by Jenna Glass
“How can we possibly survive out there?” she asked, shaking her head and wondering if what they had received was in fact a slow death sentence.
“I traveled to the edge of the Wasteland once before,” Tynthanal said. “It is a truly desolate place, but there are a few small villages within a reasonable distance. You will be able to get the supplies you need.”
“With what money?” she demanded. “From my understanding, there are so few elements in the area we will not be able to produce even ordinary potions and spells, and there are even fewer men than elements. How are we to fund our survival?”
“I do not know.” He squeezed her hands between his, his touch warm and welcome, and yet powerless to truly soothe her. “I have here only an advance warning from my informant, not the whole of the plan. But though my father is a hard man, I don’t believe he will send the entire Abbey to its death. He will make provisions for your survival, one way or another. And I feel certain your exile will be only temporary.” He smiled faintly, though there was still sadness in his eyes. “I suspect he will find that the nobility of Aaltah will not be pleased to be denied access to the Abbey.”
Chanlix suspected he was right, but that knowledge was little comfort when she imagined embarking on that exile and trying to survive its rigors until the king relented.
* * *
—
The magic lessons were progressing more slowly than Alys might have hoped, but progressing nonetheless. In their last lesson together, she and Jinnell had brought the number of elements identified up to thirty-five, but it was frustrating to go at Jinnell’s pace, and Alys sometimes wondered if she should just skip ahead herself and let her daughter catch up.
The magic lessons were just one small part in Alys’s strategy to protect her daughter. The more vital need was to find a husband who could protect Jinnell from Delnamal’s schemes, but the more she’d thought about it, the more convinced she’d become that the only way to accomplish her goal was to involve her father—as delicate a prospect as that might be. Her preference was to marry Jinnell to someone outside of Aaltah and thereby keep her out of Delnamal’s reach, but she did not have sufficient contacts of her own to make that happen.
So when she sent a flier to the palace requesting an audience with the king, she was not surprised to find it granted the very next day. Their last meeting had been undeniably tense, but she had no doubt that her father still loved her, and he was likely overjoyed to find her reaching out to him. It was only hours after she’d arranged for the audience that she heard the devastating news about the Abbey.
She wept tears of mingled anger and grief when she thought about the unfortunate women who would be punished so terribly for her mother’s crime. She couldn’t decide whose betrayal was the worst: her father’s, for taking his anger out on these helpless women, or her mother’s, for putting them in harm’s way in the first place. It was apparent that Alys had never seen her mother as clearly as she’d thought, and no amount of suffering the woman had endured could excuse the heartlessness of her actions. She might not have foreseen all the consequences of her spell, but she’d had an inkling, and she had done it anyway. But at least she’d been acting on the noble ideal of improving the lives of women, whereas the king had no such benevolent motive. Razing the Abbey and banishing the women was an act of revenge, pure and simple.
Tempted though she was to invent a graceful excuse to back out of the audience she herself had requested, Alys knew that she could not afford to anger her father. His actions against the Abbey had almost certainly been prompted by Delnamal, and she dared not let her half-brother’s influence grow any stronger than it already was. She had to follow through, and she had to contain her anger and hurt.
The only good news was that the risers were finally operational once more, so a trip to the palace was no longer a day-long commitment. Alys chose her wardrobe carefully, wearing as many of her father’s gifts as she could coordinate. He had always favored rubies—the most feminine of stones in appearance, although they were a natural source of Del, a masculine element. She chose a large and stunning ruby brooch that ordinarily she found too ostentatious, a pair of dangling ruby earrings, and a luxurious fur-lined cloak that was perhaps her favorite gift her father had ever given her. Most of the jewels were simply too queenly for a woman of her rank, and the rest of the minor nobility would have thought her pretentious for wearing them. Even now, she kept the cloak tight around her to cover the brooch as her honor guard escorted her to the palace.
Alys experienced a pang when she set foot inside the Rose Room, for it had been her mother’s personal favorite. She remembered helping Queen Brynna select the fabric for the soft yellow rose-embroidered curtains for the large west-facing windows that offered a spectacular view of the sunset in the evening. Back in the happy days of her childhood, before the divorce, she had often joined her mother in front of those windows to watch the sun sink in a flourish of red and orange and gold. And despite the change in circumstances and all the intervening years, neither the king nor Queen Xanvin had ever felt the need to redecorate.
Alys strolled around the room, indulging in memories of better days, while she waited for her father to arrive. She was running her fingers over a beautiful crystal vase that had been a gift from her father to her mother when she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. She turned, and moments later her father stepped through the doorway. She bobbed a curtsy as she battled against all the emotions that swelled and roiled in her breast. She needed to keep her temper and her focus, for she would need the king’s aid and blessing to find the most advantageous match for Jinnell.
