by C. L. Wilson
Much later, as night descended over Dharsa, and the Mother and Daughter moons rose to add their brightness to that of the winter star called Erimea, Rain and Ellysetta gathered in the palace with Ellysetta’s parents, her quintet, and the members of the new Massan to share the incredible secrets revealed by the Mirror of Knowledge. Water master, Loris v’En Mahr, had accepted the role as the leader of the Massan. Eimar remained as its Air master, while Dax joined as the new Earth master. Bel and Tajik had agreed to stand as acting Spirit and Fire masters, until Rain decided which Fey Lord should replace Tenn and the deceased Spirit master, Nurian.
“The Time Before Memory was the time when Fey used Azrahn freely,” Ellysetta told them. “According to the Mirror of Knowledge, the Fey did not come with the prides to this world. Only the Elves did. When Lissallukai breathed her magic across the Bay of Flames, a tribe of mortals living by the bay were the first to swim in its waters and they were transformed by her great magic, just as the legend claimed. Only because they were the first, their gift was the greatest—that gift was the six branches of Fey magic, the power over the four elements and the two mystics. Those mortals became the Fey.”
Ellysetta hid a smile as several of her quintet shifted in discomfort. Though far from mortal now, the ancestral link didn’t sit well with them. These Fey had much to learn. Mortals might not be magical, but they had their own special gifts, and she intended to see the friendship between Fey and Celieria blossom once more.
“Of those six branches of magic, the greatest was the gift of Azrahn, the soul magic,” Rain added, “which has both a Light and a Dark side to it. The Light side, the Fey have spun without fear since the Time Before Memory—it is the power we know as shei’dalin’s love.”
Now it was Marissya’s turn to flinch in surprise.
“The Dark side,” Rain continued, “what we know as Azrahn, is very powerful in its own right, but also dangerous. It is a force of destruction and force, rather than healing and peace. Together in its wholeness, Azreisenan, the soul magic, is the true source of our power… of our immortality, of our fertility, of our magic. And in giving the Fey power over the Dark side of Azrahn, as well as the Light, the gods gave the Fey a gift they never gave the Elves—freedom. Freedom to choose our path. But that gift is also our test.”
“All great gifts come with a great price,” Bel murmured.
“Aiyah,” Ellysetta agreed, “and the price of the greatest gift ever given to the Fey—the gift of Azrahn—is the temptation of the Dark Path. No Elf will ever fall to Darkness. They are incapable of it, because the gods never gifted them with the fullness of Azrahn. But the Fey can, because we can choose to wield our magic for good or evil.”
“If Azrahn is such a boon to the Fey,” Tajik interrupted, “why would it be outlawed and why would its use be wiped from the memory of the world? “
“Because in Sevander’s time—and Tevan’s own—many of the Fey began seeking ever greater and greater power—especially those who were strongest in Azrahn, including Sevander’s uncle. They began to focus exclusively on the Darkest powers of Azrahn. They became the Mages. Sevander’s uncle was, in fact, the Mage who transformed Fellana into a Fey.”
“And then used the tairen’s power he’d gotten from her to wage war against the Fey,” Dax said.
Rain nodded. “And his descendants continued his work, raising an even greater army. A force the like of which the world had never seen.”
“The Army of Darkness,” Gil said.
“Aiyah,” Rain agreed. “And it was as devastating a force as the legends portray—much worse than the revenant army this Mage put together. It was so devastating in fact, that after he defeated it, Tevan Fire Eyes and his tairen and Elvish advisors decided the Fey were not ready for the great and dangerous power of Azrahn. With their help, he wiped all knowledge of its use from the world. In doing so, he robbed the Mages of all the secrets of their Dark magic and created the Time Before Memory.”
“He and his advisors thought that by outlawing the use of the Dark side of Azrahn, they would spare the Fey the greatest temptation of the Dark Path,” Ellysetta concluded. “And they did. The world entered a time of great peace—the golden years of the First Age. But over the millennia, the Mages began rebuilding their lost knowledge. And as generation after generation of Fey banished their most powerful masters of Azrahn for weaving it, the Fey unknowingly drained their own bloodlines of the magic most essential to their survival.” She glanced at Gaelen. “That’s why the dahl’reisen thrive while the Fey wither. Because so many of them are still powerful masters of Azrahn—and because between the High Mage’s breeding efforts and the remnant magic of the Mage Wars, the Light and Dark sides of Azrahn were being combined again.”
