King of Sword and Sky (48 page)

The brief moment of doubt and fear passed, and her confidence surged anew. As long as Rain was with her, she was strong.

She traced the threads of her weave as a miner lost in the impenetrable blackness of a cave might follow a rope to guide himself back to the surface, only she followed to go deeper into the mine. Finally, after a seemingly endless plunge into dark, light reappeared. First came soft glimmers of red, then dim, faint glows of a brighter hue that, as she drew nearer, became small orbs of rainbow-hued light, flickering uncertainly. The kitlings.

And with them, the enemy she'd come to fight.

A nearly invisible, shifting darkness that merged into the surrounding black of the Well. Nothing as substantial as smoke, but rather an oily void that moved as if it were alive. From it flowed countless tiny threads, like black spider silk, attached to the kitlings' souls, sucking at them like so many leeches, draining away their brightness.

She lashed at the dark threads, tearing them away from the unwilling hosts.

«Get away from them! Leave them alone.»

The threads reared back, writhing blindly. A handful of them latched onto her. She ripped them away, only to find a dozen more reaching out to replace them. Everywhere they touched, her brightness dimmed, as if the hungry mouths were draining her soul too.

«Ellysetta!»
Rain cried. A surge of power raced through her, filling her with the bright, powerful, blazing light of his love.

The black thing shrank back, its silken threads releasing her as if burned.

Yes. Yes, that's it,
ajiana.
No darkness, no matter how deep, holds dominion over Light. Shine your Light, Ellysetta. Weave your love.

The voice spoke with quiet certainty, reaffirming her strength. She could do this. She had the power. The gods had chosen her to do it.

She drew upon her magic, upon Rain's fiercely shining brightness, upon the strength of the tairen concentrated in the crystals she held and the song that swirled around her. It still wasn't enough. Too much of her own strength was tethered to that safety anchor she'd prepared, and the magic she needed to weave now demanded everything she had to give.

She released her anchor, gathering that magic into herself as well, summoning every bit of power from every source she could find. She spun it into threads, glowing, golden-white
shei'dalins
love, burning bright as the Great Sun, and with it shadowy Azrahn, dark as the ember of a dead star. The new pattern both fed strength into the kits and began to shear away those feeding mouths from the Well.

As each dark strand withered and fell away, the kitlings' light shone brighter.

She kept feeding power into her weave, drawing upon Rain, the tairen, and the seemingly limitless source of confidence and love she'd found so unexpectedly here in the Well. Her Azrahn and
shei'dalin's
love were so tightly interwoven, the threads became a single melded rope. Light and dark strobed in rhythm like blood flowing through the life-giving arteries of a god. The light was stronger than the dark. Its radiant glow brightened the shadows, each pulse more brilliant than the last, until no hint of red-tinged black nor even sickly gray shone in the incandescent threads of her weave.

She spun that life, that love, and that fierce strength into the kits' souls, pouring it out upon them as the Source of Dharsa poured its waters upon the fountains and streams of the city, giving them everything, holding back nothing for herself.

The kitlings' voices grew louder, surer. The timid, hesitant glimmers of their song became shining stars of gold and silver light, a river of sparkling brightness that illuminated the Well as it spiraled upwards.

«Go, dearlings,"
Ellysetta urged. «
Go.»
She gave them each a gentle nudge with sun-bright hands. The shining orbs that were the kitlings' souls shifted, spreading, stretching out small limbs and wings to become small, dazzling glows of tairen-shaped light. They soared upwards, following the river of song out of the Well.

Vadim Maur roared as he felt the bright souls of the tairen escaping from Choutarre's grip. Bitter rage and reckless fury warred inside him. He plunged the exorcism needle filled with Ellysetta's blood into his own vein and whispered the release spell. The searing rush of her powerful blood mingled with his own. His senses and his connection to her sharpened.

For the second time that night, he struck.

Ellysetta shrieked as the Mage's dark power drove a new blade of ice into her heart.

