Chapter Twenty-Three
I san, sheisan, te Liss!
For love, honor, and Light!
Fey Battle Cry
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur knew from his umagis’ wide eyes and frightened silence that this trip to the Well and his reckless, overreaching attempt to deliver three Mage
Marks in one night had cost him dearly. He knew it even before enough sensation returned to his body that he could feel how
his legs had turned to rubber beneath him. The bony hands clutching the sides of the birthing table had turned bloodless white,
the tissue beneath his yellowed nails had gone a dark, bruised purple.
“Help me to a chair.” His words sounded garbled, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth.
Two of the umagi rushed forward to put their shoulders beneath his arms, carrying his weight as his feet half shuffled, half dragged across
the floor to a chaise in an adjoining room.
Not a single tairen’s soul had been claimed. Every one of them was lost. Set free by Ellysetta Baristani’s use of the great
magic he had bestowed upon her. The very magic that he’d intended to claim for himself, to make himself a living god—powerful
beyond measure, invincible.
Immortal.
He closed his eyes with effort and sucked in a rattling breath. Bloody froth bubbled up from his lungs when he exhaled.
“Bring Elfeya to me now. Put her mate in the observation room.”
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Ellysetta nestled in Rain’s arms as together they watched the kitlings’ first few bells of life. All four were healthy, their
eyes bright, their songs strong, their little bodies already covered with soft, downy fur.
“Little” was a relative word, of course. Each kitling was the size of a small pony, and their wings extended to easily three
manlengths across, but next to the full-grown adults of the pride, they appeared tiny. They sang as they purred, and Ellysetta
recognized each one by its song. Hallah was a pure black beauty with iridescent green eyes. Sharra and Letah looked like small
versions of their mother, Cahlah, with cinnamon brown fur and golden eyes. The lone little male, Miauren, was as gray as his
granddam, with black tips on his ears and tail.
The kitlings were born with mouths full of teeth and bellies full of hunger, and when Steli returned with a fresh tavalree carcass, Ellysetta turned her face away from the exuberant carnivorous ferocity with which they attacked their first meal.
Rain laughed softly at her squeamishness. “Come, shei’tani. Let’s leave the kitlings to their meal. I will take you back to Dharsa; then I must return to Orest.”
She nodded, joy turning to melancholy. She knew without Rain’s saying so, that he would collect the king’s armor from Dharsa.
The next time he returned—if he returned—the Fading Lands would be at war.
Steli growled and paced after them. Her blue eyes whirled. ?Fey-kin gather on Su Reisu. Growl pride-warnings, Rainier-Eras. They are not welcome with kits in the lair.?
“Bel must have arrived. I will tell him and Gaelen to leave.”
The sky was still dark over the Fading Lands, and to Rain and Ellysetta’s surprise, at least twenty warriors stood in the
firelight on Su Reisu where they had left Gaelen. But Gaelen and another warrior, who could only be Bel, were kneeling on
the plateau in the center of a ring of warriors, imprisoned by dense, radiant, multifold weaves.
“Stay here,” Rain said. “I will go down.”
Ellysetta clutched his hand in a tight grip. “Nei, they didn’t come here for you.” Both Bel and Gaelen were imprisoned. That could mean only one thing. “They came for me.
They must have realized what I was intending to do.”
“We will go together, shei’tani.” When she would have objected, Rain pressed a silencing finger to her lips. “We made this choice together. We’ll face the
consequences together.”
She stepped back so he could summon the Change, and together they flew down to Su Reisu to face the gathered Fey warriors.
He recognized a few of the Fey: A handful of them were those who’d made a great point of walking out that first day at the
Academy, before Gaelen rang the gong. Unbending warriors, clinging to the shining, spotless ideal of perfect honor, as if
only that could ever be worthy of their regard.
He couldn’t blame them for their views. The idea of perfect honor was a beautiful dream, one Rain himself had fixed in his
heart for years. And it was a worthy goal—as long as the pursuit of it did not become a slavish devotion empty of all compassion
and willingness to accept change.
“What is your business here, Fey?” he asked. Bel and Gaelen were both speaking and gesturing at him, but neither voice nor
Spirit could penetrate the twenty-five-fold weaves wrapped so tightly around them. His magic pooled within him, ready for
summoning at the first hint of aggression. “By what authority do you imprison the First General of the Fading Lands and a
chatok of the Academy?”
One of the Fey stepped forward. His eyes were bright and hard, his face an expressionless mask. “By the authority of the Shei’dalin and the Massan,” he said.
