Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Aiyah. The warriors found her unconscious and trapped beneath a fallen tree, but once they were able to free her and revive her, she was able to heal herself. She’s running with them now to catch the others up.”

  Ellysetta watched him closely. “You don’t look happy at the news.”

  “I’m happy she’s alive—especially as that gives me the chance to wring her neck when I see her again.” His lips compressed in a thin line, and a hint of anger lit his eyes. “She admitted to me she’d seen her death. The night you came to our village, she told me she’d had a vision of me escorting you both out of the Verlaine, but that was a lie. The only vision she saw was of her own death, and she sent me away with you because she didn’t want me to die trying to protect her from a death she knew couldn’t be stopped.”

  “But she’s alive,” Ellysetta pointed out. “So clearly her vision was wrong.”

  “Her visions are never wrong. She was supposed to die, just as she saw.” Farel straightened and met her gaze full on. “But you changed that. You gave her a gift—a sorreisu’kiyr pendant. It stopped the arrow meant for her heart. You changed her fate, Feyreisa. You saved her life, in a way no one but the gods could have done, and for that I owe you a debt I can never repay.”

  “I will not hear any more talk of debts owed,” Ellysetta said. “You saved our lives. Any possible debt has already been paid in kind.”

  “Nei, we rescued you from Eld for Gaelen, for all the times he sacrificed for us. My debt to you still stands.” He shifted his gaze to Rain. “I have spoken with the dahl’reisen and told them how your mate saved Sheyl. Many of them have been thinking about Varian and the others. About how like Fey they looked when they left. They died with joy—and with more honor than a dahl’reisen has a right to expect.”

  “They died with the honor of a lu’tan,” Rain corrected. “No matter what Dark choices they may have made in the past, today they chose sheisan’dahlein.”

  Farel’s fingers plucked one of his Fey’cha from its sheath, and he bent his head to polish a nonexistent spot on the gleaming steel. “We are also prepared to die for the Feyreisa today, but we want…” He broke off, cleared his throat, and rephrased. “That is to say, my brothers and I would humbly ask…”

  Rain cut him off. “You wish to bloodswear yourselves to Ellysetta.”

  The dahl’reisen leader looked up, making a visible effort to meet and hold Rain’s gaze. “I know that you have no reason to offer us a salvation we do not deserve… and in all honesty, I must tell you we intend to weave Azrahn in her defense.”

  “Aiyah.”

  Farel continued in a rush. “Six-fold weaves are much more effective than five, and we could do more to defend her with them if we were free to weave Azrahn without fear of Mage Marks.”

  “Aiyah.”

  “Bloodsworn to a shei’dalin as bright as the Feyreisa, we might even—” Farel broke off, blinking in shock at Rain’s swift, unequivocal assent. “Aiyah? You mean… you agree?”

  “Aiyah.” Rain covered Ellysetta’s hand with his and threaded his fingers through hers. “I agree it is the best solution.”

  “I—” Farel’s mouth opened and closed. “Just like that?”

  Rain gave a weary smile. “Just like that.”

  The last few bells, with the torment of the dahl’reisen and the foul presence of the Mharog beating at Ellysetta, forcing her to divert more of her energy to shield herself, he’d begun to feel the effects of the bond madness more strongly. His thoughts were becoming cloudy and confused. Rage simmered just below the paper-thin surface of his control, and he knew that open battle with Mages and Mharog would quickly shred what semblance of sanity he still retained. When that happened, Ellysetta would need as many protectors as she could get—including ones willing and able to slay him.

  Even if he did survive this battle, he had no illusions about surviving the war. Without him, all hope of erasing Ellysetta’s Mage Marks through shei’tanitsa would be lost, and the Massan would never let her return to the Fading Lands. These dahl’reisen, so unafraid of spinning Azrahn, were no strangers to protecting those Marked by the Mages. Perhaps, after his death, they would be able to find a way to free her of her Marks as he had not.

  It was a risk. A scorching triple tairen-sized risk. If Ellysetta did fall to the Dark, a bloodsworn army of dahl’reisen would make her even more dangerous. But, then, Hawks-heart had already said if Ellysetta fell to the Dark, all Light in the world would fall with her. Whether she went with the dahl’reisen at her side or without them, the end result would be the same.

