by C. L. Wilson
When she looked up at him in disbelief, he smiled sadly. “I deserve your doubt. I rejected you when you needed me most, and I will live with that shame forever. But I will not make the same mistake again, Ellysetta. I will not turn from you. I am yours, no matter what magic you wield, no matter how many Marks you bear.”
“The High Mage will try to use me to destroy the Fey. To destroy you.”
“He will try, but we will not let him succeed.” When she didn’t respond, he gave a small sigh. “Wait here. I have something for you in the other room.” He slipped through the bedroom door and came back a moment later, carrying a bulky, silk-draped object. “I asked your father to make this for me, that first night. I meant it to be a wedding gift, but I think it’s more fitting now as a courtship gift.” He drew the silk cover away, revealing an exquisitely carved statue.
Ellysetta’s breath caught in her throat, and she reached for the gleaming treasure in Rain’s hands. Fingertips touched grainless ebonwood and satiny fireoak. The carving seemed so real, she could almost feel the warmth of life in the wood. “Papa did this? It’s the most beautiful piece he ever made.”
“It is a masterful work of art,” Rain agreed. “No Fey could have done better.”
Beneath Sol Baristani’s skillful hands, a tairen matepair had come to life in fireoak and ebonwood. The female was a lithe and lustrous creature with emerald eyes and gold-veined wings folded against her back. She sat on her haunches, a feline queen. At her side, a larger male Tairen carved of almost grainless ebonwood had extended one wing, curling it protectively over his mate, the underside of his shadowy wing sparkling with diamond dust. Ebonwood and fireoak tails were entwined in an utterly tairen gesture of devotion, but the twining was so intricate that Ellie could scarcely believe her father had managed it without magic. Both tairen wore a look of tender pride as they gazed down on a pair of round little kitlings playing at their feet, one black, one a rosy auburn, both slightly mottled.
“The matepair look exactly as I imagined them,” Rain said. “From that very first night, shei’tani, I saw you more clearly than I knew. I saw your true soul—and my true place at your side, protecting and defending you from harm. The kitlings were your father’s touch,” he added. “He called them a father’s wish for his daughter. When I went to see him in the chapel just now, he gave me the statue and told me I should tell you that.”
Outside, the sun hung low on the western horizon. Night was approaching. Rain held out a hand. “Come, shei’tani. Let us see your mother’s soul safe to rest. When it is done, I ask that you consent to be my wife. Not because your father pledged to me your troth, and not because the gods declared it should be so, but because you wish to bind your life to mine.”
Ellysetta looked up from the exquisite tairen family in her hands. Rain’s eyes were filled with open longing and shining with promise. Perhaps the girl who loved Fey tales wasn’t completely gone, after all.
She slid her fingers into his. “Aiyah, Rain, I will marry you.”
Lauriana’s body was placed on a gilded litter and borne by Ellysetta’s quintet down the cobbled roads to her funeral bier outside the city walls. Sol walked behind the litter, holding the twins by the hand. Rain and Ellysetta followed them, then Marissya and Dax. Bringing up the rear marched all the Fey in Celieria, clad in full ceremonial dress, steel gleaming in the waning light, silken banners of red, violet, and gold waving in the breeze. It was a funeral procession worthy of a queen.
“I never thought you would so honor her,” Ellysetta whispered, brought to tears by the unexpected tribute. “I thought you would despise her for arranging my exorcism.”
“If honor were reserved only for those who never err, none of us would be worthy,” Rain answered. “When she saw how she’d been used against you, she gave her life to set you free. There is much to honor in that.”
As they walked through the city, Fey voices rose in crystalline waves to sing an ancient Fey lament for valiant, fallen heroes. The song was one Ellysetta recognized, usually reserved for warriors who died performing great deeds, and she wept with a mix of love and sorrow and pride. She could not have held back her emotions even if she’d tried. They poured forth like a river overflowing its banks, weaving into the notes of the song.
Ellysetta wore no shei’dalin’s veil. She’d refused when Marissya made the suggestion, saying she’d already spent too much of her life hiding who and what she truly was. Her unveiled brightness shone like a beacon. Now unleashed, her innate magic, the compassion and healing peace of a shei’dalin, spread out in waves of light all around her.
