Chapter Eight
A child’s laughter fades into an endless void.
Darkness grows stronger with each passing breath.
Dreams forever haunted by nightmares untold.
Hunting the pure is all they have left.
Mages of Eld by Daria vol Siar
The Fading Lands ~ Elverial
Ellysetta woke to the sound of water falling and a cool breeze blowing softly through her hair. She started to stretch, then
groaned as sore muscles protested the movement.
Her eyes fluttered open. She lay in the middle of an exquisitely shaped bed made of untarnished copper scrolls, draped in
soft sheets and piled high with plump pillows in rich shades of green and gold and deep purple. The bed rested at one end
of an open-air, copper-roofed room that overlooked a series of frothy waterfalls spilling down the mountainside.
A cool breeze whispered into the room, carrying a scent of wood smoke and roasting fish that made her stomach growl. She gathered
the moss green sheets to her body and ignored the flare of aching muscles as she climbed out of bed and walked to the open
window arches to look outside.
Rain, wearing only his leather trousers and Fey’cha belts, crouched on the riverbank, roasting a spitted fish over a small log fire. He looked up at her, his expression inscrutable. “Hungry?”
Despite the excesses of last night, a fresh bloom of warmth suffused her at the sight of his bare, shining skin, his muscular
arms and broad shoulders, the lean, sculpted strength of his naked chest. “Very.” And no longer just for food.
“Stay there.” He slid the fish from its wooden spit onto a small platter and strode up a narrow wooden stairway that curved
up from the river’s edge to the bedroom. “I meant to have a meal prepared before you woke.” That was when she noted the small
round table and cushioned stools nestled against the far window, set with a vase of fresh woodland flowers and a pitcher of
clear water from the stream.
She sat gingerly on one of the stools, and turned her attention outside to hide her faint grimace as little needles of pain
shot through her sore muscles. With daylight shining on the stream and surrounding forest, she could see the whole of Elverial’s
peaceful woodland splendor. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. It almost looks as if all the buildings grew
here as part of the forest.”
“Aiyah. Elvish architects have always had a way of blending their creations with the natural surroundings.”
“You said this was your mother’s birthplace.”
“It was. She descended from an ancient Fey-Elvish bloodline that spanned back to the days when our two peoples were more than
mere allies. We came here often when I was a boy.”
She could easily imagine a young, bright-eyed Rain running through these forests, climbing trees—she glanced at the plate
of roasted fish and smiled—catching fish in the mountain streams. “Why was such a beautiful city abandoned? And so abruptly?
It looks like all the people just went away one day, never to return.”
“They did. Most who lived here died in the Wars or the forging of the Mists. The rest eventually went to Dharsa to be among other Fey. Here. We need to leave soon, and you should eat before we go. Dax and Marissya have already set out for Fey’Bahren, and I would prefer not to stop until we’ve caught up with them.
” He stripped flaky meat from the fish and lifted the steaming morsel to her lips.
A ripple of awareness shivered through her as she opened her mouth and ate from his fingers.
His lashes lowered, hiding his eyes from her.
She accepted another bite of fish from his hand and frowned when he took none for himself. “You aren’t eating?”
“I fed while you slept. This is for you.” He handed her another bite.
She shifted her weight on the small stool, then winced as the movement made sore body parts twinge.
Rain’s lips tightened. “Sieks’ta, shei’tani. My shame is great. I was not gentle with you last night.”
She blushed and swallowed the morsel of fish. “I don’t recall complaining.”
“I did not treat you with the care of a shei’tan.”
“Rain.” She put her hand on his to still his fingers from continuing to shred the fish. “I’m fine. If anyone owes an apology,
it’s me. I insisted on healing the rasa. I didn’t realize what it would do to you. You tried to tell me, but I refused to hear, because I didn’t want to let you
stand in my way.” Admitting that hurt far more than any physical reminder of last night.
His jaw set in a grim line. “I allowed it. I allowed them to touch you, allowed their pain to torment you, because I am the
Defender of the Fey and I needed their blades for war. And then I punished you for it.”
“You didn’t—”
“You’d already been brutalized more than any mate of mine ever should be. First that seizure in Teleon, then the Mists and
the rasa. Then me. You cannot deny it.” He caught her hands, rubbing the faint ring of bruises on her wrists and scowling at the bluish
imprint of his fingers on her upper arms. “I saw these on you when I woke.”
