“That’s all well and good, Ellie, but what if he can’t? Magic is more likely the root of your troubles, not the solution.”
Ellie bit back a sharp remark. Mama was as fierce in her loathing of magic as Rain was in his loathing of the Eld. There was no talking to either of them when those subjects came up.
Before Ellie could think of a response, her father’s voice called out, “Good morning, Ellie-girl. I hope you’re cooking a feast. I’ve a belly so empty, I could eat a dragon.” Entering the kitchen, Sol Baristani greeted his daughter with a warm, broad smile and a casual joviality that didn’t extend to his bespectacled brown eyes.
“Good morning, Papa.” Grateful for his timely interruption, Ellie wound her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.
He smelled of soap and freshly laundered clothes rather than the scents of wood shavings and pipe smoke she loved so well, but the unfettered welcome of his embrace made her heart brim with love as it always did. He didn’t ask her about last night, and she loved him even more for that. She would go to him as she always had when she was ready to talk, and he was patient enough to wait. Besides, unlike Mama, he actually liked the Fey. Despite their strange and magical ways, he’d welcomed them into his home because he knew Rain Tairen Soul was the man Ellie had dreamed of all her life.
“I was just about to get breakfast started,” Ellie said. “Will three eggs be enough to fill a dragon-sized hole, do you think?”
“Hmm, make it four—and fry up some sausages and a dozen of those corncakes of yours while you’re at it. I’m going to be working late again today.” Sol bent to curl an arm around his wife’s waist and kiss her until the tight clench of her jaw relaxed.
“Papa! Papa!” Heralded by the sound of clattering feet, Lillis and Lorelle tumbled downstairs, raced across the small home’s main room, and leapt into their father’s arms. Mink-brown curls hung in unbrushed tangles down the backs of the twins’ matching white cotton nightgowns.
Sol hugged them both and bussed their soft cheeks. “Good morning, my sweet kitlings. Aren’t you both the prettiest sight a papa could ever wake up to?” He set the twins back on their feet and smiled down at them. “Go put on your frocks, and have Mama brush your hair, then you two can help me set the table while Ellie cooks.”
“Yes, Papa,” the girls chorused.
Ellysetta gave her father a grateful smile when Mama herded the twins back upstairs, thankful for the reprieve even though she knew this wasn’t the end of her mother’s interrogation.
Whatever had happened last night—whether a Mage had attacked her as Rain suspected, or a demon had possessed her as Mama feared—one thing she knew for certain: The Shadow Man, who’d haunted her dreams all her life, stalking her, calling her night after night as she slept, had finally found her. Who he was and what he wanted with her, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t shake the fear that the real danger was only just beginning and that things were about to get much, much worse.
A thousand miles to the north, hidden deep beneath the dark forested surface of Eld in the subterranean fortress of Boura Fell, the High Mage Vadim Maur, leader of the secretly reconstituted Mage Council, walked down a long, wide, sconce-lighted corridor.
Here, the raw, dark earth was richly veined with sel’dor, the black metal of Eld, one of the few elements capable of disrupting Fey magic. That earth had been carved to smoothness, the floors, walls, and ceilings of the corridors covered with sel’dor plating seven inches thick, then finished with mosaic tiles set in continuous, intricate patterns of power.
This was one of three levels in Boura Fell designed to house Vadim’s most dangerous and magically gifted guests.
He stopped before one of the many sel’dor-clad doors, inserted a heavy black key into the lock, and whispered a Feraz witchspell. Magic rippled across the door. He turned the key in the lock and waited as the series of tumblers inside the door clicked open, retracting a dozen heavy sel’dor bars that penetrated two full handspans into the surrounding rock wall.
The door swung inward, and Vadim stepped into an impenetrable magical prison disguised as a noblewoman’s luxurious bedroom. Furniture, delicate and beautiful, was arranged in comfortable groupings—a library filled with books in one corner, cushioned divans in another, and in the far corner of the room, a wide bed draped with swaths of brightly colored silk that hid the sel’dor manacles he rarely used anymore except when cruelty suited his mood. Beneath the outward beauty of the furnishings, every inch of wood, metal, paper, and cloth in the room was threaded with sel’dor.
