Chapter Eleven #4
“Magic isn’t evil, shei’tani. Nor are those who wield it, if they wield it for good.” He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Will you dance the Felah Baruk with me, shei’tani? On the terrace, beneath the Mother’s silver light?”
The Felah Baruk, literally the Dance of Joy, was the Fey dance of courtship and devotion. “Bel and Kieran showed me the steps, but I’m afraid I don’t remember them all.”
“It will be my pleasure to teach you.”
She placed her hand on his wrist. “Then lead the way, shei’tan.” She loved the way his eyes sparked as she called him that: truemate, husband, beloved. Hers.
They passed the armed guards standing sentry by the large, arched doorways and walked across the marbled terrace to the balustrades overlooking the palace gardens.
Rain glanced over at Kiel. “Ask the musicians to play the Felah Baruk.” The blond warrior slashed a quick bow and hurried back inside the palace ballroom. Moments later, the bright, soaring strains of the Dance of Joy spilled out through the terrace doors into the night.
Rain held out a hand, and Ellysetta took it with a smile and a curtsey.
“You mustn’t laugh if I miss a step,” she told him.
But even as she spoke, she found herself moving gracefully, instinctively, in the patterns that symbolized Fey courtship and bonding.
She turned slowly, swaying. He circled her, tall, dark, stern, his eyes burning.
“You’re guiding me,” she whispered as she lifted an arm, passing a hand like a veil before her face, then extending it to Rain in a silent invitation.
“A little.” He touched her hands, fingers threading through hers, clasping her hand. She turned, twirling so that his arm circled her waist and she backed against his chest. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Nei.” She looked up, bending her head back so she could see his eyes.
“It’s nice, actually.” He was feeding her the motions of the dance, guiding each step, but with so subtle a touch that she could almost believe it was memory, not Rain, leading her through the steps.
She didn’t try to fight him, she just opened her mind and surrendered command of her body to him, and they danced as if they had danced a thousand times before.
He was home! Blessed merciful gods, he had been forgiven his sins.
He was home! Gaelen vel Serranis stood in the tall grass of the Plains of Corunn.
The sun beat down on his head and gleamed on the golden spires of the Tairen Soul’s palace in Dharsa, and the strains of the Felah Baruk flowed like healing magic over his body.
The notes were faint, as if they were far away, but he heard them for the first time in over a thousand years, and his heart soared.
Marikah! Marissya! I’m home!
He saw them clearly, his sisters, as beautiful as life could ever be, two stars of the morning sky, running towards him with laughter and love shining on their faces, their hair unbound and flowing like banners of dark silk.
Marissya, the gentler of the two, with deep, bottomless, ocean-blue eyes and hair as brown as the fertile earth.
Marikah, his twin, with jet-black hair and pale blue eyes that would have seemed as cold as his own except for the love and laughter that always warmed them.
His sisters ran towards him through the tall grass, their arms outstretched to welcome him.
He saw Marikah’s mouth form his name. He reached for her, and she faded, leaving him to embrace nothing but air.
A frown drew his brows together as memory, fragmented and shifting like sand, disturbed his happiness. Marikah was . . . dead?
Nei! Nei!
But even as he shook his head and cried out in denial, Gaelen saw the scene that had played in his mind a million times.
His twin Marikah lay against an intricate mosaic of blue and gold tiles, her gown an ever-deepening scarlet, matching the dark pool of thick liquid that spread beneath her, an Eld assassin’s blade plunged deep into her heart.
She turned her head and reached out . . .
not to Gaelen but to the man who lay dead beside her.
The Celierian. The mortal she had chosen as her mate.
Marissya stood still in the grass, clothed in shei’dalin red, her eyes accusing. She was yours to protect and you failed. You are dead to us.
Condemnation blew an icy wind through his soul, and he was freezing, teeth chattering.
Gaelen’s eyes opened to the darkness of night. Stars twinkled in the sky overhead, paled by the light of the moons. Dimly he realized he was lying in the dirt at the edge of a field. He was not in the Fading Lands. Marikah was dead and he was dahl’reisen, soul-lost.
But he could still hear the strains of the Felah Baruk.
A low groan rattled in his throat as he rolled over on his belly and lifted his head. His vision swam, but he saw the glow of a walled city he both knew and despised.
Celieria City.
Outside on the terrace, the air was warm and sweet, perfumed with the scents of the palace gardens. Ellysetta danced with Rain until the last note of the Felah Baruk died away.