Her light shattered, and the Well was plunged into darkness.

Dimly she heard Rain calling her name, but the sound was muffled and so far away. Weariness enveloped her. She was so tired, her strength depleted. She'd given everything she had to the kitlings, keeping precious little for herself, and the fourth Mark that now bloomed on her breast had drained what Light yet remained.

In the darkness and silence, she could hear the voices, the whispers, calling her name as they had at the peak of the Fire Song. The urge to let go was nearly overpowering. She was so tired, and somehow the voices didn't seem so frightening anymore. Now, they seemed only welcoming.

"Ellysetta!"
Rain's voice boomed in the silence of the Well. The threads of their bond blazed with sudden incandescence as the vast, immeasurable force of his power sizzled down them, as strong and vibrant as
faerilas
from Dharsa's Source, shocking her back to alertness.

Rain, her mate. Rain, her love.

Rain, who was weaving black Azrahn in a desperate bid to free her from the Well.

A sudden surge of dark power exploded in the Well. The High Mage, who had baited his trap and waited, now struck in earnest. His magic plunged like a dagger into Rain's weave.

"No!" she screamed in horror.
"Shei'tan!"

The next thing Ellysetta knew, she was lying on the hot sands of the nesting lair, staring up into the savage blaze of lavender eyes. Rain snatched her up, hauling her into his arms, holding her so tight she could scarcely breathe.

"Beylah sallan. Beylah sallan."
His voice cracked. "I thought I'd lost you,
shei'tani."

Terrified on his behalf, she pushed against him and tore open his tunic with a sharp weave of Earth, baring the smooth paleness of his chest. She summoned a flicker of Azrahn, then promptly extinguished it after a brief gasp of disbelief. Rain's chest was luminous and Fey pale, without the slightest smudge of a Mage Mark upon it.

"I don't understand." Her shaking fingers trembled against his flesh. "You wove Azrahn. I saw him strike you. I felt it. Yet you are unmarked."

Rain clasped her hand to his breast and gave a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "How could he lay claim to a soul that already belongs utterly to you? There is nothing I would not give, no part of me I would not sacrifice, no law I would not break if it meant keeping you from harm.
Kem'reisa sha
ver.
My soul is yours. Do with it what you will."

She felt her own soul unfurl like a flower blossoming in the sun as a brilliant new bond thread spun from her deepest being to his. Glorious and golden-white, a thread of purest
shei'dalin's
love, a bond of truth and trust she knew would never be broken. She flung her arms around his neck, pulling him close. She wept as her lips found his, claiming his mouth as she had claimed his heart and soul.

Behind them, around them, the pride began to hum, and a rich, bright melody of tairen song flowed out into the nesting lair.

Ellysetta and Rain turned. The four eggs were rocking, tears appearing in the hardened leathery hides as razor-sharp claws poked through. Tiny muzzles, filled with egg teeth, poked through the holes, gnawing at the edges to make them larger.

Four damp, fuzzy little heads poked through, glowing, jewel-toned eyes whirling star-bright. The leathery eggs stretched and shredded. Wriggling and squirming, the kitlings clawed their way to freedom, until all four small bodies tumbled out and lay panting on the sands, mewing, trembling with exhaustion. Their damp wings fluttered.

Sybharukai bent her head to lick each of the kitlings dry, purring deep in her throat. The kitlings closed their eyes in bliss and tilted up their small heads, bodies quivering with their happy, answering purrs.

"Oh, Rain." Ellysetta held him tight, her eyes filled with happy tears.

"You did it,
shei'tani."

She shook her head.
"Nei. We
did it,
shei'tan.
You and I."

Eld - Boura
Fell

Vadim Maur knew from his
umagis'
wide eyes and frightened silence that this trip to the Well and his reckless, overreaching attempt to deliver three Mage Marks in one night had cost him dearly. He knew it even before enough sensation returned to his body that he could feel how his legs had turned to rubber beneath him. The bony hands clutching the sides of the birthing table had turned bloodless white, the tissue beneath his yellowed nails had gone a dark, bruised purple.

