Lord of the Fading Lands (The Tairen Soul Book 1)

With wings unfurled and joy unbound,

I dance on laughter-spangled winds.

I bathe in freedom’s rushing breath

And drink cool nectar from the clouds.

Up, up, through sunlit fields of blue,

I soar through boundless ether.

Look! Starlight shines at height of day.

I hear infinity calling.

—Tairen’s Flight, by Cadrian vel Sorendahl,

Tairen Soul

‘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 Her hesitance with him had been replaced by incessant curiosity and wide-eyed wonder that reminded him very much of a young tairen eagerly examining the world for the first time.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?»

‘Like it? I love it! I adore it!’ If not for the waist-high front ridge of the saddle, she would have flung herself against his neck and squeezed him tight. ‘Oh, Rain. Thank you.”

«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?»

He felt her eagerness, her excitement. ‘I don’t care. I just want to fly.”

«Then hold tight.»

He folded his wings, and they plummeted fast and hard, diving towards the earth. Ellysetta screamed with laughter and held tight to the saddle, fearless even as the ground rushed up to meet them. Rain’s heart swelled at her trust and complete lack of fear. His wings spread wide, and the rapid dive became a swooping ascent that left Ellysetta breathless yet still laughing.

With joy in his heart, Rain Tairen Soul soared across the sky.

Den Brodson smiled as he watched thin, gangly little Tomy Sorris scribble the last of his notes on the pages spread out before him. ‘You have it all, then?’ The pair of them sat in the private back room at the Charging Boar. A nearly empty pint of Red Skull sat on the scarred wooden table before Den, and a half glass of well-watered ale sat before the printer’s son.

‘I do. Thanks for the story, Den!’ Tomy tipped his ink- stained wool cap with one hand while the other busied itself stuffing the pages into his satchel. ‘It’s a beaut. And I’m grateful you took time to write most of it down for me first. The less I have to write, the quicker Da can get it into print.”

‘No problem at all, Tomy. Give your Da my best. And be sure he uses that one paragraph I showed you, exactly as I’ve written it.’ Those words, Batay had promised him, would sway simple minds, in particular the minds of readers who rarely thought for themselves. A spell of persuasion, buried not in the ink or the paper used to write them, but tied to the very words themselves. Already, Den had met and distributed the copied pages to half a dozen pamphleteers and newspaper writers.

‘I will,’ the printer’s boy promised. ‘Exactly as it’s written.”

‘And don’t use my name, remember. I don’t want to get my Da in trouble with the king.’ Den pasted a sober expression on his face. ‘I just want to see justice for Ellie. Sold out, she was. Sold out to a murderous sorcerer for a chest of magic-cursed gold.”

‘Ooh, that’s good.’ Tomy paused to scratch Den’s words down on the last piece of paper before stuffing it away and carefully stowing his ink and pen. He straightened and scratched his head. ‘But, you know, Ellie’s always fancied the Fey. Maybe she’s happy with the way things have turned out”

‘Women fancy tigers,’ Den snapped. ‘Doesn’t mean they want to bed down with the beasts.’ He lifted his now-warm mug of Red Skull and downed the last quarter pint. ‘No, she’s been ensorcelled. Her whole family has. And it’s up to us—plain folk like you and me, Tomy—to save her.”

The boy squared his shoulders and nodded. ‘You’re right, Den. I’ll do my part. People have a right to know what the Fey are up to.”

‘Indeed they do.’ Den clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder and escorted him out the Charging Boar’s back door. He waited for the boy to disappear down the alleyway before closing the door and making his way back into the main pub. ‘Thanks, Briggs.’ He waved to the bartender as he walked past.

‘No problem, Den. You off, then?”

Den nodded. ‘To church”

‘Church?’ Briggs threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s a good one, Den!”

Den grinned. ‘I know. Can’t hardly believe it myself. I’ll make an offering at one of the altars for you, eh?”

Briggs snickered and shook his head.

Den pushed through the pub’s brass-and-leaded-glass doors and turned left down King’s Road. He’d actually been telling Briggs the truth, though only because he knew the man would never believe it. His next destination lay about two miles down, in one of the rougher areas of town, where the Brethren of Radiance had set up a mission to minister to the poor and the godless of Celieria City. Founded more than a century ago by a zealous Church of Light priest who’d spent too many years in the north, the Brethren despised magic in all its forms.

