Queen of the Unwanted

by Jenna Glass

  Of course, she had no one but herself on whom to test the potion—a process she had to approach with the utmost caution, as she could not afford to have her Mindseye unable to open when Loveland performed one of his spot inspections. So she spent the daylight hours tinkering with the formula, then waited until bedtime to perform any tests.

  Within four nights, she had a potion that would force her Mindseye closed for hours on end. One version had given her a scare when she woke in the morning and still couldn’t open her Mindseye. Luckily, she’d had the foresight to concoct an antidote before testing the potion, although it meant spending much of the morning heaving into a chamber pot, for the antidote she’d developed involved the use of a purgative.

  For the final version of her potion, she would add the element Sur, which served to make the effects of many spells and potions permanent. Unfortunately, this final version would not be one she dared test, for if it worked and the antidote failed to reverse the effects, she would be doomed.

  She would have only one chance to cast her spell on the Well—assuming Delnamal would provide a subject for the willing human sacrifice—and she still had no idea how she would escape after she’d cast it. Feeling she needed every bit of help she could get, Mairah reluctantly downed another seer’s poison in hopes that a vision of the traditional sort might show her whether her spell was going to work or not.

  She couldn’t afford to take a poison that would leave her out of commission for two days, so perforce she took a much milder one that merely left her sick and miserable and in pain for a few hours. The vision it triggered showed her standing in the cavern in which sat Aaltah’s Well. If Aaltah’s Well was anything like Khalpar’s, the room would ordinarily have been heavily guarded, but in her vision there were only four people in the cavern: herself, the king, Melcor, and a sickly looking woman with dull eyes. Melcor and the strange woman stood close to the mouth of the Well. Melcor was holding a knife out to her while Mairah watched. King Delnamal, looking both petulant and excited, stood apart from them with his arms crossed over his chest.

  The vision showed Mairah nothing more, but it was enough to help her form some semblance of a plan.

  The four of them were alone and unguarded in that chamber. Mairah could only assume that the sickly looking woman was the willing sacrifice, and that meant she was no threat to Mairah. Delnamal was standing at some remove, and Mairah already knew that the Well’s cavern was situated below the palace somewhere, which meant that to exit the chamber would require climbing quite a few stairs—something she doubted Delnamal could do with anything resembling alacrity. If she fled, he would never be able to catch her. Which left only Melcor as a potential threat.

  Could Mairah outrun him? He was more able-bodied than Delnamal, but her vision had shown there to be a considerable distance between them. He would surely be distracted when the woman performed the sacrifice, and Mairah could take advantage of his distraction to sprint toward freedom. If she could reach the door first, she should be able to shut him in, for there was certainly a bar or lock on it.

  The plan seemed promising, but still left Mairah with far too many doubts. Would Melcor be sufficiently distracted? Would the door require a key to lock it? How could she escape the palace unnoticed once she exited the Well chamber? And, most important, would her potion work? For if it failed, she knew Delnamal would do everything in his considerable power to find and punish her.

  Knowing she needed more answers, Mairah grimly resolved to take as many seer’s poisons as necessary to find her path to freedom and glory.

  * * *

  —

  King Delnamal glared around the table at the members of his royal council, hiding the humiliating roil of panic in his belly. The council had been a great deal more accommodating after his summary dismissal of Lord Aldnor, and he’d allowed their complaisance to convince him that they had no more resistance left.

  Oh, he hadn’t deluded himself into believing his royal council was as steadfast and loyal as a royal council ought to be, didn’t believe they respected and esteemed him as they had his father. But he’d convinced himself they’d obey him when he made his desires abundantly clear.

  There was not a man at the table who was willing to meet his eyes, and that enraged Delnamal even further. If they truly had the audacity to resist a plan that might lead to the reversal of the Curse, they should at least have the courage to look him in the eyes while they did it.

  “Is there a man here at this table who does not want the Curse to be undone?” Delnamal snarled.

  “Of course not, Your Majesty,” his lord chancellor said with only the briefest flick of a glance at his face. “It’s just that…” Here, his courage failed him and his voice trailed off as he looked helplessly around the table for someone else to take up the cry.

  “It’s just that it seems a terrible risk to grant the Abbess of Khalpar access to our Well when she has so little reason to think well of us,” the grand magus said, causing several of the other councilors to wince delicately.

  The council had already more than once expressed a tactful level of discomfort with his treatment of the Khalpari bitch. A displeasure that was all the more evident when King Khalvin had sent an official request to release the woman into Khalpari custody—despite having already named a new abbess. It was as if they didn’t care that Khalvin had spit in the face of Aaltah by sending a delegation bearing gifts to that band of traitors in Women’s Well. As if they expected Delnamal to just bend over and take it instead of responding with a firm and unambiguous message.

  “I have offered the woman her freedom if she succeeds in her task,” Delnamal responded sharply. “She doesn’t have to think well of us. She just has to have her own best interests at heart.”

