Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  Rain swooped over the knot of Mages, fire roaring before him. He held the flame, heeling back to hover over the Mages and bathe them in fire. He wanted those shields down. Wanted those Mages to burn.

  Savage satisfaction raced through him as their shields cracked. Mage screams rose, high-pitched and wild, then fell quickly silent in the incinerating heat.

  Rain flung his head skyward and loosed a mighty roar of primal triumph.

  Death to those who endangered the Fey! Death to those who injured his friends, his brothers! He was Rainier-Eras, Feyreisen, and he was winged vengeance.

  «Rainier-Eras!» Steli sang another warning. The images carried on her tairen speech showed a portal opening on his flank and firing a shot right at him.

  Rain spun into a sharp roll, but not quite quickly enough. The bowcannon bolt ripped through his hide, slicing deep.

  He roared in pain and wheeled around to spew fire at the closing portal, but as he turned his vision went blurry. He faltered. His wings folded, and he fell from the sky, landing on four paws and swaying dizzily.

  «Ellysetta…» The bolt had been poisoned. Potioned. «Burns. It burns. Burns in the blood.» He could feel the potion racing through his veins, merging with his blood, changing it. «Vision dizzy. Smell… spice, like cinnamon growing stronger.» He growled and shook off the dizziness as he tried to tell her everything, hoping that something he said would make the difference. He sang the sensations to her in tairen song so she could see them, feel them, taste and touch them for herself.

  The burning had consumed him now; the potion had spread throughout his body. The haziness of his vision was clearing. The faces around him were changing. Some of the faces around him smelled of the faint spice. Others did not. And the faces of the others were changing the most… changing to monsters. He sang the changes, until he couldn’t remember why he was singing, who he was singing to, until he was surrounded by enemies. Enemies that must be stopped.

  He was death, winged vengeance.

  «For Celieria and King Dorian!» He screamed, and he leapt into the air, flame boiling from his muzzle.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Powerful, brave, graceful you stand

  Deadly sword bright in hand

  Eternal love protecting my heart

  The two of us shall never part

  For all time, ke vo san

  My soulmate, my life, my shie’tan

  My Shei’tan, a poem by Evia v’En Herran

  «Rain!» Ellysetta cried his name as his tairen song broke off, but there was no response. «Steli! Xisanna! Perahl! Rain has been infected by the potion. You must bring him down. We cannot let him fly!»

  Confirmations roared across the sky in sparkling notes of tairen song as the three great cats raced across the darkened night to bring Rain down.

  “Kaiven chakor.” She spun to face her primary quintet. “Help the pride. The tairen will bring him down. You five keep him there until I can figure out how to neutralize this potion.”

  When they hesitated, clearly torn by their lute’asheiva vow to guard her life above all others, she spun buffeting weaves of Air and Spirit and shoved them towards the exit. “Stop him. Nothing is more important. Stop him, or we all die.” She filled her voice with every ounce of compulsion she could muster. She wasn’t shy Ellie begging them to help her please. She was their queen, holder of their lute’asheiva bonds, commanding them to serve her. “Go!” she barked. They went.

  Ellysetta closed her eyes for a brief moment. Gods help them all. Then she drew a deep breath, her eyes flashed open, and she turned the full force of her concentration and determination upon the ensorcelled man strapped to her table.

  “Well, my friend,” she said grimly, “like it or not, you and I are going to figure out exactly what this is and exactly how to stop it.”

  Rain howled and thrashed, fire blazing, jaws snapping. His tail lashed like a whip. If he’d been a female tairen, he would have impaled someone—preferably a great many someones—on his tail spike.

  Three monsters held him pinned to the ground, their bodies perched on his wings, his back, his neck. Fangs had a grip on his throat and were squeezing just enough that his vision was starting to go dim.

  A company of fiendish enemies approached, led by five foul wretches with ghoulish features and long, clawed hands. Ropes of poisonous green magic oozed from their gnarled fingertips. Something hard wrapped around his muzzle, sealing his mouth shut so he could not flame. A hideous miasma enveloped him in choking fog.

  He struggled, fighting the monsters on his back, fighting the magic swirling around him. Fighting. Fighting.

