by C. L. Wilson
Gaelen held his gaze for a long moment, then laughed, spat a mouthful of blood, and nodded. “Accepted.”
“Kabei.” Rain turned his complete attention back to Ellysetta. “And now, shei’tani, you can explain to me just what in the jaffing fires of the Seven Hells you were thinking?”
She flinched at the bottled fury that turned each word into a whip of flame, but she stood her ground. “I know how to save the tairen, Rain, but I have to weave Azrahn to do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tairen heart and tairen soul will face the night as one.
The strength of two in tairen love can never be undone.
Light up the sky with tairen flame, and hear the tairen song.
It sings of hope and life to come where tairen souls belong.
From “Tairen Song,” a ballad by Merik vel Sejan,
Tairen Soul
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Rain wrapped his arms around Ellysetta, holding her even as her arms extended to the nearest tairen egg. He wanted to snatch her back, out of the path of danger. What was he thinking even to consider this? She was his shei’tani, his truemate, the one being he must protect at all cost—even if that cost was the life of every tairen and Fey who still walked the earth.
“Ellysetta…” Forgive me, Sybharukai. “What if the Eye was wrong? You aren’t a trained seer. You could easily have misunderstood its message.”
“I didn’t misunderstand.”
He shook his head, afraid for her, desperate to stop her.
“Nei, I’ve changed my mind. This is too dangerous.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. “No Fey would ever ask such a sacrifice of you.”
She laid her free hand over his. “But the Fey haven’t asked it of me, Rain. The gods have.” She feathered her fingers across his skin. «For every great gift, shei’tan, there is a great price.»
“This price is too great.”
She forced a wobbly smile. “One more Mark isn’t so much to save the world.” When his eyes continued to bore into her, burning with despair, her smile faded into somberness. “I have to try. And you have to let me. If I don’t do this, the tairen will die. Marissya’s child will die. And so will all the Fey. If I don’t do this…if I don’t stop the High Mage now…it will be too late for all of us.”
“Ellysetta—”
“These are not just tairen, Rain. These are the brothers and sisters of the tairen tied to my soul. They are…my family.” She drew him close and pressed her lips to his throat. She was acting far braver and more certain than she felt, and she wanted him to know that. “Sieks’ta, I am bullying you, and I should not. This choice is one we must make together. I won’t make it for us. I’ve done enough of that already. Ku’shalah aiyah to nei, shei’tan. Bid me yes or no. And know that if your choice is nei, I will accept it and walk away.”
“And the world of the Fey will die.”
“Aiyah.”
He closed his eyes and bent his head, touching his forehead to hers. “I am afraid,” he whispered. “Afraid with a fear I would never feel for myself.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them back. “I know.”
His lips slanted over hers in a fierce, passionate kiss. His breath, his essence, poured into her, while his arms wrapped her tight and held her close. «Ver reisa ku’chae. Kem surah, shei’tani.»
«Ke vo san, shei’tan.»
He drew back briefly, then returned for several more kisses before he nodded and stepped away. “Aiyah. Though it’s like stabbing a lute’cha into my own heart, my answer is aiyah. Do what you must. But just this once, beloved. Just this once to save the ones we love.”
“Just this once,” she agreed. She knew how difficult it was for him to let her proceed. She could feel the fear, the desperate need to protect her battering his will. If the tairen’s plight were any less dire, he would have refused and let the gods and the Eld determine which kitling lived or died.
Sybharukai approached, her paws silent on the sands, her sleek body regal and purposeful. «Be brave, Ellysetta-makai.» The shimmering music of the makai’s voice sounded in every cell of Ellie’s body, pure and beautiful, ancient and wise. «Your mate offers you his strength, and I offer you the strength of the pride. You do not face this evil alone.» Sybharukai bent her head and opened her mouth. Tairen’s Eye crystals dropped to the sands, several dozen of them, large and gleaming with bright rainbow lights in a matrix of deepest ruby. «You have not found your song, but these are crystals carved from the kiyranis of my most powerful ancestors. Use them. Let their magic supplement and focus your own.»
