Lord of the Fading Lands

by C. L. Wilson

  “Ha. Sounds more like a warning to quit drinking so damn much pinalle. That’s what it was.”

  Lord Barrial glared. “You’re a blind, hardheaded fool, Morvel.”

  “And you’re a superstitious idiot, Barrial.”

  “Peace, my lords,” the king interrupted as servants approached with a cart bearing a huge soup tureen. “Our first course is served. Let’s not spoil the meal with harsh words.”

  Ellie shifted in her seat as the servant leaned over her left shoulder to fill her soup bowl with a clear brown broth swimming with thin slices of mushrooms and onions. “Thank you,” she murmured, earning a startled look from the servant, who then glanced at the king, flushed, and whispered back, “You are most welcome, my lady.”

  Beside her, Rain allowed the servant to fill his soup bowl, then selected the gold-handled soup spoon from the far left of his selection of cutlery. Ellie picked up the same spoon from her own place setting but waited for the king to begin eating before she did.

  “You employ dahl’reisen, my lord?” Lady Thea asked Lord Barrial after everyone at their part of the table was served. She made a show of fluttering her long thick lashes, causing Ellie to blink in surprise. Weren’t noblewomen supposed to be adept at flirtation? Even Kelissande could teach Lady Thea a thing or two about subtlety. “With all that’s going on, do you think that’s wise?”

  Lord Barrial frowned at his dinner mate. “Unlike some, I’m not convinced dahl’reisen are behind the murders in the north. As I said, they’ve served my family for generations, and there’s no record of their ever giving cause for concern. In fact, it used to be common for all border lords to employ dahl’reisen. They’re much better than wizards when it comes to countering the magic of the Eld.”

  “Useful or not, I think I’d be terrified to have so many dahl’reisen in such close proximity.” The lady gave a delicate shiver.

  “Yes, well, that seems to be the common female sentiment. My daughter has never cared for them much, either.” There was a cool finality to his tone that discouraged Lady Thea from continuing her flirtations.

  “Lord Barrial,” Rain said quietly in the ensuing, slightly awkward silence, “after dinner I would like to hear more about your visit with Gaelen vel Serranis.”

  “It would be my pleasure, My Lord Feyreisen,” Lord Barrial replied with a nod.

  “So, Lady Morvel”—Lady Thea cast a determined smile at Lord Morvel’s wife—“I understand you’re to be a grandmother again.”

  “Ta. Our oldest daughter is expecting her fifth,” Lady Morvel answered, and a light exchange of pleasantries followed as they attended their meal.

  Across the room, Kolis watched through Jiarine’s blue eyes as servants tended the royals, Fey, and Great Lords at the head table. He had tested the Fey numerous times tonight—sending Jiarine close to several of the warriors standing guard throughout the banquet hall—but despite the Tairen Soul’s apparent ability to sense the growing Mage presence in the north, neither he nor any of his Fey entourage seemed able to detect Kolis’s presence within his umagi’s delectable young body.

  Now the wine was being served, and Annoura’s careful attention to the level of pinalle in the Feyreisa’s glass told him she’d taken Jiarine’s suggestion to heart. That would make things easier. The alcohol would lower Ellysetta Baristani’s defenses and leave her more susceptible to the influence of his pressure spell.

  He reached Jiarine’s hand into the hidden pocket in her skirts, and closed her fingers around the small wax talis secreted there. The pads of her fingers stroked the wax, warming it slightly and brushing across the single strand of hair curled tight around the tiny magical charm. He wove the Feraz activation spell into her mind, directing her to whisper it beneath her breath and keep her focus on Ellysetta Baristani.

  Sian and Torel left the Carthage Road and followed Wilmus Able’s directions down a narrow wagon road and into a small clearing where they found Brind Palwyn’s house just as Wilmus had described it. The house, a small but sturdy structure built of well-hewn logs and weathered shingles, sat in the middle of the clearing. Light shone golden from the windows and through the faintest of cracks at the bottom of the carefully fitted door. Smoke curled up from the stone chimney, carrying the scent of roasted meat. Someone was home.

  As the two warriors approached the house, an arrow whooshed past, nearly spearing Sian’s ear. The Fey dove and rolled for cover, shields springing into place around them.

  “Peace, Goodman!” Torel called as Sian scanned the forest for their attacker. “Put your weapons down! We mean no harm!”

