Chapter Five #2
From the doorway to the Well of Souls—kept open with a combination of Azrahn and frequent sacrifices to the Guardians of the
Well—demons howled at the scent of fresh blood and death. Vadim left the creatures to their feast. Souls consumed by what
lived in the Well could not be called back from the dead. The four would carry no tales of Vadim’s weakness to their masters.
As he exited the room, he paused to tell the guard outside the door, “Contact your captain. Tell him to send more guards for
the Well.”
The soldier brought his heels together with a snap and bowed sharply at the waist. “As you wish, Most High.”
The Fading Lands ~ Chatok
Night had fallen. A warm, dry breeze blew from the west, swirling through the long skeins of Rain’s hair. He stood on the
battlements of Chatok’s great tower, his face turned to the north, eyes whirling with glowing radiance as he sang a message
to his tairen kin in the still-distant nesting lair of Fey’Bahren.
Ellysetta drank in the vibrant notes of his song as she climbed the last few steps to join him.
He had changed out of his leathers and steel, trading them for flowing robes of dusky blue velvet over a tunic of heavy lavender silk shot through with silver thread.
An intricately woven circlet of beaten silver rested on his brow, and he’d transformed the golden chain and pendant holding his sorreisu kiyr, his Soul Quest crystal, from gold to gleaming silver.
He turned to her, still singing, and held out a hand. She took it, and he pulled her close, his arms wrapping with casual
possessiveness around her waist. The folds of his robe swirled about her, warm and rich with the scent of Rain. The tension
that had been coiled within him for days was finally beginning to ease. Despite the unkind welcome the Faering Mists had offered
them, at last they were here, safe in the Fading Lands, only two days’ run from Fey’Bahren, the nesting lair of the tairen.
“Good news?” she asked when the last notes of his song drifted away on the wind.
“Cahlah fed again today,” he said. “Sybharukai says her strength is returning. The kits show signs of improvement as well.”
“That is good news.” Ellysetta tilted her head back, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps the Fey don’t need me
so much as you first thought.”
His arms tightened. “Do not be so quick to discount your importance. Cahlah may be recovering, but her kits aren’t safe until
they break from the egg.”
“So we head for Fey’Bahren tonight?”
“Nei.” He smiled and brushed back her curls. “Tonight, we rest and let the warriors downstairs celebrate the arrival of their Feyreisa.
It’s been too long since they’ve had cause for joy.”
Together, they made their way downstairs to Chatok’s massive main hall. There, a great fire burned in the center of the room,
and all the warriors of the eastern army had gathered for a feast to welcome their new queen.
When she and Rain stepped onto the landing that led down into the main hall, a hush fell over the assembled Fey and all eyes turned towards her.
For one brief moment, a shaft of familiar terror froze her in place—the memory of her first, ill-fated introduction to the heads of Celieria’s noble houses—but then hundreds of Fey voices rose in a now-familiar cry: “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa! ”
Bel and Gaelen, looking taller and more handsome than she’d ever seen them, approached the foot of the stairs, smiling up
at her as she and Rain descended. Like the rest of the Fey, they’d exchanged their leathers and steel for flowing robes. Gaelen
wore subtle shades that called to mind images of ancient, misty forests, while Bel wore a drape of cobalt blue over a tunic
of lustrous silver and pewter gray. Both men regarded her with warm eyes.
“You are lovely, kem’falla,” Bel said with a smile.
“Beylah vo, Bel.” While Rain had donned robes the color of dusk, he’d clad her in starlight. Her gown was sumptuous white silk beaded
with thousands of tiny diamonds that shimmered as she moved. A wide, boat-shaped neckline and snug bodice gave way to full,
flowing skirts that trailed behind her. A girdle of platinum links shaped like twining vines circled her waist and dripped
graceful loops of sorreisu kiyr, the Soul Quest crystals of the Fey who’d died on her behalf in Celieria. Bel’s and Gaelen’s bloodsworn daggers hung sheathed
at her hips. Her hair flowed unbound, curling in soft, thick spirals of flame down to her waist, and on her brow she wore
a crown of stars—diamonds and Tairen’s Eye crystals sparkling from the delicate platinum whorls and arches of the circlet
nestled in her hair.
With Gaelen and Bel close behind, Rain escorted her to the head table, where Marissya and Dax were already waiting.
Ellysetta stopped at the sight of the five unfamiliar Fey women sitting with them. “Who are they?”
