Chapter Sixteen #4
right into theirs, and snarl, “Why do you think there’s no banishment for blood spilled on Academy grounds? Fight like you
mean it, Fey. Fight like your life depends on it, because when you face the Eld in battle, I assure you, it will.”
More than one Fey gave back as good as—and occasionally better than—they got, and Gaelen spent as much time on his back, bruised and bloody, as he did on his feet ordering the Fey to prove their mettle.
He took the battering without complaint, allowing the shei’dalins to heal him only when his wounds were so grievous they impeded his ability to fight.
“It is no less than I expected, and much less than I deserve,” he told Ellysetta quietly after the shei’dalins healed four broken ribs, a shattered collarbone, and a sword thrust that had gone completely through the muscles of his thigh.
“I walked the Shadowed Path. I betrayed my honor and my oath as a warrior of the Fey. Let them punish me for my shame. As
long as they keep learning so they can better protect you and Marissya, I can bear what price they would have me pay.”
Gil, Tajik, Rijonn, and Bel assisted him in those first training lessons, and despite their initial misgivings, the Academy’s
chatok observed with an interest that soon developed into active participation. Before the end of the second week, the chatok had mastered Gaelen’s invisibility weaves and several of his other techniques, and began assisting in training the others.
Much to the disgruntlement of the Massan, Eimar v’En Arran joined the warriors training at the Academy and turned himself
over to Gaelen’s tutelage.
“If another Mage War is indeed on our doorstep,” the Air master said with calm pragmatism, “all Fey may be called to defend
the Fading Lands. I am not too proud to learn what I can to ensure the safety of my mate . . . even if that means learning
from a chatok who once walked the Shadowed Path.”
Eimar’s participation encouraged more of the Fey to join as well. Rain’s meetings with the Massan became tense, curt skirmishes,
and Gaelen’s grueling training classes at the Academy filled to capacity. Soon, they even spilled over into the Academy’s
surrounding fields and buildings to accommodate the increasing number of chadins who came to learn the new skills their brothers had shown them. Even Tenn’s cousin Tael showed up to learn Gaelen’s magic Spirit weave.
As Rain and the warriors prepared for war, Marissya and Dax walked the hills of Dharsa to sow Amarynth and weave blessings
of fertility on the Fey. Ellysetta concentrated on her magic studies and continued searching the Hall of Scrolls for information
that might help her save the tairen kitlings. Most nights she and Rain would fly back to Fey’Bahren, so she could sing love
and healing on the kits and begin to learn the ways of the pride.
Despite her rocky start with the Massan, Ellysetta began to make friends among the men and women of the Fey. Hardly a day
went by without half a dozen couples coming to her for a fertility weave, and at least a score of beaming Fey maidens and
former rasa had asked her to bless their e’tanitsa union. Though war was on the horizon, hope was blooming in Dharsa as quickly and abundantly as the tracts of Amarynth dotting
the hillsides.
Ellysetta began to make significant progress with her magic. Though she still couldn’t summon the trust necessary to throw
open her mind to Venarra, she did manage enough of a connection to let the shei’dalin correct imperfections in her weaves and guide her in the summoning and control of her magic. Ellysetta’s resulting weaves
were reliable enough that Venarra had begun to allow her to heal the wounded chadin under her supervision.
Trust was much easier when practicing warriors’ weaves with Jaren v’En Harad, whose affection for Rain Ellysetta could sense
every time he took her hands to lead her through her next lesson. In truth, she owed much of her increasing discipline and
control to his kind but strict guidance. The most difficult thing he required of her was spinning the weaves exactly as he
showed her—without the golden glow of her shei’dalin’s love coloring the threads—because he feared that allowing shei’dalin’s love in her weaves might leave her open to the same empathic death other shei’dalins suffered when they spun killing weaves.
Determined not to disappoint Rain’s mentor, Ellysetta struggled tirelessly to eliminate the golden tint from her warriors’ weaves while still infusing it in her healing patterns.
After each morning’s magic lessons, she returned to the Hall of Scrolls to continue combing through the texts, looking for
any clues that would help her solve the mystery of what was killing the tairen. The texts from her initial search hadn’t turned
up anything useful, so she began searching for everything related to the tairen, past sicknesses or mysterious deaths among
the prides, and even demon lore, hoping something would lead her in the right direction.
