Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  A shout rose from the back of the infantry formation, and Azurel turned to see the Eld soldiers falling upon themselves, teeth bared in feral snarls as they sliced and hacked at one another. A heavy black-and-lavender weave lay over the Eld like a shroud. He tracked the weave back to its source—more dahl’reisen hidden by their admittedly impressive invisibility weaves—and flung a blistering combination of Fire, Air, and Azrahn at them, but that blast exploded harmlessly against another six-fold shield.

  From the front, another brutal, twelve-fold hammer cracked the forward shields. An intense Spirit and Azrahn weave shot through the breech, plowing into two Mages, who suddenly turned and began to throw Mage Fire at their own brothers—incinerating half a dozen Mages and enough of Azurel’s shields to crisp his hair and singe the side of his face before his own red Fey’cha dispatched them.

  Azurel touched his scorched flesh. His eyes narrowed.

  “Time for you Mages to earn your jewels, Dur,” Azurel snarled to the Mage. “Take out the Spirit masters before all your soldiers slaughter themselves and your weak-minded Mages kill the rest of us. And send something with a kick, not your easily diverted little fireballs. The ones spinning Spirit are directing most of their energy into the illusion weaves, but the others are shielding them. The Mharog will take care of the blades in front.”

  Dur nodded grimly. “Mages!” Blue-white Mage Fire gathered in Mage hands, a glowing ball that grew larger and brighter, illuminating the concentration and strain on the Mage’s face as he fed power into it. The massive fireballs shot out of the Mages’ hands straight at the Spirit master. The Mharog spun a four-fold weave to box in the Spirit master so he couldn’t leap clear of the Mage Fire’s path.

  Trapped, the dahl’reisen dropped his invisibility weave. He faced, unflinching, the approaching fire and screamed defiance into its consuming maw, “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa! “

  The Mage Fire plowed into him and flared with a thunderous boom. When it dissipated, the dahl’reisen Spirit master was gone. Without his energy to sustain it, his weave dissolved, and the Eld soldiers under its control came to their senses, shaking themselves and looking about in shock.

  Dur took out the other Spirit masters in the same manner, and after that the air filled with flying Fey’cha, Mage Fire, arrows, and magic. The remaining dahl’reisen fell after a brief but intense battle.

  The last to die was a lavender-eyed dahl’reisen. He lay mortally wounded, the lower half of his body in ruins. As Azurel approached, the fallen man gave a bloody, triumphant smile and plunged a red Fey’cha into his own chest.

  “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa,” he whispered as his body spasmed. A moment later, his eyes went blank, and his head lolled to one side. The smile remained on his face even in death.

  Azurel knelt beside the corpse. Azrahn came to his call, whirling in his palm as he tried to summon the dead man’s soul.

  But for the first time in his five hundred years of being Mharog, something blocked him.

  Frowning, he fed more energy into his Azrahn weave, trying to force the dahl’reisen’s soul to answer his call.

  Still, it did not come.

  Instead, a great blinding light rushed up at him. Furious, defiant love, so hot it made the ice of his soul crack and shudder. In sudden, breathless terror, he ripped apart his Azrahn weave and threw himself back away from the dahl’reisen‘s corpse.

  “What’s the matter?” Dur asked.

  Azurel bit back a sharp curse and rose to his feet. “His soul is bound. It cannot be summoned.”

  “What do you mean ‘bound’? Bound to what?”

  “To her, you idiot. His soul is bound to her. Bloodsworn.”

  Azurel stalked to the next closest dahl’reisen corpse. Steeling himself to confront the white light, he tried to summon the second dahl’reisen’s soul. It, too, defied his call. As did the next, and the next, and the next. “They’re all bloodsworn. Every scorching one of them. That’s why you could not Mark them when they wove Azrahn.” Azurel’s fists clenched, and his teeth ground together. “Never would I have believed Rainier vel’En Daris would allow dahl’reisen to bloodswear themselves to his truemate.”

  Dur eyed him skeptically. “The Mages bind the souls of all their followers, but those souls can still be summoned after death.”

