by C. L. Wilson
«The girl’s map says there will be guards up ahead,» Shan said. «At least six of them.»
The plucky little umagi girl had given Shan more than a simple map of the fortress and the path to the place Vadim Maur was holding their daughter. She’d given him all the details about all the rooms and wards and guard postings along the way, and identified spots where they would have to exercise extreme caution to avoid being caught.
«Let me check,» Elfeya replied, and with a skill unaltered by centuries of confinement, she sent her empathic senses whispering out ahead of them. The tendrils of awareness curved around the blind corners and streamed, undetected, down the hallways, pale threads of invisible golden light, imperceptible to all but the strongest of senses. Swiftly, she verified the location and number of the guards.
«Four to the left, two to the right,» she confirmed.
«I’ll have to take them all,» he replied grimly. «If even one of them raises the alarm, we won’t make it.» Their path lay to the left, up a flight of stairs to a heavily guarded, private level of the fortress restricted solely to Vadim Maur and a select few Primages.
A flash of awareness made Elfeya’s senses tingle. «Some-one’s coming!» The tingle darkened to discomfort, then outright pain. Her breath seized in her throat as she recognized the feeling. «Dahl’reisen, Shan.»
«Quickly,» he said, «into this room.» He turned abruptly towards a door on the left and reached for the sel’dor handle. The door was locked but unwarded. Ignoring the sear of pain, Shan sent his senses into the keyhole, examined the locking mechanism, then pulled a black Fey’cha from his harness. A quick weave of Earth drew the Fey’cha’s tip into a shape that would release the lock.
He thrust the key-blade into the lock and turned just as Elfeya cried, «He’s here.»
The door opened. He thrust Elfeya inside and glanced over his shoulder as he followed her inside. The corridor was empty. But Elfeya’s pain was real. Shan had long ago learned to trust his mate’s senses, even above his own. The dahl’reisen was there. Fey eyes could not see him, but he was there.
As the door swung closed, Shan’s own warrior senses flared to abrupt life, as certain and infallible as Elfeya’s empathy. He dodged left just as a red Fey’cha whirred past the spot his head had been.
The door shut. Another blade thunked deep into the sel’dor-braced wood. The first red blade, which had sunk into the far wall of the room, disappeared as the dahl’reisen spoke his return word.
«Scorch it. We must have given ourselves away.» Shan shed his Primage robes and reached for his black Fey’cha as he scanned the room for a position of safety and attack. There was a table in the center of the room. Elfeya was already racing to take shelter behind it before he spun the weave to flip it on its side.
Shan went high, racing up the wall and launching across the ceiling on an Air-powered leap, just as the door opened. His senses merged with Elfeya’s, and he used her empathy to pinpoint the enemy he could not see. Black Fey’cha flew with unerring aim and blurring speed. The dahl’reisen grunted. Shan dropped to the floor, as magic spun from Elfeya’s fingertips, wrapping the still-invisible dahl’reisen tight in bands of power.
Shan thrust his hands into the center of Elfeya’s net, and sparks flew where his sel’dor bands touched the dahl’reisen’s invisibility weave. He caught a brief glimpse of a pale scarred face and a mouth opening—no doubt to shout the alarm. His fingers closed around the dahl’reisen’s throat, squeezing tight and cutting off his cry.
“I can’t kill you, dahl’reisen rultshart,” he hissed, “but I can make you wish I would.”
“That would be a shame, kem’chatok, since he came to save you.”
Shan’s spine went straight as a board, and he spun around, Fey’cha flying from their sheaths into his hands. “Vel Serranis,” he snarled, and he let fly his blades.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Come fly with me my love
Spread your wings with glee
Into the skies above
Together we will fly free
Come fly with me my mate
The one that fills my heart
Together passion we will sate
And never will we part
Flight of the Tairen Lovers,
a poem by Rainier v’En Daris, Tairen Soul
Shan’s most infamous chadin dodged and deflected with a skill that would do any chatok proud, but he still didn’t manage to escape all of Shan’s blades. One Fey’cha caught him in the shoulder and one in the back of the right thigh as he spun away, before a cry on the vel Celay family path brought Shan up short.