Den patted his coat pocket and smiled at the crinkling noise of several more sheaves of folded paper. Yes, indeed, he could already feel the Bright Lord’s Radiance shining upon him.

As Den completed the tasks set to him, Kolis Manza was busy with a mission of his own a little further north in the city. The fourth golden bell of midday had just rung. Time enough to see to this task before journeying back to Eld for a meeting with his master.

The Mage smoothed back his bronze-powdered hair and straightened the fit of his well-tailored but nondescript brown jacket. He’d discarded his Captain Batay disguise after leaving Brodson earlier. A Sorrelian captain would garner too much attention wandering the more affluent residential neighborhoods of the West End, whereas a well-dressed but unremarkable merchant would slip by unnoticed. Not even Fey warriors would connect the bold dress, tattooed face, and oiled hair of Batay with the sober Goodman Black.

He approached a small, tidy home near the riverfront and slowed his pace. His watchful gaze scanned the nearby roads and rooftops, but he detected no Fey warriors, hidden or otherwise. Even so, he was careful. His brows drew together in a faint frown of concentration as he formed a weave of Azrahn and meticulously insulated it in threads of Spirit to mask its signature from keen Fey senses. Only when the familiar, cold, sweet tang of Azrahn was suitably muffled did he direct the weave into the house. He felt the woman’s quick start of fear, her pointless struggle to resist, and the satisfying whimper of obedient subjugation. Pleased, he pushed open the front gate and walked up the gravel path bordered by tidy rows of cultivated flowers. Even before he reached the mullioned front door, he heard the lock click open, and the door swung inward.

The house was as tidy within as without. As Tuelis closed the door behind him, Kolis looked around the modest living room. A smile curved his lips as his glance fell upon the two small children playing quietly on a rug by the hearth. ‘Aren’t you a pretty pair,’ he murmured.

‘Mama? Who’s at the door?”

Kolis turned to the young woman who entered the room. She was lovely, with clear, fine skin, deep blue eyes, and an appearance as neat as the home she kept. He smiled. This would be a greater pleasure than most. ‘My dear, you must be Selianne. Your mother has told me so much about you.’

‘Are the beaches in the Fading Lands as beautiful as this?’ Ellie looked out across the vast expanse of white sand and turquoise waters of Great Bay. She and Rain had flown countless miles with astonishing speed until the tropical beauty of southern Great Bay had drawn their interest. Now they sat on a blanket on the sand beneath the shade of a copse of broad-leafed pella trees. The remains of the picnic lunch they’d purchased earlier in a tiny bayside village lay between them on the blanket they’d been forced to accept from the awed villager who’d sold them lunch. Rain’s weapons lay in a pile of steel and leather within easy reach of his hands.

‘It depends where along the coast you are,’ he answered. ‘On the southern coast, there are pella trees, white sand beaches, and crystal waters like this. In the north, where the Feyls meet the sea, the beaches are black and the waters are a deep, deep blue.”

‘Tairen like the water, don’t they?”

His eyes warmed and the fierceness of his handsome features softened, making him seem more approachable and somehow even more staggeringly handsome. ‘Aiyah, they do indeed.”

Ellie’s heart turned somersaults inside her chest. ‘Tell me about the tairen.”

‘What would you like to know?”

‘Everything. What do they look like? Are they the same as you when you are a tairen?”

‘Aiyah, though they come in many different colors. The oldest female is a deep gray, with white and black in her wings and tail. She is beautiful and very fierce. To the Fey, she is called Sybharukai, the wise one. She is very ancient, very crafty. A powerful friend and an even more powerful enemy.’ His voice was filled with both pride and respect. ‘Her mate is Corus. He is a great warrior, with many battle scars and fur the color of twilight. And there is young Fahreeta, all golden fur and green eyes. She likes games and flirting with the other males to annoy her mate, Torasul. He is the largest of the males except for Sybharukai’s mate, and he has great patience, which is good, else Fahreeta would drive him mad.”

‘You make them sound like people.”

He smiled. ‘They are. Just a different kind of people.’

‘How many tairen are there?”

