Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  Visually following the path of the arrow, he found Rafetyn standing wide-eyed, his face pale. But after a brief nod of acknowledgment, his friend turned away and with shaking hands nocked another arrow.

  Weakly, Corlin tried to pull his legs out from under the fallen soldier, but the effort was futile. Turning his head to the side, he saw how his blood was pooling on the ground around him. Neither the wound in his belly nor the one on his face hurt anymore, which was both a relief and a very bad sign. He began to shiver with a chill he feared meant he had lost too much blood to survive.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered hoarsely as the sounds of battle quieted and his vision dimmed. He hoped she would forgive him for insisting on fighting.

  His consciousness slipped away.

  * * *

  —

  Alys’s hands trembled as she activated her Trapper spell and placed herself squarely between the Well and the doorway. The reports that had trickled in from the battlefield via her talker had led her to believe the Trapper spell would not hide her for long, but she hoped it would keep her hidden just long enough to perform her sacrifice.

  Her eyes welled with tears as she heard the shouts and screams coming from the antechamber. There was no way she could have convinced Tynthanal to let her wait unguarded by the Well, but she wished with all her heart she’d had the persuasive skills to pull it off. If Delnamal and Draios had the kind of magic that would allow them to fight their way through all of the defenders guarding the roads into the palace, then there was no reason to expect a small band of men—even if they were elite members of the king’s personal guard—to withstand the assault.

  She swiped angrily at a tear that leaked out of her eye. She would have yet more deaths weighing down her conscience, but at least she would not have to bear that burden for long.

  Although she had no faith to speak of, Alys found herself mouthing the words of a prayer her stepmother had taught her, asking the Creator for comfort and protection in a time of need. But there was no comfort to be had, not now. Not when men were fighting and dying just outside while she listened, not when she could not know whether her son was alive or dead, not when the only way to prevent Delnamal from defiling the Well was to take her own life and hope the purgative spell she’d created would work as she intended.

  Her heart ached, and her limbs felt heavy with dread and despair as she withdrew the knife from its scabbard and pushed back the sleeves of her dress. She wished she had faith, for it would be nice to think that she would be rewarded for her noble sacrifice in the afterlife. Nice to think that she was going to see Jinnell again very soon.

  But though she believed in Leethan’s vision, believed that it was her fate to die here in the Well chamber to save Aaltah, that belief had not opened her up to other forms of faith. If Leethan’s dream had been sent by a deity, that deity was not overly interested in the lives of mortals, or it never would have allowed all the atrocities in the world to occur.

  A horrifying shriek, joined by many voices, split the air in the Well chamber, the sound echoing off the stone walls, so full of pain and horror that it was all Alys could do not to drop the knife and cover her ears. Her soul shriveled inside her, her heart leaping into her throat and lodging there.

  The shriek came to an abrupt end, though the echoes continued for what felt like forever. And then there was silence.

  Alys swallowed hard and sank to her knees on the cold stone floor. She didn’t know exactly what had just happened out in the antechamber, but she did know that a lot of men had died at once. And from the silence that reigned when the echoes faded, Alys knew that there was not a defender left standing.

  It was almost time.

  Alys put the edge of the knife against her bare wrist, but she dared not cut until Delnamal came into view. If she invoked her Kai too early, and he decided to linger out in that antechamber for some reason…

  No. Agonizing as it was, she had to wait.

  She willed her hands to stop shaking as the door to the Well chamber opened and a black-robed figure stepped through. With the knife already pressed against her exposed flesh, Alys did not need her worldly vision anymore, so she opened her Mindseye—in part to spare herself from the horror of seeing the wound she was about to make.

  The moment her Mindseye was open, a gasp of surprise and terror escaped her, the sight of Delnamal’s aura shocking her into immobility and incaution.

  Thanks to the concerted—and longstanding—breeding program that had produced their mother, both Alys and Tynthanal had some extraordinary abilities. Each of them was capable of seeing some elements of the opposite gender, and for the most part, Alys had been taking her own ability for granted ever since she’d discovered it. But somehow, it had never occurred to her that she might be able to see masculine Kai. It was an element only the most magically gifted men had the power to see, and she had always assumed it beyond her abilities.

  And yet, having seen more than her fair share of women’s Kai, Alys had no difficulty recognizing the huge, dense cloud of multicolored crystals that surrounded her half-brother as he entered the Well chamber.

  Perhaps she should have been prepared for the sight. After all, Xanvin had warned in her long-ago letter that Delnamal stole the Kai of those he killed. And she knew that he must have been gorging himself on death on his journey up the cliffs. And yet even so, she found herself staring in openmouthed shock at the glittering cloud of death that surrounded him.

  The paralysis lasted only a moment, but that moment cost her dearly.

  Alys saw Delnamal’s arm move toward her, and she slashed the knife downward on her wrist. But her hand was shaking, and the spell slammed into her and knocked her back onto her heels. She kept hold of the knife—just barely—and made to try again, already doubting she would have time to finish her sacrifice before it was too late. It was her impression that her Kai would not appear immediately, that she would have to bleed enough to make her death a certainty first. But there was nothing left but to try—and thank the Creator she didn’t truly believe in that Delnamal hadn’t cast his death spell at her.

