Crown of Crystal Flame (28 page)

“Beylah vo,”
Rain said, rubbing at his throat. He took a deep breath and winced as the shrapnel still buried in his chest reminded him sharply of its presence.

“Sha vel’mei,”
the smith replied. And in perfect Feyan, he added, “Removing the manacles will be quite painful, I’m afraid. There’s no way to break open the bonds without driving the spikes farther in, and they leave thorns we must then cut out.”

“It can’t hurt more than it already does, but see to my mate first,” Rain ordered. Now that he knew what the removal procedure entailed, he would not allow Ellysetta to suffer her bonds a moment more than necessary.

“As you wish,” the smith agreed, “but I’ll need you to hold her. As I said, the procedure will not be pleasant.”

Rain returned to Ellysetta and knelt at her side, gathering her against his chest as the smith first removed Ellysetta’s collar then the manacles binding her wrists and ankles. Even with the weave keeping her unconscious, the pain of the procedure roused Ellysetta enough that she sobbed and fought Rain’s grip until the smith had removed the last of her bonds.

Then it was Rain’s turn again. He hissed through gritted teeth as the smith worked on the barbed shackles piercing his wrists. When the first shackle fell free and the sharp pain of the thorned spikes ripping out of his bone almost wrenched a cry from his throat, Ellysetta roused once more.

“Rain?” Her eyes fluttered opened, dazed and filled with empathetic pain. Now free of her
sel’dor
manacles, enough of her power must have returned that she was able to fight off the weave meant to keep her unconscious. She reached for him, groping blindly, and when her fingers grasped nothing but air, she pushed herself off the cot and crawled across the dirt floor to reach him. The
dahl’reisen
made no attempt to stop her. Instead, they carefully backed out of her way so that she could not accidentally touch them.

“Ellysetta,
nei.”
Rain tried to push her away when she grasped his hand. “Do not touch me while they are removing the shackles. You will feel it too clearly.”

Though barely conscious, she would not be dissuaded. Instinct, pure and Fey, drove her. Her long fingers curled around his bleeding wrist. She murmured his name over and over, weeping, as a featherlight weave of healing Earth and soothing Spirit penetrated his abused flesh. He felt her pain as the despised
sel’dor
buried in her flesh rebelled against her use of magic, but she persevered, ignoring her own torment as she tended his.

“Stop,” Rain pleaded, pulling away again. Even if she could ignore what she felt, he could not. “Enough,
shei’tani—
” The word he’d so carefully avoided using slipped from his lips. He glanced up in time to see Farel’s eyes narrow.

“Leave her.” The white-haired Sheyl stared at Ellysetta, her eyes sympathetic. “Can you not see she feels it anyway? Let her find what comfort she can in trying to heal you. Lian, finish quickly. She will try to bear the brunt of his pain for him.”

Rain kicked up a leg, halting the smith.
“Nei,
do not.”

Sheyl’s pale eyes flashed with sudden fire. “You Fey are fools,” she snapped. “Always trying to protect your women from their own nature. It hurts them more, do you not understand? Worse, you make them weak, when they need to be strong!”

The accusation took him aback as much as the woman’s fearless attack.

“Don’t scold him for what he does out of love.” It was Ellysetta who spoke, surprising them all. Her eyes were closed, but her voice, though quiet, was lucid. “If it is my nature to ease his pain, it is his nature to protect me from it.” Her lips curved in a wan smile. “He knows I am a coward at heart.”

“That you are not,” he denied. He drew her up into his arms and whispered his vulnerability for her ears alone. “My sun rises in your eyes,
shei’tani.
I cannot bear for you to be hurt.”

Her eyes opened, and she lifted her hand to his face, stroking her fingers against his skin. “Then let me heal you.”

Tears pricked his eyes. He kissed her once with great tenderness and released her. “Tend me if you must, Ellysetta, but do not try to take all the pain upon yourself.”

Rain nodded his permission for the smith to continue. Ellysetta knelt at his side. She flinched when he did as the second wrist shackle fell free, and cried out with him when Lian pulled off the first of the manacles piercing his ankles. Despite his command, she absorbed the worst of his torments into herself and muted them. Her tears and fingers and soft lips brushed over the deep puncture wounds at his wrist and each ankle.

