Chapter Twenty-Two
Tairen heart and tairen soul will face the night as one.
The strength of two in tairen love can never be undone.
Light up the sky with tairen flame, and hear the tairen song.
It sings of hope and life to come where tairen souls belong.
From “Tairen Song,” a ballad by Merik vel Sejan, Tairen Soul
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Rain wrapped his arms around Ellysetta, holding her even as her arms extended to the nearest tairen egg. He wanted to snatch
her back, out of the path of danger. What was he thinking even to consider this? She was his shei’tani, his truemate, the one being he must protect at all cost—even if that cost was the life of every tairen and Fey who still
walked the earth.
“Ellysetta . . .” Forgive me, Sybharukai. “What if the Eye was wrong? You aren’t a trained seer. You could easily have misunderstood its message.”
“I didn’t misunderstand.”
He shook his head, afraid for her, desperate to stop her. “Nei, I’ve changed my mind. This is too dangerous.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. “No Fey would ever ask such a sacrifice of you.”
She laid her free hand over his. “But the Fey haven’t asked it of me, Rain. The gods have.” She feathered her fingers across
his skin. ?For every great gift, shei’tan, there is a great price.?
“This price is too great.”
She forced a wobbly smile. “One more Mark isn’t so much to save the world.” When his eyes continued to bore into her, burning
with despair, her smile faded into somberness. “I have to try. And you have to let me. If I don’t do this, the tairen will
die. Marissya’s child will die. And so will all the Fey. If I don’t do this . . . if I don’t stop the High Mage now . . .
it will be too late for all of us.”
“Ellysetta—”
“These are not just tairen, Rain. These are the brothers and sisters of the tairen tied to my soul. They are . . . my family.”
She drew him close and pressed her lips to his throat. She was acting far braver and more certain than she felt, and she wanted
him to know that. “Sieks’ta, I am bullying you, and I should not. This choice is one we must make together. I won’t make it for us. I’ve done enough
of that already. Ku’shalah aiyah to nei, shei’tan. Bid me yes or no. And know that if your choice is nei, I will accept it and walk away.”
“And the world of the Fey will die.”
“Aiyah.”
He closed his eyes and bent his head, touching his forehead to hers. “I am afraid,” he whispered. “Afraid with a fear I would
never feel for myself.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them back. “I know.”
His lips slanted over hers in a fierce, passionate kiss. His breath, his essence, poured into her, while his arms wrapped
her tight and held her close. ?Ver reisa ku’chae. Kem surah, shei’tani.?
?Ke vo san, shei’tan.?
He drew back briefly, then returned for several more kisses before he nodded and stepped away. “Aiyah. Though it’s like stabbing a lute’cha into my own heart, my answer is aiyah. Do what you must. But just this once, beloved. Just this once to save the ones we love.”
“Just this once,” she agreed. She knew how difficult it was for him to let her proceed. She could feel the fear, the desperate
need to protect her battering his will. If the tairen’s plight were any less dire, he would have refused and let the gods
and the Eld determine which kitling lived or died.
Sybharukai approached, her paws silent on the sands, her sleek body regal and purposeful.
?Be brave, Ellysetta-makai.? The shimmering music of the makai’s voice sounded in every cell of Ellie’s body, pure and beautiful, ancient and wise.
?Your mate offers you his strength, and I offer you the strength of the pride.
You do not face this evil alone.? Sybharukai bent her head and opened her mouth.
Tairen’s Eye crystals dropped to the sands, several dozen of them, large and
gleaming with bright rainbow lights in a matrix of deepest ruby. ?You have not found your song, but these are crystals carved from the kiyranis of my most powerful ancestors. Use them. Let
their magic supplement and focus your own.?
Ellysetta gathered the stones, and Rain spun them into a golden necklace that he set around her throat. The kiyr were powerful indeed. The moment they touched her skin, their energy amplified hers. Her body tingled, and the heavy, curling
mass of her hair crackled with energy.
She turned and approached the eggs. Her heart was pounding like a wild drum in her chest, and her throat felt tight and dry,
as if all moisture in her body had been sucked away. Please, gods, if you listen to me at all, listen to me now. Please let this work. Please help me save them. Don’t let me fail.
The weaves the Eye had revealed weren’t all that different from some of the more advanced healing weaves the shei’dalins had shown her this week as they’d sought ways to save the tairen.
