by Jenna Glass
“Everything is ready, Miss Jinnell,” he said gently.
A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard. Surely she was being a superstitious ninny, but she couldn’t shake the conviction that once she walked out of this house, she would never come back. But that truly was nonsense. Her mother would return to Aalwell for the funeral, and after that Delnamal would let them all return to the manor.
Then why did he dismiss all the servants and have the house packed up as if it were meant to stand empty indefinitely? she asked herself.
“I’ll be along in a moment,” she said.
Instead of accepting the dismissal, Falcor stepped farther into the room. “It will not get any easier,” he said.
She blinked in an effort to hold back tears. “Do you blame me for not wishing to be my uncle’s ‘guest’ any sooner than absolutely necessary?”
It was an imprudent question, revealing more of what she was feeling than was strictly wise. Her uncle was now the king, and where criticizing him before had been unwise, it was likely now dangerous. But she knew how much Falcor had helped her mother with her magic studies and was certain he could be trusted.
He gave her a wry smile. “I’m in no great hurry to place you under his care.” The smile faded. “But you must be very careful of what you say once you reach the palace. Even to me. It is too easy to be overheard.”
“I understand.” She took a deep breath, hoping to find some semblance of calm. She would never admit it out loud, but she wished desperately that her mother were here. Then she immediately felt guilty for the thought, because now that Delnamal was king, she feared her mother would be in great danger if she were within easy reach. He’d shown no great fondness for his niece and nephew, but he did not hate them like he did their mother. Jinnell did not like to think what might happen when her mother arrived for the funeral.
She looked up and met Falcor’s kind eyes, dropping her voice to the lowest of whispers. “If I asked, would you spirit me and Corlin away to Women’s Well instead of taking us to the palace?” She expected him to react with shock—and maybe to reiterate his warning.
Instead, he seemed to think it over. “I am sworn to protect you and Master Corlin, and I must do that at all costs. If I were to defy the king’s orders and take you to Women’s Well, then everyone involved would be subject to a treason charge. I’d be endangering you rather than protecting you.”
“So that’s a no.”
He bowed his head. “That’s a no. I’m sorry.”
The “no” sounded unequivocal, and yet his manner of arriving at the answer suggested it might not be as irrevocable as it sounded. Perhaps once her mother returned, he would be open to the possibility of helping all three of them leave Aalwell to escape its new king’s machinations.
“Can you imagine a situation in which that no might turn to yes?” she asked.
“I cannot,” he answered quickly, then met her eyes steadily. “But then, I am not a man of great imagination.”
Jinnell sighed, taking one last look around the room. “I have enough of that for the both of us,” she said. But she felt encouraged by the careful wording of his answers. If all else failed, he seemed to be saying, he would do what he could to protect her and her family. Not that one guardsman could do much for them if the king found some excuse to condemn them. But at least they had one ally.
“I’m ready,” she said, and allowed Falcor to escort her to the waiting carriage.
* * *
—
Alys murmured a half-hearted thank-you as Chanlix laid a fragrant cup of tea on the table in front of her. Tynthanal accepted his own cup more graciously, giving Chanlix’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
Tynthanal had brought their half-brother’s letter with him when he’d come to Alys’s house to find her openly weeping on Chanlix’s shoulder. The rim of red around his own eyes spoke to his own grief, though with typical male stoicism he tried to hide it.
Alys’s eyes were dry now, so dry they burned. The devastating letter Delnamal had sent just one day after the death announcement—when she had been packed and ready to begin her journey back to Aalwell—had chased her grief into a dark corner and replaced it with a potent and poisonous concoction of fear and fury.
Apparently, Delnamal had not felt that news of their father’s death was painful enough all on its own, and he’d felt compelled to dig the knife in deeper. His letter expressly forbade Alys and Tynthanal from returning to Aalwell for the king’s funeral. Or for any other purpose. They were commanded to remain in Women’s Well “until further notice.” And then he’d shoved a second knife directly into Alys’s heart.
