CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Pale ~ North Slopes of the Feyls
Garok hadn’t been certain what to expect, but the complete destruction of the Mists was more than he’d dreamed possible. Triumph filled him with exultation.
“They’re down!” one of the other Primages whispered. The whisper grew quickly to a racous, celebratory hurrah. “The Mists are down!”
Garok wasn’t a Mage to waste time on self-congratulation. Getting through the Mists was only the first step. Reaching Dharsa, the core of the hated Fey homeland, was his goal. He’d been suspicious when Maur assigned him this mission, but he intended to make the most of it. When he returned to Eld in triumph as the Mage who’d brought down the Faering Mists and conquered Dharsa, even those Primages still hesitant to turn from Maur would look at him with new eyes.
“Archers to the fore!” he commanded. He paced across the rubble-strewn ground as the archers hurried to step forward. “Take aim! Fire!”
Bowstrings twanged in unison. Mages summoned the wind as a dark rain of sel’dor arrows, each modified to hold a chemar in the shaft, soared up the mountainside and across the now unprotected peak, disappearing on the opposite side.
Before the last arrow disappeared from view, Garok opened the Well of Souls and the Eld leapt in. The portal closed quickly on the heels of the last man. Within the darkness a fresh array of glowing blue lights lit the Well—the dozens of chemar that had found their targets lay before them, mere steps away.
“Primages, you know what to do.” The Eld split into a dozen groups, each racing for a different spot of blue light inside the Well. They opened the portals using the chemar, and the instant the portals opened, archers fired more arrows through, while the Mages spun magic to carry the missiles much farther and faster than bowstring alone could have managed.
And so it went. Portals opened. Archers fired. On to the next portal. As they crossed the last line of the snowy volcanic peaks, a roar greeted one of the opening portals and a jet of flame lit up the interior of the Well, burning an entire company of Mages to ash.
The tairen had come to defend their territory. But the chemar were too many and the tairen too few. The Eld advanced with swift purpose towards the heart of the Fading Lands, the shining city on the hills.
Dharsa.
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
“The Mists are down! The Mages are coming.” Marissya clutched the slight swell of her unborn child as she delivered the news to the Massan. “Sybharukai says they are using the Well to move across the Plains of Corunn. She doesn’t know their numbers, but they’re moving too fast, in too many directions. There aren’t enough of the tairen to stop them. We must ward the city, quickly before it’s too late.”
“Down?” Yulan regarded her in disbelief. “The Mists can’t be down!”
To his credit, Tenn didn’t waste time doubting her word or hesitating in indecision. «Fey, to arms! Defend the city! The Eld have broken through the Mists.» To Marissya, he said, “You and Dax take the fellanas and the truemates to the Hall of Truth and Healing. Prepare to defend yourselves in case the Eld break through.”
“What about you and Venarra and the rest of the Massan?”
Tenn’s expression turned grim. “When we banished Rain, his duties fell to us. That includes the duty of defending the Fading Lands. Go. Quickly. Venarra, gather the shei’dalins. Nuri, Yulan, come with me.”
The Fading Lands ~ Pass of Revan Oreth
“They did it.” Kieran stared at the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Rhakis mountains, visible now for the first time in a millennium. “Those scorching Elden rultsharts did it, Kiel. They brought down the Mists.”
«Fey!» The cry rang out across the new Warrior’s Path. «Into the pass! Defend the Fading Lands!»
Stone-faced and fire-eyed, Fey warriors shouted, “Miora felah ti’Feyreisen! Miora felah ti’Feyreisa!” and ran into the narrow, rocky pass of Revan Oreth. Kiel and Kieran ran with them.
The pass was many miles long, but as the Fey approached the last third of the trail through the mountains they heard the sound of rocks and pebbles tumbling down the mountainside, accompanied by a strange, clattering that echoed in the canyon, like the hard mandibles of millions of stone-shell beetles clicking madly.
«Fey! Weaves at the ready! Steel is useless. Hundred-fold weaves, or straight Earth and Fire only. Cutting them in half only grows two of them, so have a care. Light be with you, my brothers!»
The clattering noise grew louder, until it was nearly deafening. The Fey rounded a sharp curve in the pass, and the sight that awaited them made Kieran’s blood freeze in his veins.
Coming towards them at an astonishing pace and in numbers the likes of which he’d never seen, were creatures. Thousands upon tens of thousands of creatures with grayish-white bodies and bald, eyeless heads. They looked vaguely and grotesquely manlike, and entirely terrifying. As they neared, he could see the wet shine of their sluglike skins, the round, needle-filled holes of their green foaming mouths, the razor-sharp spines of their grasping, clawed hands and feet.
