Lady of Light and Shadows

by C. L. Wilson

  “The rumors are true, then.”

  “Some are. I don’t eat small Celierian children for breakfast.” He lifted the goblet to his lips, met Kieran’s angry stare over the rim, and smiled wickedly. “Infant Fey playing at being warriors are much more satisfying.”

  Rain’s eyes narrowed. “Kieran is your sister’s son, and a fine warrior. Young, but stronger in Earth than any other Fey in the Fading Lands. He holds a master’s strength in Air and Fire as well, plus a fourth-level talent in Spirit and Water. If you prick him one too many times, vel Serranis, you will regret it.”

  “I doubt that. He may be my sister’s son, but he has his father’s reflexes.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve returned to us, Gaelen,” Dax announced dryly from the doorway. “I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was to have you around.” He, Marissya, and her quintet entered the suite.

  Gaelen raised his glass to Dax. “You never were and never will be good enough for her, but at least you’re Fey and possess some minor ability to ensure her protection and happiness. Not like that worthless mortal Marikah chose.” He downed the rest of the pinalle in one swallow and set the goblet aside. “But enough of that.” He raised a hand. The suite doors closed with a bang and bolted. Shining nets of Air and Spirit shot out from his fingertips to seal the room. It happened so quickly that even Rain was left blinking in surprise.

  Galen arched a dark brow. “I am a master of Earth, Air, Spirit, and Fire, and a fifth-level talent in Water, mentored in the Dance of Knives by the great Shannisorran v’En Celay himself.” He looked at Kieran, and his face hardened. “I was the sharpest blade in the Fading Lands, and still the Mages murdered my sister while she was in my presence and under my protection. One brief hesitation, one split second cost her life.” He met Kieran’s gaze steadily. “If I demand perfection, young Fey, it is because nothing but perfection will do. Not when protecting the Fading Lands, and certainly not when protecting a shei’dalin who has truemated a Tairen Soul and can bring the Dark Lord back from living death.”

  “You said you stumbled across an Eld raiding party,” Rain interrupted. “Tell us what you know. Marissya, verify every word he speaks.”

  When his sister’s hands closed around his arm, Gaelen lifted his chin. “Three days ago I found the remains of a Celierian woodsman just outside Norban. He’d been tortured and slain by an Eld raiding party led by an apprentice Mage. The Eld were seeking information about a red-haired child found there some twenty-four years ago.” His gaze flickered to Ellysetta, touching on her flame-red hair. “I tracked the Eld, and found them in the final moments of a battle with two Fey.”

  “Truth,” Marissya said. “That must have been Sian and Torel.”

  Rain frowned. “The Fey—Sian and Torel—they were slain?”

  “Aiyah. One was already dead. The other took his last breath before I could reach him. They died with honor, as warriors should.” Gaelen reached into his tunic and tugged two pendants free. “I have their sorreisu kiyr to verify my claim.”

  Marissya touched the stones and closed her eyes. “These are the crystals of Sian and Torel. And their death happened as Gaelen has said.”

  “Do you have any idea what the woodsman might have known about the Feyreisa that was so important a Mage would come to interrogate and kill him for it?” Rain asked.

  “The woodsman’s memories were gone,” Gaelen answered. “Someone—your Fey warriors, by the look of it—erased them before the Mage got to him.”

  “If the woodsman was already dead, and Sian and Torel died before you reached them,” Bel said quietly, “how is it you know they erased his memories?”

  Gaelen hesitated. “You are observant, Belliard vel Jelani.” He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “As I said, I’m a master of Air, Earth, Fire, and Spirit, and a fifth-level talent in Water. From what I can tell”—he met Rain’s gaze without flinching—“I am also a fourth-level talent in Azrahn.” Marissya gasped. Both her quintet and Ellysetta’s suddenly looked alert and deadly. Gaelen bestowed a gentle smile on his sister and freely condemned himself. “I summoned the man’s soul back from the dead to learn what I could before Firing his body.”

  “Oh, Gaelen.”

  “Use of Azrahn is a banishing offense,” Kieran said.

