by Jenna Glass
Her father waved off the argument. “If the abigails need blood from your mother’s line, they have Tynthanal. I’m sure he would gladly donate for the cause.”
“But he is not a woman,” she persisted. “We don’t understand—at all—how Mother’s spell worked. Maybe I can’t help in any way, but if there’s even the smallest chance I can…”
Her father was still shaking his head. “I can’t have my daughter going to the Abbey of the Unwanted even for a visit. That would not be proper.”
“I visited Mother in the Abbey all the time!”
“But you weren’t staying there. The Abbey’s new location is remote, so it’s not as if you could remove yourself to a respectable distance each night. You would be sleeping in a tent in the midst of an encampment of whores!”
Which showed just how much Tynthanal was leaving out of his official reports. Alys hardly thought she would be put up in a respectable inn, but she knew there were actual houses being built in the “encampment.” Not that she could mention that without betraying her brother.
“Tynthanal is there,” she reminded him soothingly. “He will serve as a more than adequate chaperone. And I will take my honor guard and my maid, and we can set up our own encampment at some remove. There will be no hint of impropriety.”
Her father was still frowning fiercely.
“Please, Papa,” she begged, giving him her most imploring look. “I will go mad if I must sit idly by while my daughter’s future is in jeopardy. Let me at least try to help her.”
“Even if you were to succeed, spending time at the Abbey would not help Jinnell’s marriage prospects,” he warned. “Tynthanal’s presence will give you some cover, but those who think ill of you will feel their suspicions are being confirmed. You have no respectable reason to go there.”
“Do you honestly believe my visit to the Abbey will cause someone to turn down Jinnell and her dowry if that someone has already decided to overlook the fact that she’s my mother’s granddaughter?” They both knew the “someone” they were discussing was Prince Waldmir. “It’s not as if Jinnell would be at the Abbey. Would it be so shocking for me to go visit my brother, regardless of where he’s posted?”
“When he’s been gone less than three months?” her father countered.
Although she did not say so out loud, Alys had to concede that there was no socially acceptable excuse for her to go to the Abbey for a casual visit. “You could command me to go.”
The king was so shocked by her words that he practically jumped. “What?”
“Tell everyone that you are doing everything you can to get the Curse reversed, and that you have commanded me to visit the Abbey in case my blood is the key to that reversal. Many will assume it’s a sign that you’re angry with me, and I will be disgraced. But I am disgraced already just by being my mother’s daughter. If I can somehow help reverse the spell, then that will go a long way toward helping redeem my reputation. If I can’t, I will not be any worse off, and neither will Jinnell.”
That her father still wished to argue was clear in his facial expression and his body language, but he did not immediately respond. Her heart pattered in her chest, and it was all she could do not to fidget like a little girl as she awaited his judgment. If she went to the Abbey because the king commanded her to do so, then it was possible the blight on her reputation could eventually be smoothed over when he accepted her return. The same could not be said if she traveled to the Abbey of her own free will, regardless of the pretext of her visit.
“Do you honestly think there’s a chance you can help them reverse the spell?” he asked, skewering her with a too-knowing gaze.
Alys was certain he understood that she meant to practice magic while she was at the Abbey, that her purpose in going there was not merely to donate blood for the abigails’ experiments. While there was certainly magic that was worked using blood—such as the spell that analyzed bloodlines for signs that they could produce children—there were very few of them.
“Not a good one,” she admitted, for he would know she was lying if her answer was an unqualified yes. “But any chance is better than no chance at all.”
“Take some time to think about it.” He held up his hand abruptly when Alys opened her mouth to argue. “If by this time next week you still feel traveling to the Abbey is the best choice, then I will command you to go. But this is not a decision to be made in haste.”
“I understand,” she said, though she knew no amount of thinking would cause her to change her mind.
The relief was so strong Alys threw her arms around her father’s neck before she thought twice about it. She couldn’t remember having hugged him since she was a little girl. Though he was clearly startled by the gesture, his arms quickly closed around her, and he held her as if he would never let go again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shelvon shivered in the cold air that blasted into her room as soon as she opened the window. Her nightdress flapped in the breeze, and her cheeks stung. The air smelled of snow, the lowering clouds thickly hiding the moon and stars. The first flakes were just starting to fall as Shelvon braced one hand on the casement and leaned over, making sure there was no one walking in the courtyard below. When she was certain the coast was clear and no one would see her, she tipped the vial that held her latest dose of fertility potion and let the magic-infused liquid splash onto the pavement, shaking out every last drop before retreating to the warmth of her bedroom and closing the window.
Setting the empty vial on the nightstand, she hurried to stand as close to the fire as she safely could, her skin prickling with gooseflesh as she absorbed the delicious warmth. Pouring out the potions had been the best decision she’d ever made, and she was now absurdly grateful for every sound night’s sleep she had previously taken for granted. Her eyes and cheeks had lost that sunken look, and her skin had regained its color, and when Delnamal had ventured a guess her renewed vigor meant she was with child, she had encouraged him to believe it.
