The Women's War

by Jenna Glass

  She opened her eyes when she heard a rustle in the vegetation behind her. She was not surprised to see Tynthanal appear at the water’s edge, smiling at her and giving her exposed calves an admiring glance. The familiar blush rose to her cheeks, but she made no move to drop her skirts and cover her legs. Meeting here and watching the sun set together had become something of a ritual for them. She was sure the people of Women’s Well had noticed them disappearing together like this, just as she was sure most of them assumed they were sleeping together. Which they weren’t, although Chanlix was finding it increasingly difficult to explain to herself why that was so.

  Tynthanal had been hard at work with training drills and sparring today, and was dressed in the standard military shirt and trousers, his jacket with its insignia marking his rank nowhere to be seen. The shirt was plastered to his skin with sweat, and the great swaths of dirt stains on his trousers said he had spent a fair amount of those drills on his backside. She raised her eyebrows at him, for both her own observation and the admiration of his men told her he was a highly skilled swordsman. When he sparred, everyone else stopped what they were doing to watch.

  Tynthanal laughed to see her curious regard. “I added some grappling work into the sword drills today,” he said, pulling off his sweat-soaked shirt with a sigh of relief. “It’s hard on the clothing.”

  Chanlix had seen him without his shirt often enough that she ought to be immune to the sight by now, but, damn it, her heart skipped a beat every time. His body was lithe, but the muscles were distinctly defined and in proportions that flirted with perfection. She expected him to roll up his trousers and join her in the water, and she tried not to fantasize about helping him splash the cool water over all that beautiful skin he was revealing.

  But instead of rolling up his trousers, he began unlacing them.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she cried in what was meant to sound like disapproval. Unfortunately, it came out sounding girlishly breathless and excited.

  “I’m taking off my trousers,” he said matter-of-factly, seconds before the laces came free and the trousers dropped to his feet, revealing drawers of white lawn so thin as to be almost transparent. He grinned at her as he kicked the trousers aside, but the expression in his eyes was more of assessment than humor.

  Chanlix commanded herself to look away, to tell him in no uncertain terms that he must put those trousers back on immediately. It was beyond indecent for a man to expose himself in such a way, though perhaps he felt that as an abigail she had seen so many naked men that she need not be afforded the same consideration as a respectable lady.

  Chanlix swallowed hard, shoving that bitter thought to the back of her mind. She knew perfectly well he meant no such disrespect. His pursuit of her had never been anything but gentlemanly, and even when he pushed the boundaries, he did so with great care and gentleness. He was watching her carefully right now, gauging her reaction, poised to cover up if she asked him to.

  Her heart seemed to flutter from somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. She had never in her life lain with a man who had not paid for her services, and though she had occasionally had clients who pleasured her—mostly for their own enjoyment—she had never before experienced true desire. When she had become too old to work the pavilion, she had happily laid that part of her life to rest and assumed no man would ever touch her in that way again. Then, after the attack on the Abbey, she had hoped that no man would ever touch her that way again.

  And yet there was no denying the sudden racing of her pulse, nor the tug of desire she felt as her eyes drank in the beauty of Tynthanal’s body—and the mingled desire and caution in his eyes.

  When she couldn’t find the voice to scold him, Tynthanal slowly waded into the water toward her. She smiled to see his skin pepper with gooseflesh at the chill. He came to stand within an arm’s length of her, his eyes locked on her face as she struggled with her own warring emotions.

  “Would it offend you if I rinsed off?” he asked, causing her to swallow hard again.

  The drawers that were almost transparent now would be literally so if they became wet. And she wasn’t sure how she could keep her hands off him if that happened.

  “With all the beautiful young women in this town,” she whispered, “I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want me.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “There are not a few handsome young men in town, as well. Surely you would find one of them more to your liking.”

  She scowled at him. “But you are a king’s son, and I have lain with more men than you can imagine.”

  The look on his face hardened, and his voice took on a hint of a growl. “Do you really think so little of yourself for what was done to you?”

  “I don’t blame myself for what happened in that courtyard,” she protested. She knew Tynthanal was concerned that she had been permanently traumatized by what had happened there. She doubted any man could truly understand the lifetime of traumas that came with being an abigail, of how little each individual indignity mattered in the grand scheme of things. If she was broken at all, it had happened long before that terrible day.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Tynthanal replied with some heat. “I know you are not so heartless as to blame the victims—even yourself—for my half-brother’s barbarity.”

  She frowned in puzzlement. “Then what did you mean by ‘what was done to’ me?”

  “I meant being sent to the Abbey in the first place! Would you have lain with all those men had you had a choice?”

  Chanlix opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. Once she had entered the Abbey, she had resigned herself to her fate and been a dutiful abigail. She had loathed her time in the pavilion, but she had never cried and carried on as some of the abigails did when they first arrived. And she had never thought of selling her body to those men as something that was done to her. She had gone to their beds compliantly, if not exactly willingly.

  “Even if you had lain with them willingly,” Tynthanal said gently, “I would not condemn you for it.” He moved closer to her, his hand rising to cup her cheek in a gesture that sent the most pleasant shiver imaginable through her. “You are kind, and courageous, and warm, and wise, and nothing in your past can change that.”