That was the clicking noise. The sounds of those clawed hands and feet scrabbling across rock with their darting speed. Some ran upright along the narrow path, but most raced on the sides of the mountain, covering the sheer cliff faces of the gorge like a monstrous swarm of beetles.
The first lines of Fey tried to stand their ground, spinning hundredfold weaves, filling the pass with blazing magic. But the revenants were too many. For each one they destroyed, ten more were there to take its place. The revenants reached the Fey lines and began leaping off the mountainside into the thick of the Fey.
Screams broke out as needle-filled mouths and acid skin ripped and dissolved shining Fey flesh.
“Earth masters! Bring down the mountains!”
Earth masters combined their weaves, tearing the sides of the mountain down and sending avalanches into the pass, burying the revenants beneath countless tons of broken rock.
For a chime, the Fey began to breathe easier. But then came the sound of shifting rock. The rubble moved. Clawed hands reached up from the shattered stone into the open air.
“Fey! Retreat! Retreat!”
Celieria ~ Orest
Rain soared across the sky, banking rapidly from left to right, soaring and diving. Another of those scorching Rainseeking bowcannon bolts was on his tail. How many of the flaming things did the Eld have?
Below him, Fey dead littered a battlefield crawling with revenants.
«Shei’tani, how’s your aim with a Fey’cha?» «Getting better by the chime.»
He curled back his lip and gave a growling chuff of tairen laughter. «That’s what I wanted to hear. If I fly low enough, do you think you can grab some of those Fey’cha harnesses with a weave?» «I know one way to find out.»
He chuffed again and blew smoke. Flying with her in battle had shown him an entirely different side of his shei’tani. Gone was the frightened, nightmare-stricken girl, gone too was the strong and powerful shei’dalin healer. In their place was a fierce Fey warrior—one with a good eye for strategy, unhesitating courage, and a deadpan sense of humor that would put Gillandaris vel Jendahr to shame.
«Then let’s find out. And weave a shield around your hands in case the red Fey’cha slip their sheaths. There may be Shadar horn in your bones now, but I don’t want to put it to the test.»
He felt the brief burst of magic.
«Done,» she said. «Let’s go.»
He dove. Behind him, the bowcannon bolt followed suit. His wings spread wide and they soared low over the revenants. Fire boiled from his muzzle, incinerating a wide swath of the hideous creatures. Bright, blazing weaves shot out to his left and right, aiming just beyond the perimeter of his fire, and a collection of Fey’cha harnesses lifted up into the air.
«Got them.»
«All right. Then here’s what we’re going to do.» He sang her the images of what he had in mind in tairen speech.
«Can you manage that?» «I think so. Let’s give it a try.»
Rain put on a burst of speed and soared up, heading straight for Orest. A frenzy of bowcannon bolts launched from the ramparts, but he flamed the incoming, rolled and dived to avoid those that survived his flame and kept to his heading. On his back, Ellysetta flung out spinning weaves of Air and Fire to clear a path. As they crossed the walls of Lower Orest, Rain veered sharply left then wheeled around back to the right and came in nearly parallel to the mountains.
On the ramparts of Upper Orest, the bowcannon were loaded, bowstrings cranked into firing position. Just before the sheer mountain cliff gave way to the stone ramparts of the upper city, Rain put on a burst of speed and said, «Now, shei’tani.»
Ellysetta launched from his back in an Air-powered leap. She shot up into the air, her own forward motion and magic carrying her over the tops of the cannoneers and Mages gathered on the ramparts. Red Fey’cha spit from her fingertips in a hail of death. Below her, Rain engulfed the battery in a boiling jet of tairen flame, consuming cannon and cannoneers alike. He Changed into Mist at the last chime so the bolt that had been following him plowed into the open portal to the Well of Souls, taking half a dozen screaming Mages and Eld with it. He changed back into tairen form in time for Ellysetta to land securely in the saddle. His wings angled sharply and they shot up in a near vertical climb, soaring past the falls of Orest, leaving smoldering fires and corpses in their wake.
They burst into the open sky over the Rhakis. In the distance, no longer hidden by the Mists, he could see the pass of Revan Oreth, where hundreds of thousands of revenants covered the canyon walls like insects.
The Eld hadn’t brought bowcannon to the pass yet, so Rain took a few chimes to send a sea of boiling flame racing through the canyon. High pitched shrieks from burning revenants filled the air. Beyond the fire, Fey warriors cheered and raised their blades into the air. The echoing cries of “Miora felah, ti’Feyreisen! Miora felah, ti’Feyreisa!” followed him and Ellysetta as they banked around the column of steam rising from the first volcano of the Feyls and returned to the battlefield of Orest.
