Queen of Song and Souls (11 page)

Ellysetta watched the shutter fall over Rain's face. like Rain, Adrial vel Arquinas, the Air master of Ellysetta's first Fey quintet, had discovered his truemate in Celieria. Unfortunately for Adrial, his truemate had not merely been betrothed to a Celierian, as Ellysetta had—she'd been wed to one. The heir of a Great Lord, no less, and though Talisa's father, Great Lord Barrial, was friendly to the Fey, her husband's family was not. Great Lord Sebourne had, in fact, been Rain's fiercest foe in Celieria's Council of Lords, and he had fought vigorously to discredit the Fey, pushing to open the borders and allow free trade between Eld and Celieria.

"Dorian is Celieria's king," Rain replied to Gil. "He is bound by Celierian law, not Feyan. If he knew Adrial was still there—in direct violation of his earlier decree upholding Talisa's marriage—he would have no choice but to imprison him.”

"It's so cruel that something as joyful as
shei’tanitsa
should be cause for such despair," Ellysetta remarked. "Is there nothing we can do to help Adrial?"

"Short of killing diSebourne?" Rain asked.
"Nei."

"DiSebourne's death can be arranged." Gaelen tossed out the offer in a flat voice. Silence fell as unease rippled around the circle.

"As tempting as the idea may be, Gaelen," Rain replied, "honorable Fey do not murder innocent mortals."

"DiSebourne is no innocent. He has refused to free a woman who bears no love for him, and by that willful choice he destroys not one but two lives. Three if Rowan must be the one to end his brother's life."

Ellysetta saw the flicker of remorse cross Rain's face. Adrial was going to die. They all knew that. Though Talisa's soul could never have called Adrial’s if her heart were bound elsewhere, duty and honor kept her tied to her mortal husband. As long as she did not consider herself free to accept Adrial, there was little hope she could summon the unequivocal love and trust necessary to complete the shei'tanitsa bond. The madness of an unfulfilled matebond would ultimately send Adrial to his death—-either an honor death executed by his own hand or a merciful end on the point of his brother's red Fey'cha.

"Even so," Rain said, "diSebourne's choice is no crime. He may be acting selfishly, but by his country's customs, he has every right to do so."

"Then his country's customs are wrong."

"We cannot simply slaughter mortals because we don't like their decisions. If Talisa leaves her husband, every Fey warrior in Celieria will defend her. But while she chooses to stay with him, we will not interfere. The Fey will not kill diSebourne so Adrial can have his wife." His gaze hardened to cold command. "And neither will your
dahl'reisen
friends."

After a brief visual skirmish, Gaelen bowed his head.
"La
ve shalah,
Feyreisen." As you command.

Rain pinned him with a penetrating gaze before nodding curtly. "
Kabei
. Then it is settled. We carry the news to Dorian. He will react however he will react. That doesn't change what we must do. We face the Eld and champion the Light, as we always have."

"We need more allies," Bel said. "Even before the Mage Wars, we could not have hoped to face the Army of Darkness with only Celieria at our side. We need the Elves."

Rain grimaced. "You heard the same report as I did when Loris returned from Elvia. Hawksheart and his Elves will not join this fight,"

"He also told Loris he wanted to see you and Ellysetta."

"He wants to probe Ellysetta's mind because she calls a Song in their Dance." The Dance was an ancient Elvish prophecy said to reveal all the secrets of the world, past, present, and future. "Well, to the Seven Hells with what he wants. The pointy-eared
rultshart
knows we're facing the greatest threat to the world since the Mage Wars—possibly even since the dawn of the First Age—and still he will not help. Yet he thinks we will take weeks away from preparations for war to come running when he calls?
Nei,
we will go to Dorian, and then to the Danae."

Gil's brows rose. "The Danae? They care even less about the world beyond their borders than the Elves."

"They came to Johr's aid in the Mage Wars. With what we now know, surely they will come to ours,"

"The Elves fought in the Mage Wars, too," Bel reminded him. "It makes no sense that they would refuse us now."

