Lady of Light and Shadows (30 page)

"It is forbidden! It is the magic never to be called!”

"Only because ancient Fey who lived and died so long ago we hold no memory of them or their reasoning said it should be so," Gaelen shot back.
"Dahl'reisen
don't have the benefit of hiding behind protective barriers and indulging ourselves with self-righteous adherence to laws long past their use. We survive by wit and speed and will. And we've learned that to defeat our greatest enemy, we must understand that enemy's most powerful weapon.”

With a growl, Rain released his grip on Gaelen's throat and thrust the older Fey away from him. "In the Fading Lands, we hold true to our honor and our laws. If you intend to live among us, you will do the same.”

"And if you refuse to consider change, don't expect to survive the coming war," Gaelen countered. Muttering a curse, he spun on one heel and started to pace. Halfway across the room, he stopped and cast a hard, searching glance Ellysetta's way. His shoulders slumped a little, then straightened. "I didn't summon Azrahn a moment ago just to prove a point. I did it for a different reason. Because there was something I had to know”

"Something like what, vel Serranis?" Rain growled. "Whether or not we could cut you with red before you raised your shields?”

"Nei,
that was not it." He smiled faintly. "But it is good to know you can't." Sobering, he crossed the short distance to Ellysetta and went to one knee before her. He clasped her hands in his.
"Kem'falla,
know that I am yours. I will never betray you I will defend you beyond death itself. I would walk the Seven Hells if you asked it of me.”

Ellysetta didn't know what to say.
"Beylah vo,
Gaelen. I am grateful for your kindness.”

"Then forgive me,
ki falla'sheisan.”

"Forgive you for what?" She frowned in confusion as Gaelen rose once more and took a step back.

"Vel Serranis?" Wary of the Fey's suspicious behavior, Rain stepped in front of Ellysetta and guided her back, away from the former
dahl'reisen.

"The Eld who killed the woodsman and your Fey wasn't looking for just any red-haired child," Gaelen told the room. His eyes never left Ellysetta's. "And I did not come to Celieria City just to warn you of Eld troop movements along the border.”

"I knew it!" Kieran muttered. "I told you we couldn't trust him.”

"Las,
Kieran," Bel hissed. "Let him speak.”

Rain held up a hand to silence them both. "Why, then, did you come, vel Serranis?”

"In a moment. First let me say I no longer believe what I thought was true. And let me remind you all-you especially, Tairen Soul-that no great gift from the gods comes without an equally great danger. The price of the gift is the willingness and courage to embrace the danger. If you cannot accept the one, you are not worthy of the other.”

"I need no lecture on the price the gods demand for their blessings. I have lived with those prices all my life," Rain said.

Gaelen bowed his head in acknowledgment. His expression grew still, becoming the blank, impenetrable stone mask of the Fey. "The Eld were searching for the lost daughter of the High Mage," he said baldly. He met Ellysetta's gaze. "And I came to kill her."

Though once with joy our garden greened

Love's blossoms fade round salted spring

My heart is lost, my hope is gone

And sorrow now my only song

-Sorrow's Garden, a lament by Mara vol Elias

Ellysetta's quintet surrounded her in an instinctive reaction to the perceived threat. But even as they flung up magic in her defense, their emotions slapped at her. Astonishment. Disbelief. Fear.

Worse, much worse, was the way Rain withdrew his hand from hers.

"It cannot be true," Rain said. But Ellysetta sensed his uncertainty, heard it in the faint vibration of his voice.

"I don't want to believe it either," Gaelen said. "But the possibility exists, and for her sake if for no other, we cannot ignore it.”

"It cannot be true. It is not true." Rain turned and swept a hand, palm up, towards Ellysetta. "Look at her. She is bright and shining. No Eld could ever be so bright. Especially not the daughter of the High Mage.”

"The Eld are not born evil," Gaelen answered. "They are corrupted by their environment and chained into dark servitude by the Mages. The Mages bind the souls of Eld children on the first anniversary of their birth and continue until they own them utterly. But if she is the one they sought, she was smuggled out of Eld as a child. The soul-binding was never completed.”

"Gaelen, you must be mistaken," Marissya said. "It's just another Mage trick, meant to manipulate us and cast doubt and suspicion where there can be none.”

"That is entirely possible," he acknowledged. "But when I called Azrahn a moment ago, all of you reacted the way Fey do. She did not." He met Ellysetta's gaze again, his own filled with bleak sorrow "She reacted like one who bears the Mark of the Mages.”

Ellysetta flinched as though he'd struck her, and clutched a hand over her betraying heart. "No. No, it's not true.” But even as she denied it, she recalled the cold, insidious voice from her nightmares hissing, Girl ...
you can't hide from me forever He'll kill you when he learns what you really are.
Even worse came the mocking sneer from last week's horrific nightmare,
You'll kill them all. It's what you were born for.
"Rain ..." Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to face Rain and saw the horror and the revulsion in his stricken gaze. She reached out. "Rain, please." He flinched away, and her tears spilled over in hot lines that chilled rapidly as they slid down her cheeks.