  He bent to kiss her lips, hesitating just a moment, giving her a chance to rebuff him. She tried to force a refusal out of her mouth, tried to do the only sensible thing. If she kissed him, she would be lost, her every defense broken down.

  But was there truly any reason to keep denying herself what she wanted? She’d feared to give him her body because she was sure her heart would go with it, but if she were being entirely honest with herself, her heart had been his for some time now. Withholding her body would not protect her when eventually real life intruded and tore Tynthanal away from her.

  With a needy moan, she stepped into his body and put her arms around his neck. His lips tasted of salt, and his skin smelled of sweat and desert dust, and yet it was the sweetest, most delicious kiss she had ever experienced. He untucked her robes from her belt and let the hem drop into the water, but before she thought to protest, he was hiking that hem upward, his hand sliding against the bare skin of her leg.

  Chanlix broke the kiss and looked up into his dark, heated eyes. “Perhaps we should find somewhere more private,” she suggested breathlessly, for now that they’d crossed that invisible boundary, she saw little chance that either of them could stop with just kisses and caresses, no matter how sweet those might be.

  Tynthanal smiled and pressed himself against her. “I don’t think I can wait that long. No one will disturb us here.”

  Having previously admitted to herself that people no doubt believed they were already sleeping together, she had to agree that they were unlikely to be interrupted, but that was not her only concern. “In the days when I worked the
pavilion, I regularly took contraceptive potions, but I haven’t since. I would feel…safer drinking one.”

  While Mother Brynna’s spell meant that women could no longer conceive against their will, there was ample evidence a woman’s conscious will and her unconscious desires were not necessarily one and the same—else Princess Shelvon would have conceived again by now. Chanlix had given up any hope of becoming a mother when she’d entered the Abbey, but she could not be entirely sure a kernel of that hope hadn’t survived.

  Tynthanal pressed a gentle kiss on her lips, though the fire still burned bright in his eyes. “That won’t be necessary with me,” he confided. “It seems I am not capable of fathering children.”

  Chanlix’s eyes widened in surprise. “You aren’t? How do you know?”

  “I had my eye on a woman once,” he said, “and I asked the abbess to examine our bloodlines—privately, because I did not want to propose without knowing in advance that our marriage would be sanctioned. Upon examining mine, she informed me that there would be no sanctioned marriage for me. Ever.”

  She looked at him in wonder and not a little sadness. She hadn’t been aware that he’d had any contact with his mother once she’d been banished to the Abbey. Suddenly, his unmarried status made a lot more sense, and she knew it was a sign of his trust in her that he would tell her what many would consider the shameful truth.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “I long ago came to terms with the fact that I am not meant to be a family man,” he said, but she couldn’t fail to hear the undertone of sorrow and regret in his voice. “Sometimes, I think it’s for the better—especially when I see Delnamal’s eagerness to strike out at Alys’s daughter. I cannot imagine the horror that must be.” He shook off the sadness, pressing close to her once more. “But let us set aside such weighty matters. At present, my inability to father children is decidedly convenient.”

  He waggled his brows at her suggestively, and she giggled. No such sound had escaped her lips since she was a little girl. He had an almost magical ability to make her cares disappear, to toss aside decades of hard living and degradation to make her feel hopeful and light of heart. And her body yearned for him in a way it had yearned for no other man.

  She reached up to touch his face, and he turned his head to kiss her palm.

  “I want you, Chanlix Rai-Chanwynne,” he murmured, his breath coming short. “Will you have me?”

  “Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and rising to her toes so she could kiss his lips. “Yes, I will.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Alys enjoyed the luxury of walking unguarded down the streets of Women’s Well. During her first week here, her honor guard had insisted on doing their duty, surrounding her whenever she was in public. But what had felt natural and unremarkable in the capital city of Aalwell felt faintly ridiculous in this small frontier town, where there were no beggars or cutpurses or even painfully poor people. It was a remarkably cooperative community, and since at least a quarter of the residents of the town were soldiers, it was about as safe a place as Alys could imagine.

  During her second week in Women’s Well, her honor guard finally began to relax, and now during her fourth, they spent more time helping out with the seemingly never-ending work of building and expanding than they did guarding her. She was very glad she’d left Falcor with the children, for she doubted he’d have been as easy to shake.

  The house she’d taken over since her arrival was about a ten-minute walk from Tynthanal’s, which she ordinarily found convenient. She had spent countless hours in that house with her brother and Chanlix and various other abigails, combining their talents to create new spells. At first, the abigails had been clearly taken aback—and manifestly uncomfortable—with the thought of practicing magic side by side with a woman of her rank, and Tynthanal had worried about wagging tongues. But when Alys had made it clear she had no intention of carrying out her own experiments in secrecy, they had all gradually begun to accept her.

