Lord of the Fading Lands (24 page)

Rain glanced at Bel for a moment and his face grew still. A hint of anger entered his eyes, and Ellie realized Belliard had just related the morning's events. Rain's next words confirmed her suspicions. "Bel has told me of this dressmaker. You are the Feyreisa. She will attend your pleasure, not the other way around. As will the queen's Master of Graces.”

Ellie blinked at the implacable finality of his statement. "Oh, but—”

"Ellysetta." He gave her a look that made her close her mouth and swallow her objection. "I despise Celieria. I remain here only to fulfill my oath to your father and to give you a little time at least to grow accustomed to me before I take you from all that is familiar to you. I will not cut short my time with you merely to indulge the self-importance of a foolish woman who insults the Tairen Soul's truemate—and I am speaking of both the queen and her servants. The dressmaker will attend you tomorrow morning. Early, before I come to you. The Master of Graces will tutor you after that, while I am there to observe him. And, Ellysetta …" He lifted her chin with a gentleness that somehow made the fierce look in his eyes even more terrifying. "If anyone insults you again, you—not Bel—shall tell me of it.”

Ellie gulped and nodded. She would promise almost anything to stop him looking at her with those eyes that leapt with flickering lights of cold fire.

"Beylah vo.
Thank you." The hard lines of Rain's expression softened and his eyes calmed. "Now, what would you like to do?”

"I—" She wet her lips and tried to still her rapidly beating heart. "I don't know" She'd never been courted before, didn't have the first idea of where to go or what to do. Inspiration struck. "You could take me flying. After all, I did win that wager.”

"You did, indeed. Very well, then. Flying it is”

With wings unfurled and joy unbound,

I bathe in freedom's rushing breath

And drink cool nectar from the clouds.

Up, up, through sunlit fields of blue,

Look! Starlight shines at height of day.

I hear infinity calling.

—Tairen's Flight,
by Cadrian vel Sorendahl,

"Why did I bring my coat?”

Rain cast an amused glance at Ellysetta. His
shei'tani
had been an uncorked bottle of questions since they'd dropped off the twins at her home. Her hesitance with him had been replaced by incessant curiosity and wide-eyed wonder that reminded him very much of a young tairen eagerly examining the world for the first time.

"Because,
shei'tani,"
he replied, "it is very cold in the high reaches of the sky. If it gets too cold, I will weave Fire and Air around you to keep you warm, but then you will not feel the wind on your face. Feeling the wind is one of the best parts of tairen flight”

"What if I discover that I'm afraid of heights?”

"You will not be”

"How do you know?”

"Because you know you will always be safe in my care." Ah, blessed arrogance. He wanted to grin. He astonished himself. The Fey and tairen were teetering on the brink of extinction, darkness was rising again in Eld, and Rain Tairen Soul, Defender of the Fey, was happier than he'd been in a thousand years, all because he was taking his mate for a ride in the skies. Even the anger that had simmered in him since leaving Dorian—and roused again upon learning of Ellysetta's treatment at the hands of Annoura's tradesfolk—was gone. If Ellysetta was weaving a
shei'dalin's
peace on him, he could not detect it.

"Lillis and Lorelle are probably still wailing because they couldn't come," Ellie said. The twins had pitched an unholy fit, complete with copious tears, when Lauriana had informed them that, no, they were not going to ride on tairen- back, and, no, they were not going to tag along with their sister and her betrothed this time.

"This I doubt," Rain replied. "Kiel and Kieran would not permit their unhappiness." Kiel and Kieran had both stayed behind to entertain the girls, while the holders of Water and Earth in Ellysetta's secondary quintet took their places for the afternoon.

They walked through the city gates, out into the open fields that ringed the city. "Tell me again, why do we have to come out here?”

"I prefer to have space for the Change. Besides, there are fewer eyes.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the crowds gathered on the walls. "Right.”

She had a dry sense of humor, very Fey, that made him want to laugh as he had not in centuries. `Just imagine the audience we'd have if we had stayed in the city," he replied.

Rain brought the group to a halt about two hundred yards from the city wall. "Stay here, Ellysetta, and wait until I tell you it is safe to come forward." She nodded.

He turned and began jogging away, slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was sprinting. With a tremendous Air-powered leap, he catapulted himself into the sky and flashed into tairen form, winging high above the earth. Skyward he soared, up towards the mid-afternoon sun and into the bright, endless blue of the warm spring day. Black wings spread wide, he banked left and circled back over Celieria, back over the small knot of black-clad warriors and the single slender figure in navy skirts standing safely in their midst.

He knew he was an impressive tairen, large, sleek, powerful. In flight, his tairen body was even more graceful, forelegs flattened aerodynamically against his belly, powerful hind legs trailing behind, his long, thick tail trailing even further, its blunt, curling tip acting like a rudder in flight. He watched his shadow speed across the Celierian landscape, and basked in the warmth of Ellysetta's dazed admiration.

