Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  «Got them.»

  «All right. Then here’s what we’re going to do.» He sang her the images of what he had in mind in tairen speech.

  «Can you manage that?» «I think so. Let’s give it a try.»

  Rain put on a burst of speed and soared up, heading straight for Orest. A frenzy of bowcannon bolts launched from the ramparts, but he flamed the incoming, rolled and dived to avoid those that survived his flame and kept to his heading. On his back, Ellysetta flung out spinning weaves of Air and Fire to clear a path. As they crossed the walls of Lower Orest, Rain veered sharply left then wheeled around back to the right and came in nearly parallel to the mountains.

  On the ramparts of Upper Orest, the bowcannon were loaded, bowstrings cranked into firing position. Just before the sheer mountain cliff gave way to the stone ramparts of the upper city, Rain put on a burst of speed and said, «Now, shei’tani.»

  Ellysetta launched from his back in an Air-powered leap. She shot up into the air, her own forward motion and magic carrying her over the tops of the cannoneers and Mages gathered on the ramparts. Red Fey’cha spit from her fingertips in a hail of death. Below her, Rain engulfed the battery in a boiling jet of tairen flame, consuming cannon and cannoneers alike. He Changed into Mist at the last chime so the bolt that had been following him plowed into the open portal to the Well of Souls, taking half a dozen screaming Mages and Eld with it. He changed back into tairen form in time for Ellysetta to land securely in the saddle. His wings angled sharply and they shot up in a near vertical climb, soaring past the falls of Orest, leaving smoldering fires and corpses in their wake.

  They burst into the open sky over the Rhakis. In the distance, no longer hidden by the Mists, he could see the pass of Revan Oreth, where hundreds of thousands of revenants covered the canyon walls like insects.

  The Eld hadn’t brought bowcannon to the pass yet, so Rain took a few chimes to send a sea of boiling flame racing through the canyon. High pitched shrieks from burning revenants filled the air. Beyond the fire, Fey warriors cheered and raised their blades into the air. The echoing cries of “Miora felah, ti’Feyreisen! Miora felah, ti’Feyreisa!” followed him and Ellysetta as they banked around the column of steam rising from the first volcano of the Feyls and returned to the battlefield of Orest.

  They burst from the pass over Upper Orest and dove back into the missile-filled skies.

  «Rijonn, Tajik,» Rain called as he swooped down for another strafing run. «Gather the Earth and Fire masters. I have a plan.»

  The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa

  The sound of running and alarmed voices woke Lillis. That and a strange, icy cold that made shivers race down her spine. She sat up in bed, suddenly frightened. “Lorelle?” “Lorelle’s not here anymore.”

  A shadow lunged at her from the darkness. She opened her mouth to scream, but something stung her chest. Her head went dizzy and the world went black.

  Den Brodson threw Lillis over one thick shoulder and headed into the Well, following the Black Guard who was already carrying Lorelle back to Boura Fell.

  Behind him, before the portal to Lillis and Lorelle’s room closed, the first screams broke the peaceful silence of the night as the others who’d come with Den to Dharsa opened more portals and an army of Mages, dahl’reisen, and Eld rushed into the Shining City.

  Celieria ~ Orest

  Bel snarled and hammered the revenants with powerful weaves of magic, all the while wishing he were slicing them to oozy green bits instead. Fey were used to fighting without magic. The Eld’s fondness for sel’dor made certain of that. Warriors were far less accustomed to fighting without their steel. And despite the Elves’ warning, he had to struggle to keep from reaching for his.

  The foul stench of the revenants filled the air, making his eyes water and his stomach heave with each gagging breath. He was a master of all magics save Earth, which he could not weave at all, but his strength in all the other branches was exceptional. Even though his most powerful branch of magic, Spirit, was useless against these creatures, Bel was not.

  He reached deep into the source of his power, drew it up into his body until his cells burned and light crackled around him in a glowing nimbus. He wove the vibrant threads into thick, sizzling ropes of power—Spirit, Fire, Air, Water—and fed those ropes into massive hundred-twenty-five-fold weaves that he and his brothers slammed into the endless wall of revenants.

  The monstrous creatures shrieked their ear-splitting wails. Many of them dissolved, but more still came.

