Queen of the Unwanted Page 16

  “Happy to hear it. So has there been any progress?”

  “I believe there has,” Mairahsol said brightly, and the lord high priest looked as surprised as Norah felt. The so-called abbess had ordered everyone in the Abbey who was not actively working the pavilion or the market to comb through the Abbey’s archives in search of “useful information,” but it was an obviously futile task, seeing as the Curse—or the Blessing, as those who worshipped the Mother of All called it—was a spell unlike anything ever cast or even imagined before. The Abbey’s “archives” consisted of the scribbles and often incomprehensible notes of abigails past, not a true library of carefully catalogued information, which made searching through it an exercise in frustration. Some of the “documents” were centuries old, and there were hundreds of duplicates of the most commonly used spells. The thought that the cure for the Curse was contained somewhere in those archives was ludicrous.

  “Nothing to get too excited about yet,” Mairahsol cautioned. “I merely have found an intriguing possibility to follow up on.”

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear that. Please, do tell me more.”

  Norah muttered a soft curse under her breath as the Keyhole spell wore off once more. It was outlawed because it was considered an intrusion of privacy, dangerous in the wrong hands. Norah would argue that it didn’t last long enough to be truly invasive, and she suspected the men of the Academy had developed something with a longer duration for the use of the Crown’s spy network. She applied another dab of ointment and hoped she’d made enough in the small batch to gather the information she needed.

  “…trigger a vision,” Mairahsol was saying when the spell was active once again.

  The lord high priest’s face creased with what appeared to be genuine concern. “I have heard that the process is…quite unpleasant.”

  Mairahsol seemed unable to hold back a shudder, her arms crossing over her chest in a protective gesture. “It is far from enjoyable. But I will do whatever I must to show the king that I am worthy of the trust he put in me.”

  “To remain Abbess of Khalpar, you mean,” Jalzarnin said in a teasing tone, though Norah thought she detected a hint of bite beneath the surface. The lord high priest did not strike Norah as a fool, so he had to know that Mairahsol’s only motivations were spite and ambition. Perhaps he took offense that she would bother to pretend otherwise.

  Mairahsol pouted, though the sparkle in her eye said she had not detected any undertone. “I can hardly be expected to find a cure for the Curse as a lowly abigail, now can I? I want nothing but what’s best for my kingdom.”

  Jalzarnin smiled. “Naturally. Now tell me, did this vision of yours grant you any useful information?”

  “I’d call it hopeful information. Only time will tell if it is actually useful.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw myself activating a spell in a vial of potion and then pouring it into a seer’s poison. I cannot say what was in that potion, because I could not see the elements in my vision. I then drank the poison, and before it took effect, I asked for a vision that would lead to the reversal of the Curse.”

  Norah was so outraged she had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep her protest contained. That was not how visions worked! One did not demand that the Mother give one a vision—even when one believed in the Mother as a deity secondary to the Creator—nor did one order up anything specific as if one were some peasant ordering beer at a tavern. Mairahsol might very well have had a vision—she had taken one of the vials of seer’s poison from the stockroom—but she was as likely to have poured it into her chamber pot as to have actually drunk it, and she was clearly lying about what she said she saw.

  “My vision ended after that,” Mairahsol continued, “so I have no guarantee that the spell I saw myself casting actually worked. However, I can guarantee that I would not drink a seer’s poison on a whim. Future-me had some reason to believe it was worth the suffering to drink that poison.”

  The lord high priest rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It is true that the Abbess of Aaltah was known to be a gifted seer, and it seems reasonable that her ability to see visions materially contributed to her ability to cast that impossible spell. What do you plan to do from here?”

  “I will require every seer in the Abbey to apply herself to the use and research of seer’s poisons. Once I have gained a thorough understanding of the poisons that are currently available—and once I have gained as much information as possible from all the visions—I will attempt to develop a spell that will help direct visions in a desired direction.”

  This time, Norah couldn’t contain her soft snort, but Mairahsol and the lord high priest were too absorbed in their conversation to notice. It was plain to anyone with eyes that Mairahsol was stringing the lord high priest along with yet another promise of the impossible. And that she had engineered an excuse to force her seers—almost all of whom worshipped the Mother of All beside Norah—to suffer through the triggering of frivolous visions just for her own cruel amusement.

  The conversation quickly devolved into what was obviously the prelude to more sex, so Norah withdrew. She had heard nothing that would help her engineer Mairahsol’s downfall. But at least she had gained reassurance that the false abbess was about to waste a great deal of time during her temporary tenure. Mairahsol might have convinced the lord high priest that she was making progress, but it would take more than that one false vision to convince the king.

  Norah could not say she felt reassured by what she had heard, but she was at least mildly heartened. Mairahsol was no closer to being confirmed as abbess now than she had been when she’d first been installed. And time continued its inevitable march.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mairah’s heart pattered in her chest, and her palms were damp with sweat, though she hoped her face was appropriately impassive. One of the abigails shrieked in pain, writhing on her bed and clutching at her throat, where Mairah knew the poison burned like a swallowed hot poker. Another stifled a moan with a fist as tears and snot streamed down her face.

