“Vel Sibboreh,” Gaelen interrupted, “how long has it been since last a shei’dalin laid hands on you except to heal a mortal wound?”
Tajik’s jaw went hard as a rock, his eyes flinty. “Far longer than for most of them. I nearly lost my soul in the Mage Wars when my sister was taken. I serve here because I am the last of my line, and the Massan does not want to lose yet another of the ancient bloodlines.”
Ellysetta stepped forward. “Then let me offer my first blessing to you, so you may see for yourself that I can do this.”
“What? Nei! I will not. Of course I will not! It’s out of the question.”
She regarded him steadily, with far more patience than she was feeling. “Ser vel Sibboreh…Tajik…if another shei’dalin were standing right here where I am, what would she be feeling?”
“A measure of what I feel myself. Pain, torment. Despair.” Shame crossed his face. “Enough to make all but the strongest among them weep, despite my efforts to keep my emotions in check.”
“And yet I am not weeping. I feel your sorrow and your pain, but by far the greater wound comes from sensing your hurt and not being allowed to heal it.” She shook back the cuffs of her robes and reached out to him. “Give me your hands.” She looked deep into his eyes, trying to infuse her gaze with a measure of the command Rain wielded so readily. “Teska.”
“Trust your Feyreisa, vel Sibboreh,” Gaelen murmured.
“Do as she asks, Tajik,” Bel added.
With obvious reluctance, Tajik lifted his hands and held them out to her. He did not let his skin touch hers. He just held his hands, hovering, over hers until she reached up to grasp his fingers.
The instant her skin touched his, a wave of pain smashed into her. The force of it caught her by surprise and actually rocked her back on her heels. Good sweet Lord of Light! How can he bear to live with such torment? How had she managed to heal Bel the way she’d done without feeling even the slightest twinge of pain when she’d touched him?
A rumbling growl stirred at the edge of her consciousness. Rain was waking. Quickly, she flung up a barrier to try to stifle the pain and keep it from flowing down the bondthreads linking them together. The last thing she wanted was for Rain to discover what she was doing. He would be furious.
“Sieks’ta, sieks’ta.” Horror stamped Tajik’s face. “Release me, Feyreisa, I beg you.” The Fey general tried to pull away, but Ellysetta kept her grip closed tight.
“Ellysetta, listen to him,” Bel urged. “Let go before you hurt yourself.”
“Nei, I’m all right. Please, just give me a moment.”
A hand closed around her shoulder. Gaelen. «Is it too much, kem’falla?» He was a cool, steady anchor of strength.
She sucked in a deep breath. «It’s worse than I expected,» she admitted. Her back teeth were ground tight together, and fine tremors shook her limbs. Merciful gods, touching Tajik hurt! «I don’t understand this.»
«I think Bel may have been more right than either of us knew. Take what you can from me and use it to shield yourself.» Along with the offer came a rapid series of instructions woven on Spirit.
She latched onto the power Gaelen offered as if it were a lifeline. As her mind processed the instructions in his weave, her body was already instinctively following the commands, absorbing a portion of his strength into her own body and allowing a little of Tajik’s pain to flow out along the same path.
Gaelen gave a quiet hiss, quickly stifled. «Perhaps you should release him.»
Ignoring him, Ellysetta gritted her teeth and tried to shake off the worst of the pain. Why was she sensing it so strongly when she never had before? Was this what most Fey women felt when they touched the rasa? Gods save them, she hadn’t understood. No wonder the warriors were so fiercely protective of them. And no wonder the rasa clung to the fringes of their society and tried to avoid contact with the women of their kind.
Her kind, now, she reminded herself. One thing that awful day in the cathedral had taught her for certain was that she was Fey, not Celierian.
And she would not—could not—participate in this abandonment of the brave men who had sacrificed their own happiness and the peace of their souls defending the Fading Lands.
«Ellysetta, let him go now,» Bel insisted. «If you don’t, I will call Rain.»
Her eyes flashed. Her lips drew back in a snarl. “Tairen do not abandon their kin. Tairen defend the pride. Either help me or leave.”
