“Shh…las, kem’reisa…he is unharmed.”
«I stabbed him. I stabbed him through the heart. I felt it.»
«Nei,» he soothed. «I reached you in time. You didn’t hurt him. Your blade didn’t even break his skin.»
Her eyes closed and tears of relief spilled down her cheeks. Though the sensation of her knife plunging into Bel’s chest and piercing his heart had been so vivid, Rain would never lie. Especially not to her. Bel was unhurt. She hadn’t slain him after all.
“Beylah sallan. Beylah sallan.”She wept. Her arms curled tight around Rain’s neck, and she burrowed close. The frightened, timid Ellie-the-woodcarver’s-daughter part of her soul yearned to dive inside his skin and live there, surrounded by him, part of him, kept safe from the world and the world kept safe from her; but after a few moments of comfort, the fiercer instincts of Ellysetta Feyreisa surged to the fore and forced her to pull away from the comfort of Rain’s embrace, forced her to make sense of what had just happened.
The moment she lifted her head, Gaelen was there, hand outstretched, to help her to her feet.
Bel, visibly shaken but otherwise unharmed, was half a step behind him.
Ellysetta took one look at Bel, flung her arms around him, and burst into fresh tears. “Sieks’ta, kem’maresk. Forgive me. I don’t know what happened. I would never hurt you.”
He pulled back and met her eyes soberly. “There is nothing to forgive,kem’falla. My life is yours. My death is yours, too, should you ever require it.”
His simple, unequivocal acceptance nearly broke her heart.
“What happened?” Gaelen interrupted. “When you touched the mirror, what happened to you? To Lord Shan?”
“I…” She glanced back at Rain and reached for his hand instinctively. The warm strength of his fingers closed around hers, and fresh vitality infused her flagging courage. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s as if the moment I touched the mirror, I was suddenly there, with my…with Lord v’En Celay…as if I were a part of him.”
“You were.”
The Fey all turned towards Hawksheart.
The Elf king regarded Ellysetta with an inscrutable expression. “The mirror is a viewing portal—but it is also a transport of sorts. You have not been trained in its proper use, so without me to guide you this time, when you touched the water, a part of your soul and your consciousness traveled through the mirror and entered Shan’s body.”
“Oh, gods.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Was it my fault he turned into that…thing? Did I do that to him?”
“Anio,” Hawksheart said instantly. “Don’t let such a fear even cross your mind. As I showed you earlier, you were not the first of the High Mage’s experiments. In his earliest attempts, he used adult hosts to house the soul of the tairen.”
“Blessed gods,” Rain breathed. “He tied a tairen’s soul to Lord Shan. That’s why Shan’s eyes were tairen.”
“He was one of many captive warriors of the Fey,” Hawksheart confirmed, “but the others did not have the anchor of a truemate, as Shan does. When the Mage grafted a tairen’s soul to theirs, they all went mad and died. Shan was the only one of those early experiments to survive. And he has thus far been the only one of the High Mage’s experiments powerful enough to summon the Change—though, as you witnessed, he has never managed to successfully complete it.”
Ellysetta clasped her hands over her mouth. Her stomach roiled as she remembered, with vivid clarity, the horror and pain of the twisted monster Lord Shan had become. “Bright Lord have mercy on him.”
“You said adults were the Mage’s earliest experiments,” Gaelen interrupted.
The Elf nodded. “Bayas. The Mage’s experiments at merging two unborn souls have been much more successful. Many of those children survived to adulthood, though none have yet been powerful enough to summon the Change.”
“Ellysetta will be the first.”
“I believe so. More to the point, the High Mage believes it.” He glanced at Ellysetta. “Most important, she has not yet fallen prey to the wild savagery that overcame the others when they reached maturity.”
“S-savagery?” Ellysetta echoed in a faint voice. Her mouth went dry, and she swayed on her feet. If not for the arm Rain quickly wrapped around her waist, she might have fallen.
“Bayas. The others cannot Change even to the extent your father does, but when theirsel’dormanacles are removed, they still become every bit as wild and vicious as he.”
For one horrible moment, she thought she might heave up the contents of her stomach. “You mean I’m turning into some sort of…monster? Is that why I’ve had those seizures and horrible, bloody nightmares all my life?”
“I cannot speak to your nightmares, but most of your seizures come from your father, not from what lives inside you.”
“Explain,” Rain commanded.
“As best I can tell, when the High Mage performed his soul manipulations on Ellysetta and Shan, he unwittingly created a bridge of sorts between them. A pathway forged by Azrahn and amplified by the biological affinity of father and child…perhaps even a bond between the two tairens’ souls tied to them. That connection is how you were able to join with him through the mirror a moment ago…and how your parents were able to help you in the Well of Souls—both when the Mage tried to claim your soul in the Cathedral of Light and again, more recently, when you saved the tairen kitlings.”
