With every step, Gaelen focused his substantial will on one single goal: He had to get to Celieria City. The High Mage’s daughter could not be allowed to live.
Chapter Nine
Ellysetta hummed a bright Fey tune as she bustled around the Baristani kitchen, cooking up a hearty breakfast of peppered eggs, honey-cured bacon, and fried sweet corncakes with butter. Since that last nightmare after the palace dinner four nights past, not one bad dream had plagued her. Not even the slightest passing twinge. Each night after her parents went to bed, Rain snuck into her room and the Fey spun twenty-five-fold weaves around the house. Between the two of them, they had managed to keep out who- or whatever was responsible for her nightmares.
She hadn’t realized what a dreadful burden those dreams had become. Without them, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from her soul, leaving her truly happy and lighthearted in a way she couldn’t remember ever being before.
Of course, she thought with a secret smile as she set the breakfast table, Rain was as much to credit for that as her lack of dreams. In addition to the daily courtship gifts—a crown of exquisite pink button daisies made from white and pink diamonds, a small crystal lamp that burned fragrant oil, a music box with a tiny dancing couple that twirled when the music played—he’d sent her more than a dozen little gifts each day. Small, silly things meant to make her laugh or smile, each accompanied by a note penned in his own hand.
If that weren’t enough, they’d spent the last day’s courtship bells in a beautiful meadow in the hills overlooking Great Bay. There he’d lain with her in the sweet grass beside a cascading waterfalland shown her with both his body and his brilliant command of Spirit just how devoted he truly was. Even now, the memories of it made her skin tingle and brought her near to swooning.
She fanned herself and pressed a glass of iced water against her face to cool her flushed cheeks. Her wedding day—and night—couldn’t come soon enough.
Rain had devoted equal care and guidance to her magical tutelage, too. Though she still couldn’t summon real magic on a regular basis—and never a weave stronger than what Rain called a level-one skill—she’d become rather adept at asking living things to share their essence with her. She could make grass wave and water ripple in flows following her fingers, and when she passed her hands above Rain’s bare flesh, not touching him but asking his body to share its magic with her, she could make his every muscle tremble and his eyes glow bright as the Great Sun.
The only unpleasantness in what would otherwise have been halcyon days were the continued unrest in the city and Mama’s increasingly open bitterness towards the Fey.
Just yesterday, news of anotherdahl’reisenattack in the north had worked a mob of Celierians and Brethren of Radiance followers into near hysteria. They’d marched on the palace and gathered outside the gates to demand the expulsion of all Fey from the city. “Bride stealers!” they had shrieked. “Child killers! Servants of Shadow!” The hostility was so strong and virulent that even Lady Marissya’s attempt to weave peace on the crowds had failed. In the end, a full complement of King’s Guards rode out to arrest the more violent protestors and disperse the crowds.
The unrest had left many of the noble lords skittish. Even with the support that Lords Teleos and Barrial had helped assemble, Rain was finding it difficult to garner the final votes they needed to ensure the Eld borders would remain closed.
The ceiling creaked as feet trod the floorboards in her parents’ room above. Ellysetta glanced up, frowning. Mama was almost asbad as the rabble-rousers. In the last few days, her previous grudging acceptance of Ellysetta’s pending marriage had changed to suspicion and even outright hostility.
Ellie told herself the proximity of so many Fey was simply taking its toll on her mother’s nerves—she’d never trusted magic or those who wielded it—but her reaction seemed stronger than that, almost as if something was amplifying her fears.
Shoving the grim thoughts aside, Ellysetta flipped the corncakes onto a serving plate, set them and the rest of the food on the table, then stepped back to admire her handiwork. Everything was ready and very nearly perfect. The eggs and corncakes were steaming, the bacon crisp and fragrant. The flowers she’d arranged for the centerpiece were bright and colorful, though perhaps the tiniest bit droopy.
She bit her lip. Rain had already taught her how to ask living things to share their essence. Yesterday he’d also taught her how to share a little of her own back. After a quick glance around to make sure she was alone, she closed her eyes to gather her thoughts, then, concentrating, passed a hand over the flowers. The stems straightened and the petals perked up.
Smiling, pleased with herself, Ellie turned to grab the salt and pepper off the stove—and froze. Her mother was standing in the doorway, staring at her. Ellie’s heart skipped a beat.
“M-Mama. I didn’t see you there!” Had her mother seen her fix the flowers? Deciding to brazen it out, she forced a bright smile. “You were still sleeping when I woke, so I made breakfast.” She waved a hand at the table.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” her mother murmured, still staring. She glanced from Ellie to the table and back again, her eyes dark and watchful. “Ellie, kitling... is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
Ellie’s eyes widened. She blinked once, twice, and swallowed the sudden dry lump in her throat. “Uh... no. Nothing.” That wasno lie. The last thing in the world shewantedto do was tell her mother Rain was teaching her magic. There were some things her mother was just better off not knowing.
She cleared her throat. “Have a seat, Mama. Everything’s ready. I was just about to call everyone to eat.” She turned back to the stove and fumbled with refilling the salt and pepper shakers, taking that brief moment to marshal her composure.
She heard her mother pull out a chair and take a seat.Thank you, Bright One,she whispered silently, giving a brief, grateful look skyward. She set the shakers on the table near her mother’s place and jumped when Lauriana’s hand closed around her wrist.
“I love you, Ellie. You know I only want what’s best for you, don’t you?”
Ellysetta wanted to weep. She knew. She could feel her mother’s desperate worry and deep love as strongly as she sensed Rain’s emotions when she touched him. But she also knew how appalled Mama would be if she discovered Ellie had been practicing magic.
“I know, Mama.” She bent down to kiss her mother’s cheek and hug her. “I love you too. More than I can ever say.”
“You’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you? Or if the Fey encouraged you to do something you knew was wrong?”
Ellysetta pulled back. “I’m not in trouble, Mama, and I’m not doing anything wrong. Please, stop worrying—and be happy for me. I’ve dreamed of Rain Tairen Soul since I was a little girl, you know that.”
Before her mother could reply, the twins trailed in, squabbling over which of them would get to wear the pink hair ribbons today. Papa followed close behind, and the Baristanis bent their heads to say grace and eat. When they were done, Mama took the girls down to a neighbor’s house for lessons while Papa headed off to his shop.
Never, Ellysetta promised herself as she watched her motherwalk down the street and disappear around the corner. Never again would she practice even the smallest form of magic within a mile of her mother.
Feeling as though she’d dodged a mortal blow, she turned her attention to her morning lessons with the Fey. Adrial and Rowan had resumed their places in her quintet, and this morning they led the session with an introduction to the legendary Warrior’s Academy in Dharsa and the centuries of training and testing a Fey warrior had to complete before he could serve on ashei’dalin’squintet.
“Sel’doris a black metal that disrupts Fey magic,” Adrial was saying. “Our enemies know this. That’s why the Eld use barbedsel’dorarrows and blades designed to break off in our flesh. And we, of course, know that. So Fey warriors are trained from youth to fight through what would otherwise be debilitating pain, and to be an effective and lethal fighting force even wounded and without magic. It is a slow process. One that takes centuries to master, and we continue to perfect it all the years of our lives.”