For seven glorious days, he’d been delighted with her and stopped trying to force the potions on her. He’d been solicitous and almost kind—at least as kind as he was capable of being. And then her monthly had begun, shattering the illusion.
When she’d poured out the first potion, she’d been frankly terrified. She was willfully defying her husband, which she had been raised to believe was an unpardonable crime. If lightning had shot down from the sky and struck her dead, she wouldn’t have been entirely surprised. But nothing bad had happened. Delnamal showed no signs of suspecting, and instead of being punished for her audacity, her health was restored. Even as she shivered in the lingering chill, she smiled and reveled in that small act of defiance.
The door to her bedroom burst open, and Shelvon jumped and spun with a gasp to see Delnamal standing in the doorway, his face red with rage, his body practically vibrating with it. He slammed the door behind him so hard it sounded like a thunderclap, then advanced on her with unvarnished fury in his eyes.
“You stupid bitch!” he shouted.
Shelvon flinched from his vulgarity. He was often cruel and surly with her, but rarely vulgar, and never had she seen so much barely contained violence in his body language.
“How long have you been tossing out the potions?” he demanded as he crowded into her personal space.
Shelvon should have been afraid. She didn’t know how Delnamal could have found out she wasn’t taking the potions, but he clearly knew. Perhaps throwing them out the window hadn’t been the best idea, after all. Just because she didn’t see anyone didn’t mean someone didn’t see her. She had never witnessed her husband this angry before, and what he lacked in stature he more than made up for in weight and girth. He could break her in half, and he looked angry enough to do it, and yet though her pulse was definitely elevated, she did not cower or cringe. Instead, she looked him calmly in the eye
.
“They weren’t working, and they were making me sick.”
“Well you make me sick!” he snarled, pulling back his hand as if to slap her.
A detached part of her mind thought that maybe she should take a step back or turn her head or at least put her hands up in an attempt to defend herself, but she did none of those things. She didn’t even look at that raised hand, instead continuing to meet his eyes.
Instead of hitting her, he turned toward the mantel and sent a delicate crystal vase flying. It shattered against the far wall, barely missing her head on its way past. Then he grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
“Unless you want to spend the rest of your life spreading your legs for the highest bidder at the Abbey, you will do as you are told!”
His face was only inches from hers, and spittle splattered her cheek. She closed her eyes so she would no longer have to see the ugliness in his face, the hatred in his heart that shone so clearly in his eyes.
“If the potions were going to make me pregnant, they would have done so by now.” She marveled at the continued calmness in her voice. But she’d been living in fear and misery for too long. They were still inside her, but they were now like old friends, quiet companions who made no demands of her.
She opened her eyes. “Divorce me if you must. But I will drink no more potions.”
“Oh yes you fucking will!” He pulled back his hand again, and again she failed to flinch or in any way try to defend herself, even when she saw the back of that hand come toward her.
The impact with her cheek drew a short grunt of pain from her, but Delnamal was not a habitual abuser of women, and the blow had no teeth to it. In fact, he’d held back so much she doubted she’d even sport a bruise.
Something stirred from deep inside her gut. Something fierce and free and just as ugly as Delnamal’s anger, and she found herself laughing.
“Is that the best you can do?” she mocked. “My tutor hit me harder when I was five and spilled a jar of ink.” Delnamal pulled back his hand again, this time clenching it into a fist. “Do you have any idea how many beatings a child of Nandel takes in the course of growing up?” she asked. “Let’s see if you can measure up to what I’m used to. Go on and give me a proper beating and see if it makes me submit.”
Delnamal’s whole body was shaking, and his breath was coming in great heaving gasps. His fist was poised and ready, and yet he didn’t let fly.
How many times had she thought to herself that for all his many faults, her husband did not beat her? Here she had unquestionably given him good cause to break his own rules, and yet still he hesitated. Almost as if he were afraid of her, though she suspected it was more his own anger he feared. He did not like to lose control of himself, and he was perilously close to doing so now.
Self-preservation urged her to back down, to bow her head and apologize and promise to take the potions. If her husband truly did lose control, if he allowed all that rage to pour out of him unchecked, she might not survive the explosion that followed.
It came as somewhat of a shock when she realized how little that thought frightened her. Her future looked bleak no matter which way she turned, so in reality she had little to lose.
“Well?” she prompted, putting her hands on her hips. “What are you waiting for?”
He stood there for another excruciating few moments, panting and glaring and shaking. Then his hand dropped to his side, and he turned his head and spit on her carpet.
“You aren’t even worth the effort,” he growled, then turned and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.
Shelvon stood staring at the door, waiting for him to change his mind and come back, but he didn’t. A slow smile spread over her face.
* * *
—
Alys paced her room anxiously as she waited for Jinnell to arrive for their late-night magic lesson. She had put this conversation off for as long as she could, and she was lucky Jinnell hadn’t noticed anything was amiss—and that Corlin had kept the news to himself after she had told him, as he had promised.
