Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  Zarsha’s arms tightened around her. “I know Waldmir has begun to amass troops on our border and that we have not received a single shipment of gems or iron we were promised. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am for the role I played in getting us into this mess.”

  Ellin shook her head. “It was my decision not to return Elwynne to Nandel,” she said. “I knew we risked making an enemy of him when I decided.”

  “Yes, but it’s a decision you never would have made if it weren’t for me.”

  Ellin sighed. “The fact is, Waldmir has only ever been a reluctant ally, and he has always been on the hunt for a better deal. It’s why he made our betrothal so difficult, and it’s why he was courting Delnamal’s support while doing so. You said yourself that he has always hungered for more prestige for Nandel.” She settled more comfortably against Zarsha’s shoulder.

  “He’s already guaranteed that the next sovereign of Rhozinolm will be half Nandelite!” Zarsha protested. “What more could he want?”

  Ellin ran a soothing hand down his chest, wrinkling her nose at the wetness of her tears on his nightshirt. She felt him start when he realized the answer to his own question.

  “He’s doing it again!” he exclaimed. “Using one of his daughters to try to buy a kingdom.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Ellin cautioned, “but given his history, I think it’s likely. He has never been happy to have his legacy run through you, and if Draios painted a convincing picture of Waldmir’s grandson sitting on the throne of Khalpar, in a world where the Blessing has been eliminated…”

  Zarsha made a sound of disgust. “Yes. I see how such a future would tempt him.”

  “And likely would have even if Elwynne had never left Nandel,” Ellin reminded him gently, though she doubted she could persuade Zarsha—or even herself—that the two of them were entirely blameless.

  She swallowed hard as a lump tried to form in her throat once more. In the end, it didn’t matter why Waldmir had chosen to ally with Khalpar. What mattered was that the army massing along the border between Rhozinolm and Nandel was a threat that could not be ignored. Which meant Ellin was no longer free to send the bulk of her forces to Aaltah’s aid.

  Zarsha’s arms tightened around her. “What did you and the council decide?” he asked.

  Ellin had faced a dizzying array of difficult decisions since she had taken the throne, but today’s had been the most agonizing of all. “We will send our ships in support of Aaltah,” she said, “but no ground forces. The bulk of our army will march west to defend the Nandel border. Which is exactly what Waldmir intended.”

  Zarsha cupped her face in his hand, lifting her chin so that she was looking into his eyes. “Naval support is what we do best,” he reminded her. “If our ships can win the naval battle, then Aaltah won’t need our ground forces.”

  She kissed his hand. “I appreciate that you’re trying to make me feel better,” she said, “but we both know we won’t win the naval battle. Not with both Par and Khalpar sailing against us at full force.”

  From all reports, their enemies were throwing every ship at their disposal against them, including conscripted merchant and fishing vessels. For this “holy war,” Draios had stripped the fields and harbors of his kingdom bare, amassing a force that any other king would have found hopelessly reckless. With their naturally occurring iron and gems, and with the elements produced by the Wells of Par and Khalpar—which were extremely well-suited for water-based magic—the enemy fleet was likely to cut through the continental forces with few enough losses that the outcome of the war would depend on the defenders on land. And the threat from Waldmir meant that Ellin could not help.

  Zarsha kissed her softly. “You have done what you can to help our allies,” he said. “Aaltah is not without support, and they’ve been planning their defense for as long as Draios has been planning the attack.”

  She nodded noncommittally, for it seemed to her that Draios, in his fanaticism, had prepared with a wild abandon that might well leave his people impoverished and starving in the aftermath, but that would overwhelm more responsibly formed forces. And no matter that she truly had no choice but to defend her own borders, she could not help feeling that her refusal to send her army to Aaltah’s aid was a betrayal of the first order.

  Zarsha sighed. “Nothing I say is going to make you feel any better, is it?” he asked, and there was a hint of anguish in his voice.

