by C. L. Wilson
“Well, young lady, what is the meaning of this?”
“It’s a long story, Mama.”
Lauriana crossed her arms over her chest. “I have time, Ellysetta.”
Ellie bit her lip. When Mama called her Ellysetta and had that darkling look in her eye, she meant business. “Well…I took the twins to see the Feyreisen like you asked me to…” She related the series of incredible events, leaving out the more alarming parts like the bit about Rainier vel’En Daris claiming her as his shei’tani. “…and he sent the Fey to escort me home…and, well, here we are.” Conscious of the five pairs of Fey eyes watching her steadily and her mother’s patent disbelief, Ellie flushed and stared at her feet. Her story was a fabrication of partial truths laid over gaping chasms of omitted pertinent facts.
Before Lauriana could take Ellie to task, a commotion outside the front door drew her attention. “Now what?” Scowling, she marched to the door and threw it open.
The enormous crowd outside had grown even larger. It now included the strangers who had followed the Fey, nosy neighbors in search of gossip, and, to Ellie’s dismay, Den Brodson. He had bullied his way to the front of the pack and was now loudly demanding to know what was going on. Den’s mother, a plump woman with ruddy cheeks and frizzy brown hair, stood beside him, clutching his elbow and adding her shrill voice to his.
When she caught sight of Lauriana, Talla Brodson waved a frantic hand and yelled, “Lauriana Baristani, what in the name of the gods is going on? Tell these Fey to let us pass!”
At Lauriana’s insistence—and a subtle nod from Belliard—the Fey allowed the butcher’s wife and her son to enter the house. As they passed the Fey guards, Talla sniffed and stuck her nose in the air, while Den puffed out his chest and eyed the warriors haughtily.
Once inside the house, Den’s haughty look changed to a scowl, and he marched across the room towards Ellie. “What’s the meaning of this, Ellysetta Baristani?” he demanded in a bullying tone. “You have quite a bit of explaining to do, my girl.” He reached out to grab her arm in what was sure to be a bruising grip, but before he could lay a finger on her, the sound of unsheathing swords cut the air. Den, his mother, Ellie, and Lauriana froze. Each of the five guards held naked steel in his hands. Though Belliard vel Jelani was still easily the most frightening of the Fey, now even the youthful smiling one looked like death waiting to be set free. Belliard tested his thumb on the edge of his blade, eyed Den’s hand, and shook his head ever so gently.
Den withdrew his hand.
The Fey clucked in approval and began sharpening his blade.
Ellie was grateful for the intervention. The feel of Den’s fingers squeezing her flesh always made her ill. Lauriana, however, wasn’t impressed. She planted her hands on her hips and glared. “Now, you see here, sers. This is Ellie’s fiancé. Her father signed the agreement just this morning. You’ve no business entering my home and coming between a lad and his betrothed.”
“Betrothed?” Ellie gasped.
The Fey shared looks and a patter of quick Feyan words. The young brown-haired warrior pointed at Den and laughed in disbelief. Then he grinned and shook his head.
“Nei, nei, little sausage,” he told Den. “The Feyreisa is not for you.”
Obviously feeling a bit braver after seeing Lauriana stand up to the warriors, Den thrust out his jaw. “Ellysetta is my betrothed, and you demon-souled sorcerers have nothing to say about it. She bears my mark, her family has signed the agreement. We wed in a month’s time.”
“Your mark?” Ellie cried. Her hand flew to her throat. “Is that why you bit my neck, you horrid little toad?”
“Ellysetta Baristani,” her mother snapped, “mind your tongue!”
Den’s face turned purple at the insult. Without warning, his meaty hand slashed out towards Ellie’s face. Never having been struck before in her life, Ellie was too stunned even to think of defending herself.
She didn’t need to. Den’s arm froze in mid swing, and the intended blow never landed.
Den’s eyes went wide with surprise that changed quickly into fear, then terror. He clawed at his chest, mouth opening in a soundless gasp. It was as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs. He fell to his knees.
Ellie looked at Belliard. A faint white glow emanated from him.
