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

Sing and dance the razor’s edge, men.

Weave your magic fierce and strong.

Let your steel drink deep of blood, Fey.

Loose the tairen in your souls.

—Call to Battle, a Fey Warrior’s Song

As the night deepened over Norban, Wilmus Able, pubkeeper of the Hound and Boar, stood behind his bar, deftly drying the last of the day’s freshly washed shot glasses and humming the tune of an old Fey warrior’s song he’d learned as a boy.

‘Hmm hmm hm hmmm hmm…. loose the tairen in your souls. Yah!’ With a grin, he tossed several of the shot glasses in the air and began juggling them just like the Fey warriors he’d worshipped in boyhood used to juggle their razor-sharp blades. The glasses went up smoothly and stayed up as his hands remembered the long-ago rhythm.

Ah, Light! The visit by those two Fey today had stirred up a host of memories he’d all but lost. Hard times, but good ones. Some of the best days of his life. How could he have forgotten those years, his youthful love of the Fey? He added a fifth and sixth glass to the four already flying in great loops above his rapidly moving hands, and grinned proudly. ‘Eh, now, Wilmus, old man. You haven’t lost your touch.’ Deed you haven’t.”

Behind him, the hinges of the front door squeaked as someone entered the pub. Drat that Mary Betts, Wilmus thought with a spurt of irritation, embarrassed to be caught juggling. Useless girl never remembered to lock up after leaving. ‘Sorry,’ he called. He kept his eyes on the airborne glasses, catching the first four as they descended and setting them on the counter. ‘We’re closed.”

Silence answered. A draught of chill air swirled around him. He frowned in confusion as his breath fogged before him. Oddest damn thing. He caught the fifth shot glass out of the air and flicked a glance at the mirror hung over the bar. His face went white.

‘Light save me.’ The sixth glass dropped past his nerveless fingers and shattered on the floor at his feet.

Mother and Daughter moons rose over the treetops of Great- wood Forest. Their dual brightness illuminated Carthage Road so clearly, Sian and Torel didn’t need to rely on Fey vision as they loped down the rutted dirt track.

Somewhere in the miles of forest behind them, an unearthly scream ripped the night, then abruptly fell silent. Sian’s smooth stride faltered. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Lyrant,’ Torel said. ‘They scream like a dying man.’

‘You sure?’ Sian cast a cautious look around, pupils widening as he tried to pierce the darkness of the surrounding forest. ‘Sounded human to me.”

Torel rolled his eyes. ‘They scream like a dying human man.

I thought you said you weren’t afraid of the woods after dark.’

‘The woods didn’t flaming well scream, now, did they?’

‘You going to quiver at every twig snap?”

‘Get scorched”

Torel’s teeth flashed. ‘We’ve thirty miles to go, my blade brother. Race you?”

Sian grinned. ‘Beat you!’ He took off, long Fey legs sprinting rapidly, dust rising up in his tracks.

Torel swore and leapt after him. One day. One day he would stop falling for that.

Celierians did use too many forks.

Sitting in the place of honor beside King Dorian at the head table, Ellysetta stared at the intimidating collection of flatware surrounding her plate. There were at least ten forks of varying sizes and shapes to the left of her plate, plus six knives and four spoons on the right, and another selection of spoons, forks, and small knives spread in a decorative fan at the top of her plate. Six crystal goblets shimmered in the Fire-lit glow of the chandeliers. Three decoratively folded napkins in gold, silver, and Celierian blue stood sentry over a stack of four plates of graduating sizes, topped with a small cobalt and gold bowl.

Were the chefs actually intending to serve enough food to use each of the utensils, goblets, and dinnerware set out before her? Her stomach hurt at the mere thought of it.

She glanced to her right and watched Rain’s long, elegant fingers pluck his gold napkin from its place, unfold it, and lay it in his lap. Throughout the banquet hall, others were doing the same. She reached for her gold napkin, intending to follow suit.

‘And how are your wedding preparations going, Mistress Baristani?”

Ellie jumped and sent one of her goblets toppling. The crystal made a loud pinging noise as it rolled against the selection of small knives at the top of her place setting. Several heads lifted, dozens of eyes looked her way. She made a hurried grab for the fallen goblet, but Rain beat her to it, righting the glass and feathering a cool, reassuring touch across the back of her hand as he smoothly handed her the gold napkin.

‘You will address her as My Lady Feyreisa,’ the Tairen Soul corrected softly. ‘Or Lady Ellysetta.”

