by C. L. Wilson
“I won’t. Whatever this is, I won’t just stand here while it tortures you.” He would not release her, and no matter how hard she tried to break free, her slender body was no match for his strength.
“Teska, Rain! Please.” Already the pain was back, another brutal lash of it. Her body went rigid. Her jaw flexed, and her neck strained so hard each breath was a victory. This was going to be as bad as any seizure she’d ever had. And with Rain touching her skin to skin, he would feel her shattered emotions as if they were his own.
Rain’s jaw clenched like an iron vise, the tendons in his neck standing out. “Tairen’s scorching fire!” The backlash of his pain redoubled her own, and she screamed.
Gaelen and Bel dove towards them in a desperate effort to pull them apart.
“Let go, Rain, scorch you!” Gaelen snarled as Rain fought him off. “You’re only making it worse—can’t you see that? She’s feeling your pain too. You’re building a harmonic. Marissya!”
His sister spun a compulsion weave and thrust it into Rain’s mind while Gaelen and Bel worked to pry Ellysetta free of Rain’s arms. The weave reached enough of him that his grip loosened for an instant. Bel yanked Ellysetta free, and Gaelen wrestled Rain to the ground, pinning him there until some measure of sanity returned to his wild eyes.
The moment it did, Rain shoved Gaelen away and scrambled to his knees, crawling to Ellysetta’s side. Her eyes were wide and frightened, her body shaking violently.
“Get…Papa.” Each word was a hard-won fight. “He knows…what…to…do…ahhh!” The last word died in a wail as fire ripped through her and the world dissolved once more into shrieking agony.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Muscles bulged in the burly Eld guard’s back and thick arms as he swung the heavy sel’dor war hammer he called Boraz, the Bone Grinder. The hammer strike landed with a meaty thud and the loud crack of breaking bone.
Hanging from chains attached to the barbed sel’dor shackles clamped around his wrists, Shannisorran v’En Celay gave a guttural roar of pain as his right hip shattered. His body writhed, and the tremors sent arrows of fire shooting through him as splinters of bone tore through bruised muscle. The pain was devastating. Already it had gone far beyond his ability to contain. He’d felt great, searing arrows of it blast down the link the Mage’s evil magic had unwittingly forged between Shan and Ellysetta Baristani, the daughter he’d not seen since her birth.
“How did you do it?” Across the room, High Mage Vadim Maur watched Shan’s torture with icy eyes. “How did you and our lovely Elfeya manage to hide your daughter’s magic from me?”
Shan sucked air into his lungs as he struggled to separate himself from the agony engulfing his body. He coughed and groaned as a fresh bout of pain racked him. His torture had begun with a simple but brutal pummeling before advancing to the hammer blows. Several of his ribs were broken, and with every breath, blood pooled in his mouth. He spat a mouthful of it on the ground.
“I know you engineered her escape, and I know you somehow bound her magic so I would not detect it.”
Shan tossed back the strands of matted black hair covering his eyes. The guard had shattered Shan’s ankles first, then his kneecaps, and now the first of his hips. He still had seven major joints to go, and he knew Maur wouldn’t leave one of them whole whether he answered or not. He lifted his chin in a gesture that Elfeya had always bemoaned as a sure sign of his intractability and fixed unblinking eyes—a predator’s stare—on the High Mage.
Maur’s teeth clenched for a moment. Then he gave a cold smile. “Lord Death.” He sneered the nickname Shan had earned many centuries ago, before finding his truemate, when he’d been the deadliest Fey warrior ever to walk the Fading Lands. “So arrogant, even now. I have not forgotten how the pair of you tried to help her escape my Mark in the Solarus. You failed, you know—I Marked her again—but you’ll still spend the next thousand years begging me for death as a reward for your efforts. You and Elfeya both.” He gave a short nod.
The guard swung his war hammer again.
The chains rattled as Shan’s body jerked and shuddered from the force of the blow. His scream echoed off the black stone walls. Pain is life, he reminded himself, silently reciting the litany he had taught his chadin at the Academy in Tehlas. Fey eat pain for breakfast. We jaff it on a cold night just to keep warm.
“Strip the flesh from his back,” Maur ordered coldly.
