Gaelen stood there, gaping after him. Without a backward glance, Bel thrust a hand behind his back, spun a fly out of Spirit, and sent it buzzing straight into Gaelen’s mouth.
Vel Jelani was most definitely a master of Spirit. The bug felt entirely too real, right down to the wild flutter of its wings and unpleasant taste. Gaelen spat instinctively before he had the sense to unravel Bel’s weave. His eyes narrowed as soft laughter trailed back to his ears. “You will regret that, vel Jelani.” Setting his jaw, he loped after the Spirit master through the long, arching tunnel of the Warriors’ Gate.
Rain, Tajik, Rijonn, and Gil emerged from the Warriors’ Gate and crossed the small first courtyard where, in days before the Wars, when the Fey had flourished, young recruits would gather at the beginning of each season to be evaluated and assigned achatokwho would guide them through their Cha Baruk. Six steps led from the courtyard to the arched doorway that opened to the Walk of Honor, a long, continuous corridor that bordered the Academy’s large, central training field. There, inside the walk, statues of famous warriors andchatokslined the gleaming marble corridor, while polished Fey steel and thesorreisu kiyrof long-dead heroes hung on the walls.
Rain walked past the statues, feeling the weight of their inanimate stares, and unpleasant worms of doubt uncurled anew in his belly. He’d walked this corridor more times than he could count, activating the Spirit weaves that recounted the triumphs and sacrifices attributed to each of the great Fey until he could repeat each tale from memory.
Honor had been no mere word to the Fey enshrined here. They’d considered it an immutable truth, clear and uncompromising. They’d died for it, selflessly, leading by example. What was he doing, bringing adahl’reisento join their honored company?
Bel and Gaelen caught up just as he passed through the door leading to the training yard. Rain turned his head to meet Gaelen’s eyes, expecting to see his doubt reflected in the formerdahl’reisen’s gaze. Instead, he found shock and something even more surprising... humility.
“It welcomed me,” Gaelen whispered. “As I passed through it, the Warriors’ Gate said, ‘Greetings, Gaelen vel Serranis, warrior of the Fey, Champion of Light,’ just as it did when I completed my Cha Baruk. Just as if I’d never trodden the Shadowed Path.”
Bel clapped a hand on Gaelen’s shoulder and smiled, and Rain closed his eyes in relief. The tension that had been gathering in his shoulders and belly flowed out like waters released from a dam. The Mists had welcomed Gaelen. Now, the Warriors’ Gate had welcomed Gaelen. It was as if all the great magic of the Fading Lands were trying to reassure Rain that Gaelen’s honor trulyhadbeen restored, that the shadows of his past had been wiped away as if they’d never been.
He took a deep breath and strode through the door onto the Academy’s training ground.
Open to the sky above, the yard was a vast expanse of bare ground surrounded by covered, colonnaded walkways. From one corner to another, the warriors had gathered. Thousands of them. Ellysetta’slu’tansand every unmated warrior in Dharsa—even a few dozen of the mated ones.
All eyes turned towards Rain as he and Ellysetta’s quintet entered and made their way to the end of the field, where a gallery of gilded chairs sat under a rounded marble roof.
Long ago, when Feyreisen had been numerous, the Defender of the Fey and his Tairen Soul brethren would visit the Academy each month and sit in those chairs to observe the training of the Fey warriors who would fight at their sides. Today, as they had been for the last thousand years, the chairs were occupied by the venerablechatok, the mentors, of the Academy. They stood as Rain approached.
“Welcome, Feyreisen.” Jaren v’En Harad, the oldest of thechatokand Lord of the Academy, bowed and waved one arm towards the large, central chair carved with tairens’ heads that had an unimpeded view of the field.
Rain hesitated for the briefest moment before moving forward to stand before it.
The grounds were silent, all eyes upon him.
“You have heard by now that the Mages have returned. Celieria needs our aid.” His eyes roved over the gathered warriors, seeing the knowledge reflected back in their grim, stony faces.
“Evil has risen in Eld once more. It casts its shadow over our neighbor. Celieria cannot survive without our help, and so we must give it. Because, as the words written on theBor Chakairemind us each time we pass through the Warriors’ Gate, fighting is what Fey were born to do.”
He looked around at the faces of the Fey, most of whom had fought in the last Mage Wars, and saw the same memory, the samerealization on many of them. They knew exactly what he was asking of them, exactly what grim evil they would face if the Mages had grown strong again, but they knew that facing such evil was the task the gods had set upon them.
“But we have grown too few, my brothers. We will not long last against an Eld army even a quarter of the size we faced in the Mage Wars. That is the reason I gathered you here today.” Rain crossed his arms and widened his stance, instinctively bracing for the storm about to erupt around him. “I’m certain you’ve all heard how the Feyreisa restored adahl’reisen’s soul—and not just anydahl’reisen, but the Dark Lord, Gaelen vel Serranis, himself.” All eyes went to the tall, icy-eyed warrior standing to Rain’s left. “He has spent most of the last thousand years fighting Eld on the borders. I asked him here to teach those of you who are willing to learn from him.”
“You want us to accept...him...as ourchatok?” Outraged exclamations sprang from the lips of the gathered Fey.
“I do,” Rain said. “Bel, Tajik, show them why.”
The two warriors exchanged a brief glance, then shimmered into invisibility.
“An invisibility weave,” scoffed Tael vel Eilan, one of Tenn’s youngest cousins. “Any Spirit master here could do as much.”
“Could he?” Rain arched a brow. “Let’s put that to the test.” He cast a cool gaze over the assembly. “Which among you claim a master’s level in Spirit?” Thousands of hands rose. “Excellent. Then among you, you should have no trouble discovering where my two friends went.” He waited, but the warriors lowered their hands and glanced around in confusion, clearly unable to discern where Tajik and Bel had gone. “You cannot find them? But invisibility is a simple weave. Any Spirit master should easily be able to detect them.”
He let a full chime pass, giving the warriors ample time to find their prey, then pinned Tael with a challenging glance. “It seems this Spirit weave is not so simple after all. Perhaps you can tell mewhere my friends are?Nei?Shall I show you? Very well. My brothers, reveal yourselves.”
As quickly as they had shimmered into invisibility, the two warriors reappeared. Tajik was standing behind one of the Spirit masters, Fey’cha held at his neck.
Bel was at Tael’s side, holding the younger Fey’s steel in his hands.
The young warrior clutched the empty space where his Fey’cha harnesses andmeichabelts should have been. “How...?”
Bel thrust Tael’s weapons belts back into his hands. “Arrogance is no substitute for experience, Fey. You might consider that perhaps—just perhaps—a Fey who survived most of the last thousand years battling Eld along the Celierian border might have a thing or two he could teach you about magic—and survival.”
Leaving the young warrior flushed red and fumbling to don his stripped weapons, Bel returned to stand at Gaelen’s side.
