Papa closed the door and turned to Ellie. “First the Fey, now a royal summons. I can’t help believing they are related, Ellie girl.”
She said nothing. What was there to say?
“Lauriana! Come quickly, my dear.” Sol strode into the kitchen in search of his wife. The sudden commotion of chairs scraping back from the table marked the moment when he announced the surprising news. Her parents and sisters rushed out of the kitchen.
“Why are you just standing there, Ellie?” Mama demanded, herding the twins up the stairs. “We’ve barely time enough to get decent, let alone fit for an audience with the king.”
“I’ll be right up, Mama.” Ellie waited until her family had hustled upstairs before she met Belliard’s impassive gaze. “This is the Feyreisen’s doing, isn’t it?” she asked. His head inclined slightly. “Well, I wish he’d given us a little more notice. I have nothing suitable to wear for a visit to the royal palace.” Was that almost a smile that twitched at the corner of the stone-faced Fey’s mouth?
“The Fey can provide you a gown worthy of a queen.” He gestured, and Ellie’s plain homespun dress became a dazzling court ball gown of shining ivory fabric, cascading with blond lace fine as a spider’s web, and sparkling with thousands of tiny jewels.
Stunned, Ellie touched the jewel-encrusted bodice and the billowing skirts. It was incredible. It was dazzling. It was... she frowned... an illusion? Though she could feel the cool, slippery satin beneath her fingers, the hard pebbles of each tiny jewel, even the crush of a corset pulling her waist in tight, something told her the dress wasn’t real.
“It’s beautiful,” she told Belliard. “But it’s not real, is it?”
His eyebrows actually inched higher. She had managed to surprise him. “No, it is made of Spirit, but you should not be able to detect the difference between my weave and a real gown.”
“Spirit?”
“The magic I used for the weave. It is a mystic, not an elemental, magic. It works on the mind, not the physical. My command of Spirit is exceptional.” There was a stiff tone to his voice, something that sounded very much like bruised masculine pride.
“I’m sorry.” She tried to make amends. “It’s a wonderful job,really. All my senses are telling me it’s real.” Without thinking, she reached out to pat his hand, and the Fey’s board-stiff back went even stiffer.
Behind Belliard, blond Kiel coughed loudly into his hand while the brothers Adrial and Rowan studiously inspected the ceiling. Brown-haired Kieran’s tiny smile was now wide and gleaming with white teeth, and his blue eyes danced with open amusement.
The gorgeous gown winked out of existence.
“I do not command Earth,” Belliard told her in stilted tones. One might have thought he was confessing to some terrible, humiliating affliction, like having the uncontrollable urge to dress in women’s clothing and dance beneath the light of the Mother on All Spirits’ Eve. “Kieran”—he gestured to the brown-haired Fey—“controls Earth admirably. A gown made of Earth is real. He can make for you what I cannot.”
Ellie could never bring herself to hurt this proud, solitary Fey’s feelings by rejecting his offer and accepting that of another. She’d already unwittingly hurt him quite enough. She shook her head. “Thank you for the offer, but no. I’m not Ashleanne the hearthminder, wearing her Fey gift-father’s gown to the ball. I’m just plain Ellie Baristani, woodcarver’s daughter. I would feel silly and uncomfortable trying to be someone I’m not.” She turned to climb the stairs.
“Ellysetta Baristani.” Belliard’s voice caused her to stop and turn back around. “Even should you clothe yourself in rags and dirt, you would bring honor to the Fey.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. Those were quite possibly the nicest words anyone had ever said to her. “Thank you.”
He was so proud, so sad in his aloneness and the dark sorrow that drowned all light in his eyes. She had thought him frightening and incapable of gentle feelings, and he had just proved her utterly wrong. Sorry for her part in hurting him, wishing she could take the shadows from his eyes, she reached out to touch his face, her fingertips gentle against his cheek and jaw. “I pray the gods grantyou the peace and happiness you deserve,” she whispered, meaning it with every fiber of her being. Her flesh tingled, and he flinched beneath her hand, his eyes widening.
To her amazement, Belliard vel Jelani dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and in a shaking voice declared, “Of my own free will, Ellysetta Baristani, I pledge my life and my soul to your protection. None shall harm you while in life or death I have power to prevent it.” He drew one of the small, black-handled knives from the straps across his chest and slit his palm. Fisting his sliced hand, he held it over the blade and allowed six drops of blood to fall on the shining steel. “This I do swear with my own life’s blood, in Fire and Air and Earth and Water, in Spirit and in Azrahn, the magic never to be called. I do ask that this pledge be witnessed.”
“Witnessed,” Kieran agreed, his smile gone.
“Witnessed,” the other three Fey echoed with like solemnity.
The blade in Belliard’s hand flared bright for an instant. He rose to his feet and offered Ellie the knife, hilt first. “Yourshei’tanwill always be your first protector,” he told her, “but know that I will always be your second. So I have sworn. So it is witnessed. Take this Fey’cha as proof of my oath and keep it with you always. If you ever have need of me, simply let a drop of your blood touch the blade. No matter where I am or what I am doing, I will know you need me, and I will come.”
She took the knife with hands that shook. “I don’t pretend to know all your oath entails, but I know you have done me a great honor. I will strive to be worthy.” She turned to hurry upstairs.
When she was gone, Belliard turned to his brother warriors. Tiny, nearly imperceptible tremors were shaking his body. He touched his cheek, still feeling the warmth, the very subtle yet incredibly strong power that had moved from her fingertips to him.
He had so much death on his soul that all but the strongest women among the Fey had avoided touching him centuries ago, unable to bear the pain of his sorrow, the ruthlessly self-enforcedemotionlessness, and the dark burden of the lives he’d taken to protect the Fey. Even theshei’dalinsonly touched him when they needed to heal wounds he gained in battle. Yet this child, this incredible child whose soul called a tairen’s, had reached out to touch him and sent a flood of healing warmth and love so strong that it burned straight through the block of black ice that encased what remained of his gentle Fey emotions.
He looked at Kieran, Kiel, Rowan, and Adrial. They could not feel what he felt, but they could hear his thoughts, and as Fey warriors they would understand.«My heart weeps again,»he told them, nodding when their faces mirrored his astonishment.«She is more powerful than any of us suspected.»
Aloud he added, “She’s no Celierian. On this I would stake every blade I own.”
Queen Annoura strolled down the stone walkways that wound through the palace’s vast, manicured gardens. She’d woken early to greet the Tairen Soul and attend to the most pressing of her day’s correspondence while breaking her fast. Duty would call her to service again soon, but she refused to forgo the pleasure of her regular morning walk.
The members of her Queen’s Court followed a few paces behind, noble young Sers and Seras chosen as much for their beauty as for their family connections. Annoura was no insecure queen forced to fill her court with Drabs in order to look beautiful by comparison. She was herself a Brilliant, and she insisted on surrounding herself with nothing less than Dazzles to set off her own beauty to its best advantage.