Rain sensed the explosion of power only a split second before another thirty Fey shed their invisibility weaves. Two dense,
twenty-five-fold weaves sprang up around him and Ellysetta.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Bound in sel’dor manacles and collar and pinned to the wall by thick sel’dor chains, Elfeya hid her savage joy as she beheld the rotting wreck of the High Mage. His face was the decaying skull of a
corpse. Livid flesh drooped in waxy folds beneath his sunken eyes and around his nose and mouth. His eyes were silver coins
floating in pools of scarlet blood, and his once-thick mane of white hair had gone thin and sparse, sickly tufts clinging
to the thin, mottled, parchment-like skin that covered his skull.
“I will not heal you,” she told him with cold defiance. “If that is why you summoned me, you have wasted what little time
in this life you have left.”
He laughed, and it turned into a cough that sprayed bloody sputum like a red mist. “Such brave words. You grow much bolder
than you should.” He waved, and the wall beside her became transparent. Inside a well-lit chamber, Shan was strapped by dozens
of barbed sel’dor bands to a table made of the same foul, black metal. His eyes were blindfolded, his mouth gagged.
The sight of him made her quail as fear and desperate love seized her in equal measures. She wanted to plead for his release,
but she and Shan had already agreed they would not. She tossed her head and forced herself to speak as though her heart were
not being ripped from her chest. “What else can you do to us that you have not already done? He will not survive more torture.
If you kill him, you only set me free. Either way, I am through prolonging your foul life. No matter what you do, I will not
heal you.”
“Oh, I won’t kill him. Not for a long, long time.” He bent and spoke into a tube connected to the adjoining room. “Disembowel him.”
Elfeya closed her eyes as one of the guards in Shan’s room lifted a razor-sharp hook and approached Shan’s vulnerable belly.
She felt the instant the hook sank into his skin as if it sank into her own, felt the burn of his intestines tearing as the
guard drew them out of his body. She didn’t speak to Shan. She didn’t dare, terrified that if she heard his voice, she would
not be strong, as they’d agreed she must be. She felt every moment of his suffering and bit her lip until her mouth filled
with blood.
“That’s enough, I think. Time for healing.” Maur spoke into the tube again.
Despite herself, Elfeya opened her eyes and turned her head in time to see a woman with vacant eyes being escorted into Shan’s
room. When the guard led her to Shan’s body and put her hands over his torn belly, a green glow lit the air around the woman’s
hands. Shan’s body arched and his throat strained as a muffled scream rattled out of him.
“She isn’t nearly as skilled as you, I’m afraid, and her mind is gone, as you can see, but the poor thing can’t stop healing.
You’ve been getting . . . recalcitrant . . . so I had her brought from one of my other palaces. Alas, she causes as much pain
as the wound she’s healing, but she’s quite adept at keeping her patients alive. Indefinitely.”
Elfeya began to weep. Thrice more, the guards ripped Shan’s belly open. Thrice more the poor, mindless husk of a shei’dalin healed him with her instinctive weaves. All the while, both Elfeya and Shan felt every burning moment, and they both knew
it could—and would—go on and on and on. The pain grew so terrible, Shan lost consciousness.
“Parei! Stop!” In desperation, she dropped to her knees before the High Mage and seized his hands. “Teska, I beg you. I will heal you. Remove these bonds, stop Shan’s torture, and I will heal you.”
The High Mage nodded to the guard. “Remove the manacles on her wrists.” To Elfeya, he hissed, “You will heal me now. If your
results please me, I will halt his torture.”
Weeping, she spun the weaves, feeling the acid burn of sel’dor as she channeled as much power as she could into the rotting shell of Vadim Maur’s body. When she could do no more, her hands
fell away. Her head drooped in defeat. “Please.”
He commanded one of the umagi to bring him a mirror. His face was still disfigured, the flesh mottled and drooping like melted wax, but most of his strength
had returned. He stood, grabbed a fistful of Elfeya’s hair, and hauled her to her knees.
“Did you think you could interfere as you did tonight and I would not know it?” he hissed. “Did you think I could not feel
you feeding her the weaves, showing her how to spin her power?” He shook her like a child. “You and your beloved Lord Death
will pay for what you have cost me. You will pay dearly . . . and for a very long time.” He flung her against the wall. Her
head cracked against the stone, making stars flash before her eyes.
He pinned the guards with his scarlet-filled silver gaze. “Take the male back to his cell. You may begin with him again tomorrow.”
“And her?”