“Shei’tani.… You know I would give you the stars from the heavens if you asked it of me, but this…” Shadows turned lavender eyes to brooding violet. “Our bond is not complete. You bear five Mage Marks.”
“If we don’t find a way to defeat him, I may someday bear six.” She framed his face in her hands. “I have to do this, Rain. It’s what I was born for.” The chime she said the words aloud, she knew they were true. “We are Tairen Souls,shei’tan,you and I both. We are Defenders not just of the Fey but of the Light, including the Light that shines in good people everywhere—in my sisters and my parents, in Celierians… in the poor people of Eld who never had a choice for any life but servitude and Darkness. This High Mage must be stopped. Not just defeated and left in peace to grow strong again, but vanquished. That is our purpose. That is why we were born.”
“We should consultShei’Kess.Perhaps it will—“
“Nei.”She shook her head and gave a sad smile. “The Eye can show us nothing we don’t already know. It’s what we feel here—” she tapped first her chest, then his, “—that matters. You heard the Elf queen. I amleinah thaniel.There are no fates I cannot change, but this fate is one I cannot change without you. You are my strength, Rain. You are the courage I’ve always lacked.”
He gave a choked laugh, and tears glittered in his eyes. “If I am your courage, then why does this idea of yours leave me so frightened?”
Her heart contracted, and she smiled at him, softly, through brimming eyes. “Because itisfrightening,kem’san.Because it’s dangerous, risky, the odds so stacked against us it’s unlikely anyone could do this thing and live. And that’s why a Tairen Soul was born to do it—why we were born to do this.” She pressed her lips to his. “When afeyreisenfinds his wings, he knows he was born to die protecting others. That is why we must go.”
He drew her closer, nestling her in his arms and leaning his head against hers. “When did you get so wise, Ellysettakem’reisa?”
Celieria ~ Orest
12thday of Seledos
Rain and Ellysetta spent half the night in Dharsa, the other half in Fey’Bahren with the pride and the kitlings, who had grown a great deal in the last two months. In the morning, they flew back to Orest to meet with thelu’tanand devise a plan to rescue Ellysetta’s family and kill the High Mage of Eld.
Farel’s men had captured a wounded Mage and a handful of Eld soldiers, all of whom they held in a bubble of thirty-six fold weaves. A little Truthspeaking and the threat of being eaten alive by a tairen had encouraged the soldiers to talk. They told their captors about Vadim Maur’s main fortress where all magic-gifted prisoners were taken after their capture, and about how each Boura—each underground fortress of the Eld—contained a gateway to the Well of Souls that was kept open all the time.
The plan was to have one of thedahl’reisenopen a portal and bring one of the Eld soldiers along to lead the Fey through the Well to wherever Ellysetta’s parents and sisters were being held. They would invade the Boura using thedahl’reiseninvisibility weaves, free all the prisoners, and use Ellysetta’s connection to the High Mage to locate and kill him while they were there.
The “plan” had holes large enough to fly a tairen through—nei,an entire pride of tairen—but Rain couldn’t come up with anything better. So with a bit of instruction from the captured Mage, Farel successfully opened the portal to the Well of Souls. And into the Well, they went: Rain, Ellysetta, her quintet, a hundredlu’tan,and the Elden soldier as their guide.
The inside of the Well was an unpleasant place, dark and cold, full of whispers and distant shrieks and swirling pools of shadowy mist that the Eld advised them to avoid if they valued their lives. How he knew where to go, Ellysetta didn’t know, but later, it would occur to her that was a question she should have asked and gotten answered.
Because when they reached the gateway into Boura Fell, which appeared as a glowing red circle within the Well, their arrival did not come as the surprise they had intended. No sooner had they donned their invisibility weaves and slipped through the gateway into a large room, than the gateway closed behind them. A barrage of tiny darts and a burst of pale blue gas filled the air.
Ellysetta’s vision blurred, and the world tilted crazily. She and all the Fey fell, unconscious, to the stone floor.
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Ellysetta woke to the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit and the taste of misery in her mouth. Her bones ached. Her flesh throbbed.
She could hear the moans of tortured creatures, feel the despair sapping her soul. This was a place without hope, without Light, and she knew she’d fallen into one of the Seven Hells.
Her muscles clenched, shuddering as the sting of a thousand icy knives stabbed into her soul. She swallowed, then coughed.
Sel’dorcloaked her in bitter, burning pain. A collar of enslavement about her neck, manacles about her wrists and ankles.
Her lashes fluttered as she forced her eyes open. Expecting darkness, she was surprised to find herself in the center of a well-appointed room. Beautifully furnished—deceptively so, because beneath the silken surface, she could feel the acid burn ofsel’dor.
She turned her head, her gaze moving instinctively towards the corner of the room where a shrouded figure stood in the shadows. As the figure approached her, the formless shroud became rich purple Mage robes draped around a tall frame.
The Mage threw back his cowl, and Ellysetta frowned in confusion at the stranger standing by her bedside. She had expected the High Mage, the architect of her nightmares, with his cloud of white hair framing a face that seemed both ancient and ageless. But this Mage was young and fit and… handsome. That seemed so wrong. Evil shouldn’t wear a pleasing face.
Only the cold, silver eyes seemed familiar. That and the cruelty curled at the corner of his mouth.
Then he spoke, and though the sound of the voice was as unfamiliar as his face, the smug, conscienceless evil that resonated in every word was all too familiar. Whatever face he wore, whatever voice he used, thiswasthe High Mage of Eld, the dark evil presence that had pursued and tormented her all her life.
“Welcome, my dear, to Boura Fell.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
“You’ve led me quite a chase for many years, but all that is at an end. You shall not escape me again.” The Mage’s expression was cool, his tone almost pleasant, but there was no mistaking the Darkness that shadowed his every word.
Ellysetta sat up with effort. The weight of hersel’dorbindings was so heavy she could barely move. She lifted her hands to the collar and brushed the backs of her fingers against the dozens of burning rings that pierced the lobes of her ears. Another half dozen armbands, lined with hundreds of sharp teeth, circled both arms with ropes of pain, and around her ankles, heavy manacles clamped tight, their sharp spikes driving into her bones.