Her father appeared rather more haggard than he had the last time she had seen him, and she was surprised that he was still wearing the spelled circlet that should have been unnecessary within the confines of his own palace. She wondered if Delnamal was whispering in his ear of imaginary threats, bending and manipulating the king to his will. Then she almost laughed at herself for imagining such cunning in her half-brother. He was not a man of subtlety, nor did he often bother to consider the consequences of his actions or form complex plans.
A maid entered the room carrying a tray with a shining silver tea service and a basket of currant-stuffed buns, a childhood favorite of Alys’s. She glanced at her father as the maid carefully set the tray down and poured out two cups of fragrant tea stained vibrant red with rose petals.
“Rose tea in the Rose Room?” she asked her father, surprised to find herself smiling.
He returned her smile, though there was a wary look in his eye as he took a seat and gestured for her to join him. She did not need to put her feelings about the Abbey into words for him to know exactly how she felt about the order he had given.
“I was not trying to be clever,” her father said as he picked up his cup and dismissed the maid. “The queen has taken it into her head that rose tea is calming for the digestion, and she insists I must drink one cup of tea for every glass of wine I consume over the course of the day. I am trying to stay ahead of the game.”
Alys picked up her own cup and set a delicate currant bun on the saucer beside it. Rose tea was not greatly to her liking, though it was pretty to look at and smelled lovely. She took a sip to be polite, then popped the currant bun into her mouth and reveled in the explosion of flavor. Currants were a rare and expensive import from the queen’s home kingdom of Khalpar, and though Alys’s estate was sufficient to support her and the children with money to spare, she would not dream of buying currants for anything but a special occasion. A fact of which she suspected her father was well aware, just as he was aware how much she loved them.
She wanted very much to tell him he could not bribe her to silence with a few delicious currant buns, but all she had to do to stifle any such witticisms was remind herself of the danger to Jinnell.
The king sipped his tea and watched her eat, the tension in his shoul
ders proclaiming that he was ready to leap to his own defense the moment she launched an attack. One might almost imagine him the possessor of a guilty conscience.
“Is it truly necessary to banish all the abigails to the outer reaches of the kingdom?” she found herself asking despite all her best intentions to remain silent. At least she kept her voice level and reasonable. As attacks went, it was almost embarrassingly mild.
Fire flashed in the king’s eyes, and he put his cup down with a soft click. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and Alys cursed herself for her lack of self-control.
“Your flier arrived before you could possibly have learned about the Abbey,” he said. “I can only assume you had something else you wanted to discuss with me, as I am sure you did not reach out to me for the pleasure of my company.”
Perhaps those words were meant as some kind of rebuke, but her father had never had much success in making Alys feel guilty, and this time was no different. However, there was no point in starting an argument, and if she could have gone back in time and stuffed the words down her own throat, she would have.
“Forgive me, Papa,” she said, though it galled her to apologize. “You are right, and I have something important I want to speak with you about.”
The anger faded to wariness once more, as if he were not convinced she would drop her grievance this quickly. “And what might that be?”
Here was where the situation immediately became delicate, for she knew better than to try to make her father see the poisonous hatred that lived within Delnamal. He would not call her a liar if she spoke of her half-brother’s threats, but he would insist she had somehow mistaken her brother’s meaning. At the very best, he would consider the threats empty.
“I was hoping to enlist your aid in finding a good match for Jinnell,” she said.
The king looked vaguely puzzled. “I have already committed to increasing her dowry.”
The dowry Alys could provide from her husband’s estate would have been respectable on its own, but the additional contribution of the king’s funds ensured Jinnell made a tempting match even to the highest ranks of the Aaltah nobility.
“Money is not an issue,” Alys hastened to assure her father.
He nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. You aren’t the type to have frittered away your husband’s estate.”
Very much to the contrary, Alys was conspicuously frugal without being miserly. “Her dowry is secure. But she is my only daughter, and I want to see her presented with the best options.” She gave her father a wheedling smile. “I want her marriage to be as successful as my own.”
Her father returned the smile, but still looked puzzled. He was trying to discern in advance where this conversation was leading, and so far he had failed to do so.
“I want that as well,” he assured her. “She is, after all, my only granddaughter. We both wish her to have the best of everything.”
Alys realized that his continued puzzlement meant Delnamal had not yet begun building the case for sending Jinnell to Nandel. “I would like to expand my search beyond the borders of Aaltah, but I have little familiarity with the noble houses outside our kingdom.”
“Ah,” said her father, finally understanding. The last bit of tension faded from his shoulders. Alys wondered just what he’d feared she would ask of him. She might have been hurt that he regarded her with such suspicion, but she couldn’t deny that she had earned it through decades of mildly adversarial relations between them.
“I’m surprised you’re willing to entertain the possibility of sending Jinnell away,” he said with a curious tilt of his head.
“It is not my preference,” she said, though of course that was exactly what she was trying to engineer. She would not compromise her daughter’s safety because of her own selfish desire to have her near. “But when you were looking for a husband for me, you cast your net wide and presented me a quite dizzying array of options. I’m sure I would have loved Sylnin had he been the only choice I had, but I’m also sure I appreciated him more for having met so many other suitors.”