They burst from the pass over Upper Orest and dove back into the missile-filled skies.
«Rijonn, Tajik,» Rain called as he swooped down for another strafing run. «Gather the Earth and Fire masters. I have a plan.»
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
The sound of running and alarmed voices woke Lillis. That and a strange, icy cold that made shivers race down her spine. She sat up in bed, suddenly frightened. “Lorelle?” “Lorelle’s not here anymore.”
A shadow lunged at her from the darkness. She opened her mouth to scream, but something stung her chest. Her head went dizzy and the world went black.
Den Brodson threw Lillis over one thick shoulder and headed into the Well, following the Black Guard who was already carrying Lorelle back to Boura Fell.
Behind him, before the portal to Lillis and Lorelle’s room closed, the first screams broke the peaceful silence of the night as the others who’d come with Den to Dharsa opened more portals and an army of Mages, dahl’reisen, and Eld rushed into the Shining City.
Celieria ~ Orest
Bel snarled and hammered the revenants with powerful weaves of magic, all the while wishing he were slicing them to oozy green bits instead. Fey were used to fighting without magic. The Eld’s fondness for sel’dor made certain of that. Warriors were far less accustomed to fighting without their steel. And despite the Elves’ warning, he had to struggle to keep from reaching for his.
The foul stench of the revenants filled the air, making his eyes water and his stomach heave with each gagging breath. He was a master of all magics save Earth, which he could not weave at all, but his strength in all the other branches was exceptional. Even though his most powerful branch of magic, Spirit, was useless against these creatures, Bel was not.
He reached deep into the source of his power, drew it up into his body until his cells burned and light crackled around him in a glowing nimbus. He wove the vibrant threads into thick, sizzling ropes of power—Spirit, Fire, Air, Water—and fed those ropes into massive hundred-twenty-five-fold weaves that he and his brothers slammed into the endless wall of revenants.
The monstrous creatures shrieked their ear-splitting wails. Many of them dissolved, but more still came.
«Well done, kem’jeto,» Gaelen complimented after a particularly fierce assault. Gil and Gaelen fought nearby, along with a grim-eyed Lord Barrial, who had enough Elf-blood in him to make use of the Light arrows he’d retrieved from fallen Elves, and enough Fey blood to spin a decent weave or two of his own.
Tamsin Greywing was mounted on the back of a Shadar and firing Light arrows as fast as he could. No matter how many he fired, his quiver never ran dry. As Bel watched, a revenant leaped toward Greywing, but the Elf cried something in Elvish and his mount reared up to impale the flying revenant on its spiraling silver horn. The creature exploded, enveloping Greywing and the Shadar in a foul, but harmless cloud of black dust. The Elf coughed and spat, patted the Shadar’s shining neck in approval, then began firing off Light arrows again.
To the northeast of Bel’s position, Azrahn surrounded Farel and his dahl’reisen in a shadowy cloud that glowed dark red in the night. Instead of twenty-five quintets spinning hundred-twenty-five fold weaves, thirty-six chamas—groups of six dahl’reisen spinning six-fold weaves—combined their power into massive two-hundred-sixteen fold weaves that pounded the revenants like steely fists.
Where the Fey’s weave took out a dozen revenants in a single blow, the dahl’reisen’s weave dusted a full score. But even that was not enough. For each revenant they destroyed, four more erupted from the ground to take its place.
Fey weaves and Elvish arrows set the air over the battlefield aglow, yet still the revenants advanced, pushing the allies back handspan by handspan.
Bel swore as more boreholes burst open and even greater numbers of the revenants boiled out of the earth. The supply of the thrice-scorched things was jaffing limitless. In unison, as if directed by some inaudible voice, the back lines of the creatures scrambled over the front and began leaping through the air to land in the midst of the allied lines. Where they landed, screams erupted as razor-sharp claws sliced skin down to bone and acid slime dissolved flesh on contact.
«Retreat!» Bel cried. «Retreat!»
They scrambled back, dragging the wounded with them. Bel slammed vortexes of Air and Fire at the creatures to buy his brothers time, and sent a private spirit weave arrowing across the battlefield. «If you’re going to do something, Rain, now’s the time!»
«Damn it, ‘Jonn, Taj, are you ready yet?» Rain snapped the question across a private weave to the two warriors of Ellysetta’s quintet. «We’re getting slaughtered here! I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold out.»
«Ready, Rain!» came the dual responses.
«Then tell them to go! Now!»
«Order given, Feyreisen.»
The ground began to shake and rumble. In Upper Orest, rocks broke off the surrounding peaks and tumbled down into the city. Rain saw buildings sway, and Eld Mages stagger as the ground beneath their feet became unstable.
