by C. L. Wilson
As the servants carried the child away, sudden weariness fell upon the High Mage like hundredweights. He sagged and only kept from falling by grabbing hold of the nearest servant.
Vadim fought back a wave of dizziness and nausea. He thought he’d escaped the searing lash of Ellysetta Baristani’s magic, but apparently he hadn’t evaded it all.
The servant helped him to a cushioned chaise in the next room and began to tend him, washing the blood from his hands. He allowed their assistance without protest. Only his own umagi, the ones he owned utterly, were allowed to enter this room and tend him when he was at his most vulnerable. There was no thought in their minds, no desire in their souls, that he had not put there himself. They would plunge a knife into their own hearts if he commanded it.
“Fetch Elfeya,” he ordered. He didn’t have the strength to climb the stairs, and he couldn’t risk being seen in such a weakened condition. “Bring her to me. Quickly. And make certain no one sees you.”
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Ellysetta sat slumped against the lifeless, silent shell, stunned by searing grief. Night after night, for weeks now, she’d flown to the lair to sing to the kitlings. She knew every note and measure of each infant tairen’s song, knew the happy patter of each small heart and the little sounds the kitlings made when they sensed her approach. They’d loved her, trusted her.
And she’d failed them.
Worse, she’d endangered Marissya.
She raised hollow, stricken eyes to Rain. “He was here. When I tried to heal Marissya, he was here.”
Rain froze. “The High Mage? You sensed him here in the lair?” Five-fold weaves sprang up instantly around them, humming with raw power.
“You don’t need those. He’s already gone again.” Her voice thickened. Tears were gathering as shock gave way to devastation.
Rain’s shields stayed put. He dropped to his knees beside Ellysetta and grasped her upper arms. “Talk to me, shei’tani.” Fear rode just below his surface fierceness. “Is the High Mage the one killing the kitlings?”
“I don’t know. If he is, he’s somehow masking his presence. I didn’t sense him at all until I touched Marissya.” She bit her lip. “I think he might have—” Her throat clamped tight, as if all her body were fighting to keep from giving the terrible words voice. She forced herself to speak. “I think he might have used me as some sort of conduit to attack her.”
She braced herself for pain, half expecting Rain to pull back in horror.
Instead, after one brief, shocked moment, he enfolded her in his arms. “Not possible, shei’tani. Even if he could use your Mage Marks to attack another Fey, Marissya is truemated. The bond secures her soul from any possibility of corruption. No Mage can ever harm her except through direct physical assault.”
“Maybe that’s what he was doing, then. Maybe he somehow twisted my magic—”
“Las. You’re letting fear torment you.” He brushed her hair back and held her gaze with unwavering reassurance.
“You bear two Marks, Ellysetta. Gaelen has already assured us two Marks do not give the Mage enough power to control you against your will.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it so badly her belly ached. “But he was here. If he wasn’t attacking Marissya, then what was he—” Her voice broke off. She remembered Marissya doubling over, her arms wrapped around her still-flat belly. “The baby. Marissya’s baby isn’t protected by a truemate bond.”
She and Rain stared at each other, paralyzed by horror until Marissya uttered a soft groan that sent them both racing to her side. Blue eyes fluttered open, and her brow creased in confusion when she saw the two of them hovering over her. “Rain? Ellysetta?”
“How are you feeling, kem’mareska? Can you sit?” Rain put a hand behind her back and helped her up.
“Of course. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You collapsed. Don’t you remember?”
“I—” The shei’dalin put a hand to her head.
“Marissya,” Ellysetta interrupted. She understood that Rain was trying to find a gentle way to pose the question, but some things a mother deserved to know immediately, without coddling. “Marissya, check your baby.”
Fear drained the light from Marissya’s skin, leaving her pale and shaken. “My baby?”
Ellysetta grabbed her hands and laid them flat on her belly. “Teska! Check him now. Is he healthy? Look closely.” Her heart rose up in her throat and stayed there, pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer, as the shei’dalin spun the weave and directed it inside her own body. “Well? Is he unharmed?”
