King of Sword and Sky (10 page)

"You brought evil into the Mists," Sariel accused. "You damned us all." Her voice was soft, and throbbing with shame and recrimination. Tears filled her eyes, spilled down luminous alabaster cheeks.

"I bring no evil. I bring our salvation," he replied. "And if you meant to torment me, you chose the wrong form. Rain, the mate of Sariel, is no more. Now there is only Rainier-Eras, truemate of Ellysetta Feyreisa."

The Mists must have realized their error. Sariel's beautiful face wavered. Her body stretched and split, re-forming as a man and woman. A tall man, fierce-eyed, black-haired, unsmiling. A woman, slender and shining. Beautiful. Beloved. His parents: Rajahl vel'En Daris and his
e'tani,
Kiaria.

They were no more real than Sariel had been, but the sight of them was like a knife to his heart. The blade twisted painfully when the two of them spoke.

"You are a Tairen Soul of the Fey'Bahren pride," his father said, "sworn to defend our lands against those who wish us harm, yet you have betrayed us all." Rajahl wore an expression of stern disapproval and, worse, disappointment—a look Rajahl had directed at Rain only once or perhaps twice in his entire life, because that look cut Rain so deeply he'd done everything in his power to ensure that his father never regarded him that way again.

His mother wept. "Oh, my son, my son, better you had died than come to this."

Even the illusion of their censure seared him. He wanted to cry out in protest, but he did not. He shoved his feelings aside. Illusion gained strength only when one believed it.

"Show your true face!" he challenged the pair standing before him. "I know my parents do not live in these Mists any more than Sariel did."

"We wear the faces of those whose counsel you once sought," his mother said. "We wear the faces we hope will make you see reason. Listen to us, my son."

But even as she spoke, her image shimmered. Both she and Rajahl faded, and then it was Johr vel Eilan who stood there, the Tairen Soul who had been king when Rain first found his wings. Johr, the fearsome, granite-jawed warrior who had led the Fading Lands for eight hundred years.

When Johr had sat upon the Tairen Throne, the Fading Lands had been strong.
He
had been a king worthy of his crown: strong, decisive, unwavering, fierce. Not some untried Feyreisen who'd been handed the crown simply because there was no other to take it, but a Tairen Soul who had trained for centuries in military tactics, diplomacy, leadership. A man who had earned the right to lead both in times of peace and prosperity as well as the grimmer years of blood and battle.

To see Johr—a true and rightful Defender of the Fey—roused all of Rain's most bitter self-doubts. He knew he was not the king the Fading Lands deserved.

The Mists knew it too.

"You cast a shadow on the Tairen Throne, Rainier vel'En Daris. You are not worthy of your crown."

Rain gave a bitter laugh. "That much I will grant you. My soul is black with the deaths of those millions I slew in the Wars. But if you banish me, who will be the Tairen Soul?"

"You know of what I speak—and of whom. You know whose dark hand lies upon her. She will cement the destruction of both the tairen and the Fey. Yet still you bring her. Because you choose self over duty."

Johr's jaw flexed, and his green-gold eyes flared with a sudden, angry burst of power. "This is not the choice of a king, Tairen Soul. You shame your crown, your steel, and the line of your forebears. She brings death to our world."

For one dreadful moment, Rain remembered Ellysetta's seizure and her black, Azrahn-filled eyes and her low, hoarse voice shouting, "I am Death."

Almost as soon as the doubt arose, he shook it off.
Nei. Nei,
he wouldn't believe that. The only death associated with Ellysetta was the foul Eld evil that stalked her, the dread reason the gods had fashioned a tairen for her mate.

He thrust out a clenched jaw. "Ellysetta is bright and shining. She is the one the Eye of Truth sent me to find—because she brings life to the Fey, not death. She is a
shei'dalin
and a Tairen Soul and my truemate. You will not speak against her."

"And when the evil she bears comes into bloom? What will you do then, Rainier vel'En Daris? How will you defend the Fey against this serpent you clasp to your breast?"