You need not worry about the well-being of your children, dear sister, he’d written. I have moved them into the palace, and I shall see to their care until such time as you are able to return.
“If he were here in front of me,” she rasped, “I swear I would rip his throat out with my bare hands.”
Tynthanal made a snarling sound in the back of his throat. “Too quick a death. I’d slit his belly open till his guts spilled out and watch him slowly bleed to death.”
Chanlix grimaced as she took a seat between them. “I have no love for your brother—”
“Half-brother,” both Alys and Tynthanal chorused at once. Alys might almost have smiled at their simultaneous reaction, had she the strength for it.
“For Delnamal,” Chanlix continued smoothly, “but fantasizing about his death isn’t going to solve anything.”
“He has my children,” Alys said, “and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Killing him wasn’t enough to pay him back in full for his cruelty.
“Perhaps your husband’s parents can contest the king’s custody?” Chanlix suggested. “Surely grandparents should have a better claim to them than a half-uncle.”
Alys would have loved to grab hold of that hope, but she knew better. “He’s the king now. Even if my in-laws protest, who would support them? Most will probably think he’s being kind and generous by installing them in the palace.” They would not see that he was holding his own niece and nephew hostage to keep Alys and Tynthanal under control. Grief and terror threatened to swamp her again, helped along by a massive wave of guilt.
If she’d gone home a month ago, she would have been there to protect her children, to stop Delnamal from taking them. “I should have been there,” she whispered.
Tynthanal rubbed her back. “Absolutely not,” he said vehemently. “Delnamal would have found some excuse to have you arrested and take the children anyway. Then there really would be nothing you could do.”
She shoved the tea away from her viciously, spilling hot liquid all over the table. Tea splashed on Delnamal’s hateful letter, smearing the ink. “What is it you suggest I can do from here?” she snarled. She knew how unfair she was being, how little her brother deserved her ire, but the rage and fear inside her were too great to contain.
“Well,” Tynthanal said calmly, unaffected by her burst of temper, “we did just invent a spell of immense value. Perhaps Delnamal would be tempted to release the children to you in exchange for the spell.”
She laughed bitterly. The spell that had seemed the answer to securing the safety of Women’s Well lost much of its value when it was Delnamal who sat on the throne rather than their father. “It’s property of the Crown. He’ll just seize it.”
“He will want to. But he may not find that quite so easy to do. At the risk of sounding boastful, my men are some of the best soldiers in all of Aaltah. There may not be very many of us, but we are formidable. And we have spells no one outside of Women’s Well has ever seen before.”
Alys swallowed back her anger and fear. Tynthanal was finally putting voice to something she knew they’d all been thinking. “You think we should revolt against the Crown.” Which should have been a horrifying th
ought, should have filled her with fear. If their everyday lives, if their falsified reports to the lord commander, their very existence, weren’t already the beginnings of a revolt. They could have negotiated with King Aaltyn to legitimize the work they were doing there, for he would have done anything in his power to avoid labeling his children as traitors. Such would not be the case with King Delnamal.
Tynthanal’s eyes flashed. “I think we should do more than that. I think we should make Delnamal’s life a living hell. You are our father’s firstborn, not him.”
Alys’s mouth dropped open in shock. She tried to form meaningful words, but her thoughts were too badly scrambled. Chanlix was staring at Tynthanal as if he might have gone mad.
“You want to challenge Delnamal’s claim to the throne?” she squeaked.
“Not me. Alysoon.”
“But you are the firstborn son.”
“And she is the firstborn. Period. Times are changing.”
Alys managed a weak laugh. “They aren’t changing that much.”
“Rhozinolm has put a woman on the throne. There’s no reason Aaltah can’t do the same.”
