Shelvon had never ached so terribly in her entire life, nor had she ever been half so exhausted. She hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but she’d never ridden a cheval before, and so was completely unprepared for how physically demanding it could be. Especially when Falcor set so punishing a pace in hopes of outrunning any possible pursuit. He pushed the chevals to their top speed and kept them there, galloping headlong down the road at a pace that made staying seated a life-or-death proposition, with few stops for rest.
People noticed them when they tore through towns along the way, but they were through all the major ones by the time fliers started arriving and demanding their arrest, and the smallest towns did not have militias capable of stopping them. And still Falcor pressed, urging them to greater speed despite the toll it was taking on them.
For all her pain and misery, Shelvon did not complain, for poor Corlin’s ride was pure agony, and the pain potions Falcor gave him barely took the edge off. The bruises deepened, and the welts opened up, leaving his breeches stained and stuck to his legs and backside. By the second day, he was weak and woozy enough that Falcor insisted on strapping him to the saddle lest he lose consciousness and fall off.
“He needs a healer,” Shelvon had insisted tearfully as she watched the boy slump in the saddle while Falcor strapped him in with belts and ropes.
“If we stop for a healer,” Falcor insisted, “we will be caught.” He patted Corlin’s thigh. “I’m sorry, Master Corlin, but we need you to hold on just a little longer.”
Corlin nodded, his eyes dull and glazed with pain. “I know,” he rasped, then tried to put on a brave face as he looked at Shelvon. “I’ll be all right, Aunt Shelvon,” he assured her, but it was hard to believe him when he looked so haggard.
And yet, they had no choice but to keep riding, as fast as the chevals could go and as long as they could endure.
By the time they reached Women’s Well, their pace had slowed considerably, as Corlin could no longer keep himself in the saddle and had to ride double with Falcor, his head lolling as the guardsman guided the cheval with one hand and held him about the waist with the other. Shelvon herself could barely stay upright, and when Falcor brought the chevals to a stop and the townspeople came flooding toward them, she felt herself tipping sideways. She made a weak grab for the saddle, but her movements were too sluggish. She saw ground coming up to meet her.
Corlin would be mortally embarrassed to know his mother was there when Chanlix cut away his bloodstained breeches and revealed the ravages of a beating no child should ever have been forced to endure. Alys had been so filled with helpless rage that she’d screamed and almost punched the wall, as she’d seen a couple of boneheaded men do over the course of her lifetime. She held back before she needed a healer herself, but she was shaking with the need to strike back at whoever had done that to her son.
Chanlix assessed the damage with a degree of detachment that both angered and impressed Alys, touching the ugliest of the open wounds and nodding. She met Alys’s eyes and nodded again.
“He’s going to be fine,” she said, and there was no hint of doubt in her voice. “There is some infection setting in, but our potions can fix that.”
“And are they strong enough to close those gashes?” Alys asked anxiously. They looked long enough and bloody enough to require battlefield healing spells, which were in scant supply in Women’s Well. Alys wished she’d put more time into experimenting with ways to augment women’s healing magic. She had a feeling they were going to need it.
Chanlix nodded. “They are not deep, even if they are ugly. Go and talk to your master of the guard. By the time you return, I’ll have him cleaned up and well on the way to mending.”
Alys hesitated, reluctant to let her son out of her sight. But she had ordered Falcor to wait for her downstairs when Corlin and Shelvon had been carried into the house of healing, and though he appeared to be whole and healthy, he certainly needed rest.
Sighing, she glanced around the partition to the neighboring bed, where Shelvon lay deeply asleep, aided by a potion that had been pressed on her when she was barely conscious. Her body had been pushed beyond endurance, and though Alys would have liked to talk to her, she understood that rest had to come first.
Emotions heaving and lurching within her, Alys descended the stairs to the first floor of the house of healing, where Falcor stood waiting, practically swaying on his feet in weariness. She didn’t know whether she wanted to hug him for bringing Corlin to her or scratch his eyes out for not bringing Jinnell.
“Tell me everything,” she demanded, and he obeyed.
