by C. L. Wilson
Taking his time, Kolis donned the blue coat of his Sorrelian merchantship captain’s disguise, re-inked the blue tattoo of crossed swords high on his cheek, and finger-combed the long oiled black curls threaded with gold rings. Few people would question—much less remember—a sailor wandering the pleasure-trails at break of dawn.
When he was dressed, the Elden Mage scooped his black dagger and the bulging, blood-spattered leather pouch off the table and slipped out the brothel’s back door into the dark, unpleasant rankness of the alleyway.
After leaving the barracks, Rain headed into the palace to locate Marissya and Dax. The shei’dalin and her mate had made it back to their own chambers last night, but were still abed when he reached their rooms.
By the time they dressed and met him in the king’s private dining room for breakfast, Rain had already finished his food and was savoring his second cup of keflee, rolling the flavors around on his tongue and trying to imagine why the drink had such a profound effect on his shei’tani. It was a tasty brew, to be sure, but nothing that made him want to sit up and purr. Still, if Ellysetta liked it that much, he’d keep his palace stocked with the stuff. Well…only after she was sharing his bed. Smiling wryly, he set the cup in its saucer.
“Why are you smiling?” Dax growled. He glanced at his shei’tani, who was in the process of lifting the heavy veil off her face, and repeated crankily, “Why is he smiling?”
Rain felt a whisper-soft probe, an intrusion that made him scowl, but Marissya only smiled in the face of his irritation. “He has decided keflee might have its benefits,” she revealed to Dax. “His courtship is progressing. The first thread of the bond has been forged.” She took Rain’s face in her hands and rose up on her toes to kiss him on both cheeks. “Miora felah, kem’feyreisen.”
Dax turned to Rain, his grouchiness melting into genuine pleasure, a broad smile spreading across his face. “Mioralas, Rain. Good news indeed.” Like Bel and the others, Dax offered a hand-clasp and well wishes for a joyous outcome.
“Beylah vos. Thank you both.” Rain sipped his keflee and arched a brow at the shei’dalin. “You know it’s rude to probe a Fey’s mind without permission.” He tried to scowl again, just to prod her, but Dax’s grin and his own burgeoning happiness made it impossible.
“Aiyah. Almost as rude as waking us after such an eventful night.” Marissya poured herself a cup of keflee, then took a seat next to Rain, touching him lightly with her hand. “You are tired. You are expending too much effort to maintain your control. Permit me to assist you.” Cool, relaxing power lapped over him, smoothing the edges of his fatigue, fortifying him with strength and calm. “That is all I can do for now,” she told him, removing her hand. “It should be enough to see you through this afternoon with your shei’tani.”
Rain nodded his thanks. This was not the first time Marissya had lent her strength to help him keep a grip on his own. It would not be the last, either. The courtship was far from over.
Dax groaned a little as he lowered himself into the chair beside his truemate.
“You have not seen to your mate?” Rain asked Marissya, surprised.
“Oh, she saw to me, all right,” Dax answered with a tired but wicked grin. “Again and again and again. That’s the problem. I think I may be too old for such…vigorous…activity.”
“Rain was referring,” Marissya sniffed, “to healing. As you are well aware.”
“Ah. My mind must still be on last night.” Dax drank half his keflee in a single gulp and gave Rain a wide-eyed look. “Do you have any idea what this woman can do with a—”
“Dax!”
Despite the agony he’d endured for seven bells last night while Ellysetta’s weave had driven him so relentlessly, Rain decided it was almost worth it to see the cool, imperturbable Marissya turn such an interesting shade of scarlet. The Fey were modest about some things, but relations between matepairs was not one of them. Which meant things must have been far more than merely interesting in a certain suite of palace rooms last night if Marissya was still blushing this morning.
“My mind boggles at the possibilities.” Rain shook his head and laughed.
Embarrassment forgotten, Marissya turned to Rain with a look of wonder in her eyes. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in a thousand years. I had never thought to hear the sound of it again.” Tears shimmered in her lashes. She blinked and they spilled over, silvery trails tracking down her cheeks. “Joy to the Feyreisa indeed if she can bring laughter back to my dear friend Rain.”