«Parei, Shan! Parei! Gaelen and Farel are friends.»
“Tajik?” Elfeya rose from behind the overturned table, whispering her brother’s name.
«Elfeya, get down!» Fearing a trap, Shan thrust the dahl’reisen away from him and backed towards his mate, blades drawn. He’d never betrayed the vel Celay family path—at least not that he remembered—and he didn’t think Elfeya had either. But after a thousand years of torture, anything was possible.
And yet, there he was, Tajik vel Sibboreh, Elfeya’s youngest brother, appearing inside the room as he shed his invisibility weave. He looked older—much harder and world-worn—than Shan remembered him, but he was still, unmistakably Tajik. Blue-eyed, fire-haired, and staring at his sister like she was the sun and he was a man who’d spent a lifetime in darkness.
Elfeya’s empathic senses could never have been fooled by an imposter posing as her brother, so when she abandoned all caution and ran around the table to throw herself into Tajik’s arms, Shan knew his eyes must be seeing true.
“Tajik!” Wrapping her arms around her brother’s neck, Elfeya wept and laughed in a show of joy too great to be contained. “You are here. It’s really you.”
Tajik’s arms tightened around her. “I thought you were dead,” he told her. “I would have ripped Eld apart to find you if I’d known you were still alive. Sieks’ta. Forgive me for not coming sooner. I didn’t know. I came as soon as I could.”
“Las, las, kem’jeto. Ssh.” She stroked his hair and kissed him, then drew back to cup his face between her hands. “There is nothing to forgive. I am here, and you are here, and we are together once more. Today, the gods are kind, and my heart is full of joy.”
“I don’t understand.” Shan looked around the room in confusion. He was beginning to think the madness that had haunted him all these centuries had taken fresh root in his brain. Three more Fey had appeared inside the room. Two of them were very distinctive Fey he recognized and remembered. Like Tajik and vel Serranis, Gillandaris vel Sendar and Rijonn vel Ahriman had been his chadins at the Warriors’ Academy in Tehlas. The third warrior, a Fey with black hair and cobalt eyes, he did not know. Nor did he recognize the two young, unshadowed warriors shrouded in Mage robes who slipped in after the others and closed the door behind them.
After spending the last thousand years in solitary confinement, the sudden appearance of so many Fey—and so many familiar faces—left Shan feeling overwhelmed. And the fact that these Fey could all be standing there, without a shred of concern for the dahl’reisen among them, confused and stunned him. He shook his head, trying to still all the thoughts and questions whirling about in his mind, and fixed his gaze on Gaelen vel Serranis.
“You were dahl’reisen,” he said bluntly. “Why aren’t you still? And why are Fey warriors keeping company with dahl’reisen?”
A ghost of a smile played about Gaelen’s mouth. “You always were direct, kem’chatok.” He gestured to the Fey’cha still embedded in his shoulder and thigh. “Do you mind?”
Shan spoke his return word, and the blades he’d sunk into both Gaelen and the dahl’reisen returned to their sheaths.
“Ve ku’jian vallar, Gaelen,” Elfeya said. Allow me to help you. Withdrawing gently from her brother’s embrace, she crossed the room to vel Serranis’s side and laid glowing hands upon his wounds.
“Beylah vo, Elfeya-falla
,” Gaelen said, as the torn blood vessels and flesh knit back together.
Elfeya glanced uncertainly at the dahl’reisen, who had already spun an Earth weave to staunch his wounds and seal the torn flesh until his body’s natural healing properties could repair the damage.
The dahl’reisen cleared his throat, and said, “I’ll go scout the rest of the hall. Forgive me, ki’falla’sheisan, for causing you pain.” He bowed to her with grave respect before cloaking himself in the best invisibility weave Shan had ever seen. The chamber door opened and closed to mark his departure.
When he was gone, Shan ordered Gaelen to spin a privacy weave on the room and fixed a stern eye on the remaining warriors. “All right, Fey,” he declared in a voice that had commanded armies and snapped countless unruly chadins to order. “I want answers. How is it that Gaelen vel Serranis is dahl’reisen no more… and why are Fey warriors keeping company with a Shadowed blade?”