  Eight seers lay suffering on the hard cots of the dormitory, their concerned sisters darting from cot to cot, holding hands and wiping sweaty brows. The room stank of vomit and the acrid reek of poison, and even some of the abigails who ordinarily would have known better cast looks of loathing and reproach Mairah’s way, for of course it was by her order that the seers had taken the poisons.

  The stink of the room was making Mairah’s own stomach groan in protest, and she was surprised to find that each cry of pain triggered a twinge of guilt in her breast.

  These women were her enemies, she reminded herself. Even Sister Sulrai—who alone among these abigails was not an associate of Norah’s—was a surly and unpleasant bitch for whom Mairah felt nothing but disdain. But even so, it was all Mairah could do not to flinch as Sister Melred, the most powerful of all their seers, who had taken the strongest of the poisons, began clawing at her chest and throat so viciously that one of her sisters was forced to restrain her.

  Standing by the doorway near Mairah, Norah was openly crying, her hands clasped into white-knuckled fists as she watched. She must have sensed Mairah’s glance, for she met her abbess’s eyes with an expression of pure hatred.

  Mairah again reminded herself that these women had repeatedly hurt and insulted her over the years she’d been trapped in the Abbey. They deserved to suffer for their cruelty.

  Yet Mairah’s conscience twinged again, for in point of fact Sister Melred—although she was clearly a member of Norah’s inner circle—was sweet and quiet and in all ways inoffensive. This was not the pleasant revenge Mairah had had in mind when she’d given the order, but it was nonetheless a necessary step in convincing Jalzarnin—and through him the king—that she deserved to be named abbess permanently.

  Guilt was not an emotion with which Mairah had a great d
eal of experience, and she couldn’t say she cared for the feeling. She returned Norah’s glare with what she hoped was a gloating smile.

  “I bet you’re thanking the Mother that She didn’t make you a seer,” she said. The jibe rang false in her own ears, revealing far more of her true feelings than she would have liked. However, Norah was too furious to notice such subtleties. From the look on her face, it was all she could do not to leap on Mairah and claw her eyes out.

  Sister Melred wailed, loud and long, and Norah looked her way with undisguised anguish, momentarily forgetting her hatred. Mairah suppressed a shudder and decided there was no reason she needed to stay in the room any longer. It would take many long minutes for the poisons to run their course, and the seers would need time to recover afterward before they’d be strong and coherent enough to communicate.

  “Let me know when our sisters are ready to tell me their visions,” she ordered Norah, drawing the older woman’s attention and ire once more.

  “You don’t even have the stomach to watch the suffering you have inflicted,” Norah rasped, and there was no missing the challenge being issued.

  Mairah was not ordinarily one to shy away from challenges. However, she feared if she remained in the room much longer, she might humiliate herself by letting her weakness show. It was best for all if the abigails beneath her saw her as entirely unmoved by their pain and suffering. The moment they formed the impression that she could be swayed to pity, the more they would take advantage of her and the greater the danger she would find herself in.

  And so she ignored the gauntlet Norah had thrown at her feet and retreated with all the dignity—and haste—she could muster.

  * * *

  —

  Norah sat by young Sister Melred’s bed and hated Mairahsol with every fiber of her being. Today had been a travesty, a mockery of everything the Mother stood for—even for someone who insisted the Mother was secondary to the Creator. The Devotional managed to make it clear that the Mother was the lesser deity while still teaching that She was greater than any mortal and meant to be obeyed. To force every seer in the Abbey to down the strongest seer’s poison she could tolerate in an effort to undo the Mother’s Blessing was…

  Norah felt dramatic choosing the word “evil” to describe Mairahsol’s order, but she could think of no more appropriate term.

  Sister Melred shivered and groaned, shifting in the bed as if trying to get more comfortable. Norah put a comforting hand on the young woman’s forehead, which burned with fever. Poor Melred was the strongest seer in the Abbey, which meant she had taken the strongest poison of all. She was over its most dangerous effects, but she would be sick and weak for days in the aftermath. And since Mairahsol had gotten no satisfaction out of today’s crop of visions, she would no doubt force the seers to drink more in the near future.

  “I did not tell Mother Mairahsol the truth about what I saw,” Melred murmured.

  Norah started, for she hadn’t realized Melred was awake. “Rest for now,” she soothed. “You need to regain your strength.”

  Melred licked her lips, then grimaced when she swallowed. The poison had left blisters in her mouth and throat. “I will rest soon,” she promised. “But I wanted you to know I lied.”

  Norah smiled as warmly as she knew how, hoping to put the young woman at ease in her pain. Only one seer in the entire Abbey was not a part of the Mother of All worship circle, and every one of them had sworn to reveal no vision that might aid Mairahsol’s effort. Most had not needed to lie when Mairahsol questioned them, because their visions seemed to be of no use to the effort to undo the Blessing. Norah was not entirely surprised that Melred had been the exception.

  “I know, sweet one,” she said. “You needn’t—”

  “I saw her being confirmed as abbess,” Melred said, and Norah recoiled instinctively.

