by C. L. Wilson
“Beylah sallan. Beylah sallan.” She wept. Her arms curled tight around Rain’s neck, and she burrowed close. The frightened, timid Ellie-the-woodcarver’s-daughter part of her soul yearned to dive inside his skin and live there, surrounded by him, part of him, kept safe from the world and the world kept safe from her; but after a few moments of comfort, the fiercer instincts of Ellysetta Feyreisa surged to the fore and forced her to pull away from the comfort of Rain’s embrace, forced her to make sense of what had just happened.
The moment she lifted her head, Gaelen was there, hand outstretched, to help her to her feet.
Bel, visibly shaken but otherwise unharmed, was half a step behind him.
Ellysetta took one look at Bel, flung her arms around him, and burst into fresh tears. “Sieks’ta, kem’maresk. Forgive me. I don’t know what happened. I would never hurt you.”
He pulled back and met her eyes soberly. “There is nothing to forgive, kem’falla. My life is yours. My death is yours, too, should you ever require it.”
His simple, unequivocal acceptance nearly broke her heart.
“What happened?” Gaelen interrupted. “When you touched the mirror, what happened to you? To Lord Shan?”
“I…” She glanced back at Rain and reached for his hand instinctively. The warm strength of his fingers closed around hers, and fresh vitality infused her flagging courage. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s as if the moment I touched the mirror, I was suddenly there, with my…with Lord v’En Celay…as if I were a part of him.”
“You were.”
The Fey all turned towards Hawksheart.
The Elf king regarded Ellysetta with an inscrutable expression. “The mirror is a viewing portal—but it is also a transport of sorts. You have not been trained in its proper use, so without me to guide you this time, when you touched the water, a part of your soul and your consciousness traveled through the mirror and entered Shan’s body.”
“Oh, gods.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Was it my fault he turned into that…thing? Did I do that to him?”
“Anio,” Hawksheart said instantly. “Don’t let such a fear even cross your mind. As I showed you earlier, you were not the first of the High Mage’s experiments. In his earliest attempts, he used adult hosts to house the soul of the tairen.”
“Blessed gods,” Rain breathed. “He tied a tairen’s soul to Lord Shan. That’s why Shan’s eyes were tairen.”
“He was one of many captive warriors of the Fey,” Hawksheart confirmed, “but the others did not have the anchor of a truemate, as Shan does. When the Mage grafted a tairen’s soul to theirs, they all went mad and died. Shan was the only one of those early experiments to survive. And he has thus far been the only one of the High Mage’s experiments powerful enough to summon the Change—though, as you witnessed, he has never managed to successfully complete it.”
Ellysetta clasped her hands over her mouth. Her stomach roiled as she remembered, with vivid clarity, the horror and pain of the twisted monster Lord Shan had become. “Bright Lord have mercy on him.”
“You said adults were the Mage’s earliest experiments,” Gaelen interrupted.
The Elf nodded. “Bayas. The Mage’s experiments at merging two unborn souls have been much more successful. Many of those children survived to adulthood, though none have yet been powerful enough to summon the Change.”
“Ellysetta will be the first.”
“I believe so. More to the point, the High Mage believes it.” He glanced at Ellysetta. “Most important, she has not yet fallen prey to the wild savagery that overcame the others when they reached maturity.”
“S-savagery?” Ellysetta echoed in a faint voice. Her mouth went dry, and she swayed on her feet. If not for the arm Rain quickly wrapped around her waist, she might have fallen.
“Bayas. The others cannot Change even to the extent your father does, but when their sel’dor manacles are removed, they still become every bit as wild and vicious as he.”
For one horrible moment, she thought she might heave up the contents of her stomach. “You mean I’m turning into some sort of…monster? Is that why I’ve had those seizures and horrible, bloody nightmares all my life?”
“I cannot speak to your nightmares, but most of your seizures come from your father, not from what lives inside you.”
“Explain,” Rain commanded.