Bright flags of color spotted the pale cheeks of Lady Thea Trubol, senior lady-in-waiting to the queen, who sat directly across the table from Ellie. ‘My apologies, Lady Ellysetta.”

Ellysetta forced her nerves to calm before unfolding her napkin and draping it across her lap. ‘There is no need to apologize, my lady,’ she said. ‘And as far as the wedding plans, they are going as well as can be expected. My mother and Lady Marissya have done most of the real work, and the queen has been very generous in sending her craftsmasters to aid us.”

‘Weddings are exhausting events, are they not?’ Lord Barrial remarked. As an eligible widower, he’d been partnered with the equally eligible Lady Thea for dinner. ‘Having recently survived my daughter’s wedding, I can honestly say it required more strategic planning and careful execution than most sieges I’ve led.”

‘That explains my battle fatigue,’ Ellie answered without thinking, then bit her lip. Had that sounded ungracious? Luckily, both Lord Barrial and the king thought she’d been joking and laughed with good humor. A servant appeared at her elbow and poured pale blue chilled wine in one of her six goblets.

‘Celierian pinalle,’ King Dorian informed her. ‘Have you ever tasted it?”

‘No, Your Majesty.’ She’d never had anything stronger than the much-watered red demi-wine served at weddings and funerals in the West End.

The king smiled. ‘It has quite a heady kick, so sip it slowly”

Nodding, hoping to calm her nerves, Ellie reached for the goblet and took an experimental sip. The pinalle was lovely: refreshingly cool, sweet and tangy. Following the iced chill and the fruity sweetness came surprising warmth, the heady kick King Dorian had mentioned. Her roiling stomach relaxed. She took another sip. ‘It is very good, Your Majesty’ she murmured, because the king was still looking at her as if he expected her to say something. ‘Thank you.’ After a third sip, she put the goblet down.

‘The queen tells me your father is quite a brilliant craftsman. Woodworking, I believe?”

‘Yes, sire,’ she managed to reply. ‘He’s a Master woodcarver.’ She couldn’t believe the king of Celieria was sitting beside her, shining like the sun, asking after her father’s abilities. It was with a surreal sense of disbelief that Ellie noted King Dorian had warm, thickly lashed hazel eyes, and a pleasant smile that showed a slightly crowded set of white teeth.

After a moment of silence, the king prompted, ‘My queen has commissioned a piece from your father, I believe.”

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ Manners, Ellie. Remember your manners. ‘We were very honored to receive her request.’ She reached for the pinalle and took a quick gulp.

‘Will you be remaining in Celieria long after your wedding, Lady Ellysetta?’ That question came from Lady Thea. Ellie turned her head quickly, eager to escape conversation with the king before she made a fool of herself.

‘The Fey depart after the prince’s betrothal,’ Rain answered before Ellie had the chance.

Lady Thea smiled at Ellysetta. ‘I envy you. Legend has it the Fading Lands are a paradise beyond compare.”

‘I am looking forward to it,’ Ellie admitted. ‘I can’t wait to see Dharsa and Fey’Bahren and the ivory towers of Cresse and Tairen’s Bay on the southern coast where Fellana the Bright first met Sevander vel Jiolan.”

Rain gave her a look of surprise. ‘The legend of Fellana and Sevander is older than time. I would not have thought anyone in Celieria still remembered it.”

‘A small collection of Fey poetry survived the burning of the western libraries,’ Ellie replied. ‘The books are kept in the museum now, but the curator allowed me to make copies of them. ‘Feliana’s Tale’ was one of the poems in the books.”

‘Who is Fellana?’ Lady Thea asked.

‘According to the poem,’ Ellie answered, ‘Fellana was a female tairen who fell in love with a Fey king named Sevander. She wanted to live her life with him, so she asked a powerful Elden Mage to transform her into a Fey woman. He agreed, but only on the condition that Fellana would seal her tairen soul into a dark crystal and give it to him. She loved Sevander so much that she did as the Mage asked, and for several years, she and Sevander lived happily. They had a child together, a boy named Tevan.”

‘I take it their happiness didn’t last?’ Lady Thea prompted.

Ellie smiled. She wasn’t the only one who loved Fey tales, apparently. ‘No, it didn’t. What Fellana didn’t know was that the Mage intended to use her tairen power to destroy Sevander and the Fey. With the crystal’s power to aid him, he gathered a vast army and invaded the Fading Lands.

