CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #4
“The Eld are retreating. Your mate killed most of the revenants and my brother’s Elves have arrived with the Danae. We will help your friends here to end this battle. Dharsa is where you are now needed most.”
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
11th day of Seledos
Spurred by Illona, Rain and Ellysetta flew as fast as wings and magic could carry them.
With the Mists down, they soared, unimpeded, over the Rhakis mountains, flying over the pass of Revan Oreth and giving the remaining revenants there a good scorching before continuing onward across the eastern desert and the Plains of Corunn.
They arrived with the dawn at the Shining City of the Fey. But instead of the raging battle they were expecting, they found the aftermath of one.
The jewel of the Fading Lands lay in ruins. Dharsa’s buildings were shattered and smoking, their pristine white stones charred black. Scorched, leafless orchards dotted burned hillsides. Instead of jasmine and honeyblossom, the city smelled of smoke and death.
As they flew towards the palace, they could see Fey dragging the bodies of the dead invaders into a pile while six tairen took turns flaming the corpses to harmless ash.
Elsewhere, other Fey carried their fallen brothers and sisters to the gardens, where quintets had gathered to send the bodies back to the elements.
“I don’t understand,” Ellysetta said as she and Rain landed in the tairen’s courtyard near the Hall of Tairen and he Changed back into Fey form. “I thought the Elf queen said we were needed here.”
“You are needed here.” Marissya and Dax stepped into the courtyard. Sol Baristani and, to Ellysetta’s surprise, the Elf Fanor Farsight followed close on their heels. “The Fading Lands will always need its Tairen Souls. And with the Mists down, we need you now more than ever.”
“Papa.” Bypassing the others, Ellysetta headed straight for her father and melted in his arms. She breathed the beloved aroma of his pipe smoke and was instantly transported back to the days of her childhood, when she lived surrounded by her family and secure in the warmth of her parents’ love.
Tears gathered and she let them fall. “We will get them back, Papa. I promise you. Rain and I will find a way.”
“I know you will.” His hands patted her back. “For now, I’m just glad to see you safe, Ellie-girl.” He pulled back and smiled through his own teary eyes.
With an arm around her father’s waist, Ellysetta turned to watch Rain greet Fanor Farsight, the Deep Woods Elf.
“Farsight. I did not expect to see you here after Hawks-heart said he could not help us.”
One of Fanor’s brows arched slightly. “Lord Galad said he could not join your battle against the High Mage. He never said he would not aid the Fey in Dharsa.”
“They arrived in time to help the tairen rout the Mages,” Dax said.
“Unfortunately, the city had already been breached. Dahl’reisen, Black Guard, and a host of Mages got through.
We lost hundreds, but it would have been thousands without the warriors who stayed behind as Tenn commanded.
They kept the Eld at bay until the tairen and Elves arrived.
Nurian and Yulan were killed in the fighting, and their mates passed into the Veil with them.
Tenn nearly perished as well, but Marissya and Venarra managed to keep him alive.
He’s in the Hall of Truth and Healing now, helping his mate look after the wounded. ”
“He knew we were coming?” Rain asked.
“Aiyah.”
“And he did not call for armed Fey to defend the Fading Lands against its dahl’reisen king?”
“You are dahl’reisen no longer. Sybharukai spoke to him herself.
She told him the Fey’Bahren pride had chosen the next leader of the Fading Lands and that it was not him.
She also told him that his brother, Johr Feyreisen, had already singled you out to be trained for leadership so that you might one day ascend the throne. ”
“I never knew that.” Rain shook his head in wonder. “So that convinced him? Learning that his brother had been considering me for the throne?”
Dax snorted. “I think the kicker was when Sybharukai told him that the tairen would drive from the Fading Lands any people who reviled or threatened you or Ellysetta.”
His brows shot up. “She said that?”
“Ai-yah,” Dax confirmed with grinning emphasis. “You should have seen Tenn’s face when she bared her fangs and growled, ‘Tairen defend the pride.’ I swear, he near wet himself.”
“Dax,” Marissya chided, “you should not take such delight in that. Tenn has served this kingdom well for centuries.”
“I agree that he did—right up until he decided to banish its king and queen, at which time, in my opinion, he earned himself a hard beating with a dull blade. Sybharukai let him off easy.”
“I must thank her for coming to our defense,” Rain said. “But it is time to repair the damage this war has wrought—both on the city and among ourselves. There is much to be mended, on all sides.”
They spent all day doing just that, mending buildings and mending bridges with the Fey.
Their first stop was the Hall of Truth and Healing, where Rain and Ellysetta met with Tenn and Venarra.
The meeting was stiff and formal, but it passed without bloodshed or name calling. For a first step, that was enough.
They worked throughout the day, but with every wall they reconstructed, every weeping Fey they consoled, every stiff, cold-eyed warrior whose suspicions they allayed, Ellysetta realized that simply rescuing her sisters and parents from Eld wasn’t going to be enough.
This Mage had to be stopped, and according to the Elves, she was the only one who could. Even if it cost her life.
Perhaps that was the real reason Illona Brighthand had sent them here.
Not because Dharsa needed them, but because she needed Dharsa and the reminder that even though the war was over, her own battle was not yet done.
Because Ellysetta needed a day without war to remember why it was necessary… and what she was fighting for.
“You said that when we defeated the Army of Darkness, we would go to Eld to save my parents,” Ellysetta reminded Rain as the afternoon drew to a close and the sun began to set.
“That time has come. I don’t want my sisters, or my parents, to spend one more night than necessary in Eld hands. And I’m going with you.”