“Use the Fire whip. I don’t want him bleeding to death, just close enough to it to make his mate eager to please me.”
Shan’s vision blurred as the guard circled around him, the Mage’s favorite Fire-tipped whip clutched in his meaty hand.
The first blow seared him to his soul. He writhed as flesh ripped and scorched. He reeled as the shattered bones in his legs scraped and shredded his flesh from the inside out. Ah, gods have mercy. Maur just might break him this time.
«Shei’tan.» Elfeya’s voice, warm as a summer sun on the shores of Tairen’s Bay, washed over him. «I am here, beloved. I am with you. Together, we are strong.»
With an ease that would have driven Vadim Maur wild with rage had he known of it, Elfeya slipped into Shan’s mind, circumventing all the dark weaves and sel’dor and black witchery the High Mage had employed to keep them isolated. She was there, with Shan as she had been since the day of their bonding, an inextricable part of his soul. His strength, his blessing, his greatest weakness. «Leave me, Elfeya. Shield yourself. I cannot bear for you to suffer.»
«Nei, never. I will not let him break us. You are Shannisorran v’En Celay, the greatest champion the Fading Lands has ever known. You are a warrior of the Fey, and I am your truemate, a shei’dalin of great power. This Mage may hold our bodies, but he has no command over our souls.»
The second whipstroke shredded the flesh off his back. He flung his head back and screamed himself hoarse.
«Shan! Stay with me. Focus on the sound of my voice, beloved.» When he didn’t respond, her tone grew sharp as the Mage’s whip. «Speak to me, Fey!» she barked. «Who are you?»
She’d spent too many years of their life together eavesdropping in his mind as he drove his chadins to the end of their strength, then commanded them to eke out more. She was such a fierce, brave blade in her own right, his equal in every way. And she was right: Fey did not surrender, not to fear, not to pain, not to despair. They fought until their hearts burst in their chests. «I am warrior,» he gasped. «I am Fey.»
«Kabei! And what is a warrior of the Fey? Tell me! Shout it out!»
The whip ripped a third stripe off his back, but this time his choked scream was not a mindless howl. This time it was a declaration of defiance ripped from his aching throat, each word a rasping challenge. “I am the steel no enemy can shatter.” He thrust his chin out, met Maur’s vile silver gaze, and snarled through gritted teeth, “I am the magic no dark power can defeat.”
The High Mage smiled.
As the fourth lash fell, pain blinded him. He focused his mind on Elfeya’s warmth and forced the cry from his burning lungs. “I am the rock upon which evil breaks like waves. I am Fey! Warrior of honor! Champion of Light!”
Shan sagged in his chains as the torment enveloped him in a hazy cloud of mind-numbing pain. He clung to consciousness and sanity by a thread, the words he’d just cried so defiantly repeating in his mind again and again, punctuated by the sound of Elfeya’s quiet weeping.
An icy breath blew across his face, soft and taunting. “You will rot in darkness, Fey, while your mate serves my pleasure and your daughter surrenders her soul.”
The mad sentience in Shan’s soul roared with fury. Across the link that bound him to his child, her own beast screamed back in wild Rage. The next moment, a vast bolus of power blasted across the link, rushing into his broken body, searing him with a painful jolt. His beast seized the power, using it to feed his Rage. Shan’s vision turned to black shadow lit with vengeful red sparks. “Not if I rip you limb from limb and feast on your blood
y bones, Eld maggot.” He lunged for the Mage, teeth bared as he cried, “Ve sha Desriel!”
He saw the war hammer swinging from the corner of his eye. The Mage cried, “Don’t kill him, you idiot!” Pain smashed into his skull. Shan’s body went limp as consciousness fled.
Sol clutched his daughter’s body, rocking her as he had so many times in the past, singing the songs that had soothed her as a child. Blazing twenty-five-fold weaves of power formed a visible dome of magic around them. A five-fold weave had done almost nothing to ease her suffering, but the twenty-five-fold weave had at least dulled the pain enough that she was no longer screaming and convulsing.
Marissya didn’t know how to heal her. The pain, whatever it was, was not coming from any wound to her body, and whenever Marissya tried to probe, Ellysetta’s tairen roused with a vengeance, fierce and furious over any hint of shei’dalin intrusion into her mind. Rain, whom Ellysetta trusted, could not touch her without causing further pain. And Gaelen, who had suggested he spin the forbidden soul magic Azrahn to see what he could detect, had been unanimously shouted down.