  “What?” she cried, very much wishing she had misheard.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” Melred said, wincing in pain as she forced words through her ravaged throat, “but somehow she was confirmed.”

  Norah shook her head, horrified. Until her rational mind caught up with her emotions and she realized the full implications of Melred’s vision.

  “The Mother of All only shows us events it is within our power to affect,” she said, speaking more to herself than to Melred.

  “Yes,” Melred whispered. “She believes we can stop Mairahsol.”

  Norah reached out and squeezed Melred’s hand, giving her another encouraging smile. “And we will,” she said with more assurance than she felt.

  “How?” Melred asked, but her eyes were drifting shut as exhaustion and illness dragged her back down into unconsciousness.

  How indeed?

  First and foremost, Norah decided, she had to ensure that no seer at the Abbey in any way aided Mairahsol’s cause. She did not believe that the Mother of All would grant a helpful vision to the single seer in the Abbey who did not worship her, but gods did not always behave in ways that mortals expected. The next time Mairahsol forced the Abbey’s seers to take poison, Norah would make sure that Sister Sulrai’s medium-strength poison was replaced with the strongest the Abbey possessed. One that even Sister Melred did not dare to drink. Sulrai would not survive, and if Norah played her cards right, she could lay the blame for that death squarely at Mairahsol’s feet.

  Norah had on more than one occasion remarked that Lord Jalzarnin was not a stupid man, however blinded he might be by Mairahsol’s questionable charms. An anonymous letter claiming that Mairah’s “vision” was a hoax was unlikely to convince him, especially when he would suspect Norah of having sent it. But perhaps the trade minister might be more open to hearing what Norah had to say. Especially once Sister Sulrai lost her life in service to Mairahsol’s delusions.

  Sister Sulrai’s family had offered no protest when her husband had condemned her to the Abbey for what he termed chronic disobedience, but Norah knew for a fact that they had not entirely disowned her as they were meant to. If Sulrai were to die from taking a poison forced upon her by Mairahsol, there might well be complaints that would inconvenience the lord high priest in such a way as to weaken Mairahsol’s hold on him.

  It wouldn’t stop Mairahsol from continuing in her quest, and Norah was certain she and her sisters would need to do a lot more to prevent her from being confirmed as abbess. But it was a start.

  * * *

  —

  Shelvon regarded the tightly scrolled message that had arrived by flier with the same enthusiasm she might have shown a venomous snake slithering through her parlor. Her whole body had jerked in surprised recognition when she’d broken the seal and seen the familiar handwriting. The scroll had fallen from her hands and rolled into the far corner, where it seemed to stare at her accusingly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  When her father, the Sovereign Prince of Nandel, had shipped her off to Aaltah to marry Delnamal, she’d thought that was likely the last she’d ever hear from him. Waldmir showed no signs of affection for any of his daughters, but Shelvon was certain she was his least favorite of the lot, thanks to her mother’s attempt to assassinate him. She had served her purpose as a girl and a bargaining chip, but that was the extent of his interest in her, and she’d seen no cause to complain. Her father’s interest was a dangerous thing, after all.

  Which told Shelvon that there was no possible message in that scrolled letter that she could want to read. The only safe thing to do was shove it in the fire and pretend it had never arrived. Hands shaking—and angry with herself for allowing a roll of paper to scare her—she grabbed a pair of fireplace tongs, hoping that little bit of extra distance would help her find the courage to burn the damn thing without reading it.

  She grabbed the scroll with the tongs and turned toward the fire. The paper was less than a hand’s-breadth from the flames when an image came to her mind unb
idden, of the combination of amusement and scorn that her father’s face wore whenever he saw that he had frightened her. He obviously enjoyed frightening her, and yet he at the same time held that fear against her, considering it evidence that she was weak and unworthy, a far lesser being than any son would have been.

  Had he known when he’d sent the flier to her that she would react with just this toxic combination of fear and revulsion? And did that mean she was unwittingly doing his bidding if she consigned the message to the flames without reading it?

  Shelvon was so tired of being afraid. Fear was the first emotion she could ever remember feeling, and her father had made certain it was her constant companion growing up. Fear had ruled her marriage and kept her subservient and compliant no matter how badly her husband treated her. But she had conquered that fear when she’d fled Aaltah with Corlin and Falcor, when she’d risked her own life to save the life of an innocent. If she’d found the courage to do that, certainly she could find the courage to read a letter from a man who no longer had any power over her.

  Wishing bravery came more naturally to her, she sighed and plucked the parchment from the tongs, setting them aside. Then, wincing in anticipation, she unrolled the parchment to find her father’s peremptory message: a demand that she immediately return “home,” where she belonged.

  Shelvon wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Her father obviously thought she was the most pathetic kind of fool in existence. He did not mention his intention to shut her up immediately behind the walls of Nandel’s Abbey, but she knew that was exactly what he had in mind. For a divorced—and therefore irreparably disgraced—woman anywhere except in Women’s Well, there was no place other than the Abbey, where she would spend the rest of her youth as a whore until she was too old to be any use at all and would merely be an inmate waiting to die.