A woman lay on the bed. She sat up as Vadim entered. Long, spiraling coils of flame-red hair tumbled down over slender shoulders and across the thin silk covering her breasts. Large, heavily lashed golden eyes, the elongated pupils lengthening to catlike slits, regarded him without expression.
Despite the sel’dor infused in every item in the room, despite the ten sel’dor rings piercing her ears and the barbed manacles piercing her ankles and upper arms, even despite his own vast powers, Vadim could feel the draw of her magic tugging at him. She was enchantingly beautiful. Just the sight of her unveiled face could send kings to their knees, begging to do her bidding—and that even before she wove the first hint of her formidable magic.
He took a step towards her. She flinched and inched back before she caught herself.
As if to make up for that brief show of fear, her chin lifted. “You had a bad night, Mage?” Her eyes flicked contemptuously over the seared skin on the side of his face. Ellysetta Baristani’s magic had proved so powerful last night that the burst of Fire she’d woven in her dreams had actually scorched him in the physical world.
“On the contrary, my dear, it was a very good night. Though I doubt you would agree.” Vadim smiled. Coldly. The temperature in the room dove towards freezing. He took a step towards the woman, and his smile widened as her spurt of mocking defiance faded and her already pale face lost all color.
“Elfeya, my pet, you’ve been keeping secrets.”
CHAPTER TWO
At the guard barracks adjoining Celieria’s royal palace, Rain found Belliard vel Jelani and the other warriors of Ellysetta’s primary quintet still sleeping off the excesses of the previous night. They had not escaped Ellysetta’s weave either, and the last Rain had seen of them, they’d been running for the brothel district.
Rain rousted them with a few well-aimed kicks.
“Tairen’s scorching blood,” Bel muttered. The leader of Ellysetta’s primary quintet and Rain’s oldest friend rolled to a sitting position and rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Rumpled black hair slid over his face and shoulders in tangles. Bleary cobalt-blue eyes blinked, then squinted against the light. “Be gentle, Rain. There’s neither a bone nor a muscle in my entire body that doesn’t ache.”
“I had to face worse,” Rain informed him, “so don’t look to me for sympathy.”
“Lord of Light love her,” Rowan vel Arquinas, holder of Fire in Ellysetta’s quintet, groaned from his rack and flung an arm over his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the keflee. I’ll never hold something like that back again.”
“The next time you think to play a joke on me, vel Arquinas,” Rain warned, “remember this.”
“I will. I will.” Rowan had admitted last night that he’d talked Bel and the others into keeping Ellysetta’s extremely sensual appreciation of keflee a secret in the hopes of using that knowledge to play a joke on Rain. Of course, as tame and well-behaved as Rowan had been last week, Rain should have known he was plotting something. The Fey was deadly fierce in battle, yet unrepentantly wicked outside of it. Only his brother Adrial and his sister Sareika—both of whom he utterly adored—were safe from his jokes.
Kiel vel Tomar, the Water master of Ellysetta’s quintet, attempted to rise up on his elbow, only to go pale and flop back down. “Can a Fey die from too much sex?” he asked.
“Yes,” Bel replied bluntly. “Another bell and we would all have proven
it.”
“What’s wrong with Adrial?” Rain glanced at Rowan’s brother, who was still unconscious in his rack, his black hair spilling down off the pillows in tangled waves.
Rowan shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “He seems to have gotten the worst of it.”
“By far,” Kieran vel Solande agreed, plucking more than a dozen rumpled pink cards from the waistband of his breeches, each printed with the name of a Celierian pleasure girl who’d invited him to visit again when next he came to the city. At a mere four hundred years old, the son of the truemates Marissya and Dax v’En Solande was the youngest Fey in the quintet—the only Fey child born since the Mage Wars, in fact—but he was so powerful and so skilled with his blades, Rain had not hesitated to appoint him the Earth master of Ellysetta’s quintet. “The weave drove us all, but nowhere near as badly as it drove Adrial.”
Rain looked at them, the five who represented the best of all Fey warriors, and shook his head. A child with a wooden sword could defeat them at this particular moment. “You reek of spirits. Were you drinking as well as mating?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Rowan muttered.
