Chapter Twenty-Two #2
for some clue that would tell him where she was and what she was up to. She clenched her teeth and tried to block him out,
all the while continuing to spin the forbidden magic.
Her whole body was shivering now, her mouth filled with gagging sweetness. A third shadowy Mark had joined the first two on her left breast, and the dark trio throbbed in time with her pulse, like knives of ice thrust into her heart, vibrating with every rhythmic beat.
Rain, in tairen form, continued to sing to the kits. He didn’t try to connect to her through the threads of their truemate
bond. She’d made him swear he wouldn’t do that while she wove the dark magic, afraid the Mage would be able to use her as
a tool to Mark him. But she could still sense his fear and horror. He sang strength and reassurance to the kits, but for himself
and her he had none. His tairen claws dug deep into the sand, and his tail whipped against the rock walls of the cavern in
helpless distress.
Ellysetta forced herself to block out his emotions and the cries of the kits so she could concentrate on her weaves. There
was no room for mistakes or wild, instinctive, uncontrollable magic. As Gaelen had impressed upon her again and again during
their bells of practice, Azrahn was too dangerous a magic to allow even the tiniest lapse of control.
She drew upon the discipline Venarra and Jaren had drilled into her, keeping her mind focused and her weaves steady and strong,
using the power of the Tairen’s Eye crystals around her neck and waist and wrist to amplify and concentrate her magic.
She went from egg to egg, spinning Azrahn, carefully weaving the threads down the invisible, spider-silk-thin connections
that tied the egg-bound kitlings to the Well of Souls. She used those threads as the conduit through which she fed her Azrahn-enhanced
healing weaves.
The High Mage sensed what she was doing. His glacial anger washed over her. ?Foolish girl. You are tampering with powers you do not understand.?
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur shoved back from the map table. She dared? The umagi he had created—the creature whose extraordinary powers he had engineered for his own greatness—dared use those gifts to challenge her master?
The room was silent and icy. The Primages were staring at him, expressionless and watchful. His brows plummeted, and the temperature
in the room fell further.
If that troublesome little petchka thought she could best the High Mage of Eld, she had a harsh lesson to learn.
“Order your commanders to assemble their troops. If I’m not back within four bells, send the armies into the Well.”
He turned and stalked out of the room and down the corridor to his personal chambers.
“Master Maur!” The umagi who tended his personal affairs leapt to his feet when Vadim stormed in.
“Fetch Tailinn,” he snapped, referring to the third near-term pregnant woman awaiting her child’s gift from the Well. “No,
wait, fetch her and the other three who are closest to term. I want them all in the birthing chamber in half a bell!” Each
word cracked with ice.
The servant bowed and scraped and nearly fell over himself rushing for the door. “Of course, great one. Immediately.”
Ellysetta Baristani thought she would rob him of his Tairen Souls? She would regret her impudence. Purple robes swirled as
Vadim stormed into his office and headed for the chamber where he kept his most precious implements of power, including the
two remaining needles that held Ellysetta Baristani’s blood.
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Ellysetta lost track of time. Enveloped in a cocoon of swirling magic, she sent wave after wave of healing and strength down
the silk-thin threads of Azrahn into the Well of Souls, feeding that power to the kitlings’ souls.
Their initial, whimpering fear had faded when they’d realized Ellysetta’s magic was not the dark evil that hunted and hurt them. As she’d continued to spin and sing to them, they’d begun to sing back.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the kitlings’ faint voices grew stronger.
Sybharukai crooned encouragement. Steli purred and nudged Ellysetta’s body with her head. ?Your magic is working, kitling.?
Eld ~ Boura Fell
The four pregnant woman were strapped, unconscious, to the birthing tables. Vadim had not planned to attempt soul-binding
Tailinn’s child until the Mother went new again and his powers reached their next peak, but he could not afford to wait. Nor
had he ever attempted to bind more than one soul in a night, but he’d be damned before he’d let Ellysetta Baristani rob him
of the great prizes he’d spent months preparing to harvest.
Vadim snapped his fingers, and one of the servants offered him a crystal goblet. He lifted the cup and drained it dry. The
dark red potion carried the metallic tang of blood from Tailinn and the other women, mixed with a heavy dose of several magical
herbs, and powdered selkahr crystal.