“As best I can tell, when the High Mage performed his soul manipulations on Ellysetta and Shan, he unwittingly created a bridge of sorts between them. A pathway forged by Azrahn and amplified by the biological affinity of father and child…perhaps even a bond between the two tairens’ souls tied to them. That connection is how you were able to join with him through the mirror a moment ago…and how your parents were able to help you in the Well of Souls—both when the Mage tried to claim your soul in the Cathedral of Light and again, more recently, when you saved the tairen kitlings.”
Ellysetta’s heart skipped a beat. “That was my—” She broke off. Calling the two strangers her parents seemed strangely awkward. Mama and Papa—Lauriana and Sol Baristani—were the only parents she’d ever known. “That was Lord Shan and Lady Elfeya?” she amended.
She remembered the strong, calming presence that had filled her when she’d traveled into the Well of Souls to save the tairen kitlings. Radiant with warmth and love, that presence had helped her spin her weaves with confidence, setting aside the fear and self-doubt that had shadowed her all her life. She’d thought the Bright Lord had been guiding her hands.
“They were with me in the Well?”
“They’ve always been with you, Ellysetta. Prisoners they may be, but they’ve always done what ever they could—no matter the cost to themselves—to protect you.”
Ellysetta recalled the dream she’d had by the Bay of Flames, of a woman’s voice begging forgiveness as a shining veil closed around Ellysetta like a blanket. “They’re the ones who bound my magic.”
“Bayas. They knew what you were before you were born, and they knew what the Mage intended, so they bound your magic to hide it from him and arranged for you to be smuggled out of Eld at the first chance.”
“But I don’t understand…if my parents have used this connection to watch over me and protect me, how can my father be responsible for my seizures?”
“Did you not feel the beginnings of a seizure come upon you when you looked into the mirror and saw the Mage torturing Shan?”
“I…” Her brows drew together. She had…the feeling had been exactly the same.
“Did you not feel the hammer strike as if it landed upon your own flesh instead of his?”
“Yes, but how did you…” Her voice trailed off.
“You think she feels Lord Shan’s torture?” Rain asked.
“Bayas, that is exactly what I think.” Hawksheart turned back to Ellysetta and pinned her with an intense stare from which she could not look away. “Your seizures—and, from what Fanor has told me, apparently even some of the knowledge and skills you possess—come to you from your father through that connection you both share.”
“Bright Lord save him,” she breathed, remembering with horror how often the seizures had ripped apart her world. Lord v’En Celay—her father—must have suffered agonies beyond reckoning.
“And how would you know that her seizures are a result of Shan’s torture?” Tajik interrupted. His blue eyes burned like flames. If looks could kill, Galad Hawksheart would be lying stone dead on the chamber floor. “Unless you were watching them both suffer?”
“I have watched them,” Hawksheart replied without ire. “Every day for the last thousand years, I have watched Shan and Elfeya, just as I have watched Ellysetta Erimea every day since she was born.”
Tajik lunged for his cousin, and only Rijonn’s and Gil’s leaping forward to grab his arms and haul him back stopped Tajik’s hands from closing around Hawksheart’s throat and strangling the life out of him. Tajik swore and struggled against his friends’ hold.
“You filthy rultshart!” he spat. “You watched them? All this time, you not only knew what was happening to them; you watched it? And you did nothing?”
Fire flamed in his eyes. Five-fold weaves shot from Gaelen’s and Bel’s fingertips, encasing Tajik in dense shields to keep the Fey general’s temper from turning deadly.
Hawksheart withstood his cousin’s wrath with impassive calm, and when Bel and Gaelen would have woven similar shields around him, Hawksheart waved them away.
“As I told you, Tajik, helping them was never a choice available to me. I could not interfere in their verse in the Dance.” He enunciated each word with deliberate emphasis. “But, yes, I did watch them. Since I could do nothing to save them, the least I could do was bear witness to their bravery and their suffering and their sacrifice. I have been, in effect, their Sentinel, the watcher of their lives. And though I could not reveal myself to them, they have never been alone.”
“You think that makes this all right?” Tajik cried. Tears tracked silvery trails down the sides of his face, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.
Hawksheart sighed and looked suddenly weary. “Anio, cousin. Nothing will ever make their suffering all right. But long ago I accepted that this was my Song to sing in the Dance. Just as I accepted that you would never forgive me for it.”
