by C. L. Wilson
«Marissya, we need you!» Bel summoned the shei’dalin on a blast of Spirit, then barked commands to the five quintets, ordering them to surround their king. «Weave your strongest cage around him. We can’t let him fly. No matter what it takes to stop him.»
Bel sprinted past his dearest friend, racing to aid the woman he’d pledged his soul to protect. She was on the steps, clutched in the grip of a dahl’reisen Bel knew and had once admired. She was screaming, a shrill wail of torment and terror.
«Vel Serranis! Release her!»
Dahl’reisen though he was, Gaelen vel Serranis was still Fey. Any Fey who took Gaelen’s life would lose his own soul.
Bel never once paused as he pulled two wickedly sharp, red-handled Fey’cha free of their sheaths and leapt forward to kill the dahl’reisen who had laid hands upon Ellysetta Baristani.
Behind him, Rain’s shouts changed to the chilling, full-throated roar of an enraged tairen.
Held in the viselike grip of the man she’d thought to save, Ellysetta’s consciousness wavered uncertainly in a mirrored hall of madness. She was Ellysetta Baristani, yet not. She was a man, naked and howling beneath an Elden Mage’s lash. She was a woman screaming as tears of blood poured from her eyes. She was Gaelen vel Serranis, descending into madness as he watched his sister, the person he loved beyond all others, die in one swift, shocking moment at the point of an Eld assassin’s blade. She was Rain, locked in an agony of old memories and new nightmares, teetering on the brink of destruction.
She was herself, shrieking from the horrors that battered her mind, even as a violent rage swelled within her, fierce as any tairen’s fury.
The pain must stop. Would stop.
Bel was in mid-leap when Ellysetta’s screaming abruptly ceased and a fist of Air slammed hard against his chest, batting him to the ground. All breath left him, and the red Fey’cha flew out of his grasp.
«Kill him!» Bel shouted the command to his brother Fey, demanding the sacrifice without a second thought. «He’s got the Feyreisa.»
«Nei. You will stand down.» The command came from Ellysetta, but her voice was different, resonant with power, her order irresistible. Blades fell harmlessly from Fey hands.
Behind Bel, the warriors guarding Rain gave a shout. “The Tairen Soul! He’s free! Our weave is down! We cannot call magic!”
At first Bel thought it was Gaelen vel Serranis using dark dahl’reisen magic to control them all, but then Ellysetta turned her head ever so slightly towards him. Her face was expressionless, her eyes glowing.
Fear shivered up Bel’s spine. “Ellysetta…” The soul that looked out at him from those glowing eyes was not the gentle spirit that had claimed his devotion. “Ellysetta, you must let us stop Rain. In his present state, he’s a danger to us all.” He tried to summon his magic, but nothing came to his call. He could sense the source within him, rich and powerful, but it was as if the flows of his magic had been redirected.
To her.
«Aiyah, it must stop.» With strength beyond her slender form, she turned the dahl’reisen on his back and ripped the wet leather of his tunic down the middle, baring the pale skin of his chest and the myriad bleeding wounds that marred it. She laid her hand over the dahl’reisen’s heart, and a brilliant weave blazed to life, intricate and bright as the Great Sun. Bel raised a hand to shade his eyes against the stabbing brightness. The weave spread out like a net above the dahl’reisen’s chest, then dropped, sinking into him, and every fingerspan of Gaelen vel Serranis’s exposed skin glowed like a candle shade lit from within.
The dahl’reisen cried out, a sobbing, ragged sound. His body convulsed in a rigid arch, muscles clenched and straining. An anguished moan rattled out between gritted teeth, the sound of torment beyond bearing. And Belliard vel Jelani saw something he’d never believed possible.
The scar bisecting the Dark Lord’s brow—the mark of his lost soul—began to fade.
Bel raised astonished eyes to Ellysetta. The picture of her at this moment would be indelibly burned into his mind for all eternity. Her eyes so fierce in a face of pure serenity.
Her body stiffened. Her head reared up, and her eyes blazed with a sudden flare of blinding light that lit the river’s edge bright as day for a moment’s span. Then the light in her eyes and the glow in vel Serranis’s body winked out, gone as quickly as a snuffed candle flame.
