“You think being king is about power?” Johr had asked them. He’d stood so tall, his shoulders broad, his face carved from stone. His eyes had whirled tairen-bright, pupil-less, their normal brown transformed to glowing amber that burned like molten steel. “Power is nothing. Kingship is about choices. Hard, bloody, damnable choices. One day, any one of you may be the Feyreisen. When the time comes for you to make those decisions, will you be wise enough to make the right one?” His searing eyes had scorched them. “Think long and hard, my brother-kin. We are creatures born for killing, but war is a poison draft. No matter why you drink it, the cup holds death—and not just for your enemies. So be sure—be soul-scorching sure of two things before you take the smallest sip: first, that you have no better alternative, and second...”
His voice had trailed off. He lowered his head as though the effort to keep himself standing tall was too great.
“And second?” asked one of the younger Tairen Souls, a Fey barely older than Rain.
Johr drew a breath. Slowly, he lifted his head and drew his shoulders back, square and strong once more. “And second, be sure that once you tilt the cup, you are Fey enough to drain it though its poison rots your flesh, lays waste your lands, and leaves everyone you love writhing in bitter anguish.”
His power had blazed, and the armor in the alcove had dissolved, re-forming on the king’s body, fitted to him as though the steel had been forged to his form. He’d stood there for one last, silent moment, a shining Fey prince clad in black, scarlet, and gold, his eyes as bleak and grim as Rain had ever seen them. “To war, my brothers.” Johr lowered the battle helm upon his head. “To victory or death.”
“To victory or death!” they’d cried.
And so the Mage Wars had begun.
Now, standing alone in the king’s armory on the brink of a second Mage War, Rain found Johr’s ringed name symbol on one of the black leather plates. “If you can hear me, Johr Feyreisen,” he murmured, rubbing a thumb across the sigil of the previous Fey king, “guide me now as you did when I first found my wings.”
When Rain emerged from the king’s armory and stepped into the Hall of Tairen, Bel and Gaelen were waiting. Bel glanced at Rain’s plain black leathers and silvery steel, but all he said was, “The warriors have gathered.”
Gaelen’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. “You still believe this can end in any way but one?”
Rain adjusted hismeichabelts. “Nei, I am not so big a fool.”
“Then why this?” Gaelen’s hands spread to indicate Rain’s old leathers.
“War is coming—I know that is as inevitable as it was a thousand years ago—but the moment the Eld see the Feyreisen’s golden war steel on the ramparts of Orest, the first battle will begin.Let us position our men, secure our allies, and plan our defenses before throwing down the gauntlet.” When Gaelen continued to look askance, he sighed. “If all I do is buy time for Ellysetta to save the tairen, that will be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Bel answered for him. “Hope.”
All of Dharsa came out to see the warriors off, and tears mingled with the voices raised in exultant song. Though Rain wore no golden steel, no one in Dharsa believed the departing Fey would return before open war began. And most still remembered how few had returned the last time the Fey strode off to war.
Garbed in flowing purple silks and flanked by Bel, Gaelen, and Steli, Ellysetta stood on a garland-draped platform and watched the column of Fey warriors march past, Rain at the lead. She sang with the other Fey, her voice rising pure and sweet, and on a private weave of Spirit, she called,«Be safe, kem’san. Come back to me.»
Just before he rounded the corner and marched out of view, he turned toward her.«I will see you soon, shei’tani.»
Then he was gone. She remained standing on the platform, watching until the last Fey disappeared down the avenue of sentinel trees in Rain’s wake.
When the street was empty and the city had fallen silent, she turned to Marissya and theshei’dalinsstanding nearby. “Well,kem’fallas, let’s get back to work.”
Rain and the Fey ran flat-out across the Plains of Corunn and the Eastern Desert, but once past the abandoned city of Sohta, the rocky rise and fall of the mountainous terrain slowed their land-eating run to a jog. At dawn of the fourth day, they reached the Faering Mists and the pass of Revan Oreth where the volcanic Feyls merged with the Rhakis mountains.
Though the Mists offered no resistance to Fey departing theFading Lands, Revan Oreth was little more than a treacherous goat path winding through a canyon of razor-sharp rocks and crumbling cliffs. The Fey took each footstep with special care.
The pass opened into the turbulent heart of Kiyera’s Veil, a gauntlet of mighty, three-hundred-foot waterfalls plunging down from opposing sides of the mountains. Magic teemed in the billowing mist and furious deluge, a powerful magic that flowed from Crystal Lake, the great mountain-born Source cradled at the intersection of the Rhakis, the Feyls, and the Mandolay ranges. Those waters, which then went on to feed the Heras River, burned Mage flesh the waysel’dorburned the Fey.
Rain and the Fey plunged into the cascades without hesitation. Though the pounding weight drenched them and nearly drove them to their knees, they slogged through the hammering gauntlet of the Veil.
Their reward, when they finally emerged on the other side, was to step into the closest thing the mortal world had to paradise.
Billowing clouds of spray rose up from the clash of falls, and grottoes of fern and moss clung to the steep mountainside, thriving in the cool moisture. Rivulets of condensed mist became small ribbons of water that spilled constantly down the craggy, moss-and-fern-carpeted cliff sides in a delicate web of secondary falls. Rainbows shimmered in every beam of light.
There, at the foot of the majestic torrent of waterfalls and nestled in the wide upper valley carved out of the mountains, Orest, the City of Mists, rose from the rainbows like a sprawling cathedral of black pearl, alabaster, and jade. Girded by steep, impenetrable battlements, the city’s beautiful heart flourished in the sweet breath of the Veil, blooming with mossy tree-and-fern-filled gardens amidst graceful colonnaded walks and domed, glistening pearl-gray buildings and bridges that spanned the headwaters of the Heras.
Armored guards clad in the gold, white, and crimson tabards of House Teleos stood at attention on every corner, bridge, and towerwall, guarding Orest like the treasure she was. Before Rain had even stepped outside the misty cloud of spray from the Veil, he was surrounded by a hundred soldiers—all jabbing the business end of their spears his way.
As score after score of drenched Fey warriors emerged from the deluge of the Veil, Orest’s guardsmen found themselves backing up, but before the Fey outnumbered them, a shout brought reinforcements running. Overhead, rising from the rocks and crevices of the sheer cliffs, archers took careful aim at the Fey newcomers.
Rain, unoffended by the Celierians’ fierce defense, held out his hands in the universally recognized gesture of peace. “Inform Lord Teleos the Tairen Soul has arrived.”
