Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  His eyes opened slightly. «Leave… me.»

  She reared back. Did he think her such a coward that she would save her own life at the expense of his? “I can’t leave you to die, Rain. I won’t.”

  «I distract… you flee.»

  “That’s not an option. The Fey and the tairen need you.” She stroked his face and stared urgently into his pain-dulled eyes. “I need you.”

  «You can survive… my death.» Bloody bubbles foamed at his nostrils. His lungs were filling. He was dying already, and they both knew it. «Run. Mages… cannot take you… »

  He meant it. She could feel his sincerity. He wanted her to leave him here to die. He thought she actually could.

  “Don’t be a ninnywit. I could never—ever—leave you, not for any reason.” She smoothed a hand down the soft, thick fur of his massive tairen jaw. “Whatever choices we make, we make together. Whatever fate, we face it together.” She blinked back tears and infused her voice with what she hoped was convincing sternness. “So, unless you want us both to be guests of the High Mage before nightfall, we need to get out of here. Now, can you Change?” The Eld would be here soon, and all chance for escape would be lost.

  «Nei. Too much sel’dor.» A cough shook his tairen’s body. His eyes closed, and for a moment she feared he was slipping away from her.

  “Then I’ll have to remove as much as possible so you can.”

  Several of the bolt shafts and arrows had sheared off during his crash, but quite a few still remained. They stuck out from his flesh like obscene quills. The bowcannon missiles ranged in size from spears the diameter of her arm to the two thick bolts as wide as tree trunks that protruded from his chest and rear leg.

  She stood up and took hold of one of the thinner spear shafts lodged in a foreleg.

  «Must push… not pull… spears barbed.»

  “I know.” She’d removed enough sel’dor arrows from wounded warriors to know what to expect. Of course, none of those warriors had been Rain.

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Steady, Ellysetta. You can do this. You must do this. She took hold of the spear shaft, planted her feet, pushed with all her might.

  The spear moved, slowly sliding deeper into Rain’s flesh with a squishing sound that made her stomach lurch. She tried to weave away what pain she could, but there was so much sel’dor in his body and hers that the attempt only injured them both. “Sieks’ta, shei’tan. Sieks’ta. Forgive me, I’m so sorry.”

  The spearhead gave a muffled screech as it scraped against bone. The sound jolted every nerve in her body, and Rain’s pain roared through her. Nausea rose sharply, dousing her with sudden clammy weakness. She spun away and lost her breakfast in the dirt.

  When she lifted her head a flash of movement caught her eye. The Eld had discovered the swath of broken and shattered trees in Rain’s crash path. Black-armored Elden soldiers were pouring from the woods two miles away.

  «Shei’tani… leave me…run.»

  “Don’t be a dimskull.” Ellysetta dragged her arm across the back of her mouth. Grimly, she grasped the spear shaft again, marshaled her strength, and shoved. The barbed spearhead broke past the bone and pierced the remaining layers of muscle and skin.

  Ellysetta opened her eyes, then swallowed thickly. The spearhead now jutted out from the front of his leg, just above his wing, a viciously sharp, ugly, black thing that bristled with broken barbs and glistened with Rain’s blood. She’d never seen anything so nakedly evil. Rage flared inside her. She grabbed the bloody spearhead and yanked it free.

  Rain coughed again, and the sound snapped her back into action. She hurried to the spear in his leg and had to climb up on top of him to inspect the wound. This bolt was not so deeply embedded as the one in his chest. She could see the misshapen bulge of it, just below the surface of his skin.

  «Rain, I think I can just cut this one out.»

  «Do it.»

  She yanked one of the black Fey’cha from the sheaths at her waist, then stared at it in surprise. What a fool she was not to have thought of this from the first. She dragged the sharp edge of Bel’s bloodsworn Fey’cha across her thumb. Blood welled from the cut, and she smeared it across the shining edge of Bel’s steel.

  «Ellysetta?» Instantly Bel’s voice sounded in her mind, faint but clear.