  As Alys became more familiar with the elements available in Women’s Well—and as she spent so many hours openly practicing magic, discussing it with others, and experimenting—she realized that she had found her true calling in life. Her heart sang with happiness and excitement, even as fear continued to simmer in the background. Within two weeks of arriving at Women’s Well, she had concocted a potion that could create a convincing visual illusion of pregnancy, and she’d been sure it was only a matter of time before she would have just what she needed to fool Delnamal—assuming Shelvon was willing to cooperate and drink her potions. But since then, she’d run into roadblock after roadblock.

  The visual illusion did not hold up to touch, nor could she make it last more than two hours at a stretch. And then there was the fact that a woman’s body changes gradually during pregnancy, and Alys could only create a static illusion. And though the abigails and Tynthanal had tried to help, there was nothing in existing magic—neither men’s nor women’s—that seemed applicable. And so she had occasionally allowed herself to be drawn into other work as the magical practice at Women’s Well had grown and expanded. They no longer met at Tynthanal’s house, for there was now a dedicated building for experimentation, closer to the Well. Their very own Academy, they liked to joke. And their Academy was about to test a spell the likes of which the world had never seen.

  The sun was setting as Alys walked to her brother’s house for the third time that day, but instead of finding the short walk convenient, this time she wished she could stretch it out for longer, because once she entered that house, it would be time to make an irreversible decision that could doom Women’s Well.

  When she arrived at Tynthanal’s house, Tynthanal, Chanlix, and Faltah were already waiting for her. Faltah had clearly been stunningly beautiful once. The right side of her face still was, but the left side was a different story. When Delnamal had attacked the women of the Abbey, beautiful Faltah had been one of the most popular targets. Despite the humiliation of being taken so publicly while she shivered with cold in the muddy courtyard, she had not resisted—until Delnamal’s personal secretary, who was well-known to the women of the Abbey for his love of causing pain, came for her.

  Even the women of the Abbey of the Unwanted had some protection under the law, and when Melcor purchased the use of an abigail, he was strictly forbidden from damaging her beyond healing. But the attack in the Abbey had not been an ordinary transaction, and Melcor had felt no fear that he would be punished for the damage he inflicted. He’d repeatedly struck Faltah’s face as he raped her, crushing her cheekbone, her jaw, and her eye socket. The abigails were able to save her life in the aftermath, but there was no healing spell to realign all those badly broken bones into their original form, and they had not been able to save her eye.

  Alys joined the other three at the table, sitting across from Faltah. It was hard to look at the poor girl’s face, hard to see the devastating damage that had been done to her, but Alys did not allow herself to look away. Faltah’s undamaged eye shone with a strange combination of excitement and cold, deadly fury, her breath coming short as Tynthanal laid a cloth-wrapped package in the middle of the table. He glanced from face to anxious face, then unwrapped the package to reveal a crudely carved, inert flier.

  It looked more like a child’s toy than an actual flier. Most fliers were made of deep black Aalwood, and they were distinctively decorated for their owners. Alys would recognize one of Tynthanal’s fliers anywhere, but for the purpose of this spell, anonymity was key. Instead of using Aalwood, he’d whittled this flier out of a scrap piece of blond lumber, making no effort to sand down the rough knife marks. As the lumber didn’t have the capacity for all the needed spell elements, a couple of iron nails had been hammered in, making the flier even uglier.

  Beside the flier was a small scroll, with Melcor’s full name printed on its outside. It was sealed with wax
and marked confidential.

  “If we do this,” Tynthanal said into the silence as they all stared at the flier, “it is treason.” Which was why they were meeting in the privacy of Tynthanal’s house to test it, although the rest of the abigails of their fledgling Academy knew about it. Knowing it had been invented and knowing it was being used were two different things.

  “No one will know we sent it,” Chanlix said, fussing nervously at the red robes she still wore, though most of the abigails had abandoned them.

  “It’s treason whether we get caught or not,” Tynthanal chided. “If we do this, we must do it with our eyes wide open.”

  Faltah, dressed in a drab brown kirtle and cloaked in anger that bordered on hatred, snarled at him. “Why would you help us craft this spell, then refuse to use it?”

  Alys wanted to leap in and protect her little brother from Faltah’s open bitterness, but Tynthanal didn’t need her help.

  “I’m not refusing,” he said, seemingly unaffected by Faltah’s hostility. “I’m merely pointing out that no matter how careful we’ve been, it’s dangerous.”

  Faltah’s rage burned on, but Chanlix silenced her with a hand on her arm. “That’s enough, Faltah,” Chanlix said, then nodded at Tynthanal. “We’ve heard your warning, and we know the danger. We’re willing to risk it.”

  Tynthanal looked at Alys for yet another confirmation. They had all agreed that an open and obvious use of the women’s Kai would be disastrous, although someone somewhere was bound to use it eventually. A respectable woman who was raped might never open her Mindseye to see that the Kai was there—and might not recognize it for what it was even if she did—but there were Abbeys throughout Seven Wells, and even outside of Abbeys, Alys was sure she wasn’t the only woman who’d played with forbidden magic. Eventually, the existence of women’s Kai would become common knowledge, and Alys had to agree with Chanlix’s assessment that men like Delnamal would immediately think to use it to their own advantage.