Rarely did Alys allow herself to cry in public, but she could not hold back the tears when she heard of Delnamal’s brutality toward Corlin, and she moaned in agony when he told her how Jinnell had given up her magic items to aid their escape. Her little girl was on her way to meet Waldmir with no way to protect herself, and there was nothing Alys could do for her.
“Miss Jinnell is an extraordinary young woman, with an extraordinary mind,” Falcor told her. “By the time she came to me with her proposal, she had worked out every detail.”
Alys’s throat tightened. “And you believe she was right, and you could not have brought her with you.”
Falcor bowed his head. “If she had come with us—or if she hadn’t delayed the procession so that we had such a significant head start—we would all be in a dungeon right now. Even Corlin, for it is clear that the king has no familial loyalty even to the children.”
Alys shuddered and hugged herself, proud of her daughter and terrified for her.
“I would have given my life if that could have gotten her to safety,” Falcor said softly. “I hope you know that.”
Alys blinked and looked at the man before her, the man who’d been protecting her and her family ever since Sylnin’s death—and whom she’d resented and treated unfairly for a good deal of that time. He had shown his loyalty when he’d helped her with her early magical experiments, but never would she have expected his loyalty to stretch this far. He had committed treason for her, and because of him her son was now safe. Or at least as safe as anyone in Women’s Well could be.
“I don’t know how to thank you for all that you have done,” she said, shaking her head. “Thank you for bringing Corlin to me.”
He bowed. “There is no need for thanks, Your Highness,” he said. “King Delnamal would savage a child in service to his own anger. You would ride into danger to save people you don’t even know from the ravages of a flood. I would rather pledge my service to you a thousand times, no matter what the danger, than carry out his bidding in safety and comfort.”
There were no doubt those who would consider the gesture inappropriate, but Alys reached out and squeezed his shoulder in thanks. “You are a good man. One of the best I know. I don’t have much to offer just yet, but rest assured your service will be rewarded.”
“Reward is even less necessary than thanks.”
She was too emotionally exhausted to manage more than a small smile. “It is necessary to me.” And she still had seats to fill on her royal council. She would talk it over with them before making an autocratic decision, but she had a feeling she had just found her lord chamberlain.
Nandel was like no place Jinnell had ever imagined, much less seen. She’d heard stories about the mountainous principality, about its soaring peaks and its bleak, inhospitable land, but nothing could have prepared her for its raw and savage beauty. Snowcapped mountains disappeared into lowering gray skies, and valleys filled with thick fog that made it feel as if the procession was traveling through a dreamscape. Jinnell was assured that the rough road upon which her carriage bounced and jolted was not the only one in all of Nandel, but it certainly felt that way. The settlements they passed through were small and sparse, and unlike her royal escort in Aaltah, the delegation of Nandelites who had taken over escort duty saw no cause to stop and rest when Jinnell was ill.
Jinnell found she had even less privacy when she and her chaperone and her honor guard were handed over to the Nandel delegation, who had brought a chaperone of their own to instruct her on the ways of Nandel. Most of the “instruction” came down to two simple rules: be quiet and do as you’re told.
Practically the only time she wasn’t under someone’s watchful eyes was when she was in the privy, but she reasoned that someone might become suspicious if she became ill every time she visited the privy, so she took care to dose herself with her special healing poison whenever she had the slightest window of opportunity. She learned to conceal the vial in the palm of her hand, and had once brazenly poured it into a cup of wine during dinner in front of everyone, with none the wiser. No one had any cause to guess her bouts of violent nausea were of her own doing.
Although the delegation refused to stop for her illness, she was certain she slowed the procession down. The men of Nandel did not have the same discomfort as those of Aaltah about riding chevals, for the culture of Nandel valued practicality above all else, and even with the rough roads and the difficulties caused by harsh weather, the journey through the mountains should have lasted only a few days, but it was almost a week before they finally arrived in The Keep, Nandel’s imposing capital city. By then, Jinnell had lost enough weight that her clothes hung on her awkwardly, and there were deep, blue-black hollows beneath her eyes. And yet still she dosed herself whenever she had a chance—and whenever she could bear it.
