Alys carefully pulled the stable door open, wincing as the hinges creaked. She didn’t think the sound would carry all the way to the servants’ quarters that adjoined the back of the stables, but she herself was aware of even the smallest sound. The chirp of a cricket, the swaying of branches in the wind, the call of an owl…Each sound set her heart racing, her mind scrambling to call up the lie she had created to explain why she was creeping around the grounds of her own manor house at this hour of the night.
It was nearly pitch-dark in the stables, though a little moonlight filtered in from the high windows. Alys slipped inside and closed the door, then stood still and waited for her eyes to adjust. Her pulse hammered in her ears, but it was only in part because of her fear of getting caught. If she were being completely honest with herself, she had to admit there was a high level of excitement mixed in with those nerves.
For weeks after her disastrous attempt to work the first spell in her mother’s book, she had followed the instructions to a tee, double- and even triple-checking each element to make sure she was using the correct ones. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize she could see elements that were not included in her mother’s book, and a quick, stolen glance at Corlin’s primer had confirmed her suspicion that most of them were masculine elements.
Although her mother had anticipated that she might be able to see some masculine elements, there seemed to be no lessons in the book about how to work with them. Certainly there was nothing about combining masculine and feminine elements into the same spell, and Alys hadn’t been able to resist seeing what would happen if she did. It was perhaps foolhardy to attempt to craft her own spells—especially in such an unconventional manner—when she had so much still to learn about magic, but it also seemed wasteful not to take advantage of her unique ability to see elements of all genders.
Every spell Alys had so far learned required the use of a potion as a means of delivery. Healing potions, vanity potions, love potions, even magical poisons. Potions were the cornerstone of women’s magic. One of the masculine elements Alys could see was Tyn, which was used in a great deal of men’s magic to create spells that could affect a human body without the need of ingesting a potion. It was Alys’s theory that adding Tyn to some of the potion spells might make them take effect via touch rather than ingestion. And tonight she planned to put that theory to the test.
When her eyes had adjusted as much as they were going to, Alys crept forward across the stable floor. The dozing horses had all awoken at her entry, but aside from a little shuffling and shifting, they remained gratifyingly quiet as she crossed to Smoke’s stall. The gray stallion looked at her with listless eyes, and she struggled against a surge of guilt that she would risk the poor creature’s life to test her spell-crafting abilities. However, if he were to expire mysteriously during the night, she doubted anyone would be too surprised or think there was anything odd about it. Smoke had aged about ten years in the less than two years since Sylnin’s death, and it was perhaps surprising he had survived as long as he had.
Alys stroked the horse’s muzzle and took a deep breath. There was no reason to think her spell would kill the horse. It was a modified version of a women’s sleeping potion, and while a sleeping potion made with too high a concentration of the feminine element Von could be deadly—a poison that would put its victim permanently to sleep—she would begin her experiment with only the three motes used for a mild potion and build up from there. If the spell worked at all, Smoke should fall asleep long before the concentration of Von became deadly.
Reaching into the small sack she had brought with her, she drew out the ring that contained what she hoped was a touch-triggered sleep spell as well as a pair of tongs she’d liberated from the kitchen. Holding the ring with the tongs so its spell wouldn’t affect her when it was activated, she opened her Mindseye and added the Rho she needed to complete the spell. Then she touched the ring to Smoke’s neck. She had to close her Mindseye to see what had happened and was disappointed to see the horse still blinking placidly.
So began an increasingly disappointing cycle. Open her Mindseye, add another mote of Von to intensify the spell, close her Mindseye, and see the horse still wide awake. She almost gave up when she reached a total of ten motes of Von, because that was the level at which sleep potions turned to poison. But she reasoned with herself that it would take more motes to affect a horse than a person, so with another apology to Smoke, she continued trying.
When she fed in the fifteenth mote of Von, she opened her Mindseye to see Smoke’s eyelids drooping. With a sigh, he sagged downward until his belly hit the stable floor. His eyes closed. She opened the stall door to check on him, putting a hand to his ribs to feel the steady thump of his heart and the gentle movement of his breaths. His skin twitched under her hand, but he did not awaken. It was all she could do not to jump up and down and let out a victory whoop.
