Chapter Twelve #3
He allowed the insult of her laughter to pass with a disdainful sniff. ?They do, but the kinship doesn’t extend to any particular affection or desire to socialize.?
?Why not??
Rather than answer her himself, Rain directed the question to the tairen themselves. ?Ellysetta wants to know why the tairen of Fey’Bahren have not visited the Fey-kin city since the Mage Wars.?
?Why would the tairen go there?? Steli sounded surprised by the question. ?You were not there, and the Fey-kin are not tairen.?
?They have no wings or beautiful fur,? Fahreeta added, twirling her sleek body in graceful spinning rolls across the sunlit sky to show off her well-shaped wings
and the pure golden color of her pelt. ?And they break too easily if you play with them.?
?They smell much like prey,? Torasul agreed, ?but are not for eating. Is confusing. Makes a cat . . . ? Words gave way to a vivid image of a tairen snarling, his fangs dripping with venom and saliva.
?I . . . see . . . ? Ellysetta replied slowly.
Rain laughed. The sound came out as a series of amused chuffs. ?To the tairen, only the Tairen Souls are true kin. Other Fey are really only kin-by-proxy. Not prey, but not entirely part
of the pride either. Wingless, fangless, furless, flightless, two-legged not-prey creatures who might, many millennia ago,
have been something distantly related to tairen. In some respects, the tairen regard the Fey rather like that kitten your
sisters gave Kieran.?
Her jaw dropped. ?They think of the Fey as pets??
?More like distant relatives. More primitive, less powerful relatives.?
She paused to mull that over. ?Do the Fey know that? The warriors are always talking about “the tairen in them.”?
?All Fey know where the line is drawn. Those who are not Tairen Souls admire the tairen, appreciate their power and beauty
and magic, but they respect their fierceness as well. The Fey have a saying: “The slopes of Fey’Bahren run dark with the blood
of enemies, fools, and prey.” Which may have something to do with the fact that a tairen’s idea of negotiation is a warning
growl before he rips and roasts you with fang and flame.?
?I know it must be true, but part of me finds it so hard to believe. Just look at Fahreeta.? Ellysetta pointed to the sleek golden cat soaring and diving through the skies nearby. ?She seems so . . . sweet and playful, like a kitten.?
As if sensing eyes upon her, Fahreeta gave a series of purring roars and flew in dizzying circles around her mate, Torasul.
The great male just eyed his cavorting mate with a long-suffering eye and kept flying. She flew too close once, and he swatted
out with one large paw, catching the tip of her right wing. With a yelp, the playful golden beauty went tumbling. She broke
her fall and righted herself easily, but the tumble left her fur ruffled and her green eyes shooting sparks. Torasul gave
chuffing huffs of tairen laughter and blew smoke.
Fahreeta’s muzzle drew back, baring a mouthful of gleaming white, razor-sharp fangs. She gave a snarl. Her tail whipped through
the air like a giant lash. Large, curving claws sprang from her forepaws. She pumped her wings and, with a scream of fury,
shot across the sky towards her mate.
Ellysetta gasped and clutched fistfuls of Steli’s white hair, but Torasul only gave his mate an indolent look. Then, with
a speed that made Ellysetta gasp again, he folded his wings and drop-rolled straight into his mate’s oncoming attack. Torasul’s
wings spread at the last moment to stop his fall before he crashed into Fahreeta, and the two cats came together in a roar
of fury, ivory fangs and curved, razor-sharp claws. Limbs tangled. Each tairen’s massive jaw grabbed the other’s neck in a
deadly grip. Wings batted the air with ferocious speed, then folded tight. They spun together, dropping through the sky, wings
and tails twining together.
“Rain!” Ellysetta cried, terrified the pair would kill each other right before her eyes. “Stop them.”
Steli glanced down at the tumbling pair and sniffed. ?Juveniles.?
Just when it looked as though both Torasul and Fahreeta would crash into the earth below, the pair spread their wings and broke apart, soaring in opposite directions, then circling around. They flew upwards, gaining altitude and speed until both were flying alongside Rain and Steli once more.
Fahreeta resumed her purring and prancing through the sky, taking every occasion to rub wing and fur against her mate. Torasul
rumbled happily, then returned to his stoic, unflappable calm and kept his wings pumping in steady flight.
?Oh, aiyah,? Rain sang in tones laden with irony. ?Sweet and playful. Very like a kitten.?
Celieria ~ Teleon
“Good morning, my sweet kitlings.” Sol Baristani beamed at his young twin daughters as they skipped into the sunny breakfast
room in Teleon’s main tower. “Don’t you both look bright as a summer sky?”