Ellysetta gathered the stones, and Rain spun them into a golden necklace that he set around her throat. The kiyr were powerful indeed. The moment they touched her skin, their energy amplified hers. Her body tingled, and the heavy, curling mass of her hair crackled with energy.
She turned and approached the eggs. Her heart was pounding like a wild drum in her chest, and her throat felt tight and dry, as if all moisture in her body had been sucked away. Please, gods, if you listen to me at all, listen to me now. Please let this work. Please help me save them. Don’t let me fail.
The weaves the Eye had revealed weren’t all that different from some of the more advanced healing weaves the shei’dalins had shown her this week as they’d sought ways to save the tairen. But where healing was fragrant and warm, Azrahn had a sickly sweet odor and froze the blood in her veins. Even the illusion of it during practice had made her feel ill, which just went to show what a master of Spirit Gaelen was and how intimately he’d come to know the effects of weaving Azrahn.
She now knew, thanks to Gaelen’s detailed instruction, exactly where to find the source of Azrahn within herself, how to summon it, how to feed the power into the patterns the Eye of Truth had shown her.
This time, however, the Azrahn she spun would be real, not illusion.
She drew a breath and steadied her nerves before taking the last, resolute steps towards the waiting eggs. Time to do what she’d come for.
She nodded to Rain. He raised his hands and spun a five-fold protection weave around her. It was a fool’s hope—she already knew she would not survive this night without another Mark—but he had insisted on weaving what protection he could.
“Sing to them, please, Sybharukai.”
Instantly, the vibrant beauty of the great makai’s song filled the cavern, swirling around the eggs in flashes of gold and silver. Within their shells, the hatchlings began to croon along with their grandmother’s melody. The rest of the pride and Rain joined in, filling the air with magic.
In the deliberate calm of her mind, Ellysetta anchored herself as Venarra had taught her, forming the small partition in her mind, securing the heart of her essence within: the safety valve that would cut her off from her weaves before she lost herself in her healing.
Then she began to weave.
She summoned the elements first, spinning the threads into the patterns the shei’dalins had taught her to encourage the growth of flesh and bone. The kitlings wiggled and stretched in their eggs and chortled with little chuff s of laughter, as if the warm weaves tickled them.
Into the warm, healing weave, Ellysetta added the first cool thread of Azrahn.
The kitlings’ songs and laughter turned to whimpers of distress. The tiny bodies that had wriggled against the confines of their shells now shrank and shivered in fear.
«Nei, little kits,» she crooned, adding her voice to the songs of the pride. «It’s me, sweetlings. Ellysetta. Don’t be afraid.»
But even as she coaxed them, she felt the flutter of something dark and dangerous. Something roused by her thread of Azrahn.
Frightened, she started to pull back, but the whimpers of the kitlings made her stop. She was their only hope. She could not abandon them. And these were the patterns the Eye had shown her she must weave.
Gritting her teeth, she spun another thread of Azrahn and added it to
the mix, then another and another, weaving the chilly, rippling threads of red-tinged darkness into the shining mix of healing magic.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
In the chambers of the Mage Council, the High Mage and Eld’s most powerful Primages were meeting to discuss the final preparations for war. Vadim Maur stood before the map of Eloran’s largest continent, where their first targets had already been decided.
“The troops are ready, Most High.” Primage Sib Vargus bowed to his superior. “Give the word and they will enter the Well.”
Vadim Maur opened his mouth to utter the command, but before he could speak, a wholly unexpected, wholly familiar tingle of powerful magic swept over him. He grabbed the edges of the map table to keep himself steady and closed his eyes in a shudder of delight.
Ellysetta Baristani was weaving Azrahn. Sweet, powerful, glorious Azrahn.