She could imagine any number of ways a touch-triggered sleeping spell could be useful. Some of them were completely benevolent—she remembered a time when Corlin had been sick for a week with a stomach ailment that kept him vomiting at night and thought how useful it would have been if she could have helped him sleep without him having to drink a potion that would instantly come back up. Then there were a great many other, less benevolent ways it could be used. Ways that might help should Delnamal ever manage to turn their father completely against her and her children.
She caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and whirled in that direction. She choked on a startled yelp when she saw the shadowed figure of a man standing by the stable door. The kitchen tongs fell from her hands, releasing the ring, which bounced and rolled across the floor.
Falcor stepped forward into a shaft of moonlight. It was enough illumination to show her his identity, but not enough to let her read his facial expression. The ring came to rest near his feet, and he looked back and forth between her and the ring.
How much had he seen? And, more important, was he likely to tell anyone what he’d seen?
Falcor bent down, and Alys realized he was about to reach for the ring. Which meant he hadn’t seen her put Smoke to sleep with a touch. The horse seemed unharmed, but she had no way of knowing what a sleep spell built with fifteen motes of Von might do to a man.
She had a split second to make a decision. It would be safest for her and her family to let Falcor touch the ring. There would certainly be a lot of questions asked if he were to be found dead in the stables when the stable hands rose in the morning, but those questions were unlikely to lead anyone to her.
“Don’t touch that!” she said when he reached for the ring. She took two hasty steps forward, holding out her hands in a warning gesture.
She wasn’t entirely sure if she was more relieved or terrified when he rocked back on his heels and drew his hand away, staring up at her in silence. The shadows on his face still masked his expression, and she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.
What she did know was that there was no innocent, logical explanation for her behavior. Except for the truth. She had already ruined her best chance to keep the truth hidden when she had stopped Falcor from touching the ring. She swallowed hard and prayed she wasn’t making the wrong decision and condemning her entire family, but she believed Falcor was a good man. He might vehemently disapprove of what she’d been doing, but she didn’t believe he would betray her.
Her knees felt wobbly as she squatted by the ring and opened her Mindseye. She heard Falcor’s harsh intake of breath and tried to ignore it as she plucked the motes of Rho out of the ring, rendering its spell inactive once more. Then she closed her Mindseye and picked up the ring, slipping it onto her finger.
She and Falcor both rose at the same time and stood facing each other. Her heart was pounding so loudly she wondered if he could hear it.
“What would have happened if I’d touched it?” he asked softly.
She bit her lip. “I’m not entirely sure. It might have just put you to sleep.” She gestured toward Smoke’s stall, and saw Falcor’s brows rise as he caught sight of the sleeping horse. They were moving and speaking quietly, but the noise was easily enough to awaken him under ordinary circumstances. “I’m just worried about what a spell strong enough to make a horse sleep might do to a man.”
Falcor looked back and forth between her ring and the horse. “I’ve never seen or heard of a spell that does that before.”
“No,” she agreed.
He thought for a long time before he spoke again, and Alys bit her tongue and let him. She had no reason to volunteer any more information than absolutely necessary. Certainly she didn’t want to face the questions he would ask if he knew the spell was of her own invention.
“You were testing it,” he finally said. It wasn’t quite a question, but she nodded anyway. “But a spell that puts a horse to sleep is merely an interesting parlor trick. Much more useful is one that puts a man to sleep. How were you planning to test that?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.” Which didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about it. Agonized about it. Wondered whose life she could risk in the testing without herself expiring of guilt. The Academy utilized paid volunteers for its less dangerous tests and condemned criminals for the dangerous ones. She would have access to neither, since allowing a volunteer to know about her magic practice was far too risky.
“I can take care of that for you.”
She stammered, momentarily at a loss for words. She hardly dared believe he would keep her secret, and yet he was offering to do far more. Well above and beyond the call of duty. “Why would you do that?” she asked, shaking her head in wonder. “Wouldn’t it be far more prudent to report my transgressions to the lord commander?” She didn’t need to know the details of a military contract to know Falcor was risking his entire career by keeping this knowledge to himself and would be risking far more if he actively helped her. It was not technically against the law for a woman to practice magic, and yet she doubted the law would protect her—or Falcor—if they were caught colluding in this way.