  «There, Torel,» Sian sent. «In those trees to the left.»

  Torel nodded as Sian shimmered and vanished. “We’re Fey warriors, not dahl’reisen. We’re looking for Brind Palwyn. Wilmus from the Boar and Hound in Norban sent us.” He heard the twang of a bowstring and threw himself left just as another arrow sank quivering into the ground where he’d been. “Wilmus warned us you didn’t like strangers, Goodman, but he didn’t mention you were so fond of bloodshed. We only want to ask you a few questions.”

  “What could the Fey possibly want with a woodcutter?” a disembodied voice called out from the shadows of the trees.

  “We were looking for news of a redheaded journeyman smith who might have passed through Norban many years ago, possibly traveling with his young daughter. Wilmus thought he might have done work for your parents.”

  Half a dozen arrows came spewing out in rapid succession. Torel grunted in pain as one made it through his shields and caught him in the leg. He heard sounds of a skirmish in the woods, filled with curses and struggling. Moments later, a thin man clad in homespun and leather stumbled out of the darkness. Sian walked behind him, holding the man’s bow and quiver and prodding him with the pointy end of a curved meicha.

  Torel yanked the arrow out of his leg and threw it on the ground, spinning quick Earth over the wound to stop the bleeding. He stood up to greet the mortal, a man with an unremarkable face, a shock of brown hair, and eyes filled with an all-too-familiar sorrow.

  “Brind Paldwyn? I am Torel vel Carlian. I take it you do indeed know something about a redheaded child in the forests north of Norban—say about twenty-four years ago?”

  Ellysetta rubbed her aching temples. The headache from the other day was back, a slight but persistent pressure that grew stronger as the evening progressed. The footmen served course after course of rich food: shellfish on golden skewers, twelve fish, poultry, and meat dishes accompanied by a vast selection of grilled, sautéed, creamed, and casseroled vegetables, frozen sorbets to cleanse the palate between courses. Thankfully, Ellysetta worked her way through the staggering array of silverware without any noticeable gaffes.

  Throughout the meal, her goblet of pinalle never seemed to fall below half full. The wine helped keep the headache at bay, and though she couldn’t tell how many glasses of the stuff she’d actually consumed, she had a good idea it was several more than she should have. When a servant offered her a cup of keflee, she accepted eagerly.

  She poured in enough honeyed cream to chill it, then drank it down in several quick swallows, hoping to clear her head. Instead, the warm, sensuous blend of flavors—more potent than any she’d ever tasted—hit her system with the force of a blow. Heat rolled down her body in undulating waves. Rather than clearing her head, the keflee only clouded it all the more. Feeling boneless and dazed, she melted against the back of her chair.

  Her eyelids drooped, and she regarded Rain through her lashes. He was, she thought hazily, the most beautiful man ever created, saved from prettiness by the strong masculine thrust of the bones beneath the luminous paleness of his unlined flesh. Saved also by the palpable aura of danger, power, and scarcely leashed wildness that surrounded him.

  Inky black hair fell back from his smooth brow, spilling over broad, well-muscled shoulders in straight flows that seemed to merge with the coal-black shadows of his leathers. In the bright glow of Fire-lit chandeliers, his
hair reflected a rich dark sheen, like the glimmer of nearly grainless ebonwood. She wanted to touch it, sink her hands into its silky softness. Her fingers flexed and tingled at the prospect.

  Annoura hid a pleased smile as the woodcarver’s girl downed her keflee in a few quick gulps. This should be interesting. Let Dorian just try to win favors for the Fey after this. She sat back in her chair and laughed at a comment murmured in her ear by Lord Nin, the Great Lord sitting to her left.

  A few moments later, satisfaction turned to worry as a heightening tension spread through Annoura’s body. Her skin grew warm. She reached for her fan, snapped it open, and began fanning her flushed face. What was happening? She’d avoided the keflee—and even if she hadn’t, she’d watched her steward serve the girl a special cup, one already poured and ready for her. All the other guests had been served a normal blend poured from silver kefleepots.

  She glanced over at Dorian and saw him running a finger under his collar. Ruddy color had darkened his cheeks. Her womb clenched. She wanted to touch him. Right now. She wanted to crawl into his lap, run her hands through his hair, and rub her body against his.