Marissya’s tears touched Rain’s heart, and for the first time he realized how difficult the past centuries must have been on her. All the ancients who had survived the Wars had surrendered their own lives to create the Faering Mists. They’d left Marissya, the strongest remaining shei’dalin, to lead the Fading Lands while Rain struggled through centuries of madness. She’d borne it all without complaint and without casting the slightest blame upon him.
He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Though I did not welcome it at first,” he said quietly, “and though it may still end badly, I am grateful for this blessing the gods saw fit to bestow upon me. It has been too long since I remembered why life is worth living. Ellysetta has reminded me.”
“Then I, too, say joy to the Feyreisa,” Dax said. “Though, gods love her, may she never again weave Spirit the way she did last night.”
“At least not so the weave lasts seven bells,” Marissya amended.
“Witnessed,” Rain seconded with a wry laugh. A moment later, he rose to refill his cup and weave privacy wards around the room. “That’s twice now that I’ve seen her weave such strong Spirit. She is more than just a master of it. And the Air weave she spun the other day was no third or fourth level skill either. With such strong command of two magics, there must be considerable Fey blood in her ancestry, but I don’t understand why no hint of it shows. She looks pure mortal, but her magic seems pure, powerful Fey.”
“Rain, how can she be Fey?” Marissya countered. “Can you honestly believe truemates have lived here, undetected, in Celieria since the Mage Wars? What possible reason would they have to exile themselves from the Fading Lands? Even if there was such a pair, once they realized their unborn child was female, they would surely have returned to us rather than endanger her in the unprotected world.”
“I must agree with Marissya,” Dax said. “No Fey lord worthy of his steel would put his women in such peril. More likely, it is as her mother said, remnant magic from the Mage Wars—”
Rain shook his head. “No remnant magic can account for the way she called a tairen from the sky, or the way she healed Bel’s soul and wove Spirit last night with such mastery.”
“Then perhaps her birth parents weren’t pure mortal,” Marissya suggested. “Perhaps they carried within them the gifts of some ancient magical ancestor—Fey, or Elves, or Danae—and perhaps that is what the remnant magic of the north awakened.”
“Have Sian and Torel found anything in Norban to help solve this mystery?” Dax asked.
“Nei,” Rain said. “They mentioned a lead they were going to follow up yesterday evening, but no one was in any shape to receive their report last night.”
The two warriors had traveled north to investigate Ellysetta’s origins. A young woman who could truemate a Tairen Soul hadn’t just sprung up from the ground like a cabbage sprout. And despite Dax and Marissya’s doubts, Rain was convinced Ellysetta came from pure, powerful magical stock. Who her parents were and why they’d not brought her to the Fading Lands after her birth was a mystery Rain intended to solve.
“Whatever she is,” Marissya said, “she must discover and embrace her true identity before the bond can be complete.”
“I know it. And at least she has finally accepted that she does possess magic and had agreed to be trained in its use.” He fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, “She shared my dreams this morning. I was dreaming I was back in Fey’Bahren. I didn’t realize it, but s
he was there with me. She saw Calah and the kits, heard the vow I made to Sybharukai. She saw everything just as it happened in my dream.”
“Sharing dreams has happened to us a time or two,” Dax said. “You should be happy, not concerned. It’s a sign of a strong bond.”
Marissya watched Rain’s face closely. As always, she saw far more than he would have liked. “You haven’t told her about the tairen.”
Rain stared at his keflee cup and ran a thumb over the glazed handle.
“Rain…” Marissya only said his name, but her tone alone was sufficient admonishment.
“What good would it do? She’s uncertain enough as it is. Shall I cement the destruction of our bond by piling the fate of two races on her shoulders?”
“The Eye of Truth sent you here to find her, Rain, because the fates of those races rest on her shoulders whether she knows it or not. You must at least let her know what’s at stake. There can be no secrecy between truemates. Besides, if you tell her the truth, she may surprise you. There is courage in her, even if it isn’t readily apparent.”