“You’re right about that.” Tajik shook off Bel and Gaelen and glared at them before turning back to the Elf king. “Where are they, cousin? And don’t pretend you don’t know.”
For the first time since the Fey had entered Navahele, Hawksheart showed signs of temper. His brows dove together in a scowl. “You just looked into the mirror,” he snapped. “Did you see coordinates marked on a map? Anio, because the Dance is about the lives we live and the choices we make, not about the space we inhabit. They are somewhere in Eld in a fortress with tunnels carved out of what looks like sel’dor ore. There! Now you know as much as I about their location.”
The Elf spun on his heel and presented the Fey with his back. He muttered something to Grandfather Sentinel, then swept the long, golden strands of his hair behind his shoulders with a brisk shake of his head and turned back around, his emotions locked once more behind a mask of impenetrable calm. When he spoke again, his voice was cold, each word hard as a stone.
“Even if I did know their exact location, cousin, I would not tell you for fear of upsetting the balance of the Dance with my interference.”
“Flame and scorch you to the Seven Hells,” Tajik growled. “May the minions of the Dark God visit upon you every torment my sister has suffered and may your screams for mercy be the music that fills their ears as they feast on your body and soul. May you drain every last dreg of bitterness from the cup of death and your heirs curse your name with every breath. May the heartwood of Navahele rot—”
Finally Hawksheart had heard enough and his voice boomed out like a clap of thunder: “Be silent!” The Elf king spat out a tirade of torrential Elvish that turned Tajik’s face bright red. What was clearly a scathing rebuke ended in clipped, icy Feyan. “Cousin you may be, but you stand in the heart of Elvia now. And in this land, I am king. You will offer me the courtesy of a civil tongue, Elf-kin, or you will keep your silence. Do I make myself clear?”
Tajik glared, but what ever insults and accusations he still had to spew remained locked behind gritted teeth and clamped lips. He gave a curt nod.
“A wise choice, cousin.” Turning to Rain and Ellysetta, Hawksheart said, “Go now. The night grows late. Enjoy the comforts of Navahele to night. We will talk again tomorrow.”
A dozen Elvian guards were waiting for them at the top of the stair when they reemerged from the bowels of Grandfather Sentinel’s heartwood chamber. Rain requested an escort back to their rooms, and with polite bows and distant courtesy, the guards led the way.
Fifteen chimes later, the seven of them ducked into Rain and Ellysetta’s cozy bedchamber.
“What are we going to do, Rain?” Ellysetta asked as soon as the door closed behind them. “We can’t just leave the v’En Celays in Eld. We’ve got to find a way to save them.”
Rain touched a finger to his lips and shook his head, nodding to the rich wood surrounding them. On a narrow Spirit weave, he warned her, «This tree, like all the trees in Navahele, is a watcher. Wait for the Fey to spin a privacy weave.»
Tajik and Gil spun breezy patterns of Earth and Air that swept through every nook and cranny in the chamber, dislodging dust, dirt, insects, and even a small, very disgruntled-looking tree frog. They disposed of their weaves’ findings through one of the chamber’s small, round windows, then spun swift, dense privacy weaves on every surface in the chamber.
“Do you really think Lord Galad would send frogs and insects to spy on us?” Ellysetta asked.
“Spying is what Elves do, kem’falla,” Tajik said. “And everything here in Elvia—from the plants and insects, to the animals, to the very soil we walk on—spies for them as well.”
“But what could they tell him that he cannot already See?”
Gil grunted. “Probabilities. Despite the destiny that may be mapped out for us, the gods still gave us free will. Hawksheart, for all his power, can never know for certain which verse of their Song a person will choose to sing. Everything the Elves learn, everything they see, everything the sentient creatures of Elvia gather, he uses to interpret the Dance and determine the most likely turns the Songs will take.”
“And right now,” Tajik said, “he wants to know what we will do to save my sister and her mate and whether or not he needs to stop us.”
“Tajik, he isn’t as heartless as you think,” Ellysetta protested. “Perhaps he doesn’t show it, but none of this was easy for him.”