His smile dimmed. Sadness skated across her senses, then was gone so quickly she thought she must have imagined it. ‘That, you will have to see for yourself. When you come to the Fading Lands, I will take you to meet the Fey’Bahren pride.”

In three weeks, she would wed this man and leave behind everything she knew, everyone she loved. The reminder was an abrupt splash of reality. She drew her knees up close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Though half of her longed to go—longed to follow him anywhere, for that matter—the other half was terrified at the prospect. He was so confident, so at ease with himself, his power, the world. He exuded grace and elegance in everything he did, from the way his fingers ran through his hair to the way he sprawled so unselfconsciously in the grass yet lost not one shred of dignity or self-possession. Could he possibly be any different from her? And though it only made sense that she would want to follow him to the ends of the earth like the hopelessly besotted romantic she was, what could he possibly see in her?

‘Has anyone ever claimed a shei’tani by mistake?”

Rain’s eyebrows flew up and nearly disappeared in his hairline. Then they came plummeting back down into a fierce, haughty frown. ‘I am not mistaken, if this is what you imply.’ His voice was stiff, his eyes hot. Offended pride slapped at her senses.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. I just don’t understand how you know.’ She bit her lip. ‘How can you know? How can you be sure?”

‘I am sure.’ The finality of his tone signaled an end to the discussion.

Ellie subsided into silence for all of five seconds, before the question struggling inside her burst free. ‘How is it different from what you felt for Lady Sariel?”

Rain gave her an exasperated look. He obviously wasn’t used to people who insisted on continuing a discussion once he had indicated he was done with the subject. ‘Comparing the two is like comparing the Great Sun and the Mother moon. They both shine light on the world, but one is the light itself and the other is a reflection.”

‘Oh’ She frowned. So which was she, the light or the reflection?

‘The sun, Ellysetta. You are the sun.”

She eyed him suspiciously. ‘I thought you said you couldn’t read my mind.”

‘And so I cannot. But I would be a foolish man indeed not to know what question would come next once I compared my feelings for you and Sariel to the sun and the moon.’ His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘Women have not changed that much in a thousand years.”

Did he really expect her to believe that she, a stranger he’d only met a few days ago, was the sun while Sariel, the woman for whom he’d scorched the world, was the moon?

‘Please don’t lie to flatter my vanity,’ she told him in a low voice. ‘I’d rather have the truth, no matter how harsh the sting that comes with it.”

His anger was instant and palpable. ‘I do not lie, Ellysetta,’ he snapped. ‘Especially not to you”

She flinched but refused to back down. ‘I am young, My Lord Feyreisen, and ignorant—and even foolish at times—but I am not such a silly pacheeta as to believe you love me even the tiniest bit as much as you loved Lady Sariel. How could you? You barely know me.”

Rain’s face cleared and he shook his head. ‘We are talking at cross-purposes. You speak of love, while I speak of something far greater. You are my shei’tani, the other half of my soul. It is a bonding so deep I could never hope to deny it, even if that was my desire. Feelings of the heart are nothing compared to that”

A few days ago, his words would have left her swooning with daydreams of love and romance. Now, however, all she could think of was not what he had said, but rather what he had left unsaid. When you wager with tairen, take care with your words. Rain Tairen Soul might not lie, but that didn’t stop him from dancing around the truth. Had he said he loved her? No. Had he said he wanted her? No. On the contrary, he said quite clearly he had to claim her even if he didn’t want her.

‘Somehow, I have upset you,’ he said, frowning. ‘This was not my intention.”

‘No. You haven’t upset me.’ He wasn’t the only one who could dance around words. Rain hadn’t upset her. She’d done that herself by hoping her silly fantasy of absolute love, spawned by the stirring poetry of his countrymen, might actually come true.

Ellie stared hard at her clenched hands. She’d asked the gods for someone, anyone but Den, and they’d answered by sending her Rain Tairen Soul. She hadn’t asked them for true love. She needed to learn how to be thankful for what graces she received, rather than yearning for those unbestowed. She had Rain and his devotion. She could live without his love.

She looked up into Rain’s beautiful face and smiled with determined good humor. ‘I’m fine, really,’ she assured him. ‘I’m more fortunate than I ever thought possible.’

