by C. L. Wilson
Ellie’s eyes closed briefly in shame. “Rain, I’m sorry.”
“For what? You are not to blame for the actions of your countrymen.”
“Maybe not, but if it weren’t for me, Bel wouldn’t have been accused of murder.” She still wanted to weep for what he’d suffered. “Do you have any idea who was behind the attack?”
“We were meant to think dahl’reisen sponsored it.”
“But you’re not so sure?”
“Marissya didn’t sense them, and dahl’reisen don’t hire children to make their kills.” His lips thinned. “The Eld aren’t so discriminating. Using a child to attack you is just the sort of thing they’d do.”
“Did you find any proof it might have been the Eld?”
“Proof? The hard, irrefutable kind needed to convince your countrymen? Nei, for that we’d have to catch a Mage red-handed in the act of subverting a Celierian’s mind or weaving Azrahn before a hundred witnesses.” His mouth twisted in a grimly sardonic smile. “Unfortunately for us, they usually aren’t so blatant. The Eld work in subtleties until they consolidate a base of power. They sow doubts, disagreements, suspicions, fears—the kinds of things that can be explained away. They play on mortal weakness and self-indulgence. And through those small, steady corruptions, they begin to claim souls.”
Ellie could feel his anger building with every word. “Rain…”
He caught himself and drew a deep breath. As he exhaled, she could almost sense him forcibly expelling his rage. “Sieks’ta,” he apologized. “Let’s not talk of the Eld. I can never speak of them without hatred welling up within me.” He turned away and walked closer to the edge of the steep hill. The ocean breeze blew his hair back from his face as he stood there, looking out over the dark, shining waters of the bay. “No matter who sponsored the attack, it will be a long time before I forgive myself for underestimating my enemies. I was too arrogant, too confident in my own abilities to protect you. I failed you.”
Her heart contracted. She went to him, reaching out to grasp his arm. “You didn’t fail me, Rain. You saved my life.”
He glanced down at the pale hand gripping his arm and gently removed it. “Nei, shei’tani. Your heart is kind, but do not try to weave peace on me. I deserve my guilt. I may have saved your life this time, but only because I got lucky.”
Her fingers curled around his, holding him when he would have pulled away. “Luck springs from the hands of the gods,” she reminded him. “Even if that was what saved me, it only proves the gods don’t want you to fail. You should be thanking them for their blessing, not railing against it.”
Silence fell between them. A wolf pack howled in the distance, and down below, a flock of seabirds squawked and took to startled flight at the sound.
“I do thank them, Ellysetta,” Rain said quietly. “More than I thought would ever be possible for me again. But I cannot rely on their grace. I know better than most how unkind the gods can be to those who do not prove worthy of their gifts.”
“Oh, Rain.” Through the clasp of her hand around his, she could feel the echo of raw grief, the memory of a loss so devastating it had driven him to scorch the world. “Do you think Sariel would want you to carry the blame for her death? Everyone in the world knows how much you both loved each other, and you yourself told me how kind and gentle she was. Surely she wouldn’t want you to torment yourself over things you cannot change.”
“Nei,” he agreed, “but she was always too quick to forgive.” He drew in a short breath and squared his shoulders, already tucking the old, painful emotions back under careful guard, hiding them from her. “And I did not bring you here to discuss my ancient grief or guilt.” He turned to her and took both of her hands in his, lifting her fingers to his lips. “I meant to give us a few quiet bells together away from the pressures of the city. Somewhere quiet and peaceful where we could simply…be…together. Somewhere I could hold you without an audience.” The corner of his mouth curved up. “Perhaps share another kiss or two, if you were willing.”
She wanted to protest the change of subject. His grief, his guilt, was a festering wound inside him, and it needed to be purged. Respect for his pride kept her silent. Battered and bruised, but still fighting for dominance, his was not the selfish, petty pride that made bullies of lesser men, but rather the quiet, determined dignity that turned men into heroes and made heroes crawl back to their feet from the bitter dust of defeat and stand tall once more. She dare not take that from him. She remembered what lay beneath his carefully constructed discipline: the screaming torment, the endless barrage of accusing voices.
