Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  Knowing she didn’t have much time, Kailee put both hands on the crossbow bolt, then waited until Draios started talking again to give it a mighty tug.

  “Surely there are other, better ways you can build your legacy!” Draios protested, his voice high and shrill with desperation. “With your powers, you are nearly an unstoppable force. You can conquer all of Seven Wells and reign as the king of the world!”

  The bolt held fast against the first tug, then came loose so suddenly that Kailee nearly fell. The sound of her faltering was covered by Delnamal’s laugh.

  “Why would you think I want to be king of the world when I found being king of a kingdom tiresome?” he asked. “You might want to think about what your last words will be. Your spell should run out any minute now. And if you think swinging your sword around is going to deter me, you will be in for a terrible disappointment.”

  Panting with exertion, Kailee activated the healing spell, laying the brooch in which it was contained on Alys’s chest near the wound. She didn’t know how long it would take to restore Alys to health—if indeed it was strong enough to heal so grievous a wound—and she hoped Alys would not do anything to draw attention while she healed.

  Kailee wanted to take a moment to gather herself, but if Delnamal was right and time was running out, she didn’t dare.

  She had to stop Delnamal from poisoning the Well, as impossible as it seemed.

  She could not stop it by killing Delnamal; that much was clear. Unlike Draios, his defenses were not born of spells that she could deactivate.

  No, the only way to stop Delnamal was to kill Draios before Delnamal had a chance to throw him into the Well.

  * * *

  —

  Waldmir was far too unguarded to notice when Leethan drew the knife. If she’d been just about anybody else, she doubted he would have allowed her to turn her back on him as she had; certainly he would have found the motion of her hand suspicious as she grabbed the knife’s cleverly disguised hilt and withdrew it from the camouflage of the boning of her bodice. In fact, he trusted her so completely that he didn’t even notice the first slash at her wrist.

  Leethan had imagined performing her sacrifice in noble stoicism, but the pain of the cut drew a soft whimper from her throat.

  “What’s the matter?” Waldmir asked, the concern in his voice unmistakable. And guilt-inducing.

  You have no reason to feel guilty, she admonished herself harshly as she shifted the knife to her other hand, which was already wet with her blood. She was doing what the Mother of All had all but commanded her to do, and although there was no denying that setting off this Kai spell in the midst of an unsuspecting camp was a deeply dishonorable deed, the results would be worth it. She would decapitate the Nandel army, and they would have no choice but to retreat. Whether the army of Rhozinolm could then get to Aaltah in time to render aid was still in doubt, but they would at least have the possibility.

  She heard Waldmir’s sudden, shocked gasp, and she turned to him, blood now flowing freely from both her wrists as tears also flowed from her eyes. She shook her head.

  “I’m so sorry,” she choked out, drinking in the sight of him one more time before opening her Mindseye to see that her cuts had run true. A tricolored mote of Kai—just like the ones she had seen in her dream—was shimmering into existence in the air before her.

  “What have you done?” Waldmir shouted, an edge of panic in his voice.

  His shout roused others, and though she could not see the physical world clearly, Leethan was aware of the clanking of armor and weapons as Waldmir’s guards ran to his aid.

  “Leethan, no!” Waldmir cried again, and she heard a wealth of emotions in those words.

  She reached for the mote of Kai, grabbing it without giving herself time to think or feel any further. She shoved the Kai at the dagger’s blade, where the deadly Kai spell was waiting to be triggered…

  And nothing happened.

  Letting out her own cry of shock and dismay, she tried again, but the spell failed to absorb the mote of Kai and failed to activate. Her knees trembled, and she wasn’t sure if that trembling was entirely due to the loss of blood. She tried to activate the spell for the third time, and for the third time, she failed.

  Again.

  The Mother of All had led her here only to watch her throw away her life for nothing? Perhaps this was her punishment for failing to give Waldmir the son he needed.

  The shouts from outside the tent grew louder, and she saw a flood of man-shaped Rho auras flow into the tent.

  There was some comfort in knowing that she would not live long enough to experience Waldmir’s wrath, she thought, shuddering as she closed her Mindseye. Waldmir was staring at her, aghast, with his Mindseye open, and she knew he was trying to prise out the dagger’s secrets. Alysoon’s concealment spell could not withstand such close scrutiny, and Leethan was sure he now understood exactly what she’d just tried to do.

  He closed his Mindseye, his expression one of shock and pain. He started to say something to her, then suddenly whirled on one of the men who had entered the tent at his first cry.

  “No!” Waldmir shouted. “Stop!”

  Leethan saw the soldier pointing a crossbow at her head. He was close enough that he could not possibly miss even if the bolt wasn’t spelled.

  Everything seemed to slow down, and she watched in morbid fascination as the soldier’s finger tightened on the trigger, a snarl of rage on his face. She had time to see how the blood had drained from Waldmir’s face, how his eyes were wide with what looked more like terror than anger as he held out a hand toward the soldier who was about to shoot her.

  And then, just as the soldier loosed his bolt, Waldmir threw himself toward her, putting himself directly in the path of the bolt.

