Rain, unoffended by the Celierians’ fierce defense, held out his hands in the universally recognized gesture of peace. “Inform Lord Teleos the Tairen Soul has arrived.”
“You should have sent word,” Teleos chided as he ushered Rain, Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil into a warm, dry conservatory whose glassed walls and ceilings provided an unimpeded view of the Veil and the verdant splendor of Upper Orest. “If I’d known you were coming through the Veil, my men would have given you a much more gracious greeting.”
“The greeting was as gracious as a stranger should expect,” Rain said mildly. “My compliments to your men for their swift action. Considering that none have passed through the Veil for a thousand years, I half expected your men to have let down their guard.”
“They are well trained for mortals,” Tajik agreed. “They bring you pride.”
“Beylah vo.” Dev nodded his thanks. “The Veil may be quiet, but the greatest threat to the mortal world lives but an arrow’s flight across the Heras. And we guard the only bridge from here to the Pereline Ocean.” He walked towards the east-facing side of the room, where they could look out over the city.
At the base of Orest’s great wall, the mountains dropped away again, and the Heras River plunged down a second broad waterfall called Maiden’s Gate before winding eastward across the continent, a wide, dark ribbon that traveled well over a thousand miles to the sea. In all that distance, not a single stone nor strand of ferry rope bridged the wide, dark waters that separated Eld and Celieria. All that had existed were destroyed during the Mage Wars and never rebuilt.
“I think you’ll find the bridges of Orest less valued by the Eld than once they were,” Rain remarked. “The Well of Souls is all the bridge they now need.”
He ran a critical eye over the admittedly imposing defenses of the middle and lower city. Middle Orest—called Maiden’s Gate after the falls it flanked—stair-stepped down the steep cliff s of the river’s southern bank in a series of well-fortified terraces. The bottom terrace of Maiden’s Gate opened to the wide, walled city of Lower Orest. Like the fortress battlements of the upper city, thick walls of pearlescent gray stone ringed the lower city and loomed four tairen lengths high over the wide, dark waters of the mighty Heras. Steel-shuttered portals for bowcannon and archers dotted the solid walls, and the steel-enforced frames of heavy catapults crouched on broad platforms every tairen length along the crenellated battlements. Behind the massive outer wall, a secondary wall loomed higher, its ramparts studded with slender towers where war wizards conjured their spells during battle.
“When the Eld come,” he advised, “don’t rely on the lessons of the past to guide you. Their attack may come from anywhere, with little or no warning. Possibly even from within the city itself.” He didn’t have to explain. Lord Teleos had been in Celieria City when the Eld launched their attack at the Grand Cathedral of Light.
“The Fey who accompanied me from Teleon have already taken that into account,” Dev replied. “They’ve already evaluated the city’s defenses and spun protection weaves over everything. If the Eld open a portal anywhere in Orest, we’ll know about it.”
“Kabei.” He’d already received the same report from his men, but Orest belonged to Devron Teleos. He eyed the shining Fey steel Dev wore and saw the familiar name-marks on the pommels. “Shanis would be proud to have you wear his blades, Dev.” He clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Now we’ll teach you how to use them. I know I promised you safe escort to the Academy in Dharsa, but circumstances being what they are, I’ve instead brought the Academy to you. Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil will train you and your men in the basic forms of the Cha Baruk. How many Orestians wield magic?”
“Quite a few.”
“Gather them. Any adult or child over the age of sixteen who is willing to learn is welcome. If the Eld attack as boldly as I fear they might, Orest will need every advantage.” Rain looked out over the verdant, mist-and-rainbow-wreathed city, wondering where and when the first attack would come.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
Nothing.
Nothing, nothing, and again nothing.
Ellysetta shoved the pile of useless scrolls away from her in frustration. Since Rain’s departure a week ago, all the shei’dalins and healers in Dharsa had continued searching for a way to accelerate the kitlings’ hatching. The search had expanded from the Hall of Scrolls to every private library and collection of healing texts they could lay hands upon. Even the women in Tehlas and Blade’s Point had joined the search, but still they found nothing.