But where healing was fragrant and warm, Azrahn had a sickly sweet odor and froze the blood in her veins.
Even the illusion of it during practice had made her feel ill, which just went to show what a master of Spirit Gaelen was and how intimately he’d come to know the effects of weaving Azrahn.
She now knew, thanks to Gaelen’s detailed instruction, exactly where to find the source of Azrahn within herself, how to summon
it, how to feed the power into the patterns the Eye of Truth had shown her.
This time, however, the Azrahn she spun would be real, not illusion.
She drew a breath and steadied her nerves before taking the last, resolute steps towards the waiting eggs. Time to do what
she’d come for.
She nodded to Rain. He raised his hands and spun a five-fold protection weave around her. It was a fool’s hope—she already
knew she would not survive this night without another Mark—but he had insisted on weaving what protection he could.
“Sing to them, please, Sybharukai.”
Instantly, the vibrant beauty of the great makai’s song filled the cavern, swirling around the eggs in flashes of gold and silver. Within their shells, the hatchlings began
to croon along with their grandmother’s melody. The rest of the pride and Rain joined in, filling the air with magic.
In the deliberate calm of her mind, Ellysetta anchored herself as Venarra had taught her, forming the small partition in her
mind, securing the heart of her essence within: the safety valve that would cut her off from her weaves before she lost herself
in her healing.
Then she began to weave.
She summoned the elements first, spinning the threads into the patterns the shei’dalins had taught her to encourage the growth of flesh and bone. The kitlings wiggled and stretched in their eggs and chortled with
little chuffs of laughter, as if the warm weaves tickled them.
Into the warm, healing weave, Ellysetta added the first cool thread of Azrahn.
The kitlings’ songs and laughter turned to whimpers of distress. The tiny bodies that had wriggled against the confines of
their shells now shrank and shivered in fear.
?Nei, little kits,? she crooned, adding her voice to the songs of the pride. ?It’s me, sweetlings. Ellysetta. Don’t be afraid.?
But even as she coaxed them, she felt the flutter of something dark and dangerous. Something roused by her thread of Azrahn.
Frightened, she started to pull back, but the whimpers of the kitlings made her stop. She was their only hope. She could not
abandon them. And these were the patterns the Eye had shown her she must weave.
Gritting her teeth, she spun another thread of Azrahn and added it to the mix, then another and another, weaving the chilly,
rippling threads of red-tinged darkness into the shining mix of healing magic.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
In the chambers of the Mage Council, the High Mage and Eld’s most powerful Primages were meeting to discuss the final preparations
for war. Vadim Maur stood before the map of Eloran’s largest continent, where their first targets had already been decided.
“The troops are ready, Most High.” Primage Sib Vargus bowed to his superior. “Give the word and they will enter the Well.”
Vadim Maur opened his mouth to utter the command, but before he could speak, a wholly unexpected, wholly familiar tingle of
powerful magic swept over him. He grabbed the edges of the map table to keep himself steady and closed his eyes in a shudder
of delight.
Ellysetta Baristani was weaving Azrahn. Sweet, powerful, glorious Azrahn.
It sang across his veins, resonating with incredible vitality and power. Even here, half a world away, he could feel the enormous wellspring of her potential. Her mastery of the great power was sublime—such fine weaves. Such innate comprehension and prodigal talent.
His for the claiming.
He struck, swift and hard, lashing out across the connection of her existing two Marks with a brutal whip of power and a triumphant
salutation. ?Hello, girl.?
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Even knowing it was coming—even expecting the pain and despair of it—Ellysetta still screamed and fell to her knees when the
High Mage’s power stabbed deep into her breast and pierced her heart. Ice gripped her in a paralyzing embrace. Her vision
went black, and in the darkness she saw the twin bloody moons of glowing ember eyes, heard the familiar taunting voice of
her enemy. ?Hello, girl.?
There was no point in fighting. She’d spun the forbidden magic, knowing it would open her soul to him. Just as it had that
day in Celieria’s cathedral.
This time, she let the power wash over her and accepted the Mage’s gloating triumph without resistance. She let it stab her,
freeze her, bind her.
Then she crawled back to her feet and continued to weave.
The Mage’s consciousness flickered with surprise. He was linked to her through his three Marks and the power she was wielding.
He knew she was still weaving. ?What are you doing, girl?? She felt the cold, probing fingers reaching into her soul, prying at her mind in an effort to read her intentions, looking