“Rain…where’s Rain?” Ellysetta’s voice was a thin whisper; then she gave a tiny sigh and crumpled over the dahl’reisen’s still form.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vadim Maur backed away from his two Fey captives. The cold sweat of terror—something he’d not felt in centuries—trickled down his spine.
The v’En Celay matepair lay motionless on the dirty stone floor of their cage. The sudden blaze of light that had enveloped them was gone, and the broken shards of what had been sel’dor manacles and earrings lay scattered around their whole, unblemished bodies.
The High Mage backed out of the cage, slamming the door shut and locking it with shaking hands. He shouted for the guards waiting outside the chamber. “Get the manacles! Pierce them both. Hurry! Before the male wakes.”
If Shannisorran v’En Celay woke unrestrained by sel’dor…
Vadim shuddered. The Fey lord had been unshackled only once since his capture, and then only to test the success of Vadim’s experiments. The crazed beast that raged into life had slain four Mages and two platoons of guardsmen. A barrage of sel’dor barbed arrows had done little to slow him. A knife in the chest of the shei’dalin was the only thing that had finally brought him back under control.
The Fey lord and his mate flinched but never roused as the guards snapped needle-barbed sel’dor manacles into place. Only then did the tension begin to leave Vadim’s body.
What had happened just now? Where had that blast of concentrated power come from? Vadim had never known anything that could vaporize sel’dor within a Fey’s skin. He’d never heard anything like the commanding voice in his mind that said, “It must stop.” Even the memory of it made him shiver.
One of the guards paused a short distance away and cleared his throat. “What shall we do with the captives, Most High?”
Vadim took a breath and struggled to keep his voice level. “Have the servants tend them.”
“Shall we separate them, Most High?”
He thought of the flash of power, of the astonishment of sel’dor disintegrating into harmless brittle shards. If that were to happen again while the v’En Celay matepair were together and conscious…
“Yes. Put the female back in her cell. Inform me when either of them rouses.” Vadim waited for the guards to remove Elfeya from her mate’s cell, then wove magic around the sel’dor bars. Whatever power had decimated the Fey captives’ sel’dor piercings would not find it so easy to shred a six-fold weave, especially as that sixth thread was a thick rope of Azrahn. Just to be safe, however, Vadim added a shield of blackest Feraz witchcraft.
«Primary, to me. Ravel, choose twenty-five men to guard the dahl’reisen. The rest of you, see to the Tairen Soul.» Bel barked the commands over the common Fey thread. The stunned silence and frozen stillness of the warriors in the park ended as Bel’s orders spurred them into quick action.
Bel hurried down the remaining steps and gathered Ellysetta’s limp body in his arms. Her skin felt cool and clammy to the touch, and her pulse stuttered rapidly beneath his fingers. “Kiel, check vel Serranis. Is he alive?”
The blond warrior knelt beside the prostrate dahl’reisen and laid a hand on his throat. “He’s breathing and his heart’s beating. He’s alive.” Then Kiel swore an astonished curse. “Spit and scorch me. Vel Serranis’s dahl’reisen scar—it’s gone!”
“Aiyah,” Bel confirmed.
Kiel’s gaze flew to the girl Bel held in his arms. “Did she—? Does this mean what I think it means?”
“Aiyah, she did. And I think it means exactly that. But restrain him anyway, in case I’m wrong.” Bel shifted Ell
ysetta more securely in his arms.
“But how is that possible? How could she have restored his soul?”
“I gave you an order, Fey,” Bel snapped. “Restrain vel Serranis now. Quickly, before he wakes.” He carried Ellysetta across the park to where Rain lay motionless and laid her beside him. «Marissya, where are you?»
«Not far. What happened? There was so much agony, so much rage, and now I cannot sense anything.»
«I’ll explain when you get here. Just hurry.»
When Marissya arrived, the sight of her brother Gaelen, unconscious and surrounded by an impenetrable shield, made the shei’dalin stop in her tracks. “Dear gods. Gaelen.” She gave a small, choked sound and started towards him, but Dax held her back.