Bel’s face went blank with shock. Beside him, Tajik’s did too. Good. They both needed a shock to jolt them out of their blind acceptance of senseless customs. They were so certain the ways of the past could never change, they did not even want to try.
Ellysetta wasn’t so ready to accept defeat. These people, these Fey, were hers now. Her people. Her family. Her pride. She would protect them. She would heal their pain.
“Take her other shoulder, Bel,” Gaelen snapped. “She can use the lute’asheiva bond to draw upon our strength and wield it as her own.”
Bel hurried to comply. “Kem’falla, has Gaelen shown you how to—” His voice broke off, then resumed in a slightly hoarse but rueful tone. “Ah…I see that he has.”
The moment Bel touched Ellysetta, a fresh burst of renewing strength flooded into her. She responded with the ravenous, near-desperate consumption of a parched man finding an oasis in the middle of a desert, drinking in as much of the vibrant power as she could hold, then reaching out yet again, searching for more.
It came in a sudden rush, bright and blazing. And furious.
Tajik’s face went white. Bel and Gaelen both went stiff as boards. Ellysetta didn’t need to turn to know the source of that power was standing right behind her.
Rain.
CHAPTER SIX
Fierce as the sun, she made shadows take flight
The Star of Chakai, who spun souls back to Light.
From “The Star of Chakai,” a warrior’s song of Ellysetta the Bright
The Fading Lands ~ Chatok
“Teska, Feyreisa, release me. I beg you.” Tajik once again began frantically trying to pull free of Ellysetta’s grip, his efforts hampered by his unwillingness to use force against her. “Rain, kem’Feyreisen, sieks’ta. Forgive me. I should have refused. The blame is mine entirely.”
Rain eyed the group grimly. “I know exactly where the blame lies.” Bel wouldn’t meet his eyes, and even Gaelen looked shamefaced—which had to be a first for the arrogant former dahl’reisen. “Nei, don’t release her, you idiots,” he snapped when the guilty pair started to step away. “It’s much too late for that. Flames scorch it, Ellysetta! You simply could not listen, could you?”
“Rain—”
“Be silent.” He was furious with her for sneaking out of their bed to do this—and furious with himself for not realizing she would. If nothing else, the last few weeks should have taught him his sweet, gentle shei’tani had a will of steel—and a head hard as a rock! When she set her mind on a thing, she would no more be diverted from her aim than a starving tairen from its prey.
His hands clamped her waist. “Finish it,” he snarled. “Now, before I lose what little control I have left and rip their throats out for laying hands on you.”
His knees went weak as Ellysetta drew so much energy from him, so quickly, she left him dizzy.
Connected to her, his hands upon her, he felt the flows of magic spin together with extraordinary speed as vibrant, glowing threads formed a weave so bright he could not see its pattern. The magic poured out of her, and Tajik went stiff, his eyes widening with shock as the swirling cloud of brightness enveloped him in a sparkling haze, then sank into his skin.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
«Shan!» Elfeya gasped her truemate’s name.
He was slow to answer, his mental voice thready and weak. The High Mage had not let her go to him yet. «I feel it, beloved.»
The High Mage’s darkest magic had forged a connection between Shan and Ellysetta, and through her shei’t
anitsa bond with Shan, Elfeya shared the connection too. They had used it over the years, doing what they could to help reinforce the barriers they’d placed around their daughter’s magic, sending subtle thoughts and weaves that urged her to keep hidden from the High Mage.
Now that power flared anew, and both of them felt a draining tug, as if some portion of their own magic, so long locked away from useful summoning, were being siphoned off.
Just as suddenly the draw stopped and their power surged back to them in a wave. With it, like a subtle fragrance wafting through an open window, came the scent of a dear and familiar magic. One Elfeya recognized and had never thought to sense again.
A name breathed from her lungs on a sigh, sorrowful and wondrous all at once. “Tajik.”
