Cann nodded and murmured softly, “I remember how fast he moved, how quickly and effortlessly he killed the Elden raiders. The last thing I remember, he was crouching over me, telling me I was safe. I must have passed out then. When I woke, I was alone. There were no bodies, no blood, just an empty field, a scorch mark on the grass, and my father’s ring on a chain around my neck.” Cann twisted the heavy signet ring on his right hand. “I still wish he’d left their bodies, so I could have had something to bury.”
Rain knew the pain of loss all too well, and he knew the hollow ache of a loss that left nothing to hold, no way to say final good-byes. “Gaelen would have burned the dead so their souls could not be called back by Elden Mages,” Rain said, wanting Cannevar to have at least that small comfort. “He did what was best for them, and for you.”
“Did he? I never realized that.”
“There is much your people no longer know, particularly regarding magic and magical races. The Eld freely use Azrahn, the magic we Fey have forbidden amongst ourselves. It is a dark and dangerous magic, too easily misused and too seductive a power for even Fey to wield without risk of abuse. You Celierians think we warn you against the Eld just because they and the Fey decimated one another a thousand years ago, but that is only a small part of the reason for our distrust of them.”
The avenue of oaks opened to a small stocked fishpond. Rain bent to pick up a small stone and sent it skipping across the surface of the water. “Why would the Eld have killed your parents?” he asked.
Lord Barrial shrugged. “Why do they do half the things they do? They raid. They kill, unless the border folk kill them first.” He sent a stone skipping several man-lengths past the ripples of Rain’s, then smiled at Rain’s arched brow.
Rain shook his head. “The Eld are not so indiscriminate. They rarely do anything without a purpose, and that purpose is usually guided by Mage hands. Was your father wearing the Tairen’s Eyethe night he was killed?” He picked up another stone and let it fly. This stone skipped fourteen times across the pond, bounced up the bank on the opposite side, and startled a flock of geese into flight.
Cann laughed and threw up his hands in surrender. “You win. And, no, my father only wore the crystal on ceremonial occasions. You think that’s what they were after?”
“It’s possible. Tairen’s Eye is coveted by anyone who wields magic.”
The crystal was priceless to those who dabbled in magic, due to the power it contained and its ability to focus and even amplify the wearer’s own magic. In the hands of a skilled Mage, Tairen’s Eye was lethal, especially asorreisu kiyr, which could give the Mage access to a Fey’s soul. Tairen’s Eye could be corrupted with Azrahn to createselkahr, the black jewel of the Mages.
“Do you have the crystal with you now?” Rain asked.
Wariness replaced the amusement in Cann’s expression. “Why do you ask?”
“If I am right, it is asorreisu kiyr, a Fey Soul Quest crystal. It will retain the identity of the warrior who owned it first, and that may help me understand why thedahl’reisenand the Eld have taken such an interest in your family.”
With obvious reluctance, Lord Barrial tugged the crystal free of his leather tunic and slipped the chain over his head. Rain took the shining stone between his fingers, feeling the tingle of the harnessed magic that made Tairen’s Eye so rare and so valuable. He took a breath and opened himself to the crystal, asking it to offer up its secrets.
Power surged through him, ancient and strong. Great power, laced with shadows that made him grit his teeth. The crystal had belonged to adahl’reisen, and not one who’d gone easily to the dark. Not a stranger either.
With a quiet gasp, he returned Lord Barrial’s pendant to him. “It is thesorreisu kiyrof Dural vel Serranis,” Rain said. “Gaelenand Marissya’s cousin who never returned from the Mage Wars.” He met Lord Barrial’s shocked gaze. “Elvish may not be the only magical blood that runs in your family, Cannevar Barrial. It’s possible you’re also kin to the Dark Lord.”
He lay in the stench of arultshart’sden, the remains of the den’s previous inhabitants piled in charred heaps near the cave’s small opening.
His breathing was labored, his vision swimming. The Fire he’d called to empty the den had sent him into spasms of agony. He’d managed to drag himself into the cave before losing his senses, and it was only now—almost a whole day later, judging by the amount of light shining in—that he’d roused again with enough strength to put coherent thoughts together.
On the dirt beside him, twosorreisu kiyrgleamed in the dim light. Next to them lay a wavy blacksel’dordagger. The dark gemstone in the Mage blade’s hilt glowed with hints of ruby light as it lay in the muddy mix of blood and dirt.
The Hells-flamed dagger liked the taste of his blood.
Gaelen vel Serranis laughed low and without humor. The dagger was the first thing in centuries that had warmed to him in any way.
Evil called to evil, or so they said, and Gaelen was certainly in a position to know. After all, he was the soul-damneddahl’reisenknown as the Dark Lord, bogeyman of the Fey. He was the dread warrior who had willingly given himself into the shadowy, death-thralled existence of thedahl’reisenin order to wreak bloody vengeance on the Eld and spark the wars that had nearly ended the world. He was well and truly soul-lost, unredeemable. Evil.
But despite having more than earned the dark crown of thedahl’reisen, he still had a ways to go before he matched the unmitigated evil of the Mages, thank the gods for what meager blessings they still saw fit to bestow upon him. There still remained some stubborn, unquenchable flicker of Fey honor deep withinhim, and he clung to its faint light with all the strength of his blighted soul. Even now, though he would never again set foot on Fey soil, that honor demanded he protect his homeland.
Several days ago, Gaelen’s network of spies had told him of the presence of two Fey traveling north towards Norban. He’d come to investigate, only to discover that a party of Eld apparently had the same idea. Gaelen had tracked them to the forest, to the hut of the woodsman Brind Palwyn. The Eld had killed the woodsman after torturing him for information, but in his rush to stop the Fey from reporting their news, the junior Mage—barely more than an apprentice, or he would have known better—had foolishly left the body intact.
Gaelen had used Azrahn to call Palwyn’s soul from the dead, questioned him, then cremated his body so no other could do the same. Though the Fey had eradicated Palwyn’s memories, his soul still remembered his subsequent brutal questioning at the hands of the Eld, and Gaelen had drawn those intact memories from him.
The High Mage of Eld had a daughter.
A red-haired, green-eyed daughter like the Celierian girl who’d called Rain Tairen Soul from the sky, lost in the woods of Norban more than two decades earlier.
When he’d first learned of the Tairen Soul’s truemate, Gaelen had envied Rainier vel’En Daris the gods’ apparent forgiveness, but now he realized the gods had forgiven vel’En Daris nothing. They’d only devised a new, more grievous torture for him—and a new, more deadly threat for the Fey.
Gaelen touched the twosorreisu kiyrthat had belonged to the Fey warriors Sian vel Sendaris and Torel vel Carlian. He drew the names from the crystals, then traced a sign in the air over them, an ancient warrior’s symbol to wish the dead Fey’s souls speedy passage into a peaceful next life.
He had not known the two Fey, but he would have saved them if he could. He’d been too late, though. Again. He’d seen the last one fall, bravely and with honor as a Fey warrior should. Gaelen hadslain the remaining handful of their attackers, including the apprentice Mage, but he’d taken numerous barbedsel’dorarrows in the process and three of the Eld had laid his flesh open with their swords before he’d managed to strike them down.