The Keep was the most unlovely, unwelcoming city Jinnell had ever set eyes upon. Set into the side of a mountain, it was built entirely of bleak gray stone, with roofs of near-black slate. Even the poorest quarters of the city were stone, for wood was by far harder to come by in these barren mountain passes. In her carriage, Jinnell shivered and huddled deeper into the furs that had become necessary the moment they’d passed into Nandel. While her retinue from Aaltah had come prepared with warming spells, her Nandel escorts had forbidden their use, for warming spells were women’s magic, and therefore considered unclean.
Curious despite herself—and perhaps hoping to distract herself from her misery—Jinnell peered out the window as the carriage clattered through the snow-covered streets toward the palace, which looked more like a fortress than a place of residence. If she didn’t occasionally cast her gaze back to the interior of the carriage for reassurance, she might have thought she had lost the ability to see colors, for The Keep showed her nothing but black and white and shades of gray. Even the huddled figures of its people blended into the background like ghosts, no touch of color on any of their garments. Every once in a while, someone would glance up, and she would see a flash of blue or green eyes, but mostly those who walked the streets kept their heads down, tucked into scarves or hoods to protect against the frosty bite of the wind.
Even without the prospect of Prince Waldmir as a husband, Jinnell would have despaired at the thought of having to spend the rest of her life with this bleak city as her home.
The palace itself was little better, cold and drafty and dark. Jinnell’s room held a narrow, hard bed, a blocky, unadorned wardrobe, and a straight-backed chair before a distressingly small fireplace. By the bedside was a rectangular wooden table on which sat a metal pitcher of water in a basin, which she assumed was meant for washing up. There was no dressing table and no mirror, and Jinnell was briefly thankful to the king for sending a lady’s maid with her, for she knew none would be granted to her by the palace staff. The maid was not a particularly warm or friendly person, and she’d often expressed impatience with Jinnell’s illness, but her attitude softened somewhat when she saw her lady’s accommodations.
“Fine hospitality these barbarians show to the niece of Aaltah’s king,” the woman muttered as she helped Jinnell out of her traveling clothes. Jinnell did not like to think what the servants’ quarters would be like in a place like this.
Jinnell had a few hours to rest before she was to be presented to Sovereign Prince Waldmir, and she spent them huddled under her bedclothes, shivering despite the merrily crackling fire, which was too small to heat the whole room comfortably. She had refrained from drinking any potions for the last few hours of the journey, for just the thought of downing one had brought on a spell of dry heaves. Her stomach was currently at peace, except for a gnawing hunger that was her constant companion when the nausea eased.
The mourning gown Jinnell donned for her meeting with her future husband was the most drab item of clothing she had ever worn. The silk was fine enough, save that it was completely unadorned and draped in unfashionably straight lines. The black fur at the cuffs and collar was soft and glossy, and a cape of the same fur kept some of the chill at bay, but when the maid found a mirror tucked into the baggage and allowed Jinnell to view her reflection, she almost recoiled. The unadorned, uninterrupted black stole every inkling of color from her already pale face, and her complexion reminded her uneasily of her grandfather’s the last time she had seen him. The hollows beneath her eyes had deepened, and the dress hung loosely on her shoulders.
“It’s a good thing Nandel men like their women pale and waiflike,” her maid said callously as she tucked Jinnell’s hair into a black net snood.
The words sent a bolt of alarm through Jinnell’s system, for she wondered if the pallor that looked so terrible and sickly to her eyes would indeed be considered attractive here in this place where color was so noticeably absent. Her stomach took that opportunity to grumble loudly, and her maid gave a grunt of exasperation.
“Do you think perhaps you could keep some bread and broth down?” she inquired. “It won’t do to have your stomach making such unseemly noises when you meet the prince.”
Jinnell’s stomach fairly howled at the thought of food of any sort. “I think I might,” she said. “Perhaps I am finally over the worst of it.” She tried a tentative smile, but it was wasted on the maid who was already halfway out the door.
While the maid arranged for the bread and broth, Jinnell rooted through her traveling dress and once again palmed the vial of potion she had created during their last overnight stay at a dismal Nandel inn. Tears stung her eyes as everything within her rebelled at the thought of suffering through even more hours of misery, and she was sorely tempted to forgo the potion and gamble that she already looked unappealing enough to discourage her would-be suitor. Then she looked around her room and shivered once more in the cold, and it reminded her how very much was at stake.