The Fading Lands ~ Chakai
“Tairen’s scorching fire,” Tajik breathed. When Ellysetta released him, he was trembling from head to toe. “Blessed gods. I knew it must be true—the dahl’reisen is proof—but still I did not truly believe.” He lifted shaking hands, staring at the palms as if searching for some now-absent mark of shame. “The shadows on my soul are gone. My heart weeps again.” Tears shimmered in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He did not even bother to brush them aside.
“How is this possible?”
“I told you,” Bel said, “there is no other like her in all the world.”
Rain gave a warning growl. Bel and Gaelen both snatched their hands away from Ellysetta, and he drew her firmly back against him. «You need a good shaking,» he snapped on their private thread.
«Because I can’t sit here like the rest of you and do nothing while these brave Fey suffer?» She twisted around to glare up at him, her jaw set and thrust out in the mulish lines he’d come to know and dread. «I tried to stay away, as you asked me to, but I couldn’t. I’m just not made that way, Rain. Their pain beat at me until I couldn’t stand it any longer.» Her expression softened and her hands rose to cradle his face. She stood up on her toes to press her lips to his. «Forgive me?»
He should have stepped away, lest she think him so easy to control, but he could not deny himself the pleasure of her kiss. When their lips met, his arms locked tight around her, dragging her close against him. He filled his lungs with the sweet intoxication of her fragrance, and his mouth with the equal enchantment of her kiss.
Who was he deluding? She could control him. One crook of a slender finger or a flutter of those dark red lashes, and he became clay in her hands. He could attempt to stand firm, to protect her even from her own self, but in the end there was nothing he would deny her if she wanted it badly enough. And both of them knew it.
When she released him, his eyes were glowing again, but this time not with anger. «Bas’ka. You’ve done your good deed, Feyreisa; now come back to bed with your mate, where you belong.» He purred the words, accompanying them with the vibrant sparks of near-visible sound that were tairen song, and watched with satisfaction as her eyelids fluttered closed. He might not be able to control her, but she was no more immune to him than he to her, thank the gods. «Come with me,» he urged again, filling his tones with seduction and sweet promise.
She began to sway towards him until Tajik coughed and broke the spell. Rain could have leapt upon the Fey and rent him in two for the interruption.
Ellysetta’s eyes opened. The haze of desire clouding her gaze changed swiftly to a blush of self-consciousness when she realized Bel, Gaelen, and Tajik were still there, watching. The self-consciousness became a narrow-eyed look of suspicion that settled on Rain, who had never been any good at looking innocent. Too much tairen in him for that.
“Come,” he said again. “It’s late and we have a long way to travel tomorrow. You should get what sleep you can.”
“But, Rain, I’m not done yet. I still need to do what I can for the other rasa.”
His spine went stiff. “Nei. Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“Nei!” He clutched her shoulders in a tight grip and gave her a little shake. “Do you think I did not feel what just happened to you? Do you think I will let you go through that again?”
«It hurts me more to do nothing.»
«And when I kill a Fey because his hand upon you drives me mad, what will you feel then?»
«I have more faith in you than that.»
«Perhaps you should not.» “Rain, please. If I can help even a little, I must at least try.” «And you must allow it.»
He glared at her. “Do you think you are the only woman of the Fey ever to feel this need? A warrior’s lot is to suffer. A shei’dalin’s is to bear it. And as your shei’tan, my duty is to help you bear it and to stop you from doing anything foolish”—he turned his glare upon Gaelen and Bel—“which should also be your lu’tans’ duty, though plainly they have both forgotten it.”
The pair had the grace to look shamefaced. “Rain, no other shei’dalin can take away the pain like I do.” She turned to Tajik. “Tajik—do you still suffer?”
“Nei.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes filled with wonder.
“My soul is bright as a child’s.”
She turned back to Rain. “There, you see? How can you demand that any Fey live with such pain when you know I have the power to stop it?”
“When it hurts you to use that power? Very easily.”
She ground her teeth in frustration. He was so stubborn.
“I can do what no other shei’dalin can. I don’t know how or why any more than you do, but this is the gift I was given. Surely the gods meant me to use it.”