“We were hoping to dull the effects of the weave.” Kiel was looking decidedly green around the gills. Giving a rattling moan, he lurched to his feet and stumbled rapidly towards the bathing rooms down the hall.
Rain smothered a laugh. “Well, I would suggest you seek out Marissya for a healing, but I think you all deserve to suffer a while longer.”
After trading a few more insults, he sobered. “Give Adrial another bell or two, then wake him up,” he said. “Ravel’s quintet guards Ellysetta, and she’s protected by a twenty-five-fold weave, but I want you there as soon as you’re fit. Something attacked her last night.”
“What?” Bel shot to his feet. To their credit, Rowan and Kieran—and even Kiel, who had just stumbled back from the bathing rooms—also flashed to stone-cold lethalness in an instant, their hands instinctively reaching for weapons. “Why did you not tell us immediately?”
“She is unharmed,” Rain assured them. “And there was nothing you could have done even if you had been there. The attack came through her dreams.”
“Mages?” Kieran asked.
Rain nodded. “Most likely. The shields did not protect her, and neither Ravel nor any of his men sensed anything until she woke screaming.”
“We will wake Adrial and go to her immediately.” Bel’s face was an expressionless mask.
If Fey men sensed emotion the way empathic Fey women did, Rain knew he would be feeling Bel’s shame and self-reproach washing over him in waves. The warrior was Ellysetta’s bloodsworn champion—willingly bound by lute’asheiva to defend her against all harm—yet he’d not been at her side when she’d been attacked.
“Nei, let Adrial sleep, and do not torment yourself.” Rain reached out and clasped his friend’s shoulder. “There is nothing you could have done, my friend.”
“I should have been there.”
“As should I,” Rain replied. “But I was miles away on a beach at Great Bay, fighting her weave and trying desperately to keep my distance lest I dishonor myself entirely.”
Bel’s eyes narrowed. “I know you are not taking this as lightly as it seems. Your mate was attacked. Where is your rage?”
Flags of color warmed Rain’s cheeks. A Fey warrior should be deathly furious over an attack on his mate, yet Rain’s calm would not wane.
“She would not let me keep it.” His hands spread before him, palms open in a gesture of surrender. The blood of millions lay upon those hands, and yet at this moment he could scarcely see the stain. “Last night, my song sang to her, and she spun the first thread between us.” While trying to soothe the terrors of her nightmare, he’d sung tairen song to Ellysetta. The music had resonated in her soul, as a tairen’s song resonated in its mate’s, and in one perfect moment of communion, Ellysetta had forged the first shimmering filament of oneness between them.
Even now, the memory of that joy brought tears to his eyes.
Bel stared. “Tears,” he murmured. “From eyes that have not wept in a thousand years.” His cobalt gaze moved over Rain’s face, searching for every tiny difference. “The bond truly does begin.”
“Aiyah,” Rain admitted softly.
Rowan, Kieran, and Kiel crowded closer. Their usual Feystoic masks fell away to reveal a mix of awe and envy. No warrior had truemated in a thousand years, not since before the devastation of the Mage Wars, and there was nothing a Fey warrior longed for more. But the gift of shei’tanitsa bonding was so rare, the usual lot of a warrior was to live and die without ever finding the woman born to complete his soul. It was the reason Fey warriors strived for centuries to master the intricacies of magic and swordsmanship, the reason they vied to be the best, the bravest, the most honorable of all warriors—hoping, always, to prove themselves worthy of the gods’ greatest gift.
“What does it feel like?” Rowan asked.
Rain rolled his shoulders, searching for words. These were his friends, his blade brothers and the warriors sworn to defend Ellysetta with their lives. Although Rain’s feelings were very personal and intimate, the wonder of the shei’tanitsa journey was a treasure that courting Fey had always shared with their unmated blade brothers.
“Peace,” he said at last. “Like waking in a field of soft grass on a warm spring day and knowing for the first time exactly who you are and what your purpose is in the world. And humbleness, as if you were standing before the Bright Lord with all the dark ugliness of your soul laid out before you, and despite everything, he showers you with light until every last stain fades away.” A smile spread slowly across his face. “Flame, too—especially under the effects of her weave—but I’ll say no more about that. Some things should remain private between a Fey and his mate.”
