Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  He could not comprehend how he’d let himself for a moment consider the atrocity he’d come here to the Well to commit, and he wondered if the elaborate fiction he’d fed Draios about the power of the Destroyer having entered him might not have a kernel of truth at its core. He had done a great many bad things over the course of his life—he could admit that to himself now—but however badly he had failed at his duties as a man and a husband and a king, he had never wished for harm to befall the Kingdom of Aaltah. Not even in his darkest moments, when he’d happily daydreamed about slaughtering his obstinate royal council, had his malice reached such depths.

  Whatever it was that had led him down such a dark and terrible road, it was gone now. Everything he had done since the Rhokai had entered his body—maybe even everything he had done since he’d become king—had been a disgrace, and he shuddered to think how history would revile him. He could not rewrite his legacy now, for it was far too late. But he could at least try not to make it any darker than it already was.

  Delnamal opened his Mindseye and grabbed one of the free Kai motes remaining in his aura. He used it to activate the Kai spell in his belt buckle. Thrown at men, the spell would crush their chests, turning their insides to jelly. But there were no enemies left to defeat save the demons within himself, so he threw the spell at the far side of the Well, where it dissipated harmlessly against the wall, using up the Kai mote.

  Grimly, Delnamal reached for another of the motes in his aura.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Alys closed her eyes and breathed deep, then found herself scared to open them again. What if she opened her eyes and found Delnamal still standing there, killing Kailee? Surely that was more likely than that her desperately thrown spell had actually worked, and that in doing so it had carried Delnamal into the Well.

  Bracing herself, Alys cracked her eyelids open. Delnamal was nowhere to be seen.

  Kailee was on her hands and knees, her head down as she gasped and retched. Her gown was splattered with blood, and Alys could hardly believe that the sweet, mild-mannered girl she knew had swung a sword and removed Draios’s head from his shoulders.

  The healing spell Kailee must have cast on her was still working its magic, as Alys dragged herself to a sitting position. The movement caused a spike of sharp pain in her chest, and she reflexively clapped a hand over the wound, feeling a bout of nausea as she realized once again how much blood had soaked into her gown. A brooch—which was not hers, and which she assumed contained the healing spell—had fallen to her lap, and she quickly grabbed it and pinned it onto her bodice near the wound so that it could continue working.

  Still weak and dizzy, Alys forced herself to her feet and staggered toward the Well. Her balance felt uncertain enough that she knew peeking over the rim was unwise, but she could not stop herself. She tried to keep as far back as possible while still leaning her head forward so she could see.

  A small, strangled sound escaped her when she saw Delnamal lying on his back on a ledge against the side of the Well. Somehow, impossibly, the bastard was still alive! His eyes were white, and while she watched, he reached for something in the air in front of him.

  She knew all too well what he was reaching for, and she hastily retreated from the rim of the Well before he could cast his wretched Kai spell at her.

  Delnamal had survived the last time he had desecrated Aaltah’s Well, but there was no way Alys could allow him to do so this time!

  The sword Kailee had discarded lay only inches from Alys’s feet, so she bent and picked it up. She could not get to Delnamal to run him through—much though she might wish to—but surely his perch on that ledge was precarious. Her shoulders heaved with her panting breaths—her body was still far from healed enough for all this exertion—as she neared the edge once again. There was a tiny part of her that said she was taking a foolish risk, that she should wait until whatever reinforcements Tynthanal could afford to send had reached the Well chamber rather than trying to finish off her half-brother herself.

  Clearly, the purgative spell she had cast on him had had an effect, and a devastating one at that. But even if it had purged the stolen Rhokai from his body, his white eyes suggested that he might still have free Kai available.

  Most likely, he had held on to that Kai mote he had grabbed, waiting to activate his Kai spell the moment she—or anyone else—dared come into view again. But even knowing how foolish and reckless she was being, she could not seem to stop herself.

  Reaching the edge of the Well, she looked down again, and once more saw Delnamal pulling something toward him. She hurled the sword down, hoping that it had enough magic in it that he could see it despite having his Mindseye open. She doubted the sword would kill him by dropping on him, but if he instinctively tried to dodge, he might very well fall and finish the job.

  At the same moment she threw the sword, Delnamal threw his spell. Alys prepared to die, her mind not registering till a full second later that he had thrown the spell not at her, but at the far wall of the Well.

  The sword glanced off the side of the Well, the impact sending it careening harmlessly into the abyss.

  “Alys!” Delnamal yelled. “Don’t!”

  Alys looked about for something else to throw. It occurred to her—irrelevantly—that she could not recall Delnamal ever calling her by anything less than her full name before, even when they were children. Only people who liked her called her “Alys,” and that was something Delnamal had never done.

  She spotted a sword strapped to Draios’s side, and bent to retrieve it. Her stomach gave an unhappy lurch when she stepped so close to the headless body, and the memory of Jinnell’s head rolling in the dust threatened to rise up and smother her. Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, she pulled out the sword and turned away.

  “I still have a lot of Kai around me,” Delnamal’s voice called from the depths of the Well, the sound echoing. “You can’t let me fall into the Well like this!”