  Ellin looked into his dear face and felt a not unpleasant flutter in her chest. “You make me feel better just by being you,” she told him with a wan smile. “But perhaps you could also…take my mind off things.” She waggled her brows suggestively, and though the proposition was forced and perhaps even a bit awkward, she felt an instant stirring of desire. And from the way Zarsha’s eyes darkened, she knew that he felt that stirring, as well.

  “It is the least I can do,” he agreed as his hand slid down her hip toward the hem of her nightdress.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Alys felt a moment of shock when the door to the king’s study opened and she saw Tynthanal sitting behind the massive desk. She had not set foot in the room since before the death of her father, and although she had, of course, been expecting to find Tynthanal, there was still something vaguely disorienting about it. In some ways, she realized, she had never really had the time she’d needed to mourn her father properly. For a moment, she thought the grief of all her losses was about to swamp her and drag her down into despair, but she shook her head and fought it off.

  Tynthanal waited in sympathetic silence while she gathered herself, then gestured her to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Stiffening her spine, she took her seat and gave her brother an inquiring look, for his summons had not given her any hint as to why he wanted to see her.

  “Queen Ellinsoltah contacted me a short time ago,” he said. “Her spy network is…impressive. She says the Khalpari fleet has set sail.”

  Alys gasped. “So soon?”

  Tynthanal shrugged. “It’s no surprise,” he told her gently. “They were always going to set sail as soon as the weather was favorable.”

  Alys knew that, of course. She had timed her own travel to Aaltah accordingly, so that she need not be absent from Women’s Well any longer than necessary. And from the moment the caravan she’d traveled with had arrived at the walls, she had seen evidence of how busily the city of Aalwell was preparing for the attack that was to come.

  The Harbor District—which had never fully recovered from the massive flood that had destroyed it upon the casting of the Blessing—had been forcibly evacuated, its residents installed in a rough encampment above the cliffs. To appease the rich nobles and merchants, the “riffraff” was encamped outside the city walls, although even the most haughty had to admit the commoners should come inside when the Khalpari forces arrived.

  For now, the Harbor District was the sole property of the Citadel of Aaltah, its buildings harboring much of the army that Tynthanal had gathered. Those who could afford to do so—and who were not among the fighting men who’d stayed behind—were packing up their households and moving farther inland, desperately hoping that when the smoke cleared and the dust settled, they would have homes and estates to return to in the capital.

  “Ellinsoltah says that she has information about the Khalpari battle plans,” Tynthanal continued. “Information she thought it would be best to share with both of us at once. I have also, on her suggestion, invited the lord commander to join us so that we might plan our strategy.”

  Belatedly, Alys saw the talker perched on Tynthanal’s desk. Her heart began thumping hard as she realized just how imminent the war really was. Even as she’d toured the city and seen the preparations, some part of her had still thought of it as a distant event, rather than an immediate threat. A fleet the size of Khalpar’s would take longer to reach Aalwell than any trade vessels,
but that still gave them less than a week to make final preparations for the attack.

  As she was absorbing the reality that war would be upon them so soon, one of the palace pages showed Lord Aldnor into the room. Although it was not strictly necessary for her to do so—as Sovereign Princess of Women’s Well, she certainly outranked him—Alys stood to greet him with a respectful nod.

  “Lord Aldnor,” she said, searching his face for any sign of dislike or contempt. Tynthanal had told her his old commander thought of both her and her brother as traitors to Aaltah and that Aldnor had not been one of the council members who’d voted to appoint Tynthanal as regent.

  But if Lord Aldnor harbored any ill feelings toward her, he did an effective job of hiding them. He gave her a shallow bow, then gave her brother a deeper one.

  “Your Royal Highness, Your Highness,” he said, fixing his gaze on Tynthanal. “Your message said you had received intelligence?”

  “Not quite yet,” Tynthanal said, gesturing at the two chairs.

