As silently as they had entered, the Mharog slipped away. Vadim sat as his desk for several long chimes, his fingers steepled.
Celieria ~ The Dahl’reisen Village 8th day of Seledos
Dawn broke over a beautiful land of lush forests. As the sun rose, pastel morning skies became vivid cerulean, bright and cloudless over a verdant countryside. Shining lakes and rivers teemed with fish. Flocks of birds soared above herds of pronghorns bounding through thick forests. Silver-horned Shadars thundered across open plains, while winged Aquilines danced over glassy mountain lakes, touching golden hooves and feathered wingtips lightly on the water’s surface in a show of aerial mastery.
A familiar roar sounded, and Ellysetta turned to see a pride of tairen race across the sky, fur shining in the sunlight. Dozens of juveniles flew with the pride, some engaging in mock battles, while others tested their wings for the first time beneath the watchful eyes of their elders. Attentive adults flew below and behind the smallest of the kitlings, ready to break an infant’s fall or snatch a weary kit from the sky.
The tairen flew north, towards the jagged volcanic peaks of the Feyls, where Ellysetta could see hundreds more tairen circling the updrafts around the smoking peaks and launching themselves into the sky from the labyrinth of caverns riddling the range.
She turned her eyes west, and there was Dharsa, a shining jewel of white stone and golden spires rising from the forested hills like a crown. Moored boats bobbed in the harbor, while others sailed up and down the River Faer. The city streets were busier than she’d ever seen them, thronged with thousands of Fey, Elves, and other races.
And there were children. Hundreds of children. Infants cradled in their mothers’ arms. Toddlers playing in orchards and gardens overflowing with starry white Amarynth. Fey youths gathered in the Warrior’s Academy and the walled courtyards of the Hall of Truth and Healing as robed elders instructed them in the ways of magic and Light.
The Feyreisen’s palace rose from the city’s central hill, and there in the courtyard outside the Hall of Tairen, stood Marissya and Dax and with them a tall warrior in black leathers who was idly scratching the ear of the brown tairen kitling at his side. Three other kitlings played in the Source-fed fountain while an adult tairen Ellysetta did not recognize perched on the golden roof overlooking the courtyard. As if sensing her presence, the young warrior looked up. Eyes like blue stars—whirling with the opalescent radiance of the tairen—met hers.
«Keralas,» she whispered, and the warrior—Marissya and Dax’s as yet unborn Tairen Soul son—smiled.
The whirling radiance of his eyes flashed, a blue star-burst that intensified to dazzling white light that blotted out her vision.
When she could see again, she was no longer in Dharsa. She was, instead, at Orest, and a Dark army stretched across the land like a blanket of death. Hundreds of thousands. Millions. Armed and armored, man and monster standing side by side, their eyes pitiless chasms of malice. At the head of the army stood the personal guard of the Dark Queen, thousands of once-Fey warriors, faces scarred, eyes black and merciless, their once-shining skins now a lurid, corpse white, utterly devoid of the warm silvery Light that had once suffused them. They looked the perfect vision of the unspeakable evil they had become.
The Dark Queen stood in the center of her guard, her scarlet hair piled high and threaded with ropes of black, selkahr jewels, her lips bloodred, her eyes death black, her skin white as milk. Her fell beauty dazzled the senses, an enthralling illusion that drew men to their deaths and masked the true horror of her Lightless soul. She was the Corrupter, the Light Eater, the Consumer of Souls, and in her wake red flowers bloomed like a trail of blood. Selgoroth, the flower of death, antithesis of the starry white Amarynth that bloomed in the steps of Fey women bearing young. Clusters of poison thorns hid amidst the Selgoroth’s scarlet petals, and the flowers’ black hearts exuded a noxious miasma of decay. Where Selgoroth bloomed, all other life withered and died.
Before the Dark Army, the last defenders of Light had assembled. Elves and Fey, shining silver and gold. With them stood the few mortals who still remained unenslaved—those who possessed enough immortal blood in their veins to resist the deadly pull of the Dark Queen’s consuming power. The shimmering amber and green and silvery blue bodies of Danae forest and water sprites. Aquilines and Shadar. And the last pride of the tairen—Steli and Sybharukai, Corus, Fahreeta, and Torasul, even the kitlings, so young their pelts were still plump with the soft, fluffy down of their hatching-fur.
