Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  Lillis’s eyes widened briefly, but then a slow smile spread across her young face. “Your name is Bess.” She walked across the terrace and hugged the aunt she’d never met as if they were old friends. “Hello, I’m Lillis. Mama loved you very much, and so will I. I’m so very glad you’ve come.”

  Ellysetta tilted her head to eye her young sister in amazement. “How did you know that, Lillis?”

  But all Lillis would say was, “Mama told me.” Shock gave way to warm welcome as the other Baristanis stepped forward to greet Lauriana’s long-lost sister.

  A handful of chimes later, a distant roar rumbled through the air and a triumphant, welcoming cheer rose up from the gathered crowds of Fey. Silhouetted against the deepening twilight of the eastern skies, the Fey’Bahren pride soared across the sky towards Dharsa. The whole pride had come—including the kitlings who had only recently learned to fly and were now gamboling across the sky like rambunctious kittens.

  Now, at last, everyone was here. Now, at last, Dharsa could celebrate Ellysetta’s coronation and the first shei’tanitsa bonding ceremony to be held in over a thousand years.

  In the golden Hall of Tairen, tairen, friends and family and countrymen had gathered. Spirit masters positioned around the great hall began to weave as Ellysetta began her slow march down the center of the hall towards the dais, where Rain, Loris v’En Mahr, and two gleaming tairen thrones awaited. The Spirit masters spun detailed images of each moment out to several locations in the sky over Dharsa, so that all the gathered throngs could watch the ceremonies Steli, blue eyes whirling with pride, stood behind the throne that would be Ellysetta’s. Sybharukai lent the support of the tairen by standing behind Rain’s throne. The four tairen kitlings sat with the rest of the pride off to one side, wide-eyed and taking everything in. Their long tails curled in front of them, and the tips flicked with interest as they looked around. An occasional furtive glance at Sybharukai made them straighten up and quit fidgeting.

  Over her white, diamond-encrusted gown, Ellysetta had donned a long silver cape woven from the bloodsworn blades of her lu ‘tan. The cape trailed a full tairen length behind her, its gleaming length sewn with the thousands of Soul Quest crystals of the warriors who had fallen in her service. As she passed Shei’Kess, the great oracle began to glow with soft radiance, as if acknowledging and welcoming her.

  Dorian XI, garbed in resplendent Celierian blue, nodded as she passed. Next to him stood Illona Brighthand, and though Galad Hawksheart had been invited to attend, he had sent Fanor Farsight to represent the Deep Woods elves in his stead. Queen Annoura, who had gone into seclusion to await the birth of her child, had not come. But Gaspare Fellows, his eyes damp with happy tears, stood proudly beside his king. Lord Teleos, Ellysetta’s distant cousin, stood beside Shan and Elfeya.

  Tenn and Venarra had come as well. No longer serving on the Massan, they remained reluctant to embrace the many changes that Ellysetta, Rain, and now the Mirror of Knowledge had brought about, but Ellysetta was determined to put the past to rest. They had feared Ellysetta’s power, just as she had. And as Illona Brighthand had pointed out, without Tenn’s stubborn refusal to join the war, there would not have been enough warriors in Dharsa to repel the Elden invasion. The gods had woven as they would, and Ellysetta chose to make the best of it.

  She smiled at her family, her quintet, Kieran and Kiel, the other familiar, now-dear faces of those gathered here. And as she swore her oath and accepted the responsibilities of becoming Ellysetta Feyreisa, Queen and Defender of the Fading Lands, she imagined that Mama and the many beloved friends who had perished were watching her, too, and smiling with approval.

  Nalia, Loris’s shei’tani, carried Ellysetta’s crown, and Rain placed it on her head. A six-pointed crown of platinum, topped with six clear crystals from Lissalukai’s kiyr. As the crown touched her head, the crystals began to glow, circling her head in an aura of radiant light.

  Finally, before the assemblage, Rain and Ellysetta, truemates and Tairen Souls of the Fey, pledged the fullness of their immortal lives to one another. With great dignity, Loris v’En Mahr, the newly instated leader of the Massan, called forth Tealah, the Keeper of the Hall of Scrolls, who delivered to him a large and ornately wrought golden scroll.