"She will not fall. We will complete our bond, and the Mage whose Marks she bears will lose all power over her." He clung to that hope, because without it he had nothing. "What else should I have done, if not bring her here? Left her out there in the world, unprotected? I did what any Fey—what any
shei'tan
—would have done. I brought her to safety."

"And endangered us all."

Rain stiffened his spine and lifted a clenched jaw. "The tairen do not agree. Sybharukai,
makai
of the Fey'Bahren pride, does not agree. Tairen do not abandon their kin. Tairen defend the pride."

A cold smile curled the edges of Johr's mouth. "Tairen also honor Challenge, for the health of the pride."

Sudden cold swept over Rain, leaving his flesh clammy and his heart stuttering with fear.

"Where is Ellysetta?" he demanded. "What have you done to her?" He spun away from the image of Johr and cried, «
Ellysetta!»

Ellysetta screamed until she thought her throat would burst. With none of the gentleness and compassion Marissya had always shown her, the
shei'dalins
of the Mists plundered her mind, tearing into private thoughts and memories, prying loose even her most closely guarded secrets and deepest fears. She tried to rally a defense, but each time she managed to focus her will against them, they would turn those fearsome eyes upon her and her thoughts would scatter like hapless leaves in the wind.

Ruthless, efficient, they rifled through her mind, examining every memory. Her childhood in Hartslea, the seizures, the priests' declaration that she was demon possessed. Her first exorcism and the howling, bloody, violent rage that had swept through her eight-year-old mind when the long, shining needles of the exorcists had plunged into her body. They
saw
what she'd been thinking, knew how she'd dreamed of rending those exorcists limb from limb and dancing in the shower of their blood.

Ellie wept in shame and horror at her own evil thoughts. When she'd shared the awful truth of her childhood with Rain, he had offered acceptance and loving, healing forgiveness. These
shei'dalins
were not so compassionate. They dissected without mercy and left her writhing in an agony of self-loathing.

The tairen hissed a furious warning, its claws beginning to shred the last of her control.

"Please," she begged. "Please stop."

The
shei'dalins
only dug deeper, finding the memories of how she'd restored Gaelen's soul, the devastating recollection of the black Mage Mark lying like a shadow over her heart. They summoned the ghastly, shocking moment in the Grand Cathedral of Light when the Eld blade sliced and Mama's head rolled free of her body.

Heat bloomed. The first warning flare of Rage.
They hurt us.

"Stop!" she cried, fearing what would happen if they didn't. Anger was growing inside her.

They found the memories of that terrible nightmare when she'd stood amid a field of corpses and seen herself leading the armies of darkness, slaughtering all who stood in her way. The vile, mocking claim of the Shadow Man rang in her ears:
You'll kill them, girl. You'll kill them all. It's what you were born for.

Within Ellysetta, the coiling power gave a terrible hiss. Her muscles grew taut. Her skin burned and strained as pressure built within.
Vengeance on those who hurt us…vengeance for what they did…

The
shei'dalins
summoned more visions, every foul, horrifying nightmare of war and death she'd ever had. Bodies torn and shredded, blood running in scarlet rivers. Only this time all the dead wore the faces of those she loved: Mama, Papa, Lillis, Lorelle, Bel, Selianne, and, everywhere she turned, Rain. In every face, she saw Rain. Rain dead. Rain dying. Rain split asunder, burning, bleeding his life out. Screaming in defiance as Mage Fire consumed him.

"Nei!
Do not!" she cried, the words both a warning for the
shei'dalins
and a command to the destructive wildness gathering inside her.

«Ellysetta!»
The sound of Rain's voice rang out across the Mists in speech and Spirit and tairen song, calling out simultaneously in her mind and her soul. Her heart raced, and the threads of their bond flared to life, tingling with a sudden surge of magic in response to the desperate command and raging fear in his call.

The tairen fury building inside her coalesced with sudden focus. Her hands clenched. Her eyes flamed. They dared use her to torment her mate? Ellysetta's power rose up in wild, angry waves, bright and hot.

«Rain!»
She shouted his name on every pathway he'd used to call her, her voice vibrating with the incendiary roar of her tairen. «
I am here!»
Her call pierced the Mists, finding him instantly, seizing him with a searing rope of fire that blazed a path back to her.

