“I don’t think it’s really a sickness, Rain. When I was singing to them, I tried to find signs of injury or illness, but I couldn’t. I could be wrong, of course—Marissya is a far more experienced healer—but to me they all seem healthy. Tired and frightened, but healthy.”
He gave her a grim look. “I feared you might say that.”
“So you don’t really believe it’s a sickness.”
“Nei.My instinct has always told me the Eld must surely be to blame, but I have watched far too many kitlings die in the egg—dozens of them in my arms when I tried to cut them from the shell to save them—and never once have I sensed Azrahn.”
“Well, if it’s not Azrahn and the Mages, do you think whateverI sensed during the Fire Song could be behind the deaths of the kitlings?”
“I don’t know,shei’tani. I just don’t know.”
The passage snaked around, doubling back upon itself and continuing to rise. Above, dim light shone in from a large opening at the top of the next U-shaped curve. As they passed it, Ellie glimpsed the bright blue afternoon sky. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes, surprised that it was still light outside. She’d lost all sense of time deep within the caverns of Fey’Bahren.
She squirmed in his arms. “You should put me down. I’m certain I must be heavy.”
“You are no burden.” He bent his head to take her mouth in a long, sweet kiss. “Besides,” he added when he lifted his head, “we are already here.”
He carried her through another, slightly smaller tunnel that ended in a tall, Fey-sized wooden door. A flick of his fingers sent green Earth spinning out to lift the latch, and silvery Air blew open the door to reveal the chamber beyond. He gestured again, and Fire blossomed in sconces all about the room, adding their light to the sunlight filtering in from yet another passage leading off the main chamber.
Rain finally set Ellysetta on her feet, and she turned in slow circles to glance around the room. The chamber was obviously made for Feyreisen: spacious enough for a tairen to maneuver, yet furnished with human comforts, including a bed piled thick with furs and pillows, and large, beautifully woven rugs to soften the hard stone of the floor. Against one wall stood an elegant, carved desk and matching gilded chair.
“This is your room,” she guessed.
“It used to be Johr’s—the previous Tairen Soul—but it’s been mine since I returned to sanity. There were other furnished rooms, but I burned them out in the early days of my madness and never made the effort to restore them.” The corners of his eyes crinkled at her look of dismay. “I’m much better now.”
“How can you joke about it?”
He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking. “Because you restored my joy.”
“Rain...” She reached for him, wanting to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but he stepped back.
“Food first. Then rest. Then perhaps I will show you what a gratefulshei’tanI am.”
Heat curled in her belly at the sight of the silken promises in his eyes. Until Rain, she’d never realized lavender could be such a seductive shade, but now she realized she’d never see it again without thinking of breathless passion and love.
“Come,” he murmured. The dark velvet of his voice slipped over her skin, making her breath quicken and her pulse speed up. “I thought we’d eat outside. The view is spectacular.” He gestured for her to precede him through a broad archway.
Ellysetta walked past what appeared to be a private bathing chamber and through a smaller, unadorned cave with a large opening that led to the outside world.
She passed through the opening to the broad, wide-lipped ledge that jutted out from the side of the mountain, walking slowly to the farthest point. There, with the wind whipping around her, clouds close enough to touch, and the ground so far, far below, it was easy to believe she was once again aloft in the winds, flying over the Fading Lands. Her belly tightened with exhilaration. She closed her eyes and drew the cool, fresh air into her lungs.
“Just standing here is almost like flying.”
He stepped close behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Aiyah. You feel it too. As if you could leap from the ledge and the wind would welcome you and send you soaring.”
“Yes, that’s it.” She opened her eyes and looked down at her feet. The toes of her boots touched the edge of the precipice, and yet she was unafraid. No hint of vertigo touched her. No sense of even the slightest fear. Only appreciation and thrill and longing.
“I miss this place,” he murmured close to her ear. “I don’t comeback as often as I should. Mostly only when I need the simplicity of being tairen.”
“Simplicity? The tairen don’t seem simple to me.” She thought of the mysteries of the mountain, and Sybharukai with her green eyes so full of secrets. Ellysetta had been here less than a day, but already she knew there was so much more to the tairen than she’d ever realized.
“Do they not? They eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are tired, and kill their enemy without doubt or regret when he threatens them. Do you know how calming that is?”
“To kill your enemy?”
“To have no regrets.”
She turned in his arms and lifted her face to his. The shadows were back in his eyes, the memories of all those who had died in his flames. She stood up on the tips of her toes to kiss him, then bent her head to the hollow of his throat, and they stood there together, on the edge of the precipice, alone above the world as the cool winds of the high mountain swirled around them.