  «Well done, kem’jeto,» Gaelen complimented after a particularly fierce assault. Gil and Gaelen fought nearby, along with a grim-eyed Lord Barrial, who had enough Elf-blood in him to make use of the Light arrows he’d retrieved from fallen Elves, and enough Fey blood to spin a decent weave or two of his own.

  Tamsin Greywing was mounted on the back of a Shadar and firing Light arrows as fast as he could. No matter how many he fired, his quiver never ran dry. As Bel watched, a revenant leaped toward Greywing, but the Elf cried something in Elvish and his mount reared up to impale the flying revenant on its spiraling silver horn. The creature exploded, enveloping Greywing and the Shadar in a foul, but harmless cloud of black dust. The Elf coughed and spat, patted the Shadar’s shining neck in approval, then began firing off Light arrows again.

  To the northeast of Bel’s position, Azrahn surrounded Farel and his dahl’reisen in a shadowy cloud that glowed dark red in the night. Instead of twenty-five quintets spinning hundred-twenty-five fold weaves, thirty-six chamas—groups of six dahl’reisen spinning six-fold weaves—combined their power into massive two-hundred-sixteen fold weaves that pounded the revenants like steely fists.

  Where the Fey’s weave took out a dozen revenants in a single blow, the dahl’reisen’s weave dusted a full score. But even that was not enough. For each revenant they destroyed, four more erupted from the ground to take its place.

  Fey weaves and Elvish arrows set the air over the battlefield aglow, yet still the revenants advanced, pushing the allies back handspan by handspan.

  Bel swore as more boreholes burst open and even greater numbers of the revenants boiled out of the earth. The supply of the thrice-scorched things was jaffing limitless. In unison, as if directed by some inaudible voice, the back lines of the creatures scrambled over the front and began leaping through the air to land in the midst of the allied lines. Where they landed, screams erupted as razor-sharp claws sliced skin down to bone and acid slime dissolved flesh on contact.

  «Retreat!» Bel cried. «Retreat!»

  They scrambled back, dragging the wounded with them. Bel slammed vortexes of Air and Fire at the creatures to buy his brothers time, and sent a private spirit weave arrowing across the battlefield. «If you’re going to do something, Rain, now’s the time!»

  «Damn it, ‘Jonn, Taj, are you ready yet?» Rain snapped the question across a private weave to the two warriors of Ellysetta’s quintet. «We’re getting slaughtered here! I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold out.»

  «Ready, Rain!» came the dual responses.

  «Then tell them to go! Now!»

  «Order given, Feyreisen.»

  The ground began to shake and rumble. In Upper Orest, rocks broke off the surrounding peaks and tumbled down into the city. Rain saw buildings sway, and Eld Mages stagger as the ground beneath their feet became unstable.

  The earth cracked. Steam vents opened in Upper Orest. Mages fell back in fear and began to flee as the rumbling of the earth grew more violent and the steam erupting from the vents grew hotter. With a sudden, deafening roar, the entire city of Upper Orest exploded into the sky. Black clouds of smoke and ash billowed upward and fountains of glowing orange molten rock shot into the air and began pouring down the mountainside into Lower Orest.

  How do you get an enemy out of a fortified mountain haven?

  You had Earth and Fire masters turn the mountain into an active volcano.

  «They did it!» Ellysetta cried. «They real
ly did it!»

  His triumph and hers didn’t last long. Barely a chime later, the cries rang out on the Warrior’s Path.

  «Dharsa is under attack! They’re in the city! Fey! To arms! Dharsa is under attack! They’re in the palace!»

  «Rain!» Shocked into sudden sobriety, Ellysetta dug her fingers into the fur at the back of his neck. «My family.»

  Rain instantly sent a Spirit weave racing across the distance to Dharsa. «Marissya… Dax… get Ellysetta’s family to safety.»

  And then, several long chimes later, Rain’s wings faltered and she felt sorrow and concern well up inside him. Even before he spoke, she knew he’d received a private weave, and she knew the news wasn’t good. Inside her chest, Ellysetta’s heart turned to stone.