“Why did you help with the evacuation of the Harbor District rather than riding off to safety with your children?” he countered. “Surely it would have been more prudent to accompany them to the palace.”
“That was different,” she protested, then wondered what she was doing. It almost sounded as if she was arguing for him to turn her in.
“You did what you thought was right. Just as I did when I joined the effort instead of forcibly removing you, which was my duty.”
“And you think this is right?” she asked with a sweeping gesture. “I doubt you’ll find many men who agree.”
“My duty is to protect you and your family. That cannot always be done with swords alone.” He tilted his head so that the light hit it just right and she could read his grave and earnest expression. “There may come a time when you or Miss Jinnell or Master Corlin have need of a spell such as this.” He looked pointedly at the still-sleeping horse. “I see no harm, and a great deal of potential benefit, in making sure you have access to such magic.”
Alys let out a slow, shaky breath. She could hardly say she was comfortable with letting Falcor know her secret. For all that he’d been her master of the guard for well over a year now, she couldn’t say she knew him well. But he had ridden out to the Harbor District with her on the night of the earthquake. If that wasn’t an indicator of his basic decency—and his trustworthiness—she didn’t know what was.
“Thank you,” she said.
He bowed his head. “And thank you.” She raised her eyebrows in inquiry. “For not allowing me to touch the ring while its spell was active. We both know that would have been a far more certain way to keep your secret.”
She swallowed hard. “It probably wouldn’t have killed you.”
“Maybe not. But it would have made it very easy for you to kill me if you felt it necessary. Sleeping men make easy targets.”
Alys did not want to think about what she might have done had he touched the ring and merely fallen asleep. She was very glad she didn’t have to.
“Now, let’s test that spell,” he said.
She opened her mouth to protest, because she’d assumed he meant he would arrange for the testing of the spell, not that he would allow her to test it on himself.
“You must have a plan to lower the intensity of the spell for use on humans, right?”
“Well, yes. But it could still be dangerous even at its lowest intensity. I have no way of knowing.”
“I’m a guardsman, my lady. I face some level of threat every hour of every day. I don’t think a sleeping spell is that great a risk.”
“All right,” she finally said, resigned. In her heart, she didn’t really believe the spell would harm him if she repeated the process she’d gone through with Smoke, starting with only one or two motes of Von and increasing them as necessary. “But let’s wait until Smoke wakes up first. I’d like to see that there are no ill effects, and I’d like to know how long he’ll sleep. It wouldn’t do to test the spell and have you still sleeping when the sun rises.”
He gave a soft snort of amusement. “No, it would not. And we would be better served trying it somewhere a little more private.” He glanced at the door that led to the servants’ quarters in the back of the stables. They were probably lucky their quiet conversation hadn’t already roused someone.
“When Smoke wakes up, we’ll go back to the house. We can test the spell in my study. No one should disturb us at this time of night.”
Shelvon had lost weight since the last time Alys had met with her, only two weeks ago. She looked so frail and ill that Alys’s heart ached for her.
“Are you still taking those fertility potions?” she asked her sister-in-law as soon as they were alone together in the Rose Room for what was becoming their biweekly strategy meeting. At this point in the proceedings, Alys didn’t really need any help from Shelvon in searching for a potential match for Jinnell, but their previous discussions had given her a new appreciation for her sister-in-law, who was clearly kind and good-hearted when she was comfortable enough to let down her guard. Her shyness meant she had few friends in the palace, and Alys had the distinct impression the poor girl was painfully lonely.
Shelvon shrugged, though the effort of raising her shoulders seemed to tire her. “I’ve poured out the last two Delnamal gave me. They clearly aren’t doing any good, but he keeps pushing them on me.” She managed one of her wan smiles. “I suppose I should be flattered he’s trying so hard to make it work. He could have given up on me by now.”