In the wake of the procession, the Celierians who had spent their last week in growing turmoil and groundless anger found themselves sobbing as if their hearts would break. The Shining Folk, who’d seemed so threatening of late, now appeared like heroes of old, noble and gracious and good. In their midst walked a woman of incomparable beauty, bright as the Great Sun, her hair like coils of sacred flame. Just the sight of her banished the shadows from their minds, and those who caught her verdant gaze felt seeds of love and hope bloom in their breasts.
The procession wound through the streets and through the western gates to the last unlit pyre. Ellysetta’s quintet bore Lauriana forward and laid her body gently on the oiled wood, then stepped back as Father Celinor began the Celierian service for the dead. When he was done, Sol stepped forward with a lighted brand to ignite his wife’s pyre.
Lillis and Lorelle clutched Ellysetta’s hands, not at all frightened by her changed appearance but seemingly comforted by it instead.
“Does it hurt her, Ellie?” Lillis asked in a small voice as the flames engulfed her mother’s body.
Fresh tears spilled from Ellysetta’s eyes. She knelt quickly and caught her sister up in a fierce hug. “Oh, kitling, no. Not at all. She’s with the Bright Lord now.”
“In the Haven of Light?” Lorelle asked.
“Yes, Lorelle, in the Haven of Light, singing glorias with the Lightmaidens.” She caught Lorelle in her arms as well, holding both girls tight and sending up a heartfelt prayer for the gods to grant them both peace and help them past the loss of their mother. The twins sighed and snuggled closer, their small arms twining tightly about her neck.
Lauriana’s pyre burned quickly through sunset and the ensuing twilight, extinguishing itself just as night fell over the city. When the last flame subsided, Fey Fire-masters dispersed the remaining heat and gathered the ashes. Ellysetta and her sisters returned to the palace while Rain took Sol aloft to throw the ashes to the winds so they might settle in the soil of the land Lauriana Baristani had loved.
Afterward, in King Dorian’s private chapel, with the Fey, Ellysetta’s family, Lords Barrial and Teleos, and the king and queen in attendance, Rain Tairen Soul wed Ellysetta Baristani in a quiet ceremony officiated by Father Celinor. The grand pomp of the royal wedding Lauriana had envisioned gave way to simple elegance, consisting of a few exquisite flowers and a priest, which was all Ellysetta had ever really wanted to begin with.
She wore the gown Maestra Binchi had created and the wreath of the Gentle Dawn roses her mother had selected, but there the Celierian bride ended and the Fey shei’dalin began. Around her neck and waist, dripping in loops of golden links, gleamed the sorreisu kiyr of all the Fey who’d died on her behalf. Bel and Gaelen’s bloodsworn daggers hung in jeweled sheaths at her hips, and Rajahl vel’En Daris’s crystal glittered at her wrist.
Marissya stood as Ellysetta’s Beacon, and with impeccable, unflinching grace, Master Fellows served as her Honoria—because no matter how scandalous it might be to have a man stand as Honoria, he said it simply wouldn’t do for a queen to wed without one. When Father Celinor invoked the final blessing and pronounced them man and wife, a sense of peace and rightness settled over Ellysetta, almost as if Mama were standing there beside her, watching with love and approval while Ellysetta joined her life with the man the gods had chosen for her.
Following a brief bridal suppe
r, Rain escorted Ellysetta to their suite for a few bells of privacy while the Fey prepared for departure. Once there, however, Rain found himself at a loss.
He was freed at last from the restrictive Celierian customs and oaths of honor that had bound him since the day of their betrothal, and need for his mate beat at him.
The call of her soul was so strong, the echoing desire in his body just as powerful, and the tairen clamored for its mate, but she had just lost her mother. He could feel her grief, her sorrow, battering at her, and through her, him. To pounce on her now, demanding mating, seemed the vilest sort of selfishness. She needed time to grieve.
Determined to do the honorable thing, he escorted her to his bedchamber, spun a swift Earth weave that changed her wedding gown into a fine linen nightrail, and kissed her once, gently, on the lips before turning to leave.