  “By the grace and Light of the gods, Rainier vel’En Daris, son of Rajahl and Kiaria vel’En Daris, and Ellysetta Baristani vol Celay, daughter of Shannisorran and Elfeya v’En Celay, adopted daughter of Sol and Lauriana Baristani of Celieria, have joined their souls as one in shei’tanitsa. Henceforth and forevermore shall they be known as Rainier and Ellysetta v’En Daris, truemates of the Fey, Feyreisen and Feyreisa of the Fading Lands. So let it be written in the Scroll of Life. May your Light always shine, and joy be your constant companion.” Magic flashed at the bottom of the scroll, and the words Loris had just spoken appeared in gleaming golden letters.

  When Rain and Ellysetta turned to the crowd, cheers arose in a great, joyous roar. “Mioralas! Rainier v’En Daris! Ellysetta v’En Daris! Feyreisa! Feyreisen! Miora felah ti’vos!” Air masters spun and showers of fragrant petals rained down in the Hall and across the city as Fey voices rose in joyous song. Outside, the tairen leapt into the air and circled the city, roaring and filling the sky with celebratory flame.

  The city’s celebration continued into the night, Fey and Elves and Celierians dancing and singing and feasting together as they had not done in a thousand years. As the star the elves called Erimea rose into the night sky, the tairen gathered on the golden rooftops of the restored palace crowning Dharsa’s central mount.

  «It is time, Ellysetta,» Steli called.

  Rain turned and held out his hand to his truemate. “Are you ready, shei’tani?”

  Ellysetta took his hand. “Aiyah.” Rich, vibrant music played in her mind: the pride song of the tairen. An answering song rose up within her, filling her soul with soaring joy. Her steps quickened as she and Rain ran up the hill to the courtyard outside the Hall of Tairen, where the pride was waiting. The kitlings were perched on the golden eaves, while the adults had alighted on the grassy expanse of the courtyard and formed a loose circle.

  “This is a great honor, you know,” Rain whispered, as they entered. “By bringing the pride here, rather than having you to come to Su’Reisu, Sybharukai acknowledges you a queen and makai in your own right.”

  Steli huffed and nudged Ellysetta with her head. «You are all surprises, kitling.»

  Ellysetta laughed ruefully and rubbed the great cat’s silky white jaw. “To myself also, Steli.” A tingling spread through her limbs.

  A growl rumbled in Sybharukai’s throat, and her tail lashed at Steli’s haunches.

  «Sybharukai-makai says time to sing, not talk. Go, kitling. Find your wings so we can fly and hunt together.» Steli pressed her furry white nose to Ellysetta’s back and nudged her into the center of the tairen ring.

  «We hear your song, Ellysetta-Azreisa.» Sybharukai opened her mouth and deposited three very large crystals on the ground near Ellysetta’s feet. One was a clear, colorless crystal that shone with a bright, silvery white glow, as if the light of a star had been captured in stone. The second was a deep, dark red sparkling with a kaleidoscope of rainbowed lights. And the third, though obviously Tairen’s Eye, didn’t shine with the inner radiance of normal crystals. It was dark, lifeless, looking more like selkahr than Tairen’s Eye.

  “Sybharukai?” Rain frowned. “What is the meaning of this? Where is her Soul Quest crystal?”

  «Those are her crystals, Rainier-Eras. She does not sing one song but many. She sings the song of all the prides, but the strongest of them are the songs of Reikaia, one of Cahlah’s kitlings stolen in the egg, the song of Fellana, mother of the first Tairen Soul, and the song of Lissallukai, Light of the Gods, makai of all the prides and the first tairen who sang magic into this world. That is the Old Magic we smelled in her.» Sybharukai’s great, pupilless eyes fixed on Ellysetta. «Take them, kitling. Make them yours. Join them, as you h
ave joined us all.»

  Ellysetta reached down and scooped up the dark crystal. It filled one palm entirely, and at her touch, it warmed with sudden heat. Images flashed through her consciousness, familiar images from the dreams of fire and blood she’d had so often, only this time she wasn’t afraid. This time she understood. They weren’t all evil Mage-sent dreams. Many were the cries of tairen whose souls were tied to her own, the memories of their own battles against Darkness and their own memories of grief and rage and loss.

  Unlike the rest of the highly empathic Fey women, she was not helpless to defend herself against the evil of others. She was a Tairen Soul, a queen, a young makai of the prides. And though she’d been born to Fey parents and a stolen tairen’s soul had been grafted to her own by the High Mage of Eld, she was something much more than the sum of her parts, and something much more than Vadim Maur had ever intended.

