Chapter Four
Water pure, the path to cleanse
Blood to bindings call
Tairen’s Eye to forge the bridge
Azrahn these souls enthrall.
Magecraft Seeking Spell
The coast was clear at last.
Night had fallen. Ellie’s parents and the twins had turned in for the night, and the Fey who’d been swarming around the Baristani house seemed to have finally left. Ellie could no longer even sense the tingling awareness of their presence.
She secured a brown shawl over her distinctive hair and slipped out her bedroom window, careful not to let the leather boots hanging about her neck bang against the glass or windowsill.
While the Fey warriors outside the house might be gone, the five who’d followed her into the house and declared themselves her “quintet” were still very much in attendance.
They’d stayed despite Mama’s outrage, despite even Papa’s coming home and ordering them to leave his house.
Faced with the direct order from Papa, the Fey called Belliard had merely bowed and politely refused, just as he had with Mama.
He’d offered to make himself and the other four Fey invisible, so as to minimize the family’s discomfort with their presence, but the idea of invisible magical beings roaming through her house had nearly sent Mama into palpitations.
“Thank you, but no,” Papa had answered. “We would rather see you so that we may know where you are.” And then, to Ellie’s surprise, he’d demanded that the Fey swear an oath of honor not to use magic to hide their presence in his home, and not to read nor influence the minds of any of his family members.
The demand had obviously surprised Belliard vel Jelani, but he’d sworn the oath, first in lyrical Feyan, then in the formal eloquence of ancient Celierian court-tongue. Ellie knew enough about Fey honor to know that no Fey would go back on his sworn word.
Papa had also tried to get Belliard to swear not to call magic for any reason inside the house, but the Fey refused to do that. “Nei, honored one, we may need to use magic to protect the Feyreisa and her family. I will make no vow that puts her at risk.” And that had been the end of it.
Ellie’s bare feet made no noise on the wooden shingles as she crept across the back-porch roof and climbed down the ivy trellis to the small, bricked courtyard at the back of the house.
She kept to the shadows, avoiding the brightening moonlight in the hope that no one would notice her furtive departure.
Just before supper, one of the neighbor children had smuggled a note to Ellie through Lillis and Lorelle. From Selianne, Ellie’s best friend, the note had been scrawled in a shaking hand and read: Meet me. You know where. Twenty-two bells. URGENT!!!!
Selianne’s fear all but leapt off the parchment as Ellie held the note.
Her terror was understandable. A few years back, as Selianne had prepared for the birth of her first child, her mother, Tuelis, had confessed that she wasn’t Sorrelian as everyone assumed, but that she’d actually been born and raised in Eld and sold in marriage to her sea-captain husband at age fourteen.
Selianne had kept her mother’s secret. She’d only told Ellie in a moment of fear, when she’d been plagued by nightmares of Eld Mages stalking her son Bannon to steal his soul.
Now, with Rain Tairen Soul in the city and suddenly becoming a fixture in Ellie’s life, Selianne was probably terrified that he would find out the truth about Selianne and her mother and come to kill them. Despite the risk of discovery, there was no way Ellie could ignore Selianne’s summons.
On the ground, she ducked into the deeper shadows of a small alcove near the courtyard gate and bent to don her boots. When she rose, she let out a strangled cry.
Belliard vel Jelani stood before her, his Fey skin shining faintly, his dark eyes watchful. “You wish to go somewhere, Ellysetta Baristani?”
“I . . .” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Behind Belliard stood the other four Fey of her quintet, each wearing a similar blank but watchful expression. “I wanted to go for a walk to get some fresh air.”
Belliard glanced at the ivy trellis behind her and followed the path she’d taken out her bedroom window, then returned his flat gaze to hers. “You are the Feyreisa,” he said. “You need only to ask, and we will accompany you to your chosen destination.”
She paused a moment to regain her composure, then lifted her chin. “I’m going to meet a friend, and your presence will only alarm her.”
“We will accompany you, all the same. You are Rain Tairen Soul’s truemate, and all the city knows it. There are those who might think to harm the Fey through you.”
For a moment, Ellie considered heading straight back to her room, but she couldn’t just leave Selianne waiting at the museum.