When the last despised manacle fell free, they were both exhausted and trembling. Rain gathered Ellysetta into his arms and simply held her, resting his head against hers, breathing when she breathed, clasping her hand and offering back what strength he had.

“It is true then,” Farel murmured. “Rain Tairen Soul has found his truemate.”

Rain looked at him. Farel and all of the other
dahl’reisen,
men who had long ago learned to bear suffering without emotion, stood there, their eyes reddened with the bottled tears
dahl’reisen
could not shed and their hands clenched tight. They stood witness to the love that would always be their deepest dream, and it still had the ability to touch them as nothing else could.

“It is true,” Rain confirmed.

He saw the woman Sheyl meet Farel’s gaze and saw the brief nod between them.
Gods, how could I be such a trusting fool?
He started to rise, reaching instinctively for his absent weapons’ belts. The weave came crashing down upon him like a killing wave. Darkness descended with brutal abruptness.

The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
7
^th
day of Seledos

“Kieran!” Robed in green and white and shining like a star in Dharsa’s fragrant night, Marissya v’En Solande raced down the steps of the gold-and-white palace of the Fey king. Her truemate, Dax, followed close on her heels. Together, they rushed across the courtyard and rounded the great, Fire-lit tairen fountain, to greet the approaching band of weary travelers.

“Mela.”
A smile broke across Kieran’s face. He loped across the remaining distance and fell into his mother’s outstretched arms, savoring her flurry of hugs and kisses, and submitting with good nature to the thorough maternal inspection that followed. “I am well and unharmed,
mela,”
he assured her, lifting her hands to his mouth and kissing them before stepping into his father’s fierce embrace.
“Gepa.”

“You worried your mother and me.” Dax’s eyes were suspiciously bright when they broke apart. He cleared his throat and gripped his son’s forearms. “I wish I could ask you never to do so again.”

Kieran ducked his head. His parents would never make such a request because he could never honor it. Worry was the burden of every Fey warrior’s parent.

“Lillis, Lorelle. Master Baristani.” Marissya stepped past Kieran to greet Ellysetta’s family with calmer, but no less heartfelt, embraces.
“Meiveli ti’Dharsa.
Kiel.” Her smile turned solemn. She hugged the blond warrior, kissed him on both cheeks, and held his hands tightly.
“Beylah vo, ajian.
Thank you for bringing Kieran home safely.”

Marissya waved everyone towards the palace.
“Teska,
come inside. Master Baristani, I will show you and the girls to your rooms. I’m sure you must be weary.”

They were, Kieran knew. The girls hadn’t had the energy to do more than ooh and aah over the starlit beauty of Dharsa. Tomorrow, however, would be a different story. As soon as they were rested, they’d be bounding all over the city, getting into the Haven only knew what sorts of mischief. He grinned just thinking about it. Quiet, well-ordered Dharsa was about to get a much-overdue jolt of joyful chaos.

As his mother led the Baristanis into the palace, Kieran’s brief humor turned solemn. He and Kiel followed Dax to one of the balconied terraces overlooking the city.

“We passed Eimar v’En Arran on our way here,” Kieran said. After Tenn’s latest refusal to support Rain, Eimar v’En Arran, Air master of the Massan, had gathered several thousand like-minded Fey and headed for the Garreval to join the war. Kieran watched his father closely. “Is there no hope Tenn will admit he was wrong and repair the breach between himself and Rain? Does he not understand the evil of the Eld?”

Dax sighed. “He understands, but he is convinced he’s doing what’s best for the Fading Lands.”

“How? By tearing us apart? Dividing our people?”

“By keeping us safe. By holding to the Light and living with honor, in accordance with the Scroll of Law.” Dax put his hands on the balustrade and leaned forward, watching the glowing lights of the fairy flies darting through the gardens and the Fire-lamps of the city flickering through the trees in the valley below and on the sides of the surrounding hills. “I’ve known Tenn a long time. I do not question his motives. I truly believe he’s doing what he thinks is right.”

“Do you think he’s right, Gepa?”

“I think he is an honorable Fey.” After a brief pause, Dax met his son’s gaze, and added, “I also think there is a reason other than their link to the prides that our kings have always been Tairen Souls and not truemated Fey Lords.”