  “Bloodswearing is different. It is more like shei’tanitsa than your soul-binding. They have willingly tied their souls to hers, dedicated themselves to serve only her in life and in death. It is a compact that cannot be broken or perverted.” Through a combination of Magecraft, Feraz black magic, and Merellian demon sorcery, the High Mage had managed to tie a tairen’s soul to Shannisorran v’En Celay’s but never had he succeeded in calling v’En Celay’s soul to his service. Nor had he ever have been able to claim a bloodsworn soul. “Step aside and let me try.”

  Azurel’s eyes narrowed, but he stepped back and allowed the prideful Primage to approach the dahl’reisen’s corpse. He watched as Dur summoned Azrahn and called to the dead man’s soul, watched him feed more power into his summons, and almost smiled as the Mage swore and threw himself away from the body.

  “What was that?” Dur gasped.

  “That was Rain Tairen Soul’s mate—or rather, the power of her bloodsworn bond. It defends the souls in her keeping.” “It felt like… love.”

  Azurel’s lips curled. “Of course. Love is the greatest power of a shei’dalin. With it, she could break you completely. Every evil you have ever worked, she could force you to relive through the eyes of those who loved your victims. You would shred your own flesh from your bones in self-loathing.”

  “I never believed the stories were true.”

  “Now you know differently.” Few of the Mages who’d earned their blue robes after the Wars had ever seen a shei’dalin at work. Most had only ever known those broken creatures captured by the Mages, bound with sel’dor, and tortured to insanity. And so they thought shei’dalins were weak and insignificant. They forgot that the truemate bond did not form between uneven halves. The truemate of a powerful Fey Lord would have her own power, vastly different but nonetheless equal in strength to her mate’s.

  Azurel called Fire to incinerate the dahl’reisen dead. “There were only thirty-six dahl’reisen. This ambush was not meant to stop us, only slow us down.” He held out a hand. “Give me more chemar.”

  This time, Dur didn’t hesitate before handing over another ten stones. Azurel dumped them on the ground. A chime later, another flock of deadwood birds winged skyward, chemar clutched in their talons.

  Tears blinded Ellysetta, but she ran without slowing.

  The ones who’d gone to hold back the Mharog were dead. She’d felt each one of them as they perished, Varian the last. They’d died not in fear, but in joy.

  She’d felt that, too.

  Rain ran close at her side. His soul sang to hers with love and pride, and he wrapped her in supporting weaves, feeding her his strength as they ran.

  The bloodsworn dahl’reisen had slain scores of Eld soldiers, more than a dozen of the Mages, and even one Mharog. Still, she wept. They had been strangers to her until today, yet each had willingly died to prevent her from falling into Mage hands. She wept because somewhere—either in this world or the next—there were mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who had loved them. She wept because those men had not died as strangers but as her friends. In giving her blessing and accepting their oaths in return, she had taken a little bit of each warrior into herself, and it lived there still. It always would.

  The dahl’reisen around her sang a warrior’s lament on weaves of Spirit.

  She answered with her own, an elegy Celierian women sang when their men returned from war not in glory but in caskets. She wept as she sang. It was a song meant for weeping.

  «Enough, shei’tani,» Rain said, when the last note died away. «You will have us all on our knees if you do not stop.»

  Surprised by Rain’s remark, she wiped her eyes and turned to fi
nd tears streaming down his own face. The dahl’reisen ringed closest around them were white-faced, their eyes dark with the torment of tears they could not shed.

  «You wove your sorrow as you sang.»

  «Sieks’ta.»

  «Nei, do not apologize. It is good to mourn them. They died with honor, as Fey should die.»

  «I would mourn them even if they did not.»

  «Aiyah, but it is better that they are deserving of your tears. And it will ease their families’ sorrow to know they died with honor. If we survive this war and are allowed to return to the Fading Lands, I will accompany you to visit the families of the ones who died today.»

  She nodded. «Do you think Varian and the others bought us enough time?»

  Rain met her gaze, his eyes bleak. He shook his head.

  Celieria ~ Dahl’reisen Village

  8th day of Seledos

  Outside the bedroom window of the dahl’reisen house perched high in the treetops, the skies over the Verlaine had lightened with the first blush of the coming dawn.

