Lord of the Fading Lands (28 page)

The Dark Lord take this whole exhausting, frustrating, sanity- scorching idea of a wedding!
She cast a blistering glare at the frenzied mob of seamstresses, florists, caterers, printers, decorators, wine merchants, cobblers, and stuffy wedding advisors surrounding her. They had descended upon her parents' house just after breakfast and turned Ellie's peaceful morning into a war zone of raucous pre-wedding activity. Every half bell, a knock would sound on the door and a new throng of visitors would pour in. Couriers bearing packages, friends wanting to extend their congratulations, neighbors just being nosy, merchants, craftsmen.

The mad, unceasing rush of people and the constant barrage of questions—each merchant had at least a hundred questions, all needing a decision
now!—had
long since taken their toll on her sanity and had wiped every last vestige of good humor from her mood.

Twenty gowns, Lady Marissya had decreed. Twenty! Plus an enormous monstrosity of a wedding gown that required an entire wagonload of fabric and had taken most of the morning to fit. The queen's dressmaker, Maestra Binchi, who had been noticeably more respectful and accommodating this morning, had already departed with her half- dozen seamstresses to begin work on the wedding gown, but another three court modistes and their respective gaggles of assistants were still industriously dedicating themselves to turning Ellie into a human pincushion.

"My lady, please stand still." Kneeling at Ellie's feet, one of the seamstresses blew a strand of limp brown hair out of her eyes and attempted—but failed—to sound patiently polite. The seamstress's lips were pulled taut in a grimace that Ellie concluded was supposed to be a deferential smile.

"I
am
standing still," Ellie replied through clenched teeth. An awful, squeezing pressure had begun building in her head earlier, as if her skull were caught in a tightening vise. The voices around her formed a merciless, pounding drum, echoing inside her head, beating at the shreds of her control.

«Las, Ellysetta.»
Bel's cool voice sounded in her mind.

Peace?
Peace,
he said? Over the top of the opaque curtain of Spirit the Fey had woven to protect her modesty, Ellie sent Bel a glare so scorching, his leathers nearly caught on fire. The fierce warrior blinked in surprise and wisely retreated.

"Ellie" Oblivious to the brewing tempest, Lauriana approached with a selection of flowers in her hands. "For your bridal wreath, which roses do you prefer? Maiden's Blush, Sweet Kaidra, or Gentle Dawn?" She held up one of each velvety bloom, faint pink, creamy ivory, and pale yellow edged with the barest hint of orange.

"I don't care, Mama." Ellie tried desperately to hold on to her temper. "You choose.”

«Ellysetta.»
Rain called to her in a voice of insufferable calm. But, of course, he would be calm. He'd been
gone
this whole wretched morning. She ignored him.

"Hmm. I like Maiden's Blush, but the pink might clash with your hair. Sweet Kaidra is lovely, of course, but it may be a little too bland. Gentle Dawn … well, there's something about yellow roses that I've always liked and the orange is a shade that will suit you, I think. Come now, kit, give me your honest opinion.”

"Whichever you choose will be fine, Mama." Ellie could feel her jaw muscles locking in place. Days from now, she was sure they would find her, dead from this wedding torture, her lips still frozen and her teeth bared in a grim parody of a polite smile.

"All right, Ellie," Lauriana replied evenly. "I'll make the decision, since you don't care to. Gentle Dawn it is." Her skirts swished with violent little movements as she stalked away.

Ellie scowled, angry at her mother for getting upset, angry at herself for being the one to upset her. The anger was unsettling. Ellie wasn't a volatile person. She worked hard at keeping her emotions in check. Bad things happened when she didn't. Yet the anger was there. And growing. The pain in her head increased.

«
Ellysetta.
» Rain's voice sounded again, a bit more insistent this time. She continued to ignore him. She'd wanted a simple wedding. Flowers, perhaps, and a priest. But, no. The mighty Rain Tairen Soul mandated a huge court affair. And then conveniently absented himself from the resulting madness. Ellysetta's anger grew some more.