Tears sparkled on Marissya’s lashes, catching the glow of the firelight. “He’s fine.” Her mouth curved into a trembling smile. “Beylah sallan, he is healthy and well.” She gave a soft sob of relief, then fought to regain her composure. “What is this all about?”
After a brief prayer of thanks, Rain helped the shei’dalin to her feet. “Ellysetta sensed the High Mage when she healed you. She feared he might have used her as some sort of conduit to attack you while you were trying to heal the kitlings.”
“The High Mage.” The shei’dalin’s eyes widened. “But that’s not possible. Dax and I are bonded truemates. The High Mage couldn’t access my soul no matter how he might try. No Mage can.”
“Aiyah, but as she reminded me, your child is not truemated.”
Marissya’s arms curved around her belly in an instinctive gesture of maternal protection. “But…the High Mage can’t just Mark whomever he chooses. There has to be a connection.”
“I bear two Mage Marks,” Ellysetta reminded her grimly.
“I may have been the unwitting connection.” She glanced away from the horror in Marissya’s eyes. “Gaelen should check the child for Mage Marks when we return to Dharsa.”
“Nei, he cannot.” Rain held up a silencing hand when she started to object. “We’re in the Fading Lands now, Ellysetta. What leeway I granted him in Celieria, I cannot grant him here. Weaving Azrahn, even to check for Mage Marks, is a banishing offense.”
Before she could argue, Sybharukai moved closer, her green eyes whirling. «The pride must sing the Fire Song.»
Ellysetta glanced around. She’d been so caught up in her worry over Marissya and the High Mage, she’d blocked out the fierce grief of the pride. All around them, the gathered tairen were almost wild with distress over the loss of yet another kitling.
“Should I take Marissya out of the lair?” Rain asked. Sybharukai’s ears twitched. «She may stay. Her kitling should hear our song. But Ellysetta-kitling and the mother-kin should take shelter on the upper ledges, as before.»
“I will fly them.” Rain summoned the Change as Sybharukai bent to take Forrahl’s egg from the nest and carry it off to a safe distance. Fahreeta and Torasul used their paws to sweep a thick protective layer of black sand over the remaining eggs.
“What is it?” Marissya asked. “What’s going on?”
“Another kitling was lost,” Ellysetta told her. “The pride is going to sing the Fire Song. It’s similar to what the Fey do when they return a fallen warrior’s body to the elements.” Rain lay on the sand so the two women could climb into place. “Get on Rain’s back. We need to fly to safety before they start.”
“Which kitling perished?” Marissya asked as Rain leapt into the air towards one of the upper ledges.
Ellysetta’s fingers squeezed the leather pommel. “Forrahl. The sweet little one who loved to sing.”
Marissya’s arms tightened on Ellysetta’s waist. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved him.”
Shei’dalin compassion and sympathy swirled around Ellysetta in shining waves, but it didn’t soothe her. She had loved Forrahl. She’d loved him as if he were her own. But in the end, that hadn’t mattered. She’d still failed him. Whatever she was supposed to do—whatever gift she supposedly had that made her the only person who could save the tairen—she hadn’t discovered it yet.
Rain deposited the t
wo of them on an upper ledge seven levels above the sandy lair floor. From this distance the tairen looked so much smaller…and so few. The pride—all the tairen left in the world—consisted of those fourteen great cats and the four remaining eggs that held the only hope left for the survival of their kind.
Ellysetta watched them in growing agitation as Rain glided down to join the pride in the ring around poor Forrahl’s dead egg. What was she missing? What was she failing to understand?
Now, like Rain, she couldn’t help thinking that somehow the High Mage must be involved. She’d sensed him, and if Rain was right about the Eld never doing anything without purpose, then he’d been there for a reason. He hadn’t been trying to Mark her again.
So what had he been doing?
Down below, the tairen had begun to sing. Ellysetta closed her eyes as the vibrant song resonated within her. She could hear each tairen’s unique song as a thread in the tightly woven pattern, Sybharukai, Rain, Steli, even the small voices of the surviving egg-bound kits.
