Mother of All Read online

  “Does that mean you’ve forgiven me?” she asked softly, voice barely above a whisper. She had bowed to the pressure from Zarsha’s uncle, Sovereign Prince Waldmir of Nandel, and signed the marriage agreement on the prince’s terms without consulting Zarsha first. She’d done it knowing full well that Zarsha would object to the terms—terms that required him to enter into the marriage as a “bride,” thereby forfeiting all his possessions as a “brideprice” to the Crown of Nandel. In the days and weeks that had followed, she had often recalled that fateful meeting with Waldmir, had gone over everything a million times, parsing every word and action. And every time she did, she came to the same conclusion: Waldmir had been in deadly earnest, and if she’d refused the terms or insisted on consulting Zarsha, then Rhozinolm’s trade agreements with Nandel would never have been renewed.

  “I love you,” he said, “and with love comes forgiveness.”

  A lump formed in her throat, for Zarsha was so rarely evasive with her that it was impossible to miss the exceptions. If he had forgiven her, truly forgiven her, he would have come right out and said so. She swallowed past the lump, shoring up her emotional defenses. First and foremost, this was a marriage of state. Their ease and happiness as a couple—or lack thereof—was of little importance in the grand scheme of things.

  “Then I suppose we’d better hurry up and get married,” she said with false cheer and a smile that she suspected held a hint of panic.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sister Jaizal fluffed the nest of pillows she’d arranged on Leethan’s bed while Leethan plucked a mote of Rho from the air to activate the seer’s poison.

  “Must you take one so strong?” Jaizal fretted when the poison was activated and ready. “I would think it wiser to start with a mild one and then try again later with something stronger only if necessary.”

  Leethan grimaced at the vial of poison in her hand, not relishing the prospect of the ordeal she was about to inflict upon herself. But she had not been able to sleep since she’d admitted to Waldmir that she did not believe he would ever have a son. The weight of that failure sat heavy on her shoulders. As if to make matters worse, she had—for the first time in five years—been awakened during her one good night’s sleep by the strange recurring nightmare that had troubled her off and on for as long as she could remember. The dream always left Leethan shivering and filled with foreboding, and its echoes troubled her sleep for many nights afterward. Thank goodness it never occurred more than once every year or two! And she wasn’t about to let it stop her from doing what she knew she must. She had failed the duty that the Mother of All had assigned her, but she hoped the goddess would give her a second chance to set things right.

  “The Mother of All does not reward cowardice,” Leethan said, feeling a brief twinge of pity for Sister Jaizal. In her younger days, Leethan had suffered the ravages of seer’s poisons alone at night in her own bed, dampening the screams she knew the pain would draw from her throat by gagging herself with a woolen sock. There was something incalculably comforting about not having to go through the torment alone, but she knew from personal experience how wrenching it could be to watch a fellow sister’s suffering.

  Sister Jaizal snorted softly. “No one who’s spent more than five minutes in your presence would accuse you of cowardice,” she murmured, and Leethan couldn’t help smiling. She’d had few true friends in the Abbey since she’d been named abbess more than a decade ago, but Jaizal had been steadfast throughout.

  “Thank you for sitting with me. Again.”

  Sister Jaizal waved the thanks off. “You were a ninny to suffer in silence for so long. I’d have been happy to hold your hand years ago if only you’d told me what you were doing.”

  Leethan conceded that was probably true. But here in Nandel, women’s magic was forbidden even in the Abbey, and until Waldmir had come to her and asked her to produce potency potions for him, she had feared the consequences of being found out. It was somewhat ironic to discover that, after all the pains she had taken to maintain her secret, Waldmir had known all along.

  “Let us hope this is the last seer’s poison I will have to take,” Leethan said, though she suspected that was a little much to ask. The Mother of All discouraged her daughters from relying too heavily on visions by making the process of having one as grueling and unpleasant as possible, and Leethan hoped she hadn’t put off doing this for too long. It had been years since she’d triggered a vision, as she’d been clinging to the hope that she might still help Waldmir father a son. It was past time she seek guidance again.

  Climbing into the nest of pillows that would hopefully protect her from injury if she thrashed, Leethan settled in. Then, with a deep breath that she hoped would grant her strength and courage, she uncorked the vial of poison and gulped it quickly down.

  The taste was indescribably vile, and her body instantly recognized the stuff as poison, doing everything possible to keep the liquid from going down. Her throat closed up, and her gorge rose, and if she weren’t already well-versed in forcing the poison into herself, she might not have been able to stop herself from spitting it out.

  Even once she swallowed, her stomach attempted to expel the poison, and though the burning agony in her mouth and throat made her want to scream, she clapped a hand over her mouth to keep everything—screams and poison and bile—trapped inside. She squinted her eyes shut, her body curling around itself. She was vaguely aware of Sister Jaizal gently prying the empty vial from fingers that had closed around it so tightly she was in danger of crushing it and cutting her hand.

  “Let it out,” the abigail’s voice urged, but Leethan could only fight the pain by clamping down harder, muscles so tight it was a wonder her bones didn’t shatter with the pressure.