"Mistress Baristani?" A man's nasal voice sounded to her left.

"What?" Ellie barked and turned towards the voice.

The cobbler held up several pairs of shoes. "You've selected your footwear for your wedding, but you still need to select slippers for your ball gowns and a pair of boots for your day dresses. Something—if I may be so bold—a bit more elegant than your current footwear?”

"There is nothing wrong with my current footwear," she snapped. "It is the perfect footwear for a girl like me.”

"Of course, Mistress Baristani." The cobbler gave a small, condescending smile and bowed. "But I'm referring to the new you.

Her anger flared higher. "There
is
no new me. I am the same me that I have always been. I will be the same me tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.”

"My lady, please, stand still just a few chimes more," the seamstress pleaded.

Ellie scowled down at her. "I am standing still!”

«Ellysetta, you will speak to me.
»He wanted her to speak?
«GET OUT OF MY MIND!»
She felt his jagged burst of pain as her angry response blasted between them, and the ache between her eyes became sharp, gouging daggers thrusting into her brain. Dizziness assailed her, but she fought it back.

"I apologize if my choice of words has offended you, Mistress Baristani," the cobbler said. "I merely meant that in your new position, you will require a different form of attire.”

"I am very aware of what you meant, ser. But I am now and always will be a woodcarver's daughter. No amount of fancy new clothes—or elegant footwear—will ever change that." Ellie raised a hand to her head and began to rub her temple.

"Please, Lady Ellysetta, put your arm back down and hold still," the seamstress begged.

Irritation shrieked through Ellie, but she lowered her arm.

"Ah, Duanniza Baristani," Duan Parlo Vincenze, the elegant Capellan chef who catered to the cream of Celierian society, gestured extravagantly with a lace-festooned handkerchief. "I have sketched the perfect bridal cake for you. Tall. Elegant. Simple but
boi mezzo,
very pretty." He held up the sketch of a towering wedding cake. "You like, eh?”

Ellie stared at the sketch in horror. Layer after angular layer of plain square cakes perched on tall, gawky columns. The cake was stark in its plainness, except for gargantuan bunches of dramatically sketched flowers that dripped down the columns. She supposed the chef meant the flowers to complement the minimalist appearance of the cake, but to her they looked like monstrous weedy growths run amok. Ill-fitting, ridiculous attempts to make something pitifully plain look attractive and feminine.

"No. I don't like." Her chest felt tight. The room was too small, too crowded. Her mind whirled. The pain in her head was staggering. The anger seemed to be consuming her, stealing the very breath from her lungs.

With a gasp of offended pride, the chef whipped his lacy handkerchief through the air like a sword. "But, Duanniza, it is perfect for you.”

"You must at least select a pair of slippers for the ball. Lady Marissya insisted”

"My lady, please stand still. Pella needs to repin the waist of this gown.”

"The cake is hideous! I don't care about the flaming slippers! And for the last time,
I am standing still!"
Gods, she needed air. She was going mad. She couldn't breathe. Her vision began to blur.

"Ellysetta." Rain stood in the doorway, and there was no mistaking the whip of command in his voice.

"WHAT?"
Anger roared to blazing life. This was all
his
fault! She whirled to face him. Pain stabbed into her waist as she impaled herself on the long, wickedly sharp tailor's pin held in the seamstress Pella's hand.

Ellie screamed.

Every window in the Baristani house exploded in a cloud of shattered fragments.

Rain leapt forward, power bursting around him, his teeth bared in savage fury.

"Get back!" he roared. Most of the people in the room were too stunned to move, but a punishing thrust of Air flung their bodies out of his path. Rain destroyed Bel's opaque weave of Spirit with a single thought. Seamstresses shrieked and fled like mice as the Tairen Soul reached for his mate.

Across the street, as the screams of the milling crowd still echoed in the aftermath of the exploding windows, Kolis Manza cursed and turned away. So close. He'd been so close.

