King of Sword and Sky (39 page)

The multi-ply song grew thinner as the tairen songs faded and fell silent, leaving only Feyan voices, male and female. An unmistakable thread of fear and concern ran through their melody now. A low, cold voice spun a new thread into the mix, this one an icy, sibilant whisper that struck terror into her heart. She curled up in a tight ball, trembling helplessly, and the warm Feyan voice sang urgently in her ears, gentle but commanding: «
Be silent… be still.»

And she was.

The Feyan song became discordant, the notes broken, weeping. «
Sieks'ta. Forgive us, kem'kaidina. Forgive us.»

Lights shone in the darkness, brilliant, spherical, surrounding her like a ball spun of rainbows. Warm and bright, almost as beautiful as the vibrant colors of tairen song. She stared up at the lights, transfixed by their beauty and unafraid, not understanding when the sphere contracted, shrinking, closing in upon her. The lights filled her vision and drew tight around her.

The world went dark again. Dark and silent and kissed by an icy chill.

When light returned, it came from two round silver coins that shone like twin full moons in a night sky. The light grew brighter, and the moons became a pair of cold silver eyes, gleaming in a pallid, cadaverous face. Triumphant laughter turned her blood to ice as clawed hands lifted a tiny newborn high.

The scene changed. She was in a dark, black-walled cave dimly lit by weak torches on the its walls. Two shadowy figures, a man and a woman, stood inside a barbed cage, locked in an embrace. The man was manacled and chained to the wall. She couldn't see their faces, but their skin had a dim silver glow. At first Ellysetta thought she was looking at herself and Rain, captured by their enemies, but then, as if sensing her presence, the man lifted his head.

His eyes blazed with fearsome savagery, filling her vision completely.

Pupil-less. Radiant prisms of opalescent green that whirled with powerful magic.

Tairen's eyes.

Slowly they began to change, turning from green to gold, and the scene shifted once more. The man's face became the proud, regal head of the tairen Cahlah. The dark cave where the man and woman had been became Fey'Bahren's nesting lair. Cahlah lay on the black sands, curled around a tairen egg, filling the tunnels of Fey'Bahren with her keening wails. She gnawed and clawed at the leathery shell until at last it broke open and spilled out the limp body within.

But the motionless form that tumbled forth wasn't a kitling. It was Ellysetta, naked and lifeless, her eyes gone milky white.

Ellysetta woke with her pulse racing and her lungs starved for air, as if she truly had been sealed in that tairen's egg, slowly dying.

She sat up and pressed a hand against her hammering heart, willing herself to calm. The forest was still night-dark around her. The fairy-flies swooped and chittered with anxious energy, darting in and out of the nearby trees and whirling in dizzying circles.

Something was wrong.

Beside her, Rain lay still sleeping, one arm flung over his head, his hair a sprawl of dark strands, silky, straight and black as night. He frowned in his sleep. She leaned over to shake him awake.

"Rain…
shei'tan…
wake up. Something's wrong." The oppressive feeling nearly overwhelmed her.

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up so quickly, she sat back on her heels. His hands went to his chest, instinctively seeking the Fey'cha normally strapped there. When he saw her, a little of his tension dissipated. He caught her by the arm, dragged her behind him, and threw shields of five-fold magic around them. He sniffed the air, trying to scent the source of their unease.

"The danger isn't here," he murmured. "It's somewhere else."

Then came the summons, Sybharukai's rich, commanding tones sung on the winds. «
Rainier-Eras, you and your mate must come.»

They flew as fast as Rain's magic and wings could carry them, pausing only to collect Marissya before continuing on to Fey'Bahren. Marissya was a far more experienced healer than Ellysetta, and Ellie wasn't willing to risk the kitlings' safety by trying to heal them on her own. When they reached the nesting lair, they found the entire pride ringed around the remaining five eggs, alternately crooning and growling fiercely.

