Chapter Eleven #2
Ellie screamed, more from surprise and the queer feeling in her stomach than from fright, though if not for the handholds and the tall saddle, she would have tumbled off Rain’s back when he took off.
As it was, her body rocked hard against the back of the saddle, then snapped forward when the sudden initial surge of power ceased and the more fluid motion of true tairen flight began.
Massive wings beat the air, and Rain’s tairen body undulated in a sinuous rhythm like waves rolling in the open sea. His neck stretched out, strong and straight, his head a fixed point that speared through the sky like an arrowhead.
The wind whistled across Ellie’s face, fresh and cold and sweet.
It blew her braided hair behind her, whipped at her skirts and chemise sleeves, and made her glad for the leather breeches Rain had provided.
The ground below swept past, the blocks of fields and tiny villages looking more like a patterned tapestry than the world she knew.
Above, infinity waited, beckoning to her with sunlit skies and the delicate puffs of white clouds she could almost reach out and touch.
“I’m flying,” she whispered. “I’m really flying.” Joy unlike any she’d ever known filled her. She flung out her arms and lifted her face to the wind, laughing with uncontainable happiness. “This is wonderful!”
?You like it, then??
“Like it? I love it! I adore it!” If not for the waist-high front ridge of the saddle, she would have flung herself against his neck and squeezed him tight. “Oh, Rain. Thank you.”
?It pleases me to bring you joy, shei’tani.
? Her happiness was contagious. No tairen could ever grow bored of the sky, but sharing it with her, feeling her joy, made Rain recall the thrill of his first flight, the laughing exaltation, the feeling of immense freedom, the knowledge that he was a master of the world and anything was possible.
He wanted to give her pleasure, open the world to her, and stand by her side as she discovered its wonders.
There was so much he could show her—literally an entire world.
For the first time in a long, long while, Rain was glad to be alive, glad to be Fey and a Tairen Soul.
?Where would you like to go, Ellysetta??
He felt her eagerness, her excitement. “I don’t care. I just want to fly.”
?Then hold tight.?
He folded his wings, and they plummeted fast and hard, diving towards the earth.
Ellysetta screamed with laughter and held tight to the saddle, fearless even as the ground rushed up to meet them.
Rain’s heart swelled at her trust and complete lack of fear.
His wings spread wide, and the rapid dive became a swooping ascent that left Ellysetta breathless yet still laughing.
With joy in his heart, Rain Tairen Soul soared across the sky.
Den Brodson smiled as he watched thin, gangly little Tomy Sorris scribble the last of his notes on the pages spread out before him.
“You have it all, then?” The pair of them sat in the private back room at the Charging Boar.
A nearly empty pint of Red Skull sat on the scarred wooden table before Den, and a half glass of well-watered ale sat before the printer’s son.
“I do. Thanks for the story, Den!” Tomy tipped his ink-stained wool cap with one hand while the other busied itself stuffing the pages into his satchel.
“It’s a beaut. And I’m grateful you took time to write most of it down for me first. The less I have to write, the quicker Da can get it into print. ”
“No problem at all, Tomy. Give your Da my best. And be sure he uses that one paragraph I showed you, exactly as I’ve written it.
” Those words, Batay had promised him, would sway simple minds, in particular the minds of readers who rarely thought for themselves.
A spell of persuasion, buried not in the ink or the paper used to write them, but tied to the very words themselves.
Already, Den had met and distributed the copied pages to half a dozen pamphleteers and newspaper writers.
“I will,” the printer’s boy promised. “Exactly as it’s written.”
“And don’t use my name, remember. I don’t want to get my Da in trouble with the king.” Den pasted a sober expression on his face. “I just want to see justice for Ellie. Sold out, she was. Sold out to a murderous sorcerer for a chest of magic-cursed gold.”
“Ooh, that’s good.” Tomy paused to scratch Den’s words down on the last piece of paper before stuffing it away and carefully stowing his ink and pen. He straightened and scratched his head. “But, you know, Ellie’s always fancied the Fey. Maybe she’s happy with the way things have turned out.”
“Women fancy tigers,” Den snapped. “Doesn’t mean they want to bed down with the beasts.” He lifted his now-warm mug of Red Skull and downed the last quarter pint. “No, she’s been ensorcelled. Her whole family has. And it’s up to us—plain folk like you and me, Tomy—to save her.”