"Help me to a chair." His words sounded garbled, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth.

Two of the
umagi
rushed forward to put their shoulders beneath his arms, carrying his weight as his feet half shuffled, half dragged across the floor to a chaise in an adjoining room.

Not a single tairen's soul had been claimed. Every one of them was lost. Set free by Ellysetta Baristani's use of the great magic he had bestowed upon her. The very magic that he'd intended to claim for himself, to make himself a living god—powerful beyond measure, invincible.

Immortal.

He closed his eyes with effort and sucked in a rattling breath. Bloody froth bubbled up from his lungs when he exhaled.

"Bring Elfeya to me now. Put her mate in the observation room."

The Fading Lands
~
Fey'Bahren

Ellysetta nestled in Rain's arms as together they watched the kitlings' first few bells of life. All four were healthy, their eyes bright, their songs strong, their little bodies already covered with soft, downy fur.

"Little" was a relative word, of course. Each kitling was the size of a small pony, and their wings extended to easily three manlengths across, but next to the full-grown adults of the pride, they appeared tiny. They sang as they purred, and Ellysetta recognized each one by its song. Hallah was a pure black beauty with iridescent green eyes. Sharra and Letah looked like small versions of their mother, Cahlah, with cinnamon brown fur and golden eyes. The lone little male, Miauren, was as gray as his granddam, with black tips on his ears and tail.

The kitlings were born with mouths full of teeth and bellies full of hunger, and when Steli returned with a fresh
tavalree
carcass, Ellysetta turned her face away from the exuberant carnivorous ferocity with which they attacked their first meal.

Rain laughed softly at her squeamishness. "Come,
shei'tani.
Let's leave the kitlings to their meal. I will take you back to Dharsa; then I must return to Orest."

She nodded, joy turning to melancholy. She knew without Rain's saying so, that he would collect the king's armor from Dharsa. The next time he returned—if he returned— the Fading Lands would be at war.

Steli growled and paced after them. Her blue eyes whirled. «
Fey-kin gather on
Su Reisu.
Growl pride-warnings, Rainier-Eras. They are not welcome with kits in the lair.»

"Bel must have arrived. I will tell him and Gaelen to leave."

The sky was still dark over the Fading Lands, and to Rain and Ellysetta's surprise, at least twenty warriors stood in the firelight on Su Reisu where they had left Gaelen. But Gaelen and another warrior, who could only be Bel, were kneeling on the plateau in the center of a ring of warriors, imprisoned by dense, radiant, multifold weaves.

"Stay here," Rain said. "I will go down."

Ellysetta clutched his hand in a tight grip.
"Nei,
they didn't come here for you." Both Bel and Gaelen were imprisoned. That could mean only one thing. "They came for me. They must have realized what I was intending to do."

"We will go together,
shei'tani."
When she would have objected, Rain pressed a silencing finger to her lips. "We made this choice together. We'll face the consequences together."

She stepped back so he could summon the Change, and together they flew down to Su Reisu to face the gathered Fey warriors.

He recognized a few of the Fey: A handful of them were those who'd made a great point of walking out that first day at the Academy, before Gaelen rang the gong. Unbending warriors, clinging to the shining, spotless ideal of perfect honor, as if only that could ever be worthy of their regard.

He couldn't blame them for their views. The idea of perfect honor was a beautiful dream, one Rain himself had fixed in his heart for years. And it was a worthy goal—as long as the pursuit of it did not become a slavish devotion empty of all compassion and willingness to accept change.

"What is your business here, Fey?" he asked. Bel and Gaelen were both speaking and gesturing at him, but neither voice nor Spirit could penetrate the twenty-five-fold weaves wrapped so tightly around them. His magic pooled within him, ready for summoning at the first hint of aggression. "By what authority do you imprison the First General of the Fading Lands and a
chatok
of the Academy?"