“When the time is right,” Rain said, “I will tell her everything. At the moment, we have a more immediate crisis to deal with.”
Marissya stared at him for an irritated chime. “There are challenges enough in the completion of a truemate bond without your adding to them, Rain,” she warned. “Trust her, as a shei’tan should trust his mate.”
His jaw tightened and he met her reproachful look without flinching. Her lips compressed, then she huffed and let him change the subject. “Ellysetta’s weave was localized within the banquet hall,” she said. “Only those of us inside were affected. Once we realized what was happening, Dax wove redirection and privacy around the Hall. Those caught up in the weave will remember, but no others will have seen or heard them. And we did what we could to send most of them to the privacy of their own rooms.”
“Quick thinking,” Rain approved. “More than I was capable of at the time.”
“Rumors may still spread,” Marissya cautioned.
“We’ll deal with that if it happens. At least you granted us a little time to prepare.” He leaned back in his chair. “What did you learn last night?”
Dax ran through the list of Celierian lords he and Marissya had talked with before and during dinner. Of the two hundred members of the Council of Lords, only thirty still declared themselves undecided as to how they would vote on the upcoming treaty with the Eld, and the Fey, unfortunately, would need almost every one of those votes to keep the Eld out of Celieria.
Too many of Celieria’s nobles had grown openly antagonistic towards the Fey. Some had even gone so far as to suggest that Rain’s return to Celieria after a thousand years of self-imposed exile in the Fading Lands was proof the dahl’reisen and Fey were working in concert to destabilize Celieria. And though Rain would never say so to Ellysetta, her weave could well have ruined their hopes of winning the upcoming vote.
“What happened last night could have changed everything,” Dax added. “Obviously, Marissya and I haven’t yet had a chance to gauge the aftereffects of Ellysetta’s weave.”
Marissya blushed again and sipped her keflee, lifting her eyes to inspect the elegant gilded plaster moldings on the ceiling.
Rain looked at Dax and raised an admiring brow, but took mercy on Marissya and let her blush pass without comment. “So, basically, there are thirty lords who hold Celieria’s fate in their hands,” he summated.
“Assuming more do not change their votes this morning,” Dax agreed. “Of those still undecided, Great Lords Orly and Verakis are the most powerful. If we can gain their support, we may have a chance. Each of them will likely pull another dozen votes from the lesser lords.”
“I’m still surprised Dorian won Morvel to our side. He bears no love for our kind. He made that abundantly clear last night.”
“He’s got five unwed daughters and no takers for them,” Dax said. “If you saw them, you’d understand why. His income has suffered thanks to poor harvests these last few years, and he can’t offer large enough dowries to sweeten the pot. I know he told you he wants to provide for his bastard son, but in truth, he’s seeking gold enough to get those daughters off his hands.”
“Dorian also promised him two prestigious estates in the south,” Marissya said. “He’d be the second-largest landholder in Celieria. That’s quite an incentive for a man like Lord Morvel.”
“Well, I hope greed still holds the power to lure him after last night.” Rain grimaced as he considered the possible fallout from Ellysetta’s weave. “The last I saw him, he was hustling his wife away from the table, and she was shedding clothes as she went. Ah, gods.” He rubbed his face. “I pray they made it to their rooms before…”
Marissya nodded. “He would not be one to forgive a public humiliation.”
Grimly the three of them looked at one another in silence. It wouldn’t take the nobles long to realize that magic, not simply an overindulgence in pinalle and keflee, had compelled their actions. While the Fey might shrug off a night of uninhibited, weave-driven mating with laughs, groans, and a few blushes, most Celierians were much more tightly laced about such matters. Worse, unintentionally woven though it had been, Ellysetta’s magic had overridden the wills and inhibitions of Celieria’s most powerful nobles, individuals who reigned as kings on their own estates. Last night, those kings had danced like puppets on strings beneath the unyielding dictates of her weave.
