The Women's War Read online

  Brynna Rah-Malrye had completed the process by bearing Nadeen and breeding her with that repulsive Nandel princeling to produce Vondeen. Generations had labored to produce these three women—the virgin, the mother, and the crone—who were the only ones who could complete this epic spell.

  There was no turning back, no matter how high the cost or how much it hurt.

  The abbess joined in the embrace, hugging her daughter and her granddaughter. “I hope you know I love you both,” the abbess whispered.

  “I love you, too,” Vondeen said with no hesitation.

  Nadeen’s throat tightened to the point she couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. She respected her mother a great deal, but respect was not the same as love. How could she love a woman who’d brought her into this world only because she was needed for this spell? How could she love a woman who’d ordered her into a known rapist’s bed and even ordered her to conceive by him, shaming Nadeen into not taking the contraceptive potion that all women in the Abbey drank when they were working the pavilion?

  No, Nadeen couldn’t truthfully say she loved her mother, and she had a hard time believing her mother loved anyone at all. Even her first daughter, Alysoon, who was conceived and born out of love, was now but a tool for the abbess’s use. Nadeen had never met her half-sister—she suspected Alysoon didn’t even know she existed—and wondered if the woman had any idea how her life was about to change, what her mother planned to put her through.

  The abbess rubbed Nadeen’s back as if comforting a small child. “I don’t expect you to say it back, daughter.”

  “Mama loves you, Gran,” Vondeen said. “Even if she doesn’t know it.”

  That brought a hiccup of near laughter from Nadeen’s throat. Vondeen always saw the best in people despite Nadeen’s efforts to warn her how dangerous—and disappointing—that could be. Despite knowing she’d been bred to fulfill a purpose, like a horse. It was unthinkable that Nadeen could allow this precious girl to be sacrificed.

  “I can’t do it!” she said, twisting out of the shared embrace. The tears she’d been fighting so hard to hold off refused to be denied, and her whole body shook as she backed away.

  She expected a rebuke and a lecture about her responsibilities from her mother, but instead it was Vondeen who stepped forward and took hold of her shoulders in a firm grip.

  “You have to, Mama,” the girl said. Her voice was calm and steady, her eyes showing no hint of fear or doubt. “We were born to change the world. It’s our purpose, and it’s noble, and it’s worth any sacrifice.”

  How could a fourteen-year-old girl be so ready to sacrifice her own life for the greater good? Just like her daughter, Nadeen had been raised knowing her destiny, but when she’d been fourteen, she had resisted that destiny with every bone in her body. With more than half her life still ahead of her, she’d cried that it wasn’t enough and had gone so far as to try to flee the Abbey and her fate. She’d been caught before she’d set foot outside the gate, and soundly beaten for her efforts. Not yet abbess, her mother had begged for leniency, and Nadeen knew the beating could have been far worse.

  How could Nadeen’s daughter be such a pillar of serenity and fearlessness when Nadeen herself was made of fear and pain and doubt?

  She was weak. Selfish. Unworthy.

  Still the abbess said nothing, made no attempt to soothe Nadeen’s terror nor even remind her of her duty. Nadeen didn’t look at her mother, couldn’t bear to see the look of stern disapproval, maybe even contempt, as she proved herself too cowardly to fulfill her life’s purpose. She shuddered, her knees going weak, and sank to the floor. Vondeen, still holding her shoulders, sank with her, until both women were kneeling on the threadbare rug.

  Nadeen buried her face in her hands as undignified sobs rose from her chest. She was a liar and a fraud along with all her other faults. It wasn’t Vondeen’s life she was so desperate to save: it was her own. Even after a lifetime of preparation, she wasn’t ready to die for their cause, and a wave of humiliation broke over her and nearly drowned her.

  She felt Vondeen move closer, drape her arm over her back as the girl whispered soothing words and crooned like a mother with a crying child. Completing the humiliation.

