King of Sword and Sky

by C. L. Wilson

  Yet even knowing that, Rain’s love—intense and absolute—shone from his eyes as he approached, setting Ellysetta’s senses aflame. She began to tremble. «Shei’tan» Luckily, before Ellysetta could embarrass herself, her young sister Lillis squealed and threw herself into Rain’s arms, shattering the intoxicating spell holding Ellysetta captive.

  “Will you take us flying again today, Rain?” Lillis asked while Lorelle bounded up, grabbed Rain’s free hand, and jumped up and down with excitement.

  Ellie smothered a laugh. Lillis and Lorelle had shed their fear of Rain and his power. He had become part of their family. Which also meant he’d become a hapless male to be twined around their fingers.

  Rain, in return, had learned how to relax around them and let them draw out the Fey gentleness in his heart. Though he was a man who could slaughter his enemies without mercy, with the twins he now laughed and smiled like a man who had never known darkness.

  “Let us get you safely settled in your new home first, ajianas. Then I will take you both flying again.”

  Of course, he still had to work on how to say no. “Hooray! Hooray!” Lorelle threw up her arms and danced around him in enthusiastic circles.

  “Can we have a new kitty in our new home?” Lillis asked, fluttering her lashes again. “Since we had to leave Love behind.”

  Kieran had convinced the girls that Love the kitten, who had a terrible aversion to magic, would be miserable living in the Fading Lands or staying with them so close to the powerful magic of the Mists. They’d reluctantly agreed to leave Love behind in Celieria City in the care of Gaspare Fellows, Queen Annoura’s Master of Graces.

  Rain smiled. “A new kitten? I imagine Kieran and Kiel can arrange that. Perhaps one for each of you, hmm?”

  Lillis strangled him with more hugs, then leapt out of his arms so she and her twin could run tell Kiel and Kieran they were going flying again, and that Rain had said they could have new kittens.

  Ellie shook her head and watched them go. “One day you will have to learn the fine line between loving adoration and slavish devotion.”

  He pressed a kiss on her palm. “Let me give them what gifts and freedoms I can. Their lives will soon have restriction enough. Teleos!” Rain lifted a hand to the Fey-eyed Celierian great lord, Devron Teleos, who stood beside the truemates Marissya and Dax v’En Solande, staring in silence at the place that was to be the Baristani family’s new home. “How long has it been since you’ve been to the Garreval?”

  Teleos’s mouth drew down in a grimace. “I’ve made a point of visiting all my holdings at least once every year, but as you see, there’s not much to draw me here.”

  Below, on the lower slopes of the Rhakis mountains, the remains of a once-great fortress rose from the tumbled rubble of silvery blue stone: Teleon, the former family seat of House Teleos. Even after a thousand years, its once-fabled beauty still lay shattered and abandoned, its Fey-spun towers and parapets crumbled, the remains covered in lichen and mosses and crowded with tufts of cliff grass. A small stone outpost—crudely built and clearly mortal in origin—had been constructed atop a small hill at the base of the mountain, not far from the remains of what had once been a glorious gate into the walled city-fortress. Smoke curled up from a vent hole in the outpost’s small central hall.

  Ellysetta tried to hide her dismay. This was her family’s new home?

  As if hearing her thoughts, Lord Teleos said, “I feel a poor host for offering my guests so rude an accommodation.” The Celierian great lord, a descendant of Rain’s long-dead friend Shanis Teleos, eyed the remains of his once-great family estate with grim eyes. “Rain, are you sure the Feyreisa’s family would not be better served in one of my more respectable holdings?”

  Rain smiled and shook his head, his straight, silky black hair sliding over his black-leather-clad shoulders. “Nei, this is perfect for our needs.”

  “This was a place of great beauty once,” Lord Teleos said in a sorrowful voice. In the days before the raising of the Mists, his family had been close friends of the Fey, and the many Fey ancestors in his family tree had left Devron and all his forebears stamped with Fey eyes, a glow to their skin, and life spans much longer than those of pure mortals. Teleon, which had once been an estate of inestimable beauty, had been a gift from the Fey to their friends and kin in House Teleos.