Fortuitously, her maid was unable to obtain the bread and broth until scant minutes before Jinnell had to make her way to her formal presentation to the prince. The rush made it easier for Jinnell to pour in the potion unobserved, and it meant that the nausea had not yet begun when she was led into the austere receiving room where Prince Waldmir awaited her.
Jinnell studied her nightmare of a would-be husband as she was ceremoniously announced. She had come to associate all things unpleasant with her uncle, and therefore had somehow imagined Prince Waldmir would resemble him in some way. But whereas Delnamal was short and fat, with a round, pudgy face, Waldmir was tall and thin and severe-looking. He wore a simple charcoal-gray doublet adorned with polished metal fastenings over black breeches that tucked into plain black leather boots. A sword was belted at his side, and if not for the thin iron circlet around his head, Jinnell might almost have mistaken him for a palace guard.
She curtsied deeply and lowered her head as the prince approached her and her entourage backed away to create a semblance of privacy.
“I hear that your journey to The Keep has not been an easy one,” he said in a surprisingly warm, deep voice. His Mountain Tongue accent was less pronounced than Queen Shelvon’s.
Jinnell rose from her curtsy and looked at him more closely. He was more than old enough to be her father, and yet she still would describe him as moderately handsome. His hair was an almost metallic shade of silver, and his eyes were the deep gray of storm clouds. A neatly clipped snowy white beard surrounded full lips that curved into the hint of a smile at her regard.
“You were expecting an ogre?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Jinnell blushed and lowered her gaze. “Of course not, Your Royal Highness,” she hurried to say.
“Come sit by the fire,” he beckoned, and she saw that there was a cluster of chairs before the hearth, and a tea service sitting on a low table at their center. “Your lips are practically blue.”
Almost as if on command, she shivered, for once again the fire was far too small to heat a room of this size. Prince Waldmir guided her into a chair and poured a cup of tea for her without asking. She knew from talking to Shelvon that the nobility of Nandel was far more self-sufficient than what she was used to in Aaltah, but she never would have imagined the sovereign prince pouring her tea for her! She accepted the cup with a murmured thank-you, although the first uneasy stirring in her gut made her unwilling to take more than the tiniest sip.
“Are you still unwell?” Prince Waldmir asked solicitously.
Jinnell set the tea aside. “I had been feeling better for a while, but now I’m not so sure.” She gave him what she hoped was an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry to hear your journey was so very unpleasant.”
To Jinnell’s surprise, he sounded like he meant it. “Yes, me too,” she said dryly, and once again he smiled.
“As you know, we of Nandel do not avail ourselves of women’s magic.” His nose wrinkled slightly in distaste. “However, we have some herbal remedies for maladies of the digestion. I will send some to your rooms, and perhaps you will find one to ease your symptoms.”
“That’s very kind of you, Your Royal Highness.”
“We are not so very formal here in Nandel,” he said. “You may address me as ‘my lord,’ at least until we are acquainted enough to permit the use of first names.”
Jinnell’s eyebrows rose at that. “That will…take some getting used to.”
He grinned. “I imagine much about Nandel will, especially for someone used to a king’s court. Here, we value simplicity and honesty and practicality. I won’t pretend there isn’t a great deal of intrigue, just as there is in any other court, but even so we are a great deal more plain-spoken than you are no doubt accustomed to.”
If Jinnell didn’t know this man’s history—and if she weren’t destined to a forced marriage with him—she might almost lower her guard enough to like him. Her stomach turned over, and she closed her eyes briefly, dreading what was to come.
“I will send for a digestive tonic straightaway,” the prince said, beckoning one of his servants over without awaiting a reply.
“I doubt I could drink anything at all just now,” she said mournfully, but he sent the servant off for a tonic anyway.
“It won’t do any harm to have it ready, should you change your mind,” Prince Waldmir said.
She swallowed down her gorge. In Aaltah, she would have been expected to retire from public view the moment any hint of sickness was revealed, but nothing about this encounter was meeting with her expectations.