  “Shoot her!” she heard Delnamal yell, and realized that, of course, he had nullified her Trapper spell the moment he’d stepped through the doorway, fully prepared to meet with more resistance inside the Well chamber.

  Something slammed into her chest, drawing a cry of pain from her throat and once again knocking her backward. This time, she couldn’t keep her grip on the knife. She heard it hit the floor and slide as she collapsed, the pain so intense it whited out her Mindsight. But she didn’t have time to wallow in pain. She could not give up.

  Alys closed her Mindseye. The pain in her chest made every breath hurt, and her bodice was soaked with blood. If the wound was a fatal one, it was marginally possible that because of her bloodline, she might produce and use masculine Kai. But if masculine Kai could have triggered the purgative spell as they had all hoped, there was little doubt it would have worked by now. Her death needed to be a willing sacrifice, not a murder.

  She had a brief glimpse of Delnamal hovering in the doorway, surrounded by a veritable sea of identical young men, several of whom were pointing crossbows in her direction. Draios, she presumed.

  Alys turned over, reaching desperately for the knife and hoping it would take a moment for Draios to load another bolt. Hard to believe it would take long enough for her to get to her knife, slash her wrist, harvest her Kai, and cast the purgative spell, but what choice did she have?

  The crossbow bolt that was lodged in her chest hit the floor when she turned over, and she lost precious moments to another wave of pain that stole her will. She groped blindly for the knife, her fingers hitting it—and sending it skittering again. As her vision cleared, she watched in horror and despair as the knife tipped over the edge of the Well and fell in.

  She began to shiver as her blood cont
inued to pour from the wound, gathering in a thick pool beneath her, and her vision went dark around the edges. She opened her Mindseye once more, but a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Reflexively, she closed her eyes against it. And found that no matter how urgently she ordered herself to open them, they refused to obey.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Kailee clapped a hand hard over her mouth to trap the cry of dismay that wanted to fly out when she saw Alys go down. The Well chamber was awash with elements pouring from the Well, making it harder for her to pick out the human auras, but she had followed close enough on Draios’s heels—stopping to pick up a sword and a healing spell from one of the fallen—to see him fire his crossbow and hear Alys’s cry of pain. Then Alys’s aura fell to the floor.

  The Sovereign Princess of Women’s Well—and Aaltah’s last hope—was still alive, as Kailee could tell by the aura of Rho that stubbornly clung to her. But she was no longer moving, and the chances that she could successfully perform her sacrifice had died when that crossbow bolt hit her.

  With tears in her eyes and terror in her soul, Kailee looked at Draios as the boy king sauntered casually toward the Well, secure in his victory. She clutched the sword she carried more tightly, but though she could clearly distinguish the aura of the real Draios, there seemed little point in trying to murder him now, when all was already lost. She bit down hard on her tongue to stifle a protest when Draios casually kicked Alys’s limp body out of his way so he could stand on the lip of the Well and look down.

  “That was almost anticlimactic,” Draios said. “I expected it to be harder.”

  Delnamal made a soft snorting sound, then turned away from the Well and strode toward the chamber door. Kailee had to move hastily so that he would not collide with her and discover her presence.

  “Where are you going?” Draios asked sharply. “You still have a vow to fulfill!”

  “In a moment,” Delnamal called over his shoulder. “I just want to close the door. I’m sure there are reinforcements heading our way as we speak.”

  “It won’t matter once you complete your mission!” Draios said impatiently, and though Kailee knew almost nothing about the man, she could hear the faintest edge of uncertainty in his voice.

  Thanks to Ellinsoltah’s informant, Kailee knew that Delnamal’s supposed plan was to somehow undo what he called the Curse by sacrificing himself at the Well. No one in Aaltah actually believed he meant to do any such thing, but Draios could never have raised an army of the size he had without convincing all of Par and Khalpar that they were on a holy mission, and it seemed unlikely he could have pulled that off if he didn’t believe it himself.

  Perhaps now that the moment of victory was upon them, Draios was finally beginning to contemplate the possibility that he had been duped.

  Kailee heard the chamber door close with a heavy thunk. Delnamal remained standing directly in front of it.

  “I regret to inform you that one of us is indeed going to sacrifice his life,” Delnamal said, “but it will not be me.”

  Draios went entirely still. “What are you talking about?”

  This time, there was no missing the tinge of fear in the young man’s voice. Biting her lip, Kailee glanced over at Alys’s still form, seeing that the aura of Rho that surrounded her seemed thinner and weaker. But she was still alive, at least for the moment.

  Kailee glanced at the healing spell she had almost reflexively grabbed on her way in. It was a masculine battlefield spell, one that was meant to heal wounds far greater than those a women’s healing potion could handle, but it still held some of the same elements as did the healing potions she’d taught the abigails of Aaltah to create. She could say for certain that it was a healing spell, but she could not guess how powerful it was or whether it would work to heal Alys’s wound.

