She nodded. “I heard Lady Marissya come in not long ago. Did the Council reconsider?”
“They did. The borders will remain closed.” After witnessing the destruction at the cathedral, King Dorian had summoned his lords back to Council to reconsider their vote. “Lord Sebourne and a handful of lackwits still voted to welcome the Eld, believing they would ‘keep the Fey in check,’ but most, thank the gods, had more sense.”
“What of Selianne’s family?” Ellie kept her back firmly to him as she asked the question. “I know you dispatched a quintet to look for them.” She’d confessed the truth about Selianne’s heritage and why she’d kept it a secret from him.
She heard Rain sigh. “Her husband is dead, has been for days. Her mother hanged herself.” She closed her eyes. “We found her children sleeping in the apartment above her mother’s shop. Gaelen checked them. They’ve both been Marked.”
Oh, gods. Ellie pressed a hand to the cold, aching spot above her heart. She wanted to weep. “How many times?”
“Once, but that is enough. They do not have your Fey blood to help them fight further claiming.” He hesitated, then added, “They cannot stay in mortal care, and I cannot allow them into the Fading Lands. Gaelen has left to take them someplace where they will be safe.”
“Where?”
“He would not say. He merely said it was their best chance for survival, and their souls’ only chance to remain free.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Selianne would want that. She loved them so much.” The distant pillars of smoke grew hazy as tears welled in her eyes. “Ten days ago I was a mortal girl with a head full of Fey tales. Now I’m ashei’dalinand apparently a Tairen Soul, but the Fey tale hasn’t ended nearly as happily as I always dreamed it would.”
His fingers threaded through hers and gently tugged her around to face him. Sadness and understanding darkened the lavender of his eyes to violet-blue. “They never do,shei’tani. For the Fey, there is always bitter with the sweet.”
“For every great gift, the gods demand a great price,” she murmured.
“Aiyah. And it is only through our willingness to bear the price that we prove ourselves worthy of the gift.”
“What if the price is too high?”
“Sometimes it can be. It was, once, for me. I bore it only because I had no choice. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
“Is that why you came back?” she asked. “Because you had no choice?” She saw him wince, felt the surge of remorse and shame. A day ago, she would have rushed to apologize and soothe him. Now, she pulled away and put several steps between them. “Gaelen and the others told me the soul hunger would drive you back to me. That you would not be able to deny it. Is that why you returned?”
“I was a coward to leave you as I did,” Rain admitted. “I wasn’t thinking. All my life, I’ve hated nothing so much as the Eld. And when Gaelen said you were Eld... when he revealed the Mark... it was more than I could bear. I didn’t know what I might do if I stayed, so I fled.” Sorrow darkened his eyes. “I know I hurt you. I know I’ve made you doubt me, and I regret it deeply, but the decision to return was my own, made freely.”
“Because without me, the tairen and the Fey will die?”
He shook his head. He spread his hands, searching for the words to explain. “The further away from you I flew, the louder grew the voices of the souls I bear, reminding me of my own unworthiness and how bravely you accepted me despite the blackness of my soul. The tairen reminded me how much they and the Fey sacrificed to save me, when I was more unworthy of salvation than Gaelen when you restored his soul. And I realized if I failed you, I would fail in everything. My life would have no purpose. Nohonor. No hope. I would have no soul worthy of redemption.” He reached for her hands, gripped them tightly, forcing her to feel the emotion, the truth, pouring from him into her. “When Sariel died, I longed for the day another Tairen Soul would be born, so I could at last join her in death. And here you are, a Tairen Soul, but death is my dream no longer. You’ve made me want to live again, Ellysetta.”
As declarations of devotion went, it was beautiful, stirring. Ellie, the girl who’d drunk Fey-tale dreams like water, would have near swooned. Ellysetta, the woman who’d learned better, gently extracted her hands from his.
“You think because I am a Tairen Soul that everything Gaelen said is untrue, but it isn’t, Rain. The High Mage confirmed he was my father. At the cathedral, during the exorcism, he gained access to my mind and he told me.”
“He is a father of lies,” Rain answered without hesitation. He cupped her face, thumbs feathering across her cheeks. “You’re a Tairen Soul. No Eld halfling could bear that power.”
She covered his hands with hers, stopping the caress. “He isn’t the father of my flesh—even he admitted that—but neither is he entirely a liar. Something of himdoeslive inside me, not in my body, but in my soul. Something more than a Mage Mark. I can feel it even now.” That bit of the High Mage was still there, cold and dark, lying like a stalking demon in her mind, waiting to pounce. “I wield Azrahn, Rain. I used it today, trying to save Selianne.”
She sensed the fear that immediately consumed his thoughts. He, too, remembered Gaelen’s warning about the dangers of weaving Azrahn on the Mage-claimed. She clenched her jaw and met his gaze. “The High Mage put another Mark on me. When I wove Azrahn.” She said it almost defiantly... and waited for his revulsion.
The expected recoil didn’t come. He drew her into his arms instead, and would not let her pull away. “You should never haveknown such horror,” he whispered. “I should have protected you better. Iwillprotect you better.” He laid his hand over her heart, and the warmth of his palm penetrated the chill of the Marks. “We will find a way to unmake the Marks, just as Marissya unmade the mark that worthlessrultshartBrodson forced upon you.”
When she looked up at him in disbelief, he smiled sadly. “I deserve your doubt. I rejected you when you needed me most, and I will live with that shame forever. But I will not make the same mistake again, Ellysetta. I will not turn from you. I am yours, no matter what magic you wield, no matter how many Marks you bear.”
“The High Mage will try to use me to destroy the Fey. To destroy you.”
“He will try, but we will not let him succeed.” When she didn’t respond, he gave a small sigh. “Wait here. I have something for you in the other room.” He slipped through the bedroom door and came back a moment later, carrying a bulky, silk-draped object. “I asked your father to make this for me, that first night. I meant it to be a wedding gift, but I think it’s more fitting now as a courtship gift.” He drew the silk cover away, revealing an exquisitely carved statue.
Ellysetta’s breath caught in her throat, and she reached for the gleaming treasure in Rain’s hands. Fingertips touched grainless ebonwood and satiny fireoak. The carving seemed so real, she could almost feel the warmth of life in the wood. “Papa did this? It’s the most beautiful piece he ever made.”
“It is a masterful work of art,” Rain agreed. “No Fey could have done better.”
Beneath Sol Baristani’s skillful hands, a tairen matepair had come to life in fireoak and ebonwood. The female was a lithe and lustrous creature with emerald eyes and gold-veined wings folded against her back. She sat on her haunches, a feline queen. At her side, a larger male Tairen carved of almost grainless ebonwood had extended one wing, curling it protectively over his mate, the underside of his shadowy wing sparkling with diamond dust. Ebonwood and fireoak tails were entwined in an utterly tairen gesture of devotion, but the twining was so intricate that Ellie could scarcely believe her father had managed it without magic. Both tairen wore a look of tender pride as they gazed down on a pair of round little kitlings playing at their feet, one black, one a rosy auburn, both slightly mottled.