“He just admitted he watched my sister suffer for a thousand years because he was determined to see your Song come to fruition.” Tajik’s blue eyes burned like flame. “He’ll do what ever it takes to make sure she stays there if it fits his needs for the Dance.”
Gil flung back his long, white-blond hair, and the silvery specks in his black eyes flashed like angry stars. “Well, Hawksheart may be able to stand and watch their suffering without lifting a finger, but we Fey cannot. We must rescue them. Even if Lord Shan and Lady Elfeya were not the Feyreisa’s parents—even if they were not two of the greatest truemates born in this Age—we would still be honor-bound to rescue them.”
“Aiyah,” Rijonn agreed, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “Just say the word and I will grind every vein of sel’dor ore in Eld to dust to find them and set them free.”
When Rain didn’t immediately answer, Ellysetta turned to him. “Rain? You cannot intend to just leave them there.”
“Even if we knew where they were being held—which we do not—I cannot see a way to save them that holds hope for any outcome but certain death…or worse.”
“Since when has risk stopped a Fey from doing what he knows is right?” Bel countered before Ellysetta could speak. His face was as hard as Tajik’s, his cobalt eyes as flat and cold as Tajik’s flame-blue eyes were fiery. “Now that we know they live—now that we know what they’re suffering—we cannot leave them there. You know we cannot. Fey honor isn’t just a word. Truemates of the Fey are being held by the High Mage of Eld. They must be saved. There’s no other option.”
“I know, Bel.” Rain thrust a hand through his hair and began to pace. “I know.”
Gaelen glanced at the hard, determined expressions of his brother Fey. “Has it not yet occurred to anyone that there may be some specific reason why Hawksheart showed us the truth about Lord Shan and Elfeya? That he wants us to go after them?”
Rain’s spine stiffened and his shoulders drew back. “What could Hawksheart possibly hope to gain? If the Fey perish on some hopeless mission into Eld, the Mages win.”
“Think about it, Rain. He let Lord Shan and his mate be captured, let them suffer a thousand years of torture, because he believed it necessary to the Dance. And the first time he reveals their fate, t
o whom does he show it? Their daughter. Their daughter’s Tairen Soul truemate. Elfeya’s brother. The five bloodsworn warriors who have already pledged their souls to Ellysetta’s service. He brought us here. Just us. He let us see what his mirror had to reveal, because he meant us to have that information. He wouldn’t let me take Tajik’s memory because he needs Tajik to remember. What purpose could there be except to use this new knowledge to drive us to action? Not the Fey. Us.” He drew a circle with one finger. “We seven.”
Ellysetta frowned. “You’re suggesting he planned everything that just happened down there? That he manipulated me into demanding the truth about my parents just so we’d go after them because he wants me to confront the High Mage?”
“You are still young, ajiana. Still trusting.” Sadness and affection softened the ice blue of Gaelen’s eyes. “I have been dahl’reisen. I learned long ago to trust no one. I also learned long ago that the world holds precious few surprises for an Elf. Do I think he manipulated us? Oh, aiyah, I think he did. I think the Lord of Valorian knew precisely what he was doing every step of the way. He wants us to go into Eld.”
“Well, he can want all he likes,” Rain snapped. “There’s no way in the Seven Hells I would ever let Ellysetta set foot in that accursed land. Hawksheart surely knows that.” He began to pace again. “Nei. No matter what your suspicion tells you, Hawksheart is not such a fool. Besides, you heard him. Ellysetta is the one born to defeat Shadow and secure this world for Light. He would not risk her life so stupidly.”
“And how can she defeat Shadow if she never confronts it?” Gaelen countered. “Stop thinking like a Fey, Rain, and start thinking like an Elf. To them, no one life is more important than the outcome of the Dance. Hawksheart said Ellysetta was born to defeat Shadow, but did you even once hear him say she was supposed to survive her fate?”
Rain stopped in his tracks. His expression went blank. “I—”
“Nei, you did not.” Gaelen supplied the answer himself. “Because he was very careful not to say it. Just as he was very careful to block Ellysetta’s memories of what she saw, even though he would not let me erase the truth about Elfeya from Tajik’s mind.”