The warriors, who had been nodding in silent awe and trying not to show their envy, now grinned and laughed.
Bel put a hand on Rain’s shoulder. “May the gods light your way, Rain, and your journey end in joy.”
“Beylah vo, my friend.” Rain exchanged a warrior’s arm-clasp with Bel and pulled him close for a brief, tight embrace. Of all the Fey, there was none he loved so much as Bel. A week ago Rain had feared for his friend. The darkness that eventually consumed all untruemated Fey warriors had been so close to claiming him. But Ellysetta—miraculous, unexpected Ellysetta—had wiped centuries of death from Bel’s soul with one effortless touch of healing warmth, and now Bel had joy once more.
One after another, Kieran, Kiel, and Rowan followed Bel’s suit, exchanging arm-clasps and embraces, thanking Rain for sharing his felicity and offering their own well wishes in return.
By the time he left them, they were moving with brisk purpose, shaking off the weariness and excesses of last night. Only Adrial was still sleeping, but Rain doubted the others would let him do so much longer. Ellysetta had been attacked, and fierce Fey honor would demand that the warriors of her primary quintet take their place at her side, protecting her from all harm.
Kolis Manza, apprentice to the High Mage of Eld, groaned as he came back to consciousness. His head was splitting. His mouth tasted as though he had swilled raw sewage. He hawked and spat a foul-tasting glob of spittle on the floor.
Bright Lord’s lice-infested balls. That little witch’s Spirit weave had been beyond powerful.
He rose up on his elbows and grimaced in distaste as a limp hand slithered down his chest into his lap. Numerous limbs were draped over him, plump, naked, female limbs. They belonged to the four plump, naked, female bodies that lay scattered like so many dead leaves across the bed, eyes open and sightless, chests gaping from deep, slashing wounds that some other man might find astonishing for the lack of blood surrounding them. The index finger from the right hand of each woman was missing.
Kolis shoved the bodies aside and stood. His dagger lay on the floor beside the bed next to a small, bloodstained leather pouch. He bent to retrieve
both and inspected the black jewel on the weapon’s pommel. The dark gem sparkled with rich, satisfied ruby lights. At least he had not wasted last night’s bed sport. Four new souls were trapped in the stone, awaiting his judicious use of them. And with so many Fey infesting Celieria City at the moment, they would come in handy. His first use would be to open a path through the Well of Souls so he could travel to Eld to bring the High Mage his news.
Despite the pounding in his head, Kolis’s lips curled in a satisfied smile. At last he had the proof his master Vadim Maur had tasked him to find: the Tairen Soul’s red-haired truemate possessed magic—and far more than just a small hint of it.
Though only the heads of Celieria’s noble Houses had been invited to last night’s dinner, Kolis had attended in the body of Jiarine Montevero, the lovely Celierian noblewoman who’d granted Kolis access to her soul in return for wealth and increased power. Jiarine had enough hearth witch in her that through her eyes he’d been able to see the flows of magic emanating from Ellysetta Baristani.
Those flows had been astonishingly powerful. Even inhabiting another’s body, Kolis hadn’t escaped the effects of Ellysetta Baristani’s irresistible Spirit weave. After leaving Jiarine to her mindless rutting, he’d stumbled his way to this small, filthy house in the brothel district, summoned the madam and all three of her girls, and mated them time and time again until the small bells of the morning, when he had taken their blood and their souls in a last frenzied burst of passion before falling deep into a well of unconsciousness.
No, Ellysetta Baristani was no simple hearth witch like Jiarine, no Celierian child altered by remnant magic left over from the Mage Wars. Her weave had been too pure for that, too strong. Without a doubt, she was the one who had been lost so many years ago, the one the High Mage had been seeking for so long. Without a doubt, Vadim Maur’s great experiment had borne powerful fruit.
Kolis called Fire to dispose of the bodies of the four dead whores, then used the basin and ewer on the table beside the bed to cleanse himself and tidy his appearance. He wasn’t worried about visitors; everyone knew the girls would still be abed at this hour. He wasn’t worried about servants either. This wasn’t one of the wealthier pleasure houses in the city. The women had cared for themselves.