“Nei, shei’tani, do not go near him. See to Rain and the Feyreisa.”
“Dax, his scar is gone and I cannot sense his pain. How can that be?”
“I don’t know, beloved, but I do not trust it. Come away.” Dax pulled her away from her infamous brother.
After a brief resistance, Marissya went with him. Rain needed her. He was just waking and she could feel his dull pain throbbing at her. He was her primary concern. His bones were broken, but, more alarmingly, his internal defenses were all but decimated. Ellysetta’s torment had ripped through his shields and nearly driven the tairen into madness. His first waking thought was fear for her safety, and that fear made the tairen surge against the last thin threads of Rain’s control. Quickly Marissya poured her strength into him, helping him to rebuild his tattered barriers as he came back to consciousness. Only once she was sure he could keep the tairen in check did she turn her attention to his broken bones.
She’d barely begun to fuse the bones back together when Rain grabbed her wrist, his eyes snapping open. “Stop.”
She sucked in a breath and drew her hands away from Rain’s side. “The bones aren’t knit. You’re not fully healed.”
“Conserve your strength for Ellysetta. Something is wrong with her.” Pain from his broken bones stabbed deep enough to draw a quiet hiss as he sat up, but he waved Marissya off and gathered Ellysetta’s limp body to his chest. Lines of worry bracketed his mouth as he laid his hand on Ellysetta’s bare skin. “I cannot sense her at all.”
“Let me try to reach her.” Marshaling her strength, Marissya summoned the full complement of her shei’dalin’s powers, pooling magic within her until it filled her body and pulsed like the very blood that sped through her veins. She sent her consciousness into Ellysetta on a rich flow of healing magic.
The younger woman’s life force was strong, her colors bright and vibrant, but the essence that was Ellysetta was absent. Marissya called to her softly, infusing her mental voice with hypnotic compulsion in an attempt to draw her out, but utter silence greeted her efforts. She called again, strengthening her summons,
«Rain, call to her. Bel, you too. You have a connection.»
As their voices replaced hers, she felt the faintest flutter of a response, quickly snuffed out. She sped towards the source of that faint response, and came to an abrupt, shocked halt.
What should have been the bright glow of Ellysetta’s consciousness was hidden behind rope after rope of glowing magic. «A weave. Lord of Light, bless us all. She’s built a fortress around her mind. Rain, I’ve never seen anything like it.»
It was a shei’dalin’s Spirit weave, but in a pattern so dense and so complex that Marissya could not begin to fathom it. Cautiously she sent out a rippling tendril of her own power to test the barrier, and started with surprise as a shining thread fell away. She moved closer, and realized that the dense weave was actually many lighter weaves, layer after layer of Spirit that formed a deep thicket around whatever it was protecting.
Consciousness returned to Gaelen, but not by one flicker of an eyelash nor a minute change in breathing did he let it show. Wariness honed by centuries of battle had made such still wakings second nature to him.
He was still alive. He’d laid deadly dahl’reisen hands on the Tairen Soul’s mate, yet he still drew breath. How was that possible?
Surreptitiously he extended his senses to evaluate his surroundings, only to find them rebuffed by humming walls of power. Dense five-fold weaves surrounded him, caging him in.
He risked opening one eye and saw the warriors ringed around him, saw through the glow of their weaves the Tairen Soul clutching his mate’s limp body against his chest. Marissya crouched beside them. His heart clenched as he drank in the sight of his sister, as beautiful as the last time he’d seen her beloved face a thousand years ago. Dax, Belliard vel Jelani, and Rain Tairen Soul knelt beside her, worry plain on their faces.
He’d not succeeded, then. He’d not slain the High Mage’s spawn.
He braced himself for the cold fury, the dahl’reisen hate that had driven him here with such relentless, deadly determination.
It did not come.
Only then did Gaelen realize what else was missing. The pain. The anger. The despair.
He raised shaking hands to his face. Disbelieving fingers sought the cursed mark of the outcast, the brand of his lost soul.
It was not there.
