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 sto
p 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?
CHAPTER 73
With the full intensity of a dedicated memmer, Nicci mulled over all the knowledge she possessed, the spells she had been taught, the powers she had stolen from the wizards she killed. There had to be another solution.
Wanting to be alone as she grappled with her thoughts, she went to stand outside under the great overhang of the main cliff grotto. She looked across the hidden, protected canyons to the clustered dwellings in the smaller alcoves scattered up and down the opposite cliffs. All these people had lived sheltered for millennia, guarding this secret archive. They had seemed safe, untouched by the outside world until young Victoria had accidentally brought down the camouflage shroud and revealed the great library after thousands of years.
The knowledge contained in the archive was dangerous enough, Nicci knew, but far worse were those amateur would-be wizards who did not understand the powers they foolishly unleashed.
Now, late in the afternoon, the secluded canyons felt peaceful and quiet, as if unaware of the monstrous flood of life that approached like a destructive wave from the opposite side of the plateau. Nicci had to stop Victoria, who had transformed herself into a monster. She knew how to accomplish the task, how to defeat Life’s Mistress, but whether or not the price was too high, Nicci didn’t know how to pay it. The answer seemed impossible.
Nicci, a gifted sorceress, had the dragon-rib bow, she had arrows, and she had the will. She was ready to face Life’s Mistress and kill her.
But she did not have the necessary poison.
Nevertheless, Nicci refused to accept the impossible. She never had.
Tension filled the halls of Cliffwall as the scholars tried to find some way to help. Nathan mourned the death of Mia, and Nicci knew he would do anything to destroy Victoria and her rampaging fecundity, but he had no magic to offer … or if he did, the wild and uncontrolled backlash might cause even more destruction than Victoria.
There had to be something else.…
Lost in thoughts, Nicci stared into the brooding canyon silence, where shepherds, farmers, and orchard tenders went about their business as they waited for what came next. Sheltered, peaceful, oblivious … A grim weight pressed down on her shoulders. These people all counted on her to save them, because no one else had the ability.
Yet Nicci wasn’t sure she had the ability either—the ability to love.
It seemed laughable and tragic that, for all her knowledge, for all the great magic she possessed—and every skill she had learned or power she had stolen—Nicci’s great failing was a simple human emotion that any child could produce at will.
Her eyes stung as she looked at the secret canyon where so many people had lived undisturbed for generations. She wanted to preserve this peaceful home for the inhabitants of Cliffwall—and especially for Thistle, who had already endured so much, lost so much.
As a child, Nicci had loved her father, although she had been convinced otherwise. Without understanding the depth of his devotion to his employees, his business, his future, Nicci had watched her father work in the armory. She had observed the workers’ respect for him, but she gave him no credit for his skills, thanks to her mother’s corrupt influence.
Her mother had made Nicci feel worthless, feeding her the debilitating philosophy of the Order until Nicci choked on it, all the while believing she was being fed a fine feast. Only after Richard pulled the blindfold from her eyes and showed her how to break those lifelong chains had Nicci understood her father’s devotion and exactly how much harm the Order had done to him, as well as what they had stolen from her with their twisted philosophy.
But Nicci’s father was long gone and the Order defeated, Jagang dead by her own hands, and she could not make up for the past. Instead, she had to look to the future. Now, as part of the new task for Richard that she had taken into her heart, she could save the world from Life’s Mistress … if only she could find a way to use the weapon she had.
Looking nervous, the memmer Gloria emerged from the front stone gates of the main tower, waving to Nicci. “Sorceress! We’ve been looking for you.”
Nicci felt a tiny spark of hope, ready to grasp at any straw. “Did you find another solution?”
Gloria’s round cheeks puffed out as she blew air through her lips. “Why, no, Sorceress. It’s just that the orphan girl asked us to look for you, says it’s extremely important.”
Nicci was instantly alert. “Is Thistle all right?”
“She’s waiting in your quarters to talk with you. She said it was urgent, but wouldn’t tell any of us, only that we had to find you right away.”
Leaving Gloria behind, Nicci rushed back inside the main buildings, hurrying along the corridors. She was worried about the girl. Thistle had watched her village collapse, fought dust people, sand panthers, and a dragon, and if she claimed that something was urgent …
Or maybe she had remembered some detail that they could use?
Thistle was waiting for her inside their quarters, sitting on the sleeping pallet, her scuffed knees drawn up against her chest. Her body was shaking. When she saw Nicci, her large honey-brown eyes filled with relief, but also fear.
Before Nicci could speak, the girl said, “I’ve already eaten the seeds. I knew you would try to stop me, but now you can’t. It was the only way I could be sure, so now you have to do it.
”
A chill like a trickle of ice sliced down Nicci’s back. She stepped forward. “What do you mean?”
Thistle clutched dried petals and leaves in her hands. Nicci instantly recognized the shriveled plant, the distinctive violet-and-crimson flower, the crumbled stem. The girl held it out to show her. The deathrise flower, the poisonous bloom that Bannon had clumsily given her, not knowing its awful potency. As a sorceress, Nicci had kept it because she knew that such powerful tools were not to be wasted.
Thistle’s eyes flashed. Even as Nicci lunged toward her, the girl shoved the rest of the dried petals into her mouth.
Nicci threw herself upon the girl. “Stop!”
Thistle swallowed.
Nicci grabbed the girl’s chin and tugged at her jaw, trying to remove any remnants from her mouth, but Thistle kept her teeth clenched together.
“Too late,” she mumbled. She was already starting to convulse.
Nicci summoned her magic. Maybe she could force the girl to purge herself. Maybe she could find some way to neutralize the deadly substance.
But Nicci knew that no healing spell could cure the deathrise poison. She remembered Emperor Jagang’s tortures, how he had tested variations of the deadly plant in camps that he called Places of Screaming. This was no chilling tale to be whispered over ale in an inn. The deathrise flower was truly the worst possible poison in existence.
If Nicci could kill Jagang all over again, she would.
“There is no cure,” Thistle said defiantly. “You told me so yourself.” Her mouth was empty now. She had swallowed every bit of the deadly flower.
In anger and despair, Nicci shook the girl’s narrow shoulders. “What are you thinking? Why would you do that?”
“To give you no choice,” Thistle said. A vicious shudder racked her body, and her voice came out in a gasp. “To make the valley beautiful again, so everyone can live their lives … just like I always wished for.”
Nicci wrapped her arms around Thistle, as if afraid the girl would try to escape. “That was a stupid, useless gesture. It won’t help.”