Explanations tumbled out from several of them at once. Time was short, so Shan just let his mind process the overlapping voices, separating and interpreting the individual inputs instantly in his mind—much the way he processed the overload of chaotic information on a battlefield.
“So let me get this straight,” he said when they were done. “Our daughter restored vel Serranis’s soul. Her mate has allowed dahl’reisen to bloodswear themselves to her. And you five”—he gestured to all but the two youngest Fey—“are her bloodsworn quintet, who accompanied her to Boura Fell to rescue Elfeya and me and our daughter’s young Celierian sisters. Is that correct? “
Heads nodded, but he could see the four who knew him growing wary at his calm tone. It was a good thing he’d insisted on a privacy weave around the room.
“Then I have only two other questions for you fine warriors of the Fey.” Shan straightened to his full height, squared his shoulders and drew a deep breath that expanded his chest. “What the scorching flames of the Seven Hells do you think you were doing letting her come here? “ he roared. “And how the flaming Hells is it that you’re standing here, still breathing, while my daughter—the woman you swore your souls to protect with your lives—is in the hands of Vadim Maur, the evilest jaffing son of an Elden rultshart ever to be born?”
“That last part’s not their fault,” said the young, brown-haired Fey named Kieran. “The Eld knocked them out when they arrived. The High Mage must have used his connection to Ellysetta to—“
Shan pierced him with a glare as sharp as a blade. “The questions, vel Solande, were rhetorical.”
Kieran snapped his mouth shut.
Shan turned his focus back to his daughter’s quintet. “If we survive this, each one of you five owes me a year’s time on the training field. I suggest you come prepared for pain.”
Expelling an agitated breath, Shan pivoted on his heel and forced himself to channel his anger, focusing it into grim determination. “For now, however, the only thing that matters is getting our daughter out of this place. Elfeya, can you stand the dahl’reisen’s presence a while longer?”
“Aiyah. The dahl’reisen’s pain was terrible, but bearable. I think the old saying is true: That which does not kill you, does makes you stronger.” She met Shan’s eyes in a moment of communion. «I could not have stood in his presence before these centuries in Boura Fell. But now, I think I could even heal him if he were in need.»
He nodded. He and pain were old friends. And one of that old friend’s harshest but truest lessons was that suffering bred strength.
“All right,” he said. “Did you Fey have a plan, or should we adjust ours?”
The seven warriors shared silent looks amongst themselves.
“Lord Shan,” Gaelen said, “you and Elfeya-falla should get to safety. There is a gateway to the Well of Souls on the level above this one, and it’s under Fey control. Go there, and get out of this place. We will find Ellysetta and Rain and bring them home.”
Shan exchanged a look with Elfeya. Both their expressions turned to stone. “If you think we are leaving this place without our daughter, vel Serranis,” Shan said, “you are greatly mistaken. We have a good idea of where she’s being kept. We know all the possible routes we could take and how many guards and wards to expect along the way. You can come with us if you like, but we are going to get our child.” Shan’s voice dropped to a lethal growl. “And just so we’re clear, the High Mage is mine to kill.”
“Well,” Gil said, slapping his hands on his thighs, “I’m glad that’s settled. Can we get on with the slaughter?”
“Look how your mate is suffering, Ellysetta.” Vadim Maur crouched beside her and grabbed her hair, forcing her to head in Rain’s direction. “Look at him!” he barked.
His icy voiced throbbed with compulsion, and no matter how hard she tried to defy him and keep her eyes averted, she could not.
Rain was displayed, spread-eagled, on a wooden form shaped like two overlapping crescent moons, his body held in place by a series of sel’dor stakes that Den Brodson had hammered through his limbs with grim relish. Every handspan of his once-shining white skin bore signs of brutal abuse. Strips of flesh flayed from his bones. Blistered black char where red-hot brands had scorched deep. Countless sel’dor barbs jabbed into his skin and left to fester. Bones broken. Fingers severed.