As the song swelled, Marissya reached out to clutch her hand, and reverent joy flooded into her. “It’s so beautiful…” Marissya breathed. “When this child is born, and I can no longer hear the glory of tairen song, I will mourn the loss.”
The Fire Song reached its crescendo. Flame burst from tairen throats. Heat exploded upwards in a blast.
And then, just as before, Ellysetta felt the finger of ice scrape down her spine, heard the whisper of voices calling her name.
The hand in hers gave a sudden squeeze…but this time not from joy or awe.
“Ellysetta.” Marissya’s voice trembled. The ocean of flames below had lit the nesting lair bright as day. Marissya’s eyes were wide and frightened. Her free hand splayed across her belly, while the hand clutching Ellysetta’s squeezed tight. She was shivering.
“You feel it, too.” Relief warred with horror. “Can you hear them as well? The voices? The whispering?”
Marissya’s head jerked in wild agreement. “They’re saying ‘Keralas.’” Tears filled her eyes. “He’s afraid. He’s so afraid.”
Terrified that the evil haunting the nesting lair might claim yet another victim, Ellysetta dropped to her knees before Marissya, and without hesitation flung open every one of her senses and sent her consciousness plunging into the shei’dalin. She found the baby, barely more than a tiny candle burning within his mother’s brilliant light. He was whimpering, terrified, just as the kitlings had been.
Gathering all the warmth and love in her soul, she sang to him, just as she’d sung to the baby tairen. Love and warmth poured out of her, into him, soothing, calming. Gradually his whimpers fell silent, and then Ellysetta heard a small, tremulous echo, so soft it was barely audible. Shock made her pull back.
Marissya’s child, still barely formed in her womb, was singing. His voice was sweet and soft, his notes barely more than dim flickers of color, but he was singing tairen song.
Just like the unhatched kitlings did when she sang to them.
A wave of ice washed over her.
The floodgates opened in her mind. Memories tumbled out in a stunning rush. Her childhood nightmares of wings and fire and fang…Sybharukai’s pleasure as she sniffed Marissya’s scent and announced, «The Fey-kin bears one of the pride.»…the image of Ellysetta’s dead body rolling from the tairen egg, and Cahlah mourning her lost kit…the two shadowy Fey, chained and imprisoned…the triumphant cold silver eyes of the High Mage as he lifted a newborn high…the Mage’s sneering voice that horrible day in the cathedral when he’d declared, I’m the father of your soul, girl. I created it, and now I’ve come to claim it.
And, lastly, Gaelen saying, The Well of Souls…the Eld have long used Azrahn and selkhar crystals to summon demons from the Well…
The Well of Souls. The Underworld.
Home to the souls of the dead who hadn’t yet earned passage to the next life.
Womb to the souls of the unborn.
Good sweet Lord of Light. “Ellysetta!” Marissya cried out as Ellysetta ran for the ledge and leapt off.
Air came without effort, the weaves spinning exactly as Jaren had instructed to cushion her descent. The Fire Song was over and the flames had already dissipated. She landed on her feet beside the eggs. Another weave of Air blew the hot sands away so she could touch the cooler leathery shells beneath. One by one she went to each egg and found the kitling inside shivering and whimpering in fear; one by one she sang to them until they calmed and she received their response.
Each kitling had felt the cold. Each had heard the whispering dark voices calling its name.
“What is it, Ellysetta?” Rain stood beside her. The tairen, growling in agitation, had gathered around as well.
She looked at them all in a daze. “I know why I sensed the High Mage. I know why the kitlings are dying.” She moistened trembling lips, stunned by the enormity of the puzzle she’d finally pieced together. “You were right, Rain. It is the High Mage. It’s been him all along. He’s behind everything.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
“The High Mage is using the Well of Souls to steal the souls of unborn tairen.” Rain announced the news without preamble to the carefully selected group of Fey he’d gathered in the King’s Courtyard behind the Hall of Tairen.
Dax sat on a stone bench, his arm wrapped protectively around Marissya. Ellysetta’s quintet stood near the small fountain, and Steli, who had flown back with them from Fey’Bahren, squeezed into the corner, crouched on the flattened remains of a small flower garden, her blue eyes whirling with scarcely contained menace. A privacy weave glowed around the courtyard.