  «Shei’tani… » Rain hesitated. «I’m sorry, beloved. Your father is safe, but your sisters are gone. Dax says a portal was opened in their room. They’ve been taken.»

  “No.” She said. Her lips felt numb. Her whole body had lost all feeling. All she could think of was the dream, that horrible, hateful dream of Lillis and Lorelle, their eyes black as pitch, dancing in a shower of blood. And she knew, just as Sheyl knew when she had a vision, that her dream would come true «Ellysetta.» Rain turned his head as he flew. “No.” She said again, louder.

  «Ellysetta, we will get them back. I promise you, shei’tani. As soon as this is over, as soon as we’ve defeated this army, we’ll find out where he’s taken them and we’ll get them back.»

  “NO!” This time she screamed it. The sound ripped from her throat like a tairen’s roar. Rage blasted up from that place deep inside, the cold, Lightless place where the beast lived. Ice enveloped her. Hatred consumed her. She wanted these Eld and their foul creatures dead. She wanted this battle to stop.

  She wanted her family back.

  Now.

  Her body began to shake.

  On the battlefield, lu’tan and Fey cried out as their magic spun out of their control. One moment, they were spinning fierce weaves to hold back the revenants, the next moment the shining flows of their magic headed skyward, sucked away by a power greater than their own.

  Standing between the retreating forces and the revenant hordes, Bel, Gaelen, and Gil all looked up towards the sky, knowing instantly what was happening.

  “Ellysetta,” Bel whispered.

  Half a tairen-length away, Gaelen saw in shock that even the flows of Elvish and Elden magic were pouring into her.

  “Bel, Gaelen,” Gil called, “we have no magic and those revenants are still coming. I suggest we run, kem’jetos.”

  Dragging their gazes away from Ellysetta, they ran.

  Hissing, the revenants followed.

  The magic didn’t burn inside Ellysetta, it froze. Her whole body felt encased in a block of ice.

  «Shei’tani?» She heard Rain’s call, but it came as if from a great distance.

  These Mages liked death? Murder? Destruction? Well she would give them a taste of their own evil ways.

  Her hands shot out, fingers splayed. Concentrated magic roared down her arms, setting her palms ablaze. She knew the weave. She’d seen it often enough. Fled from it often enough.

  Power coalesced, blazing blue-white between her palms. She poured it forth, not in a great globe of power like the Mages did, but in a continuous, boiling jet, like tairen fire.

  Mage Fire spewed from Ellysetta’s hands, and spilled across the battlefield from the walls of Orest to the allied lines in the east. It consumed revenants and the enemy forces fleeing the lava-ribboned volcano that had been Orest and gouged deep furrows into the earth.

  «Shei’tani, nei.»

  The tairen beneath her tried to bank, to turn her away, but she seized him with her power and forced him to her will. He flew where she bid him.

  A voice was screaming in her head. Whether hers or his, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She wrapped herself in a weave of silence and kept pouring her wrathful river of Mage Fire upon the Elden army.

  Vadim Maur watched the blazing, blue-white fire consuming everything in its path. Even the mass destruction of his great army couldn’t stop the pride and savage satisfaction that surged through him at the sight.

  “You wonderful, magnificent girl,” he breathed. And with a crow of delight, using the bonds that already connected their souls as a conduit to keep her from absorbing his magic, he sent a concentrated weave of Azrahn stabbing into her soul.

  He expected her to scream and flinch back as she had every time before, but instead a great force like nothing he’d ever felt suddenly fixed its gaze upon him. Power ripped through him. Her power. Purest Azrahn of a magnitude he never knew could exist. It plundered him, assaulted him, peeled him down to the smallest particle of a single cell, then put him back together again in the blink of an eye.

  And even as his weave forged its fifth Mark upon her soul, her own weave stabbed him through to his core and seared every layer of his body and soul, leaving not just a Mark, but a smoldering brand.

  His knees went weak. His bowels turned to water. She had Marked him. She had Marked him.

  Vadim Maur grabbed the tent pole for support. Her power ripped from him the way a female tairen might retract her tail spike from the still-twitching body of her prey, but he knew she wasn’t done. He could still feel her eye upon him, dread and merciless. He felt her gather her power for another strike and for the first time in centuries, he whispered, “Gods, help me.”