Realization swept over him. Directly on its heels came horror, then devastating grief and guilt. He stared at the unconscious girl, the miracle he’d come to destroy, and tears he’d not shed in over a thousand years spilled helplessly from his eyes.
Dear gods, what had he done?
Marissya sent out another thrust of power at the threads of the outermost weave. After a brief protest, they unraveled and dissolved. Encouraged, she moved on to the next.
Layer after layer, Marissya picked apart the woven strands of Spirit and released their stored energy. Progress was quick at first, but slowed as each successive weave proved to be denser and more resistant to her efforts. Time passed without notice. Weariness crept over her, and she found herself reaching for Dax’s strength to supplement her own.
She dissolved a particularly troublesome weave and nearly wept at the sight of the next. Knit tighter than any she’d ever come across, it was a veritable wall of power. Intimidating. Unbreachable. Weariness and despair swamped her.
«Marissya!» Alarm colored Dax’s call.
«I can’t do it. It’s impossible, and I’m so tired.» She just wanted to sleep.
«Marissya!» This time, Dax sounded distant, muffled. She was dimly aware of a tugging sensation, but dismissed it. She would sleep. Just close her eyes and sleep for a while.
A surge of power rippled through her, jerking her back to awareness with a faint protest. «Nei, let me sleep.»
«Later.» It was Rain, his voice hard and commanding. «You are the shei’dalin. You must do this.»
«But I can’t. Look at that weave. It would take days to unravel.»
Another surge of power joined Rain’s. «The Feyreisa needs you, Marissya.» That was Bel. «We will give you our strength.»
«It doesn’t matter how much strength you give me. I can’t do it. Don’t you understand?»
“Let me help her!” For what seemed like the thousandth time, Gaelen pleaded with his stone-faced captors. “Scorch you all for your blindness! She restored my soul! Let me at least try to mend the harm I’ve wrought. Put red to my neck and kill me if I even breathe in a way you do not like, but let me help before you lose her.”
Ravel stared hard at his infamous captive. He didn’t trust the dahl’reisen, but even he was shaken to his soul by the miracle Ellysetta seemed to have wrought. Tears were spilling down vel Serranis’s cheeks. Dahl’reisen did not cry.
Ravel didn’t know what to believe.
But Marissya’s power was nearly spent, and the Feyreisa was not waking.
“Do it,” Ravel snapped. “Teris, Cyr, put red to his throat. Jurel and Vonn, you take his back. If any of you sense the slightest inkling of ill intent, slay him. The rest of you, crack the weave but be ready to seal it again at a moment’s notice.”
A new surge of power rippled th
rough Marissya. A brisk, powerful wind that swept across her awareness. «Little sister…»
Marissya felt her heart clench. «Gaelen?»
«It is I, ajiana.»
«Gaelen…how—?»
«There will be time for answers later, ajiana, I promise. For now, take what I can offer you, finish your work, and return to your own self. I am here. Your mate is here beside me. We will not let you fail.»
«But, Gaelen, the weave is impossible. I don’t even know where to begin.»
«It is a Spirit weave, Marissya, and it is defending itself against you. You are weary because it told you to be weary. Your power is spent because it told you to spend your power. It is impossible because it tells you to believe that. It’s an illusion, little sister, as most Spirit is.»
«Gaelen—»
«You worry your mate, and though I’ve never liked him much, I cannot help feeling pity for him.» He gave a laugh that had been rare even when Marissya was a child. The sound of it filled her with renewed strength. «So do this thing, ajiana, and return to him.»
Marissya felt her brother’s determination bolster her, an endless supply of power and sheer will from which she could draw forever. He was a tower of strength. He always had been. He was her hero, the brother she had idolized all her young life.
«Aiyah. I will do this.» She directed her attention to the Spirit weave, focusing her concentration, gathering the strength of those connected to her and weaving their wills to her own. She attacked the weave, not with subtlety but with bold determination, cutting through steely threads of Spirit as if they were tailor’s silk. The weave tried to defend itself, swamping her with fatigue and self-doubt, but she persevered until the last thread was severed and the barrier fell away in dissolving bands of power.