Rain's jaw clenched tight. "Vel Serranis, you said Azrahn reveals the Marks”

"Aiyah.”

"Then do it.”

"No!" Ellysetta shrank back from Gaelen's approach.

"I will not hurt you,
kem'falla,"
Gaelen vowed in a sorrowful voice. "But we must know one way or another. Knowledge is better than blind fear.”

Gods. She wanted to turn and run. She wanted to flee them all-even Rain-and hide some place where no one would ever find her.

«Courage, Ellysetta,»
Gaelen whispered in her mind.
«A Mage Mark does not make you evil, but it does put you in danger. We cannot protect you properly if we do not know how badly your defenses have been compromised.
»

Courage? When had she ever had that? She avoided confrontations and hid from her own magic because she was afraid of what was inside her and always had been! And now Gaelen wanted her to stand there and let him bare the horrible, secret blackness of her soul to the man she loved?

If you won't think of yourself, then think of your shei'tan,'
he urged.
gust the possibility of this Mark has raised doubts in you both. You'll never complete your bond without knowing and accepting the truth. Rain will die.”

The mere thought filled her with fear greater than any she harbored on her own behalf. She stopped retreating. "All right," she whispered. "See if I bear this Mark.”

"Beylah vo, kem’Feyreisa.”

Gaelen's hand rose, palm up. His eyes began to glow as he summoned magic. His pupils stretched wide, revealing the inner dark of his eyes, a deep blackness flickering with red lights.

A shadowy wisp of Azrahn swirled in his palm, and the sickly sweet chill of it pebbled Ellysetta's flesh. A cold, throbbing ache began in her chest, just above her rapidly pounding heart. Her fingers ached to clutch at the spot, to hide it, to repress it as she had all her life. She looked down at her chest. A single, despairing tear trickled from the corner of her eye.

There, on the soft, ivory swell of her left breast above her heart, revealed by the scooped neckline of her nightgown, a shadow lay upon her skin. A hideous, damning smudge.

Rain stared in horror at the mark on Ellysetta's flesh. If Gaelen was to be believed-and, gods help him, Rain did believe him-this was proof of Mage-claiming. The Eld had forged a foothold in Ellysetta's soul.

"Only one Mark," Gaelen was saying. "It could be worse. It takes a full six Marks to completely subjugate a soul.”

Rain only half heard him. His mind was reeling. The instinct to kill anyone infected with Eld evil was so strong, his hand actually ached for the feel of red in his palm. And yet .. . this Mage-claimed woman was his
shei’tani,
his truemate, the miraculous bright and shining soul who had brought him out of the shadows of despair. She was the one he'd been sent to find and bring back to save the Fading Lands.

Wasn't she?

She stared at him, weeping, hands outstretched. Silently pleading with him for reassurance, for proof that he would not revile her.

Gods help him, he could not give her that.

He stumbled back a step, and then another and another, retreating from the promise and damnation she represented. Better to have died a thousand years ago than face this torment now. His hands rose to his face. His fingers curved like tairen claws. He ached to rend his own flesh from his bones, to rip out the helpless need and hunger that bound him to her.

He was the Defender of the Fey, sworn to slay the enemies of his homeland, and she was Mage-claimed. How could he let her live?

He was the Tairen Soul, last repository of the greatest of all Fey magics, and she was his
shei’tani.
How could he let any harm befall her?

How could she possibly be the key to saving the tairen and the Fey while bearing the foul taint of the Eld on her body and in her blood?

Madness tore at him. Howling fury and mindless rage fought to consume him. Only the smallest sliver of control kept him clinging to sanity, and Ellysetta's devastated emotions threatened to undermine that.

"Rain." Marissya called to him. Her
shei'dalin's
voice throbbed with power, with peace.

He fought it off. Marissya could not help him. Not this time. "I've got to go. I cannot stay here." His eyes met Ellysetta's and flinched away. He lurched for the glassed balcony doors and flung them open. "Keep her safe here tonight. Return her to her family in the morning." Without a single look back, he flung himself into the night sky.

"Rain!”

She called after him in desperation. Ellysetta. Truemate of the Tairen Soul. Daughter of the High Mage of Eld, Rain's most deadly and despised enemy.

With a scream of fury and a scorching blast of flame, Rain Tairen Soul raced into the darkness of the night.

"Rain," Ellysetta whispered. He was gone, swallowed up by the night. He'd cut her off from his emotions, leaving her nothing, no tie to him, no way to reach him. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

"Come away, little sister." Marissya tugged her back from the balcony. But beneath the compassion, Ellysetta felt the
shei'dalin's
involuntary flinch. Even Marissya could not completely hide her revulsion at the taint in Ellysetta's blood.

She pulled her tattered emotions tight. "I should go home now. Tonight. There's no reason for me to stay here”

"There is every reason," Gaelen corrected. "You are still the Feyreisa, and you are still in danger." He nodded towards the window "The Feyreisen will be back. He has no other choice. He will realize it soon enough"-he paused, then added softly-"once the soul hunger begins.”