  Sheyl smoothed a damp cloth over Carina’s forehead, brushing back tangles of sweat-darkened hair and weaving what relief she could to ease the woman’s pain. She’d tried for bells yesterday to keep the child from coming, but the birth would not be stopped. Sheyl wasn’t sure she was a powerful enough healer to keep either mother or child alive—the child was coming months too soon, and the labor was not an easy one. Throughout the night, she’d spun healing weaves on the child in the womb, hoping to mature its lungs and heart enough that it could breathe on its own after birth. Sheyl knew her own death would come today, but she hoped to spare Carina and her child.

  “Arin…” Carina whimpered, calling once more for the dead father of her child. “I want Arin…”

  “I know, dearling. I know. Shh. Save your strength for yourself and your baby. That’s what he would want.” She moved down to the foot of the bed to check the baby’s progress.

  “The child is coming. I can see the baby’s head. Push now, Carina.”

  The woman’s teeth clenched, a strangled cry rising in her throat as she strained to push the child from her womb. A few chimes later, Carina’s son greeted the world with his first, weak squall. Sheyl handed the child into his mother’s arms then swiftly went to work delivering the afterbirth and spinning a healing weave to seal off ruptured blood vessels that threatened to hemorrhage Carina’s life away.

  The door to the chamber opened. One of the warriors who’d stayed behind to guard Sheyl and Carina poked his head in. “The Eld are here. We’ve got to go.”

  “She still too weak. She’ll die if we move her.”

  “She’ll die if we don’t.” He pushed into the room and bent to scoop Carina up from the blood-soaked sheets. “I’ll carry her. You run. Now.”

  The barked command left Sheyl little desire to argue. She ran.

  Outside the bedroom, away from the privacy weave the dahl’reisen had spun to silence Carina’s labor cries, the cacophony of war was deafening. Mage Fire had shattered the village shields and now bombarded the village without pause. Felled trees toppled like slain giants, crashing down upon one another. Fire burned all around, its orange flames devouring the autumn bracken on the forest floor, licking hungrily at the trunks of trees, climbing the vine ladders and hanging stairs with ferocious speed.

  This was her vision—the death and destruction she’d seen. The world seemed to slow as she turned her head to the left, looking for the death strike she knew was coming. She saw the Mage archers break through the thicket wall, arrows nocked, bowstrings taut. She saw the gloved fingers release, and the black, barbed arrows fly like deadly, soaring birds. One of the dahl’reisen shouted and spun a fiery wind to intercept the arrows’ flight, but he was too late.

  The arrow slammed into her breast with enough force to propel her backward. She lay on the ground, staring up, breathless and dazed, as the top of a nearby tree crashed down upon her.

  The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa

  “Why did Kieran and Kiel have to leave again? I’m worried, Lorelle. I’ve got a bad feeling. Like maybe we’ll never see them again.”

  Lillis frowned as she rolled the small jingle ball across the beautifully woven carpet in the center of the even-more-beautiful bedroom she and Lorelle had been assigned in the Fey palace. The twin golden bells tied to the pretty white stone at the center of the mesh ball chimed merrily as the ball rolled. The same man who had given Lillis and Lorelle their kittens had also given them the jingle balls. Though most had been crushed by their fall on the mountain, this one had miraculously survived.

  Snowfoot, her kitten, pounced on the ball and batted it between his small paws with pure, kittenish delight, and while normally that would make Lillis laugh and want to cuddle her adorable pet, at the moment she barely even noticed the kitten’s antics. Her mind was somewhere else. Somewhere troubling.

  Lorelle scowled. “Honestly, Lillis, what’s wrong with you? We’re here in a beautiful, Fey-tale palace, in a beautiful, Fey-tale room. Papa’s here, and happier than I’ve seen him in ages—did you see that workshop Lord Dax had set up for him? When this war is over, Ellie and Rain and Kieran and Kiel and Bel and everybody are going to come home, and we’ll all be happier than ever.”