The earth cracked. Steam vents opened in Upper Orest. Mages fell back in fear and began to flee as the rumbling of the earth grew more violent and the steam erupting from the vents grew hotter. With a sudden, deafening roar, the entire city of Upper Orest exploded into the sky. Black clouds of smoke and ash billowed upward and fountains of glowing orange molten rock shot into the air and began pouring down the mountainside into Lower Orest.
How do you get an enemy out of a fortified mountain haven?
You had Earth and Fire masters turn the mountain into an active volcano.
«They did it!» Ellysetta cried. «They really did it!»
His triumph and hers didn’t last long. Barely a chime later, the cries rang out on the Warrior’s Path.
«Dharsa is under attack! They’re in the city! Fey! To arms! Dharsa is under attack! They’re in the palace!»
«Rain!» Shocked into sudden sobriety, Ellysetta dug her fingers into the fur at the back of his neck. «My family.»
Rain instantly sent a Spirit weave racing across the distance to Dharsa. «Marissya… Dax… get Ellysetta’s family to safety.»
And then, several long chimes later, Rain’s wings faltered and she felt sorrow and concern well up inside him. Even before he spoke, she knew he’d received a private weave, and she knew the news wasn’t good. Inside her chest, Ellysetta’s heart turned to stone.
«Shei’tani… » Rain hesitated. «I’m sorry, beloved. Your father is safe, but your sisters are gone. Dax says a portal was opened in their room. They’ve been taken.»
“No.” She said. Her lips felt numb. Her whole body had lost all feeling. All she could think of was the dream, that horrible, hateful dream of Lillis and Lorelle, their eyes black as pitch, dancing in a shower of blood. And she knew, just as Sheyl knew when she had a vision, that her dream would come true «Ellysetta.» Rain turned his head as he flew. “No.” She said again, louder.
«Ellysetta, we will get them back. I promise you, shei’tani. As soon as this is over, as soon as we’ve defeated this army, we’ll find out where he’s taken them and we’ll get them back.»
“NO!” This time she screamed it. The sound ripped from her throat like a tairen’s roar. Rage blasted up from that place deep inside, the cold, Lightless place where the beast lived. Ice enveloped her. Hatred consumed her. She wanted these Eld and their foul creatures dead. She wanted this battle to stop.
She wanted her family back.
Now.
Her body began to shake.
On the battlefield, lu’tan and Fey cried out as their magic spun out of their control. One moment, they were spinning fierce weaves to hold back the revenants, the next moment the shining flows of their magic headed skyward, sucked away by a power greater than their own.
Standing between the retreating forces and the revenant hordes, Bel, Gaelen, and Gil all looked up towards the sky, knowing instantly what was happening.
“Ellysetta,” Bel whispered.
Half a tairen-length away, Gaelen saw in shock that even the flows of Elvish and Elden magic were pouring into her.
“Bel, Gaelen,” Gil called, “we have no magic and those revenants are still coming. I suggest we run, kem’jetos.”
Dragging their gazes away from Ellysetta, they ran.
Hissing, the revenants followed.
The magic didn’t burn inside Ellysetta, it froze. Her whole body felt encased in a block of ice.
«Shei’tani?» She heard Rain’s call, but it came as if from a great distance.
These Mages liked death? Murder? Destruction? Well she would give them a taste of their own evil ways.
Her hands shot out, fingers splayed. Concentrated magic roared down her arms, setting her palms ablaze. She knew the weave. She’d seen it often enough. Fled from it often enough.
Power coalesced, blazing blue-white between her palms. She poured it forth, not in a great globe of power like the Mages did, but in a continuous, boiling jet, like tairen fire.
Mage Fire spewed from Ellysetta’s hands, and spilled across the battlefield from the walls of Orest to the allied lines in the east. It consumed revenants and the enemy forces fleeing the lava-ribboned volcano that had been Orest and gouged deep furrows into the earth.
«Shei’tani, nei.»
The tairen beneath her tried to bank, to turn her away, but she seized him with her power and forced him to her will. He flew where she bid him.
A voice was screaming in her head. Whether hers or his, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She wrapped herself in a weave of silence and kept pouring her wrathful river of Mage Fire upon the Elden army.
Vadim Maur watched the blazing, blue-white fire consuming everything in its path. Even the mass destruction of his great army couldn’t stop the pride and savage satisfaction that surged through him at the sight.
“You wonderful, magnificent girl,” he breathed. And with a crow of delight, using the bonds that already connected their souls as a conduit to keep her from absorbing his magic, he sent a concentrated weave of Azrahn stabbing into her soul.