  “Gather your men. She will not bless them—I don’t think either of us could survive her blessing four hundred dahl’reisen—but they can swear their bonds, and I will stand witness.”

  “I—” Farel closed his gaping mouth and snapped into a deep bow. “Beylah vo, Feyreisen. For my men and I, I thank you.” Farel started to leave, then turned back. “I almost forgot. Sheyl gave me a message for you, Feyreisa. She had another vision while she lay trapped beneath that tree. A vision about you. She said to tell you that when all seems lost, let love, not fear, be your guide.”

  Ellysetta looked surprised. “Hawksheart said almost the exact same thing to me when we were leaving Navahele.”

  “I would say it was coincidence,” Rain answered, frowning, “but when it comes to Elves and their portents, there’s no such thing.”

  “At least the message sounds more hopeful than ominous,” Farel said. “I hope it serves you well.” And with that, he gave a final bow and strode away to gather his men.

  The bloodswearing went quickly. With the enemy approaching, there was no time for pomp or ceremony. The dahl’reisen knelt in groups, and in unison each group of warriors swore on their life’s blood and black Fey’cha steel to protect and defend Ellysetta Feyreisa in this life and the death that followed. Farel was among the last to pledge his bond.

  When they were done, the pile of steel at Ellysetta’s feet was too large to even contemplate weaving into her leathers. Instead, dahl’reisen Earth masters gathered and spun her leathers and bloodsworn blades into a gleaming, more feminine steel replica of Rain’s golden armor, complete with its own full complement of blades and a scarlet-plumed helm.

  The dahl’reisen formed a circular Wall of Steel twelve dahl’reisen deep around Rain and Ellysetta. Earth magic pulsed with sudden energy, and black leathers flashed to vivid scarlet, emblazoned with a golden tairen rampant with green eyes. The shout rang up from hundreds of dahl’reisen throats, a joyful, defiant cry: “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa!“

  And they began to sing.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  What will emerge from this paused emptiness?

  What emotions will spark? Which hopes ignite

  And burst like fire weaves from nothingness

  A fierce blooming in the desperate night.

  Quick bursting light, souls reaching in the dark

  Where love can take form, unfurl wings, be born

  And burn like the stars, silver, spare and stark

  Or fail to fly, crash, lie bloody and torn

  Lie broken, forlorn, or take wing, fly free

  Explode in to life, with Tairen roar

  Rending the air. Rending her. Rending me.

  To leave us gasping, stunned, searching for more

  Forged, anvilled, hammered, tempered, together,

  True mated. Loved. Forever. Forever.

  Shei’tanitsa Sonnet, by Ellysetta Feyreisa

  Two bells and twenty hard-won miles later, the dahl’reisen were no longer singing. The grim battle for survival left little breath for anything beyond shallow gasps to fill straining lungs as magic and blades filled the air, and the forest Verlaine ripped apart at its roots.

  The Wall of Steel had lost many of its men, and the Brotherhood used the bodies of the fallen as cover for the living. The dahl’reisen forming the Wall rotated continuously. Every few chim
es, the outer layer of warriors moved back to the center of the ring to rest while the next row of brothers took their places on the outer line. As dahl’reisen died, the ring wall shrank in upon itself, always keeping twelve warriors deep.

  At the center of the Wall of Steel, protected by a dome formed from multiple dense, impenetrable thirty-six-fold weaves, Ellysetta healed what wounds she could with each rotation of the Wall. At her side, Rain performed all tasks that required laying hands on the dahl’reisen—digging shrapnel from wounds, setting bones, holding flesh together—leaving Ellysetta to spin her healing weaves. The pain of so many dahl’reisen, crowded so close, coupled with the bludgeoning evil of the Mharog, had long since overloaded Ellysetta’s senses. She was operating now in a numb fog. Healing whatever wound the dahl’reisen put before her, moving when they told her to move, collapsing to her knees when they told her to stop.

  Mage Fire pounded the dome with relentless fury until the sky overhead was a blue-white storm, but still—miraculously—those shields held.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  “Orest is taken, Most High. The generals await your command.” Primage Vargus bowed low.