When the tingle of the potent blood magic spread through his system, he raised his beringed hands and began the invocation
of his most useful and grudging servant. “Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn, Prince of Shadows, I summon thee.
Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn, Lord of Demons, I bind thee. Choutarre, Soul Taker, in the name of Seledorn,
God of Darkness, I command thee to serve as hand of my power and executor of my will.”
An icy breeze swirled through the chamber, blowing back Vadim’s hair and the folds of his purple velvet robes. A voice like
bones grating on stone hissed, ?How shall I serve thee??
Vadim shaped his command in flows of dark, ineluctable power. “Bring me the souls I seek.”
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
The kitlings fell silent.
Concerned, Ellysetta summoned Fey vision to examine the eggs. Concern spiked to alarm. The shining light of the kitlings,
so bright just moments before, had gone out. The eggs appeared empty, with naught but a blank void inside each shell, just
as they had the first time she’d come and again the night Forrahl had died.
Then she heard the whispers, the voices.
“Oh, no. Not now. Teska, sallan, don’t let this happen.” Desperately, she sent a bolus of power down her weaves, hoping she could hurry the healing.
The tairen began to growl. Sybharukai’s tail spikes extended in unspoken menace.
?He’s coming for the kits.? Rain’s Spirit voice was heavy with certainty.
“Aiyah.” Fear made her concentration wobble as something cold and dark brushed against her weaves. The tairen kitlings began to whimper
anew. She shivered, and her knees went weak. She clutched the nearest egg to keep herself upright. “But it’s not him. It’s
the other thing . . . whatever he’s using to steal their souls. A demon of some kind, or a soul doing his bidding. I don’t
know.”
She flinched as the thing brushed against her weaves again. The sensation was too vivid, too reminiscent of the horrifying
nightmares she’d suffered all her life. Like rats sliding past her ankles or ice spiders crawling up her spine. Her tairen
began to growl and claw at its bindings.
?Ellysetta, come away. Do not endanger yourself any further.?
“I can’t leave the kitlings to die.” Whatever it was, the thing had negated the power of her healing weaves. Worse, she could
feel it draining the kitlings’ strength, ruining the hard-won progress of the last bells. “I’ve got to do this, Rain. There
is no one else who can. This is why the Eye sent you to find me.”
?Was this part of what the Eye said you must do??
She bit her lip. There’d been nothing in the Eye’s vision beyond the weaves she’d already spun. Now she must fight without any idea of what pattern to weave. “Nei, but it makes no difference. If I don’t stop this attack, the kitlings will die. I will have let the Mage Mark me for nothing.”
Familiar power swelled, and the sparkling mist of the Change billowed around Rain’s tairen form. Even before it cleared, Rain
the Fey was striding across the sands of the lair to her side, his eyes glowing bright, his face pale and strained.
“Nei, shei’tani.” He dissolved the five-fold weave around her and grabbed her shoulders. Intense emotions barraged her senses. “Listen to me.
Mage or demon, this thing never takes more than one kitling when it comes. That’s how it has always been. Let it have that
life; then, when it is gone, you can resume the healing the Eye showed you.”
He was terrified beyond reason, else he would never consider the sacrifice of an innocent an acceptable price for victory.
And that fear told her more than words ever could how deeply and desperately he loved her.
“Rain.” She caught his face in her hands. “I can’t. You know I can’t. If these were our children, would you stand by and watch
one of them die so you could be assured of saving the others? Or would you move the very heavens and the earth to try to save
them all?”
He brushed that argument aside with a growl. “I would face a thousand deaths to save them. But you’re not asking me to risk
my own life. You’re asking me to risk yours.”
“Yes, I am.” She pressed her lips to his, kissing him, loving him. “You say you must become worthy of my bond. But if I let
even one of these babies die without a fight, how will I ever become worthy of yours?”
“Do you think I care about our bond more than your life?” he countered. “I will gladly die if it means you may live.”
She clutched him to her, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him as if the sheer strength of her embrace could complete the merging of their souls.
“And do you truly think there’s any hope for me if I lose you?
” Gently, she pulled back to meet his gaze.
“Without you, I will choose sheisan’dahlein just to be sure the prophecy of the Eye can never come true. I’ve already asked Steli to see to it.”
“Shei’tani . . .” His expression crumpled.
“I must do this, Rain. Tairen do not abandon their kits. Tairen defend the pride.”