by C. L. Wilson
Elfeya huddled at the back of his mind, her soul taking refuge in his, her own pain no less than his own. They’d spared her nothing this time. She’d suffered so much, he doubted she would ever recover, and the sound of her screams, reverberating in his mind and soul, would haunt him for eternity.
Gently, each brush of his soul a caress of devotion, he detached himself from her and drew the protective barriers around his mind. He poured his strength into making them as strong as he could in the hope that he could buffer her from what was about to befall him. She was so fragile—so close to breaking—that he feared what ever new torment Vadim Maur had in store for him would push her shattered mind into madness. Part of Shan wanted to let that happen, because if she were lost, there would be nothing left to hold him to sanity. And in madness, there was escape. In madness, there existed no grief, no guilt, no shame for the horrors visited upon the mate he could not protect.
But for now, until pain drove him to the haven of unconsciousness or madness claimed him, he would spit defiance at the High Mage of Eld and dare him to do his worst.
“Hello, Maur,” he rasped. His throat was swollen and bruised from the strangulating collar the High Mage had tortured him with two days ago. Each word raked through his ruined voice box like knives, but he forced himself to speak all the same. His lip curled. “I’d say you were looking well, but Fey never lie. Has your flesh begun to rot yet?”
He knew he’d scored a hit when the gloved hand peeping out of the robe’s wide sleeve curled into a frail, bony fist. Maur’s health was failing, and with Elfeya too close to death to heal him, the effects were accelerating.
“Still have some fight in you, Lord Death?” the High Mage sneered. “We’ll see how long that lasts.” He gestured and the hulking figure standing in the shadows behind him stepped forward.
Despite himself, Shan felt his spirit quail at the sight of the giant’s black war hammer glinting dully in the sconce light.
“I see you remember my umagi Goram and his hammer.” Maur’s voice oozed with satisfaction. He nodded his shrouded head in Goram’s direction. “You may begin.”
Many long centuries had passed since Shan had last prayed to the gods for anything, but when Goram’s hammer swung, his mind went completely blank, void of every thought but one.
Gods help me.
Elvia ~ Navahele
Though no sound emerged from Hawksheart’s mirror, Shannisorran v’En Celay’s scream still rocked the rooted heart of Grandfather Sentinel, and every observing Fey warrior flinched and whispered a prayer for mercy.
Ellysetta’s fingernails dug deep enough into Rain’s wrist to draw blood.
“Setah, Hawksheart!” Rain bit out. “Stop that scorching mirror. Ellysetta has seen enough.”
The Elf king nodded, but before he could do as Rain ordered, the Eld hammer swung again, and Shannisorran v’En Celay’s head was flung back, his face twisted in a rictus of unimaginable pain.
Ellysetta’s body began to shake like it did when one of her seizures began, only this time, she did not fall convulsing to the floor. This time—and far more alarmingly—her power gathered. Her eyes went tairen-bright, the pupils disappearing, and her silvery Fey luminescence became a dazzling light as she called forth the awesome entirety of her magic.
“Krekk,” Rain muttered. “Ellysetta! Scorch it, Elf, stop that flaming thing!” He sent a blast of Water and Air to do it himself, but instead of obeying his command, the power he summoned spilled out of his body in shining flows…and poured into Ellysetta’s.
Similar streams of power flowed into her from Gaelen and Bel and the rest of her quintet. Even Hawksheart’s Elvish magic swirled towards her in sparkling golden rivers. She was siphoning their power, drawing it into herself, and as she did, her glow grew brighter and fiercer until Rain’s eyes burned from the blinding light.
«Ellysetta!» he cried. «Parei, shei’tani! Stop!»
But she didn’t.
All around the small chamber, the sturdy, smooth grain of Grandfather’s heartwood groaned and creaked in protest as the wood bowed inward, towards Ellysetta, as if—not content to drain only Hawksheart and the Fey—she was summoning every scrap of life and power stored in the great tree’s ancient form as well.