She stepped closer and lifted her hands to frame his face. “Then hold me, Rain, and kiss me, for I want the same things.”
Emotions chased across her senses: humility, sorrow, gratitude, devotion. His fingers brushed back spiraling tendrils of hair from her face. “You are more than I deserve, shei’tani.”
He bent his head and took her lips in a tender kiss. Sweet, gentle, barely more than a brush of his lips against hers, tiny nibbles along her lower lip, a caress of fingertips across her skin, light as mist. His lips started to move away, but she turned her head, following, wanting. Her hands caught his face more firmly, holding him still. She rose up on her toes, her mouth seeking his, asking for the passion he’d shown her before.
He rewarded her boldness. His fingers delved deep into the heavy mass of her hair. His head dove down and his lips claimed hers with fierce and sudden hunger. Need rolled over her senses in hot, heavy waves. His arms slid round her waist and tightened, pulling her hard against him. She felt the crush of his knives, the hard, lean strength of his body.
Then he pulled back, leaving her hands grasping empty air and her brows tightening in a bereft frown. She opened her eyes and saw the long fall of his dark hair streaming down the equally dark expanse of black leather covering his back. He was walking away. “Rain?”
He cast a glance over his shoulder. His eyes were glowing, his skin luminous, and his expression potently male. “Patience, Ellysetta. There’s no need to rush.”
Tiny explosions of heat fired all across her body, leaving her knees weak and her breathing shallow.
He waved a hand. Magic flowed from his fingers in a sparkling stream. A thick blanket unfurled in the center of the clearing and a myriad of tiny lights floated out to flicker in the grass and surrounding trees, lending the meadow a verdant, magical quality, as if Ellysetta and Rain were standing not on a hilltop in the mortal land of Celieria but in an enchanted glade, deep in the misty wonders of Elvia or the Fading Lands. She stared around them, mouth open, passion momentarily forgotten as the power and beauty of his magic enthralled her senses. She could not tell what was real and what was illusion.
“Come, shei’tani, sit here beside me.” He drew her down onto the blanket and joined her, his long legs folding gracefully beneath him as he sat.
“This is beautiful.” She couldn’t stop looking at the lights twinkling in the grass and trees. One of the lights flew closer, and she saw it was a tiny, glowing creature with gossamer wings. Its phosphorescent form shifted and glimmered, leaving an impression of slender limbs and great beauty, and then it darted off, a trill of delicate, crystalline notes trailing in its wake.
“There is a glade like this in the Fading Lands,” Rain said. “Near Blade’s Point, overlooking the Bay of Flame. When the sun sets, the waters of the bay turn to liquid fire, and the fairy-flies awake and light up the hills just like this. Legend says a great tairen called Lissallukai, the first ever to cast a wingshadow over the Fading Lands, once breathed her fire across the waves of the bay at sunset and sang the magic of this world to life.”
“That’s a beautiful story.”
He smiled faintly. “Oh, aiyah, we Fey are known for the beauty of our tales.”
The warm night air swirled over them, fragrant with the verdant lushness of the glade, an intoxicating mix of wild-flowers and the fresh scent of the night sea. He turned his head towards her
, his long, dark hair draping down around his face like onyx silk. His skin shone with Fey luminescence, a light in the darkness.
“Wilt share with me the joy of your kiss, shei’tani?” A finger brushed across her lip. “Ku’shalah aiyah to nei.” Bid me yes or no.
“Aiyah,” she whispered. His head bent towards her, his mouth touched hers with exquisite lightness, letting her confirm her choice. With a sigh of breath that he drank as if it were the water of life, she parted her lips and melted into his arms.
Up until now, modesty had made her reticent to offer him passion without his first coaxing it from her, but this time she met his desire with hunger of her own. Kiss for kiss, breath for breath, she matched him, and his soul rejoiced. The tairen roared, but Rain held it fast and bound it with flows of steel-clad will.
