In the first few weeks that followed the death of her daughter at the hands of her half-brother, Sovereign Princess Alysoon made no attempt to pretend she was anything resembling a rational human being. The grief and the rage—and the crushing guilt at not having protected her child—transformed her into a being of pure emotion and stole her ability to eat and to sleep. She did not leave her home for days at a time, and the weight dropped off her until her dresses hung limp from her gaunt frame. Occasionally, her lady’s maid, Honor, coaxed some food into her and badgered her into lying down for jagged bits of restless sleep. Honor also did her valiant best to keep Alys’s royal council from troubling her with any demands, and for three full weeks after the funeral—a singularly soul-destroying ordeal, for they had no body but only a head to consign to the cleansing flames—Women’s Well functioned, more or less, without any input from its sovereign.
Eventually, however, her brother—and lord chancellor—Tynthanal grew weary of making allowances.
Alys was slumped in her usual chair by the fireplace—which was unlit on this warm late-summer day—when she heard Honor’s raised voice coming from the sitting room just beyond. Although Alys had spent most of her days in a fog of alternating numbness and paralyzing grief, some part of her had known she would not be allowed to hide in her den and lick her wounds forever. In point of fact, she was no doubt lucky Tynthanal or one of her other council members hadn’t burst in on her already.
Alys straightened in her chair, blinking in the dimness of the room, for she had lit no luminants. Honor’s voice took on a pleading tone, but heavy footsteps approached the bedroom door anyway.
“Alys, I’m coming in,” Tynthanal announced, and there was no room for argument in his voice.
Alys sighed delicately and smoothed her skirts, trying to drag her mind back from the abyss. She was not ready to face the world yet, wasn’t sure she ever would be again. But even as the grief tried to drag her back down, she realized she could not remain comfortably inside her self-imposed tomb forever. Delnamal had killed Jinnell not because of any special ill will toward his niece, but because he’d known how deeply it would hurt Alys. It was likely he even had hopes that it would destroy her utterly, and if she did not somehow find a way to reclaim her life, she would be letting him win.
Tynthanal hesitated a moment at the door—either because he was hoping for an invitation or because he thought Alys needed that critical moment to prepare herself. Then, the door opened and he stepped inside. With the covered windows and the lack of luminants, he appeared as nothing more than a dark silhouette, framed by the doorway. Honor hovered anxiously at his shoulder, one hand stretched out toward him as though she might physically hold him back, though she had more sense than to try.
Tynthanal muttered a curse under his breath, then strode to one of the windows and yanked the curtains open, letting in a blinding beam of desert light. Alys squinted and raised her hand to shade her eyes as Tynthanal crossed to the other side of the room and opened more curtains. Alys wasn’t entirely sure what time it was, though she vaguely remembered Honor had brought her some lunch not all that long ago, so it was probably the early afternoon.
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness,” Honor said from the doorway, wringing her hands anxiously. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Honor looked so distraught that Alys experienced a stab of guilt. She imagined she’d been snappish and unpleasant, and though Honor no doubt fully understood her state of mind—and shared her grief, for she had loved Jinnell—that didn’t mean Alys’s behavior hadn’t been hurtful. No effort of will could dredge up anything resembling a smile, but Alys hoped she managed an expression that was at least reasonably pleasant.
“No apologies necessary,” she said, then had to clear her throat, her voice as rusty as if she’d just rolled out of bed. “You couldn’t keep him out indefinitely.”
Honor bobbed a quick curtsy, then retreated. Alys told herself that as soon as Tynthanal left, she would have to seek Honor out and give the woman an apology of her own. It could not have been easy caring for her over the last weeks, and yet Honor had not once complained or gotten impatient with her. Alys doubted she would have handled the situation with the same grace had their roles been reversed.
She turned her attention to Tynthanal, who stood by the window and shook his head at her. A lifetime of dressing in military uniform meant he never quite looked himself in the traditional civilian garb of doublet and breeches, but the mourning attire—without all the extra embellishments and color—looked more natural and comfortable than the ornamental dress of a traditional court. His skin was dark enough, both in natural coloration and from countless hours spent in the sun, that the black did not make him look pale or wan. There was a pinched look to his face and shadows under his eyes, but aside from that he looked very much like himself. Grief had not turned him into a hollow, shadowy vessel as it had Alys, and she had to fight down a sudden urge to snarl at him for looking so normal.