The Dark Queen raised her arms and shouted a command that boomed like thunder across the field. Her army gave an echoing cry, and the earth trembled as they began to march.
The Queen spread her arms wide and leapt into the sky, shifting into a cloud of boiling black mist from which emerged a nightmarish creature. A tairen, or rather what should have been a tairen—just as a darrokken should have been a wolf. Furless, scabrous skin the color of dried blood stretched across the creature’s massive form. Eyes of whirling flame glared over a snarling muzzle, and black acid dripped from its razor-sharp fangs.
The monster screamed a challenge, and the tairen leapt into the sky to answer her.
«Elan, shei’tani. Ve leiliath.» Awaken, beloved. You are dreaming.
Ellysetta woke in a strange room, lying in a strange bed. The first gray light of dawn filtered in through a large skylight overhead. Linen sheets were draped over her bare skin, and a soft linen pillow stuffed with some fragrant herb cushioned her head.
Rain lay spooned against her back, one arm and one leg thrown possessively over her. His long, lean body radiated warmth, and one large hand cupped her breast. A broad, warm hand stroked down her side, smoothing over her arm, pulling her close. She turned her head to find Rain’s eyes half-opened, the irises gleaming a soft lavender behind their thick veil of black lashes.
“Another nightmare?”
“Vision,” she corrected. “I can’t decide which is worse—seeing the terrible things I could become, or realizing the visions don’t terrify me like they used to.”
Magic hummed in his flesh, and as they lay there, skin to skin, body to body, she realized the faint vibration of her own magic had altered to match his, forming a subtle harmonic balance, a completeness she’d never noticed before. It was as if the energy of his magic flowed into hers, and hers flowed into his in a natural communion. Even their heartbeats and their breathing had settled into a synchronous rhythm.
As the haze of sleep faded, memories flooded in. The missiles that had shot Rain from the sky, their race for escape, the Mages with their sel’dor, death so near… She rolled over to face Rain and found him awake and watching her, no sign of injury on him.
“Rain, what happened to us? Your wounds…” She laid her palms on his chest, sending her senses inward, but if there was a single grain of sel’dor powder still left in his body, she could not find it.
His laid his hands over hers. “Gone, shei’tani. There is a hearth witch here with strong healing talents. She tended us both.”
“Where is ‘here’?”
“In the dahl’reisen village in the Verlaine. Do you not remember? “
“Vaguely.” She recalled only snatches of last night, hazy images of scarred dahl’reisen, children, and a woman with white hair. “If we’re in a dahl’reisen village, why don’t I feel them?”
“There’s a weave around this little house to shield you. A six-fold weave. They used Azrahn. They must have spun it when we were unconscious.” That statement ended with a distinct rumble of unease.
“Are we prisoners? “
“I don’t know. Their intentions are a mystery, but they claim Gaelen sent them to rescue us from the Eld.”
“Have you tried to reach him to confirm that?”
“Of course, but the six-fold weave blocked me.” He smoothed his hands over her hair. “Half of me wants to burn this village down about their ears. The other half wants to thank them. All the sel’dor is gone from both
of us. Our steel is not here, but I could break through that six-fold weave without half trying. They have to know that. I don’t think they mean us harm.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “And I can hardly believe I’m hearing myself say that. But why would they have rescued us from the Eld, removed the sel’dor in both of us, and healed us?”
“I don’t know.”
A knock sounded on the cabin door and Ellysetta barely had time to pull the linen sheet up around herself and Rain before the door opened to admit the white-haired woman Ellysetta remembered from last night.
She held Rain’s armor and Ellysetta’s leathers in her arms, and two other village women followed on her heels, carrying trays of food and drink. The women deposited the food on a table beside the door, sneaking furtive looks at Rain and Ellysetta before exiting the room and closing the door behind them.