  Vadim barely heard him. His attention was focused intently on the glowing map of Celieria where the myriad tiny white lights indicating clusters of chemar shone moved through the Verlaine Forest. He zoomed in, tracing the progress of Dur and the Mharog as they pursued the Tairen Soul and his mate. Regrettably, the attack on the dahl’reisen village had been routed several bells ago.

  “Master Maur?” Vargus prompted.

  The High Mage held up a hand for silence as he scrolled the view north, illuminating the bright collection of light now sparkling in the Celierian city of Orest, and farther north to Crystal Lake and the abandoned Fey city of Dunelan, where a few bright dots were slowly making their way around the lake. Finally, he scrolled the map west, across the dark, unlit countryside of northern Fading Lands, the Feyls, and the southern reaches of the Pale, where another four pinpoints of light had nearly reached the thinnest stretch of the Feyls due north of Dharsa.

  Everything would soon be in place. He waved, and the glowing tracker map winked out.

  “Tell them to secure the city and prepare for the next phase of our attack.”

  Celieria ~ Verlaine Forest

  “Enough with this… siege,” Azurel hissed to the Primage Dur. “We’re no closer to capturing the Tairen Soul’s mate than we were two bells ago. Time for new tactics.”

  Dur scowled. “And just what do you propose? We’ve tried everything we can to get through those shields. Nothing has worked!”

  “There is a saying in the Fading Lands… sometimes it’s better to send a mouse than a tairen.”

  Dur rolled his eyes. “In plain Elden, if you please.”

  “We don’t need to get through their shields. Only this does.” He held up a sel’dor-tipped arrow that he’d modified to hold a chemar in its shaft. “Surely we can weaken their shields enough to get a single arrow through.”

  Dur arched a brow. “How good is your aim?”

  Within a few chimes, the Primages ramped up their bombardment of the Fey shields, pummeling them mercilessly, while six of the Mages combined their powers and focused a bombardment of highly concentrated Mage Fire on a single handspan of the Fey shield.

  It took a while, but the small area thinned. And when it did, Azurel and his companions let fly.

  One of the arrows broke upon the already-regenerating shields, but two of the sel’dor-tipped missiles sliced through, into the center of the protective dome.

  Ellysetta’s legs went weak as the all-too-familiar sensation of ice spiders shuddered up her spine.

  “Rain!” she cried, falling to one knee. “Portal!”

  Rain spun, red Fey’cha in his hands. His eyes flamed tairen-bright, pupils disappearing as his beast rose in response to the threat to his mate. Three Mharog leapt out of the portal and dove towards Rain.

  “Fey! Ti’Feyreisa! Ti’Feyreisen!“

  In desperation, Ellysetta tore one of the bloodsworn blades from her belts, slicing her palm deep. Blood welled in a swift, scarlet flow, and she smeared it over the shining surface of her bloodsworn-steel-forged armor to summon her lu’tan.

  “Kem’lu’tan! Ku’vallar! Ku’vallar!” Help me!

  A second portal opened behind her. She only had the briefest warning before an icy hand closed around her wrist.

  “Neiiii!” The shriek of terror and denial ripped from her throat as a Mharog’s black blade with its red Fey’cha hilt slammed into the side of Rain’s neck.

  Rain’s vision clouded, and his red Fey’cha fell from abruptly nerveless fingers as the combination of tairen venom and the corruption of the Mharog’s poison blade spread through him. His legs folded, and he dropped heavily to his knees. One hand reached for the hilt of the blade protruding from his neck, then fell away as he toppled to the ground.

  He lay on his side, struggling for breath and watching helplessly as Ellysetta shrieked in a Primage’s grip and fought his efforts to drag her into the Well. Rough hands grabbed him by the neck and clawed fingers closed around his jaw, squeezing hard. The foul decay of a rotting soul poured into Rain’s mind. Festering memories of a once bright Fey life, destroyed by the deliberate betrayal of an unfeeling commander. Destroyed by him—by Rain.

  “She will die in torment, Tairen Soul,” an icy voice hissed. “Think of that as you burn forever in the Seventh Hell, and know that Maron vel Dunne has had his vengeance.”