“So are you saying the dahl’reisen are the real key to returning fertility to the Fey?” Eimar asked, looking troubled at the thought. He had fought with dahl’reisen as his allies, and approved their bloodswearing to Ellysetta, but cozying up to warriors who’d chosen the Shadowed Path still did not sit well with him.
“Nei, not the dahl’reisen,” Rain corrected. “Azrahn. Azrahn is the key—and the connection between the tairen and the Fey, not only because our magic sprang from Lissalukai’s great fire, but because every Tairen Soul starting with Tevan Fire Eyes are the descendants of Fellana, who was the last of Lissallukai’s bloodline. That’s why our fates are so closely entwined. The Tairen Souls keep Lissallukai’s blood—and, with it, her greatest magic—alive and strong. And Ellysetta, who combines Fey, tairen, Elvish, and even Mage powers, is the most powerful master of Azrahn born since Lissallukai herself. It is Ellysetta—both through the children we will bear, and every child conceived as a result of her fertility weaves—who will return the fullness of Azrahn back to the tairen and the Fey.”
Ellysetta curled her fingers around his and smiled. One day in their lifetime, they would see the skies over the Fading Lands once more filled with tairen and hear the streets of Dharsa ring with the laughter of Fey children. Her children—their children—would be powerful Tairen Souls, just as they were, raised in love amid the Fey and the pride. And that was reward enough to make the great price of her gifts worthwhile.
“The Elf king of Tevan’s time Saw what would happen,” Rain concluded, “including the fact that Ellysetta would be born to bring the fullness of Azrahn back to the tairen and the Fey. So upon his advice, Tevan ordered the creation of the Mirror of Knowledge and the Elf king told his descendants to watch for her birth.”
“You really were born to save us,” Marissya said.
“And so she has.” Rain raised a glass of chilled faerilas. “To the treasures of the past, my friends, and to the joys of a bright future.”
27th day of Seledos
Rain stood on the balustraded terrace just outside the ballroom of the Dharsa’s newly restored royal palace and looked out at the gleaming gold-and-white beauty of Dharsa nestled in the forested hills. He closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma of jasmine and honeyblossom and the sweet, intoxicating fragrance of Amarynth that wafted on the cool evening breeze.
For a thousand years, the world behind the Faering Mists had been his prison. Now, at last, the Fading Lands was home once more, and for the first time in centuries—perhaps for the first time in his entire life—he was truly at peace.
His quest to save the tairen and the Fey was complete. He had found the woman Shei’Kess had sent him to find, and together they had saved the tairen and the Fey and brought the promise of life back to the Fading Lands.
Rain drew in his breath again, and a slow smile curved his lips as a new scent, familiar and beloved, danced across his senses like a warm caress. Turning, he held out his hand.
As it always had—and as Rain knew it always would—his heart leapt at the sight of her. She was a vision in white and silver and stunning flame.
Her white silk gown—overlaid with Elvian lace and studded with tiny diamonds like morning dewdrops caught in a spider’s fine web—whis
pered across the marble terrace stones as she crossed to his side. Rajahl vel’En Daris’s crystal gleamed at her wrist, while Rain’s crystal hung from a platinum chain around her neck. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders and down to her waist like a cloud of tairen fire.
Her fingers slid across the back of Rain’s wrist, but he turned his hand to thread his fingers through hers and hold her hand the way Celierians—and now he, as well—preferred.
His thumb brushed across hers in a tiny caress, and he smiled into Ellysetta’s bright Fey eyes. “Beylah vo, shei’tani.”
She tilted her head to one side. “For what?”
“For… everything.” The Eye of Truth had sent him to Ellysetta to find the salvation of his peoples. But in her, he had also found the salvation of his own soul.
He had longed for death until she renewed his fierce desire for life. She had smashed countless Fey traditions and taboos, and forced him to rethink everything he believed of the world as she forged her own, unique path with quiet but relentless courage. He had thought all dahl’reisen were beyond redemption, yet she had restored Gaelen’s soul and won the bloodsworn loyalty of the Brotherhood of Shadows and brought the gift of their powerful magic and fertility back to the Fey. He had thought Azrahn was evil, yet even before the Mirror of Knowledge had revealed its secrets, she had proven the forbidden magic could be just as powerful a force for good.
