«Ellysetta-kitling has not yet found her wings or flame or fangs. She is still very…» The next part of her mournful tairen song did not translate well, but the rumble of notes conjured images of infant tairen still developing in the egg, utterly vulnerable and greatly in need of their mother to protect them.
“Oh, Steli.” Tears sprang to Ellysetta’s eyes and she flung her arms around the white tairen’s throat. “I will miss you, too, my pride-mother, but Rain and mylu’tanwill keep me safe. Besides”—she drew back and forced a smile—“I am not entirely as helpless as you believe, even without my wings.”
Discontent rumbled in the tairen’s throat. «Maybe, maybe. Steli still does not like.» Her tail twitched and a passing Orestian guard threw himself on the ground to avoid being slashed by the fully extended and very poisonous spikes gleaming amidst the fur at the tip of Steli’s tail.
“You would like it even less in Celieria City, Steli. It is filled with only humans—and no mountains.”
«There is water…and hills. Steli remembers. Water is good. Hills not so good as mountains, but still good. Steli promises to eat no humans. They not so tasty anyway.»
“Well…” Ellysetta blinked. “That’s good to know. King Dorian would not be happy if Steli-chakaiate his subjects.”
Rain stifled a laugh and turned to Steli. “Thank you, Steli-chakai, for agreeing to stay and lead the tairen in defense of Orest.” He gestured for Lord Teleos to come forward. “Lord Teleos is Fey-kin. His family descends from the vel Celay line. This city is his to hold, and he is responsible for her defense. Ellysetta and I ask that you accept him as pride-friend while we are away—and speak to him in Feyan so he can understand you.”
«Mmmrrr. Vel Celay blood very strong. Many pride-kin from that line.» Steli lowered her head and sniffed Dev Teleos. To his credit, the Celierian didn’t twitch a muscle. After a moment, Steli drew back and snorted. «Agreed.» She fixed a glowing, pupil-less blue gaze on Dev’s face and in perfectly accented Feyan said, «Steli-chakai accepts you as pride-friend while Rainier-Eras and Ellysetta-kitling are away and will speak to you in your tongue so you may understand.»
“Steli-chakaioffers you a great honor, Dev,” Rain murmured to his friend. “Tairen rarely speak to those outside the pride.”
Dev bowed to the white tairen as deeply as if she were the emissary of a foreign king. “Beylah vo, Steli-chakai. This Fey-kin thanks you for the great honor you bestow upon him and the great service you give to his city. I stand forever in your debt.”
Steli’s ears twitched. «Well-spoken, Fey-kin.» With a final growl and twitch of her tail, Steli sang to Ellysetta and Rain, «Very well. Steli will stay and lead the tairen to defend the Fey-kin’s city.» She bent low to pin Rain with a whirling gaze. «Bring Ellysetta-kitling safely back to the pride, Rainier-Eras.»
“On my life, I do so vow, Steli-chakai.”
Rain, Ellysetta and thelu’tandeparted Orest just as the Great Sun began to lighten the eastern horizon. They traveled on foot and under a cloak of invisibility, heading south through the swath of rolling farmland that stretched between the Rhakis mountains and the gnarled, gloomy impenetrability of the Verlaine Forest.
They ran at a grueling pace, using magic to speed their steps. Ellysetta’s presence slowed the warriors down a bit—as did maintaining the invisibility weave—but Rain would not take to the sky or allow the Fey to drop their invisibility until they were more than two hundred miles from Orest. Something had slain every messenger dispatched from Teleos’s holding, and Rain would take no chance that same something might be lying in wait for them.
Finally, just after dusk, he called a halt, and they made camp in a farmer’s recently harvested wheat field. Fire masters roasted field rabbit with weaves of flameless heat while groups oflu’tanspun a dome of twenty-five-fold magic over the encampment and posted sentries every tairen length.
“Do you think the king will believe us?” Ellysetta asked as she, Rain, and her quintet sat and ate together at the center of the camp.
“Can he afford not to?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then he will believe us.” White teeth stripped meat from a slender bone in four bites.
Gaelen snorted. “That’s optimism for you.”
“Pragmatism,” Rain retorted. “The consequences of not believing us—then being proved wrong—are too severe an alternative to risk. He knows Fey do not lie, so believing us will be the only rational choice he can make.”
“Since when have mortals ever been rational?” Tajik muttered.
“Dorian is Gaelen’sjita’taikonos—the descendant of his sister’s son. He is not purely mortal.”
“He’s not purely Fey either.” Gil pulled a black Fey’cha from his chest harnesses and sliced a leg from the last of the rabbits. “Not even mostly Fey.”
“He’s Fey enough.”
Gil’s dark brows lifted over starry black eyes. “If you believed that, Adrial and Rowan wouldn’t still be hiding their presence in Celieria City from him. Bel could have spun the Mage’s news to one of them on a private weave and we would never have left Orest.” He flung a swath of moon-white hair over his shoulder with a toss of his head and sank his teeth into the rabbit leg.
Ellysetta watched the shutter fall over Rain’s face. Like Rain, Adrial vel Arquinas, the Air master of Ellysetta’s first Fey quintet, had discovered his truemate in Celieria. Unfortunately for Adrial, his truemate had not merely been betrothed to a Celierian, as Ellysetta had—she’d been wed to one. The heir of a Great Lord, no less, and though Talisa’s father, Great Lord Barrial, was friendly to the Fey, her husband’s family was not. Great Lord Sebourne had, in fact, been Rain’s fiercest foe in Celieria’s Council of Lords, and he had fought vigorously to discredit the Fey, pushing to open the borders and allow free trade between Eld and Celieria.
“Dorian is Celieria’s king,” Rain replied to Gil. “He is bound by Celierian law, not Feyan. If he knew Adrial was still there—in direct violation of his earlier decree upholding Talisa’s marriage—he would have no choice but to imprison him.”
“It’s so cruel that something as joyful asshei’tanitsashould be cause for such despair,” Ellysetta remarked. “Is there nothing we can do to help Adrial?”
“Short of killing diSebourne?” Rain asked. “Nei.”
