“You’re forgetting one very important fact, Ellysetta. Your soul called out to mine.” He caught her hands in his. “You are my truemate. No matter what part of you the High Mage may have manipulated,shei’tanitsais a bond of infinite love and unconditional trust. That is a power the Mages could never understand—and certainly never create with their corrupt magic.”
Sincerity, unwavering and absolute, flowed from his fingertips to hers. She could not doubt him. The problem was, she had littlebutdoubts about herself. “I’m afraid of what I am, Rain. I always have been. Even here, I’m still different, still the odd one, the dangerous one. The one people look at with suspicion. You can say they don’t, but I know they do. Venarra, Tenn, some of the others. I hear it in their stray thoughts, sense it in their emotions.”
“Perhaps they fear because you do,” he suggested. “You live among powerful empaths now, not mortals. They can sense your self-doubt.”
“So how do I stop being afraid?”
He sighed and enfolded her in his arms. “When we discover that,shei’tani, I think we will have discovered the key to completing our bond.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa
By month’s end, the number of warriors training at the Academy had increased to sixteen thousand. The Spirit masters among them could weave invisibility without a trace and extend the weave to mask a full quintet from detection. Certain of those Fey had also discovered the near-unlimited potential true invisibility offered to the practical jokers amongst them. They and their traps for the unwary popped in and out of sight with gleeful abandon until Gaelen threatened to skewer the next idiot who annoyed him. (That didn’t stop their pranks; the culprits just became more selective of their victims.)
Spirit masters weren’t the only ones to benefit from Gaelen’s experience. The Earth masters had learned a little trick that, while not effective for long, could block an oncoming rush ofsel’dormissiles or blade strikes. All the warriors could fire the Fey’cha in their chest straps half a chime faster than before, and Gaelen promised that with additional practice, their speed would increase even more.
All told, Gaelen’s training was a resounding success. And though Loris had sent word from Elvia that an emergency in South Elvia had prevented him from even meeting with the Elf King yet, Rain was pleased with the month’s progress. The warriors were ready and spirits were high.
Ellysetta wished she could say the same for herself. Each passing day brought Rain’s departure nearer, but she was no closer to discovering what was killing the tairen.
“What in the name of all the gods made me believeIcould find answers that have eluded Fey who’ve been searching for a thousand years?” she groused to Rain after reading what seemed the millionth scroll. They were sitting on the chairs overlooking the Academy’s training grounds, the remains of their midday meal sitting nearby. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to find. For all I know, the answer could have stared me in the face a hundred times and I’m just too blind to see it.”
She slumped in her chair in dispirited frustration. “I haven’t found any answers. I haven’t found my tairen song, and I don’t even know how to complete our bond.” She covered her face in her hands. “Maybe Tenn and Venarra are right. Maybe Ihavealready done all I was meant to do.”
Rain’s hands closed around hers in a firm grip. Emotion flooded her senses: trust, belief, reassurance, all riding on a rumbling undercurrent of irritation. “Venarra should never have shared that with you. All it did was make you doubt yourself even more than you already do.” His lips thinned. “Sieks’ta, shei’tani. I have been too preoccupied to look after you as I should. I have not even been courting you properly since we reached Dharsa.”
Ellie sighed and leaned against him. “You’ve been busy. We both have.” She had a growing collection of courtship gifts tucked away in glass cases in their room, but once their training had begun, the only real time they’d spent alone was when they flew to and from Fey’Bahren to tend the kits, or the few bells of restless sleep they snatched each night.
“A Fey should never be so busy he cannot see to his mate.” He rose and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere I should have taken you weeks ago.” Rain tracked down Gaelen and informed him that the Feyreisen and the Feyreisa would be leaving Dharsa for a few days.
Gaelen eyed the pair of them, smirked, and said, “About time, Feyreisen.”
Rain’s response was to shoot back a string of Feyan words Ellysetta had never heard before, but several of the warriors nearby laughed and cheered their king so robustly she was certain whatever he’d said didn’t bear repeating amongst the women. Gaelen whirled on thechadinsand barked with such ferocity they snapped back to instant, stone-faced order. Leaving the Fey to Gaelen’s gleefully merciless instruction, Rain cleared a spot to Change, and a few chimes later, he and Ellysetta were winging west, away from Dharsa.
Celieria ~ Teleon
«Lord Darramon has arrived.»
Leaning against the stone wall of Teleon’s highest guard tower, Kieran sent the message arrowing into the Mists to the warriors andshei’dalinswaiting in the war castles of Chatok and Chakai. To the west, a caravan of carriages, wagons, and mounted riders crossed the hilltop and started down the sloping grade.
«We come.»The voice of the returning weave was distorted by the energy of the Mists.
“He took his time, considering he’s here to have his wife cured of a deadly illness,” Kiel murmured. “I was beginning to think he wouldn’t show.”
“Those mounts are mortal-bred, notba’houda.” Kieran counted three dozen outriders and two more wagons carrying servants and provisions. “I doubt they’ve been on the road less than three weeks.”
“Shall we head down to meet them?”
Kieran straightened up from the wall. “Aiyah, but let’s stay clear of the Stones grid.” Lillis and Lorelle were playing Stones with the quintet assigned to guard them today—and soundly beating them, by all accounts Kieran had been receiving throughout the morning.«Ravel.»He spun a quick Spirit weave to the leaderof the quintet currently watching over the twins.«Lord Darramon has arrived. Kiel and I are going down to greet them. Keep the girls out of sight.»
Though the twins understood how vital it was that they remain within the Spirit-weave-concealed confines of Teleon, lately they’d been showing signs of boredom, which translated into a proportionally increased propensity for wandering. Only yesterday, Kieran had found them playing Princess in the Tower in the lower-level guard towers, and he’d barely caught them before they climbed down the knotted bedsheet they’d thrown over the ramparts. Had he arrived even a few chimes later, they’d have landed on unprotected land and been visible to any passersby.
«Understood.»Ravel’s weave sounded harried, as if the twins had been running him ragged.