‘When she discovered how she’d been tricked, Fellana and Sevander gathered their own army of Fey and tairen and confronted the Mage. They killed him in a terrible battle, but not before Fellana and Sevander were mortally wounded. On her deathbed Fellana gave her-son Tevan the dark crystal containing her soul so that the tairen part of her would be with him always. And when he put the crystal around his neck, he found he could transform into his mother’s true form. And Tevan, son of a Fey and a tairen, became the first Tairen Soul.”

‘So Tairen Souls only exist because of the Mages,’ Lord Morvel noted from Rain’s right.

‘The tale is a myth,’ Rain replied. ‘Spoken of only in very ancient Fey poetry written before the dawn of the First Age. But it is interesting to note that even then, in the time before memory, Elden Mages were an evil, corrupt lot seeking conquest over the Fey.”

‘Then it’s a good thing you destroyed all the Mages a thousand years ago,’ Queen Annoura replied coolly, ‘and that we’ve seen no sign of their revival since.”

Ellysetta saw Rain’s fingers tighten around the stem of his wineglass. She caught his other hand in hers. He sent her a disgruntled look, but held his silence.

‘Now we have only to worry about murderous dahl’reisen like the Dark Lord, Gaelen vel Serranis,’ Lady Thea agreed. ‘Though, of course, some say he’s a myth too.”

‘No.’ Beside her, Lord Barrial took a long gulp of pinalle. ‘The Dark Lord is no myth. He definitely still exists. And while I remain skeptical about his involvement in the recent troubles on the borders, I don’t doubt that many of the legends about him are true. A more deathly, frightening being I’ve yet to meet.’ He glanced at Marissya, who sat out of earshot at the far end of the head table, then looked at Rain. ‘No offense to the Fey, or to Lady Marissya”

‘I am well aware of what Celierians say about Gaelen vel Serranis,’ Rain said.

Ellie shivered. Although most believed that Marissya’s brother, Gaelen vel Serranis, had died in the Mage Wars, Celierian legend proclaimed that he—or his ghost—still roamed the borders, hunting for Eld and stealing the souls of the unwary.

‘You say you’ve met him?’ King Dorian inquired. ‘He’s still alive?”

‘Ta.’ Lord Barrial slipped into his native border dialect before remembering himself. ‘I mean, yes. He is alive, and I have met him. Twice, actually. Once when I was a lad of five, during the Elden raid that caused my parents’ deaths. Then again this year, just before my daughter wed diSebourne.”

‘What is he like?’ Lady Thea whispered.

Lord Barrial stared into the pale blue depths of his goblet for a few silent moments. ‘Cold,’ he replied at last. ‘When he’s near, the world grows cold and your breath mists before your face, as if his presence sucks all the warmth from the living. That’s the only sign that tells you he’s nearby. Other than that, you don’t see, sense, or hear him, unless he wants you to.”

‘Bah,’ Lord Morvel scoffed. ‘Nothing but nonsense and ghost stories, Barrial. Quit trying to scare the ladies”

Lord Barrial gave his fellow border lord a hard look. ‘You don’t believe, Morvel, because you don’t want to believe there’s a presence on the border greater than yours. But Gaelen vel Serranis is real.”

Morvel huffed. ‘Never once in all my years have I seen anything to make me believe that some soul-damned ghost warrior roams the borders in search of Eld prey. It’s a silly story made up by parents to keep their children from wandering too far from the safety of their own keeps.”

‘Morvel, I saw him gut the ten Elden raiders who had killed my parents and were about to kill me. I saw his face, his eyes a blue as pale and cold as glacier ice, and his dahl’reisen scar. Running from the center of his forehead, bisecting his right eyebrow, and ending here just below his right ear.’ Barrial’s hand traced the path of the scar on his own face. ‘It was the Dark Lord.”

‘You were in shock from seeing your parents killed. You saw what you wanted to see.”

‘And how do you explain the second appearance, three months ago when he appeared in my own gardens, the night of Talisa and Colum’s prenuptial dinner?’ Lord Barrial retorted. ‘It was definitely vel Serranis. He walked through the wards around my keep as if they weren’t there, and he was real enough to make even my dahl’reisen nervous.’ Lord Barrial leaned forward, his brown eyes narrowing. ‘Do you have any idea, Morvel, what it takes to make a dahl’reisen nervous?”