  “I never had any intention of throwing myself into the Well,” Delnamal said. “I have never been terribly religious, and if the Creator has any grand schemes for me, I have no intention of fulfilling them.”

  Ever so carefully, afraid she might make a sound and alert the two men to her presence, Kailee began inching toward Alys.

  The crossbow fired again, and Delnamal made a soft grunting sound. However, unlike Alys, he did not fall down. In fact, it looked from his aura as if what he did instead was reach up and casually pluck the bolt from his body with all the difficulty of removing a piece of lint from his doublet. And he laughed.

  “Really?” he said, still chuckling. “After all you’ve seen, you think you can kill me with your little crossbow? How quaint. All you’ve done is make it easy for me to pick you out from the crowd.”

  With a yelp, Draios suddenly leapt to the side, his aura staggering about drunkenly. At first, Kailee thought Delnamal had done something to him—although she hadn’t seen Delnamal move or reach for a magic item. Then she realized the meaning of Delnamal’s words and saw that Draios was trying to lose himself among the doubles again after his shot with the crossbow had revealed his location.

  “Yes, yes, very clever,” Delnamal said. “But you may have noticed I’m not carrying a crossbow. When I kill you, I’ll have to do it up close. So I’ll just wait until your spell wears off and there’s only one of you. It shouldn’t be long now. It’s been a good quarter hour since I last refreshed it for you.”

  As Kailee continued inching closer to Alys, she felt a foolish surge of pity for the young king. Draios was only seventeen years old, and if she was to believe everything she’d heard about him, he had somehow convinced himself—or allowed himself to be convinced—that his attack on Aaltah was not only justified, but righteous. That he was doing what his god commanded of him. What a devastating shock it must be to learn that the hand that had been guiding him had not belonged to his god, after all.

  “Why are you doing this?” Draios asked, and she heard a combination of terror and hopelessness and betrayal in his voice. “Why would you want to…to kill me, after everything I’ve…”

  “After everything you’ve done for me?” Delnamal supplied helpfully.

  Kailee reached Alys’s body and sank down to her knees, feeling around gently and carefully to find where the bolt pierced the older woman’s chest. She shuddered when she felt the blood that soaked Alys’s bodice, and it was all she could do not to snatch her hand away.

  “It’s nothing personal,” Delnamal said. “At first, I merely intended to retake my kingdom, and you seemed my only path to success. But then I decided I didn’t really want Aaltah back. Being king was tiresome in the extreme.

  “No, what I want to do is punish Aaltah for all its crimes against me. The last time I was here at this Well, my secretary was mortally wounded and fell into it as he was dying. It was clear that the Well reacted poorly to the Kai from the moment Melcor fell.

  “My theory is that Melcor’s Kai encountered a mote of Rhokai that naturally occurs in the Well. That mote then shattered, releasing yet another mote of Kai and creating a chain reaction. If allowed to continue, the reaction likely would have killed the Well and maybe even collapsed the chamber, taking the palace with it.

  “I can’t say I know exactly what Mairahsol did, but I know she stopped the chain reaction and saved the Well—and Aaltah. But I intend to finish what Melcor’s Kai began. And that’s where you come in.”

  Kailee knew she had to get the bolt out of Alys’s chest before her healing spell had any chance of working. She hoped Delnamal and Draios were both distracted enough by their confrontation not to notice what was happening.

  Swallowing hard against revulsion and dread, Kailee gripped the crossbow bolt with her bloody hand. It was harder than she would have imagined to pull that deeply embedded bolt out of Alys’s body, and her hand slipped off the shaft with her first try.

  “I don’t understand,” Draios said. He sounded not like the terrifying enemy king, but like a lost little boy.

&n
bsp; Kailee held her breath, not daring to move. The sound her hand had made when it slid off the bolt had seemed terrifyingly loud to her own ears, but neither Draios nor Delnamal had noticed it. She let her breath out in a long, quiet sigh, gripping the bolt once again.

  Delnamal chuckled, unmoved by the pain and fear his betrayal was causing. “What is there not to understand? When your spell has worn off and I can easily get to you, I’m going to run you through. Then, as you are dying, I will push you into the Well.”

  “B-but…you said yourself that the chamber might have collapsed if the Kai remained in the Well. Y-you could be killed right along with me!”

  “You say that as if you think I care. I would like to survive the catastrophe, of course. The moment I have put you into the Well, I will attempt to make my escape. As you can clearly see, I can take a great deal of damage without actually dying. But even if I am killed, I will have built for myself a legacy the likes of which I never could have dreamed of in my days as king. History may revile me, but it will not be as a coward and a weakling.”

  Kailee could hardly believe what she was hearing. Certainly it did not jibe with the descriptions Oona had given her of a basically good and decent man who’d been embittered and made cruel by forces beyond his control. Not that Kailee had ever fully believed in Oona’s vision of her husband, but she had at least allowed for the possibility that Alys and Tynthanal—and the rest of the Kingdom of Aaltah—were mistaken about his nature.

  It was now abundantly clear that it was Oona who’d been mistaken. And, Kailee realized, it was also abundantly clear that Delnamal could not be allowed to carry out his plan—and there was no one who could stop him except her.