Suddenly Ellysetta’s spine went stiff again and her eyes flew open wide. “K’shareth na pearson sh’verre korbay!” she cried, her voice a ragged scrape of sound, hoarse and broken and several octaves lower than her normal tones. “K’shafair na selltemorra sh’verre dagorren! K’shadure a daynalle pear coda la cresses! K’shafay! Shaysan lowcha! Liesse chakai!” She shouted the last wild words, then collapsed in Sol’s arms. Her head lolled back, and she began to mutter the same unintelligible phrases over and over again.
Sol raised stricken eyes to the Fey, who were standing around him in shocked silence. “All you Fey with all your power, can you do nothing? Was Laurie right about this being demons after all?”
Bel swallowed. “Only if the demon possessing her is the spirit of a Fey warrior.”
“What do you mean?” Sol demanded.
“We mean she is speaking Feyan,” Rain said.
“Feyan? Then what is she saying?” Sol asked.
Rain answered, his face a blank mask. “She said, ‘I am the steel no enemy can shatter.’” One by one, Bel, Dax, and Gaelen added their voices to his until they were all repeating the words together. “‘I am the magic no dark power can defeat. I am the rock upon which evil breaks like waves. I am Fey, warrior of honor, champion of Light.’”
“It is the warrior’s creed,” Gaelen said, “taught to every Fey boy who enters the Warriors’ Academy to begin his training in the Cha Baruk.”
With a sudden, fierce scowl, Rain knelt beside Sol Baristani and seized Ellysetta by the shoulders. “Nal?” he demanded. “Nal ve sha? Who are you? What is your name?”
Her head lolled limp on her neck. He caught her face between his hands. “Tell me!” The muted pain of her unseen injuries tore at his senses. Within his soul, Rain’s tairen roused, hissing, power licking at his limbs and lunging against its restraints.
He felt the sudden wild surge as Ellysetta’s own tairen leapt in answer. Her eyes flew open and fixed upon his face. The threads of their bond blazed to life. His tairen, Eras, roared with fury, sensing something else—someone else—there in her soul with them. Before he could react to the threat, Ellysetta’s body flared bright with sudden power, and Rain’s limbs went abruptly weak. Her pupils widened until no hint of green iris showed, and Rain reared back in instinctive shock and horror as, for one brief instant, her eyes shone pure black, filled with whirling red sparks.
“Ve sha Desriel!” she cried. The combined power left her on a rush. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped, unconscious, in her father’s arms.
“What in the Seven Hells just happened?” Dax demanded. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Rain snapped. “Something was there, inside her, something besides her tairen. I don’t know what—maybe a Mage, maybe a demon. Whatever it was nearly brought out her tairen, and she can’t control it yet. We need to get her to the Fading Lands. Right now.” He spun a shout across the common Fey thread. «Fey! Prepare for departure!»
“Rain,” Marissya protested. “You can’t mean to send her through the Mists now. We have no idea how they’ll react to her Mage Marks, and if that seizure nearly brought out the tairen, the Mists may well finish the job.”
“Marissya’s right, Rain,” Bel agreed. “The Mists can brutalize a Fey. She needs time to recover, to rebuild her inner barriers to keep the tairen in check.”
Rain turned hard, furious eyes on the pair of them. “We don’t have time. I don’t know what attacked her just now, but I’ll be scorched if we’re going to stay around here one bell longer and give it a chance to come back. Marissya, the chime she wakes, weave peace on her. Bel, Gaelen, you two help her build what barriers she needs to keep the tairen caged and protect herself against whatever the Mists might try to do to her.”
“Rain?” Sol Baristani interrupted. The woodcarver was still holding his daughter’s unconscious body, stroking her hair and rocking her as he had so many times since her earliest childhood. “‘Vaysha Dezrielle.’ She’s said that before during her seizures. Is it also Feyan? Do you know what it means?”
Rain’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “It means ‘I am Death.’”
