“As if you would not have done the same had you seen your sister slain before your eyes. Oh, but I forgot. When your sister disappeared in the Wars, you did nothing.”
Color flamed in Tajik’s face. “Yougrot-jaffing, krekk-eatingrultshart.” He lunged for Gaelen, and only Rijonn and Gil—the Earth and Air masters of the quintet—managed to hold him back. Bel and Rain caught Gaelen’s arms.
“Stop it. Both of you.” Ellysetta stepped between the two warriors. “What is wrong with you? The enemy is out there.” She pointed northward, towards Eld. “Save your anger for them.”
Gaelen tugged free of Bel’s and Rain’s grip. “Sieks’ta.I know better than to give in to vel Sibboreh’s taunting…and I shouldn’t have pricked him about his sister.Sieks’ta, Tajik.” He held out his right hand in a gesture of peace, but Tajik only glared, yanked himself out of Rijonn and Gil’s tight hold, and stalked to the glass wall overlooking the river. The fingers of Gaelen’s extended hand curled in a loose fist, and raw emotion shone from his eyes for an instant before a shutter fell over his face.
He smoothed the bunched creases in his black leather tunic and swept the ruffled strands of ebony hair back out of his face. “As I was saying, Tairen Soul, not alldahl’reisenjoin the Brotherhood. Nor do all who join the Brotherhood stay. Many do, but when hope fades, the call of the Dark Path is hard to resist.”
“So now thedahl’reisen—at least some of them—are in league with the Eld,” Rain summarized. “Which means the Warriors’ Path and every nonprivate Spirit weave are compromised.”
“And thedahl’reisenfrom the Brotherhood are spinning Gaelen’s invisibility weave on behalf of the Eld,” Bel added. The black-haired, cobalt-eyed Spirit master of Ellysetta’s quintet made the announcement with none of the implied accusation that had been in Tajik’s voice earlier. Bel had been the first warrior to welcome Gaelen back into the fold, and he was still the only Fey Gaelen truly considered a friend. “It won’t take the Eld long to figure out how to penetrate it, if they haven’t already.”
Some found it odd that Bel, a warrior widely regarded in the Fading Lands as the living essence of Fey honor, could befriend thedahl’reisenwhose infamous deeds were legend and whose name had become synonymous with the Dark Lord’s, but Rain knew that Bel’s unswerving sense of honor was exceeded only by the greatness of his heart. Belliard vel Jelani was a warrior who embodied the best of the Fey. He could plan the systematic and merciless destruction of an enemy army, kill with breathtaking skill, and make decisions that would break lesser men—but even when he’d clung to the pained, gray existence of therasa, he never abandoned either honor or compassion. That nobility of spirit, an intrinsic goodness that suffused his every action and yet never blinded him to the harsh realities and demands of a Fey warrior’s life, was one of the qualities Rain admired—and envied—most about his oldest and most trusted friend.
It was in partbecauseBel found Gaelen a worthy friend that Rain had abandoned the old prejudices that still kept Tajik and vel Serranis at odds.
“You say you discovered the Eld before they could make it past the inner gates. Was there any indication of what their mission was?”
“I can think of any number of reasons a general would send such a small party into an enemy fortress, and even more reasons why the Eld would do so.” Bel glanced at Ellysetta.
“There’s more,” Lord Teleos said. “Thedahl’reisenand the Black Guard are dead, but we managed to take one of the Primages alive. The others killed themselves so they couldn’t be questioned, but we’re keeping this one unconscious and restrained by a twenty-five-fold weave. If we can Truthspeak him before he has time to invoke his death spell, we might learn something.”
Rain frowned. “Theshei’dalinshaven’t already done so?” It was rare to capture a Mage alive, even rarer to keep him that way for any length of time.
“Once they senseddahl’reisenin the city, their quintets insisted on taking them through the Mists. They won’t be back until morning at the earliest.”
“What about the wounded?” Ellysetta asked.
“The hearth witches have the situation well in hand,kem’falla,” Bel said. “This attack looks much worse than it really is. I suspect the whole effort is a diversion meant to hold our attention while the raiding party we intercepted snuck through our defenses.”
“So you’re saying the only one here to Truthspeak the Mage is me.”
Aggression slammed through Rain’s body. “That’s out of the question!” He lunged into the space between Ellysetta and her quintet, thrusting her behind him in a Fey male’s instinctive gesture of protection. “Nei,I forbid it,” he reiterated when it looked like Gaelen or Bel might object. “She bears Mage Marks. We have no idea what touching a Primage of Eld—let alone trying to Truthspeak him—would do to her, what doors it might open. Better we get nothing at all from this Mage than risk Ellysetta.”
Bel and Gaelen looked away. Even Teleos couldn’t hold his gaze. They’d really considered it. They’d really thought Ellysetta might—
“Rain, if there’s a chance we can find out what the Eld are planning, isn’t it worth the risk?” Ellysetta spoke in a low voice, pitched for his ears only. “Think of the lives we could save. Koderas is lit. You said yourself that means Celieria is in grave danger. If I can Truthspeak this Mage, I might discover something that will help us prepare our defenses.”
He spun to face her and gripped her arms. “I know you want to help, but this is not the way, Ellysetta. Be sensible. You’ve never Truthspoken anyone before in your life. A Primage is hardly an appropriate test subject.” He shook his head. “Nei. It’s far too dangerous in every possible way. Put the idea out of your mind, because it isn’t going to happen.”
“We could send word to the other side of the Mists.” Gillandaris vel Jendahr, Ellysetta’s Air master, made the suggestion. Gil’s black eyes sparkled with silvery lights like stars shining in a night sky, contrasting vividly with the alabaster paleness of his Fey skin and the even paler hair that he wore bound at his nape with a simple, unadorned tie and left to fall to his waist in a shower of snowy whiteness. His expression was serious—almost grim. He was a blade’s blade, hard edged and dangerous. The kind of warrior more likely to slit throats than laugh at jokes, though with his friends he did on occasion display a wit every bit as sharp as his blades.
“Theshei’dalinswho left Orest are still in the Mists,” Gil was saying, “but there are others camped just on the other side. They might be able to get here soon enough to Truthspeak this Mage before he fights off the sleep spell and suicides like the others.”
“Summon them,” Rain commanded.
“Already done,” Bel answered. The hazy lavender glow of his Spirit weave still lit his eyes. “Twoshei’dalinsand their quintets are on the way. They should arrive in a few bells.” Revan-Oreth, the Mist-shrouded pass guarded by Kiyera’s Veil, wasn’t particularly long in miles, but it was a steep, winding, treacherous mountain path. Even before the Mists were raised, Revan-Oreth had been a slow road to travel.
“Whichshei’dalinsare coming?”
“Narena and Faerah vol Oros.”
Rain took a breath. The women were two of the Fading Lands’ most powerfulshei’dalins, and he knew exactly why they were coming. “Call fifty of our strongest warriors. I want those two guarded at all times.” The vol Oros line was one of the most powerful surviving families of the Fey. One of Faerah and Narena’s two brothers—both now dead—had been a Tairen Soul, and their eldest sister, Nicolene, had been captured by the Eld during the battle of Teleon. Rain would bet every blade he owned that Faerah and Narena’s offer to Truthspeak the captured Mage had more to do with their hope of discovering what had happened to their sister than any desire to find useful military intelligence.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
“You’re late,umagi.” A cuff from one meaty paw accompanied the Eld guard’s irritable growl.