In the mirror’s shimmering veil, Rain saw the Eld hammer strike again, saw Shannisorran v’En Celay’s body convulse in agony.
A roar of pure, unfettered Rage shook the Sentinel’s heartwood chamber. Power flashed with concussive force, knocking Ellysetta’s quintet and the Elf king to the ground. Rain, who was standing closest to her, found himself lifted off his feet and flung across the room to slam hard against the Sentinel’s smooth walls. He struggled to raise himself on his elbows, only to fall back again as his head spun and darkness crowded the edges of his vision.
Dimly, he saw Hawksheart crawling towards Ellysetta on hands and knees and heard him screaming, “Anio! Do not touch the water!” as Ellysetta—the only one in the room still standing—plunged her hands into the mirror’s veil.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Shan’s breath came in shallow pants, and in his pain-dazed mind, set afire by the screaming torment of shattered nerves, he chanted with dogged determination.
Pain is life. Pain is life. Pain is life.
He focused on the words, using them as a shield against the blinding agony, taking each word and adding it as a mental brick in the wall against his pain. If he built the wall high enough, strong enough, he could endure.
Goram drew back his hammer again. Shan closed his eyes against the oncoming blow, and his chant picked up desperate speed. Pain is life. Pain is life. Pain is life.
The hammer landed with a loud crack of shattering bone. Agony exploded in Shan’s right knee, and the fragile wall against the pain exploded with it. Shan’s scream ripped from his throat.
Please, gods, then let me die.
He nearly wept. Goram had barely begun, and already Shan was breaking. In spirit as well as in body. For months now he’d been tortured on a near-daily basis—these last weeks with a relentless ferocity that made the last thousand years of torment seem a hard day of training at the academy by comparison. Thanks to Elfeya, he’d survived all those previous tortures, but this time, she was not there to steal away the pain or anchor him to Light and life.
The lure to give in, to simply let his life fade was so tempting. But it wasn’t what she wanted. And that meant he had to endure. Without her here to help him, he had to be strong enough for them both.
He swung limply from his chains, breathless and dazed, his numbed mind groping for the words to begin again. This time, he whispered them aloud. “Pain is life.” Elfeya, I love you. The first brick settled in place. “Pain is life.” There is no price I would not pay, no torment I would not suffer for you. The next locked neatly into place beside the first.
“Pain is life.” You are the sun that shines Light upon my soul. Another brick joined the rest. “Pain is life.” Because you live, my life has purpose. And another.
Goram swung his gods-cursed hammer once more.
Shan closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see it. “Pain is—”
The bones in his left hip shattered inside his skin. Blinding agony engulfed him. His dazed mind howled and groped for the word. Pain is…is…is—
—Rage.
It came from nowhere and filled him in an instant. Violent fury. Bloodlust. Savage, vengeful ferocity so vast it made the earth tremble.
Goram fell to his knees, and his master staggered back against the rough, carved-out walls of the cell. Maur’s hood fell back, revealing the rotting ruins of his face—the skin drooping like melted tallow, patched with oozing sores where his flesh had begun to putrefy.
“You…will…not…touch…him!”
The guttural roar of command came from Shan’s own throat—but the fierce, rumbling voice was not his.
Concentrated power filled him—searing him from the inside out, all but boiling the blood in his veins. I
t was as if the Bright Lord himself had poured all the vast energy of the Great Sun into Shan’s soul on a bolt of divine lightning.
With the power came a presence—feminine and familiar—and Shan wasn’t the only one who sensed it.
Silver eyes fixed on Shan. “You!” he exclaimed, and silver irises darkened to the lurid black of Azrahn.
Shan roared a warning to the daughter he had never seen—the precious, beloved child he and Elfeya had conceived in a world of endless horror. The same child they had risked their lives to save, and now willingly suffered every torment to protect.
The Rage—hers and his combined—exploded, flooding him with fury. Sel’dor manacles disintegrated. Agony ripped through him as his body flash-boiled into a cloud of flaming mist and his mind into a fearsome, savage haze.