“Shei’tani.… You know I would give you the stars from the heavens if you asked it of me, but this…” Shadows turned lavender eyes to brooding violet. “Our bond is not complete. You bear five Mage Marks.”
“If we don’t find a way to defeat him, I may someday bear six.
” She framed his face in her hands. “I have to do this, Rain. It’s what I was born for.
” The chime she said the words aloud, she knew they were true.
“We are Tairen Souls, shei’tan, you and I both.
We are Defenders not just of the Fey but of the Light, including the Light that shines in good people everywhere—in my sisters and my parents, in Celierians…
in the poor people of Eld who never had a choice for any life but servitude and Darkness.
This High Mage must be stopped. Not just defeated and left in peace to grow strong again, but vanquished.
That is our purpose. That is why we were born. ”
“We should consult Shei’Kess. Perhaps it will—“
“Nei.” She shook her head and gave a sad smile.
“The Eye can show us nothing we don’t already know.
It’s what we feel here—” she tapped first her chest, then his, “—that matters. You heard the Elf queen. I am leinah thaniel. There are no fates I cannot change, but this fate is one I cannot change without you. You are my strength, Rain. You are the courage I’ve always lacked. ”
He gave a choked laugh, and tears glittered in his eyes. “If I am your courage, then why does this idea of yours leave me so frightened?”
Her heart contracted, and she smiled at him, softly, through brimming eyes.
“Because it is frightening, kem’san. Because it’s dangerous, risky, the odds so stacked against us it’s unlikely anyone could do this thing and live.
And that’s why a Tairen Soul was born to do it—why we were born to do this.
” She pressed her lips to his. “When a feyreisen finds his wings, he knows he was born to die protecting others. That is why we must go.”
He drew her closer, nestling her in his arms and leaning his head against hers. “When did you get so wise, Ellysetta kem’reisa?”
Celieria ~ Orest
12th day of Seledos
Rain and Ellysetta spent half the night in Dharsa, the other half in Fey’Bahren with the pride and the kitlings, who had grown a great deal in the last two months.
In the morning, they flew back to Orest to meet with the lu’tan and devise a plan to rescue Ellysetta’s family and kill the High Mage of Eld.
Farel’s men had captured a wounded Mage and a handful of Eld soldiers, all of whom they held in a bubble of thirty-six fold weaves.
A little Truthspeaking and the threat of being eaten alive by a tairen had encouraged the soldiers to talk.
They told their captors about Vadim Maur’s main fortress where all magic-gifted prisoners were taken after their capture, and about how each Boura—each underground fortress of the Eld—contained a gateway to the Well of Souls that was kept open all the time.
The plan was to have one of the dahl’reisen open a portal and bring one of the Eld soldiers along to lead the Fey through the Well to wherever Ellysetta’s parents and sisters were being held.
They would invade the Boura using the dahl’reisen invisibility weaves, free all the prisoners, and use Ellysetta’s connection to the High Mage to locate and kill him while they were there.
The “plan” had holes large enough to fly a tairen through—nei, an entire pride of tairen—but Rain couldn’t come up with anything better.
So with a bit of instruction from the captured Mage, Farel successfully opened the portal to the Well of Souls.
And into the Well, they went: Rain, Ellysetta, her quintet, a hundred lu’tan, and the Elden soldier as their guide.
The inside of the Well was an unpleasant place, dark and cold, full of whispers and distant shrieks and swirling pools of shadowy mist that the Eld advised them to avoid if they valued their lives.
How he knew where to go, Ellysetta didn’t know, but later, it would occur to her that was a question she should have asked and gotten answered.
Because when they reached the gateway into Boura Fell, which appeared as a glowing red circle within the Well, their arrival did not come as the surprise they had intended.
No sooner had they donned their invisibility weaves and slipped through the gateway into a large room, than the gateway closed behind them.
A barrage of tiny darts and a burst of pale blue gas filled the air.
Ellysetta’s vision blurred, and the world tilted crazily. She and all the Fey fell, unconscious, to the stone floor.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Ellysetta woke to the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit and the taste of misery in her mouth. Her bones ached. Her flesh throbbed.
She could hear the moans of tortured creatures, feel the despair sapping her soul. This was a place without hope, without Light, and she knew she’d fallen into one of the Seven Hells.
Her muscles clenched, shuddering as the sting of a thousand icy knives stabbed into her soul. She swallowed, then coughed.
Sel’dor cloaked her in bitter, burning pain. A collar of enslavement about her neck, manacles about her wrists and ankles.
Her lashes fluttered as she forced her eyes open. Expecting darkness, she was surprised to find herself in the center of a well-appointed room. Beautifully furnished—deceptively so, because beneath the silken surface, she could feel the acid burn of sel’dor.
She turned her head, her gaze moving instinctively towards the corner of the room where a shrouded figure stood in the shadows. As the figure approached her, the formless shroud became rich purple Mage robes draped around a tall frame.
The Mage threw back his cowl, and Ellysetta frowned in confusion at the stranger standing by her bedside.
She had expected the High Mage, the architect of her nightmares, with his cloud of white hair framing a face that seemed both ancient and ageless.
But this Mage was young and fit and… handsome.
That seemed so wrong. Evil shouldn’t wear a pleasing face.
Only the cold, silver eyes seemed familiar. That and the cruelty curled at the corner of his mouth.
Then he spoke, and though the sound of the voice was as unfamiliar as his face, the smug, conscienceless evil that resonated in every word was all too familiar.
Whatever face he wore, whatever voice he used, this was the High Mage of Eld, the dark evil presence that had pursued and tormented her all her life.
“Welcome, my dear, to Boura Fell.”