“Shei’dalins from Dharsa,” Rain answered. “They arrived earlier this evening while we were getting dressed, along with the warriors I
promised King Dorian I’d send to help secure the Eld border.”
“Shei’dalins?” Ellysetta stiffened.
“Las, shei’tani,” Rain soothed. She’d told him about the shei’dalins in the Mists who’d Truthspoken her. “I promised Great Lord Darramon the Fey would heal his dying wife if he brought her to
Teleon. These five shei’dalins came to honor my oath. Come, meet them,” he said, inviting her to follow him.
Ellysetta followed him reluctantly to greet the shei’dalins and murmur what she hoped were appropriate greetings. She tried not to let her distrust of them show, but she did not sit
near them either.
The feast that followed was nothing like the studied artifice of Celieria’s royal state dinners, but rather a true celebration.
Safe behind the Faering Mists, stoic Fey expressions softened with smiles and laughter, transforming the fierce, deadly warriors
into approachable men of uncommon beauty and warmth. Laughter rang out from every corner of the room. The tables overflowed
with roasted meat and a variety of tempting delicacies: cool salads, steaming vegetable dishes, fresh and honey-glazed fruits,
all accompanied by pale sweet wine and crisp, cool water that made her eyes widen in surprise when she sipped it.
“This is good.” The water tasted like fresh-fallen snow and sunlight, cold, sweet, and pure, with an unexpected energy that
radiated through her as she drank.
“I’m glad it pleases you.” Rain drank from his own cup, then set it aside. “We call it faerilas. It is the water of the Source, the great fountain at the center of each of our largest cities.” He smiled as he sliced a
nearby round of cheese into thin layers and handed one to her. She took a tentative bite. The cheese was firm, with a creamy,
nutty flavor that melted on her tongue. “You may have heard of the Source. Some mortals, who misunderstood the reason for
Fey longevity, used to call it the Fount of Eternas.”
“The Fountain of Eternal Youth?” Ellysetta paused before her next bite of cheese to examine the water in her goblet with greater
interest.
He laughed. “Las, shei’tani. I said misguided mortals called it that, not that they were right.”
“But there is magic in this faerilas.” She took another sip to confirm it. “I can taste it.” One sip and a tingling energy filled her with renewed strength.
“Aiyah, but the magic will not make you young—nor keep you that way. The waters of the Source replenish magical energies and purify
whatever they touch, but no more than that. The cleansing spell the Fey cast on the Velpin River does much the same, though
in a less powerful way.” He smiled at her disappointment and reached for a small, teardrop-shaped globe of bright green-and-scarlet
fruit. “Here, taste this.” He sliced the fruit with a few deft strokes of a Fey’cha blade and held out a small segment. “I
think you will like it.”
Ellysetta took the proffered morsel and bit into the firm, cool flesh. Sweet, tangy juice filled her mouth with bursting sweetness
and trickled down the corners of her lips. Laughing, she lifted a hand to wipe away the dribbles. “It’s very good. And very
messy!”
“We call it tamaris. It is a cousin to the komarind, which is more beautiful to look at but no good for eating.”
Her tongue was tingling. “There’s magic in the tamaris too.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Magic is everywhere in the Fading Lands. Legend claims it was the great tairen Lissallukai
who sang magic into this world, but after countless millennia, the faer—the magic of the tairen and the Fey—has become a part of this land, and we a part of it.”
She took another bite and more juice spurted against her skin, but this time Rain reached over and caught the runnel of juice
before she could. His finger stroked upward, scooping the nectar from her skin, then painting it across her lips with one
burning stroke of his hand. His eyes were glowing.
Her laughter fell silent. Everything in the Fading Lands brimmed with magic: the Fey, the tairen, even the waters and the
fruits of the fields. But for her, the greatest magic of all was Rain and what he made her feel. “Will it always be like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like magic, between us.”
His eyes flared bright for a brief instant. “Aiyah, Ellysetta, it will. Shei’tanitsa bonds, once forged, will never wane. What exists between us will last to the end of time.”
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur made his way through the sconce-lit stairways and corridors of Boura Fell to the hall that housed Elfeya v’En Celay’s
bedchamber-prison. As the earlier episode by the Well had proven, the weakness in his arm required immediate tending. Clearly,
the powerful shei’dalin had not been doing her best to keep him strong and healthy. That was going to change.
He unlocked and cleared a heavily warded door. It swung inward, and he smiled at the sight of the flame-haired Fey woman chained
naked to the bed within.