“She has a point,” Gaelen murmured.
Rain shot him a hot look. The last thing he needed was Gaelen encouraging this madness. “She does not have a point. The gods gave you Azrahn, too, but that doesn’t mean you should spin it. Some gifts were not meant to be used. Some gifts are too dangerous.”
“All gifts come with a price, Feyreisen,” Gaelen shot back.
“And sometimes the price is so high it should never be paid,” he snapped. “Nei. I will not allow it.”
“Rain, these men may soon be leaving the Fading Lands to defend Celieria—the people I begged you to defend. They could die fulfilling the vow I urged you to make. You must let me give them what comfort I can before they go. The pain I feel when healing them is momentary. It ends as soon as their souls are restored. But if I don’t do this and they die, their pain will never leave me.” She grasped his arms. «Would you have me bear the same sorrow and regret you shared with me at the Lake of Glass?»
No matter how much Rain wanted to deny it, he knew the shei’dalin in Ellysetta had risen as strongly as the tairen. To sense the pain of the rasa and do nothing to assuage it was hurting her. It had tormented her dreams, woken her from sleep, and driven her here, prepared to endure whatever pain she must to stop their suffering.
And she’d come alone, without him, because she’d not trusted him to let her do what she felt she must.
«Kem’jeto.» My brother. Bel’s voice whispered on the private weave forged between them centuries ago. «I think perhaps Gaelen and Ellysetta are right.»
«You too, Bel?» It stung to hear Bel, the most honorable Fey Rain knew, whose opinion he trusted in all things, agreeing with this madness. «How can you suggest such a thing?»
«Our numbers are too few. If our most experienced fighters lose their souls in the first battles, too few will be left to protect the Feyreisa and the Fading Lands.» Bel’s cobalt eyes were steady, filled with a mix of bleak sorrow and grim acceptance. «She is here, in our time of deepest need, wielding a power no shei’dalin before her ever has. I do not claim to know the minds of the gods, but the pattern in this weave seems clear.»
Rain spun on his heel and put several long steps between them. The shei’tan in him was torn between protecting his beloved from the pain it would cause her to save the rasa and the pain it would cause her if she did not.
The Tairen Soul in him cast the deciding vote.
Though he wanted despe
rately to deny it, he knew Bel was right. The Fading Lands would need every warrior who yet lived—most likely even the mates and truemates—to defeat the Eld when open war broke out, but the souls of these rasa were already so damaged, they would die or fall to darkness after the first or second battle. The Defender of the Fey could not afford to lose the oldest and most experienced Fey warriors—and, in truth, neither could Ellysetta’s truemate.
Because all talk of gifts and the gods’ intent aside, one hard, simple truth could not be denied, and that one truth canceled out every other concern.
If the Eld came and the Fey were not strong enough to defeat them, a torment far worse than sharing a rasa’s pain would befall Ellysetta.
Rain spun back around to face his truemate and her two lu’tans. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw. Just because he’d made the decision didn’t mean he had to like it. “Very well, shei’tani,” he bit out. “As you insist upon this, let us see it done.” He put a hand out.
“Wait,” Tajik said. “If the Feyreisa is going to do this, I would add my own strength to all of yours to help her.” He withdrew a black Fey’cha from his chest straps and dropped to one knee. “Of my own free will, Ellysetta Feyreisa, I pledge my life and my soul to your protection. None shall harm you while in life or death I have power to prevent it.” He drew his dagger across his palm and let six drops of the welling blood fall upon the blade. “This I do swear with my own life’s blood, in Fire and Air and Earth and Water, in Spirit and in Azrahn, the magic never to be called. I do ask that this pledge be witnessed.”
“You are the last of your line, vel Sibboreh,” Rain said.
“Will you not keep your bond for your own truemate?”
“If the gods judge me worthy of a shei’tani, they will ensure I meet her in my next life. For now, lute’asheiva is my right, and I claim it.”
“Then I will not deny you, my brother.” Rain nodded.
“Your bond is witnessed.”
“Witnessed,” Gaelen and Bel echoed.