Alys wanted to gather the younger woman into a motherly embrace, to soothe away her fears and assure her everything would be all right. If her detestable half-brother were actually trying to make the marriage work, he would be showering Shelvon with love and affection, not forcing her to drink potions that made her ill.
Shelvon shook off her melancholy—or at least its outer trappings—and a small hint of life sparked in her eyes. For all the unpleasant reasons behind finding a foreign match for Jinnell, Shelvon seemed to enjoy matchmaking.
“How goes the search?” Shelvon asked.
Alys frowned, hating that she had no positive news to help lift the mood. “I’ve received a few more refusals, and a couple of vague and tepid replies that indicate a willingness to entertain the possibility at some unspecified future time. I’m beginning to wonder if I need to ask my father to increase Jinnell’s dowry.”
Not that she had any reason to think he would. Contributing to the dowry at all had been an unnecessary kindness.
“Before you ask,” she continued, “yes, I sent a flier to Zarsha of Nandel, though I admit it was only last week, so it’s not surprising I have not yet received a response.” Depending on wind and weather, it could take up to two days for a flier to cross the distance between Aalwell and Zinolm Well, where Zarsha was making his extended visit.
Shelvon opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut it with a snap. Looking over Alys’s shoulder, she hastily scrambled to her feet. Alys rose and whirled toward the door, knowing someone must have come in while her back was turned.
With a shock, she saw that it was the king. She was so surprised to see him that she was uncomfortably late giving him the necessary curtsy. The king did not “pop in” unannounced. His schedule was rigidly controlled, so that usually even his own children had to make an appointment to speak with him.
“Please excuse my interruption,” he said, then turned to Shelvon without awaiting a reply. Commanding them to accept his apology, rather than asking. “I need a private word with my daughter, my dear.”
Alys bit her tongue to keep herself from snapping at her father. Rude enough that he was barging in on her conversation with Shelvon, but to then dismiss the future Queen of Aaltah as if she were some serving girl…
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Shelvon said, dropping into a deep curtsy and averting her eyes. Alys had the uncharitable thought that Shelvon was so submissive it never even occurred to her to be annoyed.
Alys crossed her arms and held her tongue as Shelvon scurried from the room and the king helped himself to her still-warm seat. Alys was sure her irritation showed plainly both in her facial expression and her body language. She hadn’t expected a great deal of use to come from her meeting with Shelvon, but she would have liked more than five minutes of her sister-in-law’s company.
“Please sit down, Alys,” her father said when she remained on her feet, radiating displeasure. “I wouldn’t have interrupted if it wasn’t important.”
Alys reclaimed her seat, sitting stiffly on its very edge as if perched for a quick escape. She could imagine no pleasant reason for this sudden need to speak with her. “You could have sent a summons.”
“I saw no point in allowing your conversation with Shelvon to continue under the circumstances.”
Alys’s gut clenched in fear. Her father knew exactly why she’d been spending so much time with her sister-in-law lately. “What circumstances?” she asked, sure the blood had drained from her face.
“Don’t panic,” the king said, patting the air with his hand. “You should know I’m not prone to making rash decisions.”
Alys could argue his assertion—if she weren’t doing exactly what he’d told her not to do and panicking. “Then why don’t you want me planning for my daughter’s marriage?”
“She’s only eighteen. There’s no need to be in such a rush to find a husband for her.”
Alys leaned forward in her chair and glared at her father. “She’s my daughter. And that’s my decision to make.”
The king was unmoved by her anger. “But she’s my granddaughter, so I’m afraid it’s not. Not entirely, at least.”
“You gave me permission…” Alys started weakly, but her voice died in her throat.
“I’m not rescinding it,” he assured her in a tone that no doubt was meant to be soothing. “All I’m asking is that you slow down.”
“Why?” As if she didn’t know. As if the very reason he was asking her to slow down weren’t the reason she had tried to rush this whole process in the first place.
“These are difficult times. I’ve given the Abbey very clear orders that they are to reverse your mother’s spell on pain of death, but in all honesty, I’m not sure they can. Your mother was not a stupid woman, and she knew how the world would react to what she’d done. I’m sure she took every precaution to make the spell as difficult to circumvent as possible. Because of that spell, we may well need to…rethink certain alliances.”