Burn him! Shred him! Feast on his roasted bones!
The cry howled in his mind, but the fierce battle cry turned to a shriek of pain as the mist he had become resolidified. Limbs formed, but they were twisted and misshapen, half tairen, half Fey, as if man and beast had been fused together in some monstrous amalgamation. Enormous muscles rippled and bulged beneath a patchwork hide, silvery Fey skin covered by broad tracts of black fur. A man’s bony hands, larger than serving platters, ripped at the air with a beast’s razored claws.
The creature reared back on bulging hind legs and opened its fanged maw. Searing fire spewed forth in an incinerating jet.
Goram screamed as his body turned to lifeless char, and beside him, the hammer he’d wielded with such malevolent enthusiasm melted into a puddle of harmless slag.
The High Mage shifted his initial weave into a powerful shield that withstood the first blast of fire—then he struck. His skeletal arms shoved forward, purple velvet sleeves falling back to reveal clawed hands holding globes of Azrahn that he hurled with a strength far exceeding his frail, wasted appearance.
The dark, corruptive magic splashed against the enormous, furred chest, and the creature that was part Shan, part tairen reared back, roaring with a mix of rage, pain, and fear. Cramped wings beat at the rough rock of the ceiling. Midspan claws gouged deep furrows into the sel’dor ore.
The monster howled as sel’dor rubble rained searing acid across its back and the burning ice of the Mage’s Azrahn spread across its chest.
Flame exploded from the beast’s muzzle.
Vadim Maur dove through the cell door and rolled to the left. His bones bounced painfully across the unyielding stone floor, but neither the jolts nor even the snap of a breaking finger unraveled his concentration.
Pain was the price of great magic, and he had long ago accepted that penalty.
Vast and devastating, his power surged in answer to his call. Blazing, multiply threads burst from his hands in dense shield patterns as clouds of intense flame boiled out of the cell to fill the corridor.
The guards by the door—unprotected by similar shields—lit up like matchsticks. They didn’t even have time to scream before the ash that had been their living bodies scattered on the searing winds of the maelstrom.
Perspiration broke out on Vadim’s skin, then evaporated as the hairs on his arms crackled and his skin turned bright red. He poured more magic into his weaves, but the destructive force of the fire was too great. A six-fold weave—no matter how powerful—had no chance of standing against tairen flame for long. His shields were failing. He was roasting.
Desperate, he arrowed a command to his umagi guarding the cell two levels above. «Go to the shei’dalin Elfeya now. Kill her!»
Elvia ~ Navahele
Bel groaned and held his hands to his ringing ears. His head felt like that Eld rultshart had applied his hammer to Bel’s skull. Someone was screaming.
His eyes snapped open and he rolled into a crouch.
Two man lengths away, held captive by some invisible force, Ellysetta stood glued to the shimmering veil of water. Her head was flung back, her spine was arched in visible agony, and she was screaming as if her very soul were being torn asunder.
“Get her away from the mirror!” Hawksheart cried. “She cannot free herself!”
Bel sprang into action. With no hint of his usual devoted care, he launched his body through the air, slammed into Ellysetta’s slender form, and tackled her to the ground.
They landed with a teeth-rattling jolt on the floor of the hollow, and Bel’s only concession to a lu’tan’s regard was a last-moment twist of his body so that he—not she—took the brunt of their hard landing.
The instant they hit, Ellysetta went wild. Screaming and roaring, she struck at him with clawed hands, raking burning furrows across his face, ripping through his leathers to score his chest. He tried to block her blows and fend off her attacks without hurting her, but that care was his undoing.
Fast-growing roots shot up from the floor of the Sentinel’s hollow and lashed Bel’s arms and legs into place, pinning him to the floor. He spun Fire to burn the roots and free himself, but the threads of his magic dissolved the instant they formed, absorbed into the fierce aura of power surrounding Ellysetta.
“Ellysetta!” he protested. Streamers of ice raced through his veins, and a sudden, drugging weakness sapped his strength and left him light-headed.
