Chapter Twenty-Three #3
Even before he sensed Ellysetta’s instinctive, horrified recoil, Rain’s hands moved in a blur. Four red Fey’cha thunked hilt-deep
in the dirt a finger span from the boots of the three Massan and the Shei’dalin Venarra. The other Fey’s answering blades froze in midair—caught by the swift, masterful weaves of icy-eyed Gaelen and Bel.
“Touch her and you die,” Rain stated coldly. “Consider warning given.”
“She has bewitched you!” Tenn accused.
“She has led me back from death to life and opened my eyes to truth. She has saved us all and risked her soul to do it. If
that is bewitchment, then the gods themselves are the sorcerers who taught her the spells.”
“Rainier Feyreisen.” Venarra seized his wrist and spoke, her voice laden with the resonant, irrefutable command of a shei’dalin’s compulsion weave. “Did your mate Ellysetta weave the forbidden magic?”
He could not resist, so he spat the truth defiantly. “Aiyah, she did and so did I! And I would do it again.”
Silence fell over the plateau. The eyes of the Massan and the Shei’dalin went hazy as private Spirit weaves passed between them. A moment later, Tenn turned back to Rain and Ellysetta, his face
a mask of unflinching stone.
“Ellysetta Baristani and Rainier vel’En Daris, you are guilty of weaving the forbidden magic, Azrahn. For your crime, the
Massan declares that you both shall be stripped of your steel and banished for all eternity from the Fading Lands.”
Rain laughed without humor. “Banish us? You overstep yourself, Tenn. The Tairen Soul does not answer to the Massan, and the
Massan’s will does not trump the Tairen Soul’s.”
“You are mistaken, Rain. The Fey vested the Massan with the power to override your will a thousand years ago to ensure that
you, in your madness, did not lead us astray, as you are doing now.”
The words struck Rain like a mortal blow. He turned in stunned disbelief towards Bel, and the knife slid deeper into his heart
when his best friend looked away. All this time . . . all this time the Massan had not simply been wielding power in his name.
They’d been wielding power over him.
And not even Marissya had ever told him.
Not even Bel.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Elfeya lay panting on the stone floor, every finger span of her body bruised and bloodied. She sensed the instant Shan regained
consciousness, and she reached out to him on the threads of their bond, desperate to give him what information she could before
her tormentors began again. ?Orest and Teleon, beloved. They strike at Orest and Teleon.? That much she’d been able to pull from the High Mage’s mind as she’d healed him. ?Tell her, Shan.?
?Elfeya . . . ?
?Tell her to warn them.?
She cried out as hands seized fistsful of her hair and hauled her to her feet. Rough hands slammed her hard against the stone
walls of the cell, knocking the breath from her lungs. Glowing, red-hot metal filled her vision. She tried desperately to
close her bonds to Shan before the scream was ripped from her lungs and the smell of sizzling flesh assaulted her nose, but
she wasn’t fast enough.
A terrible, wild roaring filled her dazed mind . . . her screams and Shan’s mingling in an agony of madness and pain as again
and again and again the Eld seared and scorched her.
The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren
Fey and tairen stood in a tense ring, violence simmering beneath the surface. Rain struggled to gather his thoughts and find
the breath Tenn’s revelation had knocked out of him.
?Rain . . . ? Bel’s expression was desolate. ?Sieks’ta, kem’maresk. I should have told you, but once you came back to us, I never thought there would be cause. I never
thought they would be so bold.?
“You would banish the Defender of the Fey when the Fading Lands stand on the brink of a second Mage War?” Gaelen challenged with cold fury.
“You would banish the woman who brought life back to the tairen and the Fey? You would cast them out when the only reason they wove Azrahn was to save your miserable lives?”
“The reasons do not matter,” Tenn said. “The law is clear. Those who weave the forbidden magic must be banished or slain.
These are the ways of honor. These are the ways of the Fey.”
“These are the ways of death and idiocy,” Gaelen snapped.
“Feel free to join them in their exile, dahl’reisen,” Yulan spat.
Steli growled. ?What is ‘banish’??
Rain answered, speaking aloud for the benefit of the Fey. “Banishment, Steli-chakai, means these Fey say I am no longer the Tairen Soul. It means they intend to drive me and Ellysetta-Feyreisa from the lair
and from all lands of the Fey.”
Every tairen on Su Reisu roared. Flames shot from snarling muzzles, searing the morning sky, wings spread wide in a show of
fearsome might.
Protective shields sprang up around the gathered Fey. Dozens of hands reached for red Fey’cha.
Rain flung shields around Ellysetta but none around himself.
He glared at the gathered warriors. “And you call me mad? You would pull red against the pride?” He raised his hands to the tairen.