  Dorian turned his head. His hazel eyes were dark and glowed faintly as they did sometimes when his Fey blood rose. Moisture drenched her silk undergarments. Good gods, she was ready to climax just from a single hot look. What was happening?

  Rain was speaking with Lord Barrial. Sighing to herself, Ellysetta watched the masculine beauty of his mouth form each word, each syllable. Like a kiss, she thought. His lips framed each word like a kiss. The steward had brought her another cup of keflee. She sipped this one, savoring the potent flavors and imagining she was instead sipping heady kisses from Rain’s lips.

  Her gaze slid down his throat to the lean power of his dagger-bedecked chest, clothed in snug black leather. The leather, she knew, would be warm to the touch. And it would hold the aroma of magic and Rain. She remembered the feel of his leathers against her cheek, the hard press of his knives against her jaw and temple, the sound of his heartbeat in her ear, low and pounding, a thrumming, sensual beat that sang a magical weave of compelling desire. She watched in appreciative wonder as his spine stiffened and his chest expanded on a deep breath.

  She stared hungrily at Rain’s arms, remembered them closing about her, wrapping her in alternating layers of protection, unyielding strength, and hot, carnal need. Beneath her gaze, his biceps bunched tight, straining against the seams of his leather tunic. His hands clenched and shook. She stared at them, willing the fingers to unbend and reach out for her, but they did not. With vague regret and growing hunger, her gaze trailed back up his chest, caressing the heavy beating pulse in his throat, whispering invisible dreams of kisses against his squared jaw and sumptuous mouth. At last, her eyes met his, and she found herself staring into the blazing heat of the Great Sun.

  Kolis kept Jiarine chanting the Feraz spell in a voice so quiet not even the lord sitting next to her could hear it over the buzz of conversation that filled the banquet hall. Across the room, the Baristani girl had taken on a glow. The hint of light was so faint it would be undetectable to any non-magic-wielders in the room, but Jiarine Montevero had been born in the north. In addition to her many other useful talents, she possessed a fair command of Spirit. Enough, in any case, to recognize the unmistakable signature of the faint lavender flows spinning out from Ellysetta Baristani. He felt Jiarine’s body grow tense.

  Spirit. The girl was weaving Spirit.

  But what strength? The weaves seemed too fine and fragile. A minor command was not what the High Mage was looking for. Only a master’s strength would do.

  He made Jiarine focus more energy into the talis spell, pushing the girl harder to see how strong that faint weave would become. A few chimes later, the glow around her grew brighter, the threads of her weave intensified, light shot out across heretofore invisible streams that had already blanketed the room from one corner to another without anyone being the wiser.

  Only then did Kolis realize the weaves were already working on Jiarine, had been for longer than he knew. The clenching tightness that he’d mistaken for tension was her female body growing hot and aching with need.

  A hand squeezed Jiarine’s thigh. Kolis looked down and followed the plump hand to the portly body of Lord Bevel. Perspiration gleamed on the man’s bald pate, and his thick lips glistened with saliva. He was leaning forward, breathing heavy hot breaths against the bare, plump tops of Jiarine’s breasts.

  Kolis’s consciousness reeled back in disgust. Surely she wouldn’t. Jiarine appreciated her own value too well to hump a foul rultshart like Bevel.

  But the Baristani girl’s weave was no slight suggestion, and Jiarine could not resist its dictates despite Kolis’s attempts to stop her. When Bevel’s fat tongue slid across her skin and dove down to curl around one diamond-hard nipple, she came in an ecstatic gush and reached hungrily for the thick bulge tenting the man’s trousers.

  Sickened, Kolis fled Jiarine’s body and left her to her rutting. He had what he’d come for. Ellysetta Baristani was a master of Spirit, powerful enough to exceed even the High Mage’s lofty standards.

  Ellysetta couldn’t look away from Rain’s burning eyes. She was distantly aware of the shrieking madness of the tairen. She was even more distantly aware that the room had fallen silent, the quiet broken only by the shallow gasps of hundreds of lungs desperately seeking air. She wanted to speak, but her tongue felt too thick, her throat too dry. Her mind was a whirl of feelings and incoherent thoughts, simple sentences stripped to their barest essence.

  I want. I need. I ache. I burn.

  «Burn with me.»