Steli had ferried Ellie and Marissya between Fey’Bahren and Dharsa every day to spin on the kits each new healing weave the shei’dalins had discovered, hoping it would bring them closer to hatching. But although the kitlings’ bodies were much stronger and larger than they had been when they’d begun, the shining lights that were the marrow of their souls were still as fragile and thin as they had been the night Forrahl died.
Ellysetta was at her wits’ end. According to every document they’d scoured in their extensive search, what Ellysetta needed—what the kitlings needed—couldn’t be done.
She scowled and pushed her chair away from the table. Irritation aroused her magic. Tiny sparks of escaping power danced around her like fairy-flies as she stood up and paced between the tables where the other shei’dalins were still diligently poring over text after text. She thrust her fingers through her hair, yanking at the tangled curls.
What did the authors of all these scrolls know anyway? According to them, restoring a dahl’reisen’s soul couldn’t be done either—yet she’d managed it. She could find a way to help the kitlings survive, too.
Somewhere, someone or something must have the answers that would tell her how to do it. After all, she was the reason the Eye of Truth had sent Rain to Celieria. She was the one the Eye had said could save the tairen and the Fey.
Ellysetta stopped in her tracks.
She whirled around and ran up the stairs of the hall. Ignoring the startled calls of the shei’dalins, she rushed out into the fresh, bright beauty of Dharsa and raced up the fragrant footpaths towards the palace at the top of the hill.
There was one source Ellysetta hadn’t consulted yet. Once source that held answers even the Hall of Scrolls did not.
Shei’Kess. The Eye of Truth.
Celieria ~ Teleon
Den Brodson hummed the melody of his favorite Celierian drinking song—a bawdy little ditty about roosters and cats—as he tucked a blanket under his arm, grabbed a lunch pail in one fist and picked up a large cloth-covered basket in the other. Humming turned to cheerful whistling as he set off across the grassy plain south of the Teleon outpost. The guards on the tower walls returned his wave as he walked by.
Since arriving at the outpost, Den had assumed his most affable demeanor in order to befriend the guards stationed around the small fort. A ready smile, quick wit, and willingness to lend an ear or offer a free pint had already made him a welcome guest among the common soldiers. He’d used those friendships to explore the nooks and crannies of the outpost and secret two dozen chemar in well-concealed locations: buried in the corners of the bailey, tucked into a slit in a mattress in the soldiers’ barracks, dropped into the corners of the guard towers.
Den was careful not to rouse suspicion as he’d roamed, but he made note of all entrances and exits and the location and counts of all guards, mortal and Fey. He also tracked the comings and goings of the five Fey shei’dalins and let the amber crystal tied around his neck carry his observations back to Master Nour in Celieria City.
The only task he hadn’t yet completed was discovering the whereabouts of Ellie Baristani’s young sisters.
The pressure was mounting. Lady Darramon’s unexpected pregnancy had forced the shei’dalins’ healing to go more slowly than anticipated, but the great lady was already looking far stronger and more robust than the walking corpse she had been when they’d arrived. Den expected to rec
eive word any day that the Darramon party would be departing Teleon.
He knew the twins couldn’t be far away. The two Fey who had greeted Darramon’s party when they arrived were the same ones Den remembered guarding Ellie and her sisters so closely back in Celieria City.
The brown-haired Fey Den remembered with particular clarity. He was the same warrior who’d laughed at Den and called him “little sausage” the day Rain Tairen Soul stole Den’s betrothed…the same warrior who’d later held a knife to Den’s throat and growled, “Little sausage, I have lost all patience with you.”
Yes, Den remembered that Fey. And when the attack came, Den hoped to be there to see the insufferable, sneering porgil’s throat slit by a sel’dor blade.
Unfortunately, his numerous attempts to follow the pair had ended in failure. One moment they’d be walking around the bailey, and the next they’d turn a corner and literally disappear. No matter how often he tried to follow them—or even head in the direction where they’d disappeared—Den always found himself back in some other area of the fortress, shaking his head to clear it and wondering where’d he’d been going.