  «Bel! We need help. We’re in Eld. Rain’s been shot by bowcannon—he’s badly wounded.»

  «We’re coming. Be strong, kem’falla, and do whatever you must to stay alive.»

  “Bel and the lu’tan are coming, Rain.” But there was no way he or any of the Fey would reach them in time. She glanced over her shoulder. The Eld soldiers were closing the gap quickly.

  Rain gave a weak cough, and Ellysetta’s attention snapped back to him. They were running out of time. “Hold on, Rain,” she said. “This is going to hurt.”

  She positioned the knife at the entrance wound and dragged it towards her in one swift motion. His flesh parted, and without the thickness of Rain’s tairen hide to keep the weapon embedded in his leg, the heavy weight of the spear shaft pulled the buried head free. The spear fell into the dirt, leaving behind a gaping wound.

  She quickly attacked the remaining spearheads, pushing one through the tissue of his leg and cutting out the others, until only the massive bolt buried in his chest, near his right foreleg, remained. “I can’t get this last one, Rain. It’s too large and buried too deep. I can’t push it free.”

  «I’ll have to drive it out myself. Step back, shei’tani.» Rain struggled to his feet. A spasm of racking, fluid-filled coughs nearly felled him, but he managed to remain upright. He drew a shallow breath, summoned his strength, and drove his shoulder down, towards the ground. Pain exploded as the bottom of the spear slammed into the ground and the spearhead tore a path through muscle, sinew, and bone and pierced through the skin of his back.

  For one long, breathless moment, nothing existed but the blinding agony, but even that was a relief from the crippling mass of sel’dor. He rose to his feet and rubbed against a nearby tree until the barbed spearhead caught and he could pull himself free of the bolt’s thick shaft. He shook himself as if he could shake off the pain like water clinging to his fur.

  “Some of the barbs have broken off inside you,” Ellysetta said.

  «I know.» The dark metal’s presence was impossible to miss, burning like acid within his Fey flesh. Rain cast a grim eye at the approaching Eld. He couldn’t fly in his current condition, and even if he could, the Eld and their bowcannon would be waiting for him.

  He and Ellysetta were vastly outnumbered. They must run and hide, which they could not do while he remained tairen.

  «I need your strength to help me Change. It will be painful, and I will not be able to shield you from it.» All of his energy would have to be directed to completing the Change while the sel’dor shrapnel turned his own magic against him.

  “Rain, stop talking. Do what you must. I’ll be fine.”

  Pride surged through him. She was so fierce. She had become a warrior of the Fey… nei, a Tairen Soul, strong and brave.

  «Ke vo san, kem’san.» He nuzzled her gently, rubbing his face against her, then stepped back.

  He drew within himself, marshaling his strength and focusing his energies inward. The sel’dor was there, a distracting, discordant energy, but he did his best to block it.

  He had Changed when riddled with sel’dor barbs before, as had all of the Feyreisen during the Mage Wars. Most had survived. Some had not. When he Changed, the sel’dor would not Change with him. It would remain in his flesh, at its current size and general location, but hopefully not piercing any vital organs.

  He summoned his magic.

  Instead of the usual, intense pleasure of the Change, the sel’dor twisted the sensations. His nerves registered the horrible agony of flesh tearing from bones and liquefying, skin splitting and burning, magic simultaneously crushing him and tearing him apart. Beside him, Ellysetta shrieked and fell to her
knees in pain, and her torment nearly drove his tairen to madness.

  He held the weave and fed it power, forcing his magic into the familiar lines it now rebelled against. The webs of his magic bucked and writhed, fighting their natural paths.

  For one desperate, frightening moment, he thought he would fail, that he would die, and Ellysetta would be left alone and unprotected to face the approaching Eld.

