Ellysetta’s heart skipped a beat. “That was my—” She broke off. Calling the two strangers her parents seemed strangely awkward. Mama and Papa—Lauriana and Sol Baristani—were the only parents she’d ever known. “That was Lord Shan and Lady Elfeya?” she amended.
She remembered the strong, calming presence that had filled her when she’d traveled into the Well of Souls to save the tairen kitlings. Radiant with warmth and love, that presence had helped her spin her weaves with confidence, setting aside the fear and self-doubt that had shadowed her all her life. She’d thought the Bright Lord had been guiding her hands.
“They were with me in the Well?”
“They’ve always been with you, Ellysetta. Prisoners they may be, but they’ve always done whatever they could—no matter the cost to themselves—to protect you.”
Ellysetta recalled the dream she’d had by the Bay of Flames, of a woman’s voice begging forgiveness as a shining veil closed around Ellysetta like a blanket. “They’re the ones who bound my magic.”
“Bayas. They knew what you were before you were born, and they knew what the Mage intended, so they bound your magic to hide it from him and arranged for you to be smuggled out of Eld at the first chance.”
“But I don’t understand…if my parents have used this connection to watch over me and protect me, how can my father be responsible for my seizures?”
“Did you not feel the beginnings of a seizure come upon you when you looked into the mirror and saw the Mage torturing Shan?”
“I…” Her brows drew together. She had…the feeling had been exactly the same.
“Did you not feel the hammer strike as if it landed upon your own flesh instead of his?”
“Yes, but how did you…” Her voice trailed off.
“You think she feels Lord Shan’s torture?” Rain asked.
“Bayas, that is exactly what I think.” Hawksheart turned back to Ellysetta and pinned her with an intense stare from which she could not look away. “Your seizures—and, from what Fanor has told me, apparently even some of the knowledge and skills you possess—come to you from your father through that connection you both share.”
“Bright Lord save him,” she breathed, remembering with horror how often the seizures had ripped apart her world. Lord v’En Celay—her father—must have suffered agonies beyond reckoning.
“And how would you know that her seizures are a result of Shan’s torture?” Tajik interrupted. His blue eyes burned like flames. If looks could kill, Galad Hawksheart would be lying stone dead on the chamber floor. “Unless you were watching them both suffer?”
“I have watched them,” Hawksheart replied without ire. “Every day for the last thousand years, I have watched Shan and Elfeya, just as I have watched Ellysetta Erimea every day since she was born.”
Tajik lunged for his cousin, and only Rijonn’s and Gil’s leaping forward to grab his arms and haul him back stopped Tajik’s hands from closing around Hawksheart’s throat and strangling the life out of him. Tajik swore and struggled against his friends’ hold.
“You filthyrultshart!” he spat. “You watched them? All this time, you not only knew what was happening to them; you watched it? And you did nothing?”
Fire flamed in his eyes. Five-fold weaves shot from Gaelen’s and Bel’s fingertips, encasing Tajik in dense shields to keep the Fey general’s temper from turning deadly.
Hawksheart withstood his cousin’s wrath with impassive calm, and when Bel and Gaelen would have woven similar shields around him, Hawksheart waved them away.
“As I told you, Tajik, helping them was never a choice available to me.I could not interfere in their verse in the Dance.” He enunciated each word with deliberate emphasis. “But, yes, I did watch them. Since I could do nothing to save them, the least I could do was bear witness to their bravery and their suffering and their sacrifice. I have been, in effect, their Sentinel, the watcher of their lives. And though I could not reveal myself to them, they have never been alone.”
“You think that makes this all right?” Tajik cried. Tears tracked silvery trails down the sides of his face, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.
Hawksheart sighed and looked suddenly weary. “Anio, cousin. Nothing will ever make their suffering all right. But long ago I accepted that this was my Song to sing in the Dance. Just as I accepted that you would never forgive me for it.”
“You’re right about that.” Tajik shook off Bel and Gaelen and glared at them before turning back to the Elf king. “Where are they,cousin? And don’t pretend you don’t know.”
For the first time since the Fey had entered Navahele, Hawksheart showed signs of temper. His brows dove together in a scowl. “You just looked into the mirror,” he snapped. “Did you see coordinates marked on a map?Anio, because the Dance is about the lives we live and the choices we make, not about the space we inhabit. They are somewhere in Eld in a fortress with tunnels carved out of what looks likesel’dorore. There! Now you know as much as I about their location.”
The Elf spun on his heel and presented the Fey with his back. He muttered something to Grandfather Sentinel, then swept the long, golden strands of his hair behind his shoulders with a brisk shake of his head and turned back around, his emotions locked once more behind a mask of impenetrable calm. When he spoke again, his voice was cold, each word hard as a stone.
“Even if I did know their exact location, cousin, I would not tell you for fear of upsetting the balance of the Dance with my interference.”
“Flame and scorch you to the Seven Hells,” Tajik growled. “May the minions of the Dark God visit upon you every torment my sister has suffered and may your screams for mercy be the music that fills their ears as they feast on your body and soul. May you drain every last dreg of bitterness from the cup of death and your heirs curse your name with every breath. May the heartwood of Navahele rot—”
Finally Hawksheart had heard enough and his voice boomed out like a clap of thunder: “Be silent!” The Elf king spat out a tirade of torrential Elvish that turned Tajik’s face bright red. What was clearly a scathing rebuke ended in clipped, icy Feyan. “Cousin you may be, but you stand in the heart of Elvia now. And in this land, I am king. You will offer me the courtesy of a civil tongue, Elf-kin, or you will keep your silence. Do I make myself clear?”
Tajik glared, but whatever insults and accusations he still had to spew remained locked behind gritted teeth and clamped lips. He gave a curt nod.
