Chapter Two
At the guard barracks adjoining Celieria’s royal palace, Rain found Belliard vel Jelani and the other warriors of Ellysetta’s primary quintet still sleeping off the excesses of the previous night.
They had not escaped Ellysetta’s weave either, and the last Rain had seen of them, they’d been running for the brothel district.
Rain rousted them with a few well-aimed kicks.
“Tairen’s scorching blood,” Bel muttered.
The leader of Ellysetta’s primary quintet and Rain’s oldest friend rolled to a sitting position and rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes.
Rumpled black hair slid over his face and shoulders in tangles.
Bleary cobalt-blue eyes blinked, then squinted against the light.
“Be gentle, Rain. There’s neither a bone nor a muscle in my entire body that doesn’t ache. ”
“I had to face worse,” Rain informed him, “so don’t look to me for sympathy.”
“Lord of Light love her,” Rowan vel Arquinas, holder of Fire in Ellysetta’s quintet, groaned from his rack and flung an arm over his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the keflee. I’ll never hold something like that back again.”
“The next time you think to play a joke on me, vel Arquinas,” Rain warned, “remember this.”
“I will. I will.” Rowan had admitted last night that he’d talked Bel and the others into keeping Ellysetta’s extremely sensual appreciation of keflee a secret in the hopes of using that knowledge to play a joke on Rain.
Of course, as tame and well-behaved as Rowan had been last week, Rain should have known he was plotting something.
The Fey was deadly fierce in battle, yet unrepentantly wicked outside of it.
Only his brother Adrial and his sister Sareika—both of whom he utterly adored—were safe from his jokes.
Kiel vel Tomar, the Water master of Ellysetta’s quintet, attempted to rise up on his elbow, only to go pale and flop back down. “Can a Fey die from too much sex?” he asked.
“Yes,” Bel replied bluntly. “Another bell and we would all have proven it.”
“What’s wrong with Adrial?” Rain glanced at Rowan’s brother, who was still unconscious in his rack, his black hair spilling down off the pillows in tangled waves.
Rowan shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “He seems to have gotten the worst of it.”
“By far,” Kieran vel Solande agreed, plucking more than a dozen rumpled pink cards from the waistband of his breeches, each printed with the name of a Celierian pleasure girl who’d invited him to visit again when next he came to the city.
At a mere four hundred fifty years old, the son of the truemates Marissya and Dax v’En Solande was the youngest Fey in the quintet—the only Fey child born since the Mage Wars, in fact—but he was so powerful and so skilled with his blades, Rain had not hesitated to appoint him the Earth master of Ellysetta’s quintet.
“The weave drove us all, but nowhere near as badly as it drove Adrial.”
Rain looked at them, the five who represented the best of all Fey warriors, and shook his head. A child with a wooden sword could defeat them at this particular moment. “You reek of spirits. Were you drinking as well as mating?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Rowan muttered.
“We were hoping to dull the effects of the weave.” Kiel was looking decidedly green around the gills. Giving a rattling moan, he lurched to his feet and stumbled rapidly towards the bathing rooms down the hall.
Rain smothered a laugh. “Well, I would suggest you seek out Marissya for a healing, but I think you all deserve to suffer a while longer.”
After trading a few more insults, he sobered. “Give Adrial another bell or two, then wake him up,” he said. “Ravel’s quintet guards Ellysetta, and she’s protected by a twenty-five-fold weave, but I want you there as soon as you’re fit. Something attacked her last night.”
“What?” Bel shot to his feet. To their credit, Rowan and Kieran—and even Kiel, who had just stumbled back from the bathing rooms—also flashed to stone-cold lethalness in an instant, their hands instinctively reaching for weapons. “Why did you not tell us immediately?”
“She is unharmed,” Rain assured them. “And there was nothing you could have done even if you had been there. The attack came through her dreams.”
“Mages?” Kieran asked.
Rain nodded. “Most likely. The shields did not protect her, and neither Ravel nor any of his men sensed anything until she woke screaming.”
“We will wake Adrial and go to her immediately.” Bel’s face was an expressionless mask.
If Fey men sensed emotion the way empathic Fey women did, Rain knew he would be feeling Bel’s shame and self-reproach washing over him in waves.
The warrior was Ellysetta’s bloodsworn champion—willingly bound by lute’asheiva to defend her against all harm—yet he’d not been at her side when she’d been attacked.