There was most definitely some sort of illusion and redirection weave spun around the rear of the fortress, and the magic was too powerful for him to get past.
Thwarted in his direct approach, he’d decided that rather than trying to find the twins, he’d encourage them to find him. Every day for the last three days, after feeding Darramon’s men and cleaning up the cook wagon, he’d packed the kittens and their mother in a basket, gathered a blanket, and walked around the southwest side of the outpost to let the kittens play in the sunshine while their mother hunted field mice in the grass.
Each day, he placed his blanket just that much closer to the back of the fortress.
No nibbles yet, but he’d fished enough in Great Bay to know how to bait a hook and be patient.
“Psst. Lillis. He’s there again.” Lorelle clung to the upper branches of a cherry blossom tree and waved her sister up.
“Here, come look.” She handed down the small brass spyglass Kieran had made for them so they could play Pirates and Damsels. (Lorelle was always the pirate.)
Lillis wedged herself in the cradle of several smooth gray branches and raised the spyglass to her eye, turning the end to bring the world in focus. “Oooooh…there they are! Six, Lorelle! He’s got six of them. Oooh…I want the little black one. She has the cutest white socks.”
Lorelle frowned down at her sister. “How will you know which one you want until you’ve had a chance to hold them? Maybe the one you think you want will like me better than you.”
Lillis looked up. “How could we hold them? We’re not supposed to go out where anyone can see us. Especially not when strangers are here.”
“He’s not a stranger,” Lorelle countered. Honestly, Lillis could be such a noodle-spine. “He’s been here all week, and all the guards wave at him when he walks by. Besides, if he were a bad man, Kieran and Kiel would already have stabbed him dead or made his insides catch fire or sucked all the water and air out of his body.”
Lately, Lorelle had been interrogating Kiel and Kieran about all the ways they could kill enemies with magic. Though Lillis squealed and got all prissy, Lorelle pressed for ever more gruesome and inventive ways of killing bad people. One day, she promised herself, she’d meet the Mage who’d hurt Ellie and killed their mama, and Lorelle would find a way to kill him—and the more he suffered, the better she would like it!
Her sister’s face puckered with concern. “Kieran will be mad.”
“He can’t be mad if he doesn’t know, ninnywit. We can sneak out, play with the kittens, and sneak back before he even knows we’re gone.”
Lillis continued to look doubtful.
Lorelle stuck her nose in the air. “Well, I’m going. And when my kitten ends up liking me more than yours likes you, it will be your own fault for picking one out just by its color.” She clambered down the tree and dropped to the ground, giving her skirts a good shake to free them of bark. She took a dozen determined steps by herself before a pleased smile curved her lips.
Lillis was running to catch up with her.
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
The Hall of Tairen was empty. Bel and Gaelen were at the Academy, Steli was hunting, and Eimar had convinced his fellow Massan to accompany him to the Academy to observe the new skills he and the other Fey had acquired under Gaelen’s tutelage.
Ellysetta’s slippers made no sound as she crossed the marble tiles and approached the great, dark sphere of Tairen’s Eye crystal held aloft on the back of golden tairen wings.
She hadn’t entered this room since that first day, when the Eye had shown her such horrible things and roused both her tairen and the dangerous dark magic of Azrahn.
Her skin prickled as she drew near. The Eye was powerful magic and she could feel the throbbing pulse of its energy whispering across her skin and raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Shadows swirled slowly in the Eye’s dark depths. Glimpses of bright rainbows darted among swirls of deepest red.
“Who were you?” Her whisper sounded like a shout in the stone silence of the chamber. “You lived once. You must have had a name.”
The Eye gave no answer, but then, she hadn’t really expected one.
She drew a deep breath and summoned her courage. She knew better than to touch the oracle. Rain had laid hands upon the Eye, and it had not responded kindly. The tairen had sung to it, and the Eye hadn’t liked that either.