He expected her to scream and flinch back as she had every time before, but instead a great force like nothing he’d ever felt suddenly fixed its gaze upon him. Power ripped through him. Her power. Purest Azrahn of a magnitude he never knew could exist. It plundered him, assaulted him, peeled him down to the smallest particle of a single cell, then put him back together again in the blink of an eye.
And even as his weave forged its fifth Mark upon her soul, her own weave stabbed him through to his core and seared every layer of his body and soul, leaving not just a Mark, but a smoldering brand.
His knees went weak. His bowels turned to water. She had Marked him. She had Marked him.
Vadim Maur grabbed the tent pole for support. Her power ripped from him the way a female tairen might retract her tail spike from the still-twitching body of her prey, but he knew she wasn’t done. He could still feel her eye upon him, dread and merciless. He felt her gather her power for another strike and for the first time in centuries, he whispered, “Gods, help me.”
His savior came from as unlikely a source as the one he’d called upon.
An Elf streaked across the sky on a white Aquiline charger. Light blazed from the Elf’s upraised hand, and the beam fell upon Ellysetta Baristani like a shaft of concentrated sunlight. Now Ellysetta reared back in the way she hadn’t done when Vadim Marked her, and the terrible force of her power turned away from the Mage, freeing him to sink helplessly to his knees.
“Master Maur! Master Maur, look!”
He lifted his head, gasping weakly for breath, and muttered a curse at the sight that greeted him. Sailing up the Heras, with nyatheri leaping through the black waters like silver-blue mermaids, came an Elvian armada, dozens of ships, silver sails filled with the air of a self-propelling wind, carrying thousands more Elves to join the battle. The trees on both shores bowed and danced in the ships’ wakes as the dryatheri, the Danae tree spirits, aboard the Elvish vessels awakened the forests to their call.
Screams rose from the Elden shores as tree branches wound around Eld like serpents, crushing bones to powder, and large tree trunks opened up to swallow men whole. Soldiers drowned where they stood as seductive sirens rose from river’s edge, enveloped them in an entrancing embrace, and took their lips in a kiss that filled their lungs with water. Others mindlessly followed the beckoning calls of beautiful mermaids and plunged into the Heras where nyatheri wrapped them in water vines and dragged them to the bottom of the river.
Vadim wanted to scream with rage. How could the day of his long-planned triumph have gone so horribly wrong? Two-thirds of his magnificent army was destroyed. The dragons were dead. Orest was an active volcano. The Elves and Danae had arrived in force. And Vadim’s Mage-Marked future vessel had just made him soil himself.
But even as he gnashed his teeth in fury, cool reason was already taking over.
No Eld became High Mage without the courage to take a risk. But neither did he stay High Mage without learning to differentiate between risk and foolishness. And this High Mage knew the value of a strategic retreat.
All was not lost. Ellysetta Baristani still bore his Marks, he now had her sisters as well as her parents. When she came for them, he would be waiting. She only needed one more Mark. Just one, and then she and all her magnificent, unprecedented power would be his. And the world would tremble before his immortal greatness.
“Kron, sound the alarm. Evacuate Boura Dor. Everyone into the Well. We’re retreating to Boura Fell.”
Behind the Fey lines, protected by warriors who could call their magic once more, Rain knelt on the ground, holding Ellysetta in his arms.
The Elvian Commander who had called herself Silver-leaf knelt beside him. The palm of her right hand no longer blazed sun-bright with the magic she had poured into Ellysetta, but Rain now knew who she was. A Seer of Elvia, just as she’d claimed. Elves truly didn’t lie, after all. But she was also Elvia’s queen, Illona Brighthand, the Lady of Silvermist, sister to Galad Hawksheart.
“Why would you hide who you were?” he asked.
Illona glanced up. “Does it matter?”
He grimaced. Why did Elves do half the things they did? “I suppose not. But will you at least tell me what happened back there, with Ellysetta?”
The Elf made a soft, regretful sound. “Your mate just faced a truth many of us are lucky never to know. She found out just what she was capable of.”
His hackles rose immediately. “You will not tell me she is evil,” he interrupted. Even though she had seized his body and controlled him like a puppet on strings, he would not—could not—think the worst. “She is not. She is bright and shining.”
“Very bright,” the Elf agreed. “But as capable as she is of good, if she falls to Darkness, she will be equally capable of evil. You do her no favor by refusing to acknowledge that. Especially after today, when she had a glimpse of what she could become.”
Ellysetta stirred in Rain’s arms. Her eyes were still closed as she murmured, “I told you there was evil in me. I told you it was winning.”