Tajik coughed a curse word into his fist and spat on the ground. "Best for all of us, if you ask me. Elves care for nothing except that gods-cursed Dance of theirs."

Bel arched a brow. "That's a harsh remark, coming from you, Tajik. I seem to recall some mention of an Elf or two in your family line."

"Which is why you should believe me when I say we're better off without them." The red-haired general tore the remaining leg from the spitted rabbit and warmed it with a Fire-red glow in the palm of his hand. The silence that ensued made him glance up, and he scowled when he found Rain, Ellysetta, and the rest of the quintet looking at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Rain answered for them. "It's late- We should all get some sleep."

A few chimes later, the remains of their dinner vanished in a flash of Earth and Fire. As Rain spun a cushioned pallet from the wheat chaff and covered it with a scarlet Fey travel cloak, Ellysetta felt eyes upon her, and she glanced up to see Gaelen watching her. He didn't say anything, but then he hadn't said anything all day either. He was waiting, patiently, for her to do the right thing.

"Come,
shei'tani."
Rain grasped her shoulders and bent to press a kiss on the side of her neck. "Your bower awaits." He smiled and led her to the camp bed.

When she glanced back over her shoulder, Gaelen was busy working with the quintet to spin a five-fold weave around Rain and Ellysetta. His eyes met hers once more, briefly, before he turned away. "What is it?"

She looked at Rain and forced a smile. "I'm just a little tired."

"The weaves should protect you from Mage dreams, and the
lu'tan
will alert us at the first hint of danger."

She covered his hands with hers. "I know." Stretching up, she pressed her lips to his and let him bear her back into the soft comfort of their bed. He pulled her close against him, his body spooned against hers, wrapping her in a cocoon of warm protection.

The quintet stretched out in the wheat straw nearby. Each warrior slept with one hand on the hilt of a red Fey'cha. Around the camp, all the
lu'tan
not standing first watch did the same, and their bodies formed ring after concentric ring around the
shei’dalin
they'd bloodsworn their souls to protect. That
shei’dalin
lay awake long after the warriors had gone to sleep, worried not half so much about what dangers lurked outside the
lu’tan’s
powerful protective shields as the ones that lurked within. The dangers that lived inside her.

Eld-Boura Fell

Melliandra's visit to the High Mage's breeding females wasn't as great a pleasure as she'd hoped, nor particularly informative. She felt Shia's absence too strongly, and the new women— three shining folk, and one mortal—had shied away from her when she'd approached. She'd tried to speak with them, but either their memories had been completely wiped or they simply had not trusted her enough to converse.

A disappointing half a bell after her arrival, she departed again, but instead of heading to her next workstation, she stopped by the door to Master Maur's nursery and examined the glowing threads of the ward spells protecting the locked door against intruders. The wards allowed only Master Maur's most trusted
umagi
through, and even then only once per week at a time known to no one but Master Maur.

The key to the door Melliandra could likely get, but getting past the wards was a different matter. For that, she needed magical help.

The next morning, when the call came to tend the High Mage's prisoners on the lowest level of Boura Fell, it was all she could do to conceal her eagerness behind a mask of sullen apathy. A bell later, she was standing, tray in hand, before the shadow-cloaked last door on the lowest level of Boura Fell.

"Food for the prisoner." Melliandra kept her gaze fixed on the timeworn smoothness of the black stone floor as the guards standing watch outside the cell inspected the unappealing tray of congealed fat and cooked grain.

"Fit for maggots, that is," one of the guards muttered. His ring of keys rattled and clanked as he unlocked the door and shoved it open. "Go on. Deliver that slop and be quick about it."

She ducked through the doorway and hurried across the dank, unlit room. The shaft of light from the open doorway illuminated a portion of the seemingly empty barbed
sel'dor
cage built into the far wall.

"Back again?" a voice, pitched so low as to be barely audible, growled from the shadows.

