The oracle that had hurt him when he’d asked it for help.
She knew Rain and the tairen were hoping the Eye would reveal how Ellysetta was supposed to save the kitlings, but she didn’t trust the thing. If it was so willing to help, why wouldn’t it have done so before? And what sort of power hurt those who came to it for aid? Not an honorable one, it seemed to her.
Besides—and here her belly curled into tight, painful knots—if the Eye could see into the past and the future, what would it see about her? She hadn’t forgotten what those voices in the Faering Mists had said to her.Mage claimed! Dark soul! ENEMY!
“Ellysetta?”
She bit her lip and glanced up into Rain’s too-understanding eyes. “I’m afraid, Rain,” she whispered. “Afraid of what it might show... about the future... and about me.” Another voice from another nightmare hissed in her mind.You’ll kill them, girl. You’ll kill them all. It’s what you were born for.
“Las.”Rain brushed his lips across hers. “Fear is for the hunted, not for the hunter. Trust that I will protect you. And trust in your own strength. You are a tairen of the Fey’Bahren pride. The Mage cannot take what you refuse to give him. And even if the Eye doesshow something unpleasant, remember that visions of the future are only possibilities, not destiny. Only the past is certain. All else can yet be changed.” He held her gaze until she lifted her chin and nodded.
The tairen had approached the Eye without any of Ellysetta’s hesitation or trepidation and were sitting in a loose circle around it, each facing one of the three gleaming tairen statues holding Shei’Kess aloft. The cats dwarfed both the Eye and the tairen statues.
«Join us, tairen-kin,»Steli invited.«Six sing pride-song better than three.»
“But I don’t sing tairen song,” Marissya said.
«Keralas will sing.»
“What about me?” Ellysetta asked.
Steli purred, her tail swishing.«Sing whatever song rises in your throat, kitling. You are tairen-kin. The Eye will hear you.»
Rain Changed and the three of them went to stand between the tairen. Steli began to croon, her voice a growling vibrato purr that reverberated through the room. Fahreeta and Torasul joined in, as did Rain, who stood between Steli and Torasul. Their eyes began to glow and whirl. The notes of their song were bright and full, swirling in the air around them and shimmering like sparkling multicolored jewels. Flanked by Fahreeta and Torasul, Marissya closed her eyes and swayed as the vibrant tones of tairen song swept over and through her.
At first, Ellysetta remained silent as the tairen sang. She did not know the pride-song, but each note was like a powerful bell pealing deep inside her. The pattern of the sounds resonated in her heart, her soul, setting off tiny avalanches of emotion. Longing. Joy. Belonging. Pride. As the notes swirled around and through her, she could almost feel the brisk rush of wet air against her face as she soared through the clouds, the rhythmic pull of powerful muscles as her wings bore her aloft on a swirling updraft of warmair, the burn of fire on her tongue, the visceral thrill of being tairen, master of the sky, fearless and free.
The scent of Fey’Bahren filled her nostrils, rich, earthy, magical. With pride-song ringing in her ears, she could discern particular scents within the whole, like bright threads shining in a darker weave, each so distinct and vivid the scent became a picture: calm, majestic Sybharukai, fierce Steli, wise warrior Corus, playful, pretty Fahreeta.
The Eye began to gleam with inner radiance, turning the opaque globe into a glowing orb of deepest red. Small rainbows sparked and swirled within the Eye’s crystalline center. Slowly, gradually, the darkness lightened. The cloudy depths of the Eye became a window to a time when the Fading Lands were green and lush and rich with life. Water ran in abundant rivers through forests and flowering meadows and snaked across a wide, grassy plain that led to a towering range of volcanic mountains. Smoke and clouds wreathed the majestic peaks, and soaring high above, too numerous to count, tairen filled the air. Their roars rang like thunder claps, and fire shot from their muzzles like flashes of lightning in a distant cloudbank.
«So many,»Rain breathed on Spirit as his voice continued to sing.«There were never so many in all my lifetime. Nor my father’s. Nor his father’s before him.»
Fey’Bahren wasn’t the only lair in the Feyls. Other tairen could be seen emerging from caves in peaks both near and far, leaping into the sky to join their pride-mates, swooping low to hunt the scattering herds grazing on the plains below.
«Do you think the Eye is showing us the time when it was a tairen?»Ellysetta asked.
«I do not know, shei’tani. The Eye has been in Dharsa since before the dawn of the First Age.»
In the forests below, tiny figures crept along the banks of a stream. A dozen, clad in cloaks, tunics, and leggings that blended well with the surrounding woods. Hunters. Half had quiversstrapped to their backs, arrows notched and bowstrings drawn. The other half glowed with silvery luminescence and clutched curving steel in their hands. Slowly, quietly, they crept forward. Ahead, their prey, a small herd of pronghorns, was grazing and drinking by the riverbank.
The vision swooped close with abrupt swiftness. A tairen-shaped shadow darkened the ground. The pronghorns lifted their heads in fear, caught sight of the predator overhead, then sprang from the riverbank and bounded into the thick brush of the forest. The hunters looked up, and Ellysetta caught a glimpse of pointed ears in silken hair, and faces of stunning beauty, some laughing, others shaking fists in mock anger. Elves and Fey, hunting together, clearly friends, and there were at least two women in the group, one Elf, one Fey, both armed with bow and blades. The leader gestured, and the hunters raced after their prey, disappearing beneath the forest canopy.
When the pride-song ended, the images faded. The Eye dimmed, but the rainbow lights continued to sparkle in its depths. It was almost as if the tairen song had awakened the oracle and roused a once-living being’s ancient memories.
Ellysetta’s hand went to the large Tairen’s Eye crystal on her wrist, thesorreisu kiyrof Rajahl vel’En Daris, Rain’s father. She remembered the faint tingling harmonic in the stone when she’d first put it on, and the way Bel’s crystal reacted similarly. And she remembered those steaming, glittering crystals lying in the dark nesting sands of Fey’Bahren: all that remained of the tairen Cahlah and her mate.
Perhaps the pride-songhadawakened an ancient’s memories: the memories of the once-living tairen whose body had been transformed by the Fire Song into the great Tairen’s Eye crystal now called the Eye of Truth.
After a brief lull of silence, Steli started singing a new verse. Not pride-song, but a greeting of a different sort. A greeting and a plea, from creatures Ellysetta had thought possessed no humility.The others’ voices dropped back to sing harmonies and croon melodic echoes of Steli’s words.
«The tairen of Fey’Bahren sing pride-greetings for the unborn kitling Keralas and for Ellysetta-Feyreisa, the one you commanded Rainier-Eras to bring. She has come, as you desired. Her song is silent, but Sybharukai, makai of the Fey’Bahren pride, offers you our pride-song in its stead. Know that Ellysetta-Feyreisa is a tairen of the Fey’Bahren pride. Help her, as you would help those with whom you once flew. Teach her as once you taught the pride. Guide her to hunt the enemy we cannot see so that she may save our kitlings dying in the egg. Share what knowledge you possess, so our pride may live and grow strong once more and our song will not fall silent in this world.»
This time however, the Eye did not answer. It chose, instead, to remain silent and dark.
«Sing to it, kitling,»Steli urged.«It listens. It will hear. Sing to it. Ask for the knowledge you seek.»
Ellysetta glanced around the circle of tairen and Fey. Marissya nodded encouragingly. Rain and the tairen merely watched her intently, no expression on their faces, waiting.
