Chapter Nine #4
Rain’s spine stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “She is well. I would not leave her were it otherwise.” The implication was a grave insult.
Dorian blinked in bewilderment. “Yes, of course. I meant no offense.”
?Celierians consider it polite to ask after the health of one’s mate,? Dax murmured silently. ?It was the same, before the Wars.?
Rain had a vague memory, long forgotten, of a similar incident many centuries past. ?I remember now. I didn’t like it then either. They should take better care of their mates, so the question of their mates’ health need never be in doubt.?
With Dax’s laughter rippling through his mind, Rain shook off his irritation and got straight to the purpose of the meeting. “I have come to discuss the situation in the north. Dax and Marissya tell me you believe dahl’reisen have begun murdering Celierians.”
Dorian nodded. “There’ve been half a dozen attacks in the last two months, and twenty Celierians slain since First Moon this spring.
Another ten since harvest last fall. Mostly farmers and village folk along the northern march.
The Border Lords had been keeping the situation quiet, but now that the pamphleteers and newspapers have wind of it, all hope of quietly resolving the problem is gone.
” He explained about the witnesses and showed Rain the recovered Fey’cha.
“Dax has already told me it’s unlikely the blade was left behind by accident. ”
“Beyond unlikely,” Rain agreed. “All blades forged in a Fey smithy have a weave spun into them so their owners may summon them back to their sheaths after use. The spell works on any blade within half a mile of its owner. It was either left deliberately as a challenge, or stolen and left to cast suspicion on the Fey.” He examined the dagger and the name-mark forged on it.
“I don’t recognize this mark, but it does appear to be a true Fey’cha.
” ?Dax, send an image of the mark to all the Fey. See if any of them know it.?
Turning his attention back to Dorian, he added, “As for witnesses to a dahl’reisen crime, that, too, is unlikely.
Dahl’reisen live outside our laws. If it serves them to manipulate mortal minds, they would likely do so.
Not even Marissya would be able to tell the false memories from the true ones.
Still, you should bring the witnesses in for Truthspeaking, just in case they are using these rumors of dahl’reisen murders to hide their own crimes. ”
King Dorian shook his head. “Sebourne—the lord whose lands were attacked—has already refused. He says the witnesses are terrified of having their minds manipulated by the Fey, and he’s angry enough over the number of murders on his land to support them.
” Dorian cast an apologetic glance Dax’s way.
To suggest that Marissya would misuse her powers was a grave insult.
“Is there a map that shows where the raids have taken place?” Rain asked.
“Here.” Dorian walked around his desk and opened a narrow door in the corner of the far wall.
“We started monitoring the incidents after the first half-dozen deaths last year.” He pulled out a large map of Celieria mounted vertically on a wheeled spongewood backing.
A handful of colored pins set with tiny annotated flags were scattered across the northern border.
“Except for the fact that most of the raids have taken place in the villages along the Celierian-Eld border, there is no apparent pattern to the attacks.”
Rain examined the collection of pins. The raids had taken place over a thousand miles of border land, ranging from Bolla near the eastern coast all the way to Toulon in the west.
“What would a band of dahl’reisen gain from slaughtering Celierian peasants?” Dorian asked. “That’s what I cannot understand.”
Rain cast a glance back over his shoulder. “Have you considered the possibility that it might not be dahl’reisen? Fey enemies are numerous, and as you know, the greatest of them lies just across your northern border.”
The king’s brows rose. “You think the Eld are behind this?”
“The possibility must at least be considered.”
“But the Eld have no more reason to kill Celierian peasants than dahl’reisen do.”
“Unless they mean to drive a wedge between Celieria and the Fading Lands. Celierians have rarely distinguished between Fey actions and those of the dahl’reisen.
The Eld know that. They would use it to their advantage.
” Rain turned back to the map, frowning at the large expanse of border.
“How many troops do you have on the border?” he asked.
“Two thousand, give or take a few hundred.”
“That’s not enough. You should have triple that number at least.” Rain straightened and turned around. “I can offer two thousand Fey to ward the borders and track the attackers when they strike again.”
Dorian’s jaw sagged in surprise. Fey and mortal troops had not stood side-by-side along the Eld border in nine hundred years.