  His body slammed into her, knocking the breath out of her and taking them both to the floor with a bone-jarring thud. He cried out in what sounded like pain, and the shouting soldiers suddenly went quiet.

  “What are you doing?” Leethan asked with what little breath she had left. Her vision was beginning to waver around the edges, but not so much that she couldn’t see the crossbow bolt that had lodged itself deep in his back. It must have been spelled after all, for it had pierced his armor.

  “Stay back!” Waldmir roared at his men, covering her with his body.

  “Help him!” Leethan cried in protest, but her voice was too weak to carry, and no one was going to listen to her anyway. For a moment, she forgot that her whole purpose in coming here had been to assassinate her former husband. And she couldn’t quite comprehend that he had put himself in harm’s way to save her.

  Surely he’d seen and recognized what she had tried to do.

  Waldmir’s eyes went white, and he touched the cabochon in the brooch that clasped his cloak at his throat. She was instantly aware of the surge of energy that flowed into her blood—the unmistakable rush of powerful healing magic. Her first, horrifying thought was that he’d saved her only so that he might arrange a slower, more creative death to punish her, but he did not immediately get off and order his guards to seize her, and the look in his eyes was one of anguish, not anger.

  “You can’t save me,” she whispered, even as the wounds at her wrists sealed themselves up and her vision began to clear.

  As the sovereign prince, Waldmir had an extraordinary amount of power, and he would be free to pardon almost any crime. But this had been a clear and obvious assassination attempt, and though the soldiers hadn’t witnessed her failed attempts to trigger her Kai spell, they would find it on her person when the spell hiding it wore off, and they would know exactly what she had hoped to do. The most Waldmir could hope for was to commute her sentence to a swift and painless death.

  “Why, Leethan?” he whispered back. “What did you see?”

  One of his men took a step closer, reachi
ng for him, and Waldmir snarled for everyone to stay back.

  Tears clouded Leethan’s eyes. Of course Waldmir would guess she’d been acting on a vision. He was no fool, and he knew her well. Just as she knew him well enough to realize that telling him she’d seen Elwynne ascending to the throne of Nandel would not have the desired effect. A man who would side with the likes of Draios and Delnamal would be appalled at the thought of his throne passing to a woman, even when that woman was his daughter. She hadn’t the creativity or the mental reserves to lie to him, so she instead simplified the truth down to something she thought he might find palatable enough to spare her from a traitor’s death.

  “I saw a way to stop the war of succession that would follow your death.” Waldmir’s eyes widened, his whole body giving a start, which then made him wince in pain. His cheeks were leached of color, and a fine tremor shook his whole body.

  “You need a healer,” she said, but when one of his men tried again to approach, Waldmir snarled once more.

  “Don’t touch me!” he commanded, and the man reluctantly stepped back.

  “I’m so sorry,” Leethan choked out, and wondered if her own ambivalence had been the reason the spell had failed. No matter how strongly she believed that Waldmir’s death was necessary, she had not succeeded in forcing herself to want it.

  “Don’t be,” Waldmir said, his voice sounding thin and thready as he stroked the side of her face. “You don’t know what a burden it has been upon my soul knowing that I would leave Nandel to tear itself apart. Something inside me died when you told me I would not have a son, and now you have given me hope that my legacy will not be entirely tarnished by my failures as a man and sovereign prince.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, frowning as he shivered again. He had lost a lot of blood already. “You really need a healer. Now!”

  Waldmir shook his head, his eyes going filmy white. He grabbed a mote of what she assumed was Rho and activated a spell in the ring he wore on his thumb. “There will be a lot of fear and confusion,” he said, his hand reaching out again and plucking another invisible mote from the air. “Take my cloak and hood, and slip away before order is restored.”

  “What are you—”

  “And if you make it back to Zinolm Well safely, take care of my child. She deserved better from me than what she got.”

  It wasn’t until his hand touched the Kai spell in her knife and an earsplitting roar filled the air that she realized what he meant to do.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Alys clawed her way up through the pressing darkness of an airless tunnel. When she reached the surface, she drew in a gasping breath that sent pain stabbing through her entire body, and her eyes flew open.

  She was in the Well chamber, and there was a pain in her chest so powerful she could hardly breathe around it. In the background, she heard the rumble of male voices, although she could not immediately identify the speakers.

  Memory came back to her in a frantic rush.

  Delnamal stepping into the Well chamber.

  Alys preparing to perform her sacrifice.

  Delnamal casting something that deactivated the Trapper spell that had kept her hidden.

  The crossbow bolt slamming into her chest, dealing her a mortal wound.

  The slide into unconsciousness after her flailing hand had sent her knife skittering into the Well.

  She should be dead. A quick glance down at her chest made her wonder if somehow she actually was dead, if she was even now awakening to some sort of afterlife as described in the Devotional. There was so much blood soaking her bodice!

  She blinked in confusion, then realized two things in quick succession: there was no longer a crossbow bolt sticking out of her chest, and there was a smooth cabochon resting in the space between her breasts, right next to where the bolt had taken her.

  Someone had removed the bolt and cast a healing spell on her.