The boy squared his shoulders and nodded. “You’re right, Den. I’ll do my part. People have a right to know what the Fey are up to.”
“Indeed they do.” Den clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder and escorted him out the Charging Boar’s back door. He waited for the boy to disappear down the alleyway before closing the door and making his way back into the main pub. “Thanks, Briggs.” He waved to the bartender as he walked past.
“No problem, Den. You off, then?”
Den nodded. “To church.”
“Church?” Briggs threw back his head and laughed. “That’s a good one, Den!”
Den grinned. “I know. Can’t hardly believe it myself. I’ll make an offering at one of the altars for you, eh?”
Briggs snickered and shook his head.
Den pushed through the pub’s brass-and-leaded-glass doors and turned left down King’s Road.
He’d actually been telling Briggs the truth, though only because he knew the man would never believe it.
His next destination lay about two miles down, in one of the rougher areas of town, where the Brethren of Radiance had set up a mission to minister to the poor and the godless of Celieria City.
Founded more than a century ago by a zealous Church of Light priest who’d spent too many years in the north, the Brethren despised magic in all its forms.
Den patted his coat pocket and smiled at the crinkling noise of several more sheaves of folded paper. Yes, indeed, he could already feel the Bright Lord’s Radiance shining upon him.
As Den completed the tasks set to him, Kolis Manza was busy with a mission of his own a little further north in the city. The fourth golden bell of midday had just rung. Time enough to see to this task before journeying back to Eld for a meeting with his master.
The Mage smoothed back his bronze-powdered hair and straightened the fit of his well-tailored but nondescript brown jacket.
He’d discarded his Captain Batay disguise after leaving Brodson earlier.
A Sorrelian captain would garner too much attention wandering the more affluent residential neighborhoods of the West End, whereas a well-dressed but unremarkable merchant would slip by unnoticed.
Not even Fey warriors would connect the bold dress, tattooed face, and oiled hair of Batay with the sober Goodman Black.
He approached a small, tidy home near the riverfront and slowed his pace.
His watchful gaze scanned the nearby roads and rooftops, but he detected no Fey warriors, hidden or otherwise.
Even so, he was careful. His brows drew together in a faint frown of concentration as he formed a weave of Azrahn and meticulously insulated it in threads of Spirit to mask its signature from keen Fey senses.
Only when the familiar, cold, sweet tang of Azrahn was suitably muffled did he direct the weave into the house.
He felt the woman’s quick start of fear, her pointless struggle to resist, and the satisfying whimper of obedient subjugation.
Pleased, he pushed open the front gate and walked up the gravel path bordered by tidy rows of cultivated flowers.
Even before he reached the mullioned front door, he heard the lock click open, and the door swung inward.
The house was as tidy within as without. As Tuelis closed the door behind him, Kolis looked around the modest living room. A smile curved his lips as his glance fell upon the two small children playing quietly on a rug by the hearth. “Aren’t you a pretty pair,” he murmured.
“Mama? Who’s at the door?”
Kolis turned to the young woman who entered the room. She was lovely, with clear, fine skin, deep blue eyes, and an appearance as neat as the home she kept. He smiled. This would be a greater pleasure than most. “My dear, you must be Selianne. Your mother has told me so much about you.”
“Are the beaches in the Fading Lands as beautiful as this?” Ellie looked out across the vast expanse of white sand and turquoise waters of Great Bay.
She and Rain had flown countless miles with astonishing speed until the tropical beauty of southern Great Bay had drawn their interest. Now they sat on a blanket on the sand beneath the shade of a copse of broad-leafed pella trees.
The remains of the picnic lunch they’d purchased earlier in a tiny bayside village lay between them on the blanket they’d been forced to accept from the awed villager who’d sold them lunch.
Rain’s weapons lay in a pile of steel and leather within easy reach of his hands.
“It depends where along the coast you are,” he answered. “On the southern coast, there are pella trees, white sand beaches, and crystal waters like this. In the north, where the Feyls meet the sea, the beaches are black and the waters are a deep, deep blue.”
“Tairen like the water, don’t they?”
His eyes warmed and the fierceness of his handsome features softened, making him seem more approachable and somehow even more staggeringly handsome. “Aiyah, they do indeed.”