“Nei!Do not!” she cried, the words both a warning for theshei’dalinsand a command to the destructive wildness gathering inside her.
«Ellysetta!»The sound of Rain’s voice rang out across the Mists in speech and Spirit and tairen song, calling out simultaneously in her mind and her soul. Her heart raced, and the threads of their bond flared to life, tingling with a sudden surge of magic in response to the desperate command and raging fear in his call.
The tairen fury building inside her coalesced with sudden focus. Her hands clenched. Her eyes flamed. They dared use her to torment her mate? Ellysetta’s power rose up in wild, angry waves, bright and hot.
«Rain!»She shouted his name on every pathway he’d used to call her, her voice vibrating with the incendiary roar of her tairen.«I am here!»Her call pierced the Mists, finding him instantly, seizing him with a searing rope of fire that blazed a path back to her.
Suddenly he was there, fierce and furious, his roar a deafening boom. Flames boiled around them with savage fury as Rain’s tairen rushed to defend its mate. The avenue of trees, theshei’dalins, the gathering of cold-eyed Fey, all dissolved in a wall of tairen flame.
The roar rocked Taloth’Liera like a cry from the gods themselves.
One whole section of the Mists turned bright orange, then exploded in a boiling cloud of tairen fire that sent Fey warriors stumbling back. Steel clattered on stone. A great, blazing ball of light hurtled out of the dense flames. The warriors standing on the crenellated wall crossing Taloth’Liera shouted in surprise as it rocketed past.
The light plunged towards earth like a falling star. Bel raised a hand to shield his eyes and caught a glimpse of a shadowy tairen wing at the periphery of the light. His heart rose up in his throat when he realized he was watching Rain streaking across the sky, gouts of flame spewing from his muzzle—and that blaze of blinding light on his back was Ellysetta.
They landed half a mile beyond the Warriors’ Wall, dust billowing up in clouds around them. Gaelen and Bel ran towards them. Marissya and Dax sprinted close on their heels, followed by Tajik and the rest of the Fey.
They all skidded to a halt when the tairen screamed and rose up on his haunches. Black wings spread wide in a show of ferocious might, and boiling jets of flame geysered into the air in warning.
When the Fey made no move to come closer, he settled back onto all four paws. Growls rumbled dangerously in his chest, and several more small bursts of flame hissed from his muzzle. The radiant figure of Ellysetta slid from his back and leaned against his foreleg. Her blinding aura began slowly to dim. Rain remained in tairen form, his tail twitching, his ears laid back on his head.
“What in the Seven Hells is going on?” Tajik demanded. “Did the Mists grant passage, or did the Tairen Soul and his mate just burn their way through?” Suspicion filled Tajik’s flame-blue eyes, and though his hands didn’t reach for steel, Bel saw the unmistakable signs of tension gathering.
“Las, Taj,” Bel said. “This was Rain’s first time through the Mists. None of us were sure what to expect. Clearly, he had a bad time of it, but he’s through, and that’s what matters.”
Tajik wasn’t general of the eastern army because he was a trusting man. His eyes pierced Bel as mercilessly as Tajik’s blades hadimpaled countless enemy soldiers over the centuries. “The Tairen Soul wasn’t the only one to blast through with magic blazing.” He nodded at the still blindingly bright figure of Ellysetta. “What stains could ashei’dalinbear on her soul that would set the Mists against her?”
“The Feyreisa’s power is vast,” Marissya interrupted, drawing the general’s intent blue gaze to herself, “but she never summons it on her own behalf. Whatever torments Rain suffered no doubt roused her tairen’s protective instincts. I have not seen her like this since her mother was murdered before her eyes.”
The hard intensity of Tajik’s gaze faltered. Outside the bonds of truemating, there was no stronger Fey instinct than the warriors’ need to protect their women from harm, and the image of a Fey maiden shattered by the loss of a beloved mother roused that ingrained protectiveness with a vengeance.
“Rain will not calm until she does.” Marissya edged closer. Ellysetta turned her head, piercing Marissya with a look that made theshei’dalingasp and stop in her tracks. Ellysetta’s eyes were pupil-less, whirling kaleidoscopes, blazing with tairen power. Theshei’dalin’s body went stiff, and for an instant an aura of bright light flamed around her.
Dax lunged toward his truemate, but Gaelen clapped a swift, hard arm around his bond brother’s chest, holding him back. “Don’t be a fool, Dax. Ellysetta won’t hurt Marissya.”
A moment later, the light around Marissya winked out. Dax broke free of Gaelen’s hold and caught her as she stumbled.
Marissya took a deep breath and steadied herself before waving him off. “Las, shei’tan.I am unharmed.” Never taking her eyes off Ellysetta, she wiped the sheen of perspiration from her upper lip. The Feyreisa hadn’t hurt her, it was true, but Marissya felt as if her entire being—body and soul—had been seized, ripped open, and scoured by a merciless inquisitor.
The sensation was one Marissya knew all too well, though she’dnever been on the receiving end of it. At least, never such a ruthless and brutally efficient weave of it.
Ellysetta had just Truthspoken the most powerfulshei’dalinin the Fading Lands.
And not kindly.
Marissya blew out a breath. No wonder Ellysetta fearedshei’dalinsso much. A few chimes of that ravaging scrutiny, and even Marissya would have collapsed in a boneless puddle of shattered will and weeping helplessness. And Ellysetta hadn’t even needed to lay a hand upon her to do it.
Whatever the Feyreisa had discovered—or found absent—inside Marissya apparently satisfied her, because when theshei’dalinstepped forward a second time, Ellysetta allowed her approach without protest.
Half-afraid that if she dared too much, Ellysetta’s wild power might rouse again, Marissya quickly healed the physical effects of stress and shock and did what she could to help mend the barriers in Ellysetta’s mind. The Mists had not been gentle with her. Each moment of the healing, while Marissya’s consciousness was tied to Ellysetta, she was aware of the hot, angry hissing of the tairen, a violent sentience seething just below the surface.
Marissya had no desire to feel the full brunt of that power unleashed upon her.
When she was done, she pulled her hands back quickly and didn’t protest when Dax snatched her up and hauled her several steps away from Rain and his truemate.
“Is she well?” Tajik stood tense, staring at the still-radiant, flame-haired woman standing so fearlessly beside the great black tairen, her pale, gleaming hand stroking its pelt.
“She is fine,” Marissya assured him. “I was right. The Mists roused her tairen, but she is calming now.”