  She had not the strength to do more than turn her head to look for her mysterious benefactor, but when she did, she caught sight of Delnamal and Draios. Well, many Draioses, all of whom were dancing around in some twisting, turning, complex dance as they moved restlessly around the chamber.

  As her wound continued to heal, the pain finally growing less, Alys could see no one else in the Well chamber with her. Her mind clearing more by the second, she began to comprehend the words Delnamal and Draios were tossing at each other, began to see the horror that Delnamal was planning.

  How she wished she hadn’t dropped the damn knife. She felt along her person as if she might somehow find a weapon she hadn’t remembered arming herself with. She didn’t know if casting the stolen Rhokai out of Delnamal would stop him from carrying out his plan, but she had to try.

  And if they see that you’re alive and conscious, she reminded herself, you might not stay that way. She did not dare move too much or make any sound to draw their attention.

  There were plenty of pins tucked into her gown and her headdress, but none of those would be weapons she could use to perform her sacrifice, and she had nothing else on her person. Turning her head about very slowly and carefully, she sought the crossbow bolt that should have killed her. Eventually, she saw it lying on the cavern floor well out of her reach.

  She wanted to lunge for it, but held herself in check. Aside from the danger of drawing attention to herself, there was also the fact that her body was far from fully healed. Just turning her head was an exhausting effort, and she was not sure she had the strength to cross even the short distance that separated her from the bolt. Not to mention that the bolt didn’t look particularly sharp. Not like a knife that would slice quickly and cleanly through her wrist. Surely given time, she could create the necessary fatal wound—but once she drew attention to herself, time was not a luxury she would have.

  Fighting against a sick feeling of hopelessness and failure, Alys willed the healing spell to finish its job so that she could kill herself.

  * * *

  —

  Kailee was shaking so hard she was half-surprised no one heard her teeth chattering, though she supposed Delnamal and Draios were so focused on each other that it would take a considerably louder noise than that to distract them. It was one thing to decide that she needed to kill Draios before Delnamal had a chance to. It was quite another to actually do it. Her chest tightened with panic, and although she urged herself to move closer to Draios, her feet remained rooted to the floor.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Draios was saying, and the quaver in his voice made him sound so young and vulnerable that Kailee’s heart bled for him. The sound of his many voices bounced off the walls of the cavern, the echoes and his constant movement ensuring that Delnamal could not pick him out from the camouflage of his doubles. Something that would not be true if Kailee hesitated long enough for the doubling spell to wear off.

  “Surely we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement,” Draios continued.

  Delnamal snorted softly. “You have nothing that I want. I will attempt to make your death as painless as possible under the circumstances.”

  Kailee cringed, as she suspected did Draios himself. Delnamal’s stated plan was to deliver a fatal wound that would generate Kai—which by definition did not occur unless the death was a lingering one. Draios would have plenty of time to feel the terror and suffering before he was finally overcome.

  Tears snaked down Kailee’s cheeks, and she fought against an almost overwhelming desire to flee the cavern. She had come to the Well because she planned to deactivate Draios’s doubling spell so that someone could kill him. She knew that in the aftermath, she would have struggled with the guilt of having caused a human being—especially a boy of only seventeen—to die, but she had acknowledged that it was necessary, and there had been comfort in knowing she would only facilitate the death, rather than cause it herself. But this…
this was something entirely different.

  She was the one who insisted on seeing the good in people everyone else reviled, who believed that just about anyone was redeemable. How cruel was the fate that had put her in a position where she had to kill someone. She did not want to become a murderer! And yet to give in to her instincts and shy away from what she must do would cause so much more death and destruction.

  She glanced desperately over her shoulder, hoping to see that Alys’s healing had completed at an impossible speed, hoping against hope that somehow Alys could take this burden from her. But although the princess’s aura looked brighter and more wholesome, she was still lying on the floor. Kailee could see that she was moving, if only slightly, but it was impossible to imagine that she could somehow muster the strength to kill Draios—even supposing she knew how important it was for Draios to die.

  Still shaking and crying, Kailee finally found the will to force her feet forward. She could not afford to wait any longer. If Delnamal was as invulnerable as he seemed, then Draios would be doomed the moment his doubling spell wore off. How could he fight a man who could not be hurt?

  Taking a deep, steadying breath that nonetheless shook and faltered, she gripped the sword she had picked up in the antechamber with both hands. In order to spoil Delnamal’s plans, she had to kill Draios immediately, for a lingering death would give Delnamal exactly what he needed. It meant that she couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t allow her natural instincts to control her.

  Moving carefully—and thankful that Draios’s constant movements combined with the echoes masked the sound of her own footfalls—she approached him, studying the spells that were contained in his armor. One of them was most likely a shield spell, which she would need to deactivate before she struck.

  Kailee had seen enough men wearing shield spells that she was able to identify it with a fair level of certainty, despite her inability to see masculine elements. She could see the neuter element called Cor, which she knew was one of the key elements of shield spells, and there was a cluster of Cor motes gathered around the middle finger of his left hand, right where a ring might sit.