Why was she standing in the middle of the West End’s river park in her nightshift?
Ellysetta turned in small, dazed circles, stunned by the feel of the soft grass beneath her feet and the cool night breeze, fresh with the scent of the river, on her face. The last thing she remembered was the initial warning pangs of a seizure, the strange double vision that had made her sick, and the terrible thirst.
She pressed a hand to her heart, frowning. She didn’t feel the same as she usually did after an episode of demon possession. Her head ached—that was typical—but her body ached too, a hundred burning pains like tiny hot pellets scattered beneath her skin. She closed her eyes, and unfamiliar images flashed in her mind. Tall,waving grass, two girls racing towards her, laughing, arms outstretched. One looked like theshei’dalinMarissya, but younger. The other was oddly familiar as well, and the sight of her bright, pale eyes and happy smile made Ellie’s heart swell with joy. Then the scene changed to something horrible.
Ellie’s eyes snapped open and she fell to her knees, sobbing.
«Rain, help me!»The call was as much instinct as conscious thought.
«Ellysetta! Where are you?»
Relief nearly left her prostrate as the reassuring sound of his voice filled her mind.«By the river, in the park near my home. Something’s happening to me.»She flinched as more images crowded her mind.«I’m afraid.»
«Stay there. I’m coming.»
«Hurry.»
«As fast as my wings can fly, shei’tani.»
From the river, she heard a faint splashing, a weak cough, and she crawled forward on her hands and knees, pulled towards the source of the sounds like steel to a lodestone.«There’s someone here. By the river. I’ve got to—»
«Nei! Stay where you are.»
Dimly she heard the fierce roar of a tairen, saw a gout of flame scorch the night sky in the distance. But it was the dark figure in the water that claimed her attention, overriding her will and pulling her inexorably to his side. A man. As she stumbled nearer, she could see the cuff of his black tunic caught on a mooring hook, could feel his grim desperation as he struggled to keep from drowning in the river’s steady current.
«It’s a man. He’s hurt. In pain... oh, gods, so much pain.»There was no way she could pull him out of the water. The best she could do would be to free his arm from the mooring hook and pull him to the relative safety of the embankment steps. She grabbed the dark-clad arm, surprised to feel leather beneath her fingertips. Celierians didn’t wear leather tunics. That was whenshe saw the glint of steel flashing beneath the surface of the water. Blades crisscrossing a leather-clad chest.«He’s Fey!»
«Get away from him! Don’t touch him!»
«He’s got to be one of yours. He’s wounded. Bleeding.»Grasping the man’s arm with both hands, Ellie planted her feet and pulled the dead weight of his body out of the main river current to the stone steps leading down into the water. “It’s all right,” she murmured aloud. “You’re safe. We’ll get you help.” She reached out to turn him on his side. His head lifted. Piercing blue eyes, pale as ice, stared up at her, glowing faintly.
«Ellysetta, nei!»
The man’s hands closed around her wrists. His bare skin, wet and cold from the river, touched her own. Agony like nothing she’d ever felt poured into her, and she screamed.
The High Mage’s lash bit into Shan’s side just as something else bit into his soul. Bitter black agony screeched up the link between himself and the girl in Celieria, overwhelming all physical torture with something far, far worse.
Dahl’reisen. Soul-lost. An emotional wasteland devoid of all but despair, pain, and the remnants of wrecked dreams. Once it had almost claimed Shan’s soul, but Elfeya had saved him. Now it loomed again, pulling him in, an irresistible well of blackness.
Connected to him as she had been since the day of their bonding, Elfeya’s shriek overlapped his, her fear and pain echoing and amplifying his own.
Rain plummeted out of the sky. He’d begun the Change back to man-form as he started his descent, but the sudden onslaught of pain wrenched away his control. His body melted helplessly into human form and he crashed to the ground, slamming down hard, feeling the jarring crack of bone as several ribs gave way. He let out a short cry, but the pain of his injury was nothing compared towhat he felt through Ellysetta. The howling bitter emptiness of the soul-lost, the anger without focus, the dead dreams and grim despair.
Time and reality shifted in a dizzying rush, and suddenly he was a young, fierce Tairen Soul, winging over a battlefield, raining deadly tairen flame upon the enemy, battering their protective Mages’ shields. The battle was fierce and bloody. Fey warriors fell by the hundreds, but so too did the enemy. A desperate call alerted him. To the south, a troop of vicious Merellian mercenaries, led by three shrouded Demon Princes, were decimating Celierian infantry and Elvish bowmen at an alarming rate. Rain dispatched twenty-five quintets to aid his embattled allies even as he swooped low to scorch a small knot of Mages. The Mages threw up a shield in time to avoid death and managed to hold it despite the punishing fire he rained down upon them. Hissing, Rain banked left, flew high on an updraft, and circled around for another pass.
That was when the Mages’ true battle plan was revealed. Threedahl’reisendemons coalesced into lethal, shadowy life, directly in front of the Fey line Rain had just thinned by his command to aid the Celierians and Elves. Soul-poisoned demon blades cut through the lines of seasoned Fey warriors like farmers scything wheat, and Mages followed in their deadly shadow. Within moments, they had broken through to the tents erected behind the battle lines, whereshei’dalinsworked to save as many of the wounded and dying as they could.
Sariel was noshei’dalin, but she had some minor healing talent and she could weave peace on any man, a skill that had its own special value in a place of death. A gentle girl, whose laughter was stolen by the ugly brutality of war, she’d not had time for more than a split second of horror and a single brief call before Fire and a black Mage blade claimed her life.
«E’tan!»Husband. Lover. Protector. Friend. Mate, but not truemate. Abruptly, not even that. Not protector either. He was the onewho’d thinned the ranks and left the women vulnerable to attack. Left Sariel to face her death.
Trapped in his memories, reliving the madness, Rain watched helplessly as the scene repeated itself. Only this time, as the Mage lifted his black blade, it was not Sariel beneath the knife. This time it was Ellysetta who stared up in horror as the sword descended upon her all too vulnerable neck. Ellysetta who screamed, “Shei’tan!”
Shadows flashed with glints of steel as scores of Fey warriors raced into the small park, weapons drawn. Bel was in the lead. He saw his king, his friend, fallen on the ground, shouting for Ellysetta, eyes locked on some scene visible only to him, a swirling cloud of magic gathering about him like a storm as he summoned the Change.
«Marissya, we need you!»Bel summoned theshei’dalinon a blast of Spirit, then barked commands to the five quintets, ordering them to surround their king.«Weave your strongest cage around him. We can’t let him fly. No matter what it takes to stop him.»
Bel sprinted past his dearest friend, racing to aid the woman he’d pledged his soul to protect. She was on the steps, clutched in the grip of adahl’reisenBel knew and had once admired. She was screaming, a shrill wail of torment and terror.