‘Can we do that again?’ Ellie asked as she and Rain walked home through the streets of Celieria, ringed once more by her Fey guard. ‘Soon?’ They had flown all afternoon, would have flown longer had they not promised her parents they would return before sunset.

‘Aiyah,’ Rain replied. ‘If it is your wish.”

‘I wish,’ she told him fervently.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘Then we will do it again.’ He grimaced ever so slightly. ‘With your parents’ permission, of course.”

‘Of course.’ Ellie smiled. The Tairen Soul chafed at the restraint, but she was pleased that he cared enough to honor her parents and her country’s customs. ‘And thank you.”

His gaze was tender, as was the faint hint of a curve on his lips. ‘Sha vel’mei, shei’tani.”

The Baristani household, when they returned, was in chaos. Ellie couldn’t believe her eyes. Gaily wrapped packages sat on every available surface, while others lay tossed on the floor with their ribbons and paper ripped and tangled. Dress pattern books lay scattered on the settee, several of them open. Shoe boxes, with their contents spilling out, were jumbled beside a lamp table. Swatches of fabric and lace dangled from the back of a chair and made a haphazard path across the floor. The smell of something burning emanated from the kitchen.

Apprehension clutched at Ellie, and she felt Rain stiffen at her side. Drawing blades with a quiet hiss, the quintet of Fey warriors fanned out quickly and silently, like dark shadows whispering through the house. Rain gestured, and light surrounded Ellie.

‘Mama?’ Ellie called.

‘Just a chime!’ Lauriana’s voice shouted from the kitchen. There was a sound of muffled cursing, then something banged, and Ellie heard the sizzle of water hitting a hot surface.

‘I’ve burned the dinner rolls.’ Lauriana appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and scowling. ‘What in the name of … ?’ The scowl darkened and her fists planted themselves on her hips as she surveyed the destruction in the room. ‘Lillis!’ she yelled. ‘Lillis Angelisa Baristani, come here this instant!”

Ellie heard a door bang at the back of the house, then the sound of small feet racing. Lillis burst breathlessly into the room, followed close on her heels by an equally breathless Lorelle. Their hair was disheveled, but it was obvious they were unharmed.

The glow of magic around Ellie winked out. Rain straightened from the tense, slightly crouching position he had assumed. The Fey warriors who had fanned out in the room returned and sheathed their weapons.

‘Yes, Mama?’ Lillis gasped.

‘I thought I told you to keep that cat out of this room. Look at the mess she’s made.”

‘I know, Mama. I’m sorry. I gave her to Kieran, and she was behaving so well, but then he starting doing magic and—’

‘Magic?’ Lauriana echoed sharply.

‘A thousand pardons, Madam Baristani.’ Kieran entered the room, followed by Kiel. Lillis’s tiny white kitten, an adorable blue-eyed darling named Love, was perched on Kieran’s shoulder. Her stubby pennant of a tail flicked continuously at his ear, and she was purring loud enough for all to hear. She looked far too innocent to have caused such wholesale destruction.

‘It is my fault,’ Kieran said. ‘Kiel and I will clean up the mess’

‘Let me assist you,’ Bel offered, and a white glow of Air lit his fingertips.

‘Nei!’ Kiel and Kieran shouted in unison.

At the same instant, sweet, adorable Love sprang into screeching, insane life and launched herself off Kieran’s shoulder, fangs gleaming, claws bared, every little white hair on her body standing straight up. She landed with a thud on top of the pile of pattern books, and the sound of ripping pages filled the air as her claws scrabbled for purchase.

Kieran dove for her, but she eluded him, leaping to the chair draped with fabric. Swatches spat out from beneath her frantically pedaling feet.

‘Let go, Bel,’ Kiel commanded. ‘She senses when anyone calls magic within a tairen-length of her, and she hates it. “

Bel released his power and the kitten went skittering across the floor to hide under a tall, carved display cabinet. Blue eyes shone out from the darkness as Love crouched there, hissing and watching them warily.

‘She hates Air especially,’ Kieran added, climbing to his feet and running a hand through his hair. That was when Ellie noticed there were enough bleeding scratches on the backs of his hands to form a Stones grid. ‘I would have thought it would be Water, wouldn’t you?’ He shook his head and grinned a little. ‘Perhaps she’s got a bit of tairen in her rather than just plain house cat. Fire, Water, and Earth only get her back up. Air makes her crazy. And if you want to see real feline insanity, try a weave of Spirit.”