‘Bah,’ Lord Morvel snorted. ‘They’re probably in on it too—same as they’re probably behind all this killing that’s been going on. They can charge a much higher fee for their services by keeping Celierian fears alive.”

Ellie glanced at Rain. Did Lord Morvel not care who was sitting beside him? But Rain raised his goblet and drank a deep draught of pinalle as if the border lord’s insulting remark rolled right off him.

«The dahl’reisen are beyond the honor of the Fey, shei’tani.» he told her silently. They are capable of much that the warriors of the Fading Lands would find abhorrent.”

Despite his mild words, she could sense the curl of anger tightening within him. The men Morvel discussed so contemptuously were people Rain would have known, perhaps even loved. Dahl’reisen or not, she knew he did not like to hear them disparaged.

Lord Morvel continued in the same oblivious, insulting vein. ‘Your visitor was probably just another dahl’reisen cloaked in Spirit to make him look like vel Serranis, and the cold was probably caused by someone weaving Fire and Air.”

‘It was the Dark Lord, not some other dahl’reisen masquerading as him in order to bilk me of my gold. Flaming souls, Morvel, they’re Fey!’ Lord Barrial met Rain’s gaze briefly in an unspoken apology. ‘They can make their own damned gold if that’s what they’re after. And for your information, there are twenty-five dahl’reisen living on my lands, and I only pay the two who’ve been with my family for the last three centuries.”

Beside Ellie, Rain went still. She glanced at him in surprised inquiry.

«Twenty-five is no arbitrary number, Ellysetta. It is five sets of five, a combination capable of weaving vast power.”

She swallowed, sensing enough concern in him to know what he had left unsaid. If twenty-five dahl’reisen had come to Lord Barrial’s land, there was a reason for it. And if Gaelen vel Serranis was behind it, there was reason to fear.

‘It was the Dark Lord,’ Lord Barrial continued. ‘He told me darkness was rising and said I should guard my children and wear my crystal.’ He looked at Rain. ‘Those were his exact words: `Darkness is rising.’ He was warning me the Mages have returned to power.”

‘Ha. Sounds more like a warning to quit drinking so damn much pinalle. That’s what it was.”

Lord Barrial glared. ‘You’re a blind, hardheaded fool, Morvel.”

‘And you’re a superstitious idiot, Barrial.”

‘Peace, my lords,’ the king interrupted as servants approached with a cart bearing a huge soup tureen. ‘Our first course is served. Let’s not spoil the meal with harsh words.”

Ellie shifted in her seat as the servant leaned over her left shoulder to fill her soup bowl with a clear brown broth brimming with thin slices of mushrooms and onions.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, earning a startled look from the servant, who then glanced at the king, flushed, and whispered back, ‘You are most welcome, my lady.”

Beside her, Rain allowed the servant to fill his soup bowl, then selected the gold-handled soup spoon from the far left of his selection of cutlery. Ellie picked up the same spoon from her own place setting but waited for the king to begin eating before she did.

‘You employ dahl’reisen, my lord?’ Lady Thea asked Lord Barrial after everyone at their part of the table was served. She made a show of fluttering her long thick lashes, causing Ellie to blink in surprise. Weren’t noblewomen supposed to be adept at flirtation? Even Kelissande could teach Lady Thea a thing or two about subtlety. ‘With all that’s going on, do you think that’s wise?”

Lord Barrial frowned at his dinner mate. ‘Unlike some, I’m not convinced dahl’reisen are behind the murders in the north. As I said, they’ve served my family for generations, and there’s no record of their ever giving cause for concern. In fact, it used to be common for all border lords to employ dahl’reisen. They’re much better than wizards when it comes to countering the magic of the Eld.”

‘Useful or not, I think I’d be terrified to have so many dahl’reisen in such close proximity.’ The lady gave a delicate shiver.

‘Yes, well, that seems to be the common female sentiment. My daughter has never cared for them much, either.’ There was a cool finality to his tone that discouraged Lady Thea from continuing her flirtations.

‘Lord Barrial,’ Rain said quietly in the ensuing, slightly awkward silence, ‘after dinner I would like to hear more about your visit with Gaelen vel Serranis.”

‘It would be my pleasure, My Lord Feyreisen,’ Lord Barrial replied with a nod.

‘So, Lady Morvel’—Lady Thea cast a determined smile at Lord Morvel’s wife—’I understand you’re to be a grandmother again.”