One of the Fey stepped forward. His eyes were bright and hard, his face an expressionless mask. "By the authority of the
Shei'dalin
and the Massan," he said.

Rain sensed the explosion of power only a split second before another thirty Fey shed their invisibility weaves. Two dense, twenty-five-fold weaves sprang up around him and Ellysetta.

Eld
~
Boura Fell

Bound in
sel'dor
manacles and collar and pinned to the wall by thick
sel'dor
chains, Elfeya hid her savage joy as she beheld the rotting wreck of the High Mage. His face was the decaying skull of a corpse. Livid flesh drooped in waxy folds beneath his sunken eyes and around his nose and mouth. His eyes were silver coins floating in pools of scarlet blood, and his once-thick mane of white hair had gone thin and sparse, sickly tufts clinging to the thin, mottled, parchment-like skin that covered his skull.

"I will not heal you," she told him with cold defiance. "If that is why you summoned me, you have wasted what little time in this life you have left."

He laughed, and it turned into a cough that sprayed bloody sputum like a red mist. "Such brave words. You grow much bolder than you should." He waved, and the wall beside her became transparent. Inside a well-lit chamber, Shan was strapped by dozens of barbed
sel'dor
bands to a table made of the same foul, black metal. His eyes were blindfolded, his mouth gagged.

The sight of him made her quail as fear and desperate love seized her in equal measures. She wanted to plead for his release, but she and Shan had already agreed they would not. She tossed her head and forced herself to speak as though her heart were not being ripped from her chest. "What else can you do to us that you have not already done? He will not survive more torture. If you kill him, you only set me free. Either way, I am through prolonging your foul life. No matter what you do, I will not heal you."

"Oh, I won't kill him. Not for a long, long time." He bent and spoke into a tube connected to the adjoining room. "Disembowel him."

Elfeya closed her eyes as one of the guards in Shan's room lifted a razor-sharp hook and approached Shan's vulnerable belly. She felt the instant the hook sank into his skin as if it sank into her own, felt the burn of his intestines tearing as the guard drew them out of his body. She didn't speak to Shan. She didn't dare, terrified that if she heard his voice, she would not be strong, as they'd agreed she must be. She felt every moment of his suffering and bit her lip until her mouth filled with blood.

"That's enough, I think. Time for healing." Maur spoke into the tube again.

Despite herself, Elfeya opened her eyes and turned her head in time to see a woman with vacant eyes being escorted into Shan's room. When the guard led her to Shan's body and put her hands over his torn belly, a green glow lit the air around the woman's hands. Shan's body arched and his throat strained as a muffled scream rattled out of him.

"She isn't nearly as skilled as you, I'm afraid, and her mind is gone, as you can see, but the poor thing can't stop healing. You've been getting…recalcitrant… so I had her brought from one of my other palaces. Alas, she causes as much pain as the wound she's healing, but she's quite adept at keeping her patients alive. Indefinitely."

Elfeya began to weep. Thrice more, the guards ripped Shan's belly open. Thrice more the poor, mindless husk of a
shei'dalin
healed him with her instinctive weaves. All the while, both Elfeya and Shan felt every burning moment, and they both knew it could—and would—go on and on and on. The pain grew so terrible, Shan lost consciousness.

"Parei!
Stop!" In desperation, she dropped to her knees before the High Mage and seized his hands.
"Teska,
I beg you. I will heal you. Remove these bonds, stop Shan's torture, and I will heal you."

The High Mage nodded to the guard. "Remove the manacles on her wrists." To Elfeya, he hissed, "You will heal me now. If your results please me, I will halt his torture."

Weeping, she spun the weaves, feeling the acid burn of
sel'dor
as she channeled as much power as she could into the rotting shell of Vadim Maur's body. When she could do no more, her hands fell away. Her head drooped in defeat. "Please."

