Chapter Fifteen #3
Gaelen gave a bark of laughter. “That’s not much of a deterrent when one is already banished for far worse, now is it, puppy?
Besides, Fey law also forbids tampering with Celierian memories, so I am not the only one to break Fey laws when the situation warrants.
” He eyed Rain coolly. “I never expected to walk again in the Fading Lands. If you choose to deny me entrance because I called Azrahn as a dahl’reisen, so be it. ”
“I will not deny you entrance. But you will not call Azrahn again. It is forbidden.”
Gaelen’s jaw hardened. “I will do as I have always done. Whatever is necessary to protect the Fey.”
“As you protected us when you threw us into the Mage Wars for vengeance’s sake?”
“No less than you, when you scorched the world.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Marissya snapped.
“If the Fey stole the woodsman’s memories, what kept you from calling their souls back from the dead to learn what they knew?” Kieran sneered.
The temperature in the room plummeted. The chill was cold anger, coming from Gaelen, followed a moment later by mocking acceptance. “Well, puppy, I did try, but by then I was sel’dor-pierced and my magic wasn’t quite as manageable as it usually is.”
“Untruth.” Marissya smiled at her brother’s quick scowl. “At least about trying to summon Fey souls. You were sel’dor-pierced.”
“I caught a few barbed arrows while dispatching the last of the Elden raiders and the apprentice Mage who led them. I couldn’t send Spirit; that’s why I came to Celieria in person.”
“There’s no trace of sel’dor in you now.”
“The Feyreisa must have removed the barbs when she healed me.”
“She didn’t,” Bel said. “She touched you and lit you up like a candle, but she didn’t remove any sel’dor so far as I could see.”
“And yet the sel’dor has vanished from my flesh.”
Everyone turned to Ellysetta. “If I did it, I don’t remember it, and don’t have any idea how to do it again.”
“So . . . she truemates a Tairen Soul, restores a dahl’reisen’s lost soul, and disintegrates sel’dor with a touch. Yet she is still here in this city rather than safe behind the Faering Mists? And Marissya as well?”
Rain bristled at the reproach. “Not because I wish it so, believe me,” he retorted.
“I am bound by honor and Celierian law. Her father and Dorian set aside her Celierian betrothal only on the condition that I wed her by Celierian custom, and the formalities of it take time. Were that not so, I would have taken her and returned to the Fading Lands days ago. Just as I would have commanded your sister to return the moment I learned that the Celierians have been negotiating a trade agreement with the Eld, and that she and Dax knew of it.”
Gaelen speared his sister with a penetrating look that actually made the imperturbable Marissya flush, but whatever scathing remark was on the tip of his tongue went unsaid.
He turned back to Rain. “The Eld are on the move. Whatever attack they have planned will come soon. You should leave now, in the night. Take your shei’tani and go. ”
“I’ve told you, I cannot. She does not complete the required prenuptial ceremonies until tomorrow. We wed and depart after that.”
“Do not place honor above your shei’tani’s life.”
“That’s the sort of thinking that led you down the Shadowed Path so long ago, vel Serranis. I will honor my vow. To do less makes me unworthy of her.”
A knock sounded on the doors. Kiel opened them upon Rain’s command. Marissya pulled her hand from her brother’s arm, a small, instinctive courtesy to spare his pride, as Rowan stepped into the room.
“So it is true.” Rowan pinned Gaelen with a hard glare. “How is it that you still live, dahl’reisen?” He held his hands close to his blades, tension and aggression vibrating from him with almost visible force.
“Peace, Rowan,” Kiel murmured. “Gaelen is dahl’reisen no longer. The Feyreisa has restored his soul.”
“So we heard, but I didn’t believe it until now. It still doesn’t excuse him from bringing his taint into this city and tormenting my brother’s truemate.”
“Your brother’s truemate?” Gaelen glanced from Rowan to Ellysetta.
“Not Ellysetta,” Marissya clarified. “Talisa diSebourne, Lord Barrial’s daughter.” Gaelen’s face went blank with surprise. “You didn’t know she could truemate?”
“Nei. How could we know? Lord Barrial’s marriage bond was a purely mortal one. We knew the girl was slightly empathetic but we never suspected anything more. If we had, we certainly would never have allowed her to waste herself on Sebourne’s heir.”
“Then why do you have twenty-five dahl’reisen stationed on Lord Barrial’s lands?” Rain asked. “You knew Lord Barrial was a descendant of your cousin Dural, that Fey blood—vel Serranis blood—ran in the Barrial family line.”
“Aiyah, I did know that. Dural’s disappearance was what brought me back to Celieria seven hundred years ago.