Rain steered Ellysetta and Marissya clear of the dangerous, twitching tails of the female tairen. The venomous spikes were fully extended, pale and shining in the dim firelit glow of the lair. His own tairen's anger was rising rapidly.

He peeled away the ever-present barriers that shielded his Fey mind and flung his consciousness outward. No hint of the source of the danger came back to him. There was only the desperate fear of the kitlings, struggling in their eggs against…nothing.

Then a cold finger of dread trailed up his spine.

Fear, but not his own and not the kits'. "Ellysetta."

She was shivering despite the thickness of her leathers and the heat of the nesting sands. "Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"The cold … I hear voices, whispering."

"I feel nothing." He took her hands. Her skin had gone ice-cold. He glanced at Marissya, who shook her head.

"It's the same as when the tairen sang the Fire Song." Ellysetta saw the concern on both their faces and realized neither of them could sense the evil presence. Why was she the only one who did?

"I'm going to see if I can tell where it's coming from." She pulled her hand from Rain's and resolutely approached the tairen eggs. As she drew near, a cold chill ran up her spine, making her flesh pebble. Her knees quivered with sudden weakness. She reached out to the nearest egg to steady herself.

The moment her hand made contact with the leathery shell, the tairen kitling within lurched towards her. The egg rocked, and a frightened cry mewed in her mind. The kitling's consciousness reached for her as a tiny babe reaches for its mother, blindly grasping, instinctively seeking the security and warmth of her presence. Tears filled her eyes. She wanted to tear away the outer walls of the egg and gather the frightened tairen infant in her arms. This was a baby, just like any Fey or Celierian baby, small and vulnerable and innocent. And some dark, horrible hand of death stalked it as if it were prey to be captured and consumed.

She touched the other eggs, receiving the same frightened, lurching response from each of the unborn kits. Worse, each time she lifted a hand from one egg so she could reach out to another, she could hear the little kitling cry out in fear, could feel its desperate, too-weak attempt to cling to her.

"Oh, Rain, they're so frightened."

In two long strides, he was at her side. "Tell me what I can do to help."

"Touch them. Talk to them. Let them know they aren't alone. Sing to them."

He began to murmur, hesitantly at first, but the hesitance quickly faded as Rain, too, sensed the kitlings' frantic fear. The murmur became a purring croon and then a deep baritone song, strong and comforting. Marissya's voice joined his, and the tairen moved closer, lowering their great heads and adding the breathtaking gold and silver beauty of tairen song to the mix.

Ellysetta opened her senses, trying to find the source of the attack. She could feel the whispering chill dancing at the periphery of her senses, everywhere and nowhere all at once. Dark, cold, its voice was a hissing iciness that battered against the melodious warmth of the songs sung by Rain and the tairen. The thing's presence was so strong she could almost see it, but every time she tried to focus on it, the attacker faded like mist, insubstantial and elusive. Present, but always just beyond her reach, taunting her.

"Marissya, try healing the kitlings again. Maybe whatever it is goes dormant except when it attacks."

The
shei'dalin
stepped forward. Green Earth and lavender Spirit, both shining with golden hues, looped and swirled in glistening flows above her palms as she gathered and shaped her power, then released it upon the nearest egg.

Her brow furrowed as she sent the magic into the egg-bound kitling. "I still can't find any sign of physical illness, Ellysetta, but I can feel them dying. It's almost as if something's draining their lives away." She looked up, her face wan, deep blue eyes filled with concern. "I can try to hold them to life, to give you time to find and stop what's killing them."

"Do it." Ellysetta moved from egg to egg, singing, soothing. She spun the healing weaves just as Venarra had taught her, but she had no more success than Marissya. Frustration coiled inside her. The infant tairen were sobbing, their little bodies shivering in fear despite the welcoming tairen song that flowed around them. Each time she laid hands on one egg, soothing the infant within, another would cry out. And each time she turned to comfort that one, a third would start to whimper. Almost as if… as if…

"Bright Lord save them," Ellysetta breathed, horror washing over her in an icy wave. "They're being hunted."