“I think perhaps I should return to my rooms,” she said, sure her face was turning that particularly unattractive shade of green that was becoming all too familiar.
“Will you feel any less sick there?”
She blinked at him. “Um, no. I suppose not.”
“Then perhaps best to stay here, where the fire is warmer.”
The servant returned, bearing both a cup of the promised herbal tonic, and a covered basin. She gave the prince another astonished, helpless look, and he shrugged.
“Honesty and practicality, remember? We are not offended by sickness, and there is no need to pretend it doesn’t exist by hiding it away.”
Tears stung Jinnell’s eyes, caused both by her misery and a sudden shift of understanding. She had expected Prince Waldmir to be disgusted by her illness and the damage it had done to her appearance. Her gorge rose, and she spilled the meager contents of her stomach into the basin. When the heaving stopped, Prince Waldmir handed her the cup of tonic and bade her to rinse out her mouth even if she didn’t feel up to swallowing. Then he ordered a fresh basin brought in. She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes.
“An auspicious first meeting,” she mumbled, and he smiled. All the hours of misery she had suffered, all her careful planning had been for naught. One by one, her hopes of escaping this dreaded marriage were slipping away.
Delnamal had not been able to hold still since the moment he’d learned that Alysoon had had the gall to declare herself the sovereign princess of a nonexistent principality named Women’s Well. Every time he thought of it, his hands started shaking with rage, and his jaw ached from the constant clenching and grinding of his teeth. He wasn’t sure how he could bear to sit behind his desk long enough to sign each one of the arrest warrants Melcor had just stacked there, the pile intimidating in its height.
“Has the lord commander dispatched his men?” he asked, delaying the inevitable as he paced the confines of the room.
Melcor, wary of his mood, bowed low before answering. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Delnamal nodded in satisfaction. The lord commander had asked for a few days to plan the journey to Women’s Well, for he wanted as much advance reconnaissance as possible, but Delnamal had scoffed at that foolishness. From all indications, there were at most one hundred able-bodied men in the whole place, most of whom would have no armor nor any but makeshift weapons. A company of three hundred and fifty men, well-armed and well-trained, would break them with no effort whatsoever. The faster the petty rebellion was quelled—and the more of its leaders could be marched back to Aaltah in chains to face a very public trial and execution—the easier Delnamal would rest.
He expected Melcor to take a hint and scurry from the room, leaving him to sign all those warrants at whatever pace he could tolerate, but the secretary remained where he stood. Delnamal stifled a groan of irritation.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded.
Melcor waved at the pile of warrants that declared every known inhabitant of Women’s Well a traitor to the Crown. Most of those warrants would be made unnecessary when his soldiers took the “town,” for Delnamal’s orders had been to kill everyone but the leaders. He would have looked forward to signing them anyway, were it not necessary for him to sit down and hold still to do it.
“The one on the top there,” Melcor said. “It’s one that was…unexpected.”
Delnamal snatched the top warrant and scanned it quickly, but the name of the traitor did not look familiar, and he hadn’t the patience to read through the document to find out why this particular warrant was different from the others.
“Who is this?” he demanded. “And why should I care?”
Melcor shifted uncomfortably. “He is a man who squired for Lieutenant—” He cleared his throat as he realized he was about to grant a traitor a title he did not deserve. “Who squired for Tynthanal when he was young. He’s now a member of the palace guard, and it seems he’s been in regular contact with the rebels. We can’t be certain the full extent of his treachery until he’s been thoroughly examined, but there’s little doubt he has shared a great deal of sensitive information. He was caught this morning trying to send a message warning Tynthanal of the arrest warrants and the departure of our troops.”
Delnamal did not appreciate the reminder that some of his own soldiers felt a bone-deep loyalty to his traitorous half-brother, but it made it even more important that Tynthanal be brought to justice and publicly humiliated as quickly as possible. His petty rebellion and its ignominious defeat would go a long way toward quelling his shiny public image.
Delnamal’s face twisted into a sneer of distaste, and he leaned over his desk so he could scrawl a quick signature on the warrant before thrusting it back at Melcor.
“Make sure the inquisitor examines him thoroughly. I want him longing for his execution day well before his trial begins.”
Melcor bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”