Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  His eyes were closed now, and he hung completely limp from Alys’s grip. She couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing.

  “Let go,” he said, his voice even softer and more labored. “Don’t…don’t let Oona see what I’ve become.”

  Alys couldn’t have said whether it was a conscious choice, or whether her strength finally gave out. But her hands opened, and Delnamal slipped from her grasp.

  He made no sound as he fell.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Stumbling and nearly blind with tears, Leethan pulled Waldmir’s cloak tightly around her, letting her head disappear into the shadow of the hood. She wished she could just pull it down over her eyes so that she did not have to see the devastation that radiated out from the place where she had lain protected by Waldmir’s body and the Kai shield spell that had resided in his ring.

  The tents and pavilions that had surrounded Waldmir’s had all been flattened, and there were dead men everywhere. She had heard stories before about the destructive power of battlefield Kai spells. Of course she had—that’s why she’d thought to use one. But somehow it seemed her mind had never fully encompassed the horror.

  Shouts and screams came from all directions, each sending a dagger into her conscience, but at least it let her know there were survivors. She picked her way through the bodies and wreckage, expecting at any moment for someone to stop her. But as Waldmir had predicted, what was left of the camp was in chaos, people running here and there, searching for survivors, and trying to figure out what was going on and what to do now. No one paid any heed to her as she walked through the camp, retracing her steps.

  A sob escaped her when she passed through the edge of the camp, where most of the tents were still standing. The sentry posts were all abandoned, the tents empty, and she slipped away into the woods like a ghost.

  She should be dead. She had not come to the camp eager to die, but she had to some extent come to terms with her death. Certainly she had never entertained the notion that she might have to live with what she had just done.

  Waldmir was dead, along with countless others. Including most of his potential heirs. The most martial of his nephews—the ones most likely to launch a war to stake their own claims to the throne—would all be in this camp, in the tents reserved for the officers and other elite of Nandel. Which meant they would have been situated near Waldmir’s tent, where the worst of the destruction had occurred.

  The army was in complete disarray, and although someone would undoubtedly take charge and restore order, there was no question that the survivors would abandon the camp and limp back into Nandel. Rhozinolm would now be free to march to Aaltah’s defense, and yet Leethan felt not even the slightest sense of victory.

  She had to pause to retch as she remembered the horror of climbing out from under Waldmir’s dead body and seeing what the Kai spell had done. Everything within her shriveled, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball of misery.

  But when it came right down to it, it was not Leethan who’d cast the Kai spell. It was now abundantly clear that sacrificial Kai did not behave like ordinary Kai. Perhaps something created by a noble, willing sacrifice was simply not meant to be used to kill.

  Leethan’s mission had been doomed—should have been doomed—from the beginning.

  There will be a lot of fear and confusion, Waldmir had said. And then he’d told her to take his cloak and escape before order was restored.

  He had recognized the spell in her dagger. Known exactly what it would do. And yet he had used his own masculine Kai to trigger it for her.

  Leethan spat and wiped her mouth, her stomach roiling. She still struggled against a nearly unbearable urge to just sit down and bury her head in her hands. But she now had the means to keep her promise to Jaizal and return to Zinolm Well safely. Giving up would be an act of cowardice.

  When she’d told Waldmir she’d seen a future in which his nephews did not drag Nandel into civil war in an effort to succeed him, she’d meant only to spare herself the slow and painful execution she feared was awaiting her. She hadn’t for a moment considered that he might choose to trigger the spell himself, though perhaps she should have. He’d put himself—and his wives—through so much in his desperate quest to secure the succession and not give his nephews cause to start a war. If he believed her when she suggested triggering the spell would prevent that war, then why wouldn’t he trigger it himself when she failed?

  Another sob rose from Leethan’s throat, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to try to contain it. Likely there were no patrols roaming the woods, for they would have heard the commotion in the camp and run back, but that was no reason for her to be incautious.

  How many men had died from that Kai spell? Leethan couldn’t guess, didn’t want to guess.

  The lump of pain in her throat was so large she felt like she was choking on it. The frigid night air and her own despair made her shiver, and she was no longer completely certain she was walking in the right direction to return to Rhozinolm’s camp. How ironic would it be if she survived her assassination attempt only to freeze to death in the woods?

  Leethan opened her Mindseye to examine Waldmir’s cloak. Nandelites scorned small, comforting things like warming spells, but the cloak might well be armed with one in case of emergency. Using a warming spell for comfort would be taken as a sign of weakness, but it was acceptable to use one to keep from freezing to death.

  Her Mindseye immediately noticed the warming spell that did, indeed, reside in one of the cloak’s fastenings. But when she looked up so that she could grab a mote of Rho to trigger the spell, she gasped in shock.

  Hovering by her left shoulder was the red, white, and black mote of Kai that had shimmered to life when she had performed her sacrifice.

  “Impossible,” she whispered into the night air, no longer feeling the chill.

  She was no expert in the principles of magic—neither men’s nor women’s—but she did know that if a man’s Kai appeared and his life was saved by one of the rare spells that could heal a fatal wound, the Kai disappeared.