Lillis and Lorelle were both wearing cerulean blue frocks covered with white lace pinafores that tied in big bows at the back
of their waists. Their mink-brown hair bounced in curling ringlets around their shoulders, and circlets of beautiful, aromatic
white bellflowers crowned their heads.
“Good morning, Papa!” Lillis sang. “Look what we found!” She held up a bouquet of the same flowers she and Lorelle wore in
their hair. “Aren’t they pretty? They bloomed last night all over the garden we planted with Ellie and Lady Marissya.”
Sol made a show of inspecting the delicate white bellflowers. The blooms, each about the size of a baby’s fist, nodded on
the half dozen slender green stems clutched in Lillis’s hand. Each deep bloom boasted six starry petals curled back from a
pale pink center accented with shimmering, opalescent veins and deep pink stamens. The flowers were stunning, their aroma
an entrancing mix of freshness and heady fragrance, like jasmine drenched in a cool spring rain. Laurie would have loved them.
“Those are beautiful, kitling,” Sol agreed, his voice going gruff.
“We’ll just put them here in this glass, eh?
” He poured water into an empty glass and held it out to Lillis so she could put the flowers in it.
He set the makeshift vase in the center of the table.
“Very pretty. Now, both of you come sit down and eat before your breakfast gets cold.” As the girls danced past to take their seats, Sol’s eyes widened in dismay.
They’d left a crumbling trail of muddy footprints in their wake.
“Girls!” He scowled. “Did you go to the gardens to pick flowers or dance in the mud? Look at the mess you’ve made!”
The twins glanced back. Lillis’s mouth formed an O, but Lorelle only gave a careless shrug. “It’s just dirt, Papa. Kieran
can clean it up in half a chime.”
“Oh, can he?” Sol put his hands on his hips. “Kieran may be able to clean with just a weave of magic, but there’s plenty of
work for him to do around here without your making more for him. Both of you, take those shoes off at once. Lillis, get a
broom and start sweeping. Lorelle, you fetch the mop. And just for your sass, you can clean the breakfast dishes this morning
as well.”
“Papa!”
He pointed. “Go.”
The girls pouted and trudged off. Sol frowned after them, shaking his head in dismay. Laurie would be beside herself. The
last several weeks of living around magic had clearly spoiled the girls into forgetting the lessons of responsibility and
discipline their mother had worked so hard to instill in them. But what was Sol to do? Their lives had changed. Forever. Cling as he might to mortal ways, magic was going to be a daily part of his daughters’ lives, and there
was no getting ’round it.
“Good morning, Master Baristani,” Kiel greeted as he and Kieran walked in with Lord Teleos.
The two Fey and the border lord had begun breakfasting with the Baristanis each morning before heading off to continue the restoration of Teleon.
Not that there was all that much to do anymore.
The warriors Rain had sent to accompany Lord Teleon to Orest had worked nonstop for the last seventy-two bells to repair the bulk of the fortress.
They and Lord Teleon would be departing for Orest on the morrow.
“Looks like someone’s been walking in the mud this morning,” Kieran said with an eye on the muddy footprints. He lifted his
hands and started to spin magic, but Sol stopped him.
“No, please, Kieran. The girls made the mess. I’ve told them they’re to clean it up. I won’t have my children turn into slovenly
little pamperlings just because they live amongst the Fey.”
“Kieran.” Kiel spoke his blade brother’s name in a strange, strangled voice, and poked him in the arm. “Kieran, look.” He
pointed to the breakfast table.
Kieran turned—and froze.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Both Fey were staring at the bouquet of white flowers on the table, and Sol’s chest squeezed tight.
Were the blooms poisonous?
But Kiel was reaching for the bouquet with shaking hands, and Kieran was making no move to stop him. The Water master lifted
the bouquet to his face and breathed in deeply.
Even Lord Teleos was staring. “Are those what I think they are?”
“Master Baristani,” Kieran rasped, “where did those flowers come from?”
“The girls brought them in. Why?” Sol was torn between alarm and confusion. The three men were acting as if they’d seen a
dead man, but clearly the flowers were not dangerous. “What’s going on? Did they do something wrong?”
Kieran didn’t answer. Instead, he pivoted on a heel, marched back out into the hallway, and, in a very un-Fey-like manner,
shouted, “Lillis! Lorelle!”
The twins came running, mop and broom banging behind.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Kieran pointed to the flowers in Kiel’s hand and on their heads. “Where did you find these flowers?”
“Outside.” Lorelle pointed through the arching stone windows to the graceful curving terraced gardens beyond. “In the gardens we helped Ellie and Lady Marissya plant.”
Lillis beamed. “Aren’t they pretty? There’s lots and lots of them. They must have bloomed in the night.”