The white-haired woman set the armor and leathers down. “My name is Sheyl. I am the healer who tended you last night.” She inspected the two of them with a healer’s critical eye. “You both appear recovered from your injuries. I hope you slept well.” She looked at Ellysetta. “No remnant pain?”
Ellysetta shook her head. “None, thank you.”
“Very good.” Sheyl laced her fingers together and regarded them silently for a moment. She seemed to be fighting some silent debate within herself. After a moment, she drew a breath and forced a smile. “Your leathers and armor have been cleaned and mended. Your weapons will be returned to you when you leave the village. Farel is waiting for you now. I will give you time to eat and dress, then take you to him. “
She turned to leave, then stopped again with her hand on the door latch. “The dahl’reisen were once the Fading Lands’ greatest warriors. Remember that.” She lifted the latch and slipped out of the cabin.
“What was that about?” Ellysetta asked, frowning.
“I’m not certain, shei’tani.” He rose from the bed and began to dress.
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
When the Massan entered the hall where they conducted their business, they found Kieran vel Solande waiting for them.
“Kieran,” the Massan leader, Tenn v’En Eilan, greeted him as the shei’dalin and the other members of the Massan entered and took their seats. “Your mother told us you had emerged safely from your ordeal and were returning home. We are glad to see you well. What can we do for you so early this morning? “
Kieran had been up half the night, using the new Warrior’s Path his father had shown him so he could get news from Orest. The battle was going badly. As for Ellysetta and Rain, no one was certain as to their fates.
His hands clenched at his sides. He couldn’t believe Tenn and the others were sitting around the table so calmly. “You can tell me what in the gods’ names were you thinking when you banished the Feyreisen and delivered his truemate—a shei’dalin and a Tairen Soul—into the hands of the Eld?”
“Mind your tongue, young warrior,” Tenn warned. “We did no such thing.”
“Of course you did. What else did you think would happen when you declared her dahl’reisen and expelled her from the safety of the Fading Lands? You call yourselves warriors of honor?” He hawked and spat on the floor. “That for your honor.”
“How dare you?” Venarra v’En Eilan, Tenn’s shei’tani, who’d taken Marissya’s place as the Shei’dalin, jumped to her feet. “How dare you insult the Massan in such a manner?”
“How dare you betray our king and put his mate at risk?” he shot back.
“We put her at risk?” Nurian v’En Soma, Spirit master of the Massan, gave a short laugh. “Fey, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It was she who put us at risk. Shei’Kess showed us the evil she would bring. Death, war, destruction, the Fading Lands overrun by Dark ones, her sitting on the ruins of the Tairen Throne.”
“Venarra, Nurian, please.” Tenn held up a hand. “Kieran is young and passionate, and he shares a bond of friendship with Rain vel’En Daris because of the years they spent together at the Academy. He doesn’t understand what it takes to lead a country, the hard decisions we must make, all the consequences we must weigh when making those decisions.”
“Hard decisions?” Kieran laughed.
“Yes, hard decisions,” Tenn reiterated. “Contrary to whatever your parents or your friends may have led you to believe, we banished Rain and Ellysetta for one reason only: because they both willingly and deliberately wove the forbidden magic.”
“Aiyah, my mother told me,” Kieran said, unimpressed by the revelation.
“Look at him,” Yulan, the Earth master of the Massan, said in tones of disbelief. “He knows what they did, and he doesn’t care.”
“I know they spun Azrahn to save the tairen.”
“And you think that makes it all right.” Tenn shook his head. “Show me, young Kieran, the passage in the Scroll of Law where it says spinning the forbidden magic is not forbidden so long as you do it to save the tairen.” He waited a moment. “Nei, you can’t, because no such passage exists. The law is clear. The punishment for weaving Azrahn is banishment—no matter the reason for the weave. We acted, because we had to act. We had no choice.”
“Of course you had a choice. You could have done what was right!”
“We did do what was right.”