Magic had definitely been released. Elemental Air magic and a masterful burst of it. But just before the burst of Air, the Tairen Soul had arrived, power radiating from him in a huge, shining, barely controlled aura that had distorted Kolis's view. And when the Tairen Soul had released blasting weaves of his own, he'd wiped away all hope of tracing the first weave to its source.

The magic had been hers. Kolis
knew
it had been hers.

But because he hadn't witnessed the source of the magic with his own senses, he couldn't be sure. He
had
to be sure. The High Mage wasn't forgiving of mistakes.

Kolis crushed the now-drained Feraz
talis
in his hand and threw it down a sewer grate. The small piece of beeswax, wrapped tight with a single flame-colored strand of hair, made a tiny, distant splash as it hit the water below and was carried away.

"I'm sorry I acted so badly," Ellie whispered for the thousandth time. "I don't know what came over me. I'm not like that. I don't get angry. I don't treat people rudely.”

"Shh," Rain soothed.
"Las, shei'tani."
He stroked her hair and held her close as they sat together on the narrow bed in her room.

After catching Ellie in his arms, Rain had carried her upstairs to her bedroom and then refused to leave her. Lauriana had strenuously objected to his presence on her daughter's bed, but a hot, dangerous look and a snarling command to hold her tongue or risk having it silenced shut her up. Not the most diplomatic of solutions. She'd turned right around and would have marched out of the house to fetch her husband had not Bel hurried after her to soothe the worst of her maternal outrage. They were still downstairs, Lauriana subjecting Bel to a furious tirade recounting every indignity and offense the Fey had visited upon her family and their good name, but at least she'd left Rain in peace to tend his truemate.

"I didn't mean to yell at you," Ellie said again. "I don't understand why I let them upset me so badly. It was as if there was some terrible, angry force inside me, and it kept growing stronger and stronger, and I kept getting madder and madder."

"It's all right, Ellysetta. Those people are gone." He stroked her cheek. "They won't be back, except by appointment, and I will be with you when they come.”

Despite the worry and fear coloring her emotions, she smiled against his hand. "So you can explode all the windows again if they bother me? Maybe we'd better not have them come to the house. Mama might get tired of cleaning up the glass.”

Rain stilled.

Ellysetta scooted back so she could look at him. "What?" He met her gaze. "It was not I who destroyed the windows, Ellysetta.”

She blinked. "It wasn't? Then Bel did it?" She gave a small laugh and shook her head. "I wouldn't have thought he was the type for such a display.”

"Nei.
It was not Bel, nor any other of the Fey.”

Ellysetta's smooth forehead wrinkled in a confused frown. "Then … who?”

Rain gazed at her steadily, saying nothing.

"No," she said. "It wasn't me.”

"You used Air. An incredibly fine yet powerful weave that struck only the windows. Every window." He saw her glance at the perfectly intact bedroom window. "The warriors repaired them while you were unconscious. But they were all destroyed. Reduced to dust”

"It wasn't me," she insisted. "You must be mistaken.”

"I am not mistaken. There is power in you, Ellysetta. Great power.”

"No." She dragged her fingers through her hair, tangling the wild curls.

"Why do you fear what is inside you?”

"Why do you keep insisting that I'm magic?”

"Because you are. I've seen evidence of it several times now. On the day you called me out of the sky, you used Earth. Not much. It was only a small healing weave, but both Marissya and I sensed it. The night of our betrothal, you wove Spirit on your mother with so much power packed in so fine a weave that even most Fey would not have known they were being influenced, or been able to resist. Today, you used Air in a very concentrated and powerful weave. All the Fey sensed it this time.”

"Maybe it was someone else who destroyed the windows," she suggested. "You think there are Elden Mages in Celieria. Maybe it was one of them.”

His
shei'tani
was grasping at straws, so eager to deny her power. He still did not understand why she would fear it so. Lauriana's explanation of all Celierians' fear of magic- blighted forests didn't ring true. Ellysetta wasn't afraid of all magic like her mother; only her
own
magic truly frightened her. And Rain could not imagine why that would be so.