King of Sword and Sky

by C. L. Wilson

  Not a single tairen’s soul had been claimed. Every one of them was lost. Set free by Ellysetta Baristani’s use of the great magic he had bestowed upon her. The very magic that he’d intended to claim for himself, to make himself a living god—powerful beyond measure, invincible.

  Immortal.

  He closed his eyes with effort and sucked in a rattling breath. Bloody froth bubbled up from his lungs when he exhaled.

  “Bring Elfeya to me now. Put her mate in the observation room.”

  The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren

  Ellysetta nestled in Rain’s arms as together they watched the kitlings’ first few bells of life. All four were healthy, their eyes bright, their songs strong, their little bodies already covered with soft, downy fur.

  “Little” was a relative word, of course. Each kitling was the size of a small pony, and their wings extended to easily three manlengths across, but next to the full-grown adults of the pride, they appeared tiny. They sang as they purred, and Ellysetta recognized each one by its song. Hallah was a pure black beauty with iridescent green eyes. Sharra and Letah looked like small versions of their mother, Cahlah, with cinnamon brown fur and golden eyes. The lone little male, Miauren, was as gray as his granddam, with black tips on his ears and tail.

  The kitlings were born with mouths full of teeth and bellies full of hunger, and when Steli returned with a fresh tavalree carcass, Ellysetta turned her face away from the exuberant carnivorous ferocity with which they attacked their first meal.

  Rain laughed softly at her squeamishness. “Come, shei’tani. Let’s leave the kitlings to their meal. I will take you back to Dharsa; then I must return to Orest.”

  She nodded, joy turning to melancholy. She knew without Rain’s saying so, that he would collect the king’s armor from Dharsa. The next time he returned—if he returned—the Fading Lands would be at war.

  Steli growled and paced after them. Her blue eyes whirled. «Fey-kin gather on Su Reisu. Growl pride-warnings, Rainier-Eras. They are not welcome with kits in the lair.»

  “Bel must have arrived. I will tell him and Gaelen to leave.”

  The sky was still dark over the Fading Lands, and to Rain and Ellysetta’s surprise, at least twenty warriors stood in the firelight on Su Reisu where they had left Gaelen. But Gaelen and another warrior, who could only be Bel, were kneeling on the plateau in the center of a ring of warriors, imprisoned by dense, radiant, multifold weaves.

  “Stay here,” Rain said. “I will go down.”

  Ellysetta clutched his hand in a tight grip. “Nei, they didn’t come here for you.” Both Bel and Gaelen were imprisoned. That could mean only one thing. “They came for me. They must have realized what I was intending to do.”

  “We will go together, shei’tani.” When she would have objected, Rain pressed a silencing finger to her lips. “We made this choice together. We’ll face the consequences together.”

  She stepped back so he could summon the Change, and together they flew down to Su Reisu to face the gathered Fey warriors.

  He recognized a few of the Fey: A handful of them were those who’d made a great point of walking out that first day at the Academy, before Gaelen rang the gong. Unbending warriors, clinging to the shining, spotless ideal of perfect honor, as if only that could ever be worthy of their regard.

  He couldn’t blame them for their views. The idea of perfect honor was a beautiful dream, one Rain himself had fixed in his heart for years. And it was a worthy goal—as long as the pursuit of it did not become a slavish devotion empty of all compassion and willingness to accept change.

  “What is your business here, Fey?” he asked. Bel and Gaelen were both speaking and gesturing at him, but neither voice nor Spirit could penetrate the twenty-five-fold weaves wrapped so tightly around them. His magic pooled within him, ready for summoning at the first hint of aggression. “By what authority do you imprison the First General of the Fading Lands and a chatok of the Academy?”

  One of the Fey stepped forward. His eyes were bright and hard, his face an expressionless mask. “By the authority of the Shei’dalin and the Massan,” he said.

  Rain sensed the explosion of power only a split second before another thirty Fey shed their invisibility weaves. Two dense, twenty-five-fold weaves sprang up around him and Ellysetta.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  Bound in sel’dor manacles and collar and pinned to the wall by thick sel’dor chains, Elfeya hid her savage joy as she beheld the rotting wreck of the High Mage. His face was the decaying skull of a corpse. Livid flesh drooped in waxy folds beneath his sunken eyes and around his nose and mouth. His eyes were silver coins floating in pools of scarlet blood, and his once-thick mane of white hair had gone thin and sparse, sickly tufts clinging to the thin, mottled, parchment-like skin that covered his skull.