  Lord Aldnor waited for Alys to retake her seat before he took his own. She saw his glance dart to the talker sitting on the desk, and his eyebrows rose.

  “It is Queen Ellinsoltah who has received the intelligence,” Tynthanal explained as he opened his Mindseye and plucked some Rho from the air to power the talker. “She will tell us what she has learned.”

  It only took a minute or so for Ellin to respond to her talker—obviously she and Tynthanal had coordinated this meeting and she had been awaiting his call. It was all Alys could do not to chew her lip in anxiety as Tynthanal introduced Lord Aldnor to the Queen of Rhozinolm.

  “Prince Tynthanal says you have received intelligence about the Khalpari plans?” Aldnor prompted almost immediately, apparently as anxious as Alys to hear the report.

  “Yes,” Ellin confirmed. “We have a high-ranking informant serving at the Citadel of Khalpar. He has sent word that he is to be a part of a small force that will accompany both Draios and Delnamal into battle.”

  Alys gasped, her eyes widening. “Delnamal is going to fight?” she asked incredulously, sharing a startled look with Tynthanal. She shook her head. “The Delnamal I knew was a coward and a bully and never would have put himself personally at risk.”

  “But the Delnamal you knew didn’t have the power to kill his enemies with some unholy magic no one has any idea how to counter,” Ellin said. “From what I hear, he considers himself all but invulnerable.”

  “I won’t disagree that Delnamal was a bully,” Lord Aldnor interjected, “but I don’t think he was as much of a coward as you think. He made spectacularly poor decisions—often for reasons that spoke more to personal animus than good sense—but his actions at the Well were those of a deluded fool, not a coward. I am not surprised to hear his pride has spurred him into fighting. I find the thought of Draios marching into battle far more surprising.”

  “I agree,” Tynthanal said. “From everything I’ve learned about him, he has had no military training whatsoever.”

  Ellin nodded. “My sources are in agreement about that. He decided to join the priesthood at an early age and therefore never had anything more than the most basic nobleman’s training. And it has been over a century since any king or sovereign prince felt the need to march into battle unless it was as a last resort, when all else was lost.”

  “Then why?” Alys asked, shaking her head.

  “We don’t fully know,” Ellin said. “At least, we don’t know why Draios is planning on fighting and accompanying Delnamal. What my source was able to learn is exactly what they are planning to do.”

  Tynthanal leaned forward in his chair. “We’re listening!”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Draios has convinced his people that they are embarking on a holy war, and that Delnamal is somehow a weapon sent to them by the Creator.”

  Alys wasn’t the only one who shook her head at the very idea. The Khalpari were a much more religiously inclined people, but it was still hard to accept that they would see anything holy in what Delnamal had become. But then perhaps their faith insisted that something so evil as Delnamal could not exist outside the will of the Creator, and that therefore he and Draios had concocted an explanation that was destined to fall on receptive ears.

  “Apparently,” Ellin continued, “Delnamal has convinced everyone that he can undo the Blessing by sacrificing himself at the Well of Aaltah.”

  “What?” Alys cried in shock. She didn’t know what she’d expected to hear, but it certainly wasn’t that.

  “There has to be some mistake,” Tynthanal said, looking as disbelieving as Alys felt. “Delnamal would never…” He let the words trail off.

  “This is madness,” Alys whispered as she tried to imagine her half-brother sacrificing himself for anything.

  Ellin’s shoulders lifted in a half-hearted shrug. “I’m just reporting what my contact has learned. If the fleet breaks through our blockade, they will sail straight into the harbor to make landfall. Delnamal is to be part of a small force that plans to scythe its way through the resistance and head straight to the Well.”

  “That’s suicide!” Lord Aldnor protested. “No one with any sense would attack Aalwell from the harbor. It’s far too easy to keep an invading army bottled up down there. Delnamal can’t expect to get all the way up the cliffs, into the palace, and down to the Well from there against our resistance.”