“You may not touch the Feyreisa,” he told Den. His voice was glacial, his eyes flat and lifeless. This was a man who would kill without a qualm. “I will not take a life in the Feyreisa’s home unless I must, and so I let you live.”
The room echoed with the raw sound of air rushing back into Den’s starved lungs. He coughed and his shoulders heaved. His mother rushed to his side, trying to hover over him, only to be batted away.
Ellie swallowed. Her innate compassion roused a twinge of sympathy, but her outrage at the way he had tried to trap her into marriage kept her standing where she was.
Talla whirled on Lauriana. “How can you stand there and allow my son to be treated this way? No young man with any pride would have allowed his betrothed to speak so rudely without punishment. Most would have taken a stick to her rather than a hand, and you know it!”
Lauriana dragged her dazed stare away from the butcher’s gasping son and faced his outraged mother. “Talla, please—”
“It’s obvious your daughter is a creature of loose morals. Who else has put his mark on her that you don’t know about? This Fey Lord perhaps? Is that why he sends his sorcerers into your house? To watch over her until he is done with her?”
“Now, just a blessed minute!” Lauriana’s cheeks flushed at the insult. To accuse a girl of loose morals was to accuse her family of the same.
“I’ve a good mind to break the agreement and demand the bride bond, which I scorching well know you can’t afford to pay!” By Celierian custom, all families bonded their betrothed daughters with a price three times the girls’ dower. It gave the families of the suitor insurance against unacceptable brides and provided strong incentive for the families of the bride to guard the girl’s virtue and ensure she behaved with modest circumspection until her marriage.
“Talla Brodson, that is outside of enough! Are you threatening me in my own home?”
“My son has no need of a wife who is unattractive, poor, and loose with her favors to boot!”
“Shut up, Mother.” Den had recovered his breath and gotten to his feet. He glared at his mother, glared at the Fey, then settled a narrow-eyed look of promised retribution on Ellie. “The betrothal stands. She’s mine. I want her. I will have her. And Rain Tairen Soul can go flame himself. The laws of Celieria are on my side.” He straightened his clothes with a few sharp tugs and stomped towards the door. “Come on, Mother. We’re leaving.” At the door, he stopped to pin Ellie with a final hot look. “Prepare yourself for our wedding, Ellysetta Baristani. And our wedding night.”
The door slammed behind them with a resounding bang.
In the ensuing silence, Ellie began to tremble as shock set in. She clasped her shaking hands together and hid them in her skirts, then turned to face her mother. “Mama, I can’t marry him. Surely you must see that.”
Lauriana sighed. “Ellie, your father signed the papers. You must marry him.”
“But, Mama—”
“But nothing. You let him put his mark on you. In this very house. That’s the same as agreeing to wed him.”
“I didn’t let him do anything, Mama! Besides, the mark’s just on my neck! I thought it had to be someplace more”—she glanced at the on looking Fey and blushed bright red—“intimate.”
Ellie knew very little about claiming marks. Both she and her best friend, Selianne Sebarre, had overhead Kelissande and her friends giggling about the marks a time or two; but Selianne’s mother wasn’t from Celieria and didn’t know the ancient custom, and the one time Ellie had asked Mama about it, Mama’s nebulous reference to “passion roses” and stern caution to “stay away from boys and dark corners” had shed little light on the subject. Th
e suspicion and close maternal supervision Ellie had received for weeks thereafter ensured that she never dared ask again.
It was only five years ago, after Selianne wed Gerwyn Pyerson, that Ellie and Selianne finally learned what a claiming mark was. Ellie still remembered Selianne’s fiery cheeks as she’d unbuttoned her chemise to reveal the dark smudge on the top of her left breast and the giggling that ensued when she explained how the mark was made. It never occurred to Ellie that a mark could be made against a girl’s will—or put on a place as non-scandalous as her neck.
Lauriana set her straight on both counts. “The location of the mark doesn’t matter, Ellie. It doesn’t even matter if you were willing. Den Brodson put his mouth on your body and left proof that he did. You’re now a marked woman, a claimed one.”
“But—” Panic was setting in. Ellie took a deep breath and clung to the shreds of her composure. “Nobody needs to know about the mark. I’ll stay in the house until it fades.”