‘Ta. Our oldest daughter is expecting her fifth,’ Lady Morvel answered, and a light exchange of pleasantries followed as they attended their meal.

Across the room, Kolis watched through Jiarine’s blue eyes as servants tended the royals, Fey, and Great Lords at the head table. He had tested the Fey numerous times tonight— sending Jiarine close to several of the warriors standing guard throughout the banquet hall—but despite the Tairen Soul’s apparent ability to sense the growing Mage presence in the north, neither he nor any of his Fey entourage seemed able to detect Kolis’s presence within his umagi’s delectable young body.

Now the wine was being served, and Annoura’s careful attention to the level of pinalle in the Feyreisa’s glass told him she’d taken Jiarine’s suggestion to heart. That would make things easier. The alcohol would lower Ellysetta Baristani’s defenses and leave her more susceptible to the influence of his pressure spell.

He reached Jiarine’s hand into the hidden pocket in her skirts, and closed her fingers around the small wax talis secreted there. The pads of her fingers stroked the wax, warming it slightly and brushing across the single strand of hair curled tight around the tiny magical charm. He wove the Feraz activation spell into her mind, directing her to whisper it beneath her breath and keep her focus on Ellysetta Baristani.

Sian and Torel left the Carthage Road and followed Wilmus Able’s directions down a narrow wagon road and into a small clearing where they found Brind Palwyn’s house just as Wilmus had described it. The house, a small but sturdy structure built of well-hewn logs and weathered shingles, sat in the middle of the clearing. Light shone golden from the windows and through the faintest of cracks at the bottom of the carefully fitted door. Smoke curled up from the stone chimney, carrying the scent of roasted meat. Someone was home.

As the two warriors approached the house, an arrow whooshed past, nearly spearing Sian’s ear. The Fey dove and rolled for cover, shields springing into place around them.

‘Peace, Goodman!’ Torel called as Sian scanned the forest for their attacker. ‘Put your weapons down! We mean no harm!”

«There, Torel,» Sian sent. «In those trees to the left»

Torel nodded as Sian shimmered and vanished. ‘We’re Fey warriors, not dahl’reisen. We’re looking for Brind Palwyn. Wilmus from the Boar and Hound in Norban sent us.’ He heard the twang of a bowstring and threw himself left just as another arrow sank quivering into the ground where he’d been. ‘Wilmus warned us you didn’t like strangers, Goodman, but he didn’t mention you were so fond of bloodshed. We only want to ask you a few questions.”

‘What could the Fey possibly want with a woodcutter?’ a disembodied voice called out from the shadows of the trees.

‘We were looking for news of a redheaded journeyman smith who might have passed through Norban many years ago, possibly traveling with his young daughter. Wilmus thought he might have done work for your parents.”

Half a dozen arrows came spewing out in rapid succession. Torel grunted in pain as one made it through his shields and caught him in the leg. He heard sounds of a skirmish in the woods, filled with curses and struggling. Moments later, a thin man clad in homespun and leather stumbled out of the darkness. Sian walked behind him, holding the man’s bow and quiver and prodding him with the pointy end of a curved meicha.

Torel yanked the arrow out of his leg and threw it on the ground, spinning quick Earth over the wound to stop the bleeding. He stood up to greet the mortal, a man with an unremarkable face, a shock of brown hair, and eyes filled with an all-too-familiar sorrow.

‘Brind Paldwyn? I am Torel vel Carlian. I take it you do indeed know something about a redheaded child in the forests north of Norban—say about twenty-four years ago?’

Ellysetta rubbed her aching temples. The headache from the other day was back, a slight but persistent pressure that grew stronger as the evening progressed. The footmen served course after course of rich food: shellfish on golden skewers, twelve fish, poultry, and meat dishes accompanied by a vast selection of grilled, sautéed, creamed, and casseroled vegetables, frozen sorbets to cleanse the palate between courses. Thankfully, Ellysetta worked her way through the staggering array of silverware without any noticeable gaffes.

Throughout the meal, her goblet of pinalle never seemed to fall below half full. The wine helped keep the headache at bay, and though she couldn’t tell how many glasses of the stuff she’d actually consumed, she had a good idea it was several more than she should have. When a servant offered her a cup of keflee, she accepted eagerly.

She poured in enough honeyed cream to chill it, then drank it down in several quick swallows, hoping to clear her head. Instead, the warm, sensuous blend of flavors— more potent than any she’d ever tasted—hit her system with the force of a blow. Heat rolled down her body in undulating waves. Rather than clearing her head, the keflee only clouded it all the more. Feeling boneless and dazed, she melted against the back of her chair.