“We must assess the damage and mend what bridges we can,” Rain said. “I don’t want blame to fall on Ellysetta. If you are questioned, imply the weave was mine. Who’s to say it wasn’t my own need that drove her in any case?”
“I’ll speak to Dorian,” Marissya promised. “If he didn’t realize the weave was Ellysetta’s, there’s a good chance none of the other lords will have either.”
Rain’s jaw tightened at the mention of King Dorian’s name, and he gave a curt nod. He knew he should approach Dorian personally, king to king, but Marissya was far more levelheaded when dealing with her nephew than Rain could ever be.
The man could have ended this entire political struggle by invoking primus—King’s First Right—to keep the borders closed to the Eld. It was what a strong king would have done. But Dorian had surrendered too much of his power to Celieria’s noble Houses. He sought consensus when he should have provided leadership; and despite Rain’s warning about the growing darkness in the north, without hard proof of a reconstituted Mage presence, Dorian refused to override the will of the Council of Lords.
“Teleos pledged his support,” Rain said, “though I doubt any lords who distrust us will change their votes because of him.” Teleos had too much Fey blood in his ancestry for the comfort of most pure mortals, and it showed in his Fey eyes and faintly luminescent skin. “Lord Barrial is—at least, was—in our corner, and he seems to be well liked by most of the other lords. If last night’s weave didn’t turn him against us, he may be a very useful ally. Did you see the sorreisu kiyr he was wearing last night?”
“Aiyah,” Dax said. “We were wondering about that ourselves. He’s not a regular at court, and that’s the first time Marissya or I have seen him with the crystal.”
“I’ll ask for a meeting with him and see what I can learn.” Rain leaned back in his seat and sipped the warm keflee. “For now, let’s focus on finding a way to convince these other lords that the Eld still pose a threat—or at the very least make an alliance with the Fey seem more lucrative than one with the Eld.”
Sunlight filtering through her closed eyelids filled Queen Annoura’s gaze with a wash of red, like a sea of watery blood. She peeled one eye open, then groaned against the stabbing light and dragged a pillow over her face. Gods’ mercy, she ached all over. From the tip of her toes to the crown of her head, every muscle, every sinew, every inch of skin felt sore and raw.
A rumbling snore sounded in her ear, and she turned her head just enough to find her husband Dorian sprawled out beside h
er, naked, one arm and leg flung possessively across her.
She glanced down and found her own body spread-eagled with vulgar abandon atop the tangled bedsheets. Had the servants come in and seen her like this? Celieria’s queen, naked and flung open like a starfish, bared to any gawking fool? Grabbing one edge of the silk sheet, she pulled it over herself and hissed as even that slight pressure irritated raw, whisker-burned skin.
Good gods, what a night.
How had something as tediously banal as a palace dinner gone so wrong? Her hands clenched in fists around the bedsheets as the memories flooded back, clear and sharp as glass. The palace dinner. Dorian’s unexpected and very unwelcome coup in convincing Great Lords Barrial and Morvel to offer marriage ties between one of their sons and Ellysetta Baristani’s young sisters. Rain Tairen Soul squiring his common-born mate around the palace as if she were the Queen of Queens.
The affront had been too much. Annoura’s simmering resentment had bubbled over, and her desire to put the woodcarver’s daughter in her place had turned to bitter determination. A whispered word in a trusted ear ensured that a never-ending flow of heady blue wine poured into the girl’s glass and a special brew of intensely potent keflee found its way into her cup.
Get the girl drunk, ply her with the overwhelming aphrodisiacal effects of the keflee, and watch her make an unmitigated fool of herself before the heads of every noble House in Celieria: that had been Annoura’s plan.
Only it hadn’t worked out the way she’d intended.
Rather than Ellysetta Baristani humiliating herself before the court, every other person in the banquet hall had done so in her stead. Celieria’s most powerful nobles had fallen upon each other like ravening wolves. Lords and ladies, Great Lords, even she and Dorian—all helpless to resist the driving sexual hunger.