“The matepair look exactly as I imagined them,” Rain said. “From that very first night,shei’tani, I saw you more clearly than I knew. I saw your true soul—and my true place at your side, protecting and defending you from harm. The kitlings were your father’s touch,” he added. “He called them a father’s wish for his daughter. When I went to see him in the chapel just now, he gave me the statue and told me I should tell you that.”
Outside, the sun hung low on the western horizon. Night was approaching. Rain held out a hand. “Come,shei’tani. Let us see your mother’s soul safe to rest. When it is done, I ask that you consent to be my wife. Not because your father pledged to me your troth, and not because the gods declared it should be so, but becauseyouwish to bind your life to mine.”
Ellysetta looked up from the exquisite tairen family in her hands. Rain’s eyes were filled with open longing and shining with promise. Perhaps the girl who loved Fey tales wasn’t completely gone, after all.
She slid her fingers into his. “Aiyah, Rain, I will marry you.”
Lauriana’s body was placed on a gilded litter and borne by Ellysetta’s quintet down the cobbled roads to her funeral bier outside the city walls. Sol walked behind the litter, holding the twins by the hand. Rain and Ellysetta followed them, then Marissya and Dax. Bringing up the rear marched all the Fey in Celieria, clad in full ceremonial dress, steel gleaming in the waning light, silken banners of red, violet, and gold waving in the breeze. It was a funeral procession worthy of a queen.
“I never thought you would so honor her,” Ellysetta whispered,brought to tears by the unexpected tribute. “I thought you would despise her for arranging my exorcism.”
“If honor were reserved only for those who never err, none of us would be worthy,” Rain answered. “When she saw how she’d been used against you, she gave her life to set you free. There is much to honor in that.”
As they walked through the city, Fey voices rose in crystalline waves to sing an ancient Fey lament for valiant, fallen heroes. The song was one Ellysetta recognized, usually reserved for warriors who died performing great deeds, and she wept with a mix of love and sorrow and pride. She could not have held back her emotions even if she’d tried. They poured forth like a river overflowing its banks, weaving into the notes of the song.
Ellysetta wore noshei’dalin’sveil. She’d refused when Marissya made the suggestion, saying she’d already spent too much of her life hiding who and what she truly was. Her unveiled brightness shone like a beacon. Now unleashed, her innate magic, the compassion and healing peace of ashei’dalin, spread out in waves of light all around her.
In the wake of the procession, the Celierians who had spent their last week in growing turmoil and groundless anger found themselves sobbing as if their hearts would break. The Shining Folk, who’d seemed so threatening of late, now appeared like heroes of old, noble and gracious and good. In their midst walked a woman of incomparable beauty, bright as the Great Sun, her hair like coils of sacred flame. Just the sight of her banished the shadows from their minds, and those who caught her verdant gaze felt seeds of love and hope bloom in their breasts.
The procession wound through the streets and through the western gates to the last unlit pyre. Ellysetta’s quintet bore Lauriana forward and laid her body gently on the oiled wood, then stepped back as Father Celinor began the Celierian service for the dead. When he was done, Sol stepped forward with a lighted brand to ignite his wife’s pyre.
Lillis and Lorelle clutched Ellysetta’s hands, not at all frightened by her changed appearance but seemingly comforted by it instead.
“Does it hurt her, Ellie?” Lillis asked in a small voice as the flames engulfed her mother’s body.
Fresh tears spilled from Ellysetta’s eyes. She knelt quickly and caught her sister up in a fierce hug. “Oh, kitling, no. Not at all. She’s with the Bright Lord now.”
“In the Haven of Light?” Lorelle asked.
“Yes, Lorelle, in the Haven of Light, singing glorias with the Lightmaidens.” She caught Lorelle in her arms as well, holding both girls tight and sending up a heartfelt prayer for the gods to grant them both peace and help them past the loss of their mother. The twins sighed and snuggled closer, their small arms twining tightly about her neck.
Lauriana’s pyre burned quickly through sunset and the ensuing twilight, extinguishing itself just as night fell over the city. When the last flame subsided, Fey Fire-masters dispersed the remaining heat and gathered the ashes. Ellysetta and her sisters returned to the palace while Rain took Sol aloft to throw the ashes to the winds so they might settle in the soil of the land Lauriana Baristani had loved.
Afterward, in King Dorian’s private chapel, with the Fey, Ellysetta’s family, Lords Barrial and Teleos, and the king and queen in attendance, Rain Tairen Soul wed Ellysetta Baristani in a quiet ceremony officiated by Father Celinor. The grand pomp of the royal wedding Lauriana had envisioned gave way to simple elegance, consisting of a few exquisite flowers and a priest, which was all Ellysetta had ever really wanted to begin with.
She wore the gown Maestra Binchi had created and the wreath of the Gentle Dawn roses her mother had selected, but there the Celierian bride ended and the Feyshei’dalinbegan. Around her neck and waist, dripping in loops of golden links, gleamed thesorreisu kiyrof all the Fey who’d died on her behalf. Bel andGaelen’s bloodsworn daggers hung in jeweled sheaths at her hips, and Rajahl vel’En Daris’s crystal glittered at her wrist.
Marissya stood as Ellysetta’s Beacon, and with impeccable, unflinching grace, Master Fellows served as her Honoria—because no matter how scandalous it might be to have a man stand as Honoria, he said it simply wouldn’t do for a queen to wed without one. When Father Celinor invoked the final blessing and pronounced them man and wife, a sense of peace and rightness settled over Ellysetta, almost as if Mama were standing there beside her, watching with love and approval while Ellysetta joined her life with the man the gods had chosen for her.
Following a brief bridal supper, Rain escorted Ellysetta to their suite for a few bells of privacy while the Fey prepared for departure. Once there, however, Rain found himself at a loss.
He was freed at last from the restrictive Celierian customs and oaths of honor that had bound him since the day of their betrothal, and need for his mate beat at him.
The call of her soul was so strong, the echoing desire in his body just as powerful, and the tairen clamored for its mate, but she had just lost her mother. He could feel her grief, her sorrow, battering at her, and through her, him. To pounce on her now, demanding mating, seemed the vilest sort of selfishness. She needed time to grieve.
Determined to do the honorable thing, he escorted her to his bedchamber, spun a swift Earth weave that changed her wedding gown into a fine linen nightrail, and kissed her once, gently, on the lips before turning to leave.
“Rain?” she called when he reached the door. “You’re leaving me?”
“Nei, of course not,” he vowed. “I’ll be right next door. You get some rest. We leave in the small bells, before the city wakes, and our journey will be long.”
Ellysetta frowned at him, perplexed by the way he was clingingto the bedchamber door. He looked ready to bolt. “But this is our wedding night.”
His gaze dropped. The knuckles on the door frame clenched harder. “Aiyah, and I know it is not the happy day you wanted. You are grieving. My needs can wait.”
Relief filled her. His hesitation wasn’t because of her Marks or the forbidden magic she wielded. “But my need cannot,” she told him softly. “Yes, I’m grieving, but there’s been too much sorrow, too many tears. I would end this day in hope—with joy between us. Is that so strange a request?”
He peeled his fingers away from the door frame. He crossed the room and approached the bed. “Nei,not so strange. There is nothing I want more.” Slowly, giving her ample time to change her mind, he took her in his arms. Her long hair spilled over the crook of his arm, silken soft and so fragrant every breath was a scented bliss. He bent as if to kiss her, then paused again just before his mouth met hers. “Be sure,shei’tani, that this is what you want. If you have the slightest doubt, say so now, and I will go.”