  Rain looked into the hate-maddened eyes of the Mharog without the slightest flicker of recognition. His mouth formed the soundless question.

  Who?

  The Mharog’s face contorted and he gave a high-pitched shriek. Dark steel flashed as he yanked his meicha from its sheath and held it over Rain’s head like an executioner’s axe.

  Before the blade could descend, a Fey warrior surrounded entirely by a glow of golden light reached Ellysetta’s side. He slashed at the Mage with blades that gleamed like sunlight. The Primage staggered back away from Ellysetta, a look of shock on his face, bloody stumps where his hands had been and a ribbon of red slashed across his throat. Demons howled out of the Well, surrounding the Mage in a cyclone of shrieking shadow.

  Freed, Ellysetta lunged, Fey’cha drawn, towards the Mharog standing over Rain.

  Nei… nei, shei’tani. Do not! Rain tried to shout the warning, but none of the muscles in his throat were working. He couldn’t speak.

  Sensing Ellysetta’s presence, the Mharog turned, swift as a snake, but too late to save himself. Her blade plunged into the Mharog’s heart just as another blade, this one blazing like the sun, took off the creature’s head. The Mharog’s decapitated body remained standing for several, long moments, showering Ellysetta and Rain with a fountain of icy black blood. Then the legs collapsed, and the body toppled to the ground. Ellysetta crumpled, too.

  She was screaming as if her body were burning from the inside out, as if her skin was being ripped from her bones.

  The other two Mharog gave shocked grunts and crumpled to the ground. Someone knelt over Rain, bathing him in warm, golden light. A hand turned him on his side, reaching for the pouch at the back of his hip belt where he kept the cloth-wrapped Shadar horn gifted to him by Galad Hawks-heart.

  “You must live, Feyreisen,” a voice commanded.

  As Rain’s vision dimmed, and his breath strangled in his throat, he wanted to tell them not to bother. Ellysetta’s face was frozen in a rictus of pain, her eyes as dark as dead stars. The sight shattered his heart, leaving hope a dead thing in his breast.

  Shei’tani… shei’tani… nei…

  Death wasn’t peaceful.

  It was full of shouts and clanging steel, the roars of tairen, and searing heat like the fire of the gods… images flashing for barest instants before his eyes, lights, shadows, familiar faces, a whirl of trees and stars overhead… smells, like the aroma of a campfire burning in a chilly winter night and the
odor of something noxious that made him gag and retch.

  Hands held him down. Pinned him as he fought and Raged against them. He shouted obscenities, epithets, cursed them and their offspring to eternity burning in the Seventh Hell.

  Then silence fell over him like a heavy blanket, and death became a still, black sea into which he sank with an exhausted sigh.

  Celieria City ~ The Royal Palace

  As he had every night since receiving news of Prince Dorian’s demise, Kolis Manza slipped into the king’s bedchamber by way of the servant stairs that opened to the king’s dressing room.

  Master Maur was growing impatient to have Celieria firmly under Mage control. He’d sent a special envoy with an offer to end all hostilities if Annoura agreed to terminate the Fey-Celierian alliance and send what was left of her armies against the dahl’reisen, who had been hiding in the Verlaine Forest and using it as a base to attack Eld and murder Celierians along the border who opposed them. Despite a firm push or two from Kolis, Annoura had as yet refused to agree, and it now fell to Kolis to ensure she woke in a more malleable frame of mind.

  He stood in the darkened dressing chamber until he heard Annoura settle into bed, then waited for her breathing to assume the steady rhythm of sleep before he slipped into the room and padded silently across the floor to her side.

  He blew a puff of somulus powder in her face even though he doubted it was necessary. Annoura wanted to believe. She wanted to think Dorian had really returned to her, that it was truly he holding her in his arms each night, making love to her.

  He began to spin the Spirit weave of Dorian, returning to his love, but as he reached for the tie of her nightgown and sent the first, faint pulse of masked Azrahn into her body, he froze. His nostrils flared, and in a sudden motion, he snatched the wavy-edged sel’dor dagger from the sheath at his waist and plunged it into Annoura’s chest.

  The queen’s expression didn’t change, and her breathing continued uninterrupted. But the area of her chest around Kolis’s dagger spat small showers of lavender sparks.