Chapter One
Celieria ~ The Garreval
Seven days after departing Celieria City, the Fey reached the end of the mortal world. As the small caravan of wagons and
loping Fey crested the top of a last, rolling hill, Ellysetta’s breath caught in her throat. A great fertile plain stretched
out below, miles of land sectioned into hedgerow-partitioned fields, all greening with well-tended crops against a dramatic
backdrop of majestic mountains thrusting up from the earth like a solid wall.
“Oh, Papa,” Ellysetta breathed.
“’Tis the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen,” Sol Baristani agreed in a whisper as he sat beside his daughter on the wagon
seat, a lit match held, forgotten, over the tobacco-filled bowl of his favorite pipe.
Together, father and daughter stared in awestruck wonder at the majestic peaks filling the horizon.
At first glance, the mountains almost appeared to be a single range, but Ellysetta knew from the countless histories she’d
read that they were actually two separate mountain ranges. The fierce Rhakis arrowed down from the north, nearly colliding
with the stately swells of the Silvermist range. Only a scant mile separated the two, an infamous pass known as the Garreval,
gateway to the Fading Lands.
Misty clouds swirled across forested cliffs and steep highland pastures of the Silvermist mountains.
The clouds hovering over the Rhakis were less gentle, dark with rain and boiling into lightning-shot thunderheads as the sharp peaks continued northward towards Eld.
Those soft clouds and fierce storms merged into a dense, shimmering fog that filled the pass between the two ranges, and Ellysetta gave a small shiver at the sight.
The Faering Mists. The magical barrier that surrounded the Fading Lands, impenetrable to all but the Fey.
The match Sol held over the tobacco-filled bowl of his pipe burned down unnoticed until the heat burned his fingers. “Sweet
brightness!” he yelped. Hissing, he shook the match out, tossed the blackened remains over the edge of the wagon, and blew
on his stinging fingers.
Ellie turned, trying to stifle her laughter as she reached for his hand. This wasn’t the first time her father had seared
his hands on a matchstick. It wouldn’t be the last. His attention was too easily caught by some real or imagined beauty—often
while he held a lit match in his hand, thanks to his fondness for his pipe.
“I’m all right, Ellie-girl,” Sol protested when she took his hand.
“I know, Papa, but Marissya says I should practice whenever I get the opportunity.” She held her father’s hand in hers and
focused on the reddened flesh, trying to block out the flood of thoughts and emotions that poured into her mind when she touched
his skin.
Love. Worry. Instinctive fear, tinged with guilt. He still wasn’t comfortable with the shining brightness and palpable magic
of the beautiful stranger sitting beside him.
Ellie forced back the stab of pain his fear caused and tried to focus her thoughts the way Marissya v’En Solande, the Fey’s
most powerful healer, had shown her. Throughout the weeklong westward journey across Celieria, Marissya had spent several
bells each day with Ellysetta, teaching her how to wield her own powerful healing magic.
Though Ellysetta still had much to learn, she now understood on a conscious level the basic patterns of the healing weaves she’d been unconsciously spinning all her life.
Marissya assured her she’d soon be able to summon and spin those weaves on demand, using only the amount of power needed to weave them, but restraint was something Ellie still had difficulty mastering.
The powerful, hidden barriers that had kept her magic bottled up were gone now, and the weaves she’d once spun with such subtlety now surged forth at her call like a river gushing through a shattered dam.
Remembering Marissya’s admonitions, Ellysetta reached down into the well of energy at her center, carefully calling forth
the glowing threads of power she would need. Red Fire to draw the heat from the wound. Green Earth to heal the damaged flesh.
Lavender Spirit to steal away the pain. And something else Ellysetta had discovered while observing Marissya during their
lessons. A special, golden something that Marissya called a shei’dalin’s love, the mysterious force that was unique to Fey women. It made all the threads of the shei’dalin’s weave shimmer with a warm, golden cast. No Fey warrior could spin his magic the same way.
“It springs from the compassion and empathy of a Fey woman’s heart,” Marissya had told her. “It isn’t a seventh branch of
magic. We cannot separate it out and weave the shei’dalin’s love by itself. It’s just the natural way Fey women weave magic.”
“And do I weave shei’dalin’s love the same way?”
At that, Marissya had laughed. “Feyreisa, you do nothing the same as other Fey.” Then, still smiling, she’d added, “I’m sure you must, Ellysetta, but when you weave, your magic is
so bright, its power blinds me.”
