Chapter Twenty-Five
With the reenergized Fey forces keeping the bowcannons, archers, and Mages busy, the nine tairen made short work of scorching
Lower Orest.
Most of the Eld broke ranks and ran for the nearest portal when the pride fired the battlefield. Those who did not died ablaze
and screaming. To Rain’s great relief, blanketing the entire battlefield in tairen flame seemed to destroy both the portals
and whatever had enabled them to open. No more gaping holes in space opened. No more foul armies of the Eld poured out. Lower
Orest was left a barren, smoking wasteland, as was the fortified Eld village across the river, but he and the pride did not
stop burning until they’d scorched every last remnant of the Eld army from the soil.
Rain sang the same instructions to Fahreeta and Torasul in Teleon, and they burned the Garreval, and the mountainsides, and
the valley around Teleon to the edge of the Mists.
When they were done, the Fey in both Orest and the Garreval walked the smoking battlefields to collect the sorreisu kiyr of their fallen brothers. Many had been stripped and stolen by the Eld during the battle, but the rest were gathered, to
be sent back to the families and loved ones left behind.
Among them were dozens of kiyr from sixty lu’tans who had died defending Orest. Ellysetta packed their sorreisu kiyr in a silk-lined pouch and asked the tairen to take them back to Fey’Bahren, to be placed with honor alongside the kiyranis of the pride.
Leaving Rain and the Celierians to begin the process of cleaning and repairing the city, Ellysetta spun healing on the wounded.
Sadly, there weren’t nearly as many as she’d expected. Mage Fire, like demon touch, killed rather than maimed. She spun shei’dalin healing on those in direst need, and by the time Marissya and Dax arrived on the back of Xisanna, most of the remaining wounded
needed little more than rest and a hearth witch’s care.
To Rain and Ellysetta’s surprise, Marissya and Dax had not come alone, nor empty-handed. Xisanna’s mate, Perahl, bore the
Massan Air master Eimar and his mate, Jisera, on his back, and Dax had strapped a large trunk behind Xisanna’s saddle.
Dax slid to the ground on a cushion of Air and set the trunk on the ground.
“I don’t understand,” Rain said as Dax lifted the trunk’s heavy lid to reveal the shining golden armor of the Fey king. “The
Massan banished me for weaving Azrahn. I am dahl’reisen. I no longer have the right to wear that armor or lead the Fading Lands in war.”
“Apparently, you do, my friend,” Dax said with a smile. He nodded to the white tairen crouched at Ellysetta’s side. “Talk
to her.”
Steli sniffed and ruffled her wings. ?The golden steel does not belong to the Fey-kin, Rainier-Eras,? she said in Feyan.
Her blue eyes scanned the gathered Fey as if in Challenge, and a low growl rumbled in her throat.
?It is not theirs to give or take. The golden steel is pride-made. It belongs to the Tairen Soul.?
“But I am no longer the Tairen Soul, Steli-chakai,” Rain said. “The Massan stripped me of my crown when they made me dahl’reisen.”
The white cat snorted. ?Fey-kin do not choose the Tairen Soul. Only the pride can choose.?
“The pride never chose me,” he reminded her gently. “I was Tairen Soul because I was the only one left.”
Steli lowered her head and fixed him with her great, whirling blue eyes. Wisdom swirled there. Much more wisdom than most Fey realized. ?We chose, Rainier-Eras. We chose a thousand years ago, when we would not let you die.?
Silence fell over Upper Orest. Even the thunder of the Veil seemed to hush.
“What Tenn did will not stand, Rain.” The Massan’s Air master, Eimar v’En Arran, stepped forward to stand at Steli’s side.
The chimes in his hair tinkled in the breeze off the Veil, and his wintry eyes were hard and steady. “No Fey ever swore allegiance
to the Massan,” he added. “But we did swear allegiance to the Fading Lands and to our king, Rain Tairen Soul. You have my
oath that Loris and I will see this set right. Until then, know that we stand where we always have: at the side of our king.”
He bowed low. “Miora felah ti’Feyreisen.”
Rain looked into the faces of the gathered Fey, seeing the same acceptance, the same belief. In him.
He turned to Ellysetta and saw the pride shining in her eyes. And this time, for the first time, the Fey he saw shining back
at him was the Fey he knew he was.
“Will you wear the armor, Rain?” Bel asked. “Will you be our king?”
There was only one possible answer. Only one true answer.
“Aiyah.”
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur sat in silence. Frost crackled on every surface of the Mage Council’s war room. The room was so cold his breath
should have formed vaporous clouds around him, but the chill of his fury was too deep, freezing him from the inside out.