“In other words you intend to sell your granddaughter to the highest bidder for the sake of expediency!”
“Don’t be such a child. You know how the world works, and you know what it takes to run a kingdom. I didn’t educate you like a boy to have you act as if politics were some unfathomable mystery to you.”
It was true that Alys both knew and understood Jinnell’s potential value to the kingdom. Alys herself had escaped a marriage of purely political consideration because she’d come of age in a time of relative prosperity. Her father had solicited her opinion of her potential husbands only because he had no pressing need for a pawn. Now with the uncertainty about Shelvon’s ability to produce an heir, Aaltah’s most vital political alliance was in jeopardy.
Tears burned her eyes. “It’s not childish to want what’s best for my daughter. That’s my duty as a mother.”
The king sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I want what’s best for her, too. Of course I do. But my duty as a king is to do what’s best for the kingdom.”
He leaned forward in his chair and took her hand, which was clenched into a white-knuckled fist. She jerked away and glared at him as a tear snaked down her cheek and she fought the need to burst into full-out sobs.
He grunted and leaned back, shaking his head. “If worse comes to worst and Shelvon fails to conceive, I will have no choice but to allow Delnamal to divorce her. He must have an heir. If he divorces her, I will need some way to compensate Prince Waldmir for the insult. But we are not there yet. Delnamal is impatient, but I reminded him that your mother didn’t become pregnant until the second year of our marriage. It’s only been three months since Shelvon lost the baby, and we have a long time still to wait before we give up hope. But until we know one way or another, Jinnell must remain available.”
She stared at her father, the man who had destroyed her mother’s life, who had disinherited his own children for cold political purposes, and who now commanded her to leave her daughter available to wed a monster. “You have no heart,” she told him, her voice hoarse with suppressed tears.
She wouldn’t exactly say he flinched at her bitter accusation, but there was a definite tightening around his eyes. She’d have rejoiced at having wounded him if she weren’t so sick with fear for Jinnell.
“My kingdom will always come first,” he said as he rose. “That doesn’t mean I have no heart, and it doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt.”
“Good,” she snarled, refusing to rise with him as protocol demanded. Her whole body shook with the effort of keeping her emotions contained. She wanted to throw herself at him and pound on his chest while she shrieked her rage. Never had she wished so desperately to wound someone.
The king closed his eyes and sighed, but his pain did nothing to ease her own. “It is still possible that Shelvon will conceive,” he said, but he didn’t sound as if he meant it. “And it’s still possible the new abbess will find a way to break—or at least circumvent—your mother’s spell. Let us both refrain from despair until such a time as all hope is lost.”
Alys shook her head, for she saw little reason to hope. Tynthanal’s letters had told her much about the abundant and unusual resources at the new Abbey, and yet he had reported no progress on the mission to reverse the Curse. The women were doing their best, experimenting with some of the rare elements the Well produced, and Tynthanal was helping them in whatever ways he could. He was by far the most magically talented person at the Abbey, but though he had admitted he could see some feminine elements, there were many he could not. It was even possible that the Well produced feminine elements that no one at the Abbey was magically gifted enough to see—but that maybe Alys could.
“I should visit the Abbey,” Alys said, the thought tumbling from her mouth the moment it occurred to her. There was no denying that Tynthanal’s reports about the new Well had intrigued her since she’d read his first letter, and she’d harbored some vague thought that she would be interested in seeing it. But she had certainly never thought such a thing would come to pass.
The king frowned at her. “Why would you want to do that?”
Alys was well aware that her brother was omitting a fair number of details in his reports, downplaying the importance of the Well that had been discovered. But news of the Well’s existence was becoming common knowledge, even if no one outside the Abbey had yet realized its full significance.
“Because I am my mother’s daughter,” she said, rising and letting a fierce burst of determination chase off some of her anger and fear. While she was fairly certain her father understood that a woman born of two such powerful bloodlines—and whose brother was a gifted Adept—likely had advanced magical abilities herself, she thought it safer not to put that reality into words. “Mother said certain abilities had been bred into her bloodline. Perhaps—”
Her father waved off the argument. “If the abigails need blood from your mother’s line, they have Tynthanal. I’m sure he would gladly donate for the cause.”
