmed in her chair, then poured herself another cup of tea. Not because she wanted it, but because she wanted so badly not to think about Jaizal’s words or their implications. Unfortunately, her friend wasn’t content to allow her the silence to gather her thoughts—or hide from the truth.

  “Just because we’ve never heard of a verifiably prophetic dream,” Jaizal said with a touch of gentleness in her voice, “doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And I cannot but think that it is significant that you are suddenly having the dream again and that it is with you every night.”

  Leethan put down her teacup without having taken a sip. Her throat felt too tight with dread for swallowing, and the rapid patter of her heart said she was moments away from a full-out panic. Even with only her oldest and closest friend to witness it, it was mortifying to show such weakness, and Leethan wished she could crawl into a deep, dark hole and hide until it passed.

  Jaizal’s hand closed over hers, squeezing tightly. “I know you are afraid,” she said quietly. “I don’t blame you. But I don’t think ignoring the dream and what it might signify is going to make you feel any better.”

  Leethan shook her head, hating the tears that burned her eyes and dampened her lashes. “If the dream is prophetic,” she said, her voice rasping harshly, “then it means the Mother of All expects me to kill myself. I don’t want to die. Especially not like that.” She had knowingly risked her life in leaving Nandel, but though that had frightened her, the hope of survival—and of freedom—had carried her through all her worst moments of doubt.

  “If it were a normal vision rather than a dream,” Jaizal said, “you would interpret it to mean it was possible that in the future you could sacrifice your own life to kill Waldmir, I suppose. But according to everything you’ve told me about how visions work, it would mean that the Mother of All
was presenting you with that option and expecting you to work toward it or away from it based on your own wishes. So unless you actually want to sacrifice your life to kill Prince Waldmir, you are seeing a future you can avoid. Am I wrong?”

  Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, Leethan raised her head once more and met Jaizal’s eyes. Jaizal knew perfectly well she was not wrong. As a woman of Nandel, she had been raised to believe that seers did not exist, and thus everything she had learned about seers had come from Leethan. But the two of them had talked about visions enough—and Jaizal had seen her through enough of them—that she knew full well that she wasn’t wrong.

  Leethan tried to cling to the words, to the hope they offered, but the sense of dread only lessened, rather than going away. “If it were an ordinary vision, then yes, that is how it would work.”

  “And do you want to sacrifice your life to kill Prince Waldmir?”

  Leethan sighed deeply. “You know I do not.”

  Jaizal nodded. “I know there is a part of you that loves him still. Or at least loves the memory of the man he was when first you married him.”

  Leethan allowed the tiniest of self-deprecating smiles to tug at her lips. “He was never the man I thought he was, or at least that I forced myself to see because it made the marriage easier.”

  Her friend dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “You are quibbling over semantics. A man needn’t be anywhere near perfect for a woman to love him, whether he deserves her love or not. Whatever Waldmir’s faults, you were happy with him for many years. You’d be more willing to give your life to save his than to take it.”

  The words made Leethan wince, for she heard a disturbing level of truth in them. It made no sense that some corner of her heart still clung to the memory of their love. The man had divorced her and sent her to the Abbey of the Unwanted. And he’d divorced two other women since and had a third beheaded. How could even a small part of her still love him?