Victory in Teleon and Orest had been snatched from his grasp.
Lord Teleos, the strongest ally of the Fey in Celieria, still lived, and both passes into the Fading Lands remained in Teleos’s control.
He and the Fey would move quickly to rebuild his defenses, and the Fey would continue to move freely in and out of the Mists and interfere in Vadim’s plans for Celieria.
Today’s unexpected defeats had been a costly miscalculation. Already, he knew, the whispers had begun in the Mage Council.
He would now need a victory, swift and complete, to silence the enemies in his ranks. Celieria must be turned, the Fey’s main
supporters slaughtered or silenced, and then he must find a way to bring down the Faering Mists and beard the tairen in their
lair.
He brought up the display of Celieria and began to plan his next move.
Celieria ~ Upper Orest
The roar of Kiyera’s Veil drowned out all other sound, and torches burned bright around the lake, turning the billowing mist
off the falls to clouds of red-orange flame and illuminating the faces of the tairen and the Fey who had gathered as Rain’s
witnesses.
Wearing her studded scarlet leathers, the Fey’cha belts full of bloodsworn blades crisscrossing her chest, Ellysetta stood
straight and proud and watched with unblinking eyes as her shei’tan shed his leathers and steel. Her bloodsworn quintet surrounded her, and Steli crouched behind them, wings spread in a show
of protection and might.
The air was chill against Rain’s skin, the magic of the waters of the Heras strong. Each breath drew clouds of magic-laden
mist into his lungs, making his power hum. Naked, he turned and walked down the slope to the lake and waded in.
The current was swift, and fought his progress as he swam towards the base of the falls and plunged into the torrential downpour
of Kiyera’s Veil. The water was icy from snowmelt and rich with potent magic from the ancient Source at Crystal Lake.
He turned his face up, letting the water pound down upon him. Invigorating magic engulfed him in clouds of billowing mist, and the icy streams of water cleansed him like the sharp, ruthless edge of a knife, stripping away the shadows of fear and doubt.
He stood there beneath the flow until the Veil had filled and scoured him, until every powerful branch of his magic awoke
and surged up with desperate force, straining against the bonds of his control, fighting for release. His Fey skin grew brighter
and brighter, and the water cascading down the Veil shimmered into mist and swirled around him in a silvery-white aura, like
light from a star.
A voice, deep and resonant, like no voice he’d ever heard before, sounded in his mind and his soul and every illuminated cell
of his body, as if the gods themselves were speaking to him.
You are ready, Rainier-Eras. Let yourself be king.
Tears mingled with the falling magic-bright mist. Peace stole over him. He breathed again, deeply, and filled his heart with
courage and determination.
“I am Rainier-Eras!” He shouted it to the heavens, sending the affirmation spinning upwards in Spirit and thought and tairen
song. “Feyreisen of the Fey’Bahren pride, king of the Fading Lands, Defender of the Fey.”
The Fey and tairen echoed his cry. “Rainier Feyreisen! King of the Fading Lands! Defender of the Fey!”
Rain swam back to the shores of the lake. As his feet sank into the thick moss lining the bank, the star-bright magic continued
to swirl around him, swathing him in veils of energy. He lifted his arms. Earth spun out in blinding whirls, enveloping the
Fey king’s armor, dissolving it in flows of green-hued magic that merged with the bright light spinning about him.
He continued to walk, setting one foot firmly before the other. With each step, the veils of magic flowing around him darkened
to shades of red and black and gold, and he could feel the hundreds of Fey kings who had come before him brushing against
his mind, whispering words of encouragement.
The sun-bright magic faded, leaving Rain clad in the armor of the king. He spoke a summoning word he’d never known before, and the king’s gold blades settled snugly in their sheaths. The name-symbols etched into the armor flashed like a galaxy of stars before fading to simple gold and silver.
And there on the left breastplate, in a spot over his heart, a new king’s symbol now shone: the sigil of Rainier-Eras, etched
and encircled in gold.
Bel handed him the golden helm. Rain took it, remembering the Fey’s brave cry of “To victory or death!” as Johr led them to
war. He looked at his brothers, committing their faces to his memory, knowing many of them would not see another year. Knowing
they would embrace their deaths so those they loved could live. He would not cry, “To victory or death!” That was not why
he fought. That was not why they fought.
“To victory, my brothers.” He caught Ellysetta’s hand and raised it high. “And to life.”
“To victory and life!” the warriors cried.
Rain summoned the Change, took Ellysetta on his back, and shot into the sky, leaving his plain warrior’s leathers where they
lay, the skin of his old life, now shed forever.