  There was nothing she could do now but endure and wait for the strange altered state of consciousness that allowed the vision to begin.

  Leethan had first learned of her potential talent as a seer from her maternal grandmother during her girlhood in Grunir. Although women’s magic was forbidden in Grunir to all but the women of the Abbey, Leethan had learned from her grandmother that there were more secret practitioners than conventional wisdom accounted for. Her first introduction to a seer’s poison had occurred when Gram had taken one in her presence, warning her in advance that the experience would be upsetting and that there would be nothing Leethan could do to help.

  The memory of watching her frail grandmother writhing in pain was burned into her brain, but for all the horror of the memory, she knew that the worst of the torment had lasted only a few minutes, just as she knew from questioning Jaizal in the aftermath of her previous visions that her own screams of agony lasted only five minutes or so. But with the level of pain caused by these poisons, five minutes was an excruciatingly long time, and it always felt more like an hour.

  Finally, the pain began to ease and Leethan felt her struggles stilling, her consciousness drifting away from her room and reemerging elsewhere. She felt only loosely connected to her body, the pain being one of the few reminders that her body even existed as she found herself in a sea of impenetrable blackness. When the blackness lifted, it was as if she were peering out of a window at a scene no window could possibly reveal.

  Her greatest hope was that the Mother of All would reveal that Leethan’s assumption that Waldmir would not have a son was mistaken; that there was still time for Leethan to accomplish the mission she’d been given. Her greatest fear was that the mission was now beyond her reach. But the sight that met her eyes when the vision began seemed entirely unrelated to what Leethan had always thought the Mother wanted of her.

  Leethan saw herself, bundled in a heavy, fur-lined cloak that was too big for her. With one gloved hand, she held the hood tight to her face, burying her chin into the soft fur. The other hand held the lead of a furry, plump mountain pony, which followed her obediently and plodded easily through snow that reached
her knees. Riding atop the pony was a small figure so deeply bundled in furs Leethan could make out nothing except that it was a child. Sister Jaizal, also draped in furs, rode a second shaggy pony and followed behind.

  Leethan did not recognize the rocky mountain path over which the little caravan traveled, but it was obviously somewhere in Nandel, for theirs were the only mountains on the continent. The sky was a lowering, unpleasant shade of gray, and gusts of wind pulled at the cloaks and hoods of the three bundled figures. A gust pulled the hood from Leethan’s hand and sent the edge of the cloak fluttering behind her, revealing that, underneath, she was dressed not in an abigail’s robes but in warm, sturdy men’s clothing. Her hair was pulled back into a club that sat tight to her head—a common style for the men of Nandel—and a casual observer watching from a distance would have thought her a man. Leethan noted that her face did not look much aged from the one she saw in the mirror every day, which meant the vision showed a not-too-distant future.

  The same gust of wind that had revealed her clothing also gave her a better look at the small figure who rode atop the pony, and she discerned that the child was a little girl, no more than five years old. In the isolation of the Abbey, Leethan had grown unfamiliar with the sight of children—unless one counted the occasional teenage boy who was brought to the Abbey to be initiated into manhood by an abigail—so she could not guess who the child was. But the small, shivering figure had no business being out on the road in such conditions.

  One thing was certain: the girl was a child of Nandel. Though her lips were blue with cold, and it was impossible to miss how she shivered, she showed no sign of complaining, instead readjusting her seat on the pony and burrowing deeper into her furs.

  What in the Mother’s name were Leethan and Jaizal doing out of their abbey, on the road in the snow with a small child and a winter storm looming on the horizon? Travel was never especially easy in Nandel, for there were passes that didn’t fully thaw even in the summer, but Leethan would stake her reputation that the season was at the very least autumn, if not yet true winter—a season in which no one would travel the most rugged passes unless in dire need. And no woman of Nandel would travel without a male escort, even in the best of weather.

  The vision faded without imparting any further wisdom or explanation, and Leethan came back to her aching, sweat-soaked body with a groan.

  “Shhh,” Jaizal murmured, touching a cool cloth to Leethan’s flaming face. “I am here, and all is well.”

  Leethan groaned again; she hadn’t the energy to respond with anything coherent, like words.

  She had worshipped the Mother of All ever since she’d been a small child, and her faith in the Mother’s goodness and mercy had remained steadfast despite the hardships of her life. But it seemed that this night’s vision would be yet another challenge to her faith.

  What could the vision possibly mean? Surely traveling through the mountain passes in the winter with a small girl child in tow was not what Leethan needed to do to protect Nandel from the war she knew would follow if Waldmir died without a clear heir. And if the Mother of All did not intend for Leethan to prevent the war, then why had she given Leethan that long-ago vision of Waldmir’s nephew on the throne? Did this mean it really was too late for Leethan to fix her failure?

  Leethan had triggered the vision—put herself through hell—because she’d been seeking clarity. Instead, she was even more confused and helpless now than she’d been before she’d started.