  She swallowed hard and put her hand to her chest, still staring at the impossible tricolored mote. And then, of course, she thought of the dream. The dream wherein she and two other women had performed sacrifices that caused this tricolored Kai to appear.

  A gust of wind penetrated the gaps of the cloak, reminding her why she had opened her Mindseye in the first place. Deciding to leave the mystery of the sacrificial Kai until she had reached safety, Leethan activated the cloak’s warming spell and closed her Mindseye.

  Warmer, but still reeling with emotion and confusion, she grimly set off again in what she hoped was the direction of the Rhozinolm camp.

  * * *

  —

  Kailee had never felt so cold in all her life. She shivered, her teeth chattering, and all she wanted to do was lie down, curl herself into a ball, and pretend the rest of the world did not exist.

  Men were loading Alysoon onto a stretcher—against her objections—and Kailee was vaguely aware of the commotion around her. She was asked several times if she was injured, and though she couldn’t quite locate her voice to answer, she shook her head, and so far everyone was taking her at her word. She stood frozen beside the Well, wishing she could scrub the last hour from her memory, knowing it would haunt her till the end of her days. Her arms still remembered the sensation of that spelled blade slicing through Prince Draios’s neck, and her brain kept replaying the sound of his body collapsing to the floor.

  Everyone was going to reassure her that she had done the right thing, that she was some kind of hero. Those who knew her best would understand her horror, but even they would expect her to get over it with time. But she knew with a certainty she could not explain that she would never be the same.

  She had killed someone. With her own two hands and with cle
ar and murderous intent. She had come to the Well so that she might help someone else kill Draios, and though she was certain doing so would have left her feeling traumatized, it would not have been like this. She, who insisted on seeing the best in everyone, had killed a frightened seventeen-year-old boy.

  Hugging herself almost desperately, she thought about Leethan’s prophetic dream, in which three women had sacrificed themselves to defeat the shadowy figures representing Draios and Delnamal and Waldmir. Everyone had believed that Leethan was the woman who would face Waldmir, and that Alysoon was the one who would face Delnamal. But no one had guessed that it would be Kailee who would defeat Draios.

  Maybe they should have. From what Kailee had learned of the fateful spell called the Blessing, there was extra power in the female trio of maiden, mother, and crone. Brynna, her daughter, and her granddaughter had played those roles for the casting of the Blessing, and it was not hard at all to see Alysoon as the mother and Leethan as the crone. That had left only the maiden unidentified. Of course, there were few who knew that Kailee was still a maiden despite her marriage.

  Kailee stared at the strange mote of Kai that hovered near her chest. Nowhere had she heard a description of sacrificial Kai, but she knew without doubt that the tricolored crystal was exactly that. She had not sacrificed her life to earn it, but she had sacrificed her innocence.

  Still standing motionless in the midst of all the clamor, she watched as the men lifted Alysoon’s stretcher. She wondered if Alysoon had any idea that she had her own mote of sacrificial Kai. It had not been there when she’d lain dying on the Well-chamber floor. Nor had it been there when she’d been trying to knock Delnamal into the Well. No, it had shimmered to life when Alysoon had reached out her hand to keep Delnamal from falling.

  A hand gently touched Kailee’s shoulder, and she started. Belatedly, she realized that one of the soldiers had been speaking to her.

  “Sorry to startle you, Your Highness,” he said with an embarrassing amount of pity in his voice. “We need to get you to a medic.”

  Kailee shook her head. “I am uninjured,” she said, although her voice quavered dangerously and she couldn’t resist the urge to rub at her chest in remembered pain. She had come very close to dying. Under other circumstances, that horror alone would have staggered her.

  “You may not yet be aware of your injuries,” the soldier said. “You are covered in blood, and—”

  “It’s not mine,” she assured him. The soldiers, of course, did not know everything that had transpired in this chamber before they arrived. Some of them had undoubtedly seen when Delnamal dropped into the Well, and they could certainly see that Draios’s head was not attached to his body. But none of them would guess that it was she who had struck that fatal blow.

  “You should see the medic anyway, just to be safe,” the soldier persisted, once again putting a hand on her arm. Naturally, he didn’t believe her.

  Kailee had had a great deal of practice maintaining her patience with those who were overly solicitous, who believed her entirely helpless because of her sex and because of her lack of worldly vision. Always, she’d put up with it and kept her irritation to herself, knowing that most people meant well. Certainly this soldier did.

  But just this once, Kailee found she did not have the patience for courtly politeness. She jerked her arm out of his grip.

  “I said I’m fine,” she snarled. “I’m covered in blood because I chopped off a man’s head!”

  The soldier gasped and took a hasty step back from her, whether because of the heat in her voice or because of her words themselves, she didn’t know.

  “I do not need a medic,” she concluded, forcing her voice back down to a normal volume.

  She let out a long, shaky breath. “I suspect I will, however, need some help getting out of here without stumbling over bodies.”

