Lady of Light and Shadows

by C. L. Wilson

  Ellysetta had been part of some…some carnal banquet at the palace two nights ago. The results of a spell woven by the Tairen Soul.

  “I’m sorry, Madame Baristani.” Selianne reached across the table to clasp Lauriana’s hands. “I didn’t know what to do, but I thought you should know.”

  “No, Selianne, you were right to tell me.” Pulling her distracted thoughts back to order, Lauriana patted the younger woman’s hand.

  “I’m frightened for Ellie, Madame Baristani. I’m frightened of what’s happening to her, of what will become of her when the Fey take her away. I know you’ve always been a beacon of strength for her. I fear what will happen when she doesn’t have you to guide her.” Selianne lowered her eyes and hesitated, as if gathering courage to speak. “My mother has a friend…a sea captain…He’s agreed to offer Ellie safe passage on his return voyage. He can take her away to someplace where she’d be safe from the Fey.”

  “What?” Lauriana snatched her hands away and drew back to regard Selianne with shocked disbelief. Two days ago, awash in tears, Selianne had shared her fearful concerns about Ellie being exposed to the corruption of the Fey, but Laurie hadn’t realized her worries would take her down this path. “Selianne, I know you mean well, but—”

  “Please, Madame Baristani, hear me out. He can take all of you. Your whole family. There would be no repercussions and you’d all be safe…together and free of the Fey.”

  “No repercussions? Oh, kitling, by the king’s own command, before the Supreme Council and with half the court as witness, we pledged Ellysetta’s troth to the Tairen Soul. If we fled our bound oath, we’d all be outcasts, exiles. And the Fey would never give her up so easily. We’d be hunted for the rest of our lives.”

  Tears sparkled in Selianne’s blue eyes. “I’m only thinking of Ellie. I can see her changing before my eyes, and it frightens me. I’m afraid of what the Fey are doing to her.”

  “As am I,” Lauriana agreed grimly. “But we cannot right a wrong with a more grievous wrong, Selianne. No matter how tempting or justified it may seem. Every teaching in the Book of Light tells us that is the first step down the Dark Path.”

  “But what else can we do, Madame Baristani?”

  Lauriana stared helplessly at the younger woman. Her eyes felt dry and burning, and the small luncheon they’d shared churned uncomfortably in her belly. “I don’t know.”

  She was still worrying over it a bell later as she walked home, her arms full of packages she’d collected from various tradesmen. Her steps slowed as she neared the corner of West Avenue and Poppy. An unshaven man in a moth-eaten coat stood on the corner beside the lamppost. He held a large sign that proclaimed “The Shadows Are Among Us” and cried out for Celierians to repent their sins and seek the Light.

  Lauriana grimaced. Shadow Seer. One of the crazed religious zealots who saw the end of the world in every cloud and flickering lamp. His sort gave true followers of Adelis a bad name.

  She shifted closer to the street to give the man a wide berth, but as she passed him, he leapt at her and grabbed her arms. She gave a shrill scream of fear. Her purse and packages tumbled to the cobblestones. The man thrust his face so close to hers, she could see the spidery red veins in the whites of his wild eyes.

  “He’s here!” the man cried. “The demon-beast of the Dark Lord. He’ll steal her soul, mother! Save her! Only you can save her!”

  “Here now, let that woman go.” Several men rushed to Lauriana’s aid, prying her from the ragged Seer. “Get on back to the slums, you crack-skull.” Two of the men shoved the Seer down the street, while a third bent to gather Lauriana’s fallen belongings.

  “You all right, madam?” A fourth man with kind eyes helped her to her feet.

  “I…yes.” Lauriana pressed a shaking hand to her face and battled back the threatening hot rush of tears. “I’m fine. Thank you. Just a little shaken.” She took the packages and her bag back from the third man. “Thank you all,” she repeated. Gathering her composure as best she could, she turned down Poppy and headed towards home.

  She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back over her shoulder. The Shadow Seer stood to one side of the cobbled road, watching her. His mouth was moving. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she knew the words all the same. Only you can save her.

