Page 58 of Death's Mistress (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 1)

Victoria pressed her lips together until all the color drained out of them. “And it worked. Roland had been so weak and skeletal, clearly on the edge of death … but he grew strong again. The spell worked wonders. It brought back the flush of health. I remember seeing him.” Her expression grew more troubled. “But then Roland didn’t know how to stop. He couldn’t control it.”

Simon cut her off. “I recall those days of growing fear—I had just come here as a student. Roland felt guilty, horrified at what was happening to him—and at what he was doing to others. He kept draining more and more of the life around him, whether or not he wanted to. We tried to help him. His friends rushed to his side, offering their assistance, promising that they would help him solve the problem—but anyone who touched him died. Roland stole their lives and incorporated them into his own. We all began to weaken.”

“He killed my husband,” Victoria said. “To protect us, to save us, Roland fled Cliffwall. Unable to control the magic he himself had unleashed, he ran far from the archives and out into the valley wilderness, away from the towns … although not far enough. He hoped to live out his days there and harm no one else. But the Lifedrinker spell continued, unstoppable, never satisfied. Roland was like a sponge, absorbing life from the forest, from the grasslands. His very existence killed trees, drained rivers dry. And the desolation around where he had gone to ground spread wider and wider in an ever-expanding scar. He wiped out croplands. He erased entire towns.” She straightened and brushed a hand across her eyes. “Roland didn’t mean it.”

Nicci thought of Thistle’s family, of Verdun Springs, how they had clung to their hardscrabble existence, and then died. “His intentions don’t matter. Think of all the damage that man has done. He must be stopped, otherwise his bottomless pit of magic will swallow the world.”

Simon added, “For years our Cliffwall scholars have been scouring the books, trying any mitigation spell they could find. But no one could even get close to what was needed.”

As the night deepened out in the dead valley, Nathan stared out at the Scar, watching the shadows move. “I wouldn’t expect you to know how to stop such a powerful enemy. All of you are untrained wizards. You have read books, but you were never trained by a wizard, and you have never proved your abilities. Ah, I wish the Prelate Verna were here to help you. Wizardry untested cannot be trusted.”

“You tried your best,” Nicci said. “Now we will do our own research. If this archive is as vast as you say, it must hold the key, a counterspell. We simply need to find it.”

“We would do anything to help you save us,” Simon said. “But after the … accidents, we are afraid to try extreme measures of our own.”

“That is wise,” Nathan said. “But something must be done.”

“That’s why we are here,” Nicci said, then finally admitted, “to save the world.”

The orphan girl added with deep longing in her voice, “I want to see the valley the way it’s supposed to be. I want to see the fertile land, the green fields, the tall forests.”

Nicci looked at Thistle. “You will.”

CHAPTER 43

Though Nicci wanted to begin her research in how to combat the Lifedrinker, she knew they were all exhausted from their long journey. Deep night had set in outside.

“Let us show you to your rooms,” Victoria said. “You must rest.” She glanced down at Thistle. “The girl needs her sleep.”

“I’m still awake. I’ll help.” She looked at Nicci, determined. “And tomorrow I can study alongside you.”

“Are you able to read?” Nicci asked.

“I know my letters, and I can read a lot of words. I will be much better after you teach me. I learn fast.”

Nathan gave a good-natured chuckle. “Dear girl, I appreciate someone so willing to learn, but that is quite an ambitious goal. Some of these languages and alphabets are unknown even to me.”

Nicci fixed her gaze on Thistle’s dust-smeared skin, her bright and intelligent eyes. “When the Sisters trained me in the Palace of the Prophets, I spent more than forty-five years as an acolyte learning the basics.”

The girl looked amazed. “I don’t want to wait forty-five years!”

“No one does, but you’re an intelligent girl. Since you learn quickly, it might take only forty years.” Thistle did not at first realize Nicci was teasing her. Then Nicci continued in a more serious tone, “We need to defeat the Lifedrinker long before that, or there won’t be any world left.”

Victoria shooed them along. “Rest now, time for a fresh start tomorrow. We have separate quarters for each of you. They are austere, but spacious. We will let you unpack and rest.”

“Not much to unpack, since we lost almost everything when the dust people attacked,” Bannon said. “We’ve been living with little more than the clothes on our backs.”

With a warm smile, Victoria promised, “We will provide clean clothing from the Cliffwall stores, and we will launder and mend your own garments.”

The matronly woman showed them to private chambers deep within the plateau, where the temperature was cool and the air dry. Beeswax candles burned inside small hollows in the stone walls, adding a warm yellow glow and a faint sweet scent. Each room’s furnishings consisted of a reading desk, an open floor with a sheepskin to cover the stone, a chamber pot, an urn of water, a washbasin, and a narrow pallet for sleeping. In each room, fresh, loose scholars’ clothes had been laid out for them.

Victoria offered the spunky orphan girl a place of her own, but Thistle followed Nicci into her chamber. She bounced up and down on the pallet’s straw-filled bedding. “This is soft, but it may be prickly. I’d rather sleep on the floor. You can have the pallet. That sheepskin looks warm enough for me. I’ll stay close if you need me.”

Even though the girl seemed perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, Nicci asked, “Why don’t you want your own room? You can sleep as long as you like.”

Thistle blinked her honey-brown eyes at Nicci. “I should stay nearby. What if you need protection?”

“I do not need protection. I am a sorceress.”

But the girl sat cross-legged on the sheepskin and responded with a bright grin. “It never hurts to have an extra set of eyes. I will keep you safe.”

Although she would not admit it, Thistle obviously did not wish to be alone. “Very well, you can guard me if you like,” Nicci said, remembering all the girl had been through. “But if you are to be effective in protecting me, I’ll need you rested as well.”

After they had changed into the borrowed clothes, one of the Cliffwall stewards arrived at their door to gather the bundled-up garments to be laundered and mended. The waifish girl’s rags needed a great deal of repair, as did Nicci’s black traveling dress. After handing over the old clothes, Nicci sorted through the scanty possessions she had managed to save from Verdun Springs.

Eager to help, Thistle laid out the items on the writing desk—the long sharp knife, some rope, near-empty packets of food. Although exhausted, the young girl kept up a chatter. “I never had any brothers and sisters. Do you have a family?” Her elfin face was filled with questions. “Did you ever have a daughter of your own?”

Nicci arranged the bedding on her pallet, keeping her face turned away so that she could ponder the proper answer. A daughter of her own? Someone, perhaps, like Thistle? The idea had not occurred to her, not for a long time at least. She touched her lower lip, where she had once worn a gold ring.

“No, I never had a daughter.” It should have been a simple answer, and Nicci was puzzled as to why she had hesitated. “That was never meant to be part of my life.”

After all those times Jagang had sentenced her to serve as a whore, or when he himself had forced himself upon her, Nicci surely had the opportunity to become pregnant, but thanks to her skills as a sorceress, she had never needed to worry about a child. She had always prevented herself from conceiving. Early on, Nicci had learned how not to feel anything—no passion, no love of

any kind.

The girl examined the items Nicci had removed from the pockets of her old travel dress, her belt, and her side pouch. She unrolled a cloth-wrapped packet among the paraphernalia. “Oh, a flower!” Thistle said, looking at the violet-and-crimson petals. “You carried a flower all this way?”

Nicci instantly swept up the cloth packet, whisking the dried blossom away from the startled girl. “Don’t touch that!” Her pulse raced.

Thistle flinched. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I…” She cleared her throat. “It must be very special to you. Is it a pretty keeepsake from a suitor?”

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