  Gaelen gave a bark of laughter. “That’s not much of a deterrent when one is already banished for far worse, now is it, puppy? Besides, Fey law also forbids tampering with Celierian memories, so I am not the only one to break Fey laws when the situation warrants.” He eyed Rain coolly. “I never expected to walk again in the Fading Lands. If you choose to deny me entrance because I called Azrahn as a dahl’reisen, so be it.”

  “I will not deny you entrance. But you will not call Azrahn again. It is forbidden.”

  Gaelen’s jaw hardened. “I will do as I have always done. Whatever is necessary to protect the Fey.”

  “As you protected us when you threw us into the Mage Wars for vengeance’s sake?”

  “No less than you, when you scorched the world.”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Marissya snapped.

  “If the Fey stole the woodsman’s memories, what kept you from calling their souls back from the dead to learn what they knew?” Kieran sneered.

  The temperature in the room plummeted. The chill was cold anger, coming from Gaelen, followed a moment later by mocking acceptance. “Well, puppy, I did try, but by then I was sel’dor-pierced and my magic wasn’t quite as manageable as it usually is.”

  “Untruth.” Marissya smiled at her brother’s quick scowl. “At least about trying to summon Fey souls. You were sel’dor-pierced.”

  “I caught a few barbed arrows while dispatching the last of the Elden raiders and the apprentice Mage who led them. I couldn’t send Spirit; that’s why I came to Celieria in person.”

  “There’s no trace of sel’dor in you now.”

  “The Feyreisa must have removed the barbs when she healed me.”

  “She didn’t,” Bel said. “She touched you and lit you up like a candle, but she didn’t remove any sel’dor so far as I could see.”

  “And yet the sel’dor has vanished from my flesh.”

  Everyone turned to Ellysetta. “If I did it, I don’t remember it, and don’t have any idea how to do it again.”

  “So…she truemates a Tairen Soul, restores a dahl’reisen’s lost soul, and disintegrates sel’dor with a touch. Yet she is still here in this city rather than safe behind the Faering Mists? And Marissya as well?”

  Rain bristled at the reproach. “Not because I wish it so, believe me,” he retorted. “I am bound by honor and Celierian law. Her father and Dorian set aside her Celierian betrothal only on the condition that I wed her by Celierian custom, and the formalities of it take time. Were that not so, I would have taken her and returned to the Fading Lands days ago. Just as I would have commanded your sister to return the moment I learned that the Celierians have been negotiating a trade agreement with the Eld, and that she and Dax knew of it.”

  Gaelen speared his sister with a penetrating look that actually made the imperturbable Marissya flush, but whatever scathing remark was on the tip of his tongue went unsaid. He turned back to Rain. “The Eld are on the move. Whatever attack they have planned will come soon. You should leave now, in the night. Take your shei’tani and go.”

  “I’ve told you, I cannot. She does not complete the required prenuptial ceremonies until tomorrow. We wed and depart after that.”

  “Do not place honor above your shei’tani’s life.”

  “That’s the sort of thinking that led you down the shadowed path so long ago, vel Serranis. I will honor my vow. To do less makes me unworthy of her.”

  A knock sounded on the doors. Kiel opened them upon Rain’s command. Marissya pulled her hand from her brother’s arm, a small, instinctive courtesy to spare his pride, as Rowan stepped into the room.

  “So it is true.” Rowan pinned Gaelen with a hard glare. “How is it that you still live,
dahl’reisen?” He held his hands close to his blades, tension and aggression vibrating from him with almost visible force.

  “Peace, Rowan,” Kiel murmured. “Gaelen is dahl’reisen no longer. The Feyreisa has restored his soul.”

  “So we heard, but I didn’t believe it until now. It still doesn’t excuse him from bringing his taint into this city and tormenting my brother’s truemate.”

  “Your brother’s truemate?” Gaelen glanced from Rowan to Ellysetta.

  “Not Ellysetta,” Marissya clarified. “Talisa diSebourne, Lord Barrial’s daughter.” Gaelen’s face went blank with surprise. “You didn’t know she could truemate?”

  “Nei. How could we know? Lord Barrial’s marriage bond was a purely mortal one. We knew the girl was slightly empathetic but we never suspected anything more. If we had, we certainly would never have allowed her to waste herself on Sebourne’s heir.”

