The Eld would be coming to Celieria.
Chapter Twenty
Father Bellamy set a small red leather case on one of the benches surrounding the altar and thumbed open the latch. Long, sharp needles, each topped by a small dark crystal, gleamed against ruby silk.
“Hold her still,” he ordered.
Den, Nivane, and Greatfather Tivrest clamped down on Ellysetta’s legs and her right arm. Father Bellamy pressed a hand hard against her left shoulder. “Forgive me, daughter. This will hurt, but it is for your own good. Adelis, Bright One, Lord of Light, drive the darkness from this soul.” Chanting the prayer of exorcism, Father Bellamy plunged the first needle into her flesh.
Ellysetta’s back arched, and she screamed against the corked gag. The needle wasn’t steel or silver. It wassel’dor. Her flesh went cold around the puncture, and insidious runners of ice infiltrated her body, radiating outward. The dark crystal atop the needle began to flicker with deep ruby lights. She felt a terrible pull, as if the needle and the crystal that topped it were trying to draw her very soul from her flesh.
A choked cry came from the side of the room. Mama stood there, clutching Selianne, tears pouring down her face, one fist stuffed against her mouth. “Please, Ellie, please don’t fight them. Trust your soul to the Bright Lord. Please, kitling.”
Anger burst into hot life. Mama had betrayed her. Selianne had betrayed her. Greatfather Tivrest had betrayed her. The people Ellysetta should have been able to trust, the two women she’d loved most, had betrayed her.
A second needle pierced her right shoulder. She screamed again against the muffling gag. Her fingers splayed, then convulsed, fingertips pressing hard against unmoving marble and adding the tiny agonies of fingernails cracking and splitting to a far greater pain. Her soul felt as if it were being ripped apart.
The glacial cold had invaded her entire chest now. She gasped for breath, and her body shook uncontrollably. A dark, gloating sentience brushed across the edges of her mind, and she could have sworn she felt skeletal fingers dragging across the skin over her heart.
At the far end of the altar, Nivane watched her with eyes that, for a brief instant, glowed like twin firepits. Fathomless black, flickering with frightening red lights. White teeth flashed in a triumphant smile, and the familiar sibilant voice from her worst nightmares sounded in her mind.Hello, girl.
Stark terror flooded every part of her being.
Her heels shoved hard against the altar slab. Her tortured body writhed as she tried to scramble away from the exorcist’s unholy eyes and the Shadow Man’s hissing voice. Hands clamped down, holding her fast. Gloating laughter danced across her skin, vibrating along the ice-cold needles stabbing her flesh.
There was no conscious thought in her reaction. No control. No magic weave. Only stripped-down, bare, primal instinct. Ellysetta’s mental shields shredded, and absolute terror gave voice to a silent, preternatural scream.
«Rain! Shei’tan! Help me!»
Shock stole Rain’s breath.
His heart stopped in mid-beat. Around him, it seemed as if time itself had stopped. Every person in the Council Chamber froze in place, utterly silent, utterly still. For one instant, nothing in the universe existed except a single, desperate, terrified cry.
A soul crying out directly to his.
Her soul.
«Rain! Shei’tan! Help me!»
For one brief instant, she was there, sharing his mind, his thoughts, his entire being.
And then she was gone.
“No.” His hands trembled. His blood froze with fear. “No.”
There was a great round skylight in the ceiling above Dorian’s throne. Without conscious thought, deaf to the shocked cries of the mortals around him, Rain crossed the chamber in three Air-powered leaps and vaulted over the royals seated on the raised dais. A burst of strength and magic sent him exploding skyward. He smashed through the window as Fey and emerged on the other side of the shattered glass as tairen.
Fire scorched the sky as Rain Tairen Soul rocketed towards the Grand Cathedral of Light.
Gaelen stared in dismay at the shifting, shadowy demon-visage of his comrade in arms.
“Esan, my blade brother, how did this happen?”
“Doesss it matter, General?” the demon hissed. “I ssserve and ssso you die.” A lethal demon blade shot out, slicing hard and fast. Only reflexes honed by centuries of battle allowed Gaelen to dodge the deadly kiss of Esan’s blade. Behind him, the sounds of battle filled the cathedral nave as Bel and the rest of the quintet engaged their two demons.
Gaelen drew the long, shimmering length of oneseyaniblade from its scabbard.
The demon laughed. “Sssteel hasss no power over me.”