“Bayas, it is not unless you will it so.” Illona laid her namesake hand on Ellysetta’s hair. “Look at me, Ellysetta Erimea.” When Ellysetta opened her eyes, the Elf continued, her voice brisk and stern, “I came here—I brought my Elves to your aid—because I did not want to see you fall. Was my faith in you misplaced? Will you give in so easily?”
“Easily?” Rain jumped to her defense. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”
“I do know,” Illona corrected in a sharp voice. “I am Elfkind, and I have watched, just as my brother has done. I know exactly what she has suffered and for how long. But the Dark cannot claim what Light does not surrender.”
“She has surrendered nothing. She has fought more bravely than most, suffered torments few can even imagine, and still her heart is kind, her soul bright and shining.” Rain bent his head and pressed his lips against Ellysetta’s hair. “We are together, Ellysetta. We are unharmed. No matter what happened today, we are still together. We still hold to the Light, and we always will.”
“Will we?” Ellysetta’s hand curled around his wrist. “I Marked the High Mage.”
His mouth went dry. “You what?”
“After he Marked me, I Marked him back. It’s a bit like forging a truemate bond, except with none of the love.” She looked up at him, and there was such weary acceptance in her eyes, such increasing despair, it made him want to weep.
“Apparently, I’m not just a shei’dalin and a Tairen Soul, I’m also a Mage.”
Rain moistened his lips and looked up at the Elf queen. “Is she? A Mage?” He couldn’t believe he was practically begging an Elf for answers, but when it came to helping and protecting Ellysetta, he was discovering there wasn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t do.
“If she chooses to be, anio. She has the power to become one. But just because you can wield magic like a Mage, Ellysetta, that doesn’t mean you must.” The Elf queen sat back on her heels. “That is the other reason I came to you—to give you a truth my brother was unwilling to share. He has tried for many years to deny it, but the fact is that no one—not even Galad, with all his skill and power—can See with certainty the outcome of your Song. He cannot because you are a force rarely born to a world, something we Elves call leinah thaniel, the Song that sings all Songs, the Mirror that shows all Mirrors, the Change that changes everything.”
“What does that mean?” Rain was so tired of Elvish mysticism. He just wanted answers, plain and simple.
“It means your mate holds within herself a divine spark, the power to do the unexpected, to change her Song and the Songs of others, just as she has already done many times.” The Elf turned her gaze upon Ellysetta. “It means there is no ‘meant to be’ for you. There is only ‘choose to be.’ So choose wisely, Ellysetta Erimea. Much depends on it.”
Illona Brighthand stood. “You know, in your heart, what is right. You proved that to me earlier today when you would not force the spirits of your lu’tan to your service. Trust in yourself—and know that the right path is rarely the easiest.” She looked west and her eyes took on a deep, mysterious shimmer. “You both should go. The Fey need you in Dharsa.”
“What about Orest?” Rain asked.
“The Eld are retreating. Your mate killed most of the revenants and my brother’s Elves have arrived with the Danae. We will help your friends here to end this battle. Dharsa is where you are now needed most.”
The Fading Lands ~
Dharsa
11th day of Seledos
Spurred by Illona, Rain and Ellysetta flew as fast as wings and magic could carry them. With the Mists down, they soared, unimpeded, over the Rhakis mountains, flying over the pass of Revan Oreth and giving the remaining revenants there a good scorching before continuing onward across the eastern desert and the Plains of Corunn.
They arrived with the dawn at the Shining City of the Fey. But instead of the raging battle they were expecting, they found the aftermath of one.
The jewel of the Fading Lands lay in ruins. Dharsa’s buildings were shattered and smoking, their pristine white stones charred black. Scorched, leafless orchards dotted burned hillsides. Instead of jasmine and honeyblossom, the city smelled of smoke and death.
As they flew towards the palace, they could see Fey dragging the bodies of the dead invaders into a pile while six tairen took turns flaming the corpses to harmless ash. Elsewhere, other Fey carried their fallen brothers and sisters to the gardens, where quintets had gathered to send the bodies back to the elements.
“I don’t understand,” Ellysetta said as she and Rain landed in the tairen’s courtyard near the Hall of Tairen and he Changed back into Fey form. “I thought the Elf queen said we were needed here.”
“You are needed here.” Marissya and Dax stepped into the courtyard. Sol Baristani and, to Ellysetta’s surprise, the Elf Fanor Farsight followed close on their heels. “The Fading Lands will always need its Tairen Souls. And with the Mists down, we need you now more than ever.”
“Papa.” Bypassing the others, Ellysetta headed straight for her father and melted in his arms. She breathed the beloved aroma of his pipe smoke and was instantly transported back to the days of her childhood, when she lived surrounded by her family and secure in the warmth of her parents’ love. Tears gathered and she let them fall. “We will get them back, Papa. I promise you. Rain and I will find a way.”
