One of the warriors sparring near Rain rushed in for an attack, stumbled, and sent hisseyaniplunging into Rain’s unprotected back. The sight of a Fey blade protruding from Rain’s chest, glistening scarlet with his blood, brought Ellysetta out of her chair, power crackling so furiously that her hair rose up in a fiery nimbus around her head. She was across the field, at his side, in an instant, not even aware of the warning growl rumbling from herthroat or the blaze in her eyes that sent the warriors stumbling back in alarm.
Forgetting all the lessons of control and moderation Venarra and Jaren had taught her, Ellysetta healed Rain with an instinctive, searing blast of power. As was typical with her magical outbursts, she healed him so swiftly and so well that when he came up off the ground, his eyes were blazing bright as stars, and his own power was rising as quick and hot as his blood. He carted her off the field to the nearest room with a door—an armory, as it happened—and they proceeded to rattle every shield and scrap of armor off the shelves. When they returned, Rain was smiling, thelu’tansand even the other warriors were grinning, and Ellysetta’s cheeks stayed red as apples the rest of the day.
After that, thelu’tansbegan boasting of her tairen fierceness and calling her Ellysetta-makaiinstead of Feyreisa.
A few of the other Fey women, drawn by the admiring stories of Ellysetta-makai’s courage and strength, began to pay afternoon visits to the training grounds too, but none of them could stay more than a few bells before the constant thud of flesh on flesh and the occasional sprays of scarlet blood sent them fleeing for more peaceful venues.
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Tealah told Ellysetta after her fifth valiant attempt to sit with Ellysetta at the training grounds. Venarra’s assistant had turned out to be a friendly woman, curious, bright, and much more willing than the hall’s keeper to accept Ellysetta as a sister instead of a potentially dangerous interloper in need of constant watching. “If I don’t keep my barriers at full strength, I feel each blow as if it were striking my own flesh. Don’t you?”
Ellysetta shook her head. “I feel the serious injuries—the worst of them I sense like a stabbing pain in my chest or my belly—but the rest”—she shrugged—“nei. I’m aware of the pain, but I don’t...feelit. Does that make sense?”
“Aiyah, of course. That’s what my barriers do for me, thoughmine are clearly nowhere near as strong as yours, and apparently you don’t need to constantly reinforce them like the rest of us do.” Tealah uncorked the flask offaerilasshe’d brought with her and took a sip. After her third visit to the Academy, she’d begun bringing a bottle of water from the Source, using it to restore the magical energies she expended maintaining her shields so she could stay more than a bell or two at a time.
Ellysetta crossed her arms over her knees. “If being here on the training ground is so difficult for Fey women, how do you manage to serve in the healing tents during war?”
“Only theshei’dalinsserve in war—well, except the Mage Wars. But those were such desperate days. Any Fey beyond the first blush of childhood served in some capacity.”
“But I thought all Fey women wereshei’dalins.”
Tealah laughed. “No doubt that’s because the only Fey woman Celierians have known in a thousand years is Marissya.Nei, many of us—most of us, these days, in fact—aren’tshei’dalins. Or at least notshei’dalinenough to matter. We’re all empaths, of course, and all healers—some stronger than others—but only the strongest of us can Truthspeak. That’s whatshei’dalinmeans: speaker of truth. With that gift comes the ability to withstand considerably more pain than other empaths can bear.”
“But you’re ashei’dalin?” She’d seen Tealah a number of times in the Hall of Truth and Healing.
Tealah nodded. “A minor one, though. Not nearly as strong as Venarra or Marissya.”
“That explains why you can stay here, near the training ground, longer than the others who came.”
“That,” she agreed, then shook herfaerilasflask, “and this. Nalia, Venarra, and Marissya could stay much longer than I—and without rejuvenation—but I doubt any of them could come and sit all day, day after day, as you do.” She cocked her head to one side, her teal blue eyes considering. “There’s even a sense of energy about you when you’re here that you don’t have whenyou’re in the Hall of Scrolls or even in the Hall of Truth and Healing.”
“Is there?”
“Mmm. You shine brighter here, and not because your shields are stronger. It’s almost as if some part of you thrives on the violence.”
Ellysetta drew back in horror. “You think Ienjoyseeing them hurt one another?”
Tealah clapped a hand over her cheeks. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Of course, I don’t mean you take pleasure in their pain. Noshei’dalin,no matter how strong, would ever do so. I only meant...” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head and bit her lip. “Do not listen to my babblings. I am a fool. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you shine brighter here. Your truemate is here. It must be his presence that affects you.”
Despite Tealah’s belated reassurances, her comment about Ellysetta seeming to thrive on the violence of the warriors echoed in Ellysetta’s mind throughout the rest of the day. Later that night, after she and Rain had retired to their rooms, she posed the question to him.
“What does it mean, Rain, that I can watch you and all the warriors batter yourselves senseless and not feel horrified?”
They had bathed in the Feyreisen’s enormous silverstone tub—which involved more laughter, splashing, and love play than cleaning—and were now lying naked amid the softly billowing silken sheers hanging about their bed, nibbling on a bowl of succulent redberries and enjoying the cool jasmine- and honeyblossom-scented breeze blowing in through the balcony arches. The remains of their private repast lay discarded on a nearby table, beside an uncorked bottle of blue Celierian pinalle on ice and a steaming pot of keflee, which Rain had once again been trying unsuccessfully to convince Ellysetta to share with him—for the benefit of all those Fey couples hoping for the blessings of fertility, of course.
Freshly washed and freshly healed by Ellysetta’s warm hands, Rain drizzled a trail of sticky redberry juice up the soft, flat plane of her belly from her navel to the tip of one small, round breast, then followed the trail with lips and tongue until she shuddered with a mix of pleasure and irritation.
“Parei.I mean it.” She grabbed his hands. “I’m worried, Rain. You’ve all said I’m ashei’dalin. Shouldn’t I be... oh, I don’t know... weeping and wailing over the warriors’ pain when they injure themselves?”
“Weeping? Andwailing?” Rain’s brows shot up. “Poor Marissya, is that what you think she does?”
Ellysetta gave him a shove. “You know very well that’s not what I meant. Be serious.” She dragged a sheet over her body. “I’m truly worried. Tealah said something about my thriving on the violence of the training battles, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. What if she’s right? And what if that’s some sign of the Mage’s power growing stronger?”
The teasing humor on Rain’s face faded in an instant. “Nei,” he said flatly. “It’s true you are more at ease within the walls of the Academy than any othershei’dalin, but that has nothing to do with the Mage’s power. You are a Tairen Soul, Ellysetta. And tairen are fierce, not frightened... predators, not prey. Challenge is play to us.”
“Yes, but—”
“Ask any warrior out there on the training field if he is enjoying himself. Hard and painful as the training may be, every one of them will tell youaiyah. We all feel the same rush of energy—of power and magic and life—when we match blades with one another. It is the tairen rising. The tairen rises in you, too,kem’reisa. That is what you feel, not the Mage.”
She frowned at him. “What if you’re wrong and I’m not really a Tairen Soul? What if the High Mage only manipulated my soul to make me seem like one so you would bring me back to the Fading Lands—andthat’sthe real reason the tairen can’t hear my song?What if I really am what Gaelen first thought and the Massan now fear: a creature the High Mage of Eld created to destroy the Fading Lands from the inside out?”