Ellysetta threaded her fingers through Rain’s silky hair and ran them over the smooth, warm leather covering his back. A whisper of frustration snaked through her at the small barrier that stood between her touch and his skin. She brought her hands around to his chest, fretting at the maze of fastenings that kept his tunic closed and kept her hands from touching him. She wasn’t bold enough to release the numerous catches, nor to ask him to remove his tunic. Irritation over her own cowardice and thwarted desires made her nip at his ear.
A low, purring growl rumbled in his chest. “Wouldst share more than a kiss, shei’tani?”
“I…” The temptation was great. Heat pooled deep in her belly at the mere thought of it. Her flesh felt hot and swollen, and she could feel the hot, rapid throb of her heart pounding through her veins. “We shouldn’t. We’re not yet wed.”
He pulled back just far enough to meet her eyes. “Since the moment you called me from the sky, I have been more wed to you than any Celierian who stands before a priest to take a wife.” He stroked her lips with his finger. His eyes flared with a slight glow, and invisible lips traced his finger’s path, pressing fevered kisses across her skin. He smiled a little as she gasped and her eyelids fluttered down. “But I will not take more than you are willing to give. Besides, your father made me swear a Fey oath that there would be no mating before the marriage.”
Her eyes flew open. “He did what? When did he do that?”
“That first night, after we returned from the river…. Why else do you think your parents allow us to spend our courtship bells without a chaperon?” He gave a rueful smile. “He is canny, your father. And protective. Good traits for a father to have.”
“You and my father talked about mating…about you and me and…” She sat up and covered her hot cheeks with her hands.
His eyebrows lifted. “Why does this embarrass you? There is nothing more natural than mating. When tairen mate, it is a spectacle of great drama and beauty in the sky. All the Fey within a hundred miles come out to watch. When people mate, it is a bit less spectacular, and certainly more private, but no less beautiful in its own way.”
“Rain…”
“I can show you.”
She pulled back, shocked. “But you just said Papa made you promise not to. You swore a Fey oath.” He couldn’t seriously be suggesting he would break his oath?
He shook his head. “I vowed not to mate you. I never said anything about showing you with Spirit what your father has forbidden me in flesh.” His eyes were slumberous and filled with masculine satisfaction. “When you wager with tairen…”
“…take care with your words.” They finished the Fey maxim in concert.
“Well?” he prompted in the brief ensuing silence. “Would you like to know what it is like to mate with this Fey? In all modesty, there are few who can equal my mastery of Spirit. You would not know it was a weave.”
Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. “I don’t think that’s the best idea…” She didn’t even want to contemplate facing her parents after such a thing.
Rain laughed softly, not offended by her refusal. “Little coward. No mating, then, in any form, just a deeper taste of pleasure.” He bent his head again, and his tongue did things to her ear that made all thoughts of her parents fly out of her head.
She moaned helplessly, and her eyes squeezed shut as sensation grew to stronger pleasure. “Is that Spirit?”
“Nei, that’s just me…do you like it?”
Gods help her. “Too much, I think.”
His lips brushed her cheek. “Parei is the Fey word for stop. Say it, and I will cease. No matter when, no matter why. Ku’shalah aiyah to nei.”
There was no possible answer but one. Despite a lifetime of modesty reinforced by her parents’ strict but loving guidance, ever since the moment Rain had given Ellysetta her first, searing taste of passion, she’d wanted more.
“Aiyah,” she said, and her breath caught in her throat as the pleasures of Rain’s touch multiplied exponentially. Real and Spirit hands held her, stroked her. Real and Spirit lips rained kisses on her mouth, her throat, the soft skin exposed by her gown’s modestly scooped neckline.
He tracked nibbling kisses around her ear and the sensitive nape of her neck. His hand stroked a searing path down her side, then back up to cup her breast. Her back arched, filling his palm more fully with her flesh. He ran a finger down the center of her bodice, and the fabric parted without protest, forming a long, deep vee that exposed the inner curves of her breasts. The warm summer air felt cool against her heated flesh. Rain stroked the soft, exposed skin.
Invisible Spirit limbs guided her hands to his chest, as swirling Earth magic effortlessly peeled away his black leather tunic and Fey’cha belts, baring the pale, leanly muscled perfection of his Fey flesh. At last she could touch him as she’d wanted to do just moments ago.