  “Then why do you have twenty-five dahl’reisen stationed on Lord Barrial’s lands?” Rain asked. “You knew Lord Barrial was a descendant of your cousin Dural, that Fey blood—vel Serranis blood—ran in the Barrial family line.”

  “Aiyah, I did know that. Dural’s disappearance was what brought me back to Celieria seven hundred years ago. He was gone without a trace, his mortal mate slain, his son orphaned. And they weren’t the only ones. All along the borders there were tales of midnight raids and folk gone missing. It was then I formed the Brotherhood of Shadows. We began patrolling the borders, stopping the raids when we could. As for the twenty-five dahl’reisen…they are there to protect Lord Barrial. Too many of the raids over the years have targeted Dural’s descendants.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know. Over the years, I’ve sent more than a hundred dahl’reisen into Eld to find out. None of them ever returned.”

  “So, back to my earlier question,” Kieran interrupted with an open sneer. “Why didn’t you summon the souls of the Eld you killed and ask them?”

  Gaelen gave a small, tight smile. “The Mages soul-bind their followers to them, boy. If you summon a soul owned by the Mages, you might as well send a thread of Spirit straight to the High Mage himself and set up a flare to light his way back to you. Using Azrahn opens your soul for…things…to get in. I’d personally rather not have one of those things be a Mage.”

  “Azrahn?” Rowan interrupted. He speared Rain with an incredulous look. “Gaelen is a dahl’reisen who freely admits to wielding Azrahn, and you let him draw breath within the same room as the Feyreisa? Have you gone mad?”

  “He has,” Kieran muttered.

  “Gaelen is dahl’reisen no longer,” Marissya answered, flashing a dark look at her son. “The Feyreisa restored his soul. What would you have Rain do, slaughter him now that he is whole once more? Or banish him for something he did while living outside our laws?”

  “The Dark Lord has bloodsworn himself to the Feyreisa.” That dry remark came from Teris, the new holder of Fire in Ellysetta’s primary.

  Rowan’s jaw dropped, and he turned a shocked look on Rain. “You have gone mad.”

  “Rowan.” Marissya gave him a warning look. “Is everything all right with Talisa?”

  Shaking his head with astonished incredulity, the warrior was slow to answer. “The husband came, demanding her return. Lord Barrial nearly drew steel on him before he would leave.” He flicked a quick shuttered glance at Gaelen, then directed his attention to Rain. “It was all I could do to keep Adrial from slitting diSebourne’s throat.”

  “Adrial is still with his shei’tani?” Rain asked.

  “Aiyah.”

  “Did the husband find him there?”

  “Nei, Adrial had enough sense to cloak himself in Spirit before diSebourne entered.” Rowan’s jaw flexed. “Can you not speak to the king, Rain? Is there no way to dissolve the marriage, as your betrothal was dissolved?”

  “Some other time it might have been possible. But you heard the nobles tonight. Dorian rests on the blade’s edge of a rebellion. Even if dissolving a marriage were within his power, Dorian couldn’t do it now. Not to benefit the Fey at the cost of his own subjects. Go back to Adrial; tell him to have patience.” Even as he said it, Rain knew the advice was worthless. No amount of patience would make Talisa a free woman. If she left her husband of her own volition, diSebourne could simply claim the Fey had used magic to control her mind. There were many Celierians who would be all too happy to believe it.

  Rowan started to leave, then stopped at the door and turned to pin Gaelen with a fierce glare. “I’ll be watching you, dahl’reisen, with red never far from my fingertips.”

  “It’s heartwarming to be the object of such affection,” Gaelen quipped when the door closed behind Rowan with a bang.

  “What did you expect, vel Serranis?” Rain asked.

  “Death,” he said simply. “But I received salvation in its stead.” He bowed in Ellysetta’s direction and gave a fanning wave. “I will do everything in my power to prove myself worthy.” He straightened, and his shoulders squared. “And you, Tairen Soul, should not make me the focus of your suspicions when the High Mage has fixed his eye upon your mate.”

  “I am quite aware of the Eld threat. But the attacks on Ellysetta and the recent host of troubles with Celieria all appear to have been orchestrated by dahl’reisen, not by Mages.” Rain nodded to Marissya, who took her brother’s hand again.

  “I ordered no attack on your mate. Not by command or implication,” Gaelen said.