  There was more shifting and throat clearing and lowered gazes. Delnamal thought surely some of the more sycophantic council members would speak a few words of mealy support, but every last man in the room seemed to have lost his voice. Or his balls.

  “You can’t seriously mean to just ignore this opportunity!” Delnamal shouted, banging the table for emphasis. Which turned out to be an unfortunate decision, for the table was solidly built and barely made a sound while it savaged the bones of his hand.

  “Let her conduct her unholy experiment on the Well in Khalpar,” the grand magus advised. His voice was irritatingly soothing, as if he believed he was speaking with a madman. “She can’t—”

  “Yes,” Delnamal interrupted. “Let’s give her everything she wants so that she has no incentive to do anything whatsoever to reverse the Curse. And even if she does still have some incentive, why should we allow Khalvin to have all the glory? Then Aaltah will go down in history as the kingdom that allowed the Curse to be cast, and Khalpar will be the heroic kingdom that restored the natural order. I’m sure that will set the basis for excellent international relations for generations to come.”

  More wincing and shifting and muttering ensued. Delnamal wondered if perhaps he wouldn’t be better served by dismissing every last man on his royal council. Maybe if he started afresh…

  But angry though he was, he knew that was not a viable solution. The council was made up of members of the richest and most influential families in the kingdom. He’d faced enough grumbling from Lord Aldnor’s family already, and he could not afford to make more enemies.

  “We cannot risk that the witch might do grievous harm to our Well,” the lord chancellor said, and it seemed that he was speaking for every man on the council based on the way they all nodded. “No matter how much every man at this table would like to see the Curse reversed, it is not worth putting our entire kingdom at risk.”

  If Delnamal had seen even a hint of doubt or disagreement on the face of any man in the room, he would have called for a vote and hoped the dissenters were too cowardly—and protective of their positions—to cast a vote against him. As it was, he was
convinced that a vote would not go in his favor.

  The truth was, there was no law that said he had to gain the council’s permission to take the former Abbess of Khalpar to the Well of Aaltah. There were a great number of decisions codified by law that required at least minimal approval from the council, but the law had never seen fit to cover the unique situation in which Delnamal now found himself.

  Delnamal smiled to think how slavishly his council members would kiss his feet, how the common people would worship him, how the kings and sovereign princes of Seven Wells would admire him if he defied the council and the abbess’s spell worked.

  The smile faded as he considered what would happen if he defied the council and the spell didn’t work. Even if the failed attempt did no damage, he would lose what respect the royal council had for him, and he could count on all but the most sycophantic of the bunch to resist him more stubbornly. And if something untoward happened, if the witch’s spell not only didn’t work but in some way harmed the Well…

  So no. He did not need his council’s permission. But cold logic still told him that winning them over was preferable to having the witch cast the spell behind their backs.

  The question then became, how could he convince them that trying to undo the Curse was worth the risk?

  He didn’t yet know the answer, but he was bound and determined to find a way.

  * * *

  —

  Delnamal read over his letter to Prince Waldmir for what had to be at least the tenth time. Ordinarily, his correspondence with foreign sovereigns was written for him by one of his diplomatic scribes, and his only duty was to tell the scribe what to say and then read over the final letter before sending it off. But this particular letter was one he had to write himself, for it was of the utmost importance that no one—not even his most trusted advisers—know about it.

  He huffed out a deep breath as he signed the thing, wondering if he had taken leave of his senses. But no. It was his council who was to blame. If they had just agreed to let the Abbess of Khalpar attempt to undo the Curse, he wouldn’t have needed to write to Waldmir at all, wouldn’t have needed to undo all the careful work he’d done in building that relationship. He was sure he was on the cusp of luring Prince Waldmir away from his alliance with Rhozinolm.

  Rolling up the letter, he sealed it with wax and attached it to a flier. He had done his best not to come across as rude or insulting as he’d regretfully informed the prince that he could no longer offer a future marriage between his heir and the prince’s daughter. And he’d included suggestions for other potential ways their two lands could come together in the future, as though he weren’t specifically trying to drive Waldmir and Nandel away. But no pretty wording would undo the damage this letter would cause when it reached its destination. Only the hope of his grandson one day sitting on the throne of Aaltah could possibly have tempted Waldmir into the kind of alliance that they needed. With that hope snatched away, in all likelihood Waldmir’s nephew would soon be engaged to Queen Ellinsoltah and their trade agreements renewed.

  Surely then Delnamal’s council would see that allowing the abbess to attempt her spell was the only way to keep Aaltah safe. If the Curse would just go away, then Alysoon and her little band of rebels would lose all their power, and all the unholy magic the Curse had brought into the world would be gone. He would no longer need King Khalvin’s support to crush the rebels, because they would no longer have the magic that had protected them from his first attack. Rhozinolm might still object—he was well aware that the queen’s cousin had recently married Tynthanal—but Delnamal could mercifully spare the girl from her husband’s fate and return her to the bosom of her family. Even if the queen and the girl’s father were offended, they would be unlikely to find any great support for a war as long as the girl was returned unharmed.