  Alys heard the words, but felt as if they had no meaning. No meaning that was important to her, at least. She had vowed time and time again that Delnamal would die either by her hand or by her order, and by her hand was the far more satisfying of the two options.

  She reached the edge of the Well, once again expecting Delnamal to throw his spell at her, and once again she saw him directing it not at her, but at the wall.

  “This Kai cannot fall into the Well!” he shouted at her, then cast yet again.

  “A-Alysoon?” a soft, tentative voice called from behind her.

  Alys blinked and turned to see Kailee now on her feet. There was blood coating the poor girl’s hands, and great splashes of it on her bodice and skirt and even her face. She was visibly shaking as she held out a hand toward Alys.

  “Your purgative worked,” Kailee said. “I can already see the difference in the Well’s output.”

  Alys nodded absently, turning back toward Delnamal. “I know it worked,” she said, for though she had not directly seen any effect, Delnamal would not have fallen if it hadn’t. “Though I don’t know why he still seems to have Kai clinging to him.”

  Alys opened her Mindseye, and she could immediately see that Kailee was right; the Well was healing. The cloud of elements flowing from the Well was visibly denser than it had been when she’d entered the chamber. It wasn’t as dense as it had been before the damage Delnamal had done, but she had faith that with a little time, it would return to normal.

  There was still a lot of Kai clinging to Delnamal’s aura, however. As she watched, he reached for one of those Kai motes and put it into a spell contained in a jewel in his belt buckle, then once again threw that spell at the far wall. She held the sword out over the lip of the Well once more.

  “Alys, please don’t,” Kailee said. “Mairahsol gave her life to stop a single mote of Kai from entering the Well. You met her. You know she would not have don
e that unless the need was desperate. The Kai cannot be allowed to enter the Well.”

  “I’m using it up as fast as I can,” Delnamal called. “I don’t want to destroy the Well!”

  “Think about what you’re doing!” Kailee cried.

  Alys held the sword in both hands over the rim of the Well, determined to take careful aim this time.

  “I’m thinking about it,” she said with a nod at the floor several feet away, where the ring containing her purgative spell had landed when she’d thrown it. “After I’ve knocked him in, I’ll perform the sacrifice to make sure the Kai doesn’t hurt the Well.” She frowned. “But perhaps you had better leave. I don’t want you to become the new Delnamal.”

  “I’m dying anyway,” Delnamal shouted up at her. “The Rhokai I absorbed from the Well was keeping me alive, and it’s gone now. Just wait until I’ve used up all this other Kai.”

  Alys laughed, with no hint of mirth. “Oh, now you’re the noble martyr who will sacrifice all for the good of Aaltah?”

  “Alys, please,” Kailee said. “You don’t have to do this. He’s lost, and you’ve won. Whether he’s truly dying as he says, or whether we will have to execute him, it’s over. There’s no reason to risk his Kai falling into the Well, and there’s no reason you should perform the sacrifice now that the Well is restored.”

  Alys shuddered and shook her head again.

  Everything she’d hoped for was right here in front of her! She could kill Delnamal with her own hands, thus finally avenging Jinnell’s death. And then she could sacrifice her own life to set things back to rights. She would never again have to suffer the memory of Jinnell’s head falling in the dirt, would never have to wake up to the agonizing knowledge that she would never see her precious daughter again. She would not have to risk learning that Corlin had been killed in the battle of the Harbor District, nor live with the guilt of having failed to protect her children.

  She’d told herself before that she didn’t want to die, that she had planned to make the sacrifice because it was the right thing to do and only as a last resort. Only now did she realize how massive was the lie she’d told.

  “Just wait a little longer,” Delnamal pleaded, his voice sounding weaker. He was still steadily reaching for motes in the air and then casting his spell, but his movements were slower and more labored. “They’re almost gone.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked in exasperation. “You launched a war against your own people specifically so you could come here and poison our Well, and now you are trying to save it?”

  His movements stopped for a moment, and the white film faded from his eyes as he looked up at her beseechingly. His face was cadaverous, those pleading eyes sunken deep into their sockets, and though he had always hated her, she saw no evidence of that hate in his expression now.

  “I have not been myself since I brought Mairahsol to the Well,” he said. “I made…countless bad decisions in my life, but I would never willingly bring harm to Aaltah. Not when I’m in my right mind. You don’t have to understand, or even believe me. Just don’t let me fall into the Well before I’ve used up the last of this Kai.”

  Alys hadn’t noticed she was crying until a tear dripped on the floor by her feet. Her throat felt swollen shut with them, and her chest still ached with the pain of her healing wound, but reason was beginning to force its way back into her consciousness.

  There was no logical reason to kill Delnamal now. Either he would die on his own, or reinforcements would soon arrive at the cavern and they could haul him out of the Well so he could undergo the trial and execution he so richly deserved. All she would gain was an excuse to end her own life.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Kailee said. “If you end up having to perform the sacrifice, I will be right here by your side and we can start the cycle all over again.”

  “Kailee…” Alys said in a warning tone.