Remembering the way her father had bargained with the Fey warriors earlier, Ellie gathered her courage and said, “If you insist on coming, Ser vel Jelani, you must swear an oath of honor that you’ll give my friend and me privacy. No eavesdropping or mind reading.”
Belliard’s expression never wavered. “Aiyah, Ellysetta Baristani. I do so vow.” When her gaze flickered to the four Fey behind him, he added, “I speak for all of your cha’kor, your quintet. We are here not to spy, but to protect.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, let’s go, then. I don’t want my friend to worry.”
Surrounded by her escort of five leather-and-steel-clad immortals, Ellie hurried down the alleyway, then turned east on the lane that ran through the West End’s quiet merchant district. Fire-lit lamps cast a golden glow over the cobblestones and storefronts.
“Do you climb out of your bedroom window often, kem’falla?” Belliard asked as they walked.
Ellie felt her cheeks heat up. “No.” Her parents were sound enough sleepers that she usually went out the kitchen door.
“But this is not the first time you have done so.”
“Not the first time, no.”
“I had not thought Celieria’s daughters were so . . . adventurous.”
“Most aren’t.” If her parents had known she slipped out of the house at night, they would have put an immediate stop to it.
But the nightmares that plagued her all her life made sleep difficult, and alone in the silence of the small bells, Ellysetta had often found peace by walking in the night air.
At first she’d kept to the private courtyard behind the house, but as she grew older the courtyard began to feel too confining and she started to roam farther.
Most nights, she ended up at the same place she was going now—Celieria’s National Museum of Art.
“You are either very brave or very foolish, Ellysetta Baristani. Night streets are no place for young women alone.”
Ellie shrugged. In all the years she’d walked alone at night, she’d never had a problem. Indeed, no one had ever even seemed to notice her presence before. “Celieria is well patrolled, the streets are well lit, and this is an honest part of the city.”
“Evil has an affinity for the night. Even in well-lit, well-patrolled, honest quarters.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She glanced at the other four Fey, then back to Belliard. “Since you seem determined to guard me, perhaps you should tell me your names.”
The five Fey bowed and introduced themselves one by one.
The smiling, brown-haired Fey was Kieran vel Solande, son of the shei’dalin Marissya and her truemate Dax.
The blond warrior whose face Lorelle had scratched was Kiel vel Tomar.
The other two, both black-haired and brown-eyed, were brothers, Rowan and Adrial vel Arquinas.
“There are another five Fey in your secondary quintet who will guard you for the few bells in the night when we must sleep,” Belliard added.
“Mama will just love that,” Ellie muttered.
“Your mother does not like magic or magical races?”
“She’s from the north. The magic from the Mage Wars left behind many evil things. Dangerous, mutated creatures; dark places no one dares enter.” Even children with frightening afflictions. “Magic and Celierians don’t mix well.”
“And yet, here in Celieria City, the people accept magic and its benefits without question.” Belliard pointed to the Fire-lit lamps.
“Well, the Mages never sacked Celieria City, did they? The worst of the Wars never reached south of Vrest. People here would feel different if mutated predators like lyrant roamed their woods, or if their children were born with ghastly deformities and deadly powers.”
“Do you share your mother’s fear of magic?”
Ellie hesitated before answering. “Magic . . . makes me uncomfortable.” For the past year or so, if anyone wielded strong magic around her, she would get terrible headaches and her sleep would be tormented by particularly horrible nightmares.
She didn’t even want to think what her dreams held in store for her tonight.
They reached Celieria’s main thoroughfare and turned north.
Though most of the hardworking families of the West End were asleep, that was not true of all of Celieria’s population.
Carriages rolled down the cobbled street, carrying nobles in colorful silks and satins to their night’s entertainment.
Men and women, some well dressed, some more commonly so, strolled down the wide bricked sidewalks on either side of the road.
Boisterous laughter and music poured through the doors of numerous pubs.
Normally, Ellie didn’t come out until much later at night, when fewer people roamed the city. She was very aware of her Fey escort’s distinctive garb. “You’re going to draw attention.”
Belliard vel Jelani shared a glance with his fellow Fey, then gestured.
Lavender light glowed around them, and when it faded, all five warriors were dressed in simple Celierian clothing and their Fey skin had lost its luminescence.
They were still too handsome to be pure mortal, but their disguises would allow them to walk without drawing too much attention to themselves.