Teleon was a flurry of activity as the Fey rushed to prepare for departure. As Rain had commanded, the moment Ellysetta regained consciousness, Marissya began weaving peace on her, while Bel and Gaelen helped her rebuild the internal barriers her seizure had shredded. As soon as they had finished, the Fey began marching out of Teleon.
Ellysetta, still pale and wan from her seizure, desperately tried to hold back her tears as she knelt on the shining, silver-blue steps of Teleon to clasp the twins in yet another fierce hug. She didn’t want to let them go, didn’t want to think of waking up to a morning when she would not see their sweet, smiling faces. But her seizure and her duty to the tairen left her no choice.
“I will miss you both,” she told the twins, pulling back to press kisses on their soft cheeks and rosy lips. “I’ll think about you every day—and miss you every chime. I love you so very much.”
Lillis and Lorelle were crying as much as she was. “Don’t go, Ellie. Stay here with us.”
“Oh, kitlings, if only I could.” She gave her father a pleading glance. «Won’t you reconsider, Papa? Come with us. You’ll all be safer in the Fading Lands.»
He shook his head. Even if Papa thought the twins could actually be happy living as mortals in an immortal land, he wouldn’t betray his wife’s last wishes. “Please understand.”
She bit her lower lip, ashamed that she kept urging him to break his vow. «I’m sorry. I just want you all safe.»
“We’ll be safe here. The Fey will see to that. And as I promised you, if there is even a hint of trouble, we’ll come through the Mists.”
Ellysetta dashed away her tears with the back of one hand and gave him a watery smile. “I know, Papa. I’m just selfish enough to want you three with me always.”
Behind Sol’s spectacles, his brown eyes glistened with answering tears. “Oh, Ellie-girl, if that’s selfish, then I must confess the same sin, for I would keep you by my side if I thought you could ever be safe or happy there.” He embraced her. As his arms enfolded her, the love that had been her anchor all her life flowed into her once more, filling her with its warm reassurance and strength. He cupped her face in his hands, then hugged her tight once more before stepping back. “Go, daughter. Find the happiness you deserve. And may the Light always shine on your path and shelter you from harm.”
“Teleos.” Rain clasped the Celierian great lord’s forearm. “You guard our gates—both here and at the Veil—and you guard three treasures very precious to my mate.” He inclined his head towards the twins and Sol Baristani.
“Your assistance is much appreciated.”
“It is the great honor of House Teleos to be of service to the Fey,” Lord Teleos replied.
“The first thousand blades I promi
sed Dorian leave the Fading Lands within the week. I’ll bring reinforcements to Orest by month’s end, along with that Fey steel I promised you for your own men. And, Dev?”
“Aiyah?”
Rain held the younger man’s Fey gaze steadily. “My friend Shanis would have been proud to call you kin.”
The great lord blinked in surprise, then said in a low voice, “Beylah vo, Rain. I only wish I could have known him.”
“You do, Dev. You are much like him.” They clasped arms again in a warrior’s gesture of respect and friendship; then Rain turned to Ellysetta’s family. “Master Baristani. Lillis and Lorelle.” Rain shook the woodcarver’s hand, then knelt and opened his arms to the twins, who threw themselves into his embrace with as much weeping regret as they’d shown Ellysetta.
“Here now, kitlings,” he protested when their tears would not stop. “This is not good-bye. This is just farewell until we meet again.” When they pulled back, he smiled and thumbed away their tears. “Be good, hmm? Listen to Kieran and Kiel, and try to stay out of trouble.”
The twins nodded. “We will.”
Ellysetta put her hand on Rain’s wrist. As he led her away, down the steps towards Marissya and Dax and the waiting Fey, she kept looking back over her shoulder and waving at her father and the twins, and at Kieran and Kiel standing guard beside them.
“Promise me you’ll keep them safe,” she begged Kiel and Kieran one final time as Rain stepped away to summon the Change.
“We will protect them with our lives,” Kieran vowed.
“You have our solemn oath.”
The wild, rich scent of the tairen swept over her. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, then turned to take her place on Rain’s back. A series of thick leather straps lashed her into place—in case she were to have another seizure while flying through the Mists. Rain leapt into the sky, and her beloved family grew smaller and smaller as he bore her away. She twisted in the saddle and watched even when she could no longer make them out.