  Deeply troubled, she made her way back home. Rain and Ellie were still out on their “courtship bells,” those long, un-chaperoned periods of time when they flew off to engage in gods only knew what kind of mischief together. Sol was certain the Fey-oath the Tairen Soul had sworn would keep their daughter and her virtue safe, but Lauriana wasn’t nearly so trusting. Especially after Selianne’s dreadful revelation.

  At home, she carried her packages upstairs and set them down on her bed. As she did so, a sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. She bent to pick it up and frowned at the smudged block print of the headline that proclaimed: “Beware the Shadow Lord, Corrupter of Souls!”

  Oh, for the Haven’s sake. That Shadow Seer must have thrust one of his religious tracts in her bags. She’d never been a woman to pay the Shadow Seers much mind. She’d always been too intrinsically orthodox in her devotion to the Bright Lord to find their fanatical mysticism appealing.

  Lauriana started to toss the pamphlet away, then stopped. What if, for all their wild-eyed madness, the Seers were right about the Fey? Hadn’t Selianne just told her of the unholy carnal spell the Tairen Soul had woven over Dorian’s court?

  She scanned the text. Most of it was the hysterical drivel she’d come to expect from the Seers, but there was a line or two that hit a little too close to home regarding the beguiling lure of evil, and how the most dangerous of all the Shadow’s servants were the kind that approached cloaked in beauty and false goodness. She reread those lines several times and shivered. The description of the Shadow’s servants fit Rain Tairen Soul and the Fey perfectly.

  Two bells later, Lauriana sat in silence, knitting with fervor and sneaking grim glances at the Fey king as he led Ellysetta through the steps of an intricate court dance Master Fellows insisted she must learn before the prince’s prenuptial ball.

  The corrupter of innocents moved with inhuman grace as he twirled Ellysetta in a series of elegant pirouettes. He looked so shining and pure and beautiful, not at all like the serpent of iniquity she knew him to be. Luring Ellysetta to carnal banquets. Endangering her soul. As the priests always said, the swiftest road to sin was down the path of pleasure…

  Ellie glanced over, frowning a little. “Mama? Is everything all right?”

  Conscious of the Tairen Soul’s sudden interest, Lauriana blanked her face and did her best to blank her emotions as well. “I’m fine, kitling.” She forced a smile. “Just a little aggravated by some of the tradesmasters I had to deal with today.”

  Deciding it was best not to sit in the Fey’s presence with her thoughts in such a turmoil, she set her knitting aside and went upstairs to her room to finish sorting through the packages she’d brought home.

  She emptied the contents of the largest bag on her bed. Along with the boxes of gratitudes and wedding programs she’d picked up from the printer, the small blue and silver gift Selianne had given her tumbled out. Selianne had asked Lauriana to put it somewhere that Ellie would be sure to find it and open it herself, without an audience. (“It’s a little something from one married friend to another soon-to-be-married friend, Madame Baristani,” Selianne had whispered with a faint blush.) Lauriana had forgotten about the gift, but now, looking at the reflections shimmering in the shining silver ribbons, she felt compelled to tuck it safely away in Ellie’s room as quickly as possible.

  She carried the gift down the hall and set it on Ellie’s dressing table. When she turned back towards the door, a strange light-headedness struck her and her vision went blurry. She stumbled out of the room and put her hand against the hallway wall to steady herself until the dizziness passed.

  “Lauriana, you ninnywit. What did you think would hap
pen after not eating all day?” Her constitution wasn’t as hardy as it had been in her youth. She returned to her bedroom and splashed cool water on her face before heading downstairs to fix herself something to eat.

  As she passed Ellysetta’s open bedroom door, a glint of blue and silver caught her eye and she paused, scowling with exasperation.

  Now, who had put that gift there in Ellie’s room? How many times had she told her daughters and the Fey that all wedding gifts needed to be kept together downstairs. Argh! She might as well talk to a stone wall, for all the good it did her!

