Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 72

When she was finished, Nicci considered the dragon-bone bow a work of art, a work of death. The surface of the magic-infused ivory was veined with lines of faint gold that were intrinsic to the dragon itself, threads connected to the world and life.

She couldn’t wait to use it against Victoria.

In the Cliffwall canyons, the isolated settlers often hunted with bows of their own making, and the best archers had already provided sturdy bowstrings made of woven sheep gut. At Nicci’s request, they had also offered a selection of long arrows fletched with crow’s feathers and tipped with splayed iron heads, their razor edges sharpened to a bright silver edge.

After she strung the graceful recurved bow, it thrummed with the energy of one of the world’s most magnificent creatures, a dragon tied to the source of life deep within the earth—likely the same source of power that the Eldertree had drawn upon. The bow vibrated in her hand, as if Grimney’s spirit was eager to be released for one last quest.

Nicci was ready. The arrows were ready.

She took her weapon and headed through the winding tunnels until she reached a gathering hall for the Cliffwall scholars, deep in the heart of the plateau. She found Nathan already there, his face stricken, his skin ashen. Beside him, the young scholar Mia looked terrified.

She immediately sensed something terribly wrong. Her hand tensed around the bow. “What is it, Wizard?” Nathan opened his mouth, closed it, as if he couldn’t find the words. “Tell me.” The sharpness in her tone startled the answer out of him.

“The bow isn’t enough,” Nathan said.

Just then, Bannon entered the room with a jaunty step, full of energy. Thistle accompanied him like a little sister, washed, dressed, and rested now. Bannon’s eyes sparkled in anticipation of the great battle that was to come. He seemed too naive to be afraid. “I am ready to fight Victoria! Just like when we destroyed the Lifedrinker together. Will I join you, Sorceress?”

Nicci raised a hand so abruptly that she cut off his words as surely as if she had released a silencing spell.

Thistle’s honey-brown eyes went wide at her reaction. Bannon looked around in confusion and saw the expression on Nathan’s face. “W-What happened? What’s the matter?”

Nathan slid one of the old, damaged books across the table toward them. “A bow made from a dragon’s rib is an extremely potent weapon, and you are indeed a powerful sorceress to wield it, but that is only part of what the magic requires to destroy Victoria. There is more…” He slowly shook his head. “The price is much greater than we knew.”

He opened the stained volume to the pages that Mia had restored with magic. He touched the words with his extended finger. “Read the ancient text yourself, Sorceress. Draw your conclusions.” His voice grew much quieter. “The words leave no room for interpretation.”

Mia stared at the lines, as if she hoped the letters would change. She slumped heavily into a chair.

Bannon stood straight and determined. “No matter the price, we have to stop Victoria,” he blurted out. “After what she did to those poor girls…”

Nathan’s azure eyes bored into Nicci as he explained. “In order to kill Life’s Mistress, not only must you use a bow made of dragon bone, but the arrow itself has to be tipped with the necessary poison—a poison that can sap all vitality from life.”

“What poison?” Thistle asked.

Nicci looked down at the page and read the words herself even as the wizard recited, “The loss of a loved one.” He drew a deep breath. “No matter how sharp the arrow is, or how strong the bow might be, in order to kill Victoria, the arrowhead must be coated with the heart’s blood of someone that the archer loves, someone the archer kills. And we have already established that you must be the archer, Sorceress.”

Bannon and Thistle both gasped, and Mia slumped in her seat, her shoulders shaking. Nicci felt deep cold rush through her as she read the spell again, grasped what it said. “This is not acceptable.”

Before she could respond, a distant crack resonated through the stone-walled chamber and rumbled through the corridors. Cliffwall scholars hurried down the hall, running to investigate. An old librarian with a long white beard scuttled past the chamber door, his eyes wide with alarm. “The outer wall! Victoria’s vines are attacking the plateau defenses.”

Followed by the others, Nicci bolted out of the chamber and rushed among the panicked scholars through passageways to the outer wall of the plateau. Thistle ran faster, racing ahead to where a frantic crowd tried to barricade the opening that had been breached by writhing, murderous vegetation. Men and women frantically hauled crates and stone blocks from other rooms, any obstacle to block the passage from the intrusion.

Outside, thick, thorny vines from the explosive primeval jungle had climbed the cliff like an invading army. Tendrils and tentacles thrust into cracks in the rock, pushing, prying, breaking open the defenses. The vines had now burst through the outer chambers previously sealed with stone blocks. The wooden bars the defenders had initially mounted in place had now grown into huge writhing thickets that shoved open the temporary barricade, and the broken stone blocks lay strewn in the hall. Wild vegetation spewed into the formerly impervious archive complex.

Mia cried out in dismay when she saw the infestation of dangerous growth. Thistle dodged and danced away from the grasping vines and branches that surged into the corridor. A whipping tendril scratched her skin, but she slapped it away and scuttled out of reach.

Nathan had not brought his own sword, but Bannon leaped to the attack, using his blade to hack the whipping vines and branches. One woody appendage snapped back and slammed hard against the side of his head, stunning him. The young man reeled and his knees began to buckle.

Nathan rushed in to grab his protégé, and pulled him to safety before the vines could lunge for him. Bleeding from the side of his head, Bannon groaned and dropped his sword with a metallic clatter on the stone floor. Nathan dragged him farther out of reach so that he could check his injury.

Mia, left staring appalled at the horrific growth, did not move quickly enough. Before she could dodge out of the way, a thorn-studded vine lashed around her neck, coiled, and tightened. The sharp spikes plunged into her throat, digging through flesh and blood vessels. Gouts of crimson sprayed out as she screamed and struggled.