Jinnell slipped into the room without knocking, as was their habit. The less noise they made, the less chance someone would find out what they were doing at night after the household went to sleep. Not that the magic lessons were doing Jinnell much good any longer. The book spent very little time on the basics before moving on to advanced spells using elements Jinnell couldn’t see. It was frustrating, because Jinnell could clearly see more elements than the average woman, and with the proper instruction, she could have learned many useful spells. Instead, she was quickly losing interest in the lessons, bored with watching the mixing of invisible elements to create spells she could not cast herself. And Alys spent a great deal of time practicing her magic in solitude.
Where once Jinnell would arrive for their lessons with a bounce in her step, she now trudged into the room yawning.
She stifled her yawn the moment her eyes lit on the three neatly packed trunks stacked near the door. “Are we going somewhere?” she asked with a furrow between her brows.
“Come sit down,” Alys beckoned, patting the seat beside her on the sofa by the fire.
Jinnell’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but she did as she was told. “It wasn’t my imagination, after all,” she said as she sat. “I thought everyone was acting strange and told myself I was being silly.” Her face seemed unnaturally pale in the firelight, but she raised her chin in an attempt to look bold and confident. “Are we going to Nandel so Prince Waldmir can appraise me?”
Alys gasped and shook her head. “No! I’m so sorry. It never occurred to me that you might think that.”
Jinnell’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Then what?”
“I’m doing everything I can to take Waldmir off the table.”
“Okay. And…”
Alys squirmed on the inside, for though it had become obvious recently that she did not know her daughter as well as she’d thought, she felt certain she knew what Jinnell would think of what she had planned. “And I’m worried that the only way that can happen is if Shelvon gets pregnant.”
Jinnell heaved an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I know that. We both know that. Just hurry up and tell me whatever it is you need to tell me.”
“I think the best chance we have of Shelvon getting pregnant is if my mother’s spell is reversed. The women of the Abbey are under orders to reverse it, but no one really believes they can do it. We know one of the things she did to create the spell was to manipulate bloodlines. You and I already know I can see some elements I have no business seeing.”
“You think you can reverse the spell?” Jinnell cried.
Something inside Alys shriveled at the very thought of tackling something so impossible. Especially when her mother’s letter had said explicitly that the spell could not be reversed. It felt like hubris even to think that she might be able to do it.
“Maybe with the help of the new abbess, and with the power of the new Well they’ve discovered…” Her voice trailed off, for the reality was she couldn’t exactly claim to have high hopes. It was only sheer desperation that prompted her to make the attempt. Maybe it was nothing more than a purely selfish impulse, a desire to trick herself into believing she had control over something that was clearly beyond her.
“Even if you could do it,” Jinnell said, “I wouldn’t want you to.”
“What?”
“I don’t want the spell to be reversed,” Jinnell repeated, speaking slowly and clearly and looking right into her mother’s eyes. “Even if it means I have to marry Prince Waldmir.”
Alys gaped at her. “But…why?”
Jinnell’s eyes flashed. “Do you really think I’m that selfish, Mama? I’m very sorry for Aunt Shelvon and the difficulties the spell is causing her, but think of all the women throughout Seven Wells whose lives have changed for the
better.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I have a lot of friends who will be married in the next few years, and for the first time, they have a bargaining chip. Few men want to marry a woman who won’t give them children, and few women will give a man children when they are forced into the marriage. I can’t take that away from every other woman in the world just to save myself from one of the few men who still thinks a forced marriage is a good idea.”
It was…humbling, to say the least, to find that she had raised a daughter far more unselfish than herself. Alys hadn’t thought twice about damning every other woman in the world in order to protect her daughter. “I’m sure Shelvon isn’t the only woman who’s suffering right now because of this spell,” she argued weakly. “There have to be a lot of frustrated husbands everywhere, and many of them will take out their frustrations on their wives.” It was clear that her mother’s spell would not allow a woman to be bullied into “willingly” conceiving, but that wouldn’t stop men from trying. And those women who did not provide heirs would soon find themselves divorced and sent to the Abbey to live in disgrace.
“Women will always suffer. Grandmother’s spell did not change the basic nature of men. But as long as it keeps working, far fewer of us will be forced into marriages we don’t want. Grandmother and your sister and your niece were all willing to die to make it happen. We don’t even know for sure yet whether the king will offer me to Prince Waldmir, nor do we know if he’ll want me. My blood is ‘tainted,’ remember? And if it comes to that, we will make it clear that I have no intention of giving him children. I could never live with myself if you reversed the spell just for me.”
Alys closed her eyes and tried not to imagine Waldmir laying hands on her daughter. She could not adopt Jinnell’s mature and unselfish position—though it would be counterproductive to say so.
Alys took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly. “It’s highly unlikely I could have reversed the spell anyway.”