“Good evening, My Lord Feyreisen, Lady Ellysetta.” A deep baritone voice spoke just behind her.
“Lord Barrial.” Ellysetta’s fingers tightened around Rain’s wrist as she turned to face the border lord. Here was the one person she’d actually liked from the dinner the other night, and she found herself holding her breath as she waited to see how he would greet her.
“Lady Ellysetta.” He bowed deeply. When he rose, the faintest of smiles curved the man’s lips. “No offense, but I trust you will not be drinking pinalle tonight?”
Ellie blushed. “No, my lord. I don’t think I shall ever drink it again. Certainly never in combination with keflee.”
“Now, that would be a waste of a fine opportunity.” Lord Barrial arched a dark brow. “Wouldn’t you agree, My Lord Feyreisen?”
Rain smiled, though a bit ruefully. “Indeed, though it certainly depends on the time and place of the opportunity.”
Lord Barrial laughed, then moved a little closer and lowered his voice. “Teleos tells me you had a bit of trouble with the Eld today. A demon?”
“Aiyah, and the Mages finally made a mistake. They used selkahr to summon the creature, and left me with the proof I needed to convince Dorian. The borders will not open tomorrow, even if the vote passes. Dorian has said he will invoke primus.”
“Well done, my friend.” Lord Barrial clapped him on the back. “That is good news. Now you’ve only to pray that nothing else happens to muck things up before tomorrow’s vote.”
“Ah, here you are.” Lord Teleos stepped through the terrace doors.
“Good evening, Rain, Lady Ellysetta.” The Fey-eyed border lord bowed his head, his dark, unbound hair swinging free about his shoulders.
A stranger stood beside him, clad in robes that shimmered with otherworldly beauty and seemed to shift in color from blue to green to gold.
“Have you met Elvia’s ambassador? Lord Arran Bluewing, may I present the Tairen Soul, Rainier vel’En Daris, and his truemate, Lady Ellysetta Baristani. ”
The Elvian bowed. Long, silken, brown hair woven in myriad tiny plaits brushed against elegant tapered ears.
His eyes were dark green, the color of the deepest forest, his skin almost Fey-pale, but with a golden luster rather than a silvery luminescence.
The ambassador turned his deep gaze on Ellysetta, and she stared at him in wonder.
She’d never met an Elf before, and there was a strange, compelling mystery about him, as if those eyes saw things no others did.
He murmured something in a language that sounded like waterfalls in sunlight-dappled forests.
She didn’t understand him, but his words made Rain, Lord Barrial, and Lord Teleos stiffen in surprise.
Rain’s hand closed around her elbow and drew her closer to his side.
He replied in the same language, but when he spoke, it sounded like raging rapids.
Unperturbed, the ambassador turned his gaze on Rain, spoke again just as calmly as before, then bowed and took his leave.
“What was that all about?” Ellysetta asked.
It was Lord Barrial who answered. “He said your Song in the Dance has begun.” He and Lord Teleos turned to look at her in surprised unison.
“Elvish mysticism,” Rain muttered, shifting closer to her. “It means nothing, Ellysetta, except that you are the truemate of a Tairen Soul.”
“And destined to change the world,” Lord Barrial added, “as all who call a Song in the Dance do.” He frowned at Rain. “And your Song must still be singing, Rain, if Galad Hawksheart wants the Fey to visit him in Deep Woods. He doesn’t lightly issue such invitations.”
“Well, Lady Ellysetta, you are all surprises.” Lord Teleos shook his head.
“But what else would one expect from the truemate of a Tairen Soul?” His smile faded, and he turned back to Rain.
“In any event, I didn’t come to bring the ambassador—he just divined where I was going in that way Elvish folk do and followed along.
I came to tell you that Lord Krahn has arrived with his lady and heir.
You and the Feyreisa should come to greet them, and there are several other lords I think you should meet who only arrived in town today. Sebourne’s already making the rounds.”
“Dorian has promised to invoke primus,” Lord Barrial told him.
“Ah.” Teleos’s brows rose. “Excellent. The selkahr convinced him?”
“It did,” Rain answered.
“Good. Good.” Teleos rubbed his hands together. “Still, it never hurts to sharpen all the blades in the arsenal, does it? No telling what else the enemies of Celieria and the Fading Lands may yet hold in store. These are unsettled times.”