"Aiyah.”
"Did the husband find him there?”
"Nei,
Adrial had enough sense to cloak himself in Spirit before diSebourne entered." Rowan's jaw flexed. "Can you not speak to the king, Rain? Is there no way to dissolve the marriage, as your betrothal was dissolved?”
"Some other time it might have been possible. But you heard the nobles tonight. Dorian rests on the blade's edge of a rebellion. Even if dissolving a marriage were within his power, Dorian couldn't do it now. Not to benefit the Fey at the cost of his own subjects. Go back to Adrial; tell him to have patience.”
Even as he said it, Rain knew the advice was worthless. No amount of patience would make Talisa a free woman. If she left her husband of her own volition, diSebourne could simply claim the Fey had used magic to control her mind. There were many Celierian who would be all too happy to believe it.
Rowan started to leave, then stopped at the door and turned to pin Gaelen with a fierce glare. "I'll be watching you,
dahl'reisen,
with red never far from my fingertips.”
"It's heartwarming to be the object of such affection," Gaelen quipped when the door closed behind Rowan with a bang. "What did you expect, vel Serranis?" Rain asked.
"Death," he said simply. "But I received salvation in its stead." He bowed in Ellysetta's direction and gave a fanning wave. "I will do everything in my power to prove myself worthy." He straightened, and his shoulders squared. "And you, Tairen Soul, should not make me the focus of your suspicions when the High Mage has fixed his eye upon your mate.”
"I am quite aware of the Eld threat. But the attacks on Ellysetta and the recent host of troubles with Celieria all appear to have been orchestrated by
dahl'reisen,
not by Mages." Rain nodded to Marissya, who took her brother's hand again.
"I ordered no attack on your mate. Not by command or implication," Gaelen said.
"Truth," Marissya said.
"And yet your Fey'cha ended up in the hands of a street child who stabbed her with it last week." Rain lifted a brow. "How do you explain that?”
"I've fought along the borders for the last seven centuries. I've lost a blade or two in the process. One of those could easily have fallen into enemy hands." Gaelen frowned. "Since I did not order that attack, the most obvious suspects are the Mages, but that makes no sense. This High Mage is no fool. Why would he send a search party to Norban to torture a woodsman and slay two Fey for what they learned about the Feyreisa if he simply intended to kill her?”
"The blade was numbed," Marissya said. "Perhaps it was meant only to injure.”
"To injure?" he repeated. "For what purpose?" Gaelen had walked the earth for twenty-five hundred long years. More than half that time, he'd spent fighting Eld. He knew their ways. And he knew the Mages never acted without purpose.
The Fey'cha was meant to implicate him, obviously. It was only a diversion, a false trail. But the attack itself ... a numbed blade not meant to kill. Was that a false trail, too? Images whirled in his mind: the tortured woodsman, the two dead Fey, the Mage searching for a lost child who he claimed was the daughter of the High Mage of Eld. Another image superseded the others: a great and legendary treasure bearing pestilence in its golden chalices.
Gaelen's gaze swept across the room to fix on Ellysetta, and horror dug its talons deep in his belly. He'd come to kill her, and she'd saved his soul. She was innocent, as bright a soul as he'd ever seen. But what if there was darkness in her even she did not realize?
Conscious of Marissya's hand on his skin, he clamped a fierce hold on his thoughts. His face went still as stone. "You said there've been several attacks on the Feyreisa," he said to Rain. "What else has happened besides the stabbing?”
"She received an ensorceled gift yesterday," Rain answered. "When she touched the thing, it summoned a demon and opened some kind of ... rift behind her.”
"A rift?”
"Like the portals demons use to escape the Well of Souls, only much larger.”
"Did anything come through it?”
"Nei.
But she was being directed towards it by a Spirit weave.”
The tension that gripped Gaelen abated slightly. If Ellysetta was indeed an unwitting agent of the High Mage, he would not set a trap to capture her.