  “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

  Lorelle jumped up. “Well, don’t be! Kiel and Kieran are going to be fine. They are!” She stamped a foot for emphasis. She stalked over to the arched doorway leading to the balcony outside their room and stood beside the sheer drape billowing gently in the breeze. Her arms crossed over her thin chest. “We’re all going to be fine,” she insisted again, as if to convince herself as much as Lillis.

  A knock on the door made them both turn.

  “Come in,” Lillis called.

  The crystal doorknob turned, and the door pushed inward. A beautiful Fey lady—was there any other kind?—stood on the threshold. She had lovely long, black hair hanging in ringlets down her back, and the prettiest eyes Lillis had ever seen, deep blue-green and as bright as gems. She looked like she’d stepped from the pages of a Fey tale, clad in a gown of flowing green fabric embroidered with tiny golden leaves, flowers, and birds.

  “Hello,” Lillis greeted. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Tealah. I was—am—a friend of your sister, the Feyreisa.”

  With a spurt of sudden eagerness, Lillis clambered to her feet. “You know Ellie?”

  “Ellie.” For a moment Tealah looked confused. “Ah, you mean Ellysetta Feyreisa. Aiyah. We spent many bells together when she was here. I am the Keeper of the Hall of Scrolls, and she liked to read very much.” Slender black brows arched in inquiry. “Do you girls like to read, too?”

  “I do.” Lillis cast a despairing glance over her shoulder at her twin. “Lorelle prefers to play Pirates and Damsels.”

  “That’s not true.” Lorelle uncrossed her arms to put her hands on her hips. “I like to read. I just don’t like to read all those mushy lovey-lovey stories you like.”

  “She likes reading about sword fights,” Lillis said with a sigh. “And about all the battles in the Mage Wars. As long as there’s blood and violence, and someone dies, she’s happy.”

  “I see.” With a smile that suddenly looked a little nervous, Tealah said, “Well, I thought perhaps you might like to spend some time with me today at the Hall of Scrolls. I’m sure we can find something to… ah… entertain both of you.”

  Lillis snatched up Snowfoot, and a flailing paw sent the jingle-ball rolling. “Can we bring our kittens?”

  Tealah looked from Lillis to Lorelle, who had bent to pick up Pounce. The twins both smiled as sweet and innocent as young Lightmaidens and made their eyes very large and pleading.

  “I… I suppose so.” Tealah nodded. “Aiyah, why not?”

  Twin smiles beamed bright as the Great Sun. Clutching their kittens to their chests, the girls skipped out of their bedroom, out of the palace, and down the hillside as Tealah led the way to
the Hall of Scrolls.

  In their bedroom, the small jingle ball with its white stone came to rest out of sight beneath a large chest of drawers.

  Celieria ~ Verlaine Forest

  “We’re surrounded.” Farel delivered the news without a hint of emotion. They’d been on the run all night and into the morning. Several more Walls of Steel had stood—and perished—but the Mages and Mharog kept coming.

  Rain’s arms tightened around Ellysetta. She’d sensed the opening of the Well half a bell ago, and Farel’s scouts had traced the sickly sweet odor of Azrahn back to four portals ringing their current position. “So we make our stand here,” Rain said.

  “Nei. We’re only thirty miles from the forest’s edge. The reinforcements I sent for are attempting to flank the Eld blocking our path. Our best hope is to push forward.” His fingers closed around the hilts of his meicha in a tight grip. “Sieks’ta. I thought traveling through the Verlaine was the safest route, but it seems I’ve only endangered your lives by slowing our escape.”

  “You owe us no apology,” Ellysetta said. “If not for you, we’d already either be dead or prisoners of the High Mage.”

  “I spoke with the reinforcements I sent to the village. The Eld beat them there by half a bell, but the Brotherhood was able to rout them. The Mharog and a dozen Mages escaped—I expect they’ll join the others here shortly—but the rest perished. The dahl’reisen have already Fired the village and gone to escort the women and children safely to the Garreval.”

  Something about Farel’s expression made her stomach clench with dread. “But everyone got out safely before the Eld arrived… didn’t they?”

  “Almost everyone. A woman and her newborn son perished, along with ten of the dahl’reisen who stayed behind to protect her while she gave birth. Sheyl was wounded.”