Chapter Seven #2
Rain gazed across the table at the tender concern and open love stamped on Lord Darramon’s hard face as he bent his head to murmur something to his wife. What if Rain were in Lord Darramon’s place and Ellysetta were the one dying? What wouldn’t Rain do to secure her health? What wouldn’t he give?
Tension coiled in his gut at the mere thought of it, and the tairen growled a fierce warning.
Dax was right. The promise of healing Lady Basha would secure Lord Darramon’s vote in an instant.
A man who loved his wife as deeply as Darramon clearly loved Basha would never let something so trifling as the cast of a ballot stand in the way of her health.
A wily king would use that leverage to his own advantage.
After dinner, the guests retired to Teleos’s conservatory. Servants bustled around offering tea, keflee, and a selection of flavorful liqueurs, and the discussion turned in earnest to the Eld Trade Agreement.
Great Lord Verakis, holder of a very large and strategic West Midlands estate, was a sober man, thoughtful, educated, and deliberate in his thinking.
His lands lay directly in the path of the Garreval.
If war came, the Eld would march through Verakis on their way to the Fading Lands, and luckily for Rain, the lord knew it.
The calm, well-reasoned discussion provided the impetus Rain needed to draw even the more reticent lords into discourse.
“My lands are nowhere near the Garreval and of little strategic importance,” objected Lord Dunn, a small central Celierian landholder.
“Perhaps not strategic by location, Lord Dunn,” Rain corrected as he recalled the information Master Fellows had imparted to Ellysetta this afternoon about the House Dunn, “but even Eld armies need food. The quality and abundance of your crops make Dunn a ripe prize.”
“My lord, really,” Lord Nevis Barlo objected. The man was another small landholder with estates located south of Celieria City. “You’re talking as if Mage conquest is a certainty—when in fact no proof exists to support your claim.”
“I know the Mages, Lord Barlo,” Rain replied.
“I am intimately familiar with what they will do for power. If the Mage Council has been reconstituted, have no doubt about it, conquest is a certainty. Perhaps not this year, perhaps not the next, but it will come. Mages are patient adversaries. They will wait until you grow complacent, and then they will strike.”
“My Lord Feyreisen.” Lord Callumas Nin, the Great Lord and naval hero who held Queen’s Point, cleared his throat.
“All of us are here because we are willing to listen to what you say. But let us talk facts, not conjecture—no matter how well-founded you believe that conjecture might be. You want our votes to keep the Eld out of Celieria. The Eld want our votes to let them in. We know what the Eld are offering: gold, trade, an unlimited supply of keio to cure any future outbreaks of plague. What is it the Fey are offering?”
Rain nodded, pleased by the glimmer of progress—even though what mortals called diplomacy was just a polite term for bribery.
“A good question, my lord. As your ancestors learned long ago, the Fey have much to offer, and our gifts come with none of the strings the Eld attach.” He accepted a small goblet of pinalle from a passing servant and leaned forward.
“We have warriors of a skill no mortal will ever match, my lord, swordsmasters to train your men and fight alongside them should the need arise. Healers to tend your sick.” He met Lord Darramon’s eyes.
“Magic to help ward your holdings. Sails that amplify the wind to make ships move faster.” He took a sip of his drink.
“Does any of that interest you, my lord?”
Lord Fann, the shipbuilder, sat up a bit straighter. “Magic-enhanced sails?”
Lord Nin’s response was more reserved but no less interested. “Tell us more.”
Rain signaled to Dax. The Fey lord launched into a detailed discussion of what the Fey and their magic could provide.
As he spoke, Rain caught Lord Darramon’s gaze and wove a private thread of Spirit between them.
?Your wife is dying. Without healing, Marissya says she will be gone this time next year. ?
The goblet of pinalle in the Great Lord’s hand trembled, and sweet blue wine splashed over the rim to run, unnoticed, in rivulets over his shaking hand. His face turned pale beneath its tan. He had not known. Suspected, perhaps, but not with certainty.
Rain felt sorry for the man. The news was clearly a terrible blow. ?I will not risk the safety of our women by sending them far from the Faering Mists, but if you bring your wife to the Garreval, I will arrange for our healers to tend her there.?