‘Aiyah,’ Kiel agreed with a shudder. ‘That’s what caused all this.’ His hands gestured to the destruction throughout the room.

Ellie bit her lip, trying hard not to laugh as Kieran crossed the room to crouch down beside the cabinet and croon, ‘Here, kit, kit, kit. Come here, little Love. That bad Fey warrior has put his nasty magic away.’ Kieran turned his head just slightly to flash a laughing blue-eyed look at Belliard as the older Fey’s back went stiff. Within a few chimes, Kieran had successfully coaxed Love out of hiding, and once more she perched on his shoulder, purred, and flicked his ear with her stubby little tail.

‘How sweet of you, Lillis, to let Kieran hold your kitten,’ Ellie remarked.

‘I gave her to him,’ Lillis said proudly. ‘It was the best reward I could think of.”

‘Reward?”

‘For pushing Kelissande into the river.”

Ellie rounded on Kieran. ‘You were responsible for that?’ Kieran smiled, shrugged, and scratched a finger beneath Love’s chin.

Ellie shook her head. Centuries old he might be, but there was still plenty of mischief in him. She turned back to her mother. ‘Mama, do you need any help in the kitchen?”

Lauriana was still staring daggers at the Fey for weaving magic in her house. At Ellie’s question, she gave them one last frowning glare and turned away. ‘No. Just have the girls clean up this mess. You need to look through those pattern books and make some decisions about what you want. Maestra Binchi said she’ll send a lad round tonight to pick up your selection so they can cut the fabric for your wedding gown tonight and do the first fitting tomorrow morning. The other three dressmakers have asked for the same thing.’ Which explained all the pattern books and fabric swatches Love had scattered everywhere. ‘And Lady Marissya sent a note saying that you and the Feyreisen are expected at the palace for dinner on Kingsday night. She’s already selected a gown for you, and it’s being made, along with everything else you’ll need to wear.’ Lauriana disappeared through the kitchen door.

Dinner? At the palace? Three days from now? Ellie stared up at Rain in dismay.

‘Peace, shei’tani. We do not have to go.”

‘Oh, and one more thing,’ Lauriana said, popping back out of the kitchen. ‘Lady Marissya says you have to go. Something about upholding Fey honor and family ties.’

‘Where is Marissya’s note?’ Rain asked. Lauriana gestured to a small table by the front door and disappeared back into the kitchen. Rain crossed to the table in four long strides, read Marissya’s note, then crumpled it in his hand, glowering. The note burst into flames.

On Kieran’s shoulder, Love hissed and arched her back. Kieran gave his king a reproachful look, then set about soothing his magic-ruffled pet.

‘It appears we do have to go,’ Ellie said. She swallowed her trepidation and smiled bravely. ‘I’ll try not to embarrass you with my poor social graces.”

Rain frowned at her. ‘You bring pride to this Fey,’ he replied. ‘Never believe otherwise.’ He shook his head. ‘There is an attempt in the Celierian Council to reopen the Eld borders. I have urged Dorian not to do so, but there is opposition in the Council of Lords. He is holding this dinner in our honor in order that he and I might present a united front against those who oppose him. Marissya has sworn a Fey oath guaranteeing that you and I will be there. That makes it impossible for us not to go. But even without Marissya’s oath, if Dorian asks for my help to keep the Eld out of Celieria, then I must give it.”

‘According to the papers, the Elden ambassador just wants to open trade between our countries again,’ Ellie said. ‘That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”

‘It is never ‘just’ trade with the Eld.”

‘How can you be sure?”

‘Because I know the Eld. Because I sense the darkness. The serpent is there, waiting in the grass. It has been coiled so quietly for so long, Celierians have forgotten it. Even among the Fey, there are those who have forgotten how quickly the serpent can strike, how insidious and lethal is its venom. They think we can walk the path and not be bitten.”

‘But you don’t think so.”

‘I am unwilling to take the chance.’ His face was grim, his eyes shadowed. ‘I have seen what Elden Mages can do to a Fey. I hope never to see it again.”