  But even as that unimaginable horror seized his mind, she crawled across the ground on her knees and reached a shaking hand out towards the wildly undulating cloud of gray mist swirling around him. She touched the mist. The bright strength of her power poured through him. He grasped her offering gratefully, weaving her strength to his own dwindling supply. She was there with him, in his consciousness, every thread of their nearly completed bond vibrating with harmonic energies. She was a bright, shining presence in his soul, a vast and endless warmth, stealing his fear and transforming it into confidence and strength enough to force the unruly weaves to his command and complete the Change.

  The howling pain of sel’dor quieted. The tairen shrank, folding in upon itself, condensing, until once again it was the invisible sentience mingled inside his body with his own soul.

  Rain fell to his knees in the dirt, Fey once more and weak beyond belief, his body afire with the barbs of sel’dor buried in his flesh. The ones so large they now protruded from his flesh, he plucked out. The others he left where they were. He would not completely heal, nor regain his full strength until the sel’dor in his body was removed. Until then, working magic would be painful at best, which gave the Eld a powerful advantage.

  Breathing raggedly, Ellysetta knelt beside him and spun what healing she could as she grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry, Rain, I know you’re hurt, but we have to go. We have to go now.”

  “Aiyah.” He forced himself to rise and swayed dizzily on his feet. One hand reached out, weaving a Spirit illusion, nothing particularly intricate or strong, but hopefully enough to fool the approaching Eld and give Ellysetta and him a brief head start. “Run. That way.” He pointed to the east.

  The Eld would expect them to go south, towards the river and towards Celieria, but clearly one or more of the Border lords had either been overrun by the Eld or surrendered himself and his lands to their service.

  Rain didn’t know how much of the borders had been compromised, but he couldn’t afford a river crossing into enemy territory any more than he could afford to take wing here in Eld. They’d have to backtrack towards Lord Barrial’s land and cross the river at nightfall. The moons were both on the wane, and for once, he hoped darkness would be their ally.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  Melliandra lay on her thin pallet in the umagi den. The sconce lights were low, as they always were, emitting the barest of orange glows. Just enough for eyes accustomed to the dark to navigate the rows of sleeping racks that lined the room from floor to ceiling.

  Sleep, in Boura Fell, was a carefully rationed luxury… a brief respite in a lifetime of toil granted only because umagi couldn’t function without it. Each skrant was allowed only a few bells per day in a bunk shared in shifts by four other umagi. There were no days and nights in Boura Fell. Only work and sleeping. And punishment when you slept too much or worked too little.

  But even though sleeping bells were precious and few, Melliandra had been using most of hers to practice her newfound magic.

  Every spare moment of the workday, she now spent haunting the Mage Halls, watching the novices practice, listening to them talk amongst themselves, picking up every small scrap of information so she could teach herself to use her newfound abilities. And each sleep shift, she brought what she learned back to the quiet dark of the umagi dens to practice.

  She closed her eyes, letting the darkness envelop her. She could hear the breathing of the other umagi. The occasional cough and sniffle. The shifting of a body in its bunk. She tried to silence those small noises from her mind. From what she’d learned eavesdropping in the Mage Halls, all novice Mages learned to access their magic by first silencing their minds. It was only there, in the darkness and the silence, that a Mage and his magic first truly connected.

  Not that she wanted to be a Mage. She didn’t. But she needed to know what Mages knew, to better defend herself and Shia’s son against them. Most importantly, she needed to know how Mages wove their wards—and how they unwove them—because that talent was the key to all her plans. With it, she could enter Vadim Maur’s treasure room where Lord Death’s magic crystal and weapons were stored—and with it, she could gain access to the nursery where Shia’s son and the other valuable infants of the Mage’s breeding program were kept.

  Melliandra took deep, unhurried breaths, holding them, letting them out again in a slow, steady rhythm. She breathed in through her nose, held that breath for a count of five, then exhaled through her mouth to the same count. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Slowly, as the rhythm took over, her body began to relax, the world faded away.

  And there, in the darkness, she found the silence, perfect and absolute. She’d never known absolute silence until this week. It was peaceful. She’d never known that either.

