She sat on the edge of her bed, and waited. She didn’t know how long she sat there. It seemed like bells before she heard the creak of the stairs and the slow clomp, clomp of her father’s boots. She rushed to her bedroom door and pulled it open.
“Papa?”
There was disappointment and sadness in his eyes when he looked at her. “Go to bed, Ellysetta. It’s getting late.” He looked tired and worn. Old.
“But, Papa... about Den.” What could she say? She couldn’t very well tell her father about the embarrassing things he’d done to her. “I... I know Mama thinks he’s a good match, but, Papa... I don’t like him. Please, I don’t want to marry him.”
Her father stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. “Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But, Papa—”
He just continued walking down the hall and into his room, closing his bedroom door behind him.
Ellie returned to her own room and undressed in shadowy darkness, hanging the green gown and her mother’s chemise in the small wardrobe resting against the wall. She didn’t want to wear either of them again as long as she lived.
After donning a cotton nightdress, she sat down beside the window and unpinned her hair. It spilled down her back in long, springy coils. Brushing it with steady strokes, she stared out at the night sky. Both the large moon called the Mother and the small moon called the Daughter were three-quarters full. It was a bright night.
Please, she prayed silently, fervently, hoping the Celierian gods would hear her.Please send me someone else. Anyone else but Den.She laid the brush in its place on her dressing table and crawled into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and closing her eyes.
She didn’t see the shadow fall across her room as the light from the Mother was blotted out by a large black tairen winging through the night. She didn’t see the lavender eyes, glowing like beacons, turn their light upon the rooftops of Celieria. Searching. Seeking.
Chapter Two
Beautifully and fearfully wrought, by dread magic splendored,
With passion’s fire his soul does burn, in sorrow his name be whispered.
From the epic poemRainier’s Song,by Avian of Celieria
Celieria’s main thoroughfare was already lined four deep when Ellie and the twins arrived at seven the next morning. News that the Tairen Soul himself would be coming had raced like wildfire through the city, and Ellie was convinced that before ten bells every man, woman, and child in the city would be lining the streets to ogle the legendary Feyreisen, Rain Tairen Soul, the man-beast who had once almost destroyed the world.
She began searching for a place from which to watch the forthcoming spectacle. About halfway between the city gates and the royal palace, she found a grassy knoll bordering one of the city’s many small parks. From atop the knoll, the children would have an unimpeded view of the Fey procession.
Sending the twins off to play while they waited for the procession to begin, Ellie spread her brown skirts and sat down without a care for grass stains or the morning dew that dampened her dress. Her mind was still chasing itself in circles, worrying over what had passed between Den and her parents last night. She still didn’t know. Papa had been gone when she came downstairs forbreakfast, and Mama had told her they would talk after she returned from the Fey procession. Ellie couldn’t shake the feeling that something very bad was about to happen.
Her sleep had been tormented by more dreams. Not the familiar, violent dreams of blood and death or the dark, malevolent nightmares that had haunted her most of her life, but new, frightening dreams of fiery anger and pale purple eyes, of a soundless voice that called to her, demanding that she reply. She remembered tossing and turning, remembered trying to block out those eyes and that insistent voice. Not until close to dawn had she finally found peace.
Now, staring up at the bright blue morning sky, with the Great Sun glowing like a huge golden ball, she could almost pretend that the dreams were nothing more than her imagination running wild... that worry about the situation with Den was to blame... that everything would be all right and life would return to its pleasant, comfortable routine.
She didn’t believe it for a moment.
Twenty miles outside the city, two hundred Fey warriors and one Fey Lord traveled at a fast lope down the broad road that cut a swath through the Celierian landscape of lush fields dotted by small villages. Farmers and villagers bordered the road in small groups, having come with their families as they always did to see the immortal Fey run past. This year, however, their attention was directed not at the road, but overhead, where Marissya v’En Solande rode the wind on the back of a massive black tairen—the infamous Rain Tairen Soul himself.
The Fey warriors had broken camp three bells before dawn and resumed their trek to Celieria at a fast clip. Marissya had run with them until Rain returned just as the Great Sun began to light the sky; then she continued the journey on tairen-back, allowing the warriors to resume their normal, easily sustainable run. They had traversed the next seventy miles in just under three bells.
Everyone knew that something had disturbed Rain the night before and that he had gone in search of the source of the disturbance. But he had not spoken of it since his return, and not even Marissya could get him to talk.
When they neared the city, Rain landed, lowered Marissya to the ground, and shifted back into Fey form. He paced restlessly as Marissya and the Fey prepared themselves for their ceremonial entrance into the city.
Marissya shed her brown traveling leathers for a red gown that covered her from chin to toe and a stiff-brimmed hat draped with a thick red veil that covered her face. Her waist-length dark hair was braided and tucked out of sight. The garb would have been hot and stifling had her truemate, Dax, not woven a cool web of Air around her. Marissya was ashei’dalin, a powerful Fey healer and Truthspeaker, and none who were not Fey or kin were permitted to look upon her outside of council.
All around Marissya, two hundred Fey warriors donned gleaming black leathers and spent at least half a bell polishing and re-sheathing the scores of blades each warrior wore when he left the Fading Lands. Her mate, Dax, clad in the dark red leathers of a truemated Fey Lord, tended his own weapons with similar care. Though he was no longer of the warrior class—no Fey Lord was permitted to put his mate at risk by continuing to dance with knives—his blades would always stand between her and danger.
Marissya finished her physical preparations long before the men, and she went to join Rain. It had been many years since she’d seen him in such a state. He was restless, edgy, pacing back and forth with short, rapid steps. There was so much power in him, so scarcely contained that a shining aura surrounded him, flashing continuously with tiny sparks. His eyes glowed fever-bright. His nostrils quivered as if he were an animal scenting something in the air that set him on edge. If he’d been in tairen form, he would have been spouting flame. He was still in control of himself—she and all the Fey would have known if he werenot—but he was in a high state of agitation, and that did not bode well for the long day ahead.
She knew better than to touch him—one didn’t touch raw power without receiving a shock. Instead, she reached out to him on their private mental path, the one they had forged centuries ago in friendship.«Rain, be calm.»She sent a soothing wave of reassurance along with the words, not surprised when he shrugged it off and continued pacing.
«She is there. For a moment last night I was in her mind; then I lost her again.»Frustration boiled through the link.