If I grant you my vote. The response was a thought unbacked by power but easily read.
?I would be lying to say that did not cross my mind,? Rain said, ?but nei, this a Fey gift, offered freely as a gesture of our goodwill, no matter how you cast your vote.
I will post a quintet at the Garreval to wait for you.
You have two months from today to bring your wife to them.
If it is within the power of our healers to cure her, they will do so. ?
The border lord’s lips moved, forming a single word. Why?
?Just bring her,? Rain answered brusquely, ?and do not delay. If you do not come within two months’ time, we will assume you have declined our offer. The quintet will return to the Fading Lands and your wife will live or die as the gods see fit.?
Ellysetta sat on her windowsill, looking up at the waning Mother and Daughter moons as they crawled across the night sky.
Within the visibly shimmering twenty-five-fold weave surrounding the house, the world seemed utterly tranquil, yet tension still coiled inside her.
The house was quiet. Mama and Papa had turned in earlier, and though Ellie could feel the press of weariness urging her to bed, she was afraid to sleep.
What if she dreamed again? What if she dreamed worse than she had last night?
Bel had assured her that the twenty-five-fold weaves would keep out all known magical attacks, but her disquiet would not settle.
Last night, the Shadow Man had found her.
Who knew what terrors he might now unleash?
Behind her, three lit candle-lamps cast bright circles of golden light around the room, chasing shadows to the darkest corners, but the flickering lights offered little in the way of reassurance.
Was it her imagination, or had the room grown colder? Ellie shivered and pulled the knitted shawl closer around her shoulders.
Suddenly her entire body went tense. What was that moving in the courtyard? She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the window, then sat back with a groan as she realized it was only Kieran, practicing his bladework in the moonlight.
“Oh, for the Haven’s sake, Ellysetta, you’re being ridiculous.
” She scrubbed her hands over her face and jumped to her feet, snatching up the heavy volume of Tarr’s History of Celierian Noble Houses from the pile of books on her nightstand.
After Master Fellows’s lessons on the peerage this afternoon, she’d had Bel escort her to the library to fetch a selection of books that she hoped would help her build a better rapport with the nobles next time she met them.
Since she wasn’t getting any sleep tonight, the least she could do was spend the time doing something productive.
Crawling into bed, she propped the pillows up behind her, set the heavy book on her thighs, and began to read about the exploits and achievements of the past lords and ladies of Celieria.
Unfortunately, Tarr’s writing style, while a perfection of detailed accuracy, was lamentably dry.
Triumphant victories—dizzying, incredible feats that had left her breathless when she’d read about them in volumes of Fey poetry—became about as vivid and engrossing as watching plaster set when recounted by the erudite scholar Master Tarr.
She persevered, determined to become an asset rather than a liability to Rain, and hoping to take her mind off her fears.
Perhaps if Tarr had been a more engrossing writer, it would have worked.
As it was, she jumped at each rattle of the windowpanes and creak of a floorboard, and every flicker of a shadow on her bedroom walls made her heart pound with fear.
Halfway through chapter five, “The History of Great House Orly,” a noise outside brought her rigidly alert.
She stifled a scream as a shadow passed over her window.
“Shei’tani?” Rain stood on the small patch of shingled roof outside her window.
Glowing green threads of Earth spun out from his fingertips and her window swung inward.
Fresh night air, crisp with the scent of magic, wafted in on a cool breeze.
He leapt with graceful catlike ease over the windowsill and landed without a sound in the center of her room.
Ellie pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the rapid beat of her heart beneath her fingertips. “What are you doing here?” She set her heavy book on the nightstand beside her. “I thought you were with Lord Teleos this evening.”
“Bel told me you were still awake, so I left early.” Two steps brought him to her side and he caught her hands in his, lifting them to his lips. “Fly with me, shei’tani?”
His long dark hair spilled over his shoulders, and his Fey-pale skin shone against the inky blackness of his leathers. Her heart pounded faster, but this time not from fear. Would there ever come a day when the sight of him did not leave her breathless?
Without hesitation, she went. Out the window, up to the rooftop, without a care for her bare feet or nightgown, she followed him.
“Trust me?” he asked when they stood on the crest of the roof, looking out over the sleeping city.
She answered without hesitation. “Of course.”