“But he is not a woman,” she persisted. “We don’t understand—at all—how Mother’s spell worked. Maybe I can’t help in any way, but if there’s even the smallest chance I can…”
Her father was still shaking his head. “I can’t have my daughter going to the Abbey of the Unwanted even for a visit. That would not be proper.”
“I visited Mother in the Abbey all the time!”
“But you weren’t staying there. The Abbey’s new location is remote, so it’s not as if you could remove yourself to a respectable distance each night. You would be sleeping in a tent in the midst of an encampment of whores!”
Which showed just how much Tynthanal was leaving out of his official reports. Alys hardly thought she would be put up in a respectable inn, but she knew there were actual houses being built in the “encampment.” Not that she could mention that without betraying her brother.
“Tynthanal is there,” she reminded him soothingly. “He will serve as a more than adequate chaperone. And I will take my honor guard and my maid, and we can set up our own encampment at some remove. There will be no hint of impropriety.”
Her father was still frowning fiercely.
“Please, Papa,” she begged, giving him her most imploring look. “I will go mad if I must sit idly by while my daughter’s future is in jeopardy. Let me at least try to help her.”
“Even if you were to succeed, spending time at the Abbey would not help Jinnell’s marriage prospects,” he warned. “Tynthanal’s presence will give you some cover, but those who think ill of you will feel their suspicions are being confirmed. You have no respectable reason to go there.”
“Do you honestly believe my visit to the Abbey will cause someone to turn down Jinnell and her dowry if that someone has already decided to overlook the fact that she’s my mother’s granddaughter?” They both knew the “someone” they were discussing was Prince Waldmir. “It’s not as if Jinnell would be at the Abbey. Would it be so shocking for me to go visit my brother, regardless of where he’s posted?”
“When he’s been gone less than three months?” her father countered.
Although she did not say so out loud, Alys had to concede that there was no socially acceptable excuse for her to go to the Abbey for a casual visit. “You could command me to go.”
The king was so shocked by her words that he practically jumped. “What?”
“Tell everyone that you are doing everything you can to get the Curse reversed, and that you have commanded me to visit the Abbey in case my blood is the key to that reversal. Many will assume it’s a sign that you’re angry with me, and I will be disgraced. But I am disgraced already just by being my mother’s daughter. If I can somehow help reverse the spell, then that will go a long way toward helping redeem my reputation. If I can’t, I will not be any worse off, and neither will Jinnell.”
That her father still wished to argue was clear in his facial expression and his body language, but he did not immediately respond. Her heart pattered in her chest, and it was all she could do not to fidget like a little girl as she awaited his judgment. If she went to the Abbey because the king commanded her to do so, then it was possible the blight on her reputation could eventually be smoothed over when he accepted her return. The same could not be said if she traveled to the Abbey of her own free will, regardless of the pretext of her visit.
“Do you honestly think there’s a chance you can help them reverse the spell?” he asked, skewering her with a too-knowing gaze.
Alys was certain he understood that she meant to practice magic while she was at the Abbey, that her purpose in going there was not merely to donate blood for the abigails’ experiments. While there was certainly magic that was worked using blood—such as the spell that analyzed bloodlines for signs that they could produce children—there were very few of them.
“Not a good one,” she admitted, for he would know she was lying if her answer was an unqualified yes. “But any chance is better than no chance at all.”
“Take some time to think about it.” He held up his hand abruptly when Alys opened her mouth to argue. “If by this time next week you still feel traveling to the Abbey is the best choice, then I will command you to go. But this is not a decision to be made in haste.”
“I understand,” she said, though she knew no amount of thinking would cause her to change her mind.
The relief was so strong Alys threw her arms around her father’s neck before she thought twice about it. She couldn’t remember having hugged him since she was a little girl. Though he was clearly startled by the gesture, his arms quickly closed around her, and he held her as if he would never let go again.