Chapter One #3
Dear gods, how she loved them. And if any harm ever befell them because of her . . .
?No dark thoughts, shei’tani.? The admonishment slipped into her mind on a now-familiar weave of Spirit.
Ellysetta glanced up at the great winged black cat soaring swiftly towards her over the top of a nearby hill. ?Not so dark this time,? she answered. ?Only a little gray.?
She could not blame him for thinking the worst. Her mind had not been peaceful since they’d left Celieria City. The High Mage
might not know where her body was, but despite Rain’s presence and the twenty-five-fold weaves the Fey placed around the camp
each night, the High Mage had been able to find her soul more than once when she dreamed. He’d not managed to put another
Mark on her, but each time he’d found her, she’d bolted out of sleep with her tairen roused to a raging bloodlust, roaring
for death and vengeance.
Consequently, she’d spent most nights wide-awake and flying the moonlit skies with Rain.
?I was just thinking I’ll miss my sisters when we’re gone. And I can’t help worrying about their safety.?
?Kieran and Kiel will allow no harm to befall them.? The two Fey and two hundred of their brethren would be staying behind at Lord Teleos’s ancestral estate near the Garreval
to guard Ellysetta’s family.
Rain swooped down the side of the hill fast and hard, Changing in midflight to the black-leather-clad form of his lean Fey
body. He landed running, and a brief, swift jog brought him quickly to her side.
Just the sight of him and his glowing lavender eyes made Ellysetta’s breath catch in her throat.
All Fey were ravishing creatures, but the legendary Rain Tairen Soul outshone them all.
He was an immortal king whose unshielded Fey beauty dazzled the senses, his face a masterpiece of breathtaking male perfection, saved from prettiness by the thrust of strong bones beneath the skin and the aura of deadly promise that swirled just below the surface.
He was a Tairen Soul, the strongest and rarest of all Fey, a master of all five branches of Fey magic, capable of Changing
into one of the magical, fire-breathing tairen of the Fading Lands.
He was her truemate, the other half of her soul; and when at last Ellysetta found the courage and unconditional trust necessary
to embrace the darkest shadows of his soul and her own—to bare without reservation every thought, every fear, every shame
and maleficence inside her—then at last their souls would join for all eternity. If she failed, their uncompleted bond would
drive Rain to madness and eventually death.
Yet even knowing that, Rain’s love—intense and absolute—shone from his eyes as he approached, setting Ellysetta’s senses aflame.
She began to tremble. ?Shei’tan.? Luckily, before Ellysetta could embarrass herself, her young sister Lillis squealed and threw herself into Rain’s arms, shattering
the intoxicating spell holding Ellysetta captive.
“Will you take us flying again today, Rain?” Lillis asked while Lorelle bounded up, grabbed Rain’s free hand, and jumped up
and down with excitement.
Ellie smothered a laugh. Lillis and Lorelle had shed their fear of Rain and his power. He had become part of their family.
Which also meant he’d become a hapless male to be twined around their fingers.
Rain, in return, had learned how to relax around them and let them draw out the Fey gentleness in his heart. Though he was
a man who could slaughter his enemies without mercy, with the twins he now laughed and smiled like a man who had never known
darkness.
“Let us get you safely settled in your new home first, ajianas. Then I will take you both flying again.”
Of course, he still had to work on how to say no.
“Hooray! Hooray!” Lorelle threw up her arms and danced around him in enthusiastic circles.
“Can we have a new kitty in our new home?” Lillis asked, fluttering her lashes again. “Since we had to leave Love behind.”
Kieran had convinced the girls that Love the kitten, who had a terrible aversion to magic, would be miserable living in the
Fading Lands or staying with them so close to the powerful magic of the Mists. They’d reluctantly agreed to leave Love behind
in Celieria City in the care of Gaspare Fellows, Queen Annoura’s Master of Graces.
Rain smiled. “A new kitten? I imagine Kieran and Kiel can arrange that. Perhaps one for each of you, hmm?”