Rain flew hard and fast towards the Fading Lands. Blind instinct more than conscious thought drove him towards the haven of Fey'Bahren and his tairen kin. For centuries they had guarded him when no other creature could, and he knew that when the soul hunger began to consume him and madness claimed him once more, the tairen would grant him final peace through the fiery embrace of tairen flame.

Ellysetta. Just the thought of her name made the tairen roar in fury.

When first she'd called him from the sky, he'd thought the gods had sent a miracle to save him. Now he realized they'd sent her to complete his damnation.

Daughter of the High Mage. Mage-claimed. Bound to his soul forever.

He would give his life before risking the Fading Lands with a Mage-claimed truemate.

Marissya and the Fey called frantically to him from Celieria, but he ignored them. Summoning a fierce tail wind to speed his flight, he raced across the sky towards the west. Towards the protection of the Fading Lands and the tairen's waiting fire.

The tairen had other ideas. No more than a few bells into his flight, a rich, resonant chorus of golden notes filled his mind, tairen song from Fey'Bahren, authored by Sybharukai, leader of the Fey'Bahren pride. The rich notes poured through him, not soothing and restful as they so often had been in the past, but crisp with power and command.

«We sense your approach, Rainier-Eras,» she sang. «Why do you return alone? Where is the one you were sent to find? Where is your mate?»

He had not spoken with Sybharukai or any other tairen of the pride since leaving the Fading Lands, but it did not surprise him that she knew of Ellysetta. Quickly, weaving as much information as he could into his tairen speech, Rain explained what had happened.

«You left her, your mate? You left here there, among the humans?
»

«What else was Ito do? I could not bring her to the Fading Lands.»

«Tairen do not abandon their mates.» Even across the vast distance between them, the great cat's disapproval vibrated down to Rain's bones. The glorious symphony of tairen speech rang cold with deep, discordant notes.

«Sybharukai, did you not hear me? She is Mage-claimed.”

«Mages,»
Sybharukai sniffed. «
You think we fear them?»
She sent an image of claws indolently shredding rock.
«Did not a single tairen once drive Mage evil from the earth for a thousand years? Tairen do not abandon their mates. Tairen defend the pride. She is the one you were sent to find, Rainier-Eras. Bring her to us.»

As the Tairen Soul, Rain was king of the Fey, but he was also a tairen of the Fey'Bahren pride ... which Sybharukai ruled. Still, he resisted. She did not understand the dangers. She did not understand what she was asking him to do.

«It is to defend the pride that I must not bring her. She is the daughter of the High Mage of Eld, and she is Mage-claimed. He will use her to destroy us. Through her he can even use me. I cannot allow that to happen.»

The great cat's response carried an image of Sybharukai's ears and tail twitching with irritation. «Claiming a mate is never without challenge or risk. Only the strongest prove worthy. Such ways ensure the health of the pride. Bring her to us.
»

Rain's claws extended, curving and razor sharp. Venom pooled in his fangs, and licks of fire sparked in the night sky. «I cannot. I will not.»

«Rainier-Eras! Obey me! There is a reason you were chosen. Only she can save us, but only if you can save her. Do your duty, Tairen Soul! Guard her! Protect her! Bring her-”

Her voice was cut off in mid-sentence. For the first time in his life, Rain blocked the song of his tairen kin from his mind. He didn't need Sybharukai's censure to know his duty lay behind him, there in Celieria City. Without Ellysetta, the Fey and the tairen would surely die. But he also knew, with terrifying certainty, that
if
he did not turn from Ellysetta now, he never would. Even if that meant surrendering his own soul to the Mages.

And if the Mages gained control over a Tairen Soul, many more people than just the tairen and the Fey would perish.

After Rain left, the Fey spent several bells bitterly debating what to do about Gaelen and his knowledge of what was happening to Celierians in the north. Marissya wanted to take him to Dorian and have him tell everything he knew. Dax and Bel vehemently disagreed.

Gaelen's presence was a double-edged blade. He could swear under
shei'dalin
oath that Celierians in the north were Mage-claimed, but if questioned, he'd also have to admit to leading the
dahl'reisen
and murdering Celierian peasants. Just having him in their company lent credence to Lord Sebourne's claims of
dahl'reisen-Fey
collusion.

In the end, Bel and Dax convinced Marissya it would be best to keep Gaelen's presence a secret, even from Dorian. The risk of revealing him was simply too great.

Ellysetta spent the entire night curled up in a deep wing-backed chair in Rain's palace bedroom, staring out into the night, watching the Mother and Daughter cross the sky as the small silver bells of the night rang out in slow, lonely succession. A twenty-five-fold weave hummed around the room, enveloping her in buzzing power. Gaelen had offered to add Azrahn to the weave, saying it would protect her against the powers of the Mage Mark, but the others almost pulled red on him again for the suggestion.