She pulled free. “You did not brutalize me. I’m a little sore, yes, but unhurt. Besides”—she touched her fingertips to the reddened marks on his chest where her nails had raked like claws—“you didn’t come out completely unscathed.”
He glanced down and gave a dismissive snort. “Those marks are nothing.”
“And these are nothing.”
“They are not nothing. You cannot compare the two. I am a warrior and a Tairen Soul. If you broke my bones and drove a blade through my
ribs, it would be no more hurt than I receive in a hard day’s training at the Academy. You are my mate. My sworn duty is to keep you from all harm, yet I put these bruises on you.” He met her gaze, his eyes so full
of remorse and self-loathing that her heart broke. “I promised you weeks ago that I would control the tairen, that you need
never fear it, and last night I unleashed its fury on you.”
“Rain—”
“I should have stayed away, hunted longer. You were safe here. I knew better than to return, but I did nonetheless.” His throat
worked and he looked away, staring blindly at the mountain stream tumbling over the rocks below. “The tairen is not a gentle
creature. The one time I lost control of it with Sariel, I frightened her so badly she cried for days.”
“Rain.” She caught his face between her hands. “I am not Sariel.”
“I know that, Ellysetta—”
“Shh.” She put a finger to his lips. “You’ve had your say; now I will have mine. You did not frighten me. Not much, in any
case,” she amended quickly. “And you did not hurt me. In fact, I can’t think of any part of what you did that I did not enjoy.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Her mother had raised her to be modest and circumspect, and last night, in the heat of passion,
she’d done and said many things that mortified her even to remember now, in the light of day. Despite her fierce blush, she
held his gaze steadily.
“So much so,” she continued, “that I was hoping I might convince you to do some of it again.” Now her cheeks felt fiery red, but the stunned look on his face was worth the price.
“Do not forget that I am tairen too.” Trying very hard to look much braver than she felt, she reached out to brush a thumb across the flat coin of his nipple.
The coin tightened instantly to a small, hard point. Fascinated, she rubbed it again.
He caught her wrist and growled a warning. “Ellysetta. Do not toy if you do not mean it. My control is still far from what
it should be.”
The sound of his growl rumbling across her skin and the sudden flare of heat that emanated from him made her face flush and
her breathing grow shallow with vivid sensory memories of last night. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. His
gaze fixed instantly on the small movement, and she saw his nostrils flare.
Another memory flashed in vivid detail: Rain, his head bent to her breast, glowing purple eyes holding her gaze as his tongue
lapped at the taut peak, filling her with exquisite pleasure. She shivered in her seat and stifled a moan as the aching muscles
of her body clenched tight and a rush of now-familiar heat flooded her.
Feeling suddenly quite daring and wicked, she leaned forward. “And what if I do mean it, shei’tan?” Holding his gaze, she dipped her head and, in a brazen move totally alien to the good, modest Ellie Baristani her mother
had raised, she licked that hard, pointed nipple.
He rose from his seat in a flash, dragging her up into his arms as he went. The sheet she had wrapped around her body fell
free, leaving her naked and laughing breathlessly in his arms.
“Just one thing, Rain,” she begged. “Please, let’s use the bed this time.”
Much later, Rain and Ellysetta left the woodland peace of Elverial and raced across the skies of the eastern Fading Lands with the aid of magic-powered flight. They passed the Garreval and caught up with Marissya and Dax by early afternoon.
Rain changed Ellysetta’s clothes to brown traveling leathers like the ones Marissya wore, and thanks to his insistence that
Marissya heal her before they set out again, Ellysetta was soon loping across the rosy sand of the desert as swiftly as the
other three Fey and without a single twinge of soreness. She didn’t even break a sweat, despite the heat of the summer sun
beating down on the desert, and they were running so fast and so effortlessly that except for the tug of gravity and the rhythmic
thud of boot heels hitting earth, she could almost close her eyes and believe she was flying.
There were definite advantages to being Fey.
“I did not expect so much desert,” Elysetta said as she leapt over a small, prickly deep purple shrub Rain called kaddah. Gone were the cool waterfalls and sunlight-dappled woods of Elverial. From the west slopes of the Rhakis as far east as Ellysetta