He was gone without a trace, his mortal mate slain, his son orphaned.
And they weren’t the only ones. All along the borders there were tales of midnight raids and folk gone missing.
It was then I formed the Brotherhood of Shadows.
We began patrolling the borders, stopping the raids when we could.
As for the twenty-five dahl’reisen . . .
they are there to protect Lord Barrial. Too many of the raids over the years have targeted Dural’s descendants. ”
“Why?”
“We don’t know. Over the years, I’ve sent more than a hundred dahl’reisen into Eld to find out. None of them ever returned.”
“So, back to my earlier question,” Kieran interrupted with an open sneer. “Why didn’t you summon the souls of the Eld you killed and ask them?”
Gaelen gave a small, tight smile. “The Mages soul-bind their followers to them, boy. If you summon a soul owned by the Mages, you might as well send a thread of Spirit straight to the High Mage himself and set up a flare to light his way back to you. Using Azrahn opens your soul for . . . things . . . to get in. I’d personally rather not have one of those things be a Mage. ”
“Azrahn?” Rowan interrupted. He speared Rain with an incredulous look. “Gaelen is a dahl’reisen who freely admits to wielding Azrahn, and you let him draw breath within the same room as the Feyreisa? Have you gone mad?”
“He has,” Kieran muttered.
“Gaelen is dahl’reisen no longer,” Marissya answered, flashing a dark look at her son. “The Feyreisa restored his soul. What would you have Rain do, slaughter him now that he is whole once more? Or banish him for something he did while living outside our laws?”
“The Dark Lord has bloodsworn himself to the Feyreisa.” That dry remark came from Teris, the new holder of Fire in Ellysetta’s primary.
Rowan’s jaw dropped, and he turned a shocked look on Rain. “You have gone mad.”
“Rowan.” Marissya gave him a warning look. “Is everything all right with Talisa?”
Shaking his head with astonished incredulity, the warrior was slow to answer.
“The husband came, demanding her return. Lord Barrial nearly drew steel on him before he would leave.” He flicked a quick shuttered glance at Gaelen, then directed his attention to Rain.
“It was all I could do to keep Adrial from slitting diSebourne’s throat. ”
“Adrial is still with his shei’tani?” Rain asked.
“Aiyah.”
“Did the husband find him there?”
“Nei, Adrial had enough sense to cloak himself in Spirit before diSebourne entered.” Rowan’s jaw flexed. “Can you not speak to the king, Rain? Is there no way to dissolve the marriage, as your betrothal was dissolved?”
“Some other time it might have been possible. But you heard the nobles tonight. Dorian rests on the blade’s edge of a rebellion.
Even if dissolving a marriage were within his power, Dorian couldn’t do it now.
Not to benefit the Fey at the cost of his own subjects.
Go back to Adrial; tell him to have patience.
” Even as he said it, Rain knew the advice was worthless.
No amount of patience would make Talisa a free woman.
If she left her husband of her own volition, diSebourne could simply claim the Fey had used magic to control her mind.
There were many Celierians who would be all too happy to believe it.
Rowan started to leave, then stopped at the door and turned to pin Gaelen with a fierce glare. “I’ll be watching you, dahl’reisen, with red never far from my fingertips.”
“It’s heartwarming to be the object of such affection,” Gaelen quipped when the door closed behind Rowan with a bang.
“What did you expect, vel Serranis?” Rain asked.
“Death,” he said simply. “But I received salvation in its stead.” He bowed in Ellysetta’s direction and gave a fanning wave.
“I will do everything in my power to prove myself worthy.” He straightened, and his shoulders squared.
“And you, Tairen Soul, should not make me the focus of your suspicions when the High Mage has fixed his eye upon your mate.”
“I am quite aware of the Eld threat. But the attacks on Ellysetta and the recent host of troubles with Celieria all appear to have been orchestrated by dahl’reisen, not by Mages.” Rain nodded to Marissya, who took her brother’s hand again.
“I ordered no attack on your mate. Not by command or implication,” Gaelen said.
“Truth,” Marissya said.
“And yet your Fey’cha ended up in the hands of a street child who stabbed her with it last week.” Rain lifted a brow. “How do you explain that?”
“I’ve fought along the borders for the last seven centuries.
I’ve lost a blade or two in the process.
One of those could easily have fallen into enemy hands.
” Gaelen frowned. “Since I did not order that attack, the most obvious suspects are the Mages, but that makes no sense. This High Mage is no fool. Why would he send a search party to Norban to torture a woodsman and slay two Fey for what they learned about the Feyreisa if he simply intended to kill her?”