  Alys could do nothing but agree. The risers—magic-powered platforms that provided easy, if expensive, transport from the Harbor and Terrance Districts below the cliffs—would be frozen at the top of the cliffs as soon as the first enemy ship was spotted, and the only other way to get to the city proper, where the palace was located, was to travel up one of two narrow, zigzagging roads at each end of the harbor. These roads would be blocked and booby-trapped and heavily defended. The attackers would be forced to ascend in a narrow column of no more than three men abreast and would be vulnerable to attacks from the ramparts above. They would travel in a hail of arrows, crossbow bolts, rocks, and magic.

  “It seems Delnamal feels his powers will render him invulnerable,” Ellin said, though there was no small amount of skepticism in her voice.

  “And what about Draios?” Tynthanal demanded. “You said he and Delnamal would be making for the Well together. How can Draios possibly hope to survive, even if Delnamal is right and he can withstand all our defenses?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellin answered. “Our contact believes Draios is in possession of some kind of extraordinary Kai spell that will protect him, but he has not been able to learn anything about what it does. He just knows that there have been multiple private meetings between Delnamal, Draios, and the grand magus.”

  Lord Aldnor was frowning fiercely. “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” he said, “I believe you are being lied to. What you are describing is impossible. I believe the lie is designed to weaken and divide our defenses. Neither Delnamal nor Draios has anything resembling military experience, but they do have military advisers. It makes no sense to attack Aalwell by coming at us through the Harbor District and trying to climb those roads. The ships are far more likely to make landfall at Wellshead Beach, and then come at the city from behind. They want us to divert our forces to the harbor and leave our walls vulnerable.”

  That certainly seemed the more logical way to go about things, Alys thought. Wellshead Beach offered a conveniently long and hard-to-defend stretch of sandy beach less than half a day’s travel from Aalwell. An army landing there would be forced to deal with Aalwell’s heavily defended walls, but the walls would be easier to breach than the cliffs.

  “I can guarantee that I am not being lied to,” Ellin said with an edge in her voice. “I would not even bother sharing this intelligence if I thought that were a possibility.” The corners of her mouth tugged downward. “Although I must admit there’s always the
possibility that my informant has been lied to. He agrees with your assessment of the plan, Lord Aldnor, and has told me he believes he and the others are being sent on a suicide mission. However, he also believes Draios and Delnamal can pull this off, even if all the lesser mortals—he used that specific term—perish in the effort. There is magic in play here that is like nothing the world has ever known, and that makes me reluctant to dismiss any possibility, however outlandish it might sound.”

  Tynthanal shook his head. “We need more men,” he said bluntly. “If we must guard against the possibility of attack from either side, and must also man our fleet in hopes of stopping them before they make landfall…” He sighed in frustration.

  “I am sorry,” Ellinsoltah said, but there was steel in both her voice and face. “I have committed as many troops as I can when my own kingdom is also under threat. You have a substantial force ready to fight for you, and it may be that our navies can defeat them before a land war even begins.”

  Alys’s gut told her that although Aaltah would have naval support from Rhozinolm, Grunir, and the Midlands, they would be outnumbered and outclassed by the full force of the navies of Par and Khalpar.

  “Whichever direction they come from,” Ellin concluded, “I feel certain that Delnamal and Draios will be attempting to make their way to your Well.”

  “But not because Delnamal plans to sacrifice himself,” Alys said—for if there was one thing she was certain of, it was that. “The power he gained might have changed him, but not that much. He wants to undo the Blessing, but he would never, ever give his life for any cause.”

  “I agree,” Tynthanal said. “I suspect he has some other nefarious plan to damage the Well out of pure spite, and he has secured Draios’s aid by making a promise that boy would find appealing.”

  The lord commander looked skeptical. “In my experience, Delnamal is not what I would call a skilled liar, nor did he ever show much talent for manipulation. We of his council were willing to give him our loyalty and the benefit of the doubt, and yet he still managed to alienate practically every one of us during his short reign.”