Not since Celieria had reconstituted its military after the decimation of the Mage Wars.
Fey had periodically quartered themselves in the border keeps to watch for signs of Eld magic and strengthen the wards put in place at the end of the Wars, but never more than that.
The Mages had been defeated, and the Fey had withdrawn from the world.
“Your offer is . . . quite generous, My Lord Feyreisen, and an unexpected honor.” Dorian cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I do not offer Fey lives or Fey steel lightly,” Rain answered. “I have sensed a growing darkness in Eld. The Mages are at work again. It is one reason why I question whether the dahl’reisen are truly behind these raids of yours.”
“Do you have proof of this Mage activity? Reports from spies?”
Rain raised a brow. “This I do not need. I sense the darkness, and that is enough.”
“I see.” Dorian drew a deep breath. “Well, unfortunately, the Council of Lords will require more than just Fey intuition before they authorize tripling the number of troops along our border, or quartering foreign warriors—especially Fey warriors, given the current suspicions about the dahl’reisen.
Besides, the Eld would view a troop buildup as an act of open aggression.
“You must understand,” he added when Rain’s expression darkened, “our relations with the Eld have settled considerably in the last decades. In fact, the Elden ambassador was here not a fortnight ago seeking to recommence direct trade between our two countries. He spoke quite eloquently, and the terms he offered were very appealing.”
Rain’s hands fell to the silk-wrapped handles of the curved meicha at his hips.
His fingers curled tight around the grips.
“You let the Eld ambassador set foot on Celierian land?” he growled.
“You’re contemplating trade with those black-souled vermin?
” The windows of Dorian’s office rattled in their panes.
The king cast a confused glance in Dax’s direction.
“We’ve been trading with them indirectly for more than three centuries .
. . ever since the Great Plague threatened the mortal world.
They possess the only supply of keio, one of the ingredients required for the cure.
We still purchase it yearly through Sorrelian intermediaries, along with a few other goods. ”
?Dax . . . ? Rain hissed with silent fury.
?You had only just regained your sanity. Marissya and I both agreed it was best you did not know. Thousands—hundreds of thousands—had already died. Millions more would have. There weren’t enough healers to have stopped it.?
?And after . . . when I no longer teetered on the brink of insanity??
?They’d been trading for years by then, with no ill effects . . . and there remained occasional threats of the plague returning. We didn’t see any harm in letting it continue.?
Rain shook his head in disbelief and turned his attention back to Dorian.
“You Celierians with your short life spans. The Mage Wars are naught but a distant dream to you, a conflict that happened so many generations in the past it has no bearing on the present. But the Fey fought those wars. We died by the thousands, hideously, in those wars. We remember.” He speared Dax with another hot glance.
“At least most of us do. We still mourn our dead. The Eld are not to be trusted. Ever!”
“Rain—” Dax held out his hands. “There has been no trouble with the Eld since the Wars. Perhaps Dorian’s advisors are right . . . perhaps it is time to heal the wounds.”
“Your own mate’s sister died at their hands. Her brother became dahl’reisen—forever banished from the Fading Lands—because of what he did in vengeance. You dare say this to me? Trade with the black-souled practitioners of Azrahn?”
“It is because of Marikah, because of Gaelen, that I do feel free to speak,” Dax returned.
“They are gone from the Fey forever. Nothing can bring either of them back to us. But the Mage Wars were a millennium ago. And the Mages were all but destroyed. You saw to that. The other Eld, those not from Mage families, they don’t practice Azrahn. ”
“It only takes one.”
?Know your enemy, Tairen Soul. Opening the borders to trade gives us an opportunity to introduce our own eyes and ears into Eld. They can find the proof Dorian needs.?
?Never will I willingly put another Fey life within reach of Eld evil. The darkness is there. It grows. Opening the borders does not help us. It endangers us all the more.?
“Dax is right,” Dorian said. “The Mage Wars were a thousand years ago—provoked by a senseless assassination that snowballed into full-scale war thanks to Gaelen vel Serranis’s excessive vengeance.”
“The assassination,” Rain answered with clenched jaw, “was not senseless. It was retaliation by the Eld for a wound your ancestors delivered two thousand years earlier. The Eld don’t forget. And they count on the fact that you do!”