CHAPTER ELEVEN #4
Villagers rushed out to meet the returning raiders.
Among them were several dozen more dahl’reisen—some in full leather and steel, others looking incongruously like Celierian townsmen in tunics and breeches—numerous mortal men and women, even elders with wrinkled skin and whitening hair.
And there were children, scores of them, varying in age from the smallest babe still suckling at its mother’s breast to tall, stripling youths on the cusp of adulthood.
Rain stared at the children in wonder, seeing more than one Fey face among them.
They all watched him with a mix of intense curiosity and deep-rooted wariness.
As the dahl’reisen entered, the villagers moved forward.
Women opened welcoming arms and clasped suddenly weary-looking dahl’reisen to their breasts.
Small children cried “Gepa!” Father! Several women gave choked cries and rushed to clasp the hands of the wounded, while others waited and stood in grief-stricken silence as Farel’s warriors delivered unto them the steel and sorreisu’kiyrs of the fallen.
Watching them, Rain’s throat grew tight.
He remembered countless similar scenes from his own childhood.
Happy homecomings when his father, Rajahl, had returned safely from battle.
Bitter homecomings when Rain himself had brought the wounded and as many dead as he could carry back from a particularly bloody clash with the Mages.
He had never dreamed to find such warmth… such love… in a dahl’reisen village.
A tall woman in dark skirts approached Farel.
She was young despite the wealth of startling white hair she wore tied back with a simple band.
Her face was barely lined, her eyes large, clear pools of misty gray surrounded by thick black lashes.
Rain estimated she had seen no more than thirty mortal years.
She paused at Farel’s side and clasped his hands, staring up into his eyes.
Though they did not embrace or speak aloud, Rain guessed this was Farel’s chosen companion.
The white-haired woman released Farel’s hands and accompanied him back to Rain and Ellysetta.
“This is Sheyl,” Farel said. “She will tend to you and your mate once we rid you both of the sel’dor.
” He led Rain over to a smith’s forge built in a small clearing off to one side of the village.
Six dahl’reisen followed—to guard the villagers from the Tairen Soul, Rain supposed—but the others dispersed, moving as far from Ellysetta as they could, some even leaving the village altogether.
The smith was not dahl’reisen, but neither was he wholly mortal.
His muscles were thick as a Celierian’s, but his eyes were pure Fey, pale, crystalline blue and glowing with latent magic.
He turned to Rain, a folded wad of leather in his large hand.
“If you will allow me, Feyreisen, I’ll remove that collar.
You can lay your mate on that cot in the corner, then come sit on this bench. ”
Rain hesitated, searching the man’s gaze for any hint of treachery.
When he found only sincere compassion, he nodded and laid Ellysetta gently on the clean bedding.
A blanket had been folded neatly at the end of the cot, and he draped it over her before returning to straddle the bench near the forge.
The smith tucked the wad of leather between the collar and Rain’s neck, then slipped a small steel plate between the leather and the collar.
“Turn your head away.”
Rain obeyed, and someone—he couldn’t tell if it was the smith or the dahl’reisen—summoned a five-fold weave.
The dominant thread in the weave was Fire.
He could feel the concentrated heat of it.
Cooling Water and brisk Air kept the heat from penetrating through the leather or spreading through the rest of the collar.
The five-fold weave went suddenly ice-cold, and a sharp blow made Rain flinch.
After repeating the process another five times, the despised collar fell away.
“Beylah vo,” Rain said, rubbing at his throat. He took a deep breath and winced as the shrapnel still buried in his chest reminded him sharply of its presence.
“Sha vel’mei,” the smith replied. And in perfect Feyan, he added, “Removing the manacles will be quite painful, I’m afraid. There’s no way to break open the bonds without driving the spikes farther in, and they leave thorns we must then cut out.”
“It can’t hurt more than it already does, but see to my mate first,” Rain ordered. Now that he knew what the removal procedure entailed, he would not allow Ellysetta to suffer her bonds a moment more than necessary.
“As you wish,” the smith agreed, “but I’ll need you to hold her. As I said, the procedure will not be pleasant.”
Rain returned to Ellysetta and knelt at her side, gathering her against his chest as the smith first removed Ellysetta’s collar then the manacles binding her wrists and ankles.