Her eyelids drooped, and she regarded Rain through her lashes. He was, she thought hazily, the most beautiful man ever created, saved from prettiness by the strong masculine thrust of the bones beneath the luminous paleness of his unlined flesh. Saved also by the palpable aura of danger, power, and scarcely leashed wildness that surrounded him.

Inky black hair fell back from his smooth brow, spilling over broad, well-muscled shoulders in straight flows that seemed to merge with the coal-black shadows of his leathers. In the bright glow of Fire-lit chandeliers, his hair reflected a rich dark sheen, like the glimmer of nearly grainless ebonwood. She wanted to touch it, sink her hands into its silky softness. Her fingers flexed and tingled at the prospect.

Annoura hid a pleased smile as the woodcarver’s girl downed her keflee in a few quick gulps. This should be interesting. Let Dorian just try to win favors for the Fey after this. She sat back in her chair and laughed at a comment murmured in her ear by Lord Nin, the Great Lord sitting to her left.

A few moments later, satisfaction turned to worry as a heightening tension spread through Annoura’s body. Her skin grew warm. She reached for her fan, snapped it open, and began fanning her flushed face. What was happening? She’d avoided the keflee—and even if she hadn’t, she’d watched her steward serve the girl a special cup, one already poured and ready for her. All the other guests had been served a normal blend poured from silver kefleepots.

She glanced over at Dorian and saw him running a finger under his collar. Ruddy color had darkened his cheeks. Her womb clenched. She wanted to touch him. Right now. She wanted to crawl into his lap, run her hands through his hair, and rub her body against his.

Dorian turned his head. His hazel eyes were dark and glowed faintly as they did sometimes when his Fey blood rose. Moisture drenched her silk undergarments. Good gods, she was ready to climax just from a single hot look. What was happening?

Rain was speaking with Lord Barrial. Sighing to herself, Ellysetta watched the masculine beauty of his mouth form each word, each syllable. Like a kiss, she thought. His lips framed each word like a kiss. The steward had brought her another cup of keflee. She sipped this one, savoring the potent flavors and imagining she was instead sipping heady kisses from Rain’s lips.

Her gaze slid down his throat to the lean power of his dagger-bedecked chest, clothed in snug black leather. The leather, she knew, would be warm to the touch. And it would hold the aroma of magic and Rain. She remembered the feel of his leathers against her cheek, the hard press of his knives against her jaw and temple, the sound of his heartbeat in her ear, low and pounding, a thrumming, sensual beat that sang a magical weave of compelling desire. She watched in appreciative wonder as his spine stiffened and his chest expanded on a deep breath.

She stared hungrily at Rain’s arms, remembered them closing about her, wrapping her in alternating layers of protection, unyielding strength, and hot, carnal need. Beneath her gaze, his biceps bunched tight, straining against the seams of his leather tunic. His hands clenched and shook. She stared at them, willing the fingers to unbend and reach out for her, but they did not. With vague regret and growing hunger, her gaze trailed back up his chest, caressing the heavy beating pulse in his throat, whispering invisible dreams of kisses against his squared jaw and sumptuous mouth. At last, her eyes met his, and she found herself staring into the blazing heat of the Great Sun.

Kolis kept Jiarine chanting the Feraz spell in a voice so quiet not even the lord sitting next to her could hear it over the buzz of conversation that filled the banquet hall. Across the room, the Baristani girl had taken on a glow. The hint of light was so faint it would be undetectable to any non-magic-wielders in the room, but Jiarine Montevero had been born in the north. In addition to her many other useful talents, she possessed a fair command of Spirit. Enough, in any case, to recognize the unmistakable signature of the faint lavender flows spinning out from Ellysetta Baristani. He felt Jiarine’s body grow tense.

Spirit. The girl was weaving Spirit.

But what strength? The weaves seemed too fine and fragile. A minor command was not what the High Mage was looking for. Only a master’s strength would do.

He made Jiarine focus more energy into the talis spell, pushing the girl harder to see how strong that faint weave would become. A few chimes later, the glow around her grew brighter, the threads of her weave intensified, light shot out across heretofore invisible streams that had already blanketed the room from one corner to another without anyone being the wiser.

Only then did Kolis realize the weaves were already working on Jiarine, had been for longer than he knew. The clenching tightness that he’d mistaken for tension was her female body growing hot and aching with need.