“Nei,” Kieran spat. “You did what you thought was safe. The vision in Shei’Kess frightened you, so you betrayed our king and his mate and forsook your oath to protect our women from harm. I was at Teleon. I saw the Eld murdering my friends. They weren’t there to defend themselves against Fey aggression or whatever ridiculous notion you’ve invented to justify your treachery. The Eld were there to kill Fey, slaugher Celierians, and capture the Garreval. You’ve lost sight of who the true enemy is, Tenn.”
“Oh, have I?” Tenn challenged. “The Eld left us in peace for a thousand years until Rain vel’En Daris went to Celieria and began stirring up ancient grievances and beating the drums of war.”
“Did someone strike you a sharp blow to the head while I was gone?” Kieran exclaimed. “Of course the Eld left us in peace for the last thousand years! Rain scorched them off the face of Eloran! It takes time to recover from a blow like that.”
Kieran thrust his hands through his hair and turned in an agitated circle. “I can’t believe you can sit there with a straight face and try to portray the Eld as peace-loving innocents who just want to get along. The Eld hate us. They always have hated us. They want to conquer the world in the name of Seledorn and they know we’re the only ones with the power and the will to stop them! Or, at least, we used to be!”
“Enough!” Tenn rose and held up a silencing hand. “It’s clear you have strong feelings on the matter, young vel Solande, but the decision has been made. The Massan will not commit more precious Fey lives to Rain Tairen Soul’s senseless war of aggression against the Eld.”
Kieran stifled a scream of frustration. Tenn was as stubborn as an Earth master. He’d made his decision, dug in his heels, and the gods could lay waste everything around him before he’d change his position or admit he was wrong.
So be it. But Kieran had no intention of blindly following a council who refused to acknowledge obvious truths.
He turned to the Water master of the Massan, who had always been a level-headed Fey and a warrior his parents had long called friend. “Loris… I know you don’t agree with this any more than Eimar did. The Eld attacked us. They’re the ones who started this war, not Rain. You know Rain is right to confront them. You know the Fey were born to fight the Dark, not hide and hope it will go away. Honorable Fey don’t abandon our friends when they need us most.”
“I said enough,” Tenn growled. The room grew warmer as the Fire master’s temper flared. “Out of deference to your mother, we let you speak. And out of deference to her, I will not punish your youthful intemperance or demand restitution for the insults you have flung in our faces. But this council has work to do, and you have outstayed your welcome here. You will lea
ve now and put a leash on that tongue of yours, or you will spend the next month in bound labor.”
Kieran gave a bitter laugh. “You talk about considering the consequences of your actions. But did it never occur to any of you, that by banishing a Mage-Marked Tairen Soul from the safety of the Fading Lands, you might actually be instrumental in ushering in the very doom you’re so afraid of? Nei? Well, consider this. Rain and Ellysetta were shot down over Eld. They haven’t been heard from since.”
For the first time, he saw the Massan’s rock-headed certainty waver. The first glimmer of genuine doubt—and fear—entered their eyes. Nei, they’d never thought beyond their own shortsighted desire for safety.
“You’d better pray the Eld don’t capture Ellysetta and finish what they started,” Kieran said. “Because if they do, and the Mages gain a Tairen Soul’s power, not even the Mists will save you.”
Celieria ~ Dahl’reisen Village
When Sheyl returned, she carried a blindfold in her hands. “I’m sorry, but I must ask you to put this on,” she told Ellysetta. “We know of your mate’s Marks,” she said to forestall Rain’s objections. “We check everyone who enters this village. The blindfold is a precaution to safeguard the location of our village. With our shields, even four Marks should not be enough for the Mage to use her eyes and ears, but we cannot take the risk.”
“Of course,” Ellysetta said, reaching for the strip of cloth. “Nei, Rain, it’s all right.” She laid a soothing hand on his wrist to calm his rising tension. He did not like the implication that Ellysetta’s mere presence was a threat. “They are right to protect themselves. For all we know, it was my eyes that told the Mages where to open their portals yesterday.”
“It was not.”
“We don’t know that for sure. For the villagers’ sake, I will gladly cover my eyes. Here. Help me put this on.” She lifted the folded cloth over her eyes and turned for Rain to tie the ends together at the back of her head.