  She had the sense that the soldier was standing there staring at her, fumbling for what to say. In the end, he settled for saying nothing at all, instead holding out his elbow for her to take.

  * * *

  —

  When she’d heard that Corlin was severely wounded—but alive—Alys’s first instinct had been to run directly to his side. He was being treated at the hospital in the Citadel, and the risers had been started again as soon as the Khalpari forces had retreated, so she could have reached his side in little more than half an hour.

  It was Tynthanal who had held her back, going so far as to take her by the shoulders and shake her when she’d at first refused to listen. His glare was fearsome, his voice full of command as he leaned into her personal space.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” he growled at her. “Take a look at yourself!”

  “I’m fine!” she snarled back, though that was something of an exaggeration. Kailee’s healing spell had done an admirable job of closing the wound in her chest, and the medic she’d been pressured into seeing had wanted to use a second spell to augment the effects of the first. However, there were countless wounded soldiers who would need that spell more desperately than Alys did, so she had refused. Which meant her chest felt as if a boulder had smashed into it, and every breath hurt.

  “I said look!” Tynthanal shouted. He was not one to lose patience easily, but it was understandable on a day like today.

  Blinking, Alys looked down at herself, at her torn and blood-soaked bodice, at the blood that formed spots and splotches on her ragged skirts. She looked like exactly what she was: a woman who had been through a battle and taken a wound that should have been fatal.

  “Is this how you want him to see you?” Tynthanal finished. “After everything he’s already been through today?”

  Alys swallowed hard, ashamed of her selfishness. She had thought only of her need to see her son, and not about the fear she would spark in him the moment he caught sight of her like this. She took a deep, calming breath, and though the need to rush to his side remained fierce, her rational mind returned to duty.

  “I will clean up and change first,” she assured her brother.

  Keeping her promise had taken longer than she’d expected, and it was more than two hours after she’d first learned of his fate when she finally arrived at the Citadel hospital.

  The Citadel made a practice of treating all its soldiers as equals, at least in theory. However, either because he was the Crown Prince of Women’s Well or because he was the prince regent’s nephew, Corlin had been given a private room in which to recuperate.

  He was asleep when Alys first entered, lying on his back with his hands clasped over his chest. There was the remnant of a vicious slice wound over the left side of his face, and Alys knew from the healer’s report that her boy had been in grave danger of losing his eye. But the worst of the damage was hidden under the blankets, and though Alys knew the wound had been successfully closed and was as well mended as her own, she was just as happy not to have to see it.

  Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she carefully sat on the bed beside him, trying not to wake him. She did not want him to feel any unnecessary pain, and could not begrudge him his escape into sleep.

  She did not touch him, and as far as she knew, she made no sound, but Corlin’s eyes blinked open and he stirred.

  “Mama?” he said, his brow furrowing with worry. “Why are you crying? What’s happened?” He tried to sit up, but she put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

  “It’s all right,” she assured him, even as the tears continued to stream from her eyes, glad that Tynthanal had persuaded her to clean up and change. “I’m just…I’m just so glad you’re alive.” Her voice hiccuped, and she wished she could gather him into her arms and never let go.

  He smiled at her, though it turned into a wince as the movement stretched the healing wound on his face. “I’m glad you’re alive, too,” he said, and she was shocked to see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “When I hear
d that Delnamal had made it to the Well chamber…”

  His voice trailed off, and he closed his eyes.

  Alys dabbed the tears off her cheeks, realizing that all her plans to protect him had been for naught. “You knew what I was planning to do,” she said.

  “Not exactly,” he said, then opened his eyes once more. “Our assignment was to stop Delnamal from getting up the cliffs, and we were told there was intelligence suggesting he was heading for the Well chamber. I figured you were here because you wanted to confront him, and if you knew he was going to the Well, then that was where you’d be.” He frowned at her rather fiercely. “I don’t know exactly what happened up there, but I do know you could easily have died. You should have told me. I would have hated it, but I would have understood. I’m not a baby.”

  She took his hand—grateful that he did not snatch it away—and gave it a squeeze. Eventually, she would tell him the whole truth about why she’d been waiting for Delnamal at the Well, but now was most definitely not the time. “I know. And I’m sorry.” She swiped away more tears. “I’m not as brave as you are, my darling boy.”

  Corlin squirmed, and she suspected it was only an effort of will that stopped him from rolling his eyes. “Delnamal is really dead this time, isn’t he?”

  Alys nodded, remembering the feeling of his hand slipping through hers. He had been a bad king, a bad brother, and an all-around bad man—even before the accident at the Well—but somehow, miraculously, he had done the right thing at the end. The memory of his frantic attempts to rid himself of all that Kai so that his death would not poison the Well would now vie with all her other memories of him to make him into something far more complicated than the villain she had hated with all of her heart.

  “He is dead,” she affirmed, “and the Well is repaired. And I have it on good authority that you will earn a medal for saving your fellow cadet’s life at such great personal risk.” It went against custom to award medals to cadets, but then a lot of old customs were changing.