Tynthanal had, of course, loved Jinnell, but he was her uncle, not her father. There was no reason to expect his grief to be as transformative as Alys’s own. And the Principality of Women’s Well was much better off that way, for Alys was sure her brother had been taking care of all sorts of business in her stead, giving her as much time to grieve as he could afford.
“You’re going to tell me I have to snap out of it,” she said, her voice a little firmer this time.
Tynthanal blew out a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand through his hair, which based on its state of disarray had received similar treatment countless times throughout the course of the day. “I was going to be a good deal less insensitive than that.”
She nodded and pushed to her feet, stifling a groan. She’d been sitting still for far too long, and her joints complained at the sudden demand for movement. Rarely had Alys been as aware of her age as she was right now, and she subtly stretched and shifted her weight, trying to shake off the stiffness. Her neck made nasty crackling sounds as she tilted it first to one side, then the other. Fog still clung to her mind, her thoughts sluggish and dulled, but she knew that if there was one thing that could help restore her to some semblance of her usual self, it would be planning Delnamal’s downfall.
“But the message would have been the same,” she said. “And you’re right. I cannot sit in my room forever.”
“No,” Tynthanal agreed gently. “There are people who need you. And you need them just as badly.”
The words, so innocuous on their surface, triggered another pang in Alys’s chest. Of all the people who needed her, her son, Corlin, should need her the most. And yet despite the fact that he lived in her house, she had barely seen him since the day of the funeral. That was in part her fault, for having not ventured out of her room, but she had told Honor that Corlin was the one person who was allowed to interrupt her grieving whenever he wished. He had not once taken advantage of this permission, and when she sought him, he was almost invariably out, doing who-knew-what. She’d neglected her duty as a mother and failed to question his absences—something she should rectify as soon as Tynthanal left.
“I will attend tomorrow’s council meeting,” she promised. That would give her almost a full day to prepare herself for the demands she was sure to face once she returned to pubic life and resumed the business of being the Sovereign Princess of Women’s Well.
Tynthanal’s shoulders slumped with relief. Clearly, he’d come expecting a fight.
“But before that,” she continued, “I want to speak with you and Lady Chanlix. In private.”
Tynthanal’s brows drew together in an expression somewhere between confusion and alarm. Alys assumed he and the grand magus were still sleeping together, and she knew Chanlix was worried Alys would frown on the relationship. Tynthanal had never seemed to share Chanlix’s concerns, but the wariness in his eyes suggested perhaps he’d merely kept his concerns deeply hidden.
“May I ask what about?”
“I would like the Academy to begin work on a new Kai spell—on an unofficial basis.”
“Ah,” Tynthanal said, having no trouble following Alys’s thoughts without further explanation. “You want to find a way to send a deadly spell via flier.”
The spell the former abigails of Women’s Well had developed using women’s Kai was something completely unprecedented. With the spell they’d named Vengeance, a woman who possessed a mote of Kai could use that Kai to send a flier winging to her enemy, and, if the flier found its mark and broke skin, the hapless victim would be rendered permanently impotent. It was a devastating spell, and one that was very difficult to guard against. Alys had tried to strike Delnamal with it, using a mote of Kai donated by Chanlix, but the attack had been foiled. And now that he’d had Jinnell put to death out of pure spite, Vengeance was too mild a spell to fit his crimes.
“I would prefer to murder Delnamal as slowly and painfully as possible with my own hands,” she growled as the rage in her belly swelled and threatened to overwhelm her. “But my chances of reaching him with a flier are far higher, and I want him dead sooner rather than later.”
“Understood,” Tynthanal said with a bow.
Mairahsol let out a contented sigh as she snuggled closer to Jalzarnin, enjoying the afterglow—but also enjoying the plush mattress as well as the softness of the sheets. She remembered vaguely that the bed she’d slept on growing up had been even more luxurious, with silken sheets and feather-stuffed pillows, but after ten years of the rock-hard cot in the junior abigails’ dormitory, the beds in the Abbey’s playrooms felt like the pinnacle of decadence. A decadence she’d experienced all too rarely, for her pockmarked face meant she had never worked the Abbey’s pavilion. Until a chance encounter with the lord high priest had, for reasons she did not understand, changed her life.