  But the magic and the press of the fangs against his throat were too much. His vision dimmed. Consciousness fled.

  Ellysetta reexamined the images and sensory perceptions from Rain’s tairen speech, fixing a keen shei’dalin’s eye on every tiny detail as she went over the information again and again. The poison got into the blood, and it burned, he’d said. Based on the information he’d sung to her, the burning sensation was localized to start with, but spread rapidly as the blood carried the poison to every part of the victim’s body.

  Whatever was in the blood, however, wasn’t something obvious. She’d already checked the test subject’s blood and found nothing. Now, with Rain’s information and sensory perceptions fresh in her mind, she reexamined her patient, looking at his blood more closely to see what she had missed.

  Nearly a full bell later, she finally found it.

  She had to hand it to the Feraz. When it came to potions, their expertise was impressive. The active ingredient in the potion wasn’t a foreign substance in the blood. It was a slight excess of a naturally occurring element that caused the body chemistry to change and, in doing so, to give off a faint but distinctive scent. That, in and of itself, was harmless, but the potion contained a second ingredient, a chemical that interacted with the sense of smell to alter the way the brain processed sensory inputs. Anyone exuding the faint cinnamon spice scent was perceived as a friend, but everyone lacking the scent was interpreted by the infected brain as a monster and a threat that must be killed.

  Once she understood how the potion worked, Ellysetta spent another half bell figuring out the best way to undo its effects and discovered that she could spin a basic Earth weave to extract the excess chemical in the blood and a slightly more complex weave of Earth and Spirit combined to reorient the brain’s sensory-processing abilities.

  She tested her solution on the Celierian strapped to her table. Within a few chimes of receiving her healing weaves, he sat up, completely cured and back to his right mind.

  Ellysetta didn’t pause to celebrate or even soothe the man’s confusion. «This is the cure,» she called on the Warrior’s Path, sending images of her weave patterns. «Every Earth and Spirit master needs to start weaving this now.» Then she ran for the exit.

  “Ellysetta!” Her lu’tan cried in alarm as she burst through the protective hundred-fold weave and onto the unshielded battlefield outside.

  Inside the healing tent, behind the protection of the hundred-fold weave, the pain and torment of this battle had been muted. The moment she stepped outside those weaves, a wave of agony slammed into her empathic senses. The breath left her lungs on a shocked gasp, and she dropped to her knees.

  “Bright Lord save me,” she gasped, hunching over, her arms wrapped around her belly.

  She thought she knew the pain of battle, of death. But now she realized just how much Rain and her quintet had been protecting her from. There were scores of new dahl’reisen, and the unchecked pain of their lost souls spilled out in shrieking waves. Men, maimed, dying in horrible pain, were screaming. Men were burning. Their pain, their torment, their fear bombarded her senses. She’d never really wondered what the Seventh Hell was like, but now she knew. It was like this.

  And still, the battle raged.

  The Earth and Spirit masters were weaving. Allied combatants were beginning to come back to their senses. Th
at should have been a good thing, but their horror, their self-loathing when they realized what they’d done… the friends they’d slaughtered. Men and Fey fell to their knees, clawing at their own eyes and faces, consumed by guilt and grief.

  A powerful five-fold weave enveloped her, muting the naked suffering of the battlefield. “Kem’falla.” Her secondary quintet ringed around her. “Come back inside the healing tent.”

  “Nei.” She let them help her to her feet, then shrugged them off. “Take me to Rain. I need Rain.”

  Primage Soros saw the slender figure in red run out from the hundred-fold weave and fall to her knees. He saw the Fey gather around her quickly, but instead of returning to the protection of the hundred-fold weave, all six of them began to run across the perimeter of the battlefield. He scanned the area and saw the Tairen Soul in the distance—still lying bound and unconscious, protected by the other three tairen and five Fey.

  Now was his chance.

  He summoned his Mages and gave the order. The Eld and Feraz moved swiftly to block her path, while four other groups converged upon her.