?Fey! Ti’jensa! To the gardens! Hurry! Tell me what you see.? Kieran sent the call on the common path, and outside, half a dozen warriors raced for the terraces.
Moments later the cry went up, “It blooms! The white bell blooms!” In voices that rang with excitement, they announced their
discovery on the common path for all the Fey to hear, ?Amarynth, brothers! The white bell blooms in the gardens of Teleon!?
There was a moment of shocked silence; then a shout rose up throughout the keep, a great hurrah that rattled window glass
in its panes. “Amarynth blooms! Mioralas! Blessings on this house and all who dwell here!”
“Amarynth?” Sol’s brows drew together in surprise. Many woodcarvers used the six-petaled Amarynth blossom, also called the
star flower, as a motif in their carvings, but he had never seen a live bloom. “They’re real?”
“They are indeed, Master Baristani, and they bloom only in the footsteps of a Fey woman bearing young.”
Sol’s eyes went wide. “You mean Ellysetta . . . my Ellie-girl is—”
“Nei. Not Ellysetta,” Kiel said. “She and Rain are not yet fully united, and truemates do not breed outside the bond. These flowers
bloom for Marissya and Dax.”
Kieran had a silly, stunned grin on his face. “I’m going to be a brother. A brother, Kiel. My mela is with child.” Tears filled his eyes.
Kiel smiled. “Mioralas, my friend. I couldn’t be happier for you.” He clapped his hand on Kieran’s back. “You should be the one to tell them. Weave
the news now, quickly, before our brothers shout it all the way to Dharsa.”
“Aiyah . . . aiyah, I will . . . right now.” He could hardly concentrate. He closed his eyes and pressed the bouquet of Amarynth to his face, careful not to bruise the precious blooms. Weeping, laughing, soaring with joy, he spun the weave. ?Mela . . . gepa . . . it’s Kieran. . . . ?
The Fading Lands ~ Plains of Corunn
Rain, Ellysetta, and the others were halfway to Dharsa when Kieran’s weave reached them. They’d just stopped to eat and stretch
their legs, which was good, because Dax’s legs folded beneath him when he heard his son’s words.
Kieran expanded his initial private weave to include them all as he heaped love and blessings upon his stunned parents. Dax
was now sitting on the ground, holding his truemate in his arms. The fierce Fey lord wore a look of such staggering joy and
devotion, it made Ellysetta’s throat go tight.
Amarynth bloomed in Teleon. Marissya was with child.
Fertility had returned to the Fey.
Rain dropped to his knees beside the shei’dalin and her mate. “Miora felah, Marissya. Miora felah, Dax. Brightest blessings of the gods upon you.”
Laughing and crying at the same time, Marissya enfolded Rain in her arms. “Joy and blessings to us all, kem’maresk, kem’Feyreisen. And joy to the Feyreisa most of all.”
“Me?” Ellysetta blinked in surprise. “But I haven’t done anything.”
The shei’dalin turned a radiant, tear-stained face in Ellysetta’s direction. “Your weave,” she explained. She gave a choked laugh and shook
her head. “That awful, inescapable seven-bell weave you spun in Celieria.” Her joyous laughter pealed out, stealing any possible
sting from her words. “Ellysetta . . . little sister . . . sweet gift from the gods. You wove much more than Spirit that night—and
may the gods shower ten lifetimes of blessings on you for it.”
?Steli! Fahreeta, Torasul!? Rain sang the news to his pride-kin, who were chasing tavalree on the plains just to see them run. ?Come celebrate and wish us joy. Marissya of the Fey bears young!?
The three tairen joined them swiftly, and Steli bent her head to sniff both Marissya and Dax, then sang a few notes of tairen
song. A soft, unevenly pitched and off beat echo rang in Ellysetta’s ears. The white tairen sat back with a satisfied look
on her face.
?So that is the scent I smelled,? she declared. She spoke not in tairen song but in plain Feyan, woven on Spirit so Marissya and Dax would be sure to understand.
?The Fey-kin bears one of the pride.?
Marissya and Dax both gaped. “I bear what?” Marissya gasped. She splayed one hand across her flat belly; the other clutched Dax like a vise.
“A Tairen Soul?” Rain threw back his head and laughed. He grabbed Ellysetta up and swung her around in circles. “Shei’tani. Ah, shei’tani, you wondrous woman. This is definitely not how I expected the gods to spin this weave, but I welcome it all the same. A
child of the Fey—a Tairen Soul—thanks to you.” He showered her face with kisses.
Dax started laughing. “You know what this means, of course, once word reaches Dharsa? Our women will insist the Feyreisa be
fed a steady diet of keflee and pinalle until all the Fading Lands bloom white once more!”
Ellysetta’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, no!” Marissya gave a laughing groan. “Gods save us all.”