Slowly, lazily, he glided down to earth and settled with graceful precision on the ground not far from Ellysetta and the Fey warriors. He stretched his wings high, flapped them, then tucked them against his back and padded towards Ellysetta. Stopping a few feet from her, he lay down on his belly beside her and gave a rumbling purr.

«That was a prideful display.»
Bel's dry voice sounded in his mind.

Tairen fangs bared in a grin. Bel knew him too well. Rain could have transformed without taking flight, but it wasn't nearly as impressive. And he had wanted to impress his
shei'tani.
From the dazzled look on her face and the wonderment that he felt through their bond, it was plain he had succeeded.

«Tairen are prideful creatures,»
he replied. His glowing lavender eyes turned to Ellysetta. His tail swished slowly.
«You can come closer now.”

Ellie heard the voice in her mind, but it didn't register. She had never seen anything so incredible or so beautiful as the sight of Rainier vel'En Daris leaping into the sky like a human dart and flashing into a huge, sleek, soaring tairen. He'd ridden the sky on broad, black wings, and she'd stood, earthbound and wingless, aching to fly beside him. Not on him, but with him. Beside him, under the power of her own broad wings.

«Shei'tani.»
His voice sounded in her mind again, more insistent this time. His tairen head, larger than her body, bumped her gently, bringing her back to the present. She laughed as she stumbled back a half step. Lillis's kitten bumped people with her head to demand attention in just the same way, though with considerably less force. An instinctive reflex made Ellie reach out to scratch the bony spot between his eyes. Beneath her hands, his tairen pelt was thick and silky, with a particularly lush nap. She had not expected something so huge to be so soft.

The fur on his majestic head was short, thick, and velvety, growing at a very close crop as it neared his muzzle. His ears, alert and rounded at the tips, were set to either side of his tairen skull. Past his head, his fur grew thick and sleek. He glistened a glossy, intense black, rich and deep, without a hint of brown. His eyes, each larger than her head, were pure lavender with no visible pupil, and they seemed to be lit from within. His proud neck merged gracefully with his powerful chest and the rest of his long, sleek great cat's body. Muscular forelegs ended in toed paws with sharp, retractable, curving ivory claws, while his hind legs bulged with undisguised strength. The end of his long tail curled and uncurled. His wings, tucked tightly against his body, seemed fragile compared to the rest of him, though she could see that the lightly furred membrane stretched across his wing bones was thick and supple.

"You are beautiful," she told him, petting the heavy muscles of his furred jaw, forgetting for a moment that this fiercely gorgeous creature was the same being as the fiercely gorgeous man who had claimed her.

RI am glad you think so.»
He gave a pleased vibrating purr as she continued to rub his head, and his eyelids half lowered over his large, shining tairen eyes. «
I like that. You have a pleasing touch.”

Green light flashed, and a small black leather saddle appeared where his neck joined his torso just above the jutting bones of his shoulders and wings. Long leather straps circled his neck and threaded behind his forelegs, holding the saddle firmly in place.
«Come, shei'tani. Let us dance the winds.”

"How will I get up there?" She gave a surprised cry when her body floated up into the air and settled in the U-shaped saddle. The high-backed cantle cradled her body. "Oh my." She felt the unfamiliar sensation of a breeze blowing against her legs, and looked down. Her skirts were hiked up to her thighs, her long legs exposed for all to see. "Rain …" Before she could even voice her concern, black leather breeches appeared out of nowhere to cover her. She gaped for a moment, then blinked and closed her mouth. Casual magic was something she was going to have to get used to. "Earth?" she asked, because the breeches felt too real to be even a masterful illusion.

«Aiyah.”

"You made them from nothing. Isn't that supposed to be difficult?”

"It is," Bel said. "He shows off for his mate." There was dry humor, friendly mockery, and a trace of envy in Bel's voice that would no doubt have embarrassed him if he'd heard it.

Rain hissed at his friend and tossed his head.
«Allow me to put your coat away, shei'tani.»
That was all the warning she had before her long leather coat disappeared.

"Where did it go?”

«Behind you.»
She twisted in the tall saddle and saw the small, bulging pouch strapped behind her. «
When you need it, I will return it to you. There are grips in the front of the saddle. Use them and hold tight. When I launch us into the air, you will feel a jolt.»
She found the grips and wrapped her fingers tightly around them.
«Are you ready?”

She swallowed as excitement and nervousness bubbled inside her. "Yes.”

«Then hold on.»
She could practically feel the power building in him as he rocked back on his hind legs and his muscles bunched tight. His wings unfurled and spread wide. They flapped once, twice, whipping up swirls of dust from the ground. Then he sprang, a mighty leap, powered by Air that rocketed them into the sky.

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?»

«
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 plea-sure, 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?»

«Then hold tight.»