  As Ellysetta and her lu’tan raced across the battlefield, they passed one horrific scene after another. The agony of shattered bodies and shattered minds battered her in endless waves. She could feel her soul separating. Part of her was going numb. Another part of her was writhing and screaming. But a third part, a very scary part, was growing angry.

  These were her friends, her people, her countrymen, both Fey and Celierian, and they were being slaughtered all around her. Worse, they were being manipulated by magic into slaughtering their own friends, their own countrymen, their own blade brothers. Their howls of anguish fed her anger.

  Something vast and dark was bubbling inside her. She ran faster. She needed Rain beside her, his arms around her.

  She didn’t see the Eld closing in. One moment, she and her lu’tan were running. The next, her spine went icy cold, and her legs went weak. She stumbled and fell. When she crawled back to her feet, a portal to the Well of Souls had opened to her right and left. Mages, Eld, and Feraz were pouring out.

  Everything seemed to suddenly slow, as if time had grown weary. Blooms of Mage Fire exploded all around her. Sel’dor arrows pierced her lu’tan, toppling them.

  Someone was shouting, “Fey ti’Feyreisa! Ti’Feyreisa!“

  A sel’dor blade slashed. The Spirit master of her secondary quintet spun, blood from his severed throat splashing across her face. Her Water master’s mouth went wide. His hands reached for the place where his abdomen had been before the bubble of Mage Fire cut him in two.

  “Ellysetta! Down!”

  She dropped to her knees as Rowan vel Arquinas leapt over her, his hands a blur, red Fey’cha flying at incredible speed. But there were too many of them and no lu’tan left alive around her to protect his back.

  Three sel’dor arrows caught him in the back. He stumbled towards the gaping Well of Souls, Fey’cha still flying from his fingertips. Mages and Eld dropped by the dozens. A fourth arrow slammed into Rowan’s shoulder, spinning him around to face her. His eyes met hers for an instant.

  His mouth moved. “Ellysetta, I—“

  A fifth arrow buried itself in his chest. He staggered back and toppled into the Well.

  Something snapped inside her. The great, dark anger took hold. Her skin flashed hot, then cold, and she began to shake.

  This was too much. Too many friends dead. Too much grief and pain and suffering. No more. Not here. Not this day.

  Her fingers clenched in fists at her side. She could feel magic rushing towards her, as if she were a vortex, pulling every bit of energy into herself, feeding off it, growing stronger. The Mages tried to call their magic, but she drew it out of them and poured it into herself. She saw their eyes widen and realized they were afraid, and that made her laugh with savage joy.

  The fury inside her roared for release, for justice, for blood. Her mind shot out across the battlefield, throughout Kreppes, finding every Eld, every Feraz, every host of Darkness. And she seized them by the throats with invisible hands, lifting them up off the ground, dangling them in the air.

  She lifted her shaking fists. The bodies hanging in the air began to twitch and shake. Gurgling noises escaped from throats as the convulsions grew stronger. Terrified eyes bulged and rolled in purpling faces. Billowing clouds of red mist filled the air as hearts exploded from Eld chests and burst into flame.

  “Ellysetta!”

  The sound of Rain’s voice snapped her out of the strange furor that gripped her. A loud crack—the sound of thousands of necks breaking in unison—sounded across the strangely silent battlefield. Then came the thuds as the corpses fell from the air.

  Ellysetta turned to her shei’tan. “Rain, I—” Her voice broke off as her knees buckled. All the energy she’d gathered left her in a whoosh, and darkness filled the vacuum left behind. Senseless, she toppled into his arms.

  2nd day of Seledos

  The sun shone down upon Kreppes. Its golden light illuminated the devastation of the night’s brutal battle. Swords, which Ellysetta had always found such elegant weapons when displayed in the Cha Baruk, were in reality little more than butchers’ cleavers. Severed limbs scattered the field. Hands. Feet. Heads. Bodies sliced open like haunches of beef. She’d never seen so much blood. The field was soaked in it.

  Alongside the dead killed by the enemy and by the ensorcelled allies lay the scattered remains of all those she had slaughtered.

  “Come away, Ellysetta,” Rain said. “It’s time to Fire the field.”