Suddenly he was there, fierce and furious, his roar a deafening boom. Flames boiled around them with savage fury as Rain's tairen rushed to defend its mate. The avenue of trees, the
shei'dalins,
the gathering of cold-eyed Fey, all dissolved in a wall of tairen flame.

The roar rocked Taloth'Liera like a cry from the gods themselves.

One whole section of the Mists turned bright orange, then exploded in a boiling cloud of tairen fire that sent Fey warriors stumbling back. Steel clattered on stone. A great, blazing ball of light hurtled out of the dense flames. The warriors standing on the crenellated wall crossing Taloth'Liera shouted in surprise as it rocketed past.

The light plunged towards earth like a falling star. Bel raised a hand to shield his eyes and caught a glimpse of a shadowy tairen wing at the periphery of the light. His heart rose up in his throat when he realized he was watching Rain streaking across the sky, gouts of flame spewing from his muzzle—and that blaze of blinding light on his back was Ellysetta.

They landed half a mile beyond the Warriors' Wall, dust billowing up in clouds around them. Gaelen and Bel ran towards them. Marissya and Dax sprinted close on their heels, followed by Tajik and the rest of the Fey.

They all skidded to a halt when the tairen screamed and rose up on his haunches. Black wings spread wide in a show of ferocious might, and boiling jets of flame geysered into the air in warning.

When the Fey made no move to come closer, he settled back onto all four paws. Growls rumbled dangerously in his chest, and several more small bursts of flame hissed from his muzzle. The radiant figure of Ellysetta slid from his back and leaned against his foreleg. Her blinding aura began slowly to dim. Rain remained in tairen form, his tail twitching, his ears laid back on his head.

"What in the Seven Hells is going on?" Tajik demanded. "Did the Mists grant passage, or did the Tairen Soul and his mate just burn their way through?" Suspicion filled Tajik's flame blue eyes, and though his hands didn't reach for steel, Bel saw the unmistakable signs of tension gathering.

"Las,
Taj," Bel said. "This was Rain's first time through the Mists. None of us were sure what to expect. Clearly, he had a bad time of it, but he's through, and that's what matters."

Tajik wasn't general of the eastern army because he was a trusting man. His eyes pierced Bel as mercilessly as Tajik's blades had impaled countless enemy soldiers over the centuries. "The Tairen Soul wasn't the only one to blast through with magic blazing." He nodded at the still blindingly bright figure of Ellysetta. "What stains could a
shei'dalin
bear on her soul that would set the Mists against her?"

"The Feyreisa's power is vast," Marissya interrupted, drawing the general's intent blue gaze to herself, "but she never summons it on her own behalf. Whatever torments Rain suffered no doubt roused her tairen's protective instincts. I have not seen her like this since her mother was murdered before her eyes."

The hard intensity of Tajik's gaze faltered. Outside the bonds of truemating, there was no stronger Fey instinct than the warriors' need to protect their women from harm, and the image of a Fey maiden shattered by the loss of a beloved mother roused that ingrained protectiveness with a vengeance.

"Rain will not calm until she does." Marissya edged closer. Ellysetta turned her head, piercing Marissya with a look that made the
shei'dalin
gasp and stop in her tracks. Ellysetta's eyes were pupil-less, whirling kaleidoscopes, blazing with tairen power. The
shei'dalin's
body went stiff, and for an instant an aura of bright light flamed around her.

Dax lunged toward his truemate, but Gaelen clapped a swift, hard arm around his bond brother's chest, holding him back. "Don't be a fool, Dax. Ellysetta won't hurt Marissya."

A moment later, the light around Marissya winked out. Dax broke free of Gaelen's hold and caught her as she stumbled.

Marissya took a deep breath and steadied herself before waving him off.
"Las, shei'tan.
I am unharmed." Never taking her eyes off Ellysetta, she wiped the sheen of perspiration from her upper lip. The Feyreisa hadn't hurt her, it was true, but Marissya felt as if her entire being—body and soul—had been seized, ripped open, and scoured by a merciless inquisitor.