  “Aiyah, it was,” Marissya agreed. “I remember the terraced gardens with all their fountains. It reminded me of Dharsa.”

  Lord Teleos regarded the ruins of his family estate with somber eyes. “I always wished my ancestors had repaired it once the poison of the Wars was cleansed, but perhaps it’s best they never did. Mortal hands could never have done Teleon justice.” He sighed. “Some things, once lost, are better left in the past.”

  Rain made a sound in his throat that sounded like something torn between a growl and a laugh. “And some things deserve to live again.” His eyes crinkled at the edges. “You did say we could make it habitable, Dev.”

  Teleos’s brows drew together. “You mean to restore Teleon?”

  “Aiyah te nei,” Yes and no. And on that mysterious note, Rain smiled and said, “Come. I think you will find you are not so poor a host as you fear.”

  Brimming with curiosity, Marissya, Dax, Teleos, and Ellysetta followed Rain as he led them the final half mile to the foot of the mountains.

  Near the gate of the small outpost, and stationed along its outer wall, two dozen armored Celierian soldiers stood at attention. To a man, they sported snarling tairen’s-head helmets and white tabards edged with scarlet and embla-zoned with the arms of House Teleos: a golden tairen rampant on a white field with a rising red sun. Pennants of white, scarlet, and gold fluttered in the breeze.

  They passed through the open gate, but when Lord Teleos would have headed for the main hall in the center, Rain stopped him. “Nei, Dev, not that way.”

  Bel ran up just as the small party rounded the corner of the hall and started towards the back wall. Ellysetta turned to greet him, only to find him frowning up at the mountain towering over the back wall of the outpost. The shimmering radiance of the Mists was very bright, like a shadow made of light rather than darkness. Though mortal eyes would not see it, the whole mountainside glowed with undulating bands of magic.

  Rain turned to cast a glance over his shoulder and smiled at Bel’s perplexed look. The rear stone wall of the outpost lay before him. Rain took another step. The air around him rippled like water in a pond.

  With one more stride, Rain passed through the wall and disappeared from view.

  “Spit and scorch me,” Dev breathed. He glanced at Marissya and Dax, then charged after Rain, plunging headfirst into what seemed like solid stone. The air rippled again, and Lord Teleos vanished too.

  “Spirit weave,” Kiel said, his eyes sweeping over the mountainside. There was no sign of Rain or Lord Teleos, only the rear wall of the outpost and, beyond that, the tumbled remains of Teleon scattered across the mountainside, tufts of cliff grass and stands of hardy mountain trees waving in the breeze.

  “Scorching clever one,” Bel said. “They’re using the magic-shadow off the Mists to mask the energy of the weave. Not even a Spirit master would see it until he was almost on top of it.”

  “Well?” Kieran said with an eager grin. He held out a hand to Lillis. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go see what’s behind the weave.”

  With a burbling laugh, she stuck her hand in his and they ran up the trampled path after Rain and Teleos. Lorelle grabbed Kiel’s hand and yanked the Water master with her as she darted forward in hot pursuit.

  Ellysetta, Bel, and Sol followed close behind, and when they stepped through the rippling wall of illusion and cast eyes on the sight beyond, Ellysetta’s jaw dropped open in stunned wonder.

  “Bright Lord save me,” Sol whispered, staring awestruck at the gleaming magnificence before him. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “It’s like a magical palace from a Fey tale,”
she breathed. They were standing at the open, arching gate of an immense mountain fortress of unparalleled grace and beauty. Silvery blue stone soared high into the sky in a dazzling display of Fey artistry and architecture. Crenellated walls gave way to lush, gracefully terraced gardens bursting with trees, fountains, fragrant shrubs, and flowers. Pennants in the bold colors of House Teleos fluttered in the breeze from every tower and along the series of interior walls that ringed up the mountainside and circled the upper keep with level after level of protection and silvery blue beauty.

  “Ellie! Papa! Come look!” Lillis and Lorelle stood in the center of a small grassy park nestled against the second inner wall. They laughed and danced beneath the graceful, arching branches of cherry trees as pale pink petals rained softly down upon them. Kieran and Kiel stood nearby, watching the children with indulgent smiles.