  Her breathing continued, slow, steady, and in the silence, she initiated the next step all novices learned. Stretching out their senses, opening their minds to let magical receptors begin to absorb the subtleties of the world around them. In the Mage Halls, the novices had taken turns holding an object, with each novice trying to determine what the other was holding.

  “Don’t influence, just observe,” instructed one of the apprentices who’d come to help them. “Let your partner’s senses become your own. If you do it properly, he won’t even know you’re there.”

  Melliandra had been practicing that skill every waking bell these last days. What did that umagi have in his pocket? What was this umagi hiding in the corner? What secret savory had the kitchen mistress tucked away for herself today? She was getting very adept at peering into the brains of the umagi around her. Yesterday, she’d had a moment where she’d seen through the eyes of the kitchen mistress—which, she discovered, was a very disorienting practice when the kitchen mistress was walking one way down a hall, and Melliandra was walking the other.

  She’d even practiced on the two Mages who’d tried to get into Vadim Maur’s office that day last week. She’d heard them talking about the High Mage, about how they’d known the Mage whose body Vadim Maur now inhabited. They’d been talking about how that Mage—Nour—while strong, hadn’t been as strong as either of them. There were other Mages, like them, who were growing dissatisfied with Vadim Maur, concerned that he’d lost focus, that his war against Celieria and the Fey was more about some secret personal goal than the triumph and glory of Eld.

  It wasn’t until this morning, when she’d gone back to listen in on the novices practice again, that she’d heard the apprentice warning the novices not to get too bold with their attempts at eavesdropping.

  “Don’t try this on a Mage, greenies,” he’d warned. “Unless you’re more powerful than he is, he’s going to know you’re there, and he won’t be pleased.”

  And yet she’d tried it on those two Mages—the ones who claimed they were more powerful than the High Mage was now—and neither of them had detected her presence. Just to be sure her success was no fluke, she’d eavesdropped on several other Mages throughout the course of the workday. Not one of them had noticed her in their minds.

  Her success gave her courage. And this time, as Melliandra stretched out her senses, she directed them in search of a specific mind, a specific pair of eyes. It was, surprisingly, much easier than she expected, perhaps because the cool, dark path to that mind already existed inside her, forged when she was very young.

  In the silence of her mind, unnoticed by her host, Melliandra looked out through the eyes of Vadim Maur.

  The Faering Mists

  Kieran knelt beside Lillis’s body and prayed while the shei’dalins wo
rked frantically to save her. Behind him, Lorelle clung to her father and Kiel with desperate fear.

  The shei’dalins, surrounded by a thinner mist and a golden light, had been the first of the lost party Kieran and Kiel located. Both of the women had already healed each other’s wounds from the falling mountain, and rather than heading off blindly into the Mists, they’d decided to wait and send questing calls of Spirit out in every direction. Kiel had stumbled across one of those Spirit threads, and the two of them followed it to its origin. Together, the four Fey began combing the rubble in search of the Baristani family.

  Many bells later, they found Lorelle and Sol, both completed covered by a fall of rocks that hid them from view. How they’d found them, Kieran wasn’t entirely sure, but he’d followed a sudden feeling that had taken him off in the right direction. Lorelle and Sol were both barely alive—hardly more than a few heartbeats from death, actually—and as the shei’dalins healed them, they said that someone or something in the Mists had been holding them to the Light.

  It was by tracking the flickering remnants of that Light and the growing sense of urgency pulling at him like a lodestone that Kieran had found Lillis, buried under a pile of rubble, her body shattered, dying. She had been the one holding her family to the Light.

  There was hardly a bone in her body left unbroken, hardly a fingerspan of skin not horribly bruised and scratched. A large tree limb had impaled her left leg. Sharp rocks had all but sliced off her right arm. Her back was broken in three places.

  There was no reason she should still be alive at all—especially after feeding so much of her strength to her sister and father. And yet she was.

  The shei’dalins couldn’t explain how she had survived, and Kieran didn’t care to try. He only cared that she was alive, and the shei’dalins were here to heal her, and he was with her. Nothing else mattered.