Whirling, Nathan howled, “No!” He lunged toward Mia to save her, instinctively lashing out with his hand to summon a blast of magic … but nothing happened, not even a flicker. He was helpless.

With an additional jerk and twist, the malicious vine snapped the young woman’s neck, then discarded her body against the curved wall.

Nicci knocked the frightened scholars away as she pushed forward, desperate to find something powerful enough to block this incursion. Ignoring Bannon’s groans and the wizard’s outcry of grief and fury, Nicci thought of how she had manipulated the fused stone down in the vaults, reshaping and moving the rock. Now she called upon the structure of the plateau walls, reshaped the stone as if it were soft candle wax to create an impenetrable curtain across the opening the plants had broken through. Under her guidance, the re-formed slickrock flowed down and severed the writhing vines and branches, sealing off the outer wall of the plateau. The stone solidified, restoring the integrity of the cliff, walling off the incursion of deadly plants. They were safe. For now.

Sobbing, Nathan had dropped to the floor, pulling the dead young scholar against him. Mia bled from the brutal gashes in her neck, soaking the wizard’s borrowed robes with red, and her head lolled. He groaned. “She was so smart, so loyal. Dear spirits, if not for Mia we wouldn’t have found the other part of the spell. Otherwise, all our efforts would have failed. It’s because of her that we have a chance.” He looked up at Nicci with reddened eyes. “We have a chance.”

Nicci assessed the shocked and frightened scholars. She had no illusions about how difficult this terrible enemy would be. “We need the necessary poison for the arrow.” But the task seemed impossible, and dread weighed heavily in the pit of her stomach. The heart’s blood of someone she loved? Her voice was cold. “But I love no one.”

It was a bleak statement, but true. Her one true love, the only man she would ever love, was Richard Rahl. She had given him her heart with a passion that had now transformed, but had never waned. At first, that love had been dark—the wrong kind of love—but Nicci had an epiphany. She had grown and learned her lesson, eventually accepting that Richard would only ever love Kahlan. Those two belonged together in a special way and could never be separated, should never be separated.

Nicci had come to that realization long ago. She still loved Richard with all her heart, but in a different way. Nicci had gone to the Old World to serve him, to explore his new empire, to lay the groundwork for a new golden age … even if it meant she had to be far away from him.

She had not believed the words Red had written, about saving the world—for Richard—but now she saw it was true. First the Lifedrinker and now mad Victoria would have swallowed up the world, devastated the D’Haran Empire. Nicci had to do everything necessary to defeat the enemy, but in order to do so she needed the heart’s blood of someone she loved.

And it was Richard she loved. She could think of no one else.

Nicci had to be the archer. No one else had the necessary power to face Victoria. Nathan had lost control of his gift, and none of these amateur scholars and dabblers here in Cliffwall even approached Nicci’s skill. It must be her.

But … someone she loved? Truly loved? Richard …

That solution was not possible. She couldn’t save the world for Richard, if she had to kill Richard to do so. Oh, if he knew the situation, truly understood what was at stake, Nicci was sure he would immediately agree to the terms—he would offer himself, tear open his shirt to expose his chest so that she could take his heart’s blood. He would willingly give Nicci what she needed, the blood poison that would stop Life’s Mistress.

But he was on the other side of the world.

And Nicci would never kill Richard, could never kill him. The very thought filled her with horror. She remembered how it had destroyed her to stop his heart, to send him to the underworld, so he could rescue Kahlan. He had begged her, and Nicci could not refuse him.

But now … Would she sacrifice the world itself, just to keep Richard alive a little longer? It sounded foolish, but she knew she would. Her stomach knotted.

Somewhere, far up in the Dark Lands, Red must be laughing.

The heart’s blood of a loved one.

As she listened to the moans of the gathered scholars, she knew they were all terrified, but not as despairing as Nicci was. After the difficult quest to obtain the dragon’s rib, and with her own powers as a sorceress, she had expected to have the weapon to kill Victoria.

But it was not enough, and now the last component simply did not seem achievable. She didn’t know what to do.

Nathan sat on the floor, staring at Mia’s pale, lifeless face. He stroked the mousy brown hair from her forehead. “I am so sorry, my dear.” Wearing a stricken expression, he wiped her brow with the always moist, always cool kerchief that she had given him before their journey to Kuloth Vale.

Nicci looked down at Thistle, who was thankfully unharmed from the attack, other than a scratch on her leg.

Suddenly Bannon stood before Nicci, still bleeding from his forehead. He rested the point of his lackluster sword on the floor in front of him. He reached up to wipe a smear of blood from his wound, obviously drawing on his courage. He raised his chin and looked at her. “I am the one, Sorceress.” He drew a ragged breath. “It has to be me.”

He hooked his fingers in the opening of his shirt and tore it open to expose his chest. “I know you care for me. I saw how you looked at me after we fought the Lifedrinker together. You praised me for how useful I was. And I have seen what Victoria is doing … what she already did to Audrey, Laurel, and Sage.” Sad determination filled his eyes. “If I can save the world by giving my life, then I’ll gladly do so. Draw your knife, take my heart’s blood.” He swallowed hard. “It belongs to you anyway.” He lifted his head back and closed his eyes, as if bracing himself for a deathblow.

Taken aback, Nicci scowled. “Don’t be a fool.” She pushed him aside. “That would never work. I have no time for this.”

Leaving the crestfallen Bannon behind, she stalked away to the archive chambers, hoping to find a different answer, some other way in one of the spell books. She felt a terrible dread inside.

After all Nicci had endured in her life, what if there was no one she loved?