  Ellysetta picked up the other two crystals: the starry crystal of Lissallukai and deep red crystal of Fellana. Each began to shimmer and swirl at her touch, the essences of the long-dead tairen recognizing the part of themselves that had been born to live again in her.

  Just like them, she was a creature of Light and Shadow, capable of giving life or death, of creating or destroying. She was the living embodiment of the greatest magic of all: Azrahn, the soul magic, in its devastating entirety: the golden shei’dalins’ love wielded by the strongest Fey women, and the shadowy power of destruction and control wielded by the Mages and spun by those warriors of the Fey who dared to use it. The Maker and the Unmaker. The Healer and the Destroyer.

  She was the will of the gods made flesh, a living Tairen’s Eye crystal sent to restore balance and strength to the Fey by bringing back into their world the powerful magic their ancestors had surrendered: Azrahn, the double-edged sword. The magic from which all other magic sprang, which was both the greatest gift and the greatest curse the gods had given to the Fey. In Azrahn lay the power of the divine, and the gods’ eternal test of the worthiness of the Fey… for only a soul dedicated to Light could resist the lure of Azrahn’s Darkest and most powerful secrets.

  Ellysetta cupped the three Soul Quest crystals in her hands and closed her eyes. Power gathered in her belly. She knew what to do—not by instinct, as so many of her greatest weaves had been in the past, but thanks to the vast repository of knowledge stored in the Mirror of Knowledge and the pride memory it had returned to her.

  She closed her eyes and focused the power. «Shei’tan, will you help me?»

  «You need never ask.» Instantly, his power joined her own.

  She reached for more, and it came freely, from every soul that shared a connection with hers. Bel, Gaelen, her lu’tan, Dax and Marissya, Kieran, Kiel, the twins, Aunt Bessinita, the tairen, the astonishing well of power that belong to her Fey parents, Shan and Elfeya, and finally, the power of every soul, living or dead, whose Light shared a bond with her own. Their power poured into her, and she absorbed it into herself without hesitation or fear, concentrating the magic of their Light inside her until her skin began to glow bright as a star. She gathered their power until she could hold no more, and the electric burn danced across her skin like fire.

  Then she began to spin. Not Earth, nor Water, nor Air, nor Fire. Not Spirit either.

  She spun Azrahn—pure, unfettered, powerful Azrahn—woven in an intricate pattern of Light and Dark. A weave of Making and Unmaking, of Destruction and Healing.

  A weave of magic and creation.

  As the magic gathered and swirled around her hands, she cried, “I am Lissallukai, Light of the Gods, against whom no Darkness shall endure. I am Fellana, bringer of life, motherkin of all feyreisen. I am Reikaia, the tairen whose death gave another soul life. I am Ellysetta-Azreisa, Tairen Soul of the Fey, and I sing the Song of the living and the dead. I sing the Song of Souls.”

  Ellysetta’s eyes flew open, blazing with the intensity of her magic. In her hands, the three crystals—stones that no other power but tairen fire could destroy—dissolved, then re-formed as a single solid jewel, a shining cabochon of deep ruby Tairen’s Eye filled with starry white drops that looked like clusters of Amarynth blossoms.

  Light gathered in the heart of the crystal, not some dim glow, but a dazzling radiance. Within moments, the crystal blazed like the sun, sending beacons of light radiating outward in all directions.

  The song of Ellysetta’s soul grew louder, insistent, almost frantic. She could feel the wind on her face, brisk and icy as if she were soaring through the high reaches of the sky. Urgency and longing drew her tight, setting her muscles trembling with anticipation.

  Sybharukai settled a radiant eye upon her. «And now, Ellysetta-Azreisa, will you let your tairen at last find her wings?»

  “Aiyah,” Ellysetta agreed. Her fingers closed around the newly forged Soul Quest crystal. She brought it tight against her chest, holding it to her as if she could embrace Lissallukai and Fellana and the infant tairen whose soul had been stolen and tied to hers. “Aiyah,” she said again. Her chin lifted, and she held Sybharukai’s whirling gaze. “Help me set her free. Show me how to let her fly.”

  «Rainier-Eras,» Sybharukai commanded, «join us to sing your mate through her First Change.»

  A rush of magic washed over Ellysetta as Rain’s body took its other form. Her heart pounded like a bass drum against her chest as the black tairen completed the circle of great cats ringed around her. The tairen sat back on their haunches, and with a great rustle, their wings spread wide, blocking out all sight of the world. Even the kitlings joined their elders, stretching their much smaller wings as far as they would go.