It sang across his veins, resonating with incredible vitality and power. Even here, half a world away, he could feel the enormous wellspring of her potential. Her mastery of the great power was sublime—such fine weaves. Such innate comprehension and prodigal talent.
His for the claiming.
He struck, swift and hard, lashing out across the connection of her existing two Marks with a brutal whip of power and a triumphant salutation. «Hello, girl.»
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Even knowing it was coming—even expecting the pain and despair of it—Ellysetta still screamed and fell to her knees when the High Mage’s power stabbed deep into her breast and pierced her heart. Ice gripped her in a paralyzing embrace. Her vision went black, and in the darkness she saw the twin bloody moons of glowing ember eyes, heard the familiar taunting voice of her enemy. «Hello, girl.»
There was no point in fighting. She’d spun the forbidden magic, knowing it would open her soul to him. Just as it had that day in Celieria’s cathedral.
This time, she let the power wash over her and accepted the Mage’s gloating triumph without resistance. She let it stab her, freeze her, bind her.
Then she crawled back to her feet and continued to weave.
The Mage’s consciousness flickered with surprise. He was linked to her through his three Marks and the power she was wielding. He knew she was still weaving. «What are you doing, girl?» She felt the cold, probing fingers reaching into her soul, prying at her mind in an effort to read her intentions, looking for some clue that would tell him where she was and what she was up to. She clenched her teeth and tried to block him out, all the while continuing to spin the forbidden magic.
Her whole body was shivering now, her mouth filled with gagging sweetness. A third shadowy Mark had joined the first two on her left breast, and the dark trio throbbed in time with her pulse, like knives of ice thrust into her heart, vibrating with every rhythmic beat.
Rain, in tairen form, continued to sing to the kits. He didn’t try to connect to her through the threads of their truemate bond. She’d made him swear he wouldn’t do that while she wove the dark magic, afraid the Mage would be able to use her as a tool to Mark him. But she could still sense his fear and horror. He sang strength and reassurance to the kits, but for himself and her he had none. His tairen claws dug deep into the sand, and his tail whipped against the rock walls of the cavern in helpless distress.
Ellysetta forced herself to block out his emotions and the cries of the kits so she could concentrate on her weaves. There was no room for mistakes or wild, instinctive, uncontrollable magic. As Gaelen had impressed upon her again and again during their bells of practice, Azrahn was too dangerous a magic to allow even the tiniest lapse of control.
She drew upon the discipline Venarra and Jaren had drilled into her, keeping her mind focused and her weaves steady and strong, using the power of the Tairen’s Eye crystals around her neck and waist and wrist to amplify and concentrate her magic.
She went from egg to egg, spinning Azrahn, carefully weaving the threads down the invisible, spider-silk-thin connections that tied the egg-bound kitlings to the Well of Souls. She used those threads as the conduit through which she fed her Azrahn-enhanced healing weaves.
The High Mage sensed what she was doing. His glacial anger washed over her. «Foolish girl. You are tampering with powers you do not understand.»
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur shoved back from the map table. She dared? The umagi he had created—the creature whose extraordinary powers he had engineered for his own greatness—dared use those gifts to challenge her master?
The room was silent and icy. The Primages were staring at him, expressionless and watchful. His brows plummeted, and the temperature in the room fell further.
If that troublesome little petchka thought she could best the High Mage of Eld, she had a harsh lesson to learn.
“Order your commanders to assemble their troops. If I’m not back within four bells, send the armies into the Well.”
He turned and stalked out of the room and down the corridor to his personal chambers.
“Master Maur!” The umagi who tended his personal affairs leapt to his feet when Vadim stormed in.
“Fetch Tailinn,” he snapped, referring to the third near-term pregnant woman awaiting her child’s gift from the Well. “No, wait, fetch her and the other three who are closest to term. I want them all in the birthing chamber in half a bell!” Each word cracked with ice.
The servant bowed and scraped and nearly fell over himself rushing for the door. “Of course, great one. Immediately.”