Jalzarnin ran a hand through her hair—an affectionate gesture she suspected few men who visited the Abbey would bestow on the abigails who serviced them. She was not naïve enough to believe him in love with her, but she was sure at least some of that affection was genuine. He’d been equally tender with her even before she’d shown her usefulness to him as an amateur spy, and his outrage when he’d seen the results of the beating the late Mother Wyebryn had ordered had been awesome to behold. She’d been afraid his rage would motivate him to act rashly, but he’d eventually calmed—never realizing how much of himself he had revealed to her in that rage.
“I have some good news for you,” he said when both their pulses had lowered and Mairah was so comfortable she was beginning to drift off to sleep.
His words banished any hint of sleep, and she sat up with a cry of excitement she could barely contain. He had, of course, believed it was his idea to try to have her appointed abbess, but she had conceived the plan herself even before the fateful beating that had won him entirely to her side. She’d barely allowed herself to hope he would follow through on his promise to advance her cause to the king, and even now she tried to temper her enthusiasm.
It was nearly impossible to believe her plan could have worked when she’d had so many obstacles to overcome. Not only had Mother Wyebryn been in good health and expected to rule the Abbey for another decade or two, but Mairah herself had been the woman in the Abbey least likely to succeed her. There was the question of her age, of course. But more damning was the fact that she had not a single friend within the Abbey’s walls. Mother Wyebryn and her cronies—especially the hateful Sister Norah—had had it in for her since the moment she’d first donned the red robes, and they had made it clear to every other abigail in the Abbey that befriending Mairah was a sure path to misery. But then, for whatever reason, Lord Jalzarnin had shown Mairah favor, and she’d begun once again plotting an epic, if improbable, revenge.
Knowing the effect it would have on her lover—or at least hoping she knew—she had allowed herself to be caught when supposedly spying on his behalf, thereby securing his loyalty through a combination of guilt and self-interest.
Yet even with Jalzarnin’s help, her plan would have had no chance of working if she hadn’t exaggerated her powers of foresight.
There was no question in her mind that she could see more elements than any other woman in the Abbey, but as a seer, she was almost entirely untested. Based on her bloodlines, she should have some natural abilities. However, when she’d tried her first seer’s poison—the mildest one available, just to test her tolerance—the pain and the misery it caused her was so wretched she’d vowed never to take another. Almost worse than the ravages of the poison was the punishment—and ridicule—heaped on her by Mother Wyebryn when Mairah had recounted what she’d seen. She’d been called a liar and a fraud and beaten soundly for what was termed her hubris. And yet now it seemed her vision—which had shown her sitting behind the abbess’s desk while still a young woman—had been true all along.
“You spoke with the king!” she exclaimed, her heart rate shooting all the way back up as her breath nearly froze in her lungs. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
Even she had doubted the veracity of her own vision! But even so, she had confided in Jalzarnin, embellishing her vision with additional details to suggest she might use her power as abbess to undo the Curse. And whether because she was an exceptionally skilled liar or merely because he’d wanted so badly to believe her—likely a combination of the two—he’d been convinced. No longer would she sleep on a miserable cot in a dormitory filled with snoring women! Never again would she be forced to fast—or take a beating—anytime one of the senior abigails took exception to her tone of voice, or the expression on her face, or the thoughts they imagined she was thinking.
Jalzarnin laughed. “You know me, dearest. I do enjoy the savoring of joyful anticipation.” He waggled his brows at her, and she laughed with delight.
It was true that he was a master of foreplay. So much so that he always purchased two hours of her time instead of the traditional one.
“I can’t believe it,” she said wonderingly, covering her mouth with her hand as she shook her head. It had been a long time since she had felt anything resembling genuine joy—the glee she’d felt when Mother Wyebryn had blithely drunk the poison Mairah had slipped into her wine didn’t count—but that was what she felt now. “How did you manage it?”
He propped himself up on his elbow, smiling at her as his eyes glowed with satisfaction and pride. “I told you the king would do anything if he thought it might undo the Curse. I was not exaggerating. It makes sense that it would take women’s magic to reverse what the Abbess of Aaltah did, and it therefore makes sense to have the most magically gifted abigail leading the effort. The king saw that logic as clearly as I do.”