  A low, rumbling purr began. Softly at first, then growing louder as the first, clear, crystalline notes of the song pealed in Ellysetta’s mind.

  It wove around her in intricate plaits, the notes shimmering red, blue, white, green, lavender, and black. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Spirit, and Azrahn, that much-maligned magic so essential to them all. Azrahn, the soul magic, the Shadow and the Light, the Maker and the Unmaker. The song showed her the pattern and urged her to embrace the magic of the Change.

  The notes saturated her senses, wrapping her tight in glorious flows, invading her flesh and setting her body aflame. Pleasure so intense it could scarce be borne flooded her body and unmade her. She flung her head back and cried out, a cry of joy and surprise that deepened to a sound no mankind, human or Fey, called their own.

  With a roar, Ellysetta found her tairen form.

  Fur sprouted where flesh had been. Her limbs grew long, and her fingers curved into lethal claws. Fangs lengthened in her mouth. Wings unfurled, their undersides shining gold in the fading light of day.

  Ellysetta took an experimental step in her new, unfamiliar body. She felt the earth beneath the pads of her feet, claws sinking into dirt and rock. And then, because she could, she rose on her hind legs and breathed fire into the sky, laughing at the hot rush and searing taste of it.

  «Shei’tani.»

  Her great head swung round to meet her mate’s glowing pupilless tairen gaze. She saw herself in his mind, sleek and powerful, with fur the color of cinnamon and flames, eyes whirling with bright rainbowed radiance of Tairen’s Eye crystal that was even now calming to vivid, crystalline green. Ellysetta breathed deep, marveling at the acuteness of her senses. Scent, taste, sight, sound: All were clearer now, sharper, and visible radiant flows of magic overlay everything, giving the world a constant, shifting glow.

  Tairen song—her song—hummed through her veins, resonating in every cell. Not separate songs as once they had been, but one song: the bright, fierce blaze of tairen forever and inextricably tied with the deep, cool well of feminine Fey power. And through the wholeness of her song, tied in bonds that would last all eternity, every part of Ellysetta’s soul was joined with the majesty, the honor, the fierce strength and the limitless, everlasting love of Rainier-Eras, Tairen Soul, King of the Fey.

  «Will you dance the skies with me, beloved?» he asked.
<
br />   «Yes! Yes! Let us fly!» her tairen half cried with sudden eagerness.

  Rain poured images into her mind, directing her new tairen body in the age-old intricacies of tairen flight. She gave herself over to him without reservation, and her body processed and followed his instructions without conscious thought.

  She crouched, great muscles bunching in her hind legs, magic gathering, then sprang. Her wings shot out, fully extended, and Air swept up to fill them, snapping the membranes taut. She pumped her wings, gaining loft and speed, propelling her tairen body higher and faster until the air grew brisk and cold, and the ground raced far, far beneath her.

  «Rain!»

  «I am here, beloved.»

  And he was. He always would be.

  Together, Rain and Ellysetta, truemates and Tairen Souls of the Fading Lands, raced across the sky, their mighty wings spread wide.

  Acknowledgements

  The publication of this book brings to a close the dream I have pursued for over a decade. I first met Rain and Ellie in 1999 in between contract jobs as an IVR programmer and B2B marketing specialist. Their story consumed me. I fell in love with them, their friends, their world. I’m so glad you did too.

  Thanks to my wonderful family—my husband, Kevin; my daughters, Ileah and Rhiannon; and my son, Aidan—for supporting me and all the long hours of writing and writerly stuff. Special thanks to my mother, Lynda Richter, and my sister, Dr. Lisa Richter, for the tireless hours of reading half-baked manuscripts and helping me make them better, and to all the CP’s over the years who’ve had a hand in making Rain and Ellie’s story the best it could be, especially my starfish pals: Christine Feehan, Kathie Firzlaff, Diana Peterfreund, Betina Krahn, Sheila English, Carla Hughes, and Sharon Stone. Thanks to my dad, the incomparable Ray Richter, for being my web guru all these years. A very special thanks to my agent, Michelle Grajkowski, and my former editor, Alicia Condon, because four years ago, you both took a chance on an unpublished writer and a monster manuscript no one else in publishing would touch. Last but not least, thanks to my new editor, Tessa Woodward, and my new publisher, Avon Books. I look forward to what I hope will be a long and fruitful relationship.