A hand squeezed Jiarine’s thigh. Kolis looked down and followed the plump hand to the portly body of Lord Bevel. Perspiration gleamed on the man’s bald pate, and his thick lips glistened with saliva. He was leaning forward, breathing heavy hot breaths against the bare, plump tops of Jiarine’s breasts.

Kolis’s consciousness reeled back in disgust. Surely she wouldn’t. Jiarine appreciated her own value too well to hump a foul rultshart like Bevel.

But the Baristani girl’s weave was no slight suggestion, and Jiarine could not resist its dictates despite Kolis’s attempts to stop her. When Bevel’s fat tongue slid across her skin and dove down to curl around one diamond-hard nipple, she came in an ecstatic gush and reached hungrily for the thick bulge tenting the man’s trousers.

Sickened, Kolis fled Jiarine’s body and left her to her rutting. He had what he’d come for. Ellysetta Baristani was a master of Spirit, powerful enough to exceed even the High Mage’s lofty standards.

Ellysetta couldn’t look away from Rain’s burning eyes. She was distantly aware of the shrieking madness of the tairen. She was even more distantly aware that the room had fallen silent, the quiet broken only by the shallow gasps of hundreds of lungs desperately seeking air. She wanted to speak, but her tongue felt too thick, her throat too dry. Her mind was a whirl of feelings and incoherent thoughts, simple sentences stripped to their barest essence.

I want. I need. I ache. I burn.

«Burn with me. ”

And then Rain’s arms were around her, sweeping her out of her chair and against his chest, and air blew in a cooling rush against her hot skin as he sped up the stairs and out of the palace into the cool Celierian night. Her head fell back against his arm, her eyes drank in the star jeweled sky. The sky whooshed past in a dizzying rush. Rain was running, with her in his arms. Then they were home in the night- darkened front room of her house. She was reaching for Rain, trying to hold him, needing him, wanting … something. The ache was a terrible pain inside her. ‘Rain, please.”

His face was drawn tight, his eyes burning. ‘I can’t, shei’tani. If I thought I could give you what you need and still keep my oath, I would. But this is too much. Don’t ask it of me. I would break my honor. Forgive me.’ His mouth turned grim, his eyes went bleak. ‘And forgive me for this as well.’ He raised his hand. She watched without comprehension as magic gathered at his fingertips, then spun out to surround her. She fell, unconscious, in his arms.

He passed her gently into Ravel’s keeping. ‘Guard her,’ he bit out. ‘Keep her safe.’ He didn’t wait for Ravel’s answer. He simply stepped outside and leapt into the sky. The tairen’s roar rattled windows in panes across the city, and a fierce jet of flame lit up the darkness. He shot up into the icy ether and arrowed east through the night, away from the city.

Sian and Torel ran south through the forest, dazed and shaken by what they’d learned from the woodcutter Brind Paldwyn. They didn’t speak, didn’t look at each other. For a full bell at least, they just ran.

«We should call General vel Jelani, » Sian finally said, breaking their long silence. «He’ll want to know.»

Torel stopped so abruptly, Sian went pelting ten yards past. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll call him now. You’re stronger in Spirit than I. Do it. I’ll stand guard.”

Torel’s nerves were singing as Sian closed his eyes and summoned his power. If the information they now carried was true, it was beyond deadly.

Twenty miles back, in the hut Sian and Torel had left in such a hurry, long, pale fingers passed over the sightless eyes of Brind Palwyn, pulling the lids shut. A pale hand turned over, palm upward. Fingers curled as if cupping a ball. A shadowy spiral, glowing with red lights, rose up from the fingers. Black eyes flickering with red lights stared deep into the whirling spiral of Azrahn. Light and shadow flickered on the ridges of the scar running from the center of his forehead and through his eyebrow to just below his right ear. A moment later, the Azrahn weave dissolved, and the weaver’s eyes faded back to their normal piercing pale blue, colder than the glaciers beyond the Mandolay mountains to the far north, the elongated pupils narrowed to thin slits.

The crouching black figure rose to an imposing height and pointed one long finger, calling Fire. Brind Palwyn’s body burst into flames, searing, unnaturally hot flames that turned his body to ash in moments, yet never spread to the rest of the cabin.

Swift and agile as a deer, black-booted feet raced through the night-darkened forest, the footsteps soundless, as if they never touched ground.