It sounded more like wishful thinking than logic, as far as Mairah was concerned. The Curse that the Abbess of Aaltah had cast was unthinkable in its scale and power. The woman had sent out fliers all through Seven Wells, explaining that the Curse had been generations in the making and that the three women who’d died in its casting were the only ones who had any idea how it was accomplished. It had affected the Wellspring—the source of all magical elements, which were said to be the Creator’s seed. And it had changed the most common of all elements: Rho, the element of life. It seemed the worst kind of hubris to imagine anyone could simply reverse it. Not in this lifetime, at least. Not that she’d ever allowed any such sentiment to see the light of day.
“The trade minister will come by the Abbey tomorrow,” Jalzarnin continued, “to deliver the official decree. This is the last night you will spend as an abigail.”
It was all Mairah could do not to leap out of the bed and dance for happiness. From the moment she’d set foot inside the Abbey—no, from the moment she’d started down the path that had led her here—she had considered her life all but over. Becoming abbess wouldn’t come close to restoring the life she’d had before her ruin, but it was a far cry from the miserable drudgery she’d resigned herself to.
“At least, as long as the king has reason to hope you will succeed in reversing the Curse,” Jalzarnin finished, draining all that joy and replacing it with cold horror.
“What?” she cried, hoping he didn’t mean what she feared.
He sat up and put a comforting hand on her thigh, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t panic, dear one. You will be named abbess on an interim basis, but the office will become officially yours in six months’ time.”
“Six months?” Her voice rose to something near a shriek. “You expect me to reverse this impossible spell in six months? Are you mad?” Her fellow abigails already despised her. She could only imagine how they would feel about her after she’d been their abbess for six months. If she should be removed from office and returned to their ranks…She shuddered. Hard to imagine she could be treated worse than she was right now, but she was certain that was exactly what would happen.
“Of course I don’t expect that,” Jalzarnin soothed. “And neither does the king. All he wants is to see signs of progress. He wants to be reassured that my recommendation is sound and based on logic, not emotion.” He grimaced briefly. “He is not unaware that I have formed a certain degree of attachment to you, and though I believe he trusts me and trusts my judgment, he is a careful man.”
Mairah folded her arms over her breasts—a gesture that was protective, rather than modest. She’d survived being ruined once—and it was a ruination she’d made a conscious choice to accept—but she wasn’t sure she could survive it a second time.
Jalzarnin drew her into his arms, and though she didn’t resist, she didn’t melt into him, either.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to risk?” she murmured, trying not to think about just how much more miserable her life could become. Perhaps it would be wiser not to try than to risk trying and failing. Not that she supposed Jalzarnin was exactly asking this of her. He had already spoken to the king, after all, and the king had already decided to appoint her.
“You will be named abbess permanently,” he said, his voice ringing with conviction. “Of that I have no doubt. You are gifted in so many ways.” He released her, then cupped his hands around her face, forcing her to meet his earnest eyes. “You deserve so much more than life has given you. I can’t give you everything you deserve, but I can give you this chance. Remember, all you have to do is convince the king you have made progress. I know you can do that!”
Mairah swallowed hard, forcing down her fear. Jalzarnin was the lord high priest—presumably the most devout man in all of Khalpar. He and his fellow priests preached that the Curse was an abomination, an insult to the Creator’s will and a blight on all humanity. And yet right now, he didn’t sound like a man in the grips of a pious fervor, desperate to restore the natural order.
“And will you be satisfied?” she asked. “If I appear to show progress but don’t actually reverse the Curse?”
Jalzarnin smiled ruefully. “I’m a realist, darling. I don’t think a spell that was generations in the planning will be reversed quite so easily as our king and many of my fellows wish. I also think that the Creator allowed it to happen, and that therefore it may very well be His will after all. But of course I am not a fool and have no intention of sharing these sentiments with anyone but you.”
Mairah nodded and bit her lip thoughtfully. It was not an unqualified victory, and the dangers involved were immense. But Jalzarnin had given her hope where none had existed, and for that she could only be grateful.
“You will be a magnificent abbess,” he said, gazing at her like a man infatuated.
Mairah smiled and practically glowed with the praise—despite her natural skepticism. She was under no illusion. She recognized the depths of his ambition and was well aware that he viewed everyone around him through the lens of his own self-interest. But one thing she knew: compared to her, he was a rank amateur.