Ellie remembered the torment Rain had shared with her in the museum that first night. She never again wanted to witness—even secondhand—anything remotely like the horrors he had experienced in the Wars.

‘Then of course we must go,’ she said, forcing down her own curl of dread. She’d met a number of Celierian nobles when assisting her father, and for every one she’d thought was kind, she’d met ten more who weren’t. She had no illusions about the kind of reception she would receive from them. ‘Perhaps we won’t have to stay long?”

‘Longer than I would like,’ he grumbled. ‘Celieria’s noble families are full of dark-souled creatures. I have never been able to abide them.”

‘Well, let’s worry about tomorrow when it comes,’ she declared, pushing aside her useless fears. ‘For now, we have a mess to clean up.’ She bent to gather up the pattern books and all their torn pages.

The sensation came without warning, like deadly ice spiders crawling up her spine. Every hair on Ellie’s body stood on end. The pattern books spilled from her hands to the floor. She jerked up and instinctively grabbed hold of Rain’s arm, leaning into his strength and shivering.

‘Shei’tani?’ His concern was instant. ‘What is it?”

‘I—’ As suddenly as the feeling had come, it was gone. She exhaled. ‘Nothing.”

‘Ellysetta.’ His hands cupped her face, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Do not keep things from me. I am your mate. You must trust me. I can sense your fear, but not what caused it. Tell me what it was you felt.’ He was frowning, his black brows drawn together, his eyes intent and demanding.

‘It’s nothing. Just a ghost treading on my grave”

‘A ghost? A wandering soul?”

She laughed a little. ‘I didn’t mean that literally. It’s just an old Celierian saying for when something makes you frightened for no reason.”

‘Old sayings are usually grounded in old truths,’ Rain told her, still frowning. ‘Have you had such feelings before?”

‘On and off, ever since I was a child.’ She gave him a lopsided smile. ‘It’s one of the many little oddities about me that make me undesirable as a Celierian bride. The feelings never seem to mean anything in particular. They just scare me a little.’ But not nearly as much as those waking nightmares that left her sobbing in agony and terror just before a seizure. She forced a reassuring smile to her face. ‘I’m fine. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Opening his Fey senses, Rain stretched the limits of his awareness, his mind filling with thousands of thoughts, mundane, mortal, many dark but none an obvious threat to the young woman by his side. In addition, he probed for the telltale reddish-black glow of Azrahn. He found nothing.

He glanced at Love, but the kitten was still purring on Kieran’s shoulder. Whatever the wandering soul was, it did not trigger fear in Love the way magic apparently did.

Because he could sense no danger, he nodded. ‘Very well, then. It must indeed have been nothing.’ But his instincts urged caution. He met Bel’s eyes. He didn’t need to say a word. Bel simply nodded. The Fey would be on their guard.

High Mage Vadim Maur dipped his quill in the inkpot beside him and recorded the details of his latest experiment on a piece of blank parchment. The waterclock on the wall of his office softly chimed the first silver bells of the evening. Even without the clock, he knew the sun had set over Eld. The tingle of magic in his flesh had strengthened, as it did every night when light retreated from the world. Azreisenahn, the dark magic of the Mages more commonly known as Azrahn, thrived in the night. The darker the sky, the greater his magic, and the more powerful the spells he could cast.

Next to the waterclock, a mechanical moonclock ticked slowly. The golden orb representing the Great Sun had disappeared, and the small globes representing the two moons had risen. Painted half white and half black, the globes had rotated on their slender brass rods to show the current moonphase. Unfortunately, both the Mother and Daughter had just waxed full, and his magic was at its lowest ebb of the year. Discovery of the girl—if she was indeed the one he’d been searching for so long—couldn’t have come at a worse time.

A knock sounded on his office door. ‘Enter,’ Vadim called. He looked up from his desk as his apprentice, the young but very powerful Mage Kolis Manza, entered. The younger man’s red robes swirled around him as he walked. About his waist, Kolis wore a scarlet sash embroidered with golden threads and decorated with numerous dark, shining jewels, each a commemoration of a great achievement. Kolis was a Sulimage, the Eld equivalent of a journeyman, and he was famous among the novitiates, apprentices, and his fellow Sulimages for his magical prowess. His current service in Celieria, coveted by even the most experienced, fully ranked Primages, was one of the many important tasks that Vadim had set before him over the years to complete his training.