  “No! I’m not going to let you do it, and that’s final. If I have to live with—” Her voice cut off for a moment with a choking sound. “If I have to live with what I just did,” she said more softly, “then you have to live, too.”

  Delnamal opened his Mindseye again to start casting his Kai spells. He shifted ever so slightly on the ledge, and they all heard the ominous cracking sound, followed by the skitter of pebbles.

  Delnamal froze for a moment, then held one hand up toward her as with the other, he continued to cast Kai spells. She saw that his hand was wretchedly twisted and gnarled, almost clawlike.

  “Don’t let me fall yet!” he cried, his misshapen fingers straining toward her.

  If he were at full strength—and bold enough—he could perhaps have stood up and reached the edge of the Well to pull himself out, but even holding his arm in the air seemed like a massive effort.

  More than just about anything else she could name, Alys wanted to let him fall. She wanted to stand here safely on the edge of the Well and watch as the ledge crumbled beneath him and he tumbled to his well-deserved death. And the very last thing she wanted to do was to help him in any way.

  But if Delnamal fell before the Kai was used up, then Alys would have no choice but to perform her sacrifice, even if Kailee refused to leave. It was one thing to be willing to give up her own life to get her revenge, but quite another to leave Kailee potentially burdened with the same unwholesome power Delnamal had absorbed.

  “Help me!” she shouted at Kailee as she dropped to the floor and reached her hand down toward her half-brother, even as the anger she had stored inside her howled in frustration at being thwarted. The wound in her chest protested the motion, but the pain was bearable, the healing spell nearly complete.

  She could just barely reach Delnamal’s hand, and at first she had not been able to stop herself from jerking away from his loathsome touch. His hand looked even more hideous when seen up close, but it was the thought of touching him that made her recoil.

  “Hurry!” he urged, flailing for her hand while still continuing to cast his Kai spells.

  Alys felt Kailee clamp down hard on her ankles. “I’ve got you!” Kailee said.

  Gritting her teeth, Alys took hold of Delnamal’s hand, then brought her other hand around to clasp his wrist. She could feel every bone in his fingers and hand, her own fingers closing easily around the frail wrist. She noted that his fingers could barely bend enough to hold on, although he tried.

  The ledge gave way with a loud crack, and all three of them cried out in alarm. Alys tightened her grip till she felt fragile bones grinding against one another.

  The weight of any normal full-grown man would have been too much for her to hold. Even as he was—a collection of skin and sinews and bone—Delnamal’s weight pulled her farther into the Well, and she thought for a moment they were both going to fall together.

  Somehow, Kailee managed to stop their slide, putting her whole body weight on top of Alys’s legs.

  Amazingly, Alys held on, gritting her teeth with the strain and closing her eyes so that she could not see the depths over which she dangled.

  “Stop squirming!” she snapped at Delnamal, for his restless movements made him harder to hold.

  “Can’t,” he said shortly, and she opened her eyes once more.

  He was suspended over the abyss now, with no ledge to catch him if he fell. And though she’d thought he’d been scrabbling with his feet for purchase, she saw that his legs were hanging limply down. The jerking movements she’d felt were merely his other hand pulling elements and casting spells at a frantic pace.

  Closing her eyes once more, Alys put all of her concentration into holding on, even as her arms and shoulders screamed in protest.

  “A little longer,” Delnamal gasped out, and Alys suppressed a whimper as the effort of holding him made her hands sweat and she wondered how long Kailee could hold her.

  How had it come to this? How
was it possible that she was risking her own life—and Kailee’s, for if Alys fell it was very possible Kailee would fall with her—to save a man she hated with every fiber of her being? It seemed grossly unfair after everything she’d been through, and she wondered how fools like the late and unlamented King Draios had managed to ascribe a divine plan to their lives. Certainly Alys would never worship any divinity that would put her through this!

  “That’s the last of it,” Delnamal finally breathed, heaving a sigh. “It’s safe to let go now. The fall won’t break my Rhokai.”

  Alys’s eyes popped open, and she found herself meeting her half-brother’s gaze. She could barely recognize the eyes that met hers, and it was not entirely because of the changes in his body. “How do you know?”

  “Take my word for it that only deaths by intentional violence break it. Let’s not talk about how I know.” He swallowed hard, and his voice grew weaker. “I’m sorry about Jinnell. I want you to know that I didn’t kill her, but she died because of me just the same.”

  Tears burned her eyes, and she glared at Delnamal as the familiar hatred flared. “Are you trying to make me let go?”

  Delnamal’s eyelids fluttered, and he shook his head. His breathing was shallow and labored, and his twisted fingers no longer wrapped around hers.

  “Just…wanted…to say that,” he whispered, his words so soft she could barely hear him.

  She blinked her own tears away and looked at him again, looked at the bones jutting out of his skin, and realized that it was impossible for someone to be that cadaverously skinny and still be alive.

  There was a clamor of voices from the far side of the Well chamber, and Alys heard Kailee calling for help. The reinforcements had arrived, and they could no doubt pull both Alys and Delnamal out of the Well. But Delnamal would never live long enough to face trial. Not without the Rhokai he had stolen from this Well.