  “I will not heal you,” she told him with cold defiance. “If that is why you summoned me, you have wasted what little time in this life you have left.”

  He laughed, and it turned into a cough that sprayed bloody sputum like a red mist. “Such brave words. You grow much bolder than you should.” He waved, and the wall beside her became transparent. Inside a well-lit chamber, Shan was strapped by dozens of barbed sel’dor bands to a table made of the same foul, black metal. His eyes were blindfolded, his mouth gagged.

  The sight of him made her quail as fear and desperate love seized her in equal measures. She wanted to plead for his release, but she and Shan had already agreed they would not. She tossed her head and forced herself to speak as though her heart were not being ripped from her chest. “What else can you do to us that you have not already done? He will not survive more torture. If you kill him, you only set me free. Either way, I am through prolonging your foul life. No matter what you do, I will not heal you.”

  “Oh, I won’t kill him. Not for a long, long time.” He bent and spoke into a tube connected to the adjoining room. “Disembowel him.”

  Elfeya closed her eyes as one of the guards in Shan’s room lifted a razor-sharp hook and approached Shan’s vulnerable belly. She felt the instant the hook sank into his skin as if it sank into her own, felt the burn of his intestines tearing as the guard drew them out of his body. She didn’t speak to Shan. She didn’t dare, terrified that if she heard his voice, she would not be strong, as they’d agreed she must be. She felt every moment of his suffering and bit her lip until her mouth filled with blood.

  “That’s enough, I think. Time for healing.” Maur spoke into the tube again.

  Despite herself, Elfeya opened her eyes and turned her head in time to see a woman with vacant eyes being escorted into Shan’s room. When the guard led her to Shan’s body and put her hands over his torn belly, a green glow lit the air around the woman’s hands. Shan’s body arched and his throat strained as a muffled scream rattled out of him.

  “She isn’t nearly as skilled as you, I’m afraid, and her mind is gone, as you can see, but the poor thing can’t stop healing. You’ve been getting…recalcitrant…so I had her brought from one of my other palaces. Alas, she causes as much pain as the wound she’s healing, but she’s quite adept at keeping her patients alive. Indefinitely.”

  Elfeya began to weep. Thrice more, the guards ripped Shan’s belly open. Thrice more the poor, mindless husk of a shei’dalin healed him with her instinctive weaves. All the while, both Elfeya and Shan felt every burning moment, and they both knew it could—and would—go on and on and on. The pain grew so terrible, Shan lost consciousness.

  “Parei! Stop!” In desperation, she dropped to her knees before the High Mage and seized his hands. “Teska, I beg you. I will heal you. Remove these bonds, stop Shan’s torture, and I will heal you.”

  The High Mage nodded to the guard. “Remove the manacles on her wrists.” To Elfeya, he hissed, “You will heal me now. If your results please me, I will halt his torture.”

  Weeping, she spun the weaves, feeling the acid burn of sel’dor as she channeled as much power as she could into the rottin
g shell of Vadim Maur’s body. When she could do no more, her hands fell away. Her head drooped in defeat. “Please.”

  He commanded one of the umagi to bring him a mirror. His face was still disfigured, the flesh mottled and drooping like melted wax, but most of his strength had returned. He stood, grabbed a fistful of Elfeya’s hair, and hauled her to her knees.

  “Did you think you could interfere as you did tonight and I would not know it?” he hissed. “Did you think I could not feel you feeding her the weaves, showing her how to spin her power?” He shook her like a child. “You and your beloved Lord Death will pay for what you have cost me. You will pay dearly…and for a very long time.” He flung her against the wall. Her head cracked against the stone, making stars flash before her eyes.

  He pinned the guards with his scarlet-filled silver gaze. “Take the male back to his cell. You may begin with him again tomorrow.”

  “And her?”

  Vadim Maur glanced down at Elfeya, the edge of his disfigured mouth curling. “Make her scream. Make her beg for death. But do not give it to her. I want her alive the day I claim her daughter’s body and soul.”

  The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren

  Dawn turned the eastern sky over the Fading Lands to pale pink. Rain sat in the center of his magical cage, his body relaxed, his mind calm. He’d Raged the first few bells of his imprisonment, but no longer. Now, his tairen lay coiled within him, a silent hunter, not mindlessly wild but lethally patient, waiting for the first chance to spring. Isolated by the dense weaves of their cages, he and Ellysetta could not call for help, and could not even speak to each other except through their bond threads.

