“Perhaps we shouldn’t walk on it,” she suggested. “It seems a little like walking across a grave.”
“Nothing of those who died here yet remains,” Rain assured her. “My tairen flame saw to that. But I will spin a weave of Air beneath our feet as we walk so that we do not touch the glass.”
Silvery white tendrils spun out from his fingertips, and when Ellysetta stepped out onto the glass, she slid several handspans, as if the lake were a frozen pond and her shoes were ice skimmers instead of embroidered silk ankle boots.
Barely half a manlength from the shore, Rain stopped. “An Elvish bowmaster fell beneath my flame on this spot. His name was Pallas Sparhawk, of the Deep Woods clan. He had a mate named Celia and a son who’d seen only three winters.” His head bowed. “I did not meet him in life, but I will never forget his death.”
Lavender Spirit gathered in Rain’s hand, spinning into a three-dimensional image of a handsome, stern-eyed Elf with nut-brown hair hanging in plaits around his pointed ears. Red-orange Fire spun out in a searing weave, etching the Elf’s name into the glasson the spot where he died, and below that the fallen man’s clan name and country. He held his hand over the etching of the name and said, “Las, Pallas Sparhawk. May the world be a kinder place when next you return.” The Elf’s name flashed, and the Spirit weave of the Elf’s image sank into the glass lake.
“I have tied the weave to the etching of Sparhawk’s name,” he said. “Those who draw near will see his name and his face and share a few of his memories. Perhaps they will find it in their hearts to mourn him a little.”
“It is a fine tribute to him, Rain,” Ellysetta said.
“Is it? There is another reason I brought you here. When you complete our bond, my memories of these folk will become yours as well. You should know, before that happens, some small portion of what that entails. You should know—” He broke off. His jaw worked for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was gravelly with tightly checked emotion. “You should know what really happened here that day. It wasn’t the romantic Fey tale Celierians have made of it. These were good people, with lives and loves of their own. If I could spin time, I would take this day back.”
She could feel the weight of his sorrow and his guilt. He knew, better than any creature alive, exactly what he’d done, the lives he’d destroyed. Until their bond was complete, she could not erase that pain. All she could do was stand beside him and try to help him shoulder the burden.
“Then let me meet Pallas Sparhawk, so I may mourn him as you do.” She stepped forward, close to the name etched deep into the glass. The moment she drew near, Rain’s Spirit weave swirled in a cloud of lavender mist. The Elf’s face formed in her mind, and with it came a rush of memories: the face of his wife, the love he had felt for her, the moment of his son’s birth, the day he’d presented his child with his first, tiny bow, the march to battle, the friends he’d fought beside, and the final gasp of fear and acceptance as an orange wall of tairen flame raced towards him. His final thought, as the flame enveloped him, had been for his wife, Celia, and their son, Fanor.
Tears filled her eyes for the brave man lost, for the sorrow of the beloved wife and child to whom he’d never returned. “His wife and son, if they still live, should know that his last thought was of them.” She took a ragged breath and wiped away her tears. “When you send the envoy to the Elves, you should tell them what you’ve done here and let them know their dead have not been forgotten. You should let all the allies know.”
“You think they would want that?”
“I do. Even the mortals may have family members who will want to come here one day, to learn and remember as well as to mourn.”
Throughout the night, they walked the lake, covering every inch of glossy black glass, creating the memorials, celebrating and mourning the lives lost, until finally, just before dawn, only the place where Sariel had died remained unmarked. It was not, as legend claimed, at the center of the glass lake, but closer to the southern end, where the Fey healing tents had been.
When Rain started to weave the same marker into the lake’s surface for Sariel, Ellysetta stopped him. “For the last thousand years, her name has been linked to tragedy and death,” she said. “Celierians say she sleeps beneath the glass. Why not let them have their legend, and give her a memorial that will let the world remember her as she truly was? Why not give her something like this?” Calling upon Spirit, the one branch of magic Ellysetta could usually weave with some measure of success, she spun an image of the memorial she had in mind.
Rain regarded the Spirit weave in surprise. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“It’s what she deserves.” She covered his hand with hers, and her sincerity flowed through the touch. “I do not begrudge her the love you bore for her, Rain. She brought you joy in a world of war and death, and I will always be grateful to her for that.”
He drew a breath, his heart swelling with emotion so great, it nearly brought tears to his eyes. “You would have loved her too, you know.”
She smiled, her eyes filled with warmth and understanding. “I know. I’ve loved her from the first time I read about her. Now, I think I loved her so much because some part of me knew how much you did.”
He raised her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss upon the backs of her fingers. “Then let it be as you wish. Step back a little. I will need to call Fire.”
He waited for her to move a safe distance away before lifting his hands and summoning his magic. Earth and Fire gathered in his body, pulsing with energy. When he had the strength he needed, the bright, swirling threads of green and red spun from his fingers, coiling and plaiting into the necessary weaves. He directed the weaves at the surface of the lake, heating the obsidian glass until it began to glow a molten, fiery red. Slowly, the glass began to rise, drawn upwards by Earth. He wove until the memorial took shape, then added Air and Spirit to finish it before slowly cooling the steaming glass with swirling gusts of warm Air.
When he was finished, the eastern sky was lighting with the first approach of dawn and the obsidian lake was no longer a solid sheet of flat glass. Instead, in the center of the southern end, on the spot where Sariel had died, a sarcophagus rose from the surrounding glass as if offered up from the depths of the lake itself. Glossy black glass set with a rich abundance of gold and gemstones formed the rounded rectangular base. Atop that base, beneath a thick layer of clear crystalline glass, a Spirit weave of Sariel lay in peaceful repose. Rain had spun the weave to show Sariel as he remembered her, a young Fey maiden as beautiful and gentle as the dawn, with snowy white Fey-pale skin, hair of blackest ebony, and lips like rose petals.
Beneath her sleeping figure—written in the four languages of the ancient allies: Celierian, Feyan, Elvish, and Danae—he hadinscribed the words Ellysetta had suggested:Sariel the Beloved. May she awaken with joy to truemate’s call.
As Rain and Ellysetta stood together regarding the results of his weave, the Great Sun peeked above the horizon. Dawn bathed the Lake of Glass in warm light, setting the names etched in the dark surface afire like diamonds sparkling in the sun. As the sun rose higher, beams of soft, golden light fell upon the shining glass of Sariel’s tomb, and the Spirit weave within shimmered and glowed, sending bright rainbows of multicolored light spilling out in a radiant aura around the tomb. Within the rainbows whirled Spirit weaves of Sariel, laughing, dancing, healing, each image filled with life and joy.
Rain’s heart rose up in his throat, and the arms he had wrapped around Ellysetta’s waist tightened to pull her close against him. He bent his head to press a kiss against the thick, fragrant, silken spirals of her flame-red hair. “Beylah vo, shei’tani. Thank you for this.”
No longer was the Lake of Glass a place of loss and death and hopeless darkness, but rather a memorial of peace and beauty, glistening with the golden promise of a new day.
Ellysetta turned in his arms, her leaf-green eyes shining, her lips curved in a smile that filled his heart with long-forgotten joy. “Sha vel’mei, kem’san.” She cupped a hand to his jaw. “Take me back to Teleon so I can make a few good-byes of my own, and then let’s go home... to the Fading Lands.”
Chapter Three
Celieria ~ Teleon
“Well, well, look what the tairen dragged in.” Kieran vel Solande slipped a polishedmeichascimitar into his hip sheath and turned to greet the warrior who had just passed through the Spirit weave protecting Teleon from outside eyes.