  “Nei,” she said. “I will watch.” She wasn’t just a shei’dalin. She was a Tairen Soul. War, and its ugly consequences, was her purview now. She could not let Rain and her quintet continue to shelter her, no matter how much they wished to. She was, after all, responsible for hundreds of the bodies lying on the battlefield.

  Her gaze skimmed the edges of the battlefield, pausing at the sight of Cannevar Barrial standing beside the empty bier where the bodies of his three sons, Parsis, Severn, and Luce had been sent back to the elements. Deep lines etched Cann’s graven face and threads of white now streaked his dark hair. He had aged decades in a single night. Four of Cann’s five children had perished in the span of a week. Almost his entire family gone. Just like that. Worse, Cann suspected his son Severn had died by Cann’s own hand when the Feraz magic had consumed him.

  Ellysetta had tried to offer what peace she could, but nothing she said or did helped him. Cann was a hollow shell, an automaton driven by a single, searing flame that burned in his dead eyes: the need for vengeance.

  She dragged her gaze away from Cann and the pain she could not heal and tried to distance herself from her emotions, like most of the warriors had done.

  “Has anyone sent word to Prince Dorian and the queen?” she asked, as the Fire masters walked out among the dead.

  Rain nodded. “Bel sent a Spirit weave a few chimes ago.”

  The Fire masters summoned their magic, gathering the bright orange weaves of their Fire, then spilling it out upon the ground. The Fire burned bright and hot, consuming the bodies of the slain, but there was so much sel’dor on the field that their Fire did not consume everything. When they were done, the bones of the dead remained, not scorched by the Fire but bleached white, as if by the Great Sun.

  Ellysetta’s mouth went dry. Feeling dazed, she stepped away from Rain and walked slowly onto the Fire-cleansed battlefield. She stood there, a shei’dalin draped in scarlet, standing in a bleached white field of bones, the remains of thousands of slain, most of whom had died either by her hand or because she’d not been quick enough to find the cure to the Feraz potion.

  Her dream had come true.

  Celieria ~ Celieria City

  “Noooooo!”

  The scream ripped through the marbled halls of Celieria’s royal palace, punctuated by a series of shattering crashes and sobbing wails. Courtiers stopped in their tracks, gossiping tongues frozen midwag. They turn
ed towards the queen’s apartments for a single, hushed moment, then the whispering recommenced, setting the palace hallways abuzz.

  “It’s true. It must be true. The king is dead.”

  In her chambers, Annoura swept her arms across another elegant desk, sending crystal candle lamps, books, and statuary crashing to the floor. She shrieked in wild, mad grief and flung herself at her bed hangings, snatching great handfuls of sumptuous fabric and ripping it free of its mooring hooks. Plaster rained down upon her and the puddles of velvet she threw to the floor.

  “Your Majesty, calm yourself!” pleaded the minister who had brought her the news of Dorian’s death. “Your Majesty, please. You’ll make yourself ill. Think of the child!”

  “Get out! Get out!” She grabbed part of the broken vase from the floor and heaved it at him, narrowly missing his head. One of the delicate, carved chairs from her vanity followed the first missile. The minister dove out of the way a split second before the chair crashed against the wall where he’d been standing and broke into splinters.

  “I’ll fetch Lord Hewen,” he quavered, and pelted out the door.

  With the minister gone, Annoura spun on the Ladies-in-Waiting who were huddled in the corner of the room, some weeping, some gaping in shock at their queen’s utter loss of control. “You too!” she shrieked. “All of you, get out! Get out, damn you!” She grabbed the broken candle-lamp stand from the bedside and advanced upon them, jabbing and swinging the lamp stand like a halberd.

  Squealing, the ladies fled. An antique porcelain teapot exploded across the gilded door as it closed behind them, drenching the wood, walls, and plush carpet near the threshold with steaming tea and filling the room with the scent of jasmine.

  Annoura went through her apartment like a cyclone of destructive grief, shrieking Dorian’s name, smashing and rending everything she touched. She ripped pages from books, shattered perfume bottles, tore curtains from windows, smashed mirrors, and slashed paintings. Not a single moveable or breakable object escaped her fury of grief.