Colum snarled and spat a foul curse, but the two of them were no match for four Barrials, and they knew it. Together, puffed up with arrogance and self-righteous indignation, Lord Sebourne and his son stalked away.
“Adrial, I love you. I love you so much.” Talisa cupped his beloved face in her hands and showered him with tears and kisses. “I don’t want to live without you. I can’t bear to lose you. Not like this.”
“Shh.” Adrial smiled into her eyes. His heart was breaking. Each tear that spilled from her eyes burned his soul the way thesel’dorchains burned his flesh. He’d done this to her. He’d brought this sorrow to her door. Because in his own way, he was as selfish as diSebourne. Both of them fighting over her like dogs over a bone. “Sieks’ta, shei’tani. I did not do right by you in this life, but I swear to you, I will be everything you deserve in the next.” He took her hand and carried it to his lips. “This isn’t the end,shei’tani. No matter how many years or lifetimes it takes, I will find you again. And we will be happy. You have my oath on it.”
Weeping, she curled in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. “Tell me what it will be like,shei’tan, when we’re together.”
He pressed his face to her hair and closed his eyes as his own tears fell. His throat was too tight to speak, so he wove Spirit, not just words but pictures, bringing the images from his last courtship gift to life. Dharsa in full bloom, and the two of them, together, forever. For each chime of the next bell, he spun his hopes for them, his dreams of their future, their love, the children they would have in another lifetime when joy, bright as sunlight, would suffuse their united souls.
And when they came for him, though she wept and clung to him until they pulled him away, the first of their bond threads had formed, and light like the warmth of a thousand suns shone on both their souls.
They gathered outside King Dorian’s tent.
Her tearstained face proudly unveiled, her spine straight and unyielding, Talisa stood at her father’s side. It would kill a part of her soul to watch Adrial’s death, but since she could not stop it, she wanted the last thing he saw to be her face, and the last thing he felt to be her love.
A shadow moved across the corner of her eye and she glanced to her right to find Colum standing there. “We will get through this, Talisa. It is hard for me to forgive you your transgressions, but you are my wife, and I am determined we will build a good life together.”
She drew a breath, her hands curling tight together. “Heir to a Great House you may be, but you are a despicablerultshart, Colum diSebourne. And you’re a fool if you think you’ll ever be anything to me but the monster who killed the man I love. I will give you nothing—not a touch, not a smile, not a kind word.” She looked at him then, to make sure he saw the utter loathing in her eyes. “Your name is a curse to me.”
His brows drew together in a dark scowl. “You dare—”
He started to grab her, but she swiftly sidestepped his grip and bared her teeth in a snarl every bit as dangerous as her father’s. “Lay a finger on me, and I’ll kill you myself.” And the pure hatred that vibrated in her voice was enough to make him stop in shock.
She swept her skirts away and moved to the other side of her father and brothers.
Silence fell over the gathering as King Dorian emerged from his tent. He took his place between Colum and Talisa’s father, then nodded, and the king’s guard led Rowan and the other Fey—still shackled—to one side of the circle, where they stood, under guard. A moment later, four more guards marched Adrial to the center of the circle.
He’d changed his black leathers for red. His dark hair hung loose about his shoulders and his face was pale but calm, almost serene.Sel’dorshackles still encased his wrists and ankles.
She forced her lips into a trembling smile. «I am here, shei’tan. I will always be here.»
He didn’t smile back, but his love poured over her in waves, and the sweet promises he’d spun for her in Spirit filled her mind once more. «Ver reisa ku’chae, Talisa. Kem surah shei’tani. In this life and every life to come.»
The king’s drummers began to play as one of the king’s guard stepped forward in between Colum and the king, holding one of Adrial’s Fey’cha harnesses draped across his two hands. A second guard withdrew one of the red Fey’cha, but before he could carry it across the short distance to Adrial, a roar rumbled through the sky like thunder.
They all glanced up to see the Tairen Soul soaring in the skies to the south. From this distance, which must have been twenty or thirty miles at the very least, he looked more like a great bird than a tairen. He winged with purpose across the sky, heading straight for the encampment.
“Adrial! The Tairen Soul is here!” Hope bloomed in Talisa’s breast. If anyone in Celieria could stop this travesty of justice, it was the Fey king and his mate.
Colum must have had the same thought, because while all eyes were on the Tairen Soul, he lunged forward, snatching one of the remaining red Fey’cha from the harness held by the guard in front of him and pulling back his arm to throw it.
Talisa didn’t think. She just leapt forward, calling a warning to her truemate. “Adrial! Watch out!” And she threw her body between Adrial and Colum.
The dagger struck her between the shoulders. It didn’t hurt much. Just a tiny explosion of pain. A single searing stab, gone almost in an instant. But the blow robbed her of breath and strength, and she fell forward into Adrial’s arms.
“Adrial.” She blinked in dazed surprise. “Adrial, I…” Her thoughts tangled. Her vision began to blur, and her words slurred. “Adri…al…”
The last thing she saw was his beloved face, and the last thing she felt was his love, tinged by desperate horror as tairen venom raced through her veins and death dimmed her vision.
Adrial clutched Talisa’s body to his chest, her chestnut hair spilling over his arms. “Talisa…shei’tani…nei…nei. Nei va.Don’t go!Ster eva ku. Stay with me.Teska. Teska.” His shoulders quaked with racking sobs and tears poured freely down his face as her eyes glazed over. Her limbs gave a final, weak twitch, then went limp. “Ah,nei, nei. Teska sallan. Ku’ruveli, shei’tani.Come back to me.” He knew the instant her soul slipped free of her slender body. Her passing ripped him apart from the inside out, leaving a gaping hole where her brightness had taken root.
He flung back his head and howled as the agony of her death shredded his soul.
In the skies over Celieria, Adrial’s pain seared Ellysetta’s empathic senses like a bolt of lightning. Her fingers clenched around the pommel of the saddle and her body shuddered with the force of his devastation. Then another emotion chased after the first, every bit as jolting, and infinitely more alarming.
«Rain!» She leaned forward, grasping thick handfuls of the fur at his neck in her urgency. «Hurry. Hurry!»
Without a word, Rain put on a burst of magic-powered speed, and his tairen form raced across the sky, leaving thelu’tanfar behind.
