The only task he hadn’t yet completed was discovering the whereabouts of Ellie Baristani’s young sisters.
The pressure was mounting. Lady Darramon’s unexpected pregnancy had forced theshei’dalins’healing to go more slowly than anticipated, but the great lady was already looking far stronger and more robust than the walking corpse she had been when they’d arrived. Den expected to receive word any day that the Darramon party would be departing Teleon.
He knew the twins couldn’t be far away. The two Fey who had greeted Darramon’s party when they arrived were the same ones Den remembered guarding Ellie and her sisters so closely back in Celieria City.
The brown-haired Fey Den remembered with particular clarity. He was the same warrior who’d laughed at Den and called him “little sausage” the day Rain Tairen Soul stole Den’s betrothed... the same warrior who’d later held a knife to Den’s throat and growled, “Little sausage, I have lost all patience with you.”
Yes, Den remembered that Fey. And when the attack came, Den hoped to be there to see the insufferable, sneeringporgil’s throat slit by asel’dorblade.
Unfortunately, his numerous attempts to follow the pair had ended in failure. One moment they’d be walking around the bailey, and the next they’d turn a corner and literally disappear. No matter how often he tried to follow them—or even head in the direction where they’d disappeared—Den always found himselfback in some other area of the fortress, shaking his head to clear it and wondering where he’d been going.
There was most definitely some sort of illusion and redirection weave spun around the rear of the fortress, and the magic was too powerful for him to get past.
Thwarted in his direct approach, he’d decided that rather than trying to find the twins, he’d encourage them to find him. Every day for the last three days, after feeding Darramon’s men and cleaning up the cook wagon, he’d packed the kittens and their mother in a basket, gathered a blanket, and walked around the southwest side of the outpost to let the kittens play in the sunshine while their mother hunted field mice in the grass.
Each day, he placed his blanket just that much closer to the back of the fortress.
No nibbles yet, but he’d fished enough in Great Bay to know how to bait a hook and be patient.
“Psst. Lillis. He’s there again.” Lorelle clung to the upper branches of a cherry blossom tree and waved her sister up. “Here, come look.” She handed down the small brass spyglass Kieran had made for them so they could play Pirates and Damsels. (Lorelle wasalwaysthe pirate.)
Lillis wedged herself in the cradle of several smooth gray branches and raised the spyglass to her eye, turning the end to bring the world in focus. “Oooooh... there they are! Six, Lorelle! He’s got six of them. Oooh... I want the little black one. She has the cutest white socks.”
Lorelle frowned down at her sister. “How will you know which one you want until you’ve had a chance to hold them? Maybe the one you think you want will like me better than you.”
Lillis looked up. “How could we hold them? We’re not supposed to go out where anyone can see us. Especially not when strangers are here.”
“He’s not a stranger,” Lorelle countered. Honestly, Lillis couldbe such a noodle-spine. “He’s been here all week, and all the guards wave at him when he walks by. Besides, if he were a bad man, Kieran and Kiel would already have stabbed him dead or made his insides catch fire or sucked all the water and air out of his body.”
Lately, Lorelle had been interrogating Kiel and Kieran about all the ways they could kill enemies with magic. Though Lillis squealed and got all prissy, Lorelle pressed for ever more gruesome and inventive ways of killing bad people. One day, she promised herself, she’d meet the Mage who’d hurt Ellie and killed their mama, and Lorelle would find a way to kill him—and the more he suffered, the better she would like it!
Her sister’s face puckered with concern. “Kieran will be mad.”
“He can’t be mad if he doesn’t know, ninnywit. We can sneak out, play with the kittens, and sneak back before he even knows we’re gone.”
Lillis continued to look doubtful.
Lorelle stuck her nose in the air. “Well,I’mgoing. And when my kitten ends up liking me more than yours likes you, it will be your own fault for picking one out just by its color.” She clambered down the tree and dropped to the ground, giving her skirts a good shake to free them of bark. She took a dozen determined steps by herself before a pleased smile curved her lips.
Lillis was running to catch up with her.
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
The Hall of Tairen was empty. Bel and Gaelen were at the Academy, Steli was hunting, and Eimar had convinced his fellow Massan to accompany him to the Academy to observe the new skills he and the other Fey had acquired under Gaelen’s tutelage.
Ellysetta’s slippers made no sound as she crossed the marble tiles and approached the great, dark sphere of Tairen’s Eye crystal held aloft on the back of golden tairen wings.
She hadn’t entered this room since that first day, when the Eye had shown her such horrible things and roused both her tairen and the dangerous dark magic of Azrahn.
Her skin prickled as she drew near. The Eye was powerful magic and she could feel the throbbing pulse of its energy whispering across her skin and raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Shadows swirled slowly in the Eye’s dark depths. Glimpses of bright rainbows darted among swirls of deepest red.
“Who were you?” Her whisper sounded like a shout in the stone silence of the chamber. “You lived once. You must have had a name.”
The Eye gave no answer, but then, she hadn’t really expected one.
She drew a deep breath and summoned her courage. She knew better than to touch the oracle. Rain had laid hands upon the Eye, and it had not responded kindly. The tairen had sung to it, and the Eye hadn’t liked that either.
She would try something simpler, something less aggressive. Something she could control.