“I know you will.” His hands patted her back. “For now, I’m just glad to see you safe, Ellie-girl.” He pulled back and smiled through his own teary eyes.
With an arm around her father’s waist, Ellysetta turned to watch Rain greet Fanor Farsight, the Deep Woods Elf.
“Farsight. I did not expect to see you here after Hawks-heart said he could not help us.”
One of Fanor’s brows arched slightly. “Lord Galad said he could not join your battle against the High Mage. He never said he would not aid the Fey in Dharsa.”
“They arrived in time to help the tairen rout the Mages,” Dax said. “Unfortunately, the city had already been breached. Dahl’reisen, Black Guard, and a host of Mages got through. We lost hundreds, but it would have been thousands without the warriors who stayed behind as Tenn commanded. They kept the Eld at bay until the tairen and Elves arrived. Nurian and Yulan were killed in the fighting, and their mates passed into the Veil with them. Tenn nearly perished as well, but Marissya and Venarra managed to keep him alive. He’s in the Hall of Truth and Healing now, helping his mate look after the wounded.”
“He knew we were coming?” Rain asked.
“Aiyah.”
“And he did not call for armed Fey to defend the Fading Lands against its dahl’reisen king?”
“You are dahl’reisen no longer. Sybharukai spoke to him herself. She told him the Fey’Bahren pride had chosen the next leader of the Fading Lands and that it was not him. She also told him that his brother, Johr Feyreisen, had already singled you out to be trained for leadership so that you might one day ascend the throne.”
“I never knew that.” Rain shook his head in wonder. “So that convinced him? Learning that his brother had been considering me for the throne?”
Dax snorted. “I think the kicker was when Sybharukai told him that the tairen would drive from the Fading Lands any people who reviled or threatened you or Ellysetta.”
His brows shot up. “She said that?”
“Ai-yah,” Dax confirmed with grinning emphasis. “You should have seen Tenn’s face when she bared her fangs and growled, ‘Tairen defend the pride.’ I swear, he near wet himself.”
“Dax,” Marissya chided, “you should not take such delight in that. Tenn has served this kingdom well for centuries.”
“I agree that he did—right up until he decided to banish its king and queen, at which time, in my opinion, he earned himself a hard beating with a dull blade. Sybharukai let him off easy.”
“I must thank her for coming to our defense,” Rain said. “But it is time to repair the damage this war has wrought—both on the city and among ourselves. There is much to be mended, on all sides.”
They spent all day doing just that, mending buildings and mending bridges with the Fey. Their first stop was the Hall of Truth and Healing, where Rain and Ellysetta met with Tenn and Venarra. The meeting was stiff and formal, but it passed without bloodshed or name calling. For a first step, that was enough.
They worked throughout the day, but with every wall they reconstructed, every weeping Fey they consoled, every stiff, cold-eyed warrior whose suspicions they allayed, Ellysetta realized that simply rescuing her sisters and parents from Eld wasn’t going to be enough. This Mage had to be stopped, and according to the Elves, she was the only one who could. Even if it cost her life.
Perhaps that was the real reason Illona Brighthand had sent them here. Not because Dharsa needed them, but because she needed Dharsa and the reminder that even though the war was over, her own battle was not yet done. Because Ellysetta needed a day without war to remember why it was necessary… and what she was fighting for.
“You said that when we defeated the Army of Darkness, we would go to Eld to save my parents,” Ellysetta reminded Rain as the afternoon drew to a close and the sun began to set. “That time has come. I don’t want my sisters, or my parents, to spend one more night than necessary in Eld hands. And I’m going with you.”
“Shei’tani.… You know I would give you the stars from the heavens if you asked it of me, but this…” Shadows turned lavender eyes to brooding violet. “Our bond is not complete. You bear five Mage Marks.”
“If we don’t find a way to defeat him, I may someday bear six.” She framed his face in her hands. “I have to do this, Rain. It’s what I was born for.” The chime she said the words aloud, she knew they were true. “We are Tairen Souls, shei’tan, you and I both. We are Defenders not just of the Fey but of the Light, including the Light that shines in good people everywhere—in my sisters and my parents, in Celierians… in the poor people of Eld who never had a choice for any life but servitude and Darkness. This High Mage must be stopped. Not just defeated and left in peace to grow strong again, but vanquished. That is our purpose. That is why we were born.”