Ellysetta reared back and Bel got his first glimpse of her face. Her eyes were pure black, lit by lurid red stars, her teeth bared in a snarl of primal savagery. The aura of magic about her was like none he’d ever seen. Like the Great Sun in full eclipse, a dark shadow surrounded her, its edges rimmed by an undulating ring of bright, golden light.
She passed a hand across her leathers, and her palm blazed with green Earth. One of the steel studs in her armor melted and reformed as a razor-sharp black Fey’cha that she slammed towards him.
Rooted to the ground, his power pouring into her like light feeding the endless hunger of a dark star, he couldn’t lift a finger in his defense. He couldn’t even move to dodge the blow.
He could only whisper, “Ellysetta, nei!” as the knife plunged towards his chest.
Deep in the black heart of Boura Fell, Shan howled as the feel of a knife sinking into an unprotected chest reverberated through his soul.
The connection with his daughter shattered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Elvia ~ Navahele
Ellysetta watched Bel’s eyes go wide and heard his breath leave his lungs on a stunned gasp.
The face before her had been Vadim Maur’s. She was certain of it. Only it had changed at the last moment to Bel’s.
She shrieked in horror and denial, feeling the dagger tear through skin and bone to pierce the beating heart beneath as if the blade had ripped through her own chest.
In the same instant, a wall of heat and stone slammed into her side and swept her off her feet. The black Fey’cha flew from her hand and went skittering across the glossy, timeworn surface of the chamber floor. Behind her, the veil of suspended water abruptly splashed back into the mirror pool like a lead curtain suddenly released from its anchors. The spray of chilly droplets spattered across Ellysetta’s face.
She was screaming…screaming…screaming. Death crouched at the periphery of her senses, grinning with malice while voices howled in a savage chorus of fear and agony.
Burn! Destroy! Scorch the world! Flame them all!
Yes! Yes! A terrible, dark, hungry part of Ellysetta’s soul howled with dreadful eagerness. She’d killed before. She knew the taste of blood and death, remembered the searing thrill of slaughtering a hated enemy. When Mama died, the ones who’d killed her had paid in blood and screams, and their dying wails had sung through Ellysetta’s veins like a visceral symphony.
Ellysetta.
Something held her captive, pinned to the floor. Her arms flailed, fingers curving into claws. The power rose inside her with wild demand, burning, boiling, tearing at her body with brutal hands until she shrieked with pain and madness.
Ellysetta!
The force inside her was too great for her body to contain. The
need to rend and destroy clamored for freedom. Why else had she been born with such power if not to rain death and destruction upon the ones who’d hurt those she loved?
“Ellysetta!” «Shei’tani!» In voice and in Spirit and through the powerful bond threads that even now tied so much of her soul to Rain’s, the sound of his call broke through her madness.
Those were his arms wrapped around her, his body pressed tight against hers, pinning her to the ground, yes, but covering her with a mate’s protective care as well. His hair, smelling like spring rain and shared secrets, fell across her face in warm, silky streamers as his cheek pressed against hers and his lips murmured entreaties of peace and love against her skin.
Sanity returned in a rush. Her eyes flew open and she dragged air into her lungs on a sob.
“Rain?” Shaking hands traced the familiar curve of his head and spine. Fingers dug into the beloved bulwark of strong shoulders, clinging with desperate fear. “Oh, Rain.” Tears gathered, hot and burning, and her throat closed up as if clutched in the strangling grip of a tight fist. «Oh, Rain…what have I done? Bel… »
“Shh…las, kem’reisa…he is unharmed.”
«I stabbed him. I stabbed him through the heart. I felt it.»
«Nei,» he soothed. «I reached you in time. You didn’t hurt him. Your blade didn’t even break his skin.»
Her eyes closed and tears of relief spilled down her cheeks. Though the sensation of her knife plunging into Bel’s chest and piercing his heart had been so vivid, Rain would never lie. Especially not to her. Bel was unhurt. She hadn’t slain him after all.