  Their Fey guards stood up and turned to the west, Fey’cha in hand. A moment later, they sheathed their blades and waved to the approaching party. Tenn, Yulan, and Nurian crested the Su Reisu plateau, their shei’dalin mates close behind.

  The six of them approached their imprisoned king and his mate. Tenn nodded to the guards, and the dome of magic around Ellysetta dissolved, leaving five-fold weaves of Spirit surrounding her so she could not call to the tairen for aid, while gleaming circlets bound her arms to her chest so she could not spin any other magic in her defense.

  Tenn stepped forward. His expression was as stony as any Fey battle mask she’d ever seen. “Ellysetta of Celieria, you stand accused of weaving the forbidden magic. Will you admit your crime willingly, or must you be Truthspoken?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Release Rain. You imprison your king. In Celieria, Tenn v’En Eilan, you would be branded a traitor and sentenced to death by torture.”

  “We are not in Celieria,” the Fire master said softly, “and our actions are not treason. We”—he gestured to include Yulan, Nurian, and Venarra—“are here to stop Rain’s madness and keep him from destroying the Fading Lands.”

  “Madness?” she spat. “Everything he’s done, he’s done to save the Fading Lands! How can you betray him this way?”

  “You dare suggest we betray him?” Tenn’s eyes burned with red-gold flames, and his voice dropped to a low note that vibrated with fury. “He has broken every Fey law that does not suit his whim and made a mockery of the honor that serves as the cornerstone of our existence! He brings a dahl’reisen through the Mists and installs him as an honored chatok in the hallowed halls of Dharsa’s Warriors’ Academy. He grants a Mage-Marked woman entrance to the Fading Lands…stands idly by while she enchants hundreds of our finest and noblest warriors into bloodswearing themselves to her service…then makes her his queen even though the Eye of Truth reveals her for the foul, Azrahn-wielding corruptor she is!”

  Tenn drew himself up to his full height, righteous fury swirling around him in swaths of fiery red magic. “He has betrayed us in every way possible! Because he brought you into the Fading Lands!”

  “He brought me because the Eye told him I would save the tairen,” she cried. “And I have! Four kitlings were born in Fey’Bahren tonight—because Rain and I saved them.”

  Consternation flashed across Tenn’s face. For a moment—just a moment—she saw doubt flicker in his gold-sparked eyes.

  Yulan stepped forward, his brows drawn together in an accusing scowl. “How did you save them, Celierian? With Azrahn? Did our king knowingly allow you to weave the forbidden magic?”

  “Everything Rain has done, he has done to save the Fading Lands!” she cried. “He is your king, and he would die to save his people!”

  “Then he should have done so a thousand years ago!” spat Nurian, Sariel’s cousin. “He is as much an abomination as you! A madman who inherited a throne he did not deserve because he did not die with his mate, as a bonded Fey should. Everything about his rise to power is as corrupt as his existence and his rule. I reject him as the rightful king of the Fey.”

  Ellysetta stared at him, aghast. “You hate him because Sariel died and he did not. Dear gods, all this time, he has held you in his heart, and you have wished him dead.”

  “Enough of this.” Tenn held up his hand. “We owe you no explanation. We have come for answers, and you will give them to us, willingly or by Truthspeaking. You, Ellysetta of Celieria, stand accused of weaving the forbidden magic Azreisenahn, known as Azrahn. Do you confess to having freely and deliberately woven this magic?”

  She glared at them and clamped her lips shut. «They accuse me of weaving Azrahn,» she told Rain. «They say you are a madman, unfit to rule.»

  To her surprise, he laughed. «Well, you did weave Azrahn, and I am on occasion more than a little mad.»

  She jerked her head around to glare at him. «You think this is funny?»

  His teeth flashed in a grin more savage than humorous.

  «Nei, shei’tani. The fun is only about to begin. Look.» He pointed skyward.

  She looked up into the sky overhead, where Steli’s white form shone like a pearl in the early morning light. Her wings were spread, and as she swooped down to get a closer look at the gathering on Su Reisu, her eyes blazed like blue stars. She gave a roar that made every Fey on the plateau jump and stare upward in fear. Steli gave another fearsome roar, a call to arms, and scorched the sky with an enormous jet of flame. «Tairen! Defend the pride!»