  Nadeen felt as if she were being torn in two. Half of her was the sobbing, terrified woman who cowered on the floor and required her fourteen-year-old daughter to offer comfort and aid. The other was the avenger of women who’d been bound since birth to a cause she believed in with all her heart and to which she had pledged her life.

  But it was so much easier to give one’s life to a hypothetical future, especially one that might never exist. Certainly the sacrifice had never seemed real to Nadeen. Even a few hours ago when she’d taken Kamlee to her bed in what was meant to be a final farewell, some part of her had never truly believed she wouldn’t return to her lover’s arms.

  “Please, Mama,” she heard her daughter whisper into her ear. “We have to do this. You promised me I would never have to sell my body in the pavilion, and that is exactly what I shall have to do if we don’t cast this spell. I will be just one more unwanted woman in this world with no higher purpose to lend me the strength to endure. Surely that’s not what you want for me.”

  Nadeen sucked in a great gasp of air. She hadn’t for a moment considered what the consequences of her refusal would be, had thought only about the continuation of her own life and Vondeen’s. But Vondeen was too beautiful to escape the pavilion, where she would sell herself day after day, night after night, for the Abbey’s coffers, lying with any man who bid for her, no matter how cruel or venal or sickening. All so that the Abbey could turn over the lion’s share of its profits to the Crown while its women lived in near poverty.

  Nadeen knew exactly how dreadful it was to work the pavilion, how degrading and painful and soul-crushing. She’d survived nearly fifteen years of it herself before she’d become too old to bring a good price, and on those nights when she’d suffered the most repulsive of her clients, she’d retreated to a place where she could dream of fulfilling her destiny, a place where all her suffering was worth it.

  Vondeen would not have that same shield if Nadeen couldn’t find the courage to do what she must. How much worse would the humiliation and pain be when she knew she’d suffered it for no purpose, that she’d been lied to and betrayed by the woman who’d brought her into this world and promised her an important place in it?

  Nadeen drew in another deep breath, pushing down the fear that had escaped the containment she’d built inside her chest. She was still racked with tremors, her nose stuffed and her eyes swollen, but she stiffened her spine and sat up straighter, looking into her daughter’s eyes. Eyes that still showed no fear, only steely determination. Eyes that would show fury and pain, contempt and betrayal, if Nadeen let her fear win. She swallowed hard, willing that fear to drain away, or at least to go back into hiding where she could ignore it and move forward.

  “What I want for you,” she said in a voice hoarse and raspy with tears, “is a long and happy life.”

  “But that’s not something within my reach,” Vondeen answered swiftly. “It’s beyond the reach of most women in this world, beyond their hopes, even. But we can change that for them.”

  Vondeen’s eyes glowed with something uncomfortably close to fanaticism, but Nadeen supposed that was to be expected, given the girl’s upbringing. Privately, Nadeen wasn’t so sure their spell would have as positive an effect on the lives of women as Vondeen hoped. Not for the current generation, at least. But for the youngest girls and for girls born in the future, when the spell had had time to settle and the worst of the shock had worn off, the world would be better. Of that, Nadeen had no doubt.

  Nadeen wiped her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hand, then dried her hand on her robes. One more shuddering breath, and she felt nearly like herself again. She gathered Vondeen into her arms for
one last hug, then finally glanced up at her own mother, who hadn’t spoken a word.

  To Nadeen’s surprise, the abbess’s back was turned as she bent forward and gripped the back of a chair with white-knuckled hands. When she finally turned to face her daughter and granddaughter once more, there was a suspicious shine in her eyes, though her face looked composed, the expression an obvious mask over her emotions. Nadeen was oddly comforted to know her mother was not as unaffected as she pretended to be.