  Lord Teleos stood dumbstruck at Rain’s side as Ellysetta and Sol crossed the lower courtyard to join the twins. “You did it,” he said. “You restored her to her former beauty.”

  “Not completely,” Rain admitted. He dragged his gaze away from Ellysetta and the children and gave Devron Teleos his full attention. “A number of the gardens and buildings on the middle levels are still just Spirit weaves, but the walls and gates are real, and defensible, as is the manor at the top.”

  “Even so…this is an amazing feat. How did you manage it?”

  “Three thousand Fey stand guard at the great war castles of Chatok and Chakai beyond the Mists. While we journeyed across Celieria, they came through the Mists to prepare a suitable home for the Feyreisa’s family. And to prepare Teleon for battle once more.”

  Lord Teleos turned to him in surprise. “You think the Eld will strike here? With the Mists blocking any hope of entrance to the Fading Lands?”

  Rain looked across the flagstone-cobbled courtyard to the lower garden, where Ellysetta, Sol, and the twins were inspecting a marble fountain of dancing maidens whose slender, upstretched fingers rained veils of clear water into a small pond.

  His expression lost any hint of softness. “If the Eld come,” he said, “I doubt it will be passage through the Mists they’re after.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  In sorrow, the blood-sown earth despairs,

  and granite stone weeps bitter tears.

  In fields once green, love lies entombed

  beneath a silent lake of glass

  forged in raging tairen flames,

  dark with the death of dreams.

  There, shades of men and once-great kings

  yet battle evil’s tide.

  While silvery maidens softly dance and

  sing of love that died.

  Sariel’s Lament by Avian of Celieria

  Ellysetta stood on the balcony of a well-appointed bedchamber in one of Teleon’s spacious upper towers and looked up at the Mists. Several bells earlier, the lowering sun set the Mists ablaze, giving the illusion of a curtain of fire burning across the world. Now the night was deep and the Mists were a shifting, shimmering glow of multicolored radiance against the dark of a near-moonless sky.

  The clap of boot heels on stone made her cast a glance over her shoulder. Still clothed in black leather and full steel, his Fey skin as pale and luminous as pearls in moonlight, Rain approached. He’d been meeting with Teleos, Bel, Kieran, and Kiel to discuss the defense of Teleon and review troop strength and dispersal in the rest of Teleos’s holdings.

  War was coming. No matter how some still tiptoed around the truth, all of them knew it. They only prayed there would be time enough to prepare before Celieria’s borders erupted into open battle.

  And though it seemed a terrible thing to ask, Ellysetta had secretly prayed that when the attack came, the Eld’s first strike would come in some far-distant part of Celieria, like Orest or Celieria City, so the Fey would have enough time to evacuate Lillis, Lorelle, and Papa to safety behind the Faering Mists.

  That secret prayer seemed ill-considered now. The hearth witches of the north—and there had been plenty of them living in her childhood town of Hartslea, despite the strong Church presence there—believed that wishing harm upon others would bring three times that harm to the wisher. Was hoping the first battle of a war started somewhere else the same as wishing harm upon another? Ellysetta shivered at the prospect.

  “Cold?” Rain asked. His eyes narrowed. “Or have your wandering souls returned?”

  Ellysetta often experienced inexplicable sudden chills, like ice spiders crawling up her spine. The chills—or “wandering souls” as Rain called them—were insignificant compared to the hideous nightmares and frightening seizures that had afflicted her all her life, and she’d always brushed them off as yet another oddity about her. Rain didn’t consider the strange onset of chills as harmless as she always did.

  “Nothing like that,” she assured him. “Just a worrisome thought of war.”

  His arms tightened. “Your family will be safe. The Fey will see to it.”

  “I know.” And she did. Kieran and Kiel would die to defend her family. All the Fey staying at Teleon would.

  Rain rubbed a thumb across her lower lip, then bent his head to follow the small caress with a kiss. “There is a thing I need to do tonight before returning to the Fading Lands. I had hoped you would come with me, but perhaps you should stay here, instead, and try to get some sleep.”

