Hawksheart spread his hands. “If I could help you more, Tairen Soul, I would, but my hands are tied by the dictates of the Dance. What I Saw in your truemate’s Song confirmed that my interference would upset the balance of what must be.”
“How about I upset the balance of your scorching head by striking it from your neck,” Gil snarled. His hand fell to the hilt of hismeichascimitar.
“But the Elves have helped the Fey before,” Rain reminded Hawksheart. “You fought as our allies in the Mage Wars.”
“And in the Demon Wars before that,” Gaelen added.
“And, the Dance willing, we will fight beside you again before our time in this world is done,” the Elf king assured them. “But for now, my friends, as daunting as it may be, you must face the Eld without the magic of Elvia to guide or aid you. No matter what the cost, no matter how I’d hoped it would be different, that is how this verse in Ellysetta’s Song must play out.”
Rain wanted to argue, but he knew it would be pointless. An Elf, once decided upon a course, was impossible to budge—especially when it came to the Dance. Hawksheart and every Elf in his kingdom would rush headlong to their deaths if that was what they believed the Dance demanded.
In that respect, though Rain hated to admit it, Elves were rather like the Fey. The only difference was, the Fey devoted their intensity to the protection of their women, not the dictates of some gods-forsaken prophecy.
“So you will not help us,” Rain bit out. “I do not like it, but I do accept it. Myshei’tanifulfilled her end of your bargain. Now you fulfill yours. Give her the truth of her past, as you vowed to do. And this time, Elf, we will all stand witness so you cannot erase her memories.”
Hawksheart closed his eyes briefly, then nodded as if bowing to a fate he would rather avoid. “Bayas. The time has indeed come. Please approach the mirror. All of you,” he added with a sigh. “Though I had hoped otherwise, you all must witness what the mirror has to show.”
Together, the Fey approached the glowing blue pool.
Ellysetta started to kneel beside the mirror pool, but Hawksheart stopped her. “Anio,Ellysetta Erimea. This time do not touch the water at all. There is no need, and it could be…problematic.” The Elf king didn’t elucidate. Instead, he closed his eyes, lifted his hands palms up, and began to chant in the fluid, musical tones of the Elven tongue. Once again, the air filled with the intoxicating aroma of the Sentinel’s liferings.
This time, however, the surface of the mirror pool did not remain flat. Instead, a mist of shining droplets rose up from the pool to form a shimmering veil that rose and expanded until it touched the ceiling above and stretched from one curved inner wall of the room to the other so that a great screen of water bisected the chamber.
In a voice resonating with power, Hawksheart said, “Behold the circumstances of your birth, Ellysetta Erimea.”
The surface of the veil darkened and swirled with color as the mirror had done earlier, but this time the brilliant white light of Ellysetta’s power did not turn the room bright as day. The Sentinel’s inner chamber remained lit only by the glow of the pool. The images swirling in the veil came into focus, as crisp and clear as if Ellysetta were looking through glass into a scene unfolding in the room next door.
Flickering sconces cast a pale orange-yellow glow around a windowless chamber burrowed out of black stone. A large desk piled high with books, scrolls, and parchments dominated the chamber. Seated behind it was a man, white-haired yet somehow ageless, clad in purple velvet robes that looked almost black in the firelight. His head was bent, and he was scratching a quill across the pages of what looked like a record book of some kind. The man looked up, and Ellysetta’s heart froze as familiar, icy silver eyes met hers and seared into her soul.
For a moment, she thought it was real—that the mirror truly was a clear glass portal into that dark room and the High Mage of Eld could see her as clearly as she could see him—but then he bent his head back to his book, dipped his quill in ink, and continued to write.
“That is him? The High Mage?” Rain asked quietly.
She nodded, but didn’t pull her eyes off the man in the mirror’s shining veil. Though she’d never seen him clearly in her dreams, she recognized him instantly. The invisible Mage Marks that formed a four-pointed ring over her heart went cold, and her stomach tightened with dread. When a knock sounded at the door, and the Mage called, “Enter,” her heart slammed in her chest and suspicion hardened to icy certainty.
The man she might never have seen, but his voice was etched eternally in her mind, never to be forgotten. This was the High Mage who had tormented her all her life. The man responsible for her mother’s death and all the lives lost on the battlefields of Orest and Teleon.
The man who had stolen the souls and lives of young tairen in the egg and used them for his evil experiments.
Deep within, her tairen begin to growl and rake its claws across her nerves.
Rain’s hand slipped into hers, and his broad, warm fingers curled tight, offering protection and reassurance. «I am with you, shei’tani. And this is just an image from the past. He cannot hurt you.»
He thought she was afraid of the Mage.
Perhaps she should be. But her only real fear was of the hatred bubbling in her veins like fire. If she were wearing her tairen’s true form, her fangs would be dripping venom, ravenous with bloodlust. The urge to kill, to rend and maim—to devour—was so fierce it shook her to her core.
Within the mirror’s veil, the scene Hawksheart had summoned continued to play out. The knock on the door was a servant calling the Mage to some appointment. The white-haired High Mage exited his office to walk down a series of dark corridors tunneled out of black rock. Black metal-clad doors lined both sides of the corridor, and muscular guards gripping evil-looking barbedsel’dorpikes stood watch beside a number of them.
“Those walls look like they containsel’dorore,” Gil muttered.
“A cave of some kind?” Bel suggested. “Perhaps burrowed into asel’dormine? It would explain why the Fey never sensed the Mages gathering their power.”
“And why thedahl’reisencould never track them back to their lair,” Gaelen agreed.
“Where are the largestsel’dormines in Eld?” Tajik asked. “If that’s where he is, then those are the first places we should start looking.”
One of the doors opened, and the Mage entered. Inside was an observation room with a window that looked into an adjoining chamber where a young brunette woman lay chained to a flat table. Her eyes were half-closed, and her head lolled on her shoulders in what appeared to be a drugged stupor.