  The abbess nodded briskly. “It is time,” she said, then knelt on the floor with a wince of arthritic pain and pulled back one corner of the rug, revealing the flagstones beneath. The abbess’s eyes went white, and she touched one of the stones, feeding Rho into it to trigger its spell. The stone rose into the air and slipped to the side, opening a twice-hidden compartment—hidden to the physical senses by the camouflaging stone and hidden to Mindsight by a secrecy spell so strong only a handful of people had the skill to see past it.

  Inside the compartment lay a stemmed cup of hammered copper crusted with a hodgepodge of gems, some precious, some semi-precious. For nearly a century, each successive abbess had added those gems, each filled to capacity with elements—some exceedingly rare—from all across Seven Wells. Those elements, bound together, formed the makings of a spell more powerful than any yet imagined. It needed but one more element to be triggered—an element only these three women could produce.

  The abbess lifted the cup gently from its compartment, setting it on the floor and drawing out the three daggers that were stored with it. Nadeen and Vondeen watched the abbess’s slow, deliberate movements with a combination of terror and resolve. Their hands had come together, fingers gripping one another, sharing their love and courage.

  The abbess placed the daggers in a triangle around the cup, taking a position behind one and waiting for Nadeen and Vondeen to join her. Nadeen found she was shaking, not sure how she would find the courage when the moment of truth arrived. Vondeen offered her an encouraging, courageous smile, then let go of her hand and went to kneel behind a second dagger. Not trusting herself to stand, Nadine shuffled into her own position on her knees.

  In Mindsight, the cup was nearly blinding to look at, elements of all colors and sizes writhing and roiling within it. Most of them were feminine elements, though some were visible only to the most powerful women in the world. But some were masculine as well, elements that no woman should be able to see. Elements that Brynna, Nadeen, and Vondeen could see only because they had all been bred for the purpose.

  Each woman reached for a dagger. The abbess brushed back the sleeve of her robes, revealing her wrinkled, age-spotted arm with its mapping of deep blue veins. With a steady hand, she placed the tip of the dagger against her skin, about halfway up her forearm. Then she slashed quickly downward to the wrist, laying open her flesh and letting loose a river of blood.

  It was done with no hesitation, and only a slight tightening at the corners of her eyes indicated that it had hurt. She held out her bleeding arm, letting her blood splash into the waiting vessel. At first, Mindsight revealed only Rho, the element of life, in that blood. But as the blood continued to pour out unchecked, a new element shimmered into existence.

  Kai. The death element. Elusive, powerful, and visible only to men of the noble houses—and to these three women.

  Kai motes were unmistakable—crystalline in structure, whereas other elements were spherical. Their form and coloration were unique to the individual who produced them. Brynna’s Kai was glossy black in color with three distinct crystals jutting out like teeth.

  Fear escaped its captivity once more, and Nadeen’s hand shook as she pushed up her own sleeve. The abbess had closed her eyes, whether because she couldn’t bear to watch or because she was losing consciousness, Nadeen didn’t know.

  Nadeen bit down hard on her lip, hoping to distract herself with that little pain as she held her arm out over the vessel and lifted the dagger. I’m doing this for all the women and girls who will come after me, she reminded herself. She made the cut swiftly, giving herself no time to think. Her shaking hand made a mess of it, creating a jagged wound instead of her mother’s neat slice, but the blood flowed freely, rushing to enter the vessel. She dropped the knife and almost knocked over the vessel, but the deed was done, and there was no turning back now. She whimpered when she saw her own Kai appear, proving that her cut was true and would take her life. Her Kai was a deep, heart’s-blood red. She reached out with her trembling hand and nudged her Kai toward her mother’s. The two motes fit together perfectly, creating a mostly smooth red and black crystal with one jagged gap.

  Nadeen sobbed freely and without shame as her daughter calmly slashed her own wrist and held it over the vessel. Somehow, although they hadn’t planned it that way, the three women ended up holding one another’s hands as they bled their lives into the vessel, willing the spell it contained to rise up and spread over all the world.