  Lauriana had a process in place. If gifts were tossed willy nilly and opened at random rather than being carefully logged and recorded, she had absolutely no hope of ensuring the proper gratitudes went out to the appropriate people. And considering that half the gifts came from influential and noble families, such an oversight could besmirch her family’s reputation and harm Sol’s business. What nobles would buy their goods from an ingrate who couldn’t even be bothered to thank them for the graciousness of their gifts?

  She snatched up the package and marched downstairs to deposit it on the hall table, alongside the three dozen or so other gifts that had arrived today.

  The front door opened. Dajan vel Rhiadi, the Fey who stood guard at the Baristani front door each day, entered, his arms laden with more packages that had been inspected by the Fey.

  “On the table with those others until we make more room in the parlor,” Lauriana rapped out. She stood, arms crossed over her chest, glowering, while Dajan did as he was told, then lectured the bewildered man soundly about the importance of following her precise directions for handling the wedding gifts.

  «Trouble comes, General.»

  Gaelen vel Serranis groaned as the persistent thread of Spirit penetrated his consciousness. Alternating fever and chills had left him weak as a babe, while his numerous wounds and the sel’dor embedded in his flesh reminded him of their presence with waves of pain that pounded him mercilessly.

  «Report.» It was all he could do to form and send even that one word on Spirit, and gathering energy enough to send it spinning out into the world felt like spikes driving into his brain. Of all the magics, Spirit was the most difficult to weave while sel’dor-pierced. Earth ran a close second, followed by Fire, then Air and Water.

  «Eld troops are moving along the border.» The information came from Farel vel Torras, Gaelen’s chief lieutenant and most trusted friend, if it could be said that dahl’reisen trusted or befriended anyone.

  «Invasion?» This time, the pain of weaving Spirit was so intense, Gaelen couldn’t completely choke back his scream. He fell back against the rotting leaves of the rultshart’s den, panting. The sel’dor shrapnel still buried in his flesh burned like live coals.

  «Possibly.» There was a brief pause, and then, «They’re building up along the western borders.»

  Closest to the Fading Lands. Which implied that whatever the Eld were planning, it involved an attack on the Fey.

  Rain Tairen Soul was in Celieria City. And so was Gaelen’s sister, Marissya.

  And the High Mage’s daughter was with them.

  Farel must warn the Fey—both of the serpent coiling on their doorstep and the one hiding in their midst. He must send dahl’reisen to slay the Eld demon’s get before she could pass through the Faering Mists and unleash her father’s evil.

  Gaelen knew it was a terrible risk. Rain would die the moment his claimed mate was slain—no Fey, not even Rain Tairen Soul, could survive his truemate’s death—and nothing would give the Eld a greater advantage than the death of the last Tairen Soul. But what choice did Gaelen have? Once the High Mage’s daughter passed through the Faering Mists, her father could use her to strike deep at the very heart of the Fading Lands, and the dahl’reisen would be helpless to stop him. The Fey would be destroyed. Marissya would die.

  Bracing himself, Gaelen summoned his remaining strength and once more threw himself against the sel’dor-spawned razors that slashed him as he tried to send the command. This time, not even his tremendous will could conquer the agony. His weave dissolved even as it formed. Despite centuries of training and experience, he screamed. It was a raw, sharp-edged roar of sound. As much fury and desperation as it was pain.

  He fell back against the rotting leaves, panting and clinging feebly to consciousness as agony swept over him in dizzying, debilitating waves.

  He wanted to curse and rail, but he dared not let even that much of his precious, rapidly dwindling supply of energy escape. His mind was already racing to find another solution. Evaluate, adapt, execute. Fey warriors were trained to think on their feet, to find ways around seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

  Without Gaelen’s command, the dahl’reisen would do as they had done for the last thousand years—protect the Fey from a distance—but none would communicate with the Fey directly, and none would dare approach Celieria so long as Marissya was there. Since he couldn’t weave Spirit to issue the command, he would have to go in person. He would have to be the one to ensure the High Mage’s spawn never set a single cursed foot in the Fading Lands.

  But first he had to find the strength to get up.

  Ah, gods, he hurt. His body had nothing left to give him. Nothing but excruciating pain, a heart full of dahl’reisen hate, and the memories of a time when he’d walked the Bright Path, not the Dark.