It would not have been surprising at all if her father had chosen her husband without allowing her any input into the decision. Illegitimate as she was, she was still a king’s daughter, and could very easily have been used to strengthen diplomatic ties or to induce favorable trade agreements. But despite their fiery relationship, he had clearly wanted her to be happy, and when she’d fallen for Sylnin—a man who could bring no additional benefits to the royal family—he’d given the union his blessing. She wanted the same kind of marriage for her own daughter while also moving her safely out of Delnamal’s reach.
The king nodded. “You have my blessing to cast your net as wide as necessary to find a husband who will make my granddaughter happy. I know the late King of Rhozinolm had a grandson—illegitimate, but acknowledged—who is young and unmarried and well thought of. Prince Waldmir also has a young, unmarried nephew who was meant to marry Princess Ellinsoltah before she became queen. We certainly wouldn’t want to send Jinnell to Nandel, but that doesn’t mean we should not present the option. From what I hear, he is quite handsome and charming.”
Alys suppressed a shudder. She had come to her father in search of options that did not include Nandel, but she supposed as long as he did not suggest the sovereign prince himself, she had no cause to object.
“You should schedule an audience with Shelvon and the queen. I’m sure they will have lists of the most eligible bachelors in all the kingdoms.”
Of course they would, for helping arrange noble marriages was one of the queen’s primary duties.
Alys had overcome the first hurdle and obtained the king’s blessing for her search. Now all she had to do was find at least one suitable candidate who could take Jinnell away from here and keep her safe. Preferably while making her happy at the same time.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In her youth, Chanlix had often dreamed of leaving the Abbey, of escaping the oppression of its walls. But always in those dreams, leaving had been her own choice, and she’d been escaping to something much better. A life of freedom and self-respect. A life worth living.
Not a life as a desert nomad, eking out an existence while praying a vengeful prince would not order her and all the women under her protection killed.
At first light tomorrow, the Abbey would face its execution. Chanlix and the abigails were to travel on foot to the site of their new Abbey—a journey that would take the better part of two weeks if all went well. They would be “escorted” by a squadron of soldiers, led by Tynthanal, and those soldiers were tasked with “guarding” them in their new home. Chanlix could not help but dread the journey and doubted Tynthanal and his men were any happier about—or more deserving of—this banishment. At least the men had reason to believe their mission would end and they could return home. Surely the king did not envision Tynthanal’s posting as a permanent one, and there would be a regular changing of the guard.
There was no certainty all the abigails would survive to see their new home. While Delnamal had arrested and executed the three eldest, there were still several among them who were old and frail. The thought that these women would be forced to travel on foot for two weeks was more terrible than Chanlix could imagine. And even once they reached their destination, there was nothing there but open air. They would have to live with the minimal shelter of tents while attempting to build a structure without any builders and with only the most basic supplies.
Chanlix’s musings were interrupted by a knock on her door.
“Enter,” she called, hoping she was not about to be presented with yet another problem she was unable to fix.
The abigail who entered her office was one of the most beautiful women in the Abbey. Her lustrous auburn hair was entirely hidden beneath her wimple, and the shapeless red robes hid her voluptuous figure, but her face alone was enough to tempt men t
o sin. In the five years that Rusha had been working the pavilion, she had brought in double the amount of any other abigail. In the outside world, her beauty would have been a great advantage. As an abigail, it was a terrible curse, and she had been among those most brutally abused by the prince’s men.
Chanlix had no doubt the girl was enjoying this respite from working the pavilion, but the simple pleasure of not having to service men throughout the day and night could not explain the light of excitement that shone in her eyes as she entered the room.
Having found little cause for celebration since she’d been named abbess, Chanlix felt a pleasant flutter of anticipation in her chest. She would have loved to allow herself to hope that the king had relented and they would not have to leave for the Wasteland tomorrow after all, but good news of that sort would have come directly to her. She tried to temper the surge of hope the young abigail’s smile inspired.
“You look pleased about something,” she said, and Rusha’s smile grew wider.
“I am indeed,” Rusha said, practically jumping up and down with excitement.
“Well, what is it? I could do with some good news for a change.”
Rusha pulled a slim volume out from the folds of her robes. The cover was worn so that Chanlix couldn’t read the title. “I’ve been reading up on death curses.”
Chanlix raised an eyebrow at that. Women of the Abbey were permitted a small amount of magical study, but their library had been completely destroyed in the flood, and they had never possessed a book on death curses—those most complex and most expensive spells that were triggered by Kai. What use did women have to learn of death curses when they were unable to see or produce Kai? Now that several women had the Kai to cast death curses, they were too busy scrambling to prepare for their exile to research the subject even if they dared. It seemed Rusha had both dared and found the time.