  “No, I’m fine.” She reached for his hand. “You know I can’t sleep without you beside me.” He was her talisman against the call of the High Mage of Eld, and she feared to fall asleep without him lying there beside her, him arms wrapped about her, protecting her from the very real terrors of the night.

  “Then let’s go—and bring your cloak.”

  Ten chimes later, they were soaring through the night skies high over Teleon. Ellysetta stretched out her arms and turned her face up to the stars. Rain spun a light Fire weave to keep her warm as the chill, thin air swept past.

  «Hold on.» The brief command was her only warning before Rain twitched back his rounded tairen ears, spouted a warming jet of flame that lit the night, then tucked in his mighty wings and dove.

  Ellysetta screamed with laughter and grabbed for the high, curving pommel of her saddle just as the unsettling thrill of weightlessness came over her. Together, she and Rain fell through the sky, plummeting freely towards the ground miles below. The moonlit sky went silvery white, and fine droplets of water misted Ellysetta’s face as they plunged into a cloud bank. She caught the tangy-fresh chill of cloud mist on her tongue, drinking its bracing sweetness.

  One heartbeat; two; then they burst through the clouds back into the crisp, clear darkness of the night.

  Tairen wings spread wide, snapped taut, and the wild, reckless plunge became a swooping ascent. Ellysetta screamed again, a breathless, exuberant sound, and clutched the saddle tight. «Rain! I think I left my stomach back there.»

  The now-familiar, chuffing sound of tairen laughter joined the rush of the wind in her ears. «Hold on again, shei’tani. This is even better.»

  Flows of magic spun out to bind her securely into place, and Rain shot forward on a thrust of magic-powered speed. The world rushed by in a dizzying blur, and with a subtle shift of his wings, he sent them spiraling into a corkscrew roll. Shadowy earth and moonlit sky whirled in a wild kaleidoscope before Ellysetta’s dazzled eyes.

  Another woman might have shrieked in fear and begged him to stop. Ellysetta only flung back her head and laughed in delight. Freedom coursed through her veins like a potent drug.

  She would never tire of flying. The limitless joy of dancing, laughter-spangled winds, the thrill of diving through misty clouds and soaring so high she could almost scoop stardust with her fingertips: Flying was a joy so rich, it chased back all sorrows and fears. Well, she amended silently, almost all.

  «Rain, do you honestly think when we get to Fey’Bahren, I can just walk in and spin a weave that will cure the kitlings of whatever is killing them?» That was the reason Rain had co
me to Celieria to find her. Unbeknownst to the outside world, a mysterious sickness had been killing unborn tairen in the egg for centuries, decimating their numbers until scarcely more than a dozen of the great cats still lived. The Eye of Truth had sent Rain to Celieria to find the key to saving them.

  She, Ellysetta Baristani, was that key. Even if none of them actually knew how she was going to manage the miracle.

  «I know it doesn’t sound like much of a plan,» he said, «but the tairen have never let any of our healers into the lair—not even Marissya. You, however, are both a Tairen Soul and my truemate. You’ll be able to enter the lair and weave healing on the kits as no other she’dalin has been able to.»

  «This assumes I’ll even know what weave to spin when I get there—let alone how to spin it.»

  «That’s why Marissya will be going with us to Fey’Bahren—so she can continue your training and counsel you while you’re healing the tairen. But you may not even need her help. I heard you healed Ravel’s new Fire master well enough this afternoon while I took your sisters flying.»

  She gave a short laugh. «Oh, yes, I healed him all right. I made that wound vanish as if it had never been.»

  «There, you see—»

  «And I erased every hint of weariness from the last week of travel,» she informed him. «And wiped clean every shadow on his soul. And filled him with such an abundance of energy that he shone like a newly minted coin and spent the rest of the day racing circles around my quintets until Bel and Ravel both threatened to pull red on him if he twitched another muscle.»

  There was a brief silence; then Rain said in an oddly choked voice, «Well, shei’tani, there are worse tribulations in life than healing a Fey too well.» Chuffing tairen laughter vibrated in his throat.