“I will fly them.” Rain summoned the Change as Sybharukai bent to take Forrahl’s egg from the nest and carry it off to a safedistance. Fahreeta and Torasul used their paws to sweep a thick protective layer of black sand over the remaining eggs.
“What is it?” Marissya asked. “What’s going on?”
“Another kitling was lost,” Ellysetta told her. “The pride is going to sing the Fire Song. It’s similar to what the Fey do when they return a fallen warrior’s body to the elements.” Rain lay on the sand so the two women could climb into place. “Get on Rain’s back. We need to fly to safety before they start.”
“Which kitling perished?” Marissya asked as Rain leapt into the air towards one of the upper ledges.
Ellysetta’s fingers squeezed the leather pommel. “Forrahl. The sweet little one who loved to sing.”
Marissya’s arms tightened on Ellysetta’s waist. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved him.”
Shei’dalincompassion and sympathy swirled around Ellysetta in shining waves, but it didn’t soothe her. She had loved Forrahl. She’d loved him as if he were her own. But in the end, that hadn’t mattered. She’d still failed him. Whatever she was supposed to do—whatever gift she supposedly had that made her the only person who could save the tairen—she hadn’t discovered it yet.
Rain deposited the two of them on an upper ledge seven levels above the sandy lair floor. From this distance the tairen looked so much smaller... and so few. The pride—all the tairen left in the world—consisted of those fourteen great cats and the four remaining eggs that held the only hope left for the survival of their kind.
Ellysetta watched them in growing agitation as Rain glided down to join the pride in the ring around poor Forrahl’s dead egg. What was she missing? What was she failing to understand?
Now, like Rain, she couldn’t help thinking that somehow the High Mage must be involved. She’d sensed him, and if Rain was right about the Eld never doing anything without purpose, then he’d been there for a reason. He hadn’t been trying to Mark her again.
So what had he been doing?
Down below, the tairen had begun to sing. Ellysetta closed her eyes as the vibrant song resonated within her. She could hear each tairen’s unique song as a thread in the tightly woven pattern, Sybharukai, Rain, Steli, even the small voices of the surviving egg-bound kits.
As the song swelled, Marissya reached out to clutch her hand, and reverent joy flooded into her. “It’s so beautiful...” Marissya breathed. “When this child is born, and I can no longer hear the glory of tairen song, I will mourn the loss.”
The Fire Song reached its crescendo. Flame burst from tairen throats. Heat exploded upwards in a blast.
And then, just as before, Ellysetta felt the finger of ice scrape down her spine, heard the whisper of voices calling her name.
The hand in hers gave a sudden squeeze... but this time not from joy or awe.
“Ellysetta.” Marissya’s voice trembled. The ocean of flames below had lit the nesting lair bright as day. Marissya’s eyes were wide and frightened. Her free hand splayed across her belly, while the hand clutching Ellysetta’s squeezed tight. She was shivering.
“You feel it, too.” Relief warred with horror. “Can you hear them as well? The voices? The whispering?”
Marissya’s head jerked in wild agreement. “They’re saying ‘Keralas.’” Tears filled her eyes. “He’s afraid. He’s so afraid.”
Terrified that the evil haunting the nesting lair might claim yet another victim, Ellysetta dropped to her knees before Marissya, and without hesitation flung open every one of her senses and sent her consciousness plunging into theshei’dalin. She found the baby, barely more than a tiny candle burning within his mother’s brilliant light. He was whimpering, terrified, just as the kitlings had been.
Gathering all the warmth and love in her soul, she sang to him, just as she’d sung to the baby tairen. Love and warmth poured out of her, into him, soothing, calming. Gradually his whimpers fellsilent, and then Ellysetta heard a small, tremulous echo, so soft it was barely audible. Shock made her pull back.
Marissya’s child, still barely formed in her womb, was singing. His voice was sweet and soft, his notes barely more than dim flickers of color, but he was singing tairen song.
Just like the unhatched kitlings did when she sang to them.
A wave of ice washed over her.
The floodgates opened in her mind. Memories tumbled out in a stunning rush. Her childhood nightmares of wings and fire and fang... Sybharukai’s pleasure as she sniffed Marissya’s scent and announced,«The Fey-kin bears one of the pride.»...the image of Ellysetta’s dead body rolling from the tairen egg, and Cahlah mourning her lost kit... the two shadowy Fey, chained and imprisoned... the triumphant cold silver eyes of the High Mage as he lifted a newborn high... the Mage’s sneering voice that horrible day in the cathedral when he’d declared,I’m the father of your soul, girl. I created it, and now I’ve come to claim it.
And, lastly, Gaelen saying,The Well of Souls... the Eld have long used Azrahn and selkahr crystals to summon demons from the Well...
The Well of Souls. The Underworld.
Home to the souls of the dead who hadn’t yet earned passage to the next life.
Womb to the souls of the unborn.
Good sweet Lord of Light.