Unless the demon attack was yet another false trail intended to speed her delivery to the Fading Lands. What better way to make the Fey rush her behind the safety of the Faering Mists than to make it seem as though her life were in danger?
No, no, he wouldn't believe it. His suspicions sprang from the last thousand years of living as a
dahl'reisen,
which he'd survived by suspecting a trap in every gift and seeking the enemy in every shadow.
She'd restored his soul, and he was bloodsworn to her service, bound to protect her above all others in life and in death. She was an innocent, a miraculous gift from the gods.
«What's wrong, Gaelen?»
Marissya's concern swept across him.
He secured his wayward thoughts and emotions behind the barriers of his mind, where she could not access them except through forceful Truthspeaking.
«I do not like the sound of these Eld attacks.»
That was truth enough to reassure her.
"What is the Well of Souls?" Ellysetta asked.
"Celierian call it the Underworld," Rain answered. "It's the home of unborn souls and the dead who haven't yet earned passage to the next world. It's also the home of demons.”
"The Eld have long used Azrahn and
selkahr
crystals to summon demons from the Well," Gaelen added, "but in the last few years, they've learned how to open a physical doorway between the Well of Souls and the living world." He felt the weight of every Fey's sudden, penetrating stare. They had not known about this new Eld accomplishment, then. "They use it to travel, and they're completely undetectable unless they use Azrahn to open the doorway. If the rift that opened behind the Feyreisa was such a gateway, it's possible the Spirit weave directing her could have guided her through the Well directly to the High Mage himself.”
Rain dropped a hand to the hilt of the
meicha
at his hips. "Can they open a doorway anywhere? Into this room, for instance?”
"Nei.
From what we've seen, either a third party must open the endpoint for them, or there must be a
selkahr
crystal bespelled to open the portal at a given time. I tried once or twice to open a doorway on my own, so I could learn more about the process, but the results were ... rather alarming. What guards the Well of Souls doesn't like to be disturbed.”
"You think the Eld will use these ... doorways ... to attack us here in the city?”
"Wouldn't you? Eld armies are massing along the border. If there are Mage-claimed in the city-and considering the attacks on the Feyreisa, there must be-the High Mage could use them to open enough portals to deliver an invasion force to Dorian's doorstep without warning.”
"If that were the case, why wouldn't he already have done so?" Ellysetta asked.
"Perhaps he was not yet ready,
kem'falla.
Perhaps discovering your presence here in Celieria City has prompted him to act sooner than he would like. Or perhaps he postponed his planned attack to give his envoys time to capture you.”
Gaelen turned back to Rain. "If the Eld sent a demon for the Feyreisa, they'll be back, and most likely in force. The High Mage doesn't tip his hand so boldly. He doesn't want to remind anyone what the Eld are capable of. He's been very careful to keep the Mages quiet, to project a friendly face to the world. And all the while, he's been rebuilding Eld power since the Mage Wars. He has spies and emissaries in every king's court around the world.”
"And how do you know that?”
"Because I have spies and emissaries in every king's court as well. While the Fey have spent the last thousand years hiding behind the Faering Mists, licking their wounds from the Mage Wars, the rest of the world has taken the opportunity to rebuild, to grow strong again, to forge alliances that don't include the Fey.”
Rain's lips thinned. "If you're trying to tell me I've been a bad king, save your breath. I know it all too well.”
"That's not true," Marissya objected. "You've no right to judge him, Gaelen. You know nothing of what it's been like, of what he's been through, of what a triumph it was just to reach the first day when he could cling to sanity without the help of every
shei'dalin
in the Fading Lands. We haven't hidden behind the Faering Mists only to lick our wounds. We caged ourselves there to protect the world, too.”
"Marissya, the Fey are weak. Their enemies are strong. The reasons don't matter. A wounded champion and an unarmed boy die just the same when the blade falls on their necks.”
"Setah,"
Rain snapped. "We return to the Fading Lands tomorrow. Ellysetta and I speak our Celierian marriage vows after the Council vote. You will come with us, Gaelen. I want to know everything you know about the Eld and their plans. It is time for the Defender of the Fey to actually start defending them again. Until then, Ellysetta must stay here, safe in the palace under constant guard." Rain nodded to Marissya, and her hand dropped back to her side.