“Ellysetta, if your father hadn’t agreed to sign the betrothal, Den vowed to destroy your reputation. With that mark on your throat, there’s no one who would doubt him.”
“Then let him! People can say and think what they like.”
“Ellie, there’s more at stake here than just you. There’s your father’s business—and the queen’s commission. There’s Lillis and Lorelle and their future. A stain on you is a stain on us all.”
“Mama, I hate him! I can’t marry him—no! I won’t!” For the first time in her entire life, Ellysetta defied her mother. She didn’t know who was more shocked—herself or her mother.
Lauriana’s face lost all expression. “If you refuse, you’ll see this family destroyed.”
Ellie’s fingers curled into fists. Her chest heaved. In a billow of skirts, she whirled and fled upstairs to her bedroom, locking herself within as her tears began to fall.
Rain raced through the skies, flying as fast as his tairen form was able until the worst of his wild emotions passed. He wasn’t aware of the passage of time or distance until he recognized the frozen heights of the Tivali Mountains near Elvia’s border and realized the Great Sun was beginning to set.
Exhausted, he set down on a mountain peak, draping his massive black tairen form across a rocky outcropping. Snow drifted around him, but he did not feel the cold. He rested his tairen muzzle on his forepaws and looked out over the snowy peaks and the fertile Celierian lowlands to the north. His mind was calmer now, more rational.
A truemate. It was not what he had ever expected, never what he had wanted after Sariel’s death. He knew the agony of loss, knew it in rich, memorable, fresh detail, thanks to the Eye of Truth. Which, upon reflection, seemed a bit too tairen-devious to be coincidental. In the process of punishing him for laying hands upon it, the Eye had resuscitated centuries-dead feelings, then sent him straight into the path of the only living being capable of making him feel those feelings again. The only living being for whom he would risk an emotional attachment capable of rousing the Fey Wilding Rage.
Once recognized, the truemate bond was irrevocable. He could no more deny it now than he could deny his own body breath. Not even sheisan’dahlein, the Fey honor death, was an option for him. He was the last Tairen Soul, the only living Fey capable of entering the tairen’s lair, Fey’Bahren. He could not seek death until another Tairen Soul was born.
«Rain.» The familiar sound of Bel’s Spirit voice sounded in Rain’s mind. «You must return. There is an…inconvenience…here.»
Bel quickly relayed the details of the recent confrontation with the man who stupidly thought to claim a Tairen Soul’s shei’tani. Rain’s exhaustion fled in an instant, along with all thoughts of Sariel, loss and death. Rising up on all fours, his tairen form crouched on the outcropping, bristling with tension, claws digging deep into solid rock. His wings unfurled and spread wide, the long, curving mid-joint claws stabbing at the air. His tail whipped against the mountain, sending showers of rock plummeting down the sheer cliff face. Venom pooled in the reservoirs in his fangs.
«I will return soon. Guard my shei’tani well, old friend.»
«Aiyah, Rain. With my life.»
Rain Tairen Soul launched himself into the air. His massive form plummeted, then soared high as his wings snapped taut on an updraft. The truemate bond tugged at him, urging him to fly faster back to Celieria City and the warmth of Ellysetta Baristani’s beckoning soul.
After his angry departure from the Baristani house, Den Brodson escorted his mother back home and marched five miles across town to the imposing colonnaded white stone edifice of Celieria’s Office of the King’s Law. There, he headed down a twisting maze of corridors to the small, cramped office shared by four apprentice Clerks of the King’s Law, including Garlie Tavitts, an old chum from Den’s early school days. With Garlie’s help, Den spent the rest of the day completing, filing, and validating all the legal paperwork necessary to confirm his betrothal claim to Ellysetta Baristani and obtain a Special License for an immediate wedding.
After painstakingly copying the last of a series of legal documents, Garlie pushed one final parchment across his crowded and deeply scarred desktop. “Just make your mark here, Den, so I can submit the Petition for Special License to Master Wiley. Though I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I remember Ellie Baristani, and believe me, Den, there’s an entire ocean of finer fish out there just waiting to be caught. Fish with a little more…meat on their bones, if you catch my drift.” The young man cupped his hands in front of his chest and jiggled them suggestively.