“Stealing their souls?” Tajik repeated. “For what reason?”
“To tie them to the souls of unborn children,” Ellysetta said in a low voice, “so he can create his own Tairen Souls.”
The gathered Fey exchanged shocked glances. “But…that’s not possible,” Gil protested. “Even if he could tie the two souls together, he’d need Fey children who are masters of all five Fey magics—and for that he’d need Fey matepairs. No half-breed child has ever been born a master of one magic, let alone five.”
“He has matepairs,” Ellysetta said. “At least, he must have when I was born.”
“When you were—” Tajik’s voice broke off and his face went blank. “You’re one of them. One of the Tairen Souls he bred.”
“Yes.” It was just as well Rain was standing several paces away. If he were within reach, she’d be squeezing his hand so tight she’d break all his fingers. “Rain took me to the Bay of Flame. We swam in the waters at sunset and we dreamed…” She drew a quick breath, near tears as she remembered the shadowy Fey mates clutching each other in desperation. “I dreamed of my birth…and of my parents. My Fey parents as well as the tairen whose kitling’s soul was stolen and tied to mine.” Cahlah and Merdrahl had been the kit’s parents. Forrahl had been its—her—brother. “Here, see for yourself.” She summoned Spirit and spun the entirety of her dream.
When she finished, Marissya was weeping, Steli was growling pride-warnings, and the warriors stood in frozen silence.
“They must have been captured during the Wars,” Bel said. “How else would the High Mage get his hands on a Fey woman?”
Marissya covered her mouth. “Dear gods, and they’ve been prisoners all this time?” The horror stamped on her face made each of the warriors’ expressions turn to stone.
Ellysetta turned to Rain. “Do you recognize them?” Rain shook his head. “Nei. There were several Tairen Souls who had green eyes, but I don’t recall any of them disappearing with his mate.”
“Perhaps the male wasn’t a Tairen Soul when he was captured,” Gaelen suggested. “If the Feyreisa is right, and the High Mage is stealing the souls of unborn tairen in order to create his own Tairen Soul, perhaps she wasn’t the first.”
Steli growled low in her throat and ripped at the flower bed with her front claws. «Many kitlings have
died,» she sang to Rain and Ellysetta. «Many times many.»
“Does it matter who they are?” Marissya cried. “We’ve got to save them.”
Rain’s expression went grim. “Marissya, how can we do that when we’re barely staving off our own extinction as it is?”
“We can’t just leave them there!”
“What choice do we have?” His eyes were bleak. “We don’t have any idea where they are—or even if they’re still alive—and we certainly don’t have the strength to invade Eld to find them.”
“Shei’tani, Rain is right.” Dax took his truemate’s hand.
“We can’t even stop the Mage from killing the kitlings.” Rain spat. He ran a hand through his hair and began to pace. “If Ellysetta is right, we have to figure out how to stop that first, or anything else we may do is meaningless. The only power the Eld truly fear is the might of the tairen. Can you imagine what they’d do if they could control that power for themselves?”
Ellysetta knew. She’d seen it in vivid, horrifying, blood-filled color in her nightmares. “The world would fall.”
The warriors met one anothers’ gazes with grim understanding. No mortal army would be able to stand against Eld armies led by Mage-claimed tairen. And if the Mages destroyed the Fey, no magical race would have the strength to defeat them either.
“It may already be too late,” Tajik said. “If he’s been stealing the souls of tairen since the Mage Wars, there’s no telling how many Tairen Souls he’s already created.”
Gaelen gave a skeptical grunt. “If he had many, we’d have seen them already, vel Sibboreh.”
“Would we?” Gil challenged. “Could be he’s just biding his time and building his army.”
“Or waiting for his Tairen Souls to find their wings,” Rain suggested. “Ellysetta was a mere babe when she was smuggled out of Eld, and her power has yet to fully manifest itself.”
“So how do we stop him?” Ellysetta interjected. “We can’t do anything about the Tairen Souls he may have already created, but we have to find a way to keep him from making more.”