  Get up, Fey. Warriors don’t lie sniveling on the ground just because they’re hurt. Do you think the Mages will give you time to recoup your strength? They’ll slaughter you where you lie and piss in your skull. Get up, boy! In his mind, he could still hear the fierce, harsh bark of his chatok, the great Shannisorran v’En Celay, shouting at the young chadin Gaelen. How many times in those long years of training had the great Shan, Lord Death, pushed him beyond endurance? Pain is life, boy. Fey warriors eat pain for breakfast. We breathe it. We embrace it. We jaff it on a cold night just to keep warm. Get up, boy! Get up, scorch you!

  Gaelen staggered to his feet.

  His wounds shrieked. Agony roared up his limbs, immolating him with its fiery wrath. He bared his teeth and swallowed the tortured scream that fought for release, turning it inwards and feeding the energy back into his body. Fey ate pain for breakfast. Fey embraced it. Fey breathed it in and jaffed it on a cold night just to keep warm.

  What are you, chadin? Shout it out! Let me hear you!

  I…am…Warrior!

  I…. am…Fey!

  Or, rather, once he had been.

  Clutching his side, Gaelen forced himself to walk. His steps were shambling at first, each shuffling motion detonating a fireburst of pain all over his body as cauterized flesh ripped open and shrapnel shifted within torn muscle, but soon the individual pains numbed to a single, dull agony, and that he could control. Shambling steps accelerated to a long stride, then a moderate jog. The pace was a far cry from his normal land-eating run, and his feet fell heavily on the earth, but it was forward progress.

  The journey might kill him, the destination certainly would, but that was better than dying from infection and blood loss amid the foul ignominy of a rultshart’s den. Besides, though he’d not come within half a continent of his last living sister in over a thousand years, he would willingly give his own life and the life of every dahl’reisen under his command before allowing the slightest harm to come to her.

  With every step, Gaelen focused his substantial will on one single goal: He had to get to Celieria City. The High Mage’s daughter could not be allowed to live.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ellysetta hummed a bright Fey tune as she bustled around the Baristani kitchen, cooking up a hearty breakfast of peppered eggs, honey-cured bacon, and fried sweetcorn cakes with butter. Since that last nightmare after the palace dinner four nights past, not one bad dream had plagued her. Not even the slightest passing twinge. Each night after her parents went to bed, Rain snuck into her room and the Fey spun twenty-five-fold weaves around the house. Between the two of them, they had
managed to keep out who or whatever was responsible for her nightmares.

  She hadn’t realized what a dreadful burden those dreams had become. Without them, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from her soul, leaving her truly happy and lighthearted in a way she couldn’t remember ever being before.

  Of course, she thought with a secret smile as she set the breakfast table, Rain was as much to credit for that as her lack of dreams. In addition to the daily courtship gifts—a crown of exquisite Pink Button daisies made from white and pink diamonds, a small crystal lamp that burned fragrant oil, a music box with a tiny dancing couple that twirled when the music played—he’d sent her more than a dozen little gifts each day. Small, silly things meant to make her laugh or smile, each accompanied by a note penned in his own hand.

  If that weren’t enough, they’d spent the last day’s courtship bells in a beautiful meadow in the hills overlooking Great Bay. There he’d lain with her in the sweet grass beside a cascading waterfall and shown her with both his body and his brilliant command of Spirit just how devoted he truly was. Even now, the memories of it made her skin tingle and brought her near to swooning.

  She fanned herself and pressed a glass of iced water against her face to cool her flushed cheeks. Her wedding day—and night—couldn’t come soon enough.

  Rain had devoted equal care and guidance to her magical tutelage, too. Though she still couldn’t summon real magic on a regular basis—and never a weave stronger than what Rain called a level-one skill—she’d become rather adept at asking living things to share their essence with her. She could make grass wave and water ripple in flows following her fingers, and when she passed her hands above Rain’s bare flesh, not touching him but asking his body to share its magic with her, she could make his every muscle tremble and his eyes glow bright as the Great Sun.