“There’s more to love than big tits, Garlie.” Den dipped a ratty old quill into Garlie’s tarnished inkwell and labored to scratch his name on the parchment.
“Yeah, like money, but she’s got none of that either, Den. And don’t even think I’m dimskull enough to fall for that ‘love’ line. You never liked her. ‘Flat-chested, freckle-faced, wood-scratcher’s git’ was the nicest thing you ever called her. And stop your glaring. You know it’s true.”
Den gave the scrawny, big-nosed paper-pusher a last, hard look. “Careful there, Tavitts. That’s the future Madam Brodson you’re insulting.” He sprinkled sand over his signature and helped himself to Garlie’s blotter to remove the excess ink from the parchment. “There.” He blew on the document for good measure before handing it back to the apprentice clerk. “She might not have tits, coin, or much to recommend her in the looks department—though that does seem to be slowly improving—but Ellie Baristani has something else that outweighs all the rest. Something that’s going to make me a rich man.”
“And what’s that, Den?”
Den smiled, his eyes twin coins of cold blue greed gleaming in a broad, brutishly handsome face. “Magic.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Water pure, the path to cleanse
Blood to bindings call
Tairen’s Eye to forge the bridge
Azrahn these souls enthrall.
—Magecraft Seeking Spell
The coast was clear at last.
Night had fallen. Ellie’s parents and the twins had turned in for the night, and the Fey who’d been swarming around the Baristani house seemed to have finally left. Ellie could no longer even sense the tingling awareness of their presence.
She secured a brown shawl over her distinctive hair and slipped out her bedroom window, careful not to let the leather boots hanging about her neck bang against the glass or windowsill. While the Fey warriors outside the house might be gone, the five who’d followed her into the house and declared themselves her “quintet” were still very much in attendance. They’d stayed despite Mama’s outrage, despite even Papa’s coming home and ordering them to leave his house.
Faced with the direct order from Papa, the Fey called Belliard had merely bowed and politely refused, just as he had with Mama. He’d offered to make himself and the other four Fey invisible, so as to minimize the family’s discomfort with their presence, but the idea of invisible magical beings roami
ng through her house had nearly sent Mama into palpitations.
“Thank you, but no,” Papa had answered. “We would rather see you so that we may know where you are.” And then, to Ellie’s surprise, he’d demanded that the Fey swear an oath of honor not to use magic to hide their presence in his home, and not to read nor influence the minds of any of his family members.
The demand had obviously surprised Belliard vel Jelani, but he’d sworn the oath, first in lyrical Feyan, then in the formal eloquence of ancient Celierian court-tongue. Ellie knew enough about Fey honor to know that no Fey would go back on his sworn word.
Papa had also tried to get Belliard to swear not to call magic for any reason inside the house, but the Fey refused to do that. “Nei, honored one, we may need to use magic to protect the Feyreisa and her family. I will make no vow that puts her at risk.” And that had been the end of it.
Ellie’s bare feet made no noise on the wooden shingles as she crept across the back-porch roof and climbed down the ivy trellis to the small, bricked courtyard at the back of the house. She kept to the shadows, avoiding the brightening moonlight in the hope that no one would notice her furtive departure.
Just before supper, one of the neighbor children had smuggled a note to Ellie through Lillis and Lorelle. From Selianne, Ellie’s best friend, the note had been scrawled in a shaking hand and read: Meet me. You know where. Twenty-two bells. URGENT!!!!
Selianne’s fear all but leapt off the parchment as Ellie held the note. Her terror was understandable. A few years back, as Selianne had prepared for the birth of her first child, her mother, Tuelis, had confessed that she wasn’t Sorrelian as everyone assumed, but that she’d actually been born and raised in Eld and sold in marriage to her sea-captain husband at age fourteen. Selianne had kept her mother’s secret. She’d only told Ellie in a moment of fear, when she’d been plagued by nightmares of Eld Mages stalking her son Bannon to steal his soul.