She turned her head in the direction of the voice and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. There. Now she could see the faint, almost imperceptible glow of the prisoner sprawled on the floor in the corner.

"Can you feed yourself?" Shannisorran v'En Celay's silvery light was so dim, she knew the Mage's brutes had been at him again, and sometimes, after they finished, nearly every bone in his body was shattered.

"Aiyah.
Can't walk or sit, but they left me my arms this time.” She reached into the pocket and pulled out a small cloth bundle. “Good.” With swift furtiveness, she unwrapped the cloth and dropped its contents into the bowl of gruel before pushing the food through the barbed bars of the cell "There's a little cold meat and cheese, wrapped in bread. Take it quickly, before the guards see."

"Why do you bother? As soon as I heal, they just break me again." Even as he asked, his fingers reached for the bowl of food and closed around the plump wad of meat, cheese, and bread. He tore off a small bite with his teeth and chewed.

"I bother because I need you to fulfill our bargain, and when the chance comes, you must be ready." Not long after the High Mage had begun torturing Lord Death's mate, the Fey warrior had agreed to do what neither she nor any other
umagi
could: kill the High Mage of Eld. That was the only way she and Shia's child could ever be free, so she needed to keep Lord Death alive and as healthy as possible until he had the opportunity to prove worthy of his name. She glanced over her shoulder to check on the guards by the door, then lowered her voice even further. "Do you have a hiding spot in there?"

"What would be the point?" His tone was flat. "It's not as if Maur ever leaves me anything to hide."

Her eyes narrowed. It was said Fey could not lie, but he hadn't said no. And he'd been in this same cell for a thousand years. "I was hoping to bring a few things you might find useful. But if you have no place to hide them . . ." She let her voice trail off.

"What sort of things?" Wariness had crept into his voice. Oh, yes, he had managed to carve out some sort of hiding place in his cell.

"Things you will require to fulfill your bargain. A blade. A Fey crystal." She knew from eavesdropping on conversations between novice and apprentice Mages that the Fey crystals contained powerful magic. Lord Death would need every advantage if he were to succeed. Pale hands shot out to grab the cell bars, despite the barbs that dug into his palms, and Lord Death dragged himself over to her. Matted black hair fell into eyes that had begun to glow green as his magic rose. "My
sorreisu kiyr?
You know where it is?"

"A... sorai zukeer? Is that what you call the Fey crystals?" She filed the piece of information away. "No, not yours. Everything of yours the Mage keeps close to him or locked away in a place only he knows. But you are not the only Fey warrior ever to be a guest in this place, and some of the other Mages are not as careful with their secrets." She frowned. "You can still use it even though it belonged to another, can't you?"

"Aiyah,
but my own would be better."

"I can't get yours. You'll have to make do with what I can bring," she told him. No matter how much better his own crystal might be, stealing from the High Mage was suicide. Only a fool would even attempt it, and Melliandra was no fool. Laying hands on one of the other Mages' crystals was already risky enough. "There's something else I need you to do as well."

"What?"

She took a breath, then plunged onward. "If I showed you one of the Mage's wards . . . could you figure out how to undo it?”

"It wouldn't do you any good. It takes magic to undo magic."

"But could you?”

He shrugged. "Perhaps. I'd have to see the weave first to know."

"Hurry up in there!" one of the guards called from the door. "What's taking so long?"

Melliandra turned halfway towards the door "He's weak. I practically have to feed him myself." To the Fey, she hissed, "Save the bread and meat, but eat the rest quickly. If you don't, they'll be suspicious." She waited for him to scoop the cold, fatted porridge from the bowl with his fingers and force it down. When he was done, she snatched the bowl back and clambered to her feet. "I've got to go. I’ll be back when I can."

Celieria

With all the shields around her, Ellysetta should not have dreamed of darkness. But she did.

She did not dream her usual nightmares of war and destruction or of herself, pitiless and damned, leading the Army of Darkness to destroy the earth. Nei, this time she dreamed of something smaller, more personal, and therefore infinitely more terrifying.