Lillis strangled him with more hugs, then leapt out of his arms so she and her twin could run tell Kiel and Kieran they were
going flying again, and that Rain had said they could have new kittens.
Ellie shook her head and watched them go. “One day you will have to learn the fine line between loving adoration and slavish
devotion.”
He pressed a kiss on her palm. “Let me give them what gifts and freedoms I can. Their lives will soon have restriction enough.
Teleos!” Rain lifted a hand to the Fey-eyed Celierian great lord, Devron Teleos, who stood beside the truemates Marissya and
Dax v’En Solande, staring in silence at the place that was to be the Baristani family’s new home. “How long has it been since
you’ve been to the Garreval?”
Teleos’s mouth drew down in a grimace. “I’ve made a point of visiting all my holdings at least once every year, but as you
see, there’s not much to draw me here.”
Below, on the lower slopes of the Rhakis mountains, the remains of a once-great fortress rose from the tumbled rubble of silvery blue stone: Teleon, the former family seat of House Teleos.
Even after a thousand years, its once-fabled beauty still lay shattered and abandoned, its Fey-spun towers and parapets crumbled, the remains covered in lichen and mosses and crowded with tufts of cliff grass.
A small stone outpost—crudely built and clearly mortal in origin—had been constructed atop a small hill at the base of the mountain, not far from the remains of what had once been a glorious gate into the walled city-fortress.
Smoke curled up from a vent hole in the outpost’s small central hall.
Ellysetta tried to hide her dismay. This was her family’s new home?
As if hearing her thoughts, Lord Teleos said, “I feel a poor host for offering my guests so rude an accommodation.” The Celierian
great lord, a descendant of Rain’s long-dead friend Shanis Teleos, eyed the remains of his once-great family estate with grim
eyes. “Rain, are you sure the Feyreisa’s family would not be better served in one of my more respectable holdings?”
Rain smiled and shook his head, his straight, silky black hair sliding over his black-leather-clad shoulders. “Nei, this is perfect for our needs.”
“This was a place of great beauty once,” Lord Teleos said in a sorrowful voice. In the days before the raising of the Mists,
his family had been close friends of the Fey, and the many Fey ancestors in his family tree had left Devron and all his forebears
stamped with Fey eyes, a glow to their skin, and life spans much longer than those of pure mortals. Teleon, which had once
been an estate of inestimable beauty, had been a gift from the Fey to their friends and kin in House Teleos.
“Aiyah, it was,” Marissya agreed. “I remember the terraced gardens with all their fountains. It reminded me of Dharsa.”
Lord Teleos regarded the ruins of his family estate with somber eyes. “I always wished my ancestors had repaired it once the
poison of the Wars was cleansed, but perhaps it’s best they never did. Mortal hands could never have done Teleon justice.”
He sighed. “Some things, once lost, are better left in the past.”
Rain made a sound in his throat that sounded like something torn between a growl and a laugh. “And some things deserve to live again.” His eyes crinkled at the edges. “You did say we could make it habitable, Dev.”
Teleos’s brows drew together. “You mean to restore Teleon?”
“Aiyah te nei.” Yes and no. And on that mysterious note, Rain smiled and said, “Come. I think you will find you are not so poor a host
as you fear.”
Brimming with curiosity, Marissya, Dax, Teleos, and Ellysetta followed Rain as he led them the final half mile to the foot
of the mountains.
Near the gate of the small outpost, and stationed along its outer wall, two dozen armored Celierian soldiers stood at attention.
To a man, they sported snarling tairen’s-head helmets and white tabards edged with scarlet and emblazoned with the arms of
House Teleos: a golden tairen rampant on a white field with a rising red sun. Pennants of white, scarlet, and gold fluttered
in the breeze.
They passed through the open gate, but when Lord Teleos would have headed for the main hall in the center, Rain stopped him.
“Nei, Dev, not that way.”