“We should consult Shei’Kess. Perhaps it will—“
“Nei.” She shook her head and gave a sad smile. “The Eye can show us nothing we don’t already know. It’s what we feel here—” she tapped first her chest, then his, “—that matters. You heard the Elf queen. I am leinah thaniel. There are no fates I cannot change, but this fate is one I cannot change without you. You are my strength, Rain. You are the courage I’ve always lacked.”
He gave a choked laugh, and tears glittered in his eyes. “If I am your courage, then why does this idea of yours leave me so frightened?”
Her heart contracted, and she smiled at him, softly, through brimming eyes. “Because it is frightening, kem’san. Because it’s dangerous, risky, the odds so stacked against us it’s unlikely anyone could do this thing and live. And that’s why a Tairen Soul was born to do it—why we were born to do this.” She pressed her lips to his. “When a feyreisen finds his wings, he knows he was born to die protecting others. That is why we must go.”
He drew her closer, nestling her in his arms and leaning his head against hers. “When did you get so wise, Ellysetta kem’reisa?”
Celieria ~ Orest
12th day of Seledos
Rain and Ellysetta spent half the night in Dharsa, the other half in Fey’Bahren with the pride and the kitlings, who had grown a great deal in the last two months. In the morning, they flew back to Orest to meet with the lu’tan and devise a plan to rescue Ellysetta’s family and kill the High Mage of Eld.
Farel’s men had captured a wounded Mage and a handful of Eld soldiers, all of whom they held in a bubble of thirty-six fold weaves. A little Truthspeaking and the threat of being eaten alive by a tairen had encouraged the soldiers to talk. They told their captors about Vadim Maur’s main fortress where all magic-gifted prisoners were taken after their capture, and about how each Boura—each underground fortress of the Eld—contained a gateway to the Well of Souls that was kept open all the time.
The plan was to have one of the dahl’reisen open a portal and bring one of the Eld soldiers along to lead the Fey through the Well to wherever Ellysetta’s parents and sisters were being held. They would invade the Boura using the dahl’reisen invisibility weaves, free all the prisoners, and use Ellysetta’s connection to the High Mage to locate and kill him while they were there.
The “plan” had holes large enough to fly a tairen through—nei, an entire pride of tairen—but Rain couldn’t come up with anything better. So with a bit of instruction from the captured Mage, Farel successfully opened the portal to the Well of Souls. And into the Well, they went: Rain, Ellysetta, her quintet, a hundred lu’tan, and the Elden soldier as their guide.
The inside of the Well was an unpleasant place, dark and cold, full of whispers and distant shrieks and swirling pools of shadowy mist that the Eld advised them to avoid if they valued their lives. How he knew where to go, Ellysetta didn’t know, but later, it would occur to her that was a question she should have asked and gotten answered.
Because when they reached the gateway into Boura Fell, which appeared as a glowing red circle within the Well, their arrival did not come as the surprise they had intended. No sooner had they donned their invisibility weaves and slipped through the gateway into a large room, than the gateway closed behind them. A barrage of tiny darts and a burst of pale blue gas filled the air.
Ellysetta’s vision blurred, and the world tilted crazily. She and all the Fey fell, unconscious, to the stone floor.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Ellysetta woke to the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit and the taste of misery in her mouth. Her bones ached. Her flesh throbbed.
She could hear the moans of tortured creatures, feel the despair sapping her soul. This was a place without hope, without Light, and she knew she’d fallen into one of the Seven Hells.
Her muscles clenched, shuddering as the sting of a thousand icy knives stabbed into her soul. She swallowed, then coughed.
Sel’dor cloaked her in bitter, burning pain. A collar of enslavement about her neck, manacles about her wrists and ankles.
Her lashes fluttered as she forced her eyes open. Expecting darkness, she was surprised to find herself in the center of a well-appointed room. Beautifully furnished—deceptively so, because beneath the silken surface, she could feel the acid burn of sel’dor.
She turned her head, her gaze moving instinctively towards the corner of the room where a shrouded figure stood in the shadows. As the figure approached her, the formless shroud became rich purple Mage robes draped around a tall frame.
The Mage threw back his cowl, and Ellysetta frowned in confusion at the stranger standing by her bedside. She had expected the High Mage, the architect of her nightmares, with his cloud of white hair framing a face that seemed both ancient and ageless. But this Mage was young and fit and… handsome. That seemed so wrong. Evil shouldn’t wear a pleasing face.
Only the cold, silver eyes seemed familiar. That and the cruelty curled at the corner of his mouth.
Then he spoke, and though the sound of the voice was as unfamiliar as his face, the smug, conscienceless evil that resonated in every word was all too familiar. Whatever face he wore, whatever voice he used, this was the High Mage of Eld, the dark evil presence that had pursued and tormented her all her life.
“Welcome, my dear, to Boura Fell.”