Now, holding Papa’s hand in hers, she attempted to summon her magic and wield it with control and restraint, as Marissya had
been trying to teach her.
She found the threads, wove them in a loose healing pattern, and with a gentle “push” of power, sent the weave into her father’s
hand. The push slammed out of her with the force of a hammer strike, her weave flaring with blinding brightness.
The startled jerk of Papa’s body and sudden widening of his eyes made her grimace in dismay.
“Light save me,” she muttered under her breath. Then, in a louder voice, she said, “Are you all right, Papa?”
Sol blinked several times and took cautious inventory of himself. When he didn’t find any missing—or extra—appendages, he
gave a smile. “Well-done, Ellie-girl. The finger’s good as new.” He held up his hand to show her.
Sure enough, the angry red burn on the tip of his finger was gone. But that wasn’t the problem. She watched her father run
his newly healed hand through his hair. His hand stopped in midmotion.
“Oh,” he said. Sol Baristani was of the age when many mortal men began “thinning the forest,” as Papa put it. Or, rather,
he had been. Keeping his gaze fixed on her face, he patted the newly thickened growth of hair crowning his scalp. “Well . . .
er . . . that’s not so bad. Provided it’s not some frightful shade of green.” His brows drew together in mock concern, and
he added in a hesitant, rather fearful tone, “Er . . . it’s not green, is it, Ellie?”
Ellie sighed. “No, Papa, it’s not green.”
With a twinkle in his eye, he pretended relief. “Well, then, there you go.” He laughed and grinned, and reached across to
pat her hand. “You did good, Ellie-girl. You may have overdone the weave a little, but the finger’s healed. Besides, what
man wouldn’t like a little more hair when his own starts to go missing, eh?” Thrusting his pipe stem back between his teeth,
he lit a fresh match and held it to the bowl, puffing until the shreds of tobacco began to glow orange and puffs of fragrant
smoke wreathed his newly regenerated headful of hair . . . and a face that had lost at least ten years of age in an instant.
She forced a smile. “Beylah vo, Papa.” Weaving youth on mortals wasn’t one of the things Marissya had taught her—but apparently the patterns were very similar
to regular healing.
A happy shriek sounded at Ellysetta’s right.
The Fey warrior Kiel vel Tomar, his long silvery-blond hair woven into a plait, ran past with Ellysetta’s nine-year-old sister Lorelle perched on his shoulders.
Kieran vel Solande, Marissya’s son, followed a few paces behind.
Lorelle’s twin, Lillis, sat on Kieran’s shoulders and kicked his chest with her heels as if he were one of the Elvish ba’houda horses pulling the wagons in their caravan.
Her small fingers clutched tufts of his thick, wavy brown hair.
Lillis and Lorelle were clad in miniature versions of Marissya’s and Ellie’s brown traveling leathers, which they had insisted
Kieran weave for them. Kieran and Kiel had done their best to keep the children’s minds off the grief of Mama’s death by making
each day of the trip a new adventure. The twins had taken to the idea, enthusiastically using even the briefest stops as an
excuse to explore—always under watchful Fey eyes, of course, but rarely in clean, tidy places. The keepsake boxes Papa had
carved for them years ago were now overflowing with treasures from their journey: small rocks, wildflowers, snail shells,
bird feathers, whatever caught their attention.
Kieran cast a grin Ellysetta’s way. His steps faltered as he caught sight of Sol Baristani; then his gaze shot to Ellysetta.
She blushed furiously. A shei’dalin’s ability to restore mortal youth was a secret the Fey had guarded for millennia, and she had just revealed it for anyone
to see.
Fortunately, before he could say anything, Lillis tugged on Kieran’s hair and bounced on his shoulders. “Faster, Kieran!”
she cried. “They’re beating us!”
With a final look and a shake of his head, Kieran turned away and raced down the grassy hill after Kiel and Lorelle.
Ellysetta watched them, and the tension that had been growing in her all week squeezed her chest tight. They were nearing
the end of the journey. One more day, two at the most; then she would leave what remained of her beloved family to follow
her new husband through the mysterious Faering Mists, perhaps never to return.
Sol patted her hand and nodded his chin in the direction of the twins. “It is good to hear them laughing again.”
“Yes,” she agreed. The twins hadn’t had much cause for laughter of late.
“They miss their mother,” Sol said. “They try to smile and laugh for my sake, but I hear them each night, crying into their pillows and pleading for her to come back.”
Just that quick, Ellie’s own sharp grief struck hard. Her face crumpled and her eyes filled with tears. “I miss her too, Papa.”