As soon as she said it, she knew she was right. Except the kitlings' hunter—whatever it was—wasn't making an outright attack. It was testing the kitlings' defenses, weakening them like a pack of thistlewolves driving a herd of sheep to exhaustion before moving in for the kill.

Rain stopped singing. His spine straightened. His face hardened to a mask of etched stone. "Mage?"

"I don't think so. It doesn't feel familiar."

"Ellysetta. Rain." They both turned at the sound of Marissya's voice. The
shei'dalins
face was pale, her mouth pulled back in a grimace of pain. "Something's wrong." Suddenly, she gave a cry and stumbled back away from the eggs, falling to her knees in the black sands. She hunched over, curling up into a ball, her arms wrapped around her waist.

"Marissya!" Ellysetta rushed to the
shei'dalins
side and dropped down beside her in the sand.

Fear stripped Ellie's mind of all Venarra's careful instructions about how to choose the threads and weave them in specific, controlled patterns. Instead, pure, desperate instinct took over as she reached for Marissya.
Dear gods, help me. Let me heal her.
The magic roared up in response, potent and vast. It poured into Marissya without caution or restraint, connecting the two of them with powerful, unchecked flows.

In that instant of unfettered connection, Ellysetta sensed a familiar, frightening consciousness, a distant, dark awareness that turned with sudden interest in her direction.

The skin over her heart went suddenly and icily cold. Horror coated her mouth with a bitter metallic tang.
Oh, gods. Oh, gods, no.

Power inside her shifted with a swift, hard lunge, eager and fierce and furious. Magic fountained in a shocking response. It filled her in an instant, then billowed out in a blinding cloud before she could slam her shields tight.

The force flung her backwards, sprawling against Rain's legs.

"Ellysetta!" He grasped her arms and helped her right herself. "What is it? What just happened?

Before she could answer, the tairen screamed.

"Oh, no!" Ellysetta whirled back to the nest of tairen eggs, gathering her magic to fight, but the moment she peeled back her barriers, she knew she was already too late.

The enemy was gone, but he had not left in defeat.

Just moments ago, five tairen kitlings had shivered in their eggs. Now only four did so.

"No…oh, no…" Ellysetta ran to the motionless egg that belonged to Forrahl, the sweet little tairen whose egg rocked with joy when she sang to him. "Gods, please,
teska.
Don't do this." Summoning her power with desperate hope, she laid her hands upon the egg and spun the brightest healing weave she could summon.

This time, she sensed nothing. No whispering voices. No familiar evil. Just a dead, empty silence where before a precious kitling's voice had sung.

Eld
~
Boura Fell

Vadim Maur clutched the edges of the birthing table in a fierce grip as his servants carried the child to the cleansing pool. His hands and legs were trembling so hard he didn't dare release the table for fear of falling.

For the second time, Ellysetta Baristani had caught him by surprise. He'd sensed her presence mere instants before she'd sensed his, and if not for that brief advantage, her furious blast of power might have scorched him as it had once before. As it was, she'd sapped the strength from his limbs and forced him to flee to avoid serious injury.

She'd forced him
to flee.
Him. The High Mage of Eld.

The mere thought was an abomination.

The only consolation from tonight's near-disaster was the prize now held in his servants' arms. He turned his head to watch his
umagi
bathe the newborn infant. The child was another boy. Despite Ellysetta Baristani's interference and his abrupt departure from the Well, the binding had gone smoothly, without the violent battle he'd fought for Tyrkomel. Unfortunately, Vadim was also not nearly as certain of his success this time. The baby's eyes had not swirled with radiance as Tyrkomel's had when he emerged from his mother's womb.

Of course, this child had not torn his mother apart during his birth either. Fania was unconscious but unharmed. That was a victory of sorts. Even if the boy was not the fierce triumph Shia's son was, Fania would live to breed again.

"Bring him to me," he barked, and a servant hurried over to hold out the baby for his inspection.