  Within a few chimes, the sky was filled with tairen, all of them roaring loud enough to shake down the mountainside. They dove for Su Reisu, flames searing the air, and the Fey scattered like mice. The tairen herded them together with flames and swooping attacks.

  When the Fey were back on the plateau, ringed by a full dozen fierce, furious tairen, Steli-chakai, her fangs dripping venom, leaned her great head down and growled deep in her throat. In a pure, perfectly comprehensible Feyan, she commanded, «Release our pride-kin from your magic, or die where you stand.»

  Tenn, Yulan, even Venarra, all looked taken aback. And in an almost laughable display, they turned beseeching eyes to Ellysetta. “They would not dare…” Tenn said. “We are Fey. My brother was king!”

  “Rain and I are tairen,” Ellysetta replied coldly, “and he is king. I suggest you do as Steli-chakai commands. Quickly, before you rouse her protective instincts even further. There are four hungry kitlings in the lair tonight, and the pride considers all intruders a threat better left dead.”

  Glowering, Tenn nodded at the Fey, and the weaves around Rain, Bel, and Gaelen dissolved. The three warriors were at Ellysetta’s side in an instant, shoving her back behind them, sandwiching her between their tall, protective bodies and the rumbling chests of Steli, Fahreeta, and Torasul.

  «Shall we scorch the wingless ones?» Steli sang in tairen song. Tairen did not play politics. To them, an enemy was a creature to be shredded and scorched.

  Steli’s offer tempted Rain, but after a brief consideration, he turned it down. «Nei. They are Fey, my kin whether I like it or not. Reason may be enough.»

  The white cat growled. «Reason? The wingless ones have already reasoned themselves stronger than you, or they would not have issued Challenge. Show them fangs, not belly, Rainier-Eras, and keep your cl
aws sharp. Even Sybharukai knows a bite on the neck will remind the unruly to show respect. Show the wingless ones who is makai of this pride.»

  «Steli-chakai is as wise as she is fierce.» He fixed his eyes on the Massan. “Explain your presence here, Tenn v’En Eilan. Explain to me why fifty warriors of the Fey, three of the Massan, and three shei’dalins have come to the foot of Fey’Bahren to imprison their king and accuse the Tairen Soul’s mate of weaving the forbidden magic.”

  “Do you deny our accusations?” Tenn retorted instead.

  “Your mate has already woven Azrahn once, and we had very good reason to believe she was bringing Gaelen vel Serranis here with the deliberate intent of weaving it again.”

  Rain’s jaw worked. “How long did it take you to run here from Dharsa?”

  The question took Tenn aback. “Eighteen bells. What has that got to do with—”

  “Eighteen bells. Eighteen bells ago, you set out for Fey’Bahren because you believed my mate was planning to weave a magic that could corrupt her soul and endanger the Fading Lands.” His lips drew back in a snarl. “And yet not once in all that time did I receive a single word of warning from you or any of your fellow Massan that my mate was endangering herself. Why is that, Tenn?”

  The Fire master clenched his jaw and did not answer. Yulan leapt to his friend’s defense. “We are not the ones who have done wrong!”

  “Are you not?” Sparks began to fly around Rain as magic and fury bubbled up inside him. “Every warrior of the Fey swears on his honor and his life to protect the women of the Fading Lands from harm. Any one of you could have sent me a warning. I could have arrived in time to stop her. But you didn’t. Which leads me to only one conclusion: You meant her to weave Azrahn. You hoped she would. Because that would give you the opportunity to banish her from the Fading Lands.”

  He seared each of the Massan with a glare so hot, it was a wonder they did not burst into flame where they stood. “You dishonor your names and your steel.”

  Venarra stepped closer to her mate. “Aiyah, we allowed her the opportunity to weave Azrahn,” she said, “but we did not make her do it. She knew the danger. She knows the law. Yet still she chose to put the Fading Lands at risk. We all saw what will happen if we allow her to continue leading honorable Fey down the Shadowed Path. She is the Eld’s creature, sent here to destroy us, and it is our duty to stop her.” Venarra’s traveling leathers became scarlet shei’dalin silks, and a scarlet veil covered her face. “Rainier vel’En Daris, your mate stands accused of weaving the forbidden magic. She will confess or be Truthspoken.”