  His savior came from as unlikely a source as the one he’d called upon.

  An Elf streaked across the sky on a white Aquiline charger. Light blazed from the Elf’s upraised hand, and the beam fell upon Ellysetta Baristani like a shaft of concentrated sunlight. Now Ellysetta reared back in the way she hadn’t done when Vadim Marked her, and the terrible force of her power turned away from the Mage, freeing him to sink helplessly to his knees.

  “Master Maur! Master Maur, look!”

  He lifted his head, gasping weakly for breath, and muttered a curse at the sight that greeted him. Sailing up the Heras, with nyatheri leaping through the black waters like silver-blue mermaids, came an Elvian armada, dozens of ships, silver sails filled with the air of a self-propelling wind, carrying thousands more Elves to join the battle. The trees on both shores bowed and danced in the ships’ wakes as the dryatheri, the Danae tree spirits, aboard the Elvish vessels awakened the forests to their call.

  Screams rose from the Elden shores as tree branches wound around Eld like serpents, crushing bones to powder, and large tree trunks opened up to swallow men whole. Soldiers drowned where they stood as seductive sirens rose from river’s edge, enveloped them in an entrancing embrace, and took their lips in a kiss that filled their lungs with water. Others mindlessly followed the beckoning calls of beautiful mermaids and plunged into the Heras where nyatheri wrapped them in water vines and dragged them to the bottom of the river.

  Vadim wanted to scream with rage. How could the day of his long-planned triumph have gone so horribly wrong? Two-thirds of his magnificent army was destroyed. The dragons were dead. Orest was an active volcano. The Elves and Danae had arrived in force. And Vadim’s Mage-Marked future vessel had just made him soil himself.

  But even as he gnashed his teeth in fury, cool reason was already taking over.

  No Eld became High Mage without the courage to take a risk. But neither did he stay High Mage without learning to differentiate between risk and foolishness. And this High Mage knew the value of a strategic retreat.

  All was not lost. Ellysetta Baristani still bore his Marks, he now had her sisters as well as her parents. When she came for them, he would be waiting. She only needed one more Mark. Just one, and then she and all her magnificent, unprecedented power would be his. And the world would tremble before his immortal greatness.

  “Kron, sound the alarm. Evacuate Boura Dor. Everyone into the Well. We’re retreating to Boura Fell.”

  Behind the Fey lines, protected by warriors who could call their
magic once more, Rain knelt on the ground, holding Ellysetta in his arms.

  The Elvian Commander who had called herself Silver-leaf knelt beside him. The palm of her right hand no longer blazed sun-bright with the magic she had poured into Ellysetta, but Rain now knew who she was. A Seer of Elvia, just as she’d claimed. Elves truly didn’t lie, after all. But she was also Elvia’s queen, Illona Brighthand, the Lady of Silvermist, sister to Galad Hawksheart.

  “Why would you hide who you were?” he asked.

  Illona glanced up. “Does it matter?”

  He grimaced. Why did Elves do half the things they did? “I suppose not. But will you at least tell me what happened back there, with Ellysetta?”

  The Elf made a soft, regretful sound. “Your mate just faced a truth many of us are lucky never to know. She found out just what she was capable of.”

  His hackles rose immediately. “You will not tell me she is evil,” he interrupted. Even though she had seized his body and controlled him like a puppet on strings, he would not—could not—think the worst. “She is not. She is bright and shining.”

  “Very bright,” the Elf agreed. “But as capable as she is of good, if she falls to Darkness, she will be equally capable of evil. You do her no favor by refusing to acknowledge that. Especially after today, when she had a glimpse of what she could become.”

  Ellysetta stirred in Rain’s arms. Her eyes were still closed as she murmured, “I told you there was evil in me. I told you it was winning.”

  “Bayas, it is not unless you will it so.” Illona laid her namesake hand on Ellysetta’s hair. “Look at me, Ellysetta Erimea.” When Ellysetta opened her eyes, the Elf continued, her voice brisk and stern, “I came here—I brought my Elves to your aid—because I did not want to see you fall. Was my faith in you misplaced? Will you give in so easily?”

  “Easily?” Rain jumped to her defense. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”