He commanded one of the
umagi
to bring him a mirror. His face was still disfigured, the flesh mottled and drooping like melted wax, but most of his strength had returned. He stood, grabbed a fistful of Elfeya's hair, and hauled her to her knees.

"Did you think you could interfere as you did tonight and I would not know it?" he hissed. "Did you think I could not feel you feeding her the weaves, showing her how to spin her power?" He shook her like a child. "You and your beloved Lord Death will pay for what you have cost me. You will pay dearly…and for a very long time." He flung her against the wall. Her head cracked against the stone, making stars flash before her eyes.

He pinned the guards with his scarlet-filled silver gaze. "Take the male back to his cell. You may begin with him again tomorrow."

"And her?"

Vadim Maur glanced down at Elfeya, the edge of his disfigured mouth curling. "Make her scream. Make her beg for death. But do not give it to her. I want her alive the day I claim her daughter's body and soul."

The Fading Lands
~
Fey'Bahren

Dawn turned the eastern sky over the Fading Lands to pale pink. Rain sat in the center of his magical cage, his body relaxed, his mind calm. He'd Raged the first few bells of his imprisonment, but no longer. Now, his tairen lay coiled within him, a silent hunter, not mindlessly wild but lethally patient, waiting for the first chance to spring. Isolated by the dense weaves of their cages, he and Ellysetta could not call for help, and could not even speak to each other except through their bond threads.

Their Fey guards stood up and turned to the west, Fey'cha in hand. A moment later, they sheathed their blades and waved to the approaching party. Tenn, Yulan, and Nurian crested the Su Reisu plateau, their
shei'dalin
mates close behind.

The six of them approached their imprisoned king and his mate. Tenn nodded to the guards, and the dome of magic around Ellysetta dissolved, leaving five-fold weaves of Spirit surrounding her so she could not call to the tairen for aid, while gleaming circlets bound her arms to her chest so she could not spin any other magic in her defense.

Tenn stepped forward. His expression was as stony as any Fey battle mask she'd ever seen. "Ellysetta of Celieria, you stand accused of weaving the forbidden magic. Will you admit your crime willingly, or must you be Truthspoken?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Release Rain. You imprison your king. In Celieria, Tenn v'En Eilan, you would be branded a traitor and sentenced to death by torture."

"We are not in Celieria," the Fire master said softly, "and our actions are not treason. We"—he gestured to include Yulan, Nurian, and Venarra—"are here to stop Rain's madness and keep him from destroying the Fading Lands."

"Madness?" she spat. "Everything he's done, he's done to save the Fading Lands! How can you betray him this way?"

"You dare suggest
we
betray
him?"
Tenn's eyes burned with red-gold flames, and his voice dropped to a low note that vibrated with fury. "He has broken every Fey law that does not suit his whim and made a mockery of the honor that serves as the cornerstone of our existence! He brings a
dahl'reisen
through the Mists and installs him as an honored
chatok
in the hallowed halls of Dharsa's Warriors' Academy. He grants a Mage-Marked woman entrance to the Fading Lands…stands idly by while she enchants hundreds of our finest and noblest warriors into bloodswearing themselves to her service…then makes her his queen even though the Eye of Truth reveals her for the foul, Azrahn-wielding corruptor she is!"

Tenn drew himself up to his full height, righteous fury swirling around him in swaths of fiery red magic. "He has betrayed us in every way possible!
Because he brought
you
into the Fading Lands!"

"He brought me because the Eye told him I would save the tairen," she cried. "And I have! Four kitlings were born in Fey'Bahren tonight—
because Rain and I saved them."

Consternation flashed across Tenn's face. For a moment—just a moment—she saw doubt flicker in his gold-sparked eyes.

Yulan stepped forward, his brows drawn together in an accusing scowl. "How did you save them, Celierian? With Azrahn? Did our king knowingly allow you to weave the forbidden magic?"