Even with the weave keeping her unconscious, the pain of the procedure roused Ellysetta enough that she sobbed and fought Rain’s grip until the smith had removed the last of her bonds.
Then it was Rain’s turn again. He hissed through gritted teeth as the smith worked on the barbed shackles piercing his wrists. When the first shackle fell free and the sharp pain of the thorned spikes ripping out of his bone almost wrenched a cry from his throat, Ellysetta roused once more.
“Rain?” Her eyes fluttered opened, dazed and filled with empathetic pain.
Now free of her sel’dor manacles, enough of her power must have returned that she was able to fight off the weave meant to keep her unconscious.
She reached for him, groping blindly, and when her fingers grasped nothing but air, she pushed herself off the cot and crawled across the dirt floor to reach him.
The dahl’reisen made no attempt to stop her.
Instead, they carefully backed out of her way so that she could not accidentally touch them.
“Ellysetta, nei.” Rain tried to push her away when she grasped his hand. “Do not touch me while they are removing the shackles. You will feel it too clearly.”
Though barely conscious, she would not be dissuaded.
Instinct, pure and Fey, drove her. Her long fingers curled around his bleeding wrist. She murmured his name over and over, weeping, as a featherlight weave of healing Earth and soothing Spirit penetrated his abused flesh.
He felt her pain as the despised sel’dor buried in her flesh rebelled against her use of magic, but she persevered, ignoring her own torment as she tended his.
“Stop,” Rain pleaded, pulling away again. Even if she could ignore what she felt, he could not. “Enough, shei’tani—” The word he’d so carefully avoided using slipped from his lips. He glanced up in time to see Farel’s eyes narrow.
“Leave her.” The white-haired Sheyl stared at Ellysetta, her eyes sympathetic. “Can you not see she feels it anyway? Let her find what comfort she can in trying to heal you. Lian, finish quickly. She will try to bear the brunt of his pain for him.”
Rain kicked up a leg, halting the smith. “Nei, do not.”
Sheyl’s pale eyes flashed with sudden fire. “You Fey are fools,” she snapped. “Always trying to protect your women from their own nature. It hurts them more, do you not understand? Worse, you make them weak, when they need to be strong!”
The accusation took him aback as much as the woman’s fearless attack.
“Don’t scold him for what he does out of love.
” It was Ellysetta who spoke, surprising them all.
Her eyes were closed, but her voice, though quiet, was lucid.
“If it is my nature to ease his pain, it is his nature to protect me from it.” Her lips curved in a wan smile. “He knows I am a coward at heart.”
“That you are not,” he denied. He drew her up into his arms and whispered his vulnerability for her ears alone. “My sun rises in your eyes, shei’tani. I cannot bear for you to be hurt.”
Her eyes opened, and she lifted her hand to his face, stroking her fingers against his skin. “Then let me heal you.”
Tears pricked his eyes. He kissed her once with great tenderness and released her. “Tend me if you must, Ellysetta, but do not try to take all the pain upon yourself.”
Rain nodded his permission for the smith to continue.
Ellysetta knelt at his side. She flinched when he did as the second wrist shackle fell free, and cried out with him when Lian pulled off the first of the manacles piercing his ankles.
Despite his command, she absorbed the worst of his torments into herself and muted them.
Her tears and fingers and soft lips brushed over the deep puncture wounds at his wrist and each ankle.
When the last despised manacle fell free, they were both exhausted and trembling. Rain gathered Ellysetta into his arms and simply held her, resting his head against hers, breathing when she breathed, clasping her hand and offering back what strength he had.
“It is true then,” Farel murmured. “Rain Tairen Soul has found his truemate.”
Rain looked at him. Farel and all of the other dahl’reisen, men who had long ago learned to bear suffering without emotion, stood there, their eyes reddened with the bottled tears dahl’reisen could not shed and their hands clenched tight.
They stood witness to the love that would always be their deepest dream, and it still had the ability to touch them as nothing else could.
“It is true,” Rain confirmed.
He saw the woman Sheyl meet Farel’s gaze and saw the brief nod between them. Gods, how could I be such a trusting fool? He started to rise, reaching instinctively for his absent weapons’ belts. The weave came crashing down upon him like a killing wave. Darkness descended with brutal abruptness.