Chapter Seven #4
?Tenn sent his message after he received the battle reports from Teleon and Orest—and after the tairen declared you the rightful Defender of the Fey. Oh, Rain.?
“What else did Tenn’s note say?” Rain’s voice lowered to a throaty growl.
Another man might well have fled in fear of Rain Tairen Soul’s infamous Rage, but Dorian stood his ground with admirable calm.
“Among other things, he warned me that your mate was Mage Marked and that your bond to her had clouded your judgment. And he vowed I’d receive no more support from the Fey as long as I continued to count you among my allies.
Here.” He pulled open his desk drawer and withdrew a scroll encased in a gilded wooden scroll cover. “Read it for yourself.”
Rain snatched the scroll from Dorian’s grip, removed the protective cover, and unfurled the parchment. Ellysetta looked over his arm as he scanned Tenn’s message, and the vile, damning words, written in an elegant golden script, jumped out at her.
To the Most Honorable and Beloved Fey-kin, His Majesty Dorian vol Serranis Torreval, Dorian X, King of Celieria,
It is with heavy heart and deep concern that I write….
…Rainier Feyreisen has broken his honor…
confessed under Truthspeaking…both he and his mate did with knowing and willful deliberation weave the forbidden magic, Azreisenahn, also called Azrahn, the soul magic…
. The Massan had no choice but to declare them dahl’reisen and cast them out of the Fading Lands… .
…Ellysetta Baristani’s soul is tainted with Shadow…
. Elden Mages have begun the possession of her soul…
. How deeply she is tainted, we do not know, but the danger cannot be ignored…
. Already the insidious effects of her presence have divided the Fading Lands…
honorable Fey have discarded their honor to follow her into Shadow…
her influence drove our king to dishonor… .
…The Eye of Truth has foretold a grim future for Ellysetta Baristani, one that honor and duty to the Fading Lands will not allow the Massan to overlook…. She will bring destruction….
…If Celieria continues to consort with the dahl’reisen Rain Tairen Soul and his Shadow-tainted mate, you may expect no further aid from the Fading Lands….
Each damning declaration drove a spike into her heart. ?Dear gods, Rain,? she breathed in horror. ?Why would he send this??
Rain tossed the scroll on Dorian’s desk as if it were a polluted thing.
His eyes had gone pure tairen, pupil-less and whirling with purple radiance.
A muscle jumped in his tightly clenched jaw.
“So you received this…message three days ago, and yet still you greeted us with open arms rather than drawn swords. Why?”
Dorian arched his brows. “You forget, My Lord Feyreisen, I am a king, born and raised. I don’t take kindly to veiled threats from foreign powers.
” He picked up the scroll, glanced at it briefly, then rolled the parchment back onto the scroll rods and slid the cover into place.
“Nor does the idea that a usurper could strip a sovereign of his crown sit well with me, for obvious reasons.”
He placed the scroll back into his desk drawer and closed it away.
“Tenn v’En Eilan is a stranger to me. I know nothing of him.
But I have spent time with you, and with your Celierian-born truemate.
Given the long history between our two countries, and my aunt’s personal regard and affection for you, I thought it best to withhold judgment until I heard the truth from your own lips. ”
Rain’s expression seemed carved from diamondine granite.
“I wish I could tell you that what is written there is false, but Fey do not lie. Not even Tenn.” He reached for Ellysetta’s hand.
“Ellysetta and I did both spin Azrahn. Tenn and three other members of the Massan declared us dahl’reisen and banished us from the Fading Lands because of it. ”
Ellysetta sensed Dorian’s instinctive recoil and hurried to reassure him.
“What we did wasn’t as evil as Tenn’s message makes it seem.
I wove Azrahn to save four tairen kitlings from death, and Rain spun it to save me.
The High Mage of Eld was stealing the souls of unborn tairen, and we had to stop him.
” Quickly, she told him about how the High Mage had been working to breed his own Tairen Soul.
“If Rain and I had not acted, the tairen would have perished with this generation. Tenn knows that, but it doesn’t matter to him that we saved the tairen, or that Rain led Lord Teleos’s forces to defeat the Eld at Orest, or even that the tairen brought Rain the golden war steel of the Fey king and declared him the rightful ruler of the Fading Lands.
All Tenn sees are my Mage Marks, the vision in the Eye of Truth, and the admission that Rain and I wove Azrahn. ”
“Which facts, you must admit, are troubling,” Dorian replied.