She’d made the world beautiful and wondrous once more, as it hadn’t been for him since he was a boy. She made him believe the Fey would again become the great, shining Light they had once been to this world. A beacon of hope and freedom and strength that would forever stand fast against the Dark.
She smiled at his thoughts and shook her head. “You give me too much credit. Most of that is not my doing.”
“And there you are wrong. Without you, shei’tani, none of this would have been possible.” He waved his hand to indicate the rebuilt beauty of Dharsa with its fully restored Hall of Scrolls and the crowds gathering at the foot of Dharsa’s central mount. Fey, Elves, Celierian friends and dignitaries, all standing side by side in the heart of the city, garbed in splendorous raiment as they attended Rain and Ellysetta’s truemating celebration and the coronation of the Fading Lands’ new queen.
“He is right,” Marissya said, as she and Dax joined them on the terrace. Like dozens of other mates of the Fey, the pair were garbed in the verdant green-and-white hues they would both wear until the birth of their child. The heady scent of Amarynth perfumed the air around them, blooming in abundance from every bower and garden in Dharsa. “You have changed our world.”
“I never meant to.”
Marissya smiled. “The gods weave as the gods will, Feyreisa.”
The breeze blew a wayward curl against Ellysetta’s cheek. Rain reached out to brush it back out of her face. “Where are your parents?”
“With Tajik and Papa, keeping Lillis and Lorelle out of trouble until the ceremonies begin. Papa has been regaling them with stories of my childhood.” She laughed, but a sheen of tears glimmered in her eyes. Despite her overwhelming joy at freeing her Fey parents, he knew she still sorely missed her adoptive mother. Today’s bonding ceremony would be the second time Ellysetta and Rain had celebrated the joining of their lives. Mama’s absence, and the absence of other dear friends lost to the evil of the Eld, was a somber Harmony to the now-joyous verse of her Song.
Happiness was hers, but as with all great gifts of the Fey, that happiness had come at a steep price.
“I think Lauriana would have liked Shan and Elfeya,” Rain said.
Ellysetta nodded, as she thumbed away her tears. “Aiyah. I know she would. And I know they would have liked her, too.”
“How could we not?” A warm, vibrant voice replied. “She is the woman who kept our daughter safe and guided and loved her in our stead.”
Rain and Ellysetta both turned to the open archway leading from the ballroom as Shan, Elfeya, Sol Baristani, and the twins stepped outside to join them.
Smiling, Elfeya v’En Celay approached to embrace her daughter and her daughter’s mate. Ellysetta’s birth mother looked every inch the powerful shei’dalin she was, in a gown of stunning scarlet and gold with her truemate’s sorreisu’kiyr set in a golden torque at her throat. Her Light was nearly as bright as Ellysetta’s, setting her skin aglow so that she shone like a star. She resembled her daughter in so many ways—the fiery hair, the gentleness, the steely will that lay beneath her vast compassion and empathic gifts. It was that steel that had enabled her to survive her thousand years of torment. That steel that had made her the indomitable truemate of the legendary warrior standing at her side.
Rain held out his hand to clasp the forearm of Shannisorran v’En Celay, the warrior once known as Lord Death. He flinched slightly at the acid burn of the sel’dor bands lining the thick golden cuffs at Shan’s wrists. Shan might be free from the High Mage, but he was not free of the man’s dread gifts. The tairen’s soul Vadim Maur had tied to Shan’s was with him still—and just as wild and savage as it had been during his captivity in Boura Fell.
He wouldn’t allow Elfeya or Ellysetta to risk themselves trying to undo what the Mage had done, and he wouldn’t risk the Fey by giving the beast its freedom, so he had willingly bound himself in sel’dor. To his mate’s objections, he had replied, “Pain is life, kem’san. I accepted that long ago. We are together, and we are free. That is joy enough for me.”
The Fey Lord’s face was carved from stone, but his granite jaw softened, and the hard glitter of his green eyes warmed when he turned his attention to the daughter he’d suffered decades of torture to protect. “Blessings of the day, ajiana. Miora felah to you and your mate. May Shadow always fall short of your Path and your days be filled with joy.”