Fevered heat and naked skin filled Ellysetta’s palms. Her fingers clutched at the rock-hard swell of pectoral muscles, felt the pounding drum of his heart. He brushed aside the remaining scraps of fabric covering her breasts and lowered his head.
Incredible, searing, glorious heat consumed her. Coherent thought eluded her. She could not think. She could not speak. With a helpless gasp of pleasure, she surrendered. Her arms twined around his neck, clutching him to her.
Kolis Manza locked his door at the Inn of the Blue Pony, closed the shutters, and activated the privacy wards he’d set into every surface of the room. On the desk near the bed lay the paraphernalia he hated but was forced to use to avoid Fey detection: the silver salver, the sacrifice, and the Mage blade whose selkahr crystal pulsated with sated fullness.
It was time to return to Eld and make his report to the High Mage. He prepared the physical ingredients of the spell, then began to murmur the Feraz witchwords he had long ago committed to memory. Energy gathered, then pulsed in a bright flash. If not for the blackout spell laid on the window shutters, passersby in the street would have seen a curious blast of light emanating from one of the windows on the third floor of the inn.
When the light dimmed, the inn’s bedchamber was empty.
The sensation of ice spiders came without warning, crawling up Ellysetta’s spine and dousing passion with brutal force. She tore herself out of Rain’s arms and jerked into a sitting position, gasping for breath and crossing her arms as violent shivers shook her body.
“Shei’tani?” Rain drew her back into his arms. He chafed his hands across her shivering skin. “What happened?”
“I—” Already the feeling was gone. She pressed a hand over her heart where a cold chill still throbbed with every beat. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing.” Suddenly conscious of her nakedness, she fumbled to draw the scraps of her gown over her breasts.
He spun swift Earth to repair her clothing. His eyes held hers, full of concern and worry. “Ellysetta, that was not ‘nothing.’”
“It was just another ghost treading on my grave.” She rose on unsteady legs. “I told you, it happens all the time.”
He rose to his full height, looking very intimidating as he towered over her, frowning. “This I do not like.”
She laughed without humor. “Be
lieve me, neither do I.” She glanced up at the position of the dual moons in the sky. “We should go. It’s getting late.”
“Very well,” he conceded with obvious reluctance. “But we’ll talk of this again.” He dispersed the magic woven over the glade, then moved to the center of the clearing and summoned the Change.
Throughout the return flight, occasional, involuntary shivers that had nothing to do with the chill of the high-altitude air shook Ellysetta. The ice spider sensations were happening too frequently. In the past, they had often preceded the other, more frightening episodes. The seizures that left her howling and shrieking like a wild thing, that made her family fear for her sanity and their own safety. That made her terrified of her own existence.
Because when those seizures came, she knew there was something inside her, something dangerous and evil that must never be released.
The twin moons had reached their zenith when a knock on Vadim Maur’s door heralded the arrival of his apprentice. Kolis Manza entered and made a deep bow.
“Do you have it?” the High Mage demanded brusquely.
“I do, master.” The Sulimage straightened and held out a sheathed Mage blade. “Her blood, my lord—more than enough to strengthen your seeking spell.”
Vadim snatched the knife, half pulled it from the sheath, and inspected the ruby lights flickering in the pommel’s dark jewel. He pressed his thumb to the razor-sharp edge to test the blade’s hunger and glanced up sharply. “You did not get this much blood without calling attention to yourself. How badly did you wound her?”
Kolis’s skin lost some of its color. Vadim made a mental note to himself. Such a betrayal of emotion was a tell that Kolis would need to overcome if he was ever to become more than just a skillful tool. The younger Mage was a mere two hundred years old. Barely beginning his first incarnation. Gifted, but still too inexperienced to control his weaker emotions.
“How badly?” Vadim asked again. If the Sulimage had slain her…The temperature in the room grew notably colder. A tell of his own, but one he allowed himself to reveal. Showing fear was a weakness. Inducing it was something quite different.