  And then Rain’s arms were around her, sweeping her out of her chair and against his chest, and air blew in a cooling rush against her hot skin as he sped up the stairs and out of the palace into the cool Celierian night. Her head fell back against his arm, her eyes drank in the star-jeweled sky. The sky whooshed past in a dizzying rush. Rain was running, with her in his arms. Then they were home in the night-darkened front room of her house. She was reaching for Rain, trying to hold him, needing him, wanting…something. The ache was a terrible pain inside her. “Rain, please.”

  His face was drawn tight, his eyes burning. “I can’t, shei’tani. If I thought I could give you what you need and still keep my oath, I would. But this is too much. Don’t ask it of me. I would break my honor. Forgive me.” His mouth turned grim, his eyes went bleak. “And forgive me for this as well.” He raised his hand. She watched without comprehension as magic gathered at his fingertips, then spun out to surround her. She fell, unconscious, in his arms.

  He passed her gently into Ravel’s keeping. “Guard her,” he bit out. “Keep her safe.” He didn’t wait for Ravel’s answer. He simply stepped outside and leapt into the sky. The tairen’s roar rattled windows in panes across the city, and a fierce jet of flame lit up the darkness. He shot up into the icy ether and arrowed east through the night, away from the city.

  Sian and Torel ran south through the forest, dazed and shaken by what they’d learned from the woodcutter Brind Paldwyn. They didn’t speak, didn’t look at each other. For a full bell at least, they just ran.

  «We should call General vel Jelani,» Sian finally said, breaking their long silence. «He’ll want to know.»

  Torel stopped so abruptly, Sian went pelting ten yards past. “All right,” he said. “We’ll call him now. You’re stronger in Spirit than I. Do it. I’ll stand guard.”

  Torel’s nerves were singing as Sian closed his eyes and summoned his power. If the information they now carried was true, it was beyond deadly.

  Twenty miles back, in the hut Sian and Torel had left in such a hurry, long, pale fingers passed over the sightless eyes of Brind Palwyn, pulling the lids shut. A pale hand turned over, palm upward. Fingers curled as if cupping a ball. A shadowy spiral, glowing with red lights, rose up from the fingers. Black eyes flickering with red lights stared deep into the whirling spiral of Azrahn. Light and
shadow flickered on the ridges of the scar running from the center of his forehead and through his eyebrow to just below his right ear. A moment later, the Azrahn weave dissolved, and the weaver’s eyes faded back to their normal piercing pale blue, colder than the glaciers beyond the Mandolay mountains to the far north, the elongated pupils narrowed to thin slits.

  The crouching black figure rose to an imposing height and pointed one long finger, calling Fire. Brind Palwyn’s body burst into flames, searing, unnaturally hot flames that turned his body to ash in moments, yet never spread to the rest of the cabin.

  Swift and agile as a deer, black-booted feet raced through the night-darkened forest, the footsteps soundless, as if they never touched ground.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Flaming gods, Rain was never going to survive this courtship.

  Lying on his back on the still-warm sands of Celieria’s Great Bay, he stared blindly at the sky as the salty, rolling surf of the Pereline Ocean washed over him. Every muscle in his body was still drawn tight in throbbing knots, desperate for the release he was beginning to doubt would ever come. Or if it did come, it would be too late to save him from insanity.

  His need for Ellysetta was an intense, living, driving thing, a relentless torture that kept him near to screaming on the razor-sharp edge of his control.

  Gods rot the soulless bastards who invented pinalle. Plague take the servant who kept pouring the bottled blue frustration into her glass. And Rain hoped to all the seven bitter hells that Dorian mated the very life’s essence out of Annoura tonight for her thrice-cursed, sowlet-stupid idea of plying Ellysetta with pinalle in the first place.

  Because Ellysetta had not only roused Rain’s passion with her sensual, heavy-lidded glances and unguarded emotions. Oh, no, it went far, far beyond that. In her uninhibited, pinalle-induced and keflee-enhanced daze, she had woven a Spirit web of carnal hunger so subtle and yet so scorchingly strong that she had sent every breathing person in the banquet hall—mortal and Fey alike—spiraling into an abyss of driving sexual need before anyone knew what was happening. When last he’d seen his fellow dinner attendees, they were falling upon one another like ravening wolves, some couples staggering off to find privacy while others shed every last ounce of reserve they ever possessed on the very spot where they stood.