“But it would be much easier to put you on it,” she protested. A part of her noticed how skillfully Tynthanal had managed to steer the conversation away from whether they should contest Delnamal’s claim to who should contest it. “You have always been enormously popular. Much more so than Delnamal. The only reason you aren’t already the heir to the throne is because our father signed a document retroactively delegitimizing you. You have clear grounds to contest the succession.”
“I’m a career soldier who has kept himself as far removed from court intrigue as is humanly possible. I haven’t the skill or the subtlety to rule, nor do I have the patience to play at politics.”
There was an edge of hysteria in Alys’s brief laugh. “And you think I do? I’m a career wife and mother, who—”
“Don’t try to tell me you don’t understand the intricacies of the court. I’ve seen how your mind works, and I know how well-versed you are in politics.”
It was true that Alys had a good understanding of the inner workings of the court. While her marriage to Sylnin had removed her physically from the heart of the court, she had never lost touch or lost interest. It was probably true that she had the wherewithal to rule; it was also true that it would be infinitely easier to install Tynthanal on the throne.
“You have the respect of the lord commander,” Alys insisted. “That means more than any court intrigue. If there’s any possibility he might side with you—”
“He won’t. The moment he finds out how badly I’ve lied to him, I will lose every drop of respect I’ve earned through years of serving under him.”
“But—”
“I know the lord commander well. He is a good man, but his loyalty will always be to the Crown. Forwarding my claim would give us no advantage.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said, staring at her brother intently. “Why would you not want to claim the throne yourself? You and I both know that you would be the logical choice—if we decide to contest the succession at all, which we’ve somehow managed not to discuss yet.”
Tynthanal stared at her in mulish silence. A silence that Chanlix broke to Tynthanal’s evident horror.
“He can’t have children,” she said. Tynthanal turned to her, aghast, his face going red with either outrage or embarrassment or a combination of the two. She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “She’s your sister, dearest. There’s no reason to hide it from her.”
Dearest? a curious voice in Alys’s mind whispered. Chanlix no longer acted as if her love affair with Tynthanal were some deep, dark secret, but Alys had never heard her use a casual endearment like that before. It seemed that more and more of the former abbess’s walls were coming down. Alys wished the current situation would allow her to feel happy for her brother.
“He looked to marry once,” Chanlix continued, “and consulted his mother on his choice of bride.”
Alys turned to her brother in open surprise. She’d been under the impression Tynthanal hadn’t set eyes on their mother since the divorce, and she’d never guessed he’d ever been deeply enough enamored of a woman to seek to marry her.
“You went to see our mother,” she said, shaking her head in wonder.
“It was just that once,” Tynthanal said. “I needed to go to the Abbey for the bloodline test, but I didn’t want anyone to know I was considering marriage until I could be sure it was approved. My visit might have been unusual, but no one would assume I was asking for a compatibility spell.”
“So you visited for cover.” Alys couldn’t imagine how much that must have hurt their mother, that the one and only time her son had deigned to visit her was for the purpose of subterfuge.
Tynthanal squirmed, his eyes downcast. “It was not a comfortable encounter for either of us. Especially once she told me the test results. It was…a hard thing to learn at the age of twenty-two that I would never be a father.”
Alys would have asked more questions, but Tynthanal shook off his melancholy and guilt and returned to the subject at hand.
“If we legitimize inheritance through the female by putting you on the throne, then you already have two direct heirs, while I will never have even one,” Tynthanal said. “Which is why if we try for the throne, it should be in your name.”
“And how long do you suppose my children will live if we challenge Delnamal’s rule?” She shivered and hugged herself.
Tynthanal’s face turned stony. “If we don’t, then Jinnell is bound for Nandel, and Corlin will never survive until manhood. You know how Delnamal feels about us. Even if we show him our bellies, he will always see us as a threat to his rule. He will not rest until we are both dead, and when we are, he will turn on the only potential threat that is left.”
Alys wanted to scream a denial, but she knew he was right.