  * * *

  —

  Society expected Ellin, as a woman, to go all gooey and sentimental on the inside at any wedding—and at her own, she was expected to be bursting with joy and excitement. She had attended quite a number of weddings throughout the course of her life, and although she was far too well brought up and proper to let her true feelings show, she had never once felt the slightest urge to cry happy tears for the joyful couple. Truth be told, she had found weddings dull and tedious, for the ceremonies seemed to last forever, and the effort of feigning delight was exhausting.

  She had hoped her own wedding would be something much different, but the ceremony was just as long, and she was about twenty times more uncomfortable in the stiff, sweltering cloth-of-gold with the incredibly heavy crown weighing down her head.

  It didn’t help that her anxious mind refused to settle down and concentrate on the priest’s words. Thanks to her affair with Graesan, she did not have the virginal bride’s fear of the wedding night, but it still held an enormous place in her thoughts. She had greatly enjoyed the few kisses she and Zarsha had shared, but those had all occurred before the engagement and the troubles that had come between them since. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to kiss him now. Would she relax and abandon herself to his kisses—and all the rest of the wedding night—or would she stiffen and pull away?

  Zarsha cleared his throat ever so softly, and Ellin realized she’d let her mind wander off. The priest was looking at her expectantly, and she had a moment of disorientation and panic as she tried to remember what was expected of her. She certainly hadn’t heard whatever the priest had so obviously said.

  She cleared her throat—the observers were going to think both she and her groom were coming down with an ague—and realized they were finally at the part where she and Zarsha would recite their vows. Thankfully, she had attended enough weddings that she could remember the start of the vows even though she hadn’t heard the priest.

  “I, Ellinsoltah Rah-Rhylban, in the eyes of the Creator and the Mother, pledge myself body and soul to you, Zarsha of Nandel,” she began, and was surprised to feel the hint of stinging in her eyes. She’d never cried at a wedding before, and she had no intention of starting with her own!

  Taking a deep breath, she continued with the modified vows she and Zarsha had worked out in conjunction with the priest. Traditional wedding vows—with their talk of female obedience—were not appropriate for a sovereign queen, and though she knew there would be some muttering and offense about this break from tradition, she had at least won the priest’s grudging agreement that the vows needed to be altered.

  The stinging, almost-in-tears feeling grew stronger as she listened to Zarsha reciting his vows, for it was impossible not to hear his love in his voice. She knew her eyes had to be suspiciously shiny, even as she kept the tears from falling. The nerves and anxiety and doubts had faded deep into the background, and she knew both of them meant every ceremonial word they said.

  Finally, the ceremony was finished. Hand in hand, Zarsha and Ellin turned to face the cheering, joyous crowd. Ellin smiled her brightest court smile, her eyes scanning the faces in the rows closest to the altar. Some of those faces were lit with genuine happiness—Semsulin, her lord chancellor, and Kailindar, her uncle and lord chamberlain, both cared about her as a person in a way few others of the court did—but those courtiers whom she was sure had opposed the marriage were cheering just as enthusiastically, reminding her how much of court life resembled a stage play, where no one’s words or expressions should be taken at face value.

  The cheers continued as a company of royal guards took up their stations along both sides of the center aisle. The pews had already been infused with protection spells, and many of the jewels she and Zarsha wore contained even more active spells—including Kai shields. No spell or weapon yet invented could penetrate all the protections and harm them; the guards were merely a part of the pageantry.

  As she waited for the guards to be in position, Ellin allowed her gaze to roam to the upper tier, where the commoners were packed in so tightly they could barely move. She was glad she’d put her foot down and insisted that Star be given an actual seat on the balcony, despite a few murmurs and sneers. It was nearly unbearably hot down here on the spacious ground floor. She couldn’t imagine how hot it was up in the rafters with all those bodies pressed so close together.

  Ellin blinked and drew
in a startled breath when she thought she caught sight of a familiar face in one of the back rows—a face she could have sworn was Graesan’s. She caught only the briefest glimpse before a tall man in the row in front bent to speak in the ear of the woman beside him, blocking her view of the back row. She kept her eyes riveted to the spot, but the tall man apparently had a lot to say—and Zarsha let her know with a gentle squeeze of her hand that it was time to go.

  She tore her eyes away and nodded her acknowledgment, then the two of them began the long march down the aisle. She glanced back up quickly at the place where she’d seen Graesan—where she thought she’d seen Graesan—but though the tall man was no longer blocking her view, Graesan was nowhere in sight. Either he had left, or he had never been there in the first place.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Delnamal sat on the balcony of the secluded manor house he and his mother inhabited on King Khalvin’s sufferance. The heat of summer was in full force, and yet he shivered under a blanket, even with the sun beaming down on his face. His mother had suggested the fresh air and sunlight might do him good, and he’d felt too weak and miserable to argue with her. So weak, in fact, that he’d suffered the indignity of having a servant carry him out to the balcony and set him on the chair.

  He closed his eyes, the lids too heavy to hold open, and waited for what he knew was going to happen. The mysterious illness that ravaged his body had sucked every drop of energy from him so that he could not be bothered to feel either dread or anticipation.

  It felt like he was on the brink of death, with only one or two sluggish breaths left in his body. Although he’d experienced this bizarre cycle of illness many times before, he could not deny the irrational worry that this time—this time—his body would fail him for good.