She would try something simpler, something less aggressive. Something she could control.
A Spirit weave.
She closed her eyes to concentrate and calm her nerves, then called the lavender magic whose bright glow reminded her of Rain’s eyes when his passions rose. It came easily, flowing into her with a steady effortlessness that would have made her chatok proud.
She gathered the magic and spun it into a subtle, spider-silk-thin weave, imbuing each thread with a sense of urgent need and respect and an echo of the terrible desperation, fear, and grievous loss she’d felt when Forrahl died. She didn’t know if the Eye could still feel emotion, but she hoped the weave would convince it of her sincerity. When the pattern was complete, and the threads as filled with power and emotion as she could make them, she cast the shining net over the crystal globe and used it as the conduit for her Spirit voice.
«It’s me…Ellysetta.»
All right, that seemed a silly thing to say. The Eye of Truth was the most powerful oracle in the world. It already knew everything there was to know about her, including events that hadn’t happened yet. Surely it knew who she was without her introducing herself. She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried again.
«You told Rain I was the one who could save the tairen and the Fey. You sent him to find me and bring me back. Now I am here, but the tairen are still dying. I don’t know how to do what you foretold I would.»
Magic energy swirled and gathered. Not her own. She refused to open her eyes, afraid of what she would see, but against the backs of her lids Fey vision was already blooming in the darkness. She saw her web, a net of fine lavender threads, wrapped around a sphere of radiant stars that began to whirl and brighten.
«Teska, please, tell me what to do. They are your kin, too. How can I save them?» Thinking perhaps the Eye would be more likely to give her the answer she needed if she asked more specifically, she added, «If I free the tairen kitlings from the egg, will they be safe from the power that hunts them?»
The starry lights of the sphere flashed in unison. She rocked back on her heels from the surge of energy. Within that flash of light pulsed a single word, spoken not in a voice, not in a song, but vibrating through every cell of her body with absolute and incontrovertible certainty:
Aiyah.
She gulped. Shei’Kess had spoken. To her. In a voice-without-sound that was as powerful and all-encompassing as Church of Light priests claimed the Bright Lord’s divine voice to b
e. Good sweet Lord of Light. Her lashes fluttered, as if her eyes were trying to open against her will. She kept them squeezed shut, afraid of what she might see in the Eye.
Corralling her wayward thoughts, she tried to concentrate. The Eye was tairen-made. The Fey claimed that meant it could not lie, but that did not mean the Eye would always tell the whole truth either. All she’d asked was if hatching from the egg would free the kitlings from their hunter. She’d not asked if they would still die.
«Is there also a way to free the kitlings from the Well of Souls so they can hatch, survive, and remain healthy after only three months in the egg?» There. That seemed specific enough.
The Eye pulsed again, and that voice-without-sound answered a second time.
Aiyah.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She moistened her lips. «How?»
The vibrations of energy grew stronger, battering her senses. The starry lights spun so rapidly they became solid streaks of blazing light whirling in a dazzling ball. Her breathing grew labored, coming in shallow pants as if she were running too fast to catch her breath. «How?» she asked again. «Teska, tell me.»
She struggled to hold her weave, spinning more need, more urgency into the threads. «You sent Rain to find me. If you know how I can save the tairen, please, tell me before the High Mage of Eld steals another kitling’s soul. Tell me how to stop it.»
The voice-without-sound did not speak, but the light of the Eye took up a pulsing beat, flaring again and again, pounding in a relentless rhythm. Her eyes began to burn. Her lashes fluttered, and the tiny muscles in her eyelids jumped and fought to open. Was she supposed to watch? Was that what the Eye was trying to tell her—that it could only show her the answer?
Very well. «Show me.»
Her eyes flew open.
Celieria ~ Teleon
“Hello.”
Den Brodson clamped down on a surge of savage triumph and forced a genial smile to his face as he turned to face Lillis and Lorelle Baristani. “Why, hello. Where did you come from?”