  It was a gamble, Delnamal told himself as he opened his Mindseye and activated the flier’s spell. If the abbess’s spell failed, or if it somehow damaged the Well…

  He shook the thought off. Great kings took great risks when the reward was worth it. And this one was. If through his actions, the Curse was reversed, then he would go down in history as one of the greatest kings Seven Wells had ever known. If his gamble didn’t work, well, it would be a disaster, that was certain. But as long as he had the council’s approval to take that gamble—and no one knew he’d sabotaged Aaltah’s relationship with Nandel to get it—the blame would not fall on his shoulders.

  Smiling at the idea of children reading about him in the history books generations from now, he sent the flier on its way.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Ellin was catching up on correspondence—a seemingly endless task on which she was always woefully behind—when her desk drawer began to chirp. She frowned and lowered the letter of complaint she’d been reading from some minor nobleman who felt compelled to tell her that it was not fitting for a woman to sit on the throne of Rhozinolm—as if he had any right to an opinion on the matter. She was not unhappy to toss the letter aside for now, but an unexpected communication via talker was rarely a good thing.

  Ellin opened the drawer, fully expecting the chirping talker to be the one that was paired with Princess Alysoon’s, and her misgivings strengthened when she saw that instead it was Prince Waldmir’s. She had spoken to the Sovereign Prince of Nandel via talker only once, and that occasion had been a brief and painfully formal introduction. For him to attempt to contact her like this without warning boded ill.

  She set the talker on her desk, then left it there and opened her office door, asking her secretary to find Zarsha and send him to the office immediately. Then, not knowing how long Waldmir would persist before growing impatient, she sat at her desk and activated the talker.

  “Prince Waldmir,” she said with a practiced court smile when his image shimmered into life. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Waldmir’s ascetic face was not made for laughter, but she nonetheless caught a spark of amusement in his usually cold eyes. “I’m glad you find it so, Your Majesty,” he said in his rich, deep voice. “My council advised me that I should arrange a more formal meeting, but I felt that in some matters, it was best for two sovereigns to have the freedom to speak to one another in complete openness and candor.”

  Ellin’s lips twitched in a hint of a smile, despite a renewed upwelling of wariness. She was well aware of the Nandelite dislike for the intricacies and deviousness of court intrigue, but though much of Seven Wells considered them to be little better than barbarian warlords, her discussions with Zarsha had convinced her there was a great deal more to them than that. Waldmir’s desire to speak with her in private screamed of ulterior motives.

  “I have sent for Zarsha,” she said. “I assume this conversation will be of interest to him, as well.”

  The expression in Waldmir’s eyes hardened. “I do not wish for my nephew to be involved. This is to be a conversation between two sovereigns alone.”

  Ellin shook her head. “Am I wrong in assuming the topic will be our marriage?”

  “You are not wrong. But if you wish to marry my nephew and retain Rhozinolm’s trade agreements with Nandel, you will agree to negotiate with me and me alone. Zarsha does not get a voice.”

  Ellin stared at the Sovereign Prince of Nandel as she absorbed his words and the implications. Clearly, he planned to propose terms that he felt Zarsha would not agree with, and that was why he insisted on privacy. He might also be hoping that with no one to counsel her, she might make a rash decision that would be to his advantage.

  Ordinarily, Ellin would trust her own judgment, despite her relative inexperience. Having sat on the throne only a year and a half, she felt as though she’d weathered at least five years’ worth of crises already. But Waldmir’s desire to separate her from her advisers aroused a tumult of suspicions. What was Waldmir up to?

  “I may be relatively new to the thro
ne,” she said with some asperity, “but I am not so green as to believe that either marriage arrangements or trade agreements are ordinarily negotiated between two sovereigns alone. In point of fact, I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’m afraid it’s simply out of the question.”

  Waldmir pinned her with a steely gaze. “If you want to renew the trade agreements, then you have no choice. I have another offer on the table, and if we end this conversation without making an agreement, then I will insist that you send my nephew home. And our current trade agreements will not be renewed.”

  Ellin’s heart gave an unpleasant thump as the weight of that threat crashed down. She had retained her hold on her throne on the strength of her promise to renew the trade agreements with Nandel. Thanks to Tamzin’s death—and the marriage she had arranged for Kailindar’s daughter—she had more support on her royal council now than she ever had before. But she was under no illusion that support would last if she lost the trade agreements.

  “Do you wish to end this conversation now?” Waldmir prompted with a challenging raise of his eyebrows.

  Ellin gritted her teeth. She had little patience for bullies, and she had no wish to give in to one. Most likely, he was bluffing, after all. Then again, he had been unwilling to commit to any marriage arrangement—or renewal of the trade agreements—for half a year now, and the longer he delayed, the less popular her rule would become. Maybe this was her chance to get a firm commitment out of him.