Ellysetta embraced him. “Beylah vo…Gepa.”
His arms clutched her close. “You do us proud, kem’nessa.” He bent his head to her ear, and added in a hoarse whisper, “You were worth every moment.”
The tears she’d been fighting squeezed out between her lashes. When her father released her, she begged again, “Won’t you change your mind and stay with us here in Dharsa?”
Shan smiled and shook his head. “Nei, child. Tehlas is our home. It is where we belong.”
Rain had asked Shan and Elfeya to take Tenn and Venarra’s place on the governing council, but they had declined. After their centuries of confinement, the bustle of Dharsa unsettled them—and disturbed the tairen tied to Shan’s soul. They both believed the solitude of their now-abandoned home city would suit them much better and grant them both the time they needed. Time to live together in peace, without pressure or restraint. Time to walk the silvery beaches of Tairen’s Bay, or turn their faces up to the sun, or lie on the rooftop of their old home at night and make love beneath the stars. Time to heal and to learn what it was to be free once more.
“But you will visit us, of course,” Elfeya said. “You and your mate… and your papa and sisters, of course.” She sent a fond glance at the twins, who both already bore smudges of dirt on their pristine white gowns. The two girls had captivated Shan and Elfeya with their laughter and mischievous antics, and most of their time since returning to Dharsa had been spent in the company of the twins, watching over them and spoiling them as they had not had the chance to watch and spoil their own child. Elfeya lifted her hands to spin a quick weave. The smudges vanished and the slightly askew bouquets of Amarynth nestled in the twins’ mink brown curls straightened neatly. “And perhaps one day, their mates as well, hmm?” she added, as Kieran and Kiel joined the group on the terrace.
Rain’s brows drew together. Elfeya was looking at Kieran and Kiel when she spoke, and there was a very Elvish look in her eyes.
Before he could comment, Bel appeared in the arched doorway and signaled to him. Rain nodded an acknowledgment. “Kabei. Our final guests have arrived. With them is someone I think you and your daughters will want to meet, Master Baristani.”
They tur
ned their attention to the arched doorway just as Gaelen and Rijonn ushered in two dozen of the women and children from the dahl’reisen village and Farel’s white-haired, silver-eyed hearth witch.
“Sheyl.” With a happy smile, Ellysetta greeted the woman who had helped save their lives and enveloped her in a warm hug. “Meiveli ti’Dharsa. Welcome to Dharsa. Welcome to the Fading Lands.”
“Thank you.” Sheyl nodded at Rain. “Thank both of you for your kindness and generosity in offering us shelter and a new home. Farel sends his greetings and bids you both much joy.”
Despite the lingering concerns of some Fey, Rain had granted safe harbor in the Fading Lands to the refugees from the Verlaine Forest—including every dahl’reisen who had sworn a lute’asheiva bond to Ellysetta. As few as the Fey had become, there was more than room enough for the dahl’reisen lu’tan to live in one of the abandoned Fey cities without inflicting their pain upon the vulnerably empathic women of the Fey.
Farel and most of his men had refused. Even without the Mists to bar their return, they would not step foot in the Fading Lands while they still bore their dahl’reisen scars. They chose instead to settle in Orest and Dunelan, to serve as the guardians of the Fading Lands they had always been. Many of the villagers had refused as well—like Sheyl, who would not leave her chosen mate and several non-dahl’reisen men who preferred to fight alongside their friends, fathers, and brothers. The rest had made the woodland city of Elverial their home, though there was talk of resettling in Lissilin. Thanks to Tealah’s tireless efforts to recover all the lost knowledge retained in the Mirror of Memory, Rain and Ellysetta now knew how to restore magic to the dead Source there. Life would bloom in the desert again.
“Sha vel’mei, Sheyl,” Ellysetta said. “Though I do wish for both your sakes that Farel had accepted Rain’s invitation. I would gladly restore his soul, Sheyl.”
“We both thank you, but he could never accept the pain it would cause you. Despite what some Fey may still think, he is too honorable a Fey to ever let you suffer on his behalf.” Sheyl forced a smile. “Enough sad talk. This is a day of joy. And there is someone who would like to meet your father and sisters.” She gestured, and the woman standing in the shadows of the archway stepped out onto the terrace.