Kieran nodded. Tairen Souls were born to defend the Fading Lands. Every one of them expected to die in battle, and except for the occasional accident, every one of them did. A Tairen Soul also knew, before binding himself in
e’tanitsa,
that his duty to the Fading Lands came before his duty to his mate. But Tenn was a truemated Fey Lord, and his strongest instinct was to keep his mate safe.

“The girls are already asleep.” Dax, Kieran, and Kiel turned as Marissya joined them on the terrace. “I never realized how dear they had become to me until we thought they were lost. It is good to have them back.” Her expression turned somber. “They were asking for Ellysetta.”

Kiel and Kieran shared an uncomfortable silence.

“We thought it best to not tell them that Rain and Ellysetta had been banished,” Kiel admitted. “In fact, I think it’s best if we tell them she and Rain are away fighting the war and will return when they can. It’s true enough. If Rain and Ellysetta could return tomorrow, I’m sure they would.”

“You haven’t heard then?” Dax said.

“Heard what?” Kieran asked.

“Bel sent word on a private weave this morning. Rain and Ellysetta were shot down over Eld yesterday. No one’s heard from them since.”

Celieria ~ Dahl’reisen Village in the Verlaine Forest

The
dahl’reisen
carried the unconscious bodies of the Tairen Soul and his mate to a small cabin not far from the smithy. There, Sheyl scrubbed their wounds clean of
sel’dor
powder before slowly and painstakingly removing each ragged shred of the black Elden metal from their bodies.

She regretted the brutal but necessary weave that had robbed both Fey of their senses. She knew the Tairen Soul’s hesitant trust in his
dahl’reisen
rescuers would be gone when he woke, but after witnessing how difficult it had been for him and his mate to suffer the removal of their manacles, she’d suspected the surgery to remove their
sel’dor
shrapnel would have been beyond their capacity to endure. The Mages had engineered
sel’dor
to block Fey magic, cause immense pain, and resist efforts to remove it. Not even powerful Fey healers could coax
sel’dor
out of flesh using magic, and there was no magic—regardless of how powerful—that could completely weave away the pain. Neither she nor Farel was willing to risk having their village destroyed by a Tairen Soul driven mad by his truemate’s pain.

She worked on the Tairen Soul and his mate for bells, opening wounds with a razor-sharp black Fey’cha, digging about with long steel pincers to remove the
sel’dor
fragments, then probing with bare fingers to make certain she’d gotten it all before healing the damage both she and the Eld weapons had caused. Two other village women with healing talents assisted her.

By the time she was done, the small steel bowl beside the raised surgery cots was filled with bloody black metal ranging from small pea-size bits to long, dagger-length shards. Sheyl had seen more than her share of wounds filled with
sel’dor
shrapnel, and she was amazed that Rain Tairen Soul had even managed to survive, let alone retain his faculties, with that much of the poison metal in his body.

It was a testament to his strength and endurance—and to his mate’s powerful magic. She’d probably been healing him from the moment he was first struck, though it was obvious neither of them was aware of it. Sheyl had seen it clearly the moment they rode into the village, the Light flowing from Ellysetta into her mate, the shadows of pain and death flowing out of him back into her. Without her, he would almost certainly have died.

Sheyl closed the last of the Tairen Soul’s wounds and laid another weave upon the matepair to guarantee they would sleep the night. Ellysetta’s Light was too dim for Sheyl’s liking, and she needed uninterrupted rest to recuperate. Only then did Sheyl open the door and admit the other village women waiting outside.

The women bustled in and began the familiar task of making Sheyl’s patients comfortable after their surgery. They deftly stripped the remaining clothing from the unconscious Fey couple and washed them thoroughly with warm water and soap to cleanse away all traces of blood and grime.

“Sheyl.” One of the women summoned her to Ellysetta’s side. “Look.”

The woman was standing over Ellysetta, holding a curling black spiral of Azrahn in her palm. On Ellysetta’s left breast, just over her heart, four shadowy points lay like a ring of bruises against her pale, luminous flesh.

Sheyl recognized the Marks instantly. Memory—premonition—flashed. A cry of denial rose up in her heart, but her expression remained carefully blank.

“What are we going to do? Four Marks. Her presence puts us in terrible danger.”