Ellysetta learned how to ask the Mirror to lead her to a particular book, and began exploring even the tightly packed lower
levels. The tomblike silence of the hall began to make her restless, so she had the Mirror make copies of the texts and began
packing a bag of documents each day and carrying them to the Academy. She read while she watched her lu’tans and the other willing Fey master the skills Gaelen had to teach them.
At first some of the Fey worried that the violence of Gaelen’s training methods would torment her empathic senses. But surprisingly,
though the soul pain of the rasa had driven her nearly to madness with the ceaseless need to ease their suffering, the bruises, blood, and even broken bones
of the warriors on the training field didn’t cause the smallest twinge. Even the rare handful of times one of the Fey suffered
a truly life-threatening injury, her alarm sprang more from concern for the warrior’s life than empathic distress.
Until the day Rain suffered a serious wound.
One of the warriors sparring near Rain rushed in for an attack, stumbled, and sent his seyani plunging into Rain’s unprotected back.
The sight of a Fey blade protruding from Rain’s chest, glistening scarlet with his blood, brought Ellysetta out of her chair, power crackling so furiously that her hair rose up in a fiery nimbus around her head.
She was across the field, at his side, in an instant, not even aware of the warning growl rumbling from her throat or the blaze in her eyes that sent the warriors stumbling back in alarm.
Forgetting all the lessons of control and moderation Venarra and Jaren had taught her, Ellysetta healed Rain with an instinctive,
searing blast of power. As was typical with her magical outbursts, she healed him so swiftly and so well that when he came
up off the ground, his eyes were blazing bright as stars, and his own power was rising as quick and hot as his blood. He carted
her off the field to the nearest room with a door—an armory, as it happened—and they proceeded to rattle every shield and
scrap of armor off the shelves. When they returned, Rain was smiling, the lu’tans and even the other warriors were grinning, and Ellysetta’s cheeks stayed red as apples the rest of the day.
After that, the lu’tans began boasting of her tairen fierceness and calling her Ellysetta-makai instead of Feyreisa.
A few of the other Fey women, drawn by the admiring stories of Ellysetta-makai’s courage and strength, began to pay afternoon visits to the training grounds too, but none of them could stay more than
a few bells before the constant thud of flesh on flesh and the occasional sprays of scarlet blood sent them fleeing for more
peaceful venues.
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Tealah told Ellysetta after her fifth valiant attempt to sit with Ellysetta at the training
grounds. Venarra’s assistant had turned out to be a friendly woman, curious, bright, and much more willing than the hall’s
keeper to accept Ellysetta as a sister instead of a potentially dangerous interloper in need of constant watching. “If I don’t
keep my barriers at full strength, I feel each blow as if it were striking my own flesh. Don’t you?”
Ellysetta shook her head. “I feel the serious injuries—the worst of them I sense like a stabbing pain in my chest or my belly—but
the rest”—she shrugged—“nei. I’m aware of the pain, but I don’t . . . feel it. Does that make sense?”
“Aiyah, of course. That’s what my barriers do for me, though mine are clearly nowhere near as strong as yours, and apparently you don’t need to constantly reinforce them like the rest of us do.
” Tealah uncorked the flask of faerilas she’d brought with her and took a sip.
After her third visit to the Academy, she’d begun bringing a bottle of water from
the Source, using it to restore the magical energies she expended maintaining her shields so she could stay more than a bell
or two at a time.
Ellysetta crossed her arms over her knees. “If being here on the training ground is so difficult for Fey women, how do you
manage to serve in the healing tents during war?”
“Only the shei’dalins serve in war—well, except the Mage Wars. But those were such desperate days. Any Fey beyond the first blush of childhood
served in some capacity.”
“But I thought all Fey women were shei’dalins.”
Tealah laughed. “No doubt that’s because the only Fey woman Celierians have known in a thousand years is Marissya.
Nei, many of us—most of us, these days, in fact—aren’t shei’dalins.
Or at least not shei’dalin enough to matter.
We’re all empaths, of course, and all healers—some stronger than others—but only the strongest of us can
Truthspeak. That’s what shei’dalin means: speaker of truth. With that gift comes the ability to withstand considerably more pain than other empaths can bear.”
“But you’re a shei’dalin?” She’d seen Tealah a number of times in the Hall of Truth and Healing.