CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“They were taken in by a couple who lost their own child to a lyrant last year.”
Ellysetta bit her lip. The children were obviously happy and well tended, but—“Please, may I see them?”
“Of course.” Sheyl signaled, and two of the village women collected the children and carried them across the room to Ellysetta.
“Bannon! Cerlissa! Oh, I’m so happy to see you both!
” The baby Cerlissa chewed her fingers and laughed in delight.
Bannon, however, regarded Ellysetta with no hint of recognition in his solemn blue eyes.
But of course, she looked like a stranger to him.
He’d only known Ellie, the woodcarver’s daughter, never Ellysetta, the Fey shei’dalin.
She spun a quick Spirit weave, transforming in an instant to the plain mortal Ellie Baristani she’d been when they’d known her. “It’s me, dearling,” she told him. “It’s Auntie Ellie.” She knelt before him and held out her arms. “Auntie Ellie, Bannon. Don’t you remember?”
When he still looked confused, she reached into the pocket of her apron where she’d always kept a little treat for him when she went to see Selianne.
She pretended to gasp in surprise, “Oh! What do I have here in my pocket?” Another quick weave spun from her fingertips, and she pulled her hand out to brandish a tiny, painted wooden horse just like the ones she used to coax her father into carving for Bannon.
The little horse and the once-familiar custom of Auntie Ellie’s magical pocket of treasures sparked a memory.
A tiny smile curved the boy’s lips, revealing a mouthful of pearly baby teeth.
He reached for the horse and fell into her arms to give her a kiss, and say, “Thank you, Auntie Ellie,” as he had so many times before.
Her arms closed around him, holding him tight, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that welled up at the sound of his sweet voice.
“Oh, Bannon.” She cupped the back of his head in one palm and stroked her fingers through his baby-fine hair.
Holding him again was almost like having Selianne back.
She didn’t want to let him go, and even when she set him down so she could take Cerlissa in her arms, she kept stroking Bannon’s back and hair.
She wanted to keep them with her. She wanted to take them with her now. But they’d been taken in by a couple who’d lost their own child… and she and Rain were headed back to war—with no guarantee that either of them would survive it.
No matter how much she ached to keep Selianne’s children with her forever, this was where they belonged. So she held them and smiled her brightest, despite the threat of burning tears, trying to squeeze months of love into a handful of chimes.
Watching her, Rain’s heart swelled with a mix of love and sorrow.
She would be an exceptional mother. Even in the guise of her mortal self, the joyous warmth of his shei’tani’s deep capacity for love shone bright as a star.
She deserved children—far more of them than even shei’tanitsa matepairs ever had.
And once she forged the last thread of their bond to complete their shei’tanitsa union, he would do everything in his power to see that Amarynth bloomed eternally in her footsteps.
“Sheyl,” he murmured, as his shei’tani cuddled her friend’s children. “You said you had a favor to ask of us.”
“I’m sure you’ve already guessed, Tairen Soul.
” Sheyl clasped her hand at her waist. “The world grows more dangerous every day. War has begun, and it will only get worse. The dahl’reisen will fight to defend the Fading Lands as they have these many past centuries, and our village will be left vulnerable.
Will you grant safe harbor to our women and children while our men fight the Eld? ”
“Aiyah.” There was no hesitation, no other possible response. “You cannot weave Azrahn within our borders, of course. And the Mists will not permit the dahl’reisen to enter, but your women and children—even your men who are not dahl’reisen—will be welcomed with joy.”
“And will you give me your Fey oath on that—and vow that we will all be free to leave again—even the children?”
“Of course.”
“Then I have one last secret to show you.”
Sheyl led the way to the back of the nursery and opened a door to a smaller adjoining room. Several young children were gathered round a short table, squishing lumps of clay into shapes with their small fingers.
“Muri,” Sheyl called. “Come here, kitling. There are some people I want you to meet.”
“Sheyl! Sheyl!” One of the children, a chubby toddler with bright blue eyes and masses of dark ringlets ran forward, her little arms extended.
A smile softened Sheyl’s face, and she knelt to scoop up the child. “Hello, dearling.”
“Look what Muri made.” The girl held up a piece of dough shaped in a lumpy, four-legged mass. “Horsie!”
“That’s lovely, kitling. Your mother will be so proud of you.” Still holding the child, Sheyl turned to Ellysetta and Rain. “This is Murialisa.”