“Rain?” she called when he reached the door. “You’re leaving me?”
“Nei, of course not,” he vowed. “I’ll be right next door. You get some rest. We leave in the small bells, before the city wakes, and our journey will be long.”
Ellysetta frowned at him, perplexed by the way he was clinging to the bedchamber door. He looked ready to bolt. “But this is our wedding night.”
His gaze dropped. The knuckles on the door frame clenched harder. “Aiyah, and I know it is not the happy day you wanted. You are grieving. My needs can wait.”
Relief filled her. His hesitation wasn’t because of her Marks or the forbidden magic she wielded. “But my need cannot,” she told him softly. “Yes, I’m grieving, but there’s been too much sorrow, too many tears. I would end this day in hope—with joy between us. Is that so strange a request?”
He peeled his fingers away from the door frame. He crossed the room and approached the bed. “Nei, not so strange. There is nothing I want more.” Slowly, giving her ample time to change her mind, he took her in his arms. Her long hair spilled over the crook of his arm, silken soft and so fragrant every breath was a scented bliss. He bent as if to kiss her, then paused again just before his mouth met hers. “Be sure, shei’tani, that this is what you want. If you have the slightest doubt, say so now, and I will go.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She reached up to touch his face and pull him down to her. “I want this, Rain. I want you.”
He took her mouth in a long, slow kiss, his lips parting hers gently to share the moist heat of a breath as the kiss deepened. «You are so beautiful, shei’tani.» His voice whispered in her mind, husky, low, intimate. «You always were, but now, with your brightness unveiled, even more so.»
«You make me feel beautiful.» He always had. Even when she’d still been plain, mortal Ellysetta Baristani, he’d made her feel like the loveliest woman in the world.
He kissed her slowly, leisurely, taking his time. Nibbling her lower lip, teasing the upper one, feathering kisses across her face until she shifted and nipped at his mouth in impatience. His brows rose. “Impatient, shei’tani? What would you prefer? This?”
His hand trailed down the front of her nightgown. The fabric parted without a whisper of protest, falling away in silken swaths to bare the soft fullness of her breasts. The delicate torment of the sliding fabric and the subsequent small breath of air drew her nipples tight, twin buds of soft pink. His thumb brushed across them, sending a tiny quake of sensation shooting through her that echoed across his own senses.
“Or perhaps this?” Slowly he bent his head and took her in his mouth.
“Rain…yesssss. That.” Her breath hissed out on a heated sigh, and she clasped him to her breast. Her head tilted back and her eyes closed as his tongue teased the sensitive peak.
She tasted of sunlight and springtime, of blossoming flowers and crystal waters. Each stroke of his tongue on her flesh was a tiny sensory illustration of what life would be like in the Haven of Light. Beauty, pleasure, peace, completion. Belonging. Everything he’d always wanted, and the promise of much more than he’d ever imagined.
His body answered with an ardent surge, hungry for more than teasing glimpses of fulfillment, ravenous for the gift every Fey warrior dreamed of.
He pulled back just enough to drink in the sight of her, pale and shining in his arms, the silvery glow tinted with deep, warm tones as her own passion rose in response. Her bright Fey eyes glowed a verdant green so rich and deep he could lose himself in them.
Ducking his head again, he scattered soft kisses across her skin. “When I was a boy, before I found my wings, I tried to dream of what my shei’tani would be like. I could never picture her, because in my heart I knew I was destined to fly, and I knew the sacrifice that would require. But there’s not a Fey warrior born who does not dream of finding his truemate, so at night, after my parents went to bed, I would sneak out of the shellaba and lie beneath the stars and ask the gods if they could somehow find a way to give a tairen a truemate.”
“You never told me that before.”
Color rose in his cheeks, making him look far younger than his years, and more vulnerable. “It was such a foolish, selfish dream,” he said. “Being a tairen is a rare and great gift of its own, and as I grew older, remembering how I begged for more made me ashamed.”