Bel ran up just as the small party rounded the corner of the hall and started towards the back wall. Ellysetta turned to greet
him, only to find him frowning up at the mountain towering over the back wall of the outpost. The shimmering radiance of the
Mists was very bright, like a shadow made of light rather than darkness. Though mortal eyes would not see it, the whole mountainside
glowed with undulating bands of magic.
Rain turned to cast a glance over his shoulder and smiled at Bel’s perplexed look. The rear stone wall of the outpost lay
before him. Rain took another step. The air around him rippled like water in a pond.
With one more stride, Rain passed through the wall and disappeared from view.
“Spit and scorch me,” Dev breathed. He glanced at Marissya and Dax, then charged after Rain, plunging headfirst into what seemed like solid stone. The air rippled again, and Lord Teleos vanished too.
“Spirit weave,” Kiel said, his eyes sweeping over the mountainside. There was no sign of Rain or Lord Teleos, only the rear
wall of the outpost and, beyond that, the tumbled remains of Teleon scattered across the mountainside, tufts of cliff grass
and stands of hardy mountain trees waving in the breeze.
“Scorching clever one,” Bel said. “They’re using the magic-shadow off the Mists to mask the energy of the weave. Not even
a Spirit master would see it until he was almost on top of it.”
“Well?” Kieran said with an eager grin. He held out a hand to Lillis. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go see what’s behind
the weave.”
With a burbling laugh, she stuck her hand in his and they ran up the trampled path after Rain and Teleos. Lorelle grabbed
Kiel’s hand and yanked the Water master with her as she darted forward in hot pursuit.
Ellysetta, Bel, and Sol followed close behind, and when they stepped through the rippling wall of illusion and cast eyes on
the sight beyond, Ellysetta’s jaw dropped open in stunned wonder.
“Bright Lord save me,” Sol whispered, staring awestruck at the gleaming magnificence before him. “I’ve never seen anything
so beautiful.”
“It’s like a magical palace from a Fey tale,” she breathed.
They were standing at the open, arching gate of an immense mountain fortress of unparalleled grace and beauty. Silvery blue
stone soared high into the sky in a dazzling display of Fey artistry and architecture. Crenellated walls gave way to lush,
gracefully terraced gardens bursting with trees, fountains, fragrant shrubs, and flowers. Pennants in the bold colors of House
Teleos fluttered in the breeze from every tower and along the series of interior walls that ringed up the mountainside and
circled the upper keep with level after level of protection and silvery blue beauty.
“Ellie! Papa! Come look!” Lillis and Lorelle stood in the center of a small grassy park nestled against the second inner wall.
They laughed and danced beneath the graceful, arching branches of cherry trees as pale pink petals rained softly down upon them.
Kieran and Kiel stood nearby, watching the children with indulgent smiles.
Lord Teleos stood dumbstruck at Rain’s side as Ellysetta and Sol crossed the lower courtyard to join the twins. “You did it,”
he said. “You restored her to her former beauty.”
“Not completely,” Rain admitted. He dragged his gaze away from Ellysetta and the children and gave Devron Teleos his full
attention. “A number of the gardens and buildings on the middle levels are still just Spirit weaves, but the walls and gates
are real, and defensible, as is the manor at the top.”
“Even so . . . this is an amazing feat. How did you manage it?”
“Three thousand Fey stand guard at the great war castles of Chatok and Chakai beyond the Mists. While we journeyed across
Celieria, they came through the Mists to prepare a suitable home for the Feyreisa’s family. And to prepare Teleon for battle
once more.”
Lord Teleos turned to him in surprise. “You think the Eld will strike here? With the Mists blocking any hope of entrance to
the Fading Lands?”
Rain looked across the flagstone-cobbled courtyard to the lower garden, where Ellysetta, Sol, and the twins were inspecting
a marble fountain of dancing maidens whose slender, upstretched fingers rained veils of clear water into a small pond.
His expression lost any hint of softness. “If the Eld come,” he said, “I doubt it will be passage through the Mists they’re
after.”