  Vondeen’s Kai appeared. Pure white like Rho, Vondeen’s Kai slid easily into the space left between Nadeen’s and Brynna’s. The three Kai motes now formed one large, multicolored crystal, which Vondeen nudged into the spell vessel. The crystal drew the trapped elements out of the vessel, binding and combining with them, the power of the spell’s birth causing the copper to melt to a steaming pool.

  One by one, the women’s grips faltered, dizziness overtaking them as the strength drained from their bodies with their blood. And the spell they had completed rose up from the pool of molten metal and cracked gems and sank into the earth, making its way down to the Wellspring, the source of all magic. And changing everything.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alys spent the whole day waiting for the momentous event her mother had predicted, but the afternoon and the evening were unremarkable. Jinnell continued to sulk about having to spend the day at home, complaining bitterly of the harbor smell. Either her daughter had a hound’s nose, or she was just complaining on general principle; the manor house was well insulated from the harbor breezes, and each room held a vase of sweetlace flowers that filled the air with their scent. Corlin was equally sullen, bored with his lessons and taking his cues from his sister. Alys’s tension did little to soothe either of her children.

  By the time Alys headed up to her bedroom for the night, she’d halfway convinced herself her mother’s warnings had been overwrought. She had just sat down at her dressing table so her maid, Honor, could begin the long process of releasing her hair from its carefully arranged braids when the floor seemed to shudder beneath her. A mild, brief pulse that was not entirely unfamiliar. The earth did seem to have a tendency to shake once in a while in Aaltah, though it was never anything serious. Once or twice in her lifetime, Alysoon had felt a quake strong enough to knock over an unsteady bottle or glass, but nothing worse than that.

  Alys met Honor’s eyes in the mirror. “Well, that was exciting,” Alys said. The comment was meant to be light and flippant, but thanks to her mother’s predictions, Alys’s pulse was racing and her entire body tense.

  Her maid chuckled and plucked at one of Alys’s braids. Unlike Alys, she didn’t read any ominous portent in that minor quake and seemed to dismiss it from her mind the moment it was past.

  Alys’s insistence on reading and studying history meant she was aware of the potential dangers of the shaking earth in ways few women were. There had been no serious quakes in Aaltah for centuries, but Alys had read about one that occurred almost four hundred years ago. That quake had caused the sea to swell and flood the entire Harbor District. Thousands had died, and it had taken decades to rebuild all that was lost.

  The earth shook again, a little harder this time, rattling the perfume bottles on Alys’s dressing table and causing Honor to sway and almost fall. The maid laughed again when the shaking subsided.

  “Enough excitement for one night,” Honor said with a cluck of her tongue, reproving the earth as
though it were an ill-mannered child.

  Alys’s chest felt tight, her hands cold and clammy. Surely she was reading too much into this ordinary occurrence. But her heart insisted on pounding, and she was almost holding her breath as she willed the earth to do as it was told and be still.

  The next quake brought a portrait crashing down from the wall and spilled three tall bottles of perfume. And it didn’t stop there. Honor tottered sideways and grabbed on to Alys’s shoulders to support herself.

  “Pardon, my lady!” she cried, but she didn’t let go.

  “Sit down!” Alys barked at her as she braced herself against the dressing table, her spindly chair rocking precariously. The spilled perfumes formed a waterfall over the edge of the table, the sweet, delicate scents overpowering. Alys sneezed and grabbed for a bottle, hoping to recap it, but it rolled off the edge of the table and shattered.

  Letting go of the table to reach for the bottle proved to be a mistake. Alys’s chair tipped sideways, and the legs skidded, sending her tumbling to the floor on top of her poor maid. Honor stifled a cry of pain, and Alys rolled off her, staying on the floor and grabbing hold of the other woman’s hand as the world continued to shake.

  Outside her door, she could hear the rest of the servants calling to one another, and she heard ominous clatters and bangs. Something fell over with a shriek of breaking glass.