Her hands reached up to frame his face. The sweet kiss of her fingertips and the warm glow of her eyes bathed him in acceptance, soothing the sting of ancient childhood embarrassment. “Wanting love is not selfish, Rain. We’re all born missing the connections that make us complete.” Her thumb smoothed across his lips, and she smiled when he answered the caress with nibbles and kisses. “I dreamed of finding a place where I truly belonged, even though I had a family who loved me. And even though I knew I was neither as good nor as beautiful as the princesses I read about in Fey tales, I still dreamed of finding my one true love.”
He caught her thumb between his teeth, the flare of jealousy small but instinctive. Tairen did not share. Just as quickly, he realized what he’d done. He unlocked his jaw to release her and feathered a quick kiss of apology. “Did your true love have a face?”
She laughed softly, not missing the jealousy, nor misunderstanding its cause. “He did.”
“Well? What did he look like?”
Her smile faded until only a wistful hint of it clung to her lips. “You.”
His eyes blazed, and his head swooped down to claim her mouth. His arms slid around her, steely bands that clutched her tight and pulled her hard against him. He kissed her until she was breathless and melting against him, then pressed his face into her hair and nuzzled the soft skin behind her ear.
“Perhaps I should not be so pleased that there has never been another in your heart but me, but in truth I cannot find the humility to be sad for it.” A low, growling purr of satisfaction rumbled in his voice.
“Can you not?” She laughed, a bewitching sound that sent his pulse skyrocketing. Her hands roamed over his chest, cupping the swell of pectoral muscle. Her nails scraped lightly across his flat nipples, teasing them into small, tight points. She paused to rub a testing fingertip across the pebbled flesh, then met his eyes and smiled. Her power flared. Magic leapt from her flesh to his in a breathtaking flow of energy.
Blood rushed to his groin in a hot, almost painful swell. He groaned and gave a rueful laugh. “Careful, Ellysetta, or you’ll finish me before I can even begin.”
“Then begin,” she insisted. Her hands trailed down his sides and tugged at the closure of his leather breeches. “You’ve shown me what to expect, and I find I am impatient.”
He didn’t need a second invitation. Earth sprang from his fingers, dissolving boots and leathers and the remains of her nightshift, leaving both of them bare to each other. She gave a small gasp at her sudden nakedness, but despite the brief flood of color that darkened her cheeks, she did not flinch or pull away.
She was the same to his eyes, yet so astonishingly new. Her beauty radiated on so many levels, a banquet to his senses, and her emotions caressed him in waves, urging him on, singing to his soul a n
ew song of her own…not Spirit, not tairen, but woman. Captivating and compelling. Come to me, Rain. Make me your wife.
He moved without thought, his hands reaching for hers, breath exhaling in a soft groan as his fingertips rediscovered the exquisite satin of her skin. At last, he had the freedom to claim what was his. By the laws of her culture and in the eyes of her family, the mating he’d hungered for was no longer forbidden—it was their right, his and hers.
He stroked the gentle, slender curve of her body, from the roundness of her breast, to the narrow tuck of her waist, and on to the soft flare of trim hip and thigh. A tingle of magic followed in the wake of his hand, the sparkling lights of his own essence dancing across her skin and setting her senses afire.
“It has been a thousand years since last I knew a woman’s body,” he murmured. “I pray I do not disappoint.”
Though he said it with a small smile, she heard a greater sincerity than he would have wanted to reveal. He feared the truth of this joining wouldn’t be as stirring to her as the illusions he’d woven with such mastery.
“The only possible way you could disappoint me, Rain, would be to leave me now.” She arched against him and slid a leg over his. Her foot traveled up the rock-hard muscles of his calves to tease the backs of his thighs. His sex gave a hungry, surging pulse as her gesture opened the nest of curls between her legs.
“You do play with fire.”
She laughed, a throaty purr that rolled over his skin and made every cell leap in reaction. “It must be the tairen in me.”
His own tairen flexed its claws and gave an answering growl of approval. “Then take my flame, shei’tani, and burn for me.”
He bent his head and devoted himself to setting her afire, body and soul. Flows of magic swirled around her like a thousand stroking hands. His mouth claimed first one breast and then the other, teasing the soft nipples into tight, aching peaks. Alternating breezes of tingling cold warred with sultry heat, the combination an intoxicating, erotic play that roused every inch of her skin to aching sensitivity.