"Is that it?" Kieran demanded incredulously. "The questioning is over?" He pointed a shaking finger at his infamous uncle. "Before you grant him passage through the Faering Mists and celebrate his return in the streets of Dharsa, won't you at least make him tell you whether or not he and his `Brotherhood' have been murdering Celierians?”
"Kieran," Marissya murmured, frowning at her son.
"No, Mother. He needs to answer. Our alliance with Celieria is in danger of destruction thanks to rumors of
dahl'reisen
murdering villagers in the north. We need to know whether he did it or not.”
"Kieran is right," Rain agreed. He nodded, and with obvious reluctance, Marissya put her hand back on her brother. "Answer his question, Gaelen.”
The former
dahl'reisen
hesitated, as if weighing his words, then shrugged.
"Aiyah,
the Brotherhood and I have executed a number of Celierians.”
Marissya stifled a gasp. "Truth. Oh, Gaelen. Why?”
"They were Mage-claimed. We could not let them live to spread their evil.”
"How could you know they were Mage-claimed?" Kieran challenged. "Did you personally see these peasants in the company of Mages, carrying out their will? Because we all know there's no way to tell who is in the service of the Mages until they act.”
"That's not entirely true, young
jita’nos.”
"Your
dahl'reisen
have found a way to detect Mage-claiming?" Rain queried sharply. The secret, invisible power of Mage-claiming was one of the Eld's most deadly weapons.
"We have. Mage-claiming leaves marks on the claimed ones. These marks are invisible to the naked eye, even invisible to Fey vision, but they appear in the presence of Azrahn, like black shadows on the flesh over the claimed one's heart.”
"Azrahn again," Kieran spat.
"Azrahn is just magic, boy. A mystic like Spirit. Despite what all Fey have been raised to believe, it isn't evil, and weaving it won't turn you into a servant of the Dark so long as you wield it wisely and with caution." He glanced at Ellysetta and knew he must learn the truth, if only to determine how best to protect her. "Look." Before the others could react, a small, shadowy spiral sprang to life in his palm, and a chill, sickly sweet aroma wafted through the room.
Marissya cried out and fell back away from her brother. Ellysetta cried out too, as much in warning as in fear.
Twelve red Fey'cha flew fast and true.
Not quickly enough to penetrate the rapid weave that surrounded Gaelen and stopped the Fey'cha in mid-flight.
Ellysetta clutched a hand over her chest where the shock of his sudden action had made her heart all but leap out of her chest. A cold, dull ache throbbed in her left breast. Her skin tingled from lack of oxygen and the sudden rush of fear, and her teeth began to chatter. Somehow she knew Gaelen meant no harm with his weave, but her terror didn't abate.
"Stop it, Gaelen," she commanded. "Stop it now.” She pressed the palm of her hand hard over the fluttering wildness of her heart.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "As you wish,
kem'falla."
The former
dahl'reisen
bowed, and his Azrahn weave winked out.
"The rest of you, put your weapons away." Ellysetta's voice shook. By some miracle, her knocking knees did not collapse beneath her.
Slowly, with hissing reluctance, the Fey sheathed their second round of blades. A moment later, Gaelen's shields fell and the twelve red Fey'cha trapped by his weave clattered harmlessly to the floor.
As fast as Gaelen had moved a moment before, Rain moved now. In a blur of speed he was at Gaelen's throat, his long fingers wrapped tight around the other's windpipe. "What was the meaning of that display,
dahl'reisen?"
Rain demanded. "Is it death you seek after all?”
"If I'd meant harm, you'd all be dead already," Gaelen answered. "I only meant to prove a point.”
"By weaving the forbidden magic?”
"I wove Azrahn. Did I summon demons? Mages? Have I lost my soul again?
Nei,
none of those dire predictions came true. Because the magic itself is not evil.”