‘Well?’ Vadim prompted.

Kolis bowed deep, his vivid blue-green eyes suitably unfathomable, though Vadim thought he detected a hint of excitement. ‘I’m almost certain it is she, Master,’ he replied, ‘the one that was lost. She was found abandoned twenty- three years ago in the forests of Norban. The Celierian who tried to wed her said there are rumors she is demon-cursed, and he claims to have seen her work magic. Healing, finding lost things, perhaps more.”

Anger curled in Vadim’s belly, and just as quickly was snuffed out. If his pets had deceived him, they would suffer for it … but first he must ascertain the depths of their deceit. After a thousand years of captivity and experimentation, they were fragile, close to succumbing to the catatonic death sleep that had claimed all but a few of their fellow captives. He would not risk destroying them without cause.

‘If her magic was substantial, I would have detected it before now. She must be powerful to be of use to me.’ His fingers drummed on the polished wood of his desktop. ‘Does it matter, Master? She is the Tairen Soul’s truemate. Isn’t that enough? Through her you can destroy him.”

‘No, Kolis. We’ve seen what this Tairen Soul will do when deprived of a mate. I’m not as big a fool as my predecessor was. We’ve made too much progress to risk that sort of destruction again without an extraordinary reason. She must have exceptional power, and I must have proof of it.’ His fingers stilled. His eyes flashed up. ‘Take your rest for a few bells. Rejuvenate yourself, then return to Celieria,’ he instructed. ‘Test her magic. A master’s strength in any of the six branches would be enough for me to risk the Tairen Soul’s wrath. And bring me back her blood. She hides too well. I need her blood to strengthen the seeking spell.”

‘But, Master, she is guarded round the clock.”

‘I trust your judgment, Kolis. You will find a way. Use that Eld girl you told me about and your other umagi.’ He held Kolis’s gaze steadily.

‘I will not fail you, Master.’ Kolis bowed again, deeply as befitting an apprentice to his master, as befitting any man before the greatest Mage of Eld.

Ellie was dreaming she was back in the park. Only this time, the girl who was pushed into the river wasn’t Kelissande, it was Ellysetta.

Mocking laughter rang out. A crowd had gathered at the river’s edge, all the tradesmen she’d met today, the king and the queen, the courtiers, even the Fey. They were laughing and pointing at Ellie as she dragged herself out of the river. Maestra Binchi howled and said, ‘What did I tell you? Sowlet ears.’ The Archbishop stood beside Ellie’s mother, and both of them pointed at her, shouting, ‘Demon-cursed!”

‘Did you really think he would ever choose you?’ Sariel stood with Rain at her side, one hand clutching his arm possessively. ‘He’s mine, and he always will be.’ Sariel’s midnight hair lightened, turning golden blond. Her face changed, too, and then it was Kelissande who stood at Rain’s side, sneering, ‘Ellie Lack Grace.’ Ellie stared at the hand on Rain’s arm, and a terrible fury bloomed in her heart. She struck out wildly, raking her fingers across Kelissande’s face, but her hands had become talons. Kelissande’s perfect skin shredded. Blood soaked Ellie’s clawed, hideous hands. She screamed and screamed. Fey leapt towards her, blades bared and deadly. Power flamed in Rain’s eyes and shot from his fingertips as he cried, ‘Demon cursed! Servant of the Dark Lord!”

A cold, howling wind swept over her, a maelstrom of darkness that ripped her away and left her alone and shivering in a cold, dead world of shadows. Her own weeping was the only sound in the emptiness. And when that died away, she heard the familiar hissing, malevolent whisper. ‘Girl … you cannot hide forever. Your true nature will reveal itself eventually.’

Rain stood on the palace rooftop, breathing in the still-warm night air and absorbing the scents and sounds of the city. Eyes closed, senses flowing out on every path, he searched as he had all evening for traces of the ‘wandering soul’ that had attacked Ellysetta. He found darkness and evil, but nothing more sinister than that which existed in every mortal city.

Horse hooves and steel-rimmed carriage wheels clattered on the cobbles below. He released his weaves and glanced down to watch a noble family alight. Throughout the day, the nobles from the outlying estates had been arriving for Prince Dorian’s betrothal celebrations and the biannual convening of the Council of Lords. By this time tomorrow every room in the palace would be full, every grand residence in the city buzzing with activity, and soon the heads of those noble houses would decide the fate of their country.