  “Truth,” Marissya said.

  “And yet your Fey’cha ended up in the hands of a street child who stabbed her with it last week.” Rain lifted a brow. “How do you explain that?”

  “I’ve fought along the borders for the last seven centuries. I’ve lost a blade or two in the process. One of those could easily have fallen into enemy hands.” Gaelen frowned. “Since I did not order that attack, the most obvious suspects are the Mages, but that makes no sense. This High Mage is no fool. Why would he send a search party to Norban to torture a woodsman and slay two Fey for what they learned about the Feyreisa if he simply intended to kill her?”

  “The blade was numbed,” Marissya said. “Perhaps it was meant only to injure.”

  “To injure?” he repeated. “For what purpose?” Gaelen had walked the earth for twenty-five hundred long years. More than half that time, he’d spent fighting Eld. He knew their ways. And he knew the Mages never acted without purpose.

  The Fey’cha was meant to implicate him, obviously. It was only a diversion, a false trail. But the attack itself…a numbed blade not meant to kill. Was that a false trail, too? Images whirled in his mind: the tortured woodsman, the two dead Fey, the Mage searching for a lost child who he claimed was the daughter of the High Mage of Eld. Another image superseded the others: a great and legendary treasure bearing pestilence in its golden chalices.

  Gaelen’s gaze swept across the room to fix on Ellysetta, and horror dug its talons deep in his belly. He’d come to kill her, and she’d saved his soul. She was innocent, as bright a soul as he’d ever seen. But what if there was darkness in her even she did not realize?

  Conscious of Marissya’s hand on his skin, he clamped a fierce hold on his thoughts. His face went still as stone. “You said there’ve been several attacks on the Feyreisa,” he said to Rain. “What else has happened besides the stabbing?”

  “She received an ensorceled gift yesterday,” Rain answered. “When she touched the thing, it summoned a demon and opened some kind of…rift behind her.”

  “A rift?”

  “Like the portals demons use to escape the Well of Souls, only much larger.”

  “Did anything come through it?”

  “Nei. But she was being directed towards it by a Spirit weave.”

  The tension that gripped Gaelen abated slightly. If Ellysetta was indeed an unwitting agent of the High Mage, he would not set a trap to capture her.

  Unless the demon attack was yet another false trail intended to speed her delivery
to the Fading Lands. What better way to make the Fey rush her behind the safety of the Faering Mists than to make it seem as though her life were in danger?

  No, no, he wouldn’t believe it. His suspicions sprang from the last thousand years of living as a dahl’reisen, which he’d survived by suspecting a trap in every gift and seeking the enemy in every shadow.

  She’d restored his soul, and he was bloodsworn to her service, bound to protect her above all others in life and in death. She was an innocent, a miraculous gift from the gods.

  «What’s wrong, Gaelen?» Marissya’s concern swept across him.

  He secured his wayward thoughts and emotions behind the barriers of his mind, where she could not access them except through forceful Truthspeaking. «I do not like the sound of these Eld attacks.» That was truth enough to reassure her.

  “What is the Well of Souls?” Ellysetta asked.

  “Celierians call it the Underworld,” Rain answered. “It’s the home of unborn souls and the dead who haven’t yet earned passage to the next world. It’s also the home of demons.”

  “The Eld have long used Azrahn and selkahr crystals to summon demons from the Well,” Gaelen added, “but in the last few years, they’ve learned how to open a physical doorway between the Well of Souls and the living world.” He felt the weight of every Fey’s sudden, penetrating stare. They had not known about this new Eld accomplishment, then. “They use it to travel, and they’re completely undetectable unless they use Azrahn to open the doorway. If the rift that opened behind the Feyreisa was such a gateway, it’s possible the Spirit weave directing her could have guided her through the Well directly to the High Mage himself.”

  Rain dropped a hand to the hilt of the meicha at his hips. “Can they open a doorway anywhere? Into this room, for instance?”

  “Nei. From what we’ve seen, either a third party must open the endpoint for them, or there must be a selkahr crystal be-spelled to open the portal at a given time. I tried once or twice to open a doorway on my own, so I could learn more about the process, but the results were…rather alarming. What guards the Well of Souls doesn’t like to be disturbed.”