“Oooh.” The child stared at Ellysetta. “Bright, pretty lady.”
“Yes, she is very bright, isn’t she, kitling.”
Rain stared at the little girl in shock.
There was no mistaking the Fey glow in the child’s eyes and the slender Fey delicacy just revealing itself in her childish features.
“The father… cannot be dahl’reisen?” Girl children were not born outside the bonds of shei’tanitsa.
And yet he was staring at a child, a girl, in whose veins ran not some mild form of magic but the shining light of strong Fey blood.
“No,” Sheyl confirmed. “Muri’s father was born in this village, but his father before him was dahl’reisen.
” She kissed Murialisa’s round cheek and set her down.
“Go back to your play, kitling.” When the child was once again industriously molding clay dough into animal shapes, Sheyl murmured quietly, “Murialisa’s grandfather was killed by the Mages seventy years ago.
Her father truemated eight years ago with a village woman from the borders of Lord Barrial’s lands. ”
Rain grasped Ellysetta’s hand. “Truemated? The son of a dahl’reisen truemated with a Celierian?”
“She is not Celierian. Or rather, not as you mean it. She is not simply a hearth witch, infected by the magic of these lands. Powerful immortal blood runs in her veins. Fey, definitely, probably Elvish as well. She is very gifted, just like her shei’tan.
Murialisa is their second child. They also have a seven-year-old son. ”
“A truemate lives in this village? Amongst the dahl’reisen?”
“She is a strong empath, but she has a natural ability to shield herself, just as the Feyreisa seems to have. She and her mate live at the edge of the village, where she feels the pain of the dahl’reisen the least. Murialisa has an even stronger shielding ability.
The dahl’reisen are careful never to touch her, but she can be around them without any apparent difficulty. ”
“No wonder you protect your secret so vigilantly,” Rain murmured, unable to tear his eyes from the small, luminescent girl who had returned to her play. “This child is a gift beyond price.” He swallowed thickly and met Sheyl’s eyes. “I will tell the warriors at the Garreval to expect you.”
Celieria ~ Dahl’reisen Village
Mortals, half-bloods, and dahl’reisen stood silent as Sheyl guided Rain Tairen Soul and his blindfolded mate down the last of the hanging steps to the tended walkways and gardens on the forest floor. Farel and a small army of dahl’reisen clad in full war steel had gathered beneath the trees.
As Rain looked around the village in the soft gleam of morning’s light, he saw what he’d been too weary and dazed by pain to notice last night—Amarynth, blooming in profusion along the walkways of the dahl’reisen village.
Even knowing about the little Fey girl Murialisa born to truemated parents, the sight of the undying flower still struck a deep and profound chord in his soul.
Life bloomed with defiant joy here in the shadow of lost souls.
Farel broke away from his companions to approach the Fey, halting half a tairen length from Ellysetta. A visible glow of Spirit and Azrahn surrounded him and the other dahl’reisen.
“We have shielded ourselves to protect the Feyreisa from our pain,” he told Rain. “I apologize that we cannot make the shields stronger, but too much Azrahn will reveal our location to the Eld.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Ellysetta said. ?Oh, Rain, they’ve shielded themselves and still there is so much pain. How can they bear it without going mad??
?Most do not, shei’tani. It is one of the reasons they must be banished from the Fading Lands.
No matter what we’ve seen here today, do not think these men are like the rasa.
They walk the Shadowed Path, and there is very little that keeps them from plunging into the abyss.
As your mate, I should have sworn honor vengeance against them just for standing in your presence, but I accepted their help instead.
If I were not already cast out, the Massan would be within their rights to banish me just for that. ?
?But they aren’t evil yet,? Ellysetta protested. ?You know they aren’t. And we owe them our lives.?
?I know.? His gaze strayed again to the starry white blooms. Nothing about these dahl’reisen fit what he’d been raised to believe about them. And nothing made sense.
The warriors of the Fading Lands had clung to their honor with fierce devotion, yet their bonded mates were barren.
These dahl’reisen wore the marks of their dishonor on their faces and spun the forbidden magic without apology…
yet their unbonded mates bore Fey children capable of truemating, and Amarynth bloomed in their village in abundance.
Everything about this village defied the most ancient and deeply held Fey beliefs and turned the most unshakable pillars of their civilization completely on their heads. He didn’t know what to think. It was as if the whole Fey world was going just as mad as he was.