Too many, he feared, had forgotten the harsh lessons of the past and the sacrifices of their ancestors. Mortals always did. Rain had not. He remembered Dorian I and Marikah vol Serranis Torreval and the abrupt, shocking brutality of their deaths. He remembered Dorian II and his courage as he led his country through bitter, bloody years of war. He remembered the staggering price that Fey, Celierians, Elves, and Danae alike had paid to live free of Eld corruptions and the domination of the Mages.

Just the thought of Celieria’s lords contemplating friendship with their northern neighbor made the tairen scream in fury and Rain’s hands itch to bare lethal Fey steel. Free men could never hope to live in peace with the Eld as long as a single Mage held power. Every fool who had ever tried doomed himself and his children to be soul-bound by the Mages and enslaved in the service of Seledorn, God of Shadows. Why was it so impossible for mortals to remember that? Had they become so soft, so certain that peace and freedom were gods- given rights rather than hard-won gifts, that they could no longer recognize evil when it stood on their doorstep?

‘Mortal lives are short,’ Marissya had reminded him earlier. ‘The ones who remember as we do are dead and gone centuries ago.”

‘And these newer generations cannot read?’ he’d countered bitterly. ‘The suffering of our friends and our people during the Mage Wars was well documented—specifically so such evil would never be forgotten. And yet it has been.”

‘You must have patience, Rain,’ she’d counseled. ‘Except for my one visit each year, men have lived with little in the way of immortal guidance for centuries. The Elves have kept to their mountains and forests, the Danae to their marshes and groves, and we have sequestered ourselves behind the Faering Mists. You cannot expect the mortals to accept everything we say without question. They never did even when we lived among them.”

‘And I never liked them then, either.”

She’d sighed and shaken her head. ‘It’s best you keep that truth to yourself. If we’re to have any hope of keeping the borders closed, we must be patient and diplomatic—and tactful. Even when we would rather do otherwise.”

Rain hadn’t been fooled. She’d said ‘we’ but she’d meant him. Unfortunately for Celieria, patience, diplomacy, and tact were traits he’d never possessed. He’d always been too quick to anger, too impatient with the shortcomings of others— mortals, in particular. And those traits had only grown worse since the Wars.

Rainier vel’En Daris, the young Tairen Soul, had lost countless dear friends, his family, his mate, even his own sanity, to save Celieria once before. Rainier vel’En Daris Feyreisen, the Defender of the Fey, would not risk another drop of precious Fey blood to protect ungrateful fools who willfully blinded themselves to the truths and wisdom of the past.

And he would scorch the world ten times over before exposing Ellysetta to the evil of Elden Mages.

Feeling a sudden need to be at his truemate’s side, Rain leapt into the sky and winged west, towards the humbler homes of Celieria’s artisans and craftsmasters. The Fey guarding the Baristani home saw him coming and opened their protective weaves to let him pass. He Changed with fluid ease, streaming through Ellysetta’s bedroom window and regaining Fey form at her bedside, wrapped in Spirit weaves to hide his presence from mortal eyes.

She was sleeping, but not peacefully. Her head thrashed on the pillow, and her breath caught on a sob of fear that roused his every protective instinct. He flung out his senses, testing all the magical and sorcerous routes he knew, but once again he found nothing. The source of her distress, whatever it was, lay beyond the detection of his Fey senses.

He slipped into the narrow bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Las, shei’tani. Do not fear. I am here.’ She turned towards him, burying her face in the hollow of his throat, and her tense muscles started to relax. In sleep, she trusted him as a shei’tani should.

He breathed in the flowery scent of her bright hair and closed his eyes. For the remaining bells of the night, he lay there holding her in his arms. The tairen in him lay quietly, still there, still hungry for its mate, but content to bide its time, at least for this night.

Ellysetta’s nightmares did not return, and Rain filled her sleeping ears with whispered words, things a man only said to his mate. Some of the words made her moan a little, others made her smile. And when he finally left her just before the dawn, her fingers clung to him and she gave a little cry of protest in her sleep as he slipped away.