She’d felt each moment of Rain’s torment, each scream, each breathless gasp of stunning pain, just as he’d felt each moment of her helpless horror.
She’d tried to stay strong. She knew her presence—her empathic sharing of his pain—was as deliberate a part of his torture as Den’s foul deeds. But she had not been able to stop herself from screaming any more than Rain had. She’d not been able to stop herself from weeping, from begging.
Through it all, Rain had been there in her mind, telling her to stay strong, to be brave, not to give in. As if she, not he, were the one whose body was being shattered and maimed.
“You are a monster,” she told Vadim Maur.
“I am a Mage,” he countered. “And you can end this anytime you like. You know how. I will get what I want, one way or another. But how many of your loved ones die before that happens—how long they must writhe in agony—is entirely up to you.”
Her breath caught on a hiccuping sob.
“I ask you again, Ellysetta Baristani: Accept my Mark.” He gripped her head between his icy hands, and the oppressive weight of his Dark magic closed around her, trapping her, squeezing her soul in a vise.
“If you refuse me, your mate will die. When I am done with him, I will put his body on display in the Mage Halls and I will leave it there to rot. The great Rain Tairen Soul, Worldscorcher, Destroyer of Eld, food for maggots and rotworms.” Then his voice softened, became kind. “But if you submit to me, I will let you heal him. He will live. You can be with him. You can hold him in your arms. Take him into your body.”
The pressure of his will receded. Her mind filled with feelings of warmth and love. She could almost smell the fresh bloom of spring on the air, the intoxicating scent of Rain’s skin. She could almost feel his hands stroking across her body, hear her gasp as pleasure washed over her in waves.
Just as she began to reach for the sweet seduction of the dream, the Mage snatched it away. “But you can have that only when you give me what I want.”
«Nei, shei’tani.» Rain’s voice whispered on a ragged thread of Spirit. «Never. You mustn’t. Not for me…not for anyone…» Each syllable throbbed with pain.
“Every word you speak is a lie, Mage,” she rasped. “You’ll never let him live. And even if you did, he’d rather die than see me surrender my soul.”
“Perhaps, but can you bear to watch it? Can you let him die?” The Mage barked a command to Den, “Do it.”
“Nei!” Ellysetta screamed as Den pulled Rain’s head back and slashed a blade across his throat. Rain’s blood fountained in a scarlet mist.
On the pretext of serving food, Melliandra entered the level where Vadim Maur kept the magically gifted female prisoners
he used in his breeding program. If Lord Death was successful, the High Mage would soon be dead. Melliandra intended to wait for that moment here, close to the warded corridor that led to the nursery where the Mage kept his program’s most promising offspring.
Moving as slowly as possible, she pushed her kitchen cart from cell to cell, opening them with the key the captain of the guard on this level had given to her. He was supposed to walk with her from room to room and watch her as she fed the female prisoners, but she always snuck him a treat from the kitchens and left him to eat it while she made her rounds.
When she reached the cell of the black-eyed shei’dalin she’d dragged with her weeks ago to save the life of Lord Death’s mate, her nerves were strung tight. The anxiety must have made her careless, because the shei’dalin stopped her at the door. “Sha de dai?“
“Is it time?” Melliandra repeated. “Time for what?”
“Dai ve heber eva bebahs.” She signed the words as she spoke them, poking a finger at Melliandra, rocking her arms in front of her body as if cradling a baby in arms, then walking her fingers. She looked intently at Melliandra, and said, “Ke am.” I know.
Melliandra felt her heart drop into her stomach. The shei’dalin knew what she was planning. Somehow, Melliandra had given her secret away. She cursed silently and berated herself for the questions she’d asked the other women—questions about how to tend babies. This shei’dalin must have overheard and realized what she was planning.
Determined to brazen it out, Melliandra snorted and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned away and reached for the door handle.
The shei’dalin caught Melliandra’s arm. “Teska. Ve ku’jian valir eva vo.” She pressed her lips together and tried broken Elden. “You… me… go… eva bebahs.” She rocked her cradled arms again.