Rain took a half step forward, only to freeze when Ellysetta caught his wrist. “We do not deny it. The path the gods have laid out before us is by no means an easy one.” Her eyes flashed as she lifted her chin and fixed an unwavering gaze upon the king.
“But make no mistake, King Dorian: Azrahn or not, banished or not, Rain is the true king of the Fading Lands and Defender of the Fey. The tairen follow him, as do all Fey who remember that they were born to champion the Light.”
Dorian regarded her in silent contemplation for several long moments. “You have changed a great deal from that shy young woman I first met three months ago.”
“For the better, I hope.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Enough.” Rain crossed his arms. “We’re wasting time.
We came with important news, Dorian, and delayed an even more important visit of our own to do so.
But given the unrest in your court and your concerns about your mate, it seems prudent that we share what we know only with those free of Mage Marks. Starting with you.”
“What?” Dorian regarded him with fresh affront. “You’re saying you want to weave the forbidden magic on me now?”
“Aiyah,” Rain confirmed. “On you and everyone else who will be privy to the information we bring. We cannot risk revealing what we know to anyone who might be Mage-claimed, lest word get back to the Eld. That is why we came in person to deliver our news.”
“I am not Mage-claimed, I can assure you.”
“No disrespect, but your assurances aren’t enough. You could bear Marks and not know it, just as Ellysetta did. Gaelen’s Azrahn weave is the only way to be sure.”
?Rain, please.? Ellysetta laid a hand on his arm.
His brusqueness was only making Dorian dig in his heels.
Kings didn’t take commands from others well.
Aloud, to Dorian, she said, “Your Majesty, my best friend’s mother sent her daughter and bond son to their deaths because the Mages owned her soul.
Teska, please, the weave won’t harm you, but not knowing could kill us all.
I’ll even have Gaelen spin the weave on me, so you can see for yourself.
” She turned to motion the former dahl’reisen to her side.
“With your permission, kem’jita’taikonos?” Gaelen said with a bow to his twin sister Marikah’s royal descendant.
“Either you trust us or you don’t,” Rain snapped when Dorian didn’t respond. “Make up your mind.”
The king closed his eyes and splayed one hand across his forehead in a gesture of weary despair. A moment later, he muttered, “Gods save us all,” then opened his eyes and nodded. “Fine. Do it. If you’ve fallen to Darkness, the rest of us are as good as dead anyway.”
Rain gestured and the quintet leapt into action, spinning a ten-fold weave around the room to keep the distinctive magical signature of Azrahn from escaping the room. No need to either alarm Adrial and Rowan, who were still hiding in the city, or tip their hand to any Mages who might be nearby.
“Mage Marks are invisible and undetectable except in the presence of Azrahn,” Gaelen explained. “Then they appear as a pattern of shadows over the heart of the Marked person.” He lifted a hand and summoned a small, spiraling swirl of the forbidden magic into his cupped palm.
Ellysetta shivered as Gaelen’s eyes went black and the icy, too-sweet taste of Azrahn filled her mouth.
The skin over her heart began to throb. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and tugged at the neckline of her gown to reveal the four Marks lying like a ring of bruises on the shining white skin of her left breast.
“Sweet Lord of Light,” Dorian breathed.
Gaelen’s weave winked out.
“How badly are you compromised?”
“It is manageable for now,” she assured him, “but just to be safe, I will not be joining you when you discuss matters of military importance.”
“King Dorian,” Rain said, “you have seen what the weave entails. Will you allow us to check you for Mage Marks?”
“Yes, of course,” the king agreed. His hands went to his neatly tied neckcloth. He bared his chest to Gaelen’s weave, and was soon discovered free of Marks.
“Your Majesty,” Ellysetta said, “I will take my leave of you now. Though we will not be here long, may I trouble you for the use of a suite during our stay?”
“Of course.” Dorian tugged on a bellpull by his desk, and a moment later the office door opened to reveal his Steward of Affairs. “Davris, please show the Feyreisa to the blue suite.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The steward executed a deep court bow. “My Lady Feyreisa, if you would please follow me?”
Leaving Gaelen to continue checking Celierian nobles for Mage Marks, Ellysetta quit the room. The rest of her quintet and the Fire master selected to take Gaelen’s place went with her.
As the door closed behind her, she heard Rain say, “Call your Great Lords, King Dorian…starting with whomever you trust most from holdings here, and here, and here.”