?Steli-chakai, my pride-kin, stop.? To all of them, he said, “We have enemies enough without turning upon one another. Stand down, Fey.” When they did not move,
his voice dropped an octave and boomed across the plateau. “I said stand down!”
Behind him, Ellysetta gave a choked cry, and an icy chill washed over him.
He whirled around and all the blood drained from his face.
She was shaking, every muscle clenched, every tendon pulled taut beneath her skin. Her hands were clawed and her eyes were
endless black pits awash in whirling red lights, like a dead sky filled with bloody stars.
She threw back her head, her throat convulsing. “Sal veli! Piersan veli ti’Teleon te Orest! Sala talothi!” They’re coming! The enemy comes to Teleon and Orest! Kill them!
The voice from her mouth was not her own. Low and throbbing, as if ripped from the throat of death itself, the sound scraped
across Rain’s senses like a serrated blade.
The Azrahn-filled gaze pinned him, and in a guttural voice, she cried, “Feyreisen! Defend the pride!”
Her legs folded, and she collapsed into his arms, and in her own voice, urgent and agitated, she whispered, “Orest and Teleon.
They are in danger. He’s coming. You must warn them. Warn them, shei’tan. Let them know . . .”
Rain clutched her to his chest and raised stricken eyes to the others. “We must warn Orest and Teleon.”
“Are you mad? Did you see her eyes?” Tenn pointed a finger. “She’s Mage-claimed! The Mages are using her to draw us into a
trap!”
“How can they be drawing us into a trap?” Rain snapped. “Our brothers are already there.”
“Then they must be trying to draw you out,” Yulan snapped when Tenn frowned in perplexed silence.
Gaelen sneered. “Considering you just banished him, what do you care?”
“It isn’t a trap.”
All eyes turned to Ellysetta.
Her lids opened, revealing eyes of bright Fey green, glowing and just beginning to whirl with the radiance of the tairen.
“It isn’t a trap. The Eld are coming. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Orest and Teleon are in danger.” She rose to her
feet, though her body continued to shake with helpless tremors, and her eyes held his in an unwavering gaze. ?Believe me, shei’tan. Our friends are in danger. We must warn them.?
Her urgent concern and unshakable certainty filled his veins first with ice, then with blazing fire. She had no doubt. And because she had none, he could not doubt either.
Rain flung his head back and sent the cry on the Warriors’ Path. ?Fey! To arms! Orest and Teleon, prepare for war! Kieran! Kiel! Get the shei’dalins and Ellysetta’s family to safety! Now,
Fey, now! The Eld are coming!?
?Belay that command!? Tenn shouted on the same path. ?By order of the Massan, you will fall back to the Fading Lands! Do not engage the Eld!? To Rain, he shouted, “Even if she isn’t speaking as the mouthpiece of the Mages, you have no right to command the armies
of the Fey! You are dahl’reisen! You are cast out!”
Later, Bel would tell him that at that moment, Rain seemed to grow half a manlength taller, his shoulders twice as wide, and
that his eyes blazed like twin purple suns. But all he knew at the time was the rush of his tairen’s power, hot as the raging
Great Sun and just as furious, filling him until his body all but exploded with its wrath. In a voice so low and deadly that
the very ground rumbled beneath his feet, he growled, “War has begun and still you would divide us?”
Tenn stood his ground, refusing to back down. “War has not begun! Whatever trap the Eld are waiting to spring, I will not
let the Fey rush into it! I will not sacrifice what precious few Fey lives we still have left for the sake of Celieria!”
Rain could easily have ripped out Tenn’s throat and danced in the shower of his blood. “The Eld aren’t attacking Celieria,
you fool. Teleon and Orest are the gateways to the Fading Lands. They’re coming for us!”
He spun away and sent a second desperate shout on the Warriors’ Path. ?Fey! My brothers, you must each make your choice. Those who would hide from the Eld and hope the Faering Mists will protect
you, retreat as the Massan have commanded. The rest of you, prepare to fight!?
He leapt into the air, summoning the Change.
?Fahreeta, Torasul! Take two of the pride and fly to the Garreval.
Protect the Feyreisa’s family. Steli, guard Ellysetta.
The rest of you, follow me as quickly as you can.
? He circled Su Reisu. ?Gaelen, Bel, I may no longer be your king, but as your friend, I could use your blades. ?
Bel exchanged a look with Gaelen, then said, ?We would follow you through the Seven Hells, Rain, if you will but give us a ride.?
Rain swooped down. Bel and Gaelen leapt onto his back, shouting, “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa! Miora felah ti’Feyreisen! And death to the Eld!” With a whooshing rush of powerful magic, Rain raced east towards Orest and war.
Celieria ~ Teleon