“Nei, let Adrial sleep, and do not torment yourself.” Rain reached out and clasped his friend’s shoulder. “There is nothing you could have done, my friend.”
“I should have been there.”
“As should I,” Rain replied. “But I was miles away on a beach at Great Bay, fighting her weave and trying desperately to keep my distance lest I dishonor myself entirely.”
Bel’s eyes narrowed. “I know you are not taking this as lightly as it seems. Your mate was attacked. Where is your rage?”
Flags of color warmed Rain’s cheeks. A Fey warrior should be deathly furious over an attack on his mate, yet Rain’s calm would not wane.
“She would not let me keep it.” His hands spread before him, palms open in a gesture of surrender.
The blood of millions lay upon those hands, and yet at this moment he could scarcely see the stain.
“Last night, my song sang to her, and she spun the first thread between us.” While trying to soothe the terrors of her nightmare, he’d sung tairen song to Ellysetta.
The music had resonated in her soul, as a tairen’s song resonated in its mate’s, and in one perfect moment of communion, Ellysetta had forged the first shimmering filament of oneness between them.
Even now, the memory of that joy brought tears to his eyes.
Bel stared. “Tears,” he murmured. “From eyes that have not wept in a thousand years.” His cobalt gaze moved over Rain’s face, searching for every tiny difference. “The bond truly does begin.”
“Aiyah,” Rain admitted softly.
Rowan, Kieran, and Kiel crowded closer. Their usual Fey-stoic masks fell away to reveal a mix of awe and envy.
No warrior had truemated in a thousand years, not since before the devastation of the Mage Wars, and there was nothing a Fey warrior longed for more.
But the gift of shei’tanitsa bonding was so rare, the usual lot of a warrior was to live and die without ever finding the woman born to complete his soul.
It was the reason Fey warriors strived for centuries to master the intricacies of magic and swordsmanship, the reason they vied to be the best, the bravest, the most honorable of all warriors—hoping, always, to prove themselves worthy of the gods’ greatest gift.
“What does it feel like?” Rowan asked.
Rain rolled his shoulders, searching for words.
These were his friends, his blade brothers and the warriors sworn to defend Ellysetta with their lives.
Although Rain’s feelings were very personal and intimate, the wonder of the shei’tanitsa journey was a treasure that courting Fey had always shared with their unmated blade brothers.
“Peace,” he said at last. “Like waking in a field of soft grass on a warm spring day and knowing for the first time exactly who you are and what your purpose is in the world. And humbleness, as if you were standing before the Bright Lord with all the dark ugliness of your soul laid out before you, and despite everything, he showers you with light until every last stain fades away.” A smile spread slowly across his face.
“Flame, too—especially under the effects of her weave—but I’ll say no more about that.
Some things should remain private between a Fey and his mate. ”
The warriors, who had been nodding in silent awe and trying not to show their envy, now grinned and laughed.
Bel put a hand on Rain’s shoulder. “May the gods light your way, Rain, and your journey end in joy.”
“Beylah vo, my friend.” Rain exchanged a warrior’s arm-clasp with Bel and pulled him close for a brief, tight embrace.
Of all the Fey, there was none he loved so much as Bel.
A week ago Rain had feared for his friend.
The darkness that eventually consumed all untruemated Fey warriors had been so close to claiming him.
But Ellysetta—miraculous, unexpected Ellysetta—had wiped centuries of death from Bel’s soul with one effortless touch of healing warmth, and now Bel had joy once more.
One after another, Kieran, Kiel, and Rowan followed Bel’s suit, exchanging arm-clasps and embraces, thanking Rain for sharing his felicity and offering their own well wishes in return.
By the time he left them, they were moving with brisk purpose, shaking off the weariness and excesses of last night.
Only Adrial was still sleeping, but Rain doubted the others would let him do so much longer.
Ellysetta had been attacked, and fierce Fey honor would demand that the warriors of her primary quintet take their place at her side, protecting her from all harm.
Kolis Manza, apprentice to the High Mage of Eld, groaned as he came back to consciousness. His head was splitting. His mouth tasted as though he had swilled raw sewage. He hawked and spat a foul-tasting glob of spittle on the floor.
Bright Lord’s lice-infested balls. That little witch’s Spirit weave had been beyond powerful.