Maybe in a couple days’ time, they would all come to their senses and realize that their fears were unfounded, that trying to claim the throne was as unnecessary as it was dangerous. But an icy cold pit formed in her stomach as she came to the inevitable conclusion that this was not the case.
“We need an ally,” she said. “Right now, Delnamal has no reason to negotiate with us or take us seriously as a threat, and as long as he has my children, he holds all the cards.” She thought furiously. “Delnamal might think of the magic we produce here as belonging to Aaltah, but as long as we control the Well, it belongs to us. Perhaps we can forge an alliance with one of the other kingdoms. Offer them an exclusive supply of talking fliers if they will recognize our claim.”
Tynthanal looked doubtful. “Khalpar has a strong interest in supporting Delnamal, and I’m not sure Rhozinolm will be willing to risk war with Aaltah now that King Linolm is no longer on the throne.” He sighed. “But perhaps we can at least explore the possibility.”
Alys suspected her brother was right about Khalpar. The whole reason King Aaltyn had divorced his wife to marry Xanvin had been to forge a nearly unbreakable bond with the royal family of Khalpar and end the last war with Rhozinolm. And the reason he’d not only divorced Brynna but declared her children illegitimate was so that Xanvin’s son would be heir to the throne of Aaltah. Two royal families linked so closely by blood were unlikely to turn on one another without significant provocation.
Rhozinolm was another story. “Queen Ellinsoltah might not wish to spark a war with Aaltah,” Alys mused out loud, “but she might also be leery of letting Delnamal control a second Well once she realizes its power. If we can offer her agreements she knows she will not be able to get from Delnamal, perhaps she will consider it worth the risk.”
“Perhaps,” Tynthanal said. “And I’ll wager she will be more naturally inclined to align herself with you than with Delnamal.”
She gave him a s
harp look. For all of his dissembling, he had a canny mind. She suspected he was telling the truth when he said he did not want the throne for himself, but she wouldn’t put it past him to have made that argument simply because he thought Queen Ellinsoltah might be more amenable to an agreement with the Sovereign Queen of Aaltah than with its sovereign king. She certainly hoped he was right.
“I suppose we should make a new pair of talking fliers,” she said. “We can demonstrate one of our most unique spells and meet with Queen Ellinsoltah face-to-face at the same time.”
And meanwhile, she would start devising a plan to get both Jinnell and Corlin out of Aalwell before it was too late.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Delnamal suppressed a pleased smile when he paged through the marshal’s crime report for the second week of his reign. He had no intention of continuing the practice of examining crime reports and was only doing so now on the pretext of getting a thorough understanding of each of his council members’ jobs. What he’d really been looking for was on the first page of the report, which detailed the brutal murder of a well-heeled merchant who’d apparently been stabbed to death in a back alley with no witnesses.
Ordinarily, Delnamal wouldn’t care about the murder of a merchant, no matter how wealthy. But this merchant had been the husband of Lady Oona Rah-Wylsem, and his death did not come as a surprise to Aaltah’s new king. No, not at all.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the taste of Lady Oona’s lips, the feel of her satiny skin beneath his fingertips. He had never bedded her, despite their mutual desire, because he had loved her too much to send her to the marriage bed spoiled and risk her husband sending her to the Abbey. But now she was free, and after a few months of respectful mourning for his father, he would divorce Shelvon and be free himself. Lady Oona would finally be his, to bed to his heart’s content. And with his disapproving father no longer insisting the lady was beneath him, he would marry her, making her his by law.
The smile kept wanting to break free, and thoughts of finally having the woman he’d loved for so many years in his bed had him hard and aching. He reminded himself sternly that he was in mourning, that his father had been dead less than two weeks and grief should be his constant companion. It was unseemly to let the power of the throne be such an effective balm against the grief. But while he had lost a father, he had gained the right to have the woman he loved, as well as the ability to banish his half-siblings from his sight while fitting them both with a most effective leash. He felt more inclined to celebrate than weep.