Ellysetta Baristani thought she would rob him of his Tairen Souls? She would regret her impudence. Purple robes swirled as Vadim stormed into his office and headed for the chamber where he kept his most precious implements of power, including the two remaining needles that held Ellysetta Baristani’s blood.
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Ellysetta lost track of time. Enveloped in a cocoon of swirling magic, she sent wave after wave of healing and strength down the silk-thin threads of Azrahn into the Well of Souls, feeding that power to the kitlings’ souls.
Their initial, whimpering fear had faded when they’d realized Ellysetta’s magic was not the dark evil that hunted and hurt them. As she’d continued to spin and sing to them, they’d begun to sing back.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the kitlings’ faint voices grew stronger.
Sybharukai crooned encouragement. Steli purred and nudged Ellysetta’s body with her head. «Your magic is working, kitling.»
Eld ~ Boura Fell
The four pregnant woman were strapped, unconscious, to the birthing tables. Vadim had not planned to attempt soul-binding Tailinn’s child until the Mother went new again and his powers reached their next peak, but he could not afford to wait. Nor had he ever attempted to bind more than one soul in a night, but he’d be damned before he’d let Ellysetta Baristani rob him of the great prizes he’d spent months preparing to harvest.
Vadim snapped his fingers, and one of the servants offered him a crystal goblet. He lifted the cup and drained it dry. The dark red potion carried the metallic tang of blood from Tailinn and the other women, mixed with a heavy dose of several magical herbs, and powdered selkhar crystal.
When the tingle of the potent blood magic spread through his system, he raised his beringed hands and began the invocation of his most useful and grudging servant. “Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn, Prince of Shadows, I summon thee. Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn, Lord of Demons, I bind thee. Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn, God of Darkness, I command thee to serve as hand of my power and executor of my will.”
An icy breeze swirled through the chamber, blowing back Vadim’s hair and the folds of his purple velvet robes. A voice like bones grating on stone hissed, «How shall I serve thee?»
Vadim shaped his command in flows of dark, ineluctable power. “Bring me the souls I seek.”
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
The kitlings fell silent.
Con
cerned, Ellysetta summoned Fey vision to examine the eggs. Concern spiked to alarm. The shining light of the kitlings, so bright just moments before, had gone out. The eggs appeared empty, with naught but a blank void inside each shell, just as they had the first time she’d come and again the night Forrahl had died.
Then she heard the whispers, the voices. “Oh, no. Not now. Teska, sallan, don’t let this happen.” Desperately, she sent a bolus of power down her weaves, hoping she could hurry the healing.
The tairen began to growl. Sybharukai’s tail spikes extended in unspoken menace.
«He’s coming for the kits.» Rain’s Spirit voice was heavy with certainty.
“Aiyah.” Fear made her concentration wobble as something cold and dark brushed against her weaves. The tairen kitlings began to whimper anew. She shivered, and her knees went weak. She clutched the nearest egg to keep herself upright. “But it’s not him. It’s the other thing…whatever he’s using to steal their souls. A demon of some kind, or a soul doing his bidding. I don’t know.”
She flinched as the thing brushed against her weaves again. The sensation was too vivid, too reminiscent of the horrifying nightmares she’d suffered all her life. Like rats sliding past her ankles or ice spiders crawling up her spine. Her tairen began to growl and claw at its bindings.
«Ellysetta, come away. Do not endanger yourself any further.» “I can’t leave the kitlings to die.” Whatever it was, the thing had negated the power of her healing weaves. Worse, she could feel it draining the kitlings’ strength, ruining the hard-won progress of the last bells. “I’ve got to do this, Rain. There is no one else who can. This is why the Eye sent you to find me.”
«Was this part of what the Eye said you must do?»
She bit her lip. There’d been nothing in the Eye’s vision beyond the weaves she’d already spun. Now she must fight without any idea of what pattern to weave. “Nei, but it makes no difference. If I don’t stop this attack, the kitlings will die. I will have let the Mage Mark me for nothing.”