Either way, the Mage would own her, body and soul. And she would become the monster of Elvish prophecy. Ellysetta Erimea, Seledorn’s Dark Star, the Light Eater, Corrupter of Worlds.
“Can you let him die?” the Mage had asked.
As Rain’s soul fell deeper and deeper into the Well, and the threads of their incomplete truemate bond stretched thin, Ellysetta had her answer. No matter what fates lay in the balance, no matter the cost to her soul or all the souls in the world, when it came to Rain’s life, she was as vulnerable as every other truemate who’d ever come before her. Rain was hershei’tan,and she could not let him die.
Spurred by Fey instinct, the desperate, driving need to save her mate, Ellysetta spun the only magic hersel’dorbonds would let her weave and plunged into the Well of Souls.
«Rain!»Riding an icy wave of pure Azrahn, she dove after his fading Light.
“Hurry,” Shan urged as thedahl’reisenFarel spun Azrahn to unravel the next layer of the wards securing the chamber against intrusion.
Demonstrating a coordinated precision even Shan had to admire, the bloodsworndahl’reisenand Fey warriors made quick work of dispatching the Elden guards and securing the level without raising an alarm. While thedahl’reisenand Shan worked to unravel the wards on this chamber—the only one that had been warded and under heavy guard—the other warriors checked the remaining rooms.
“Nothing,” Gaelen announced as they returned. “If they’re here, they’re definitely in this room.”
«Better hurry,»Kiel called from his lookout post near the stairs.«I hear shouting. I think our secret is out.»
Swift as a serpent, the High Mage struck. The cold corruption of his magic pierced Ellysetta’s soul, its claws sinking deep. His triumph lashed at her mind as his power flooded through her body. His penetrating evil began eating like acid at the truemate threads tying her soul to Rain’s.
Chained to the stone floor of Boura Fell, Ellysetta’s body thrashed. A howling roar—the cry of a dying tairen—ripped from her throat. Her back arched, and her body went stiff as the first bond thread connecting her to Rain sundered.
“Got it!” Farel crowed. The wards securing the door fell apart.
The chamber door shattered. An explosion of wood and metal shrapnel flew to the opposite side of the room as the Fey burst through. They took in the scene at a single glance: Rain, gutted, garroted, and hanging from the twin crescents like some macabre trophy, Ellysetta prone on the floor with the High Mage crouched over her, Lillis and Lorelle off to one side, and a stocky human standing by a table of bloody torture instruments.
Kieran went left after the human. Kiel went right to get the girls, using his body to shield Elfeya as she raced towards Rain. The rest of them dove for Vadim Maur.
Maur’s eyes were pits of darkness. A dark aura surrounded him and around the hand pressed over Ellysetta’s heart.
“Maur!” Shan cried. “Get away from my daughter!”
Magic and Fey’cha flew as Shan, Farel, and the quintet attacked. The Mage didn’t even have time to react before Shan’s red Fey’cha plowed hilt deep into his chest. Six more followed an instant later, and Shan’smeichasliced Maur’s head from his body.
On the far end of the room, Kieran exclaimed “You!” in surprise as he recognized the blood-spattered human responsible for Rain’s torture.
Den Brodson grabbed a pair of bloody knives and raised them threateningly.
Kieran’s eyes narrowed. A cold, killing rage iced over his Fey heart, sealing his compassion behind a thick layer of frost.
“Little sausage, you’ve made your last mistake.” In the blink of an eye, four black Fey’cha flew through the air, sinking into Brodson’s body with enough force to send him careening back into the wall. A fifth buried hilt deep in his crotch. Kieran leapt across the distance and grabbed the screaming Celierian by the throat.
“That was for the Feyreisa. This is for Rain.” He drove another black Fey’cha into Brodson’s belly and ripped it upwards, gutting him like a slaughtered pig. “And this… this is for Lillis and Lorelle, you stinking pile of pigkrekk.”Hismeichaswung, metal sparking as it scraped against stone, and Den Brodson’s head flew from his shoulders.
“Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but that felt scorching good!” Kieran turned to see how his blade brothers had fared, and his satisfaction over dispatching Brodson to the Seventh Hell turned to dust.“Krekk.”
Shannisorran v’En Celay held Ellysetta cradled against his chest, her body limp, her head draped over his arm. Her eyes were open but sightless. They had turned completely black, looking like pits of endless darkness in the stark whiteness of her face.
Gaelen knelt beside her. A spiral of Azrahn twirled in his palm, but no shadow darkened the flesh over Ellysetta’s heart.
“I don’t understand,” Gaelen said. “We killed the Mage. Her Marks are gone, just as the Elves said they would be. She should be free.”
“Mages incarnate their souls into other bodies.” Shan smoothed a hand over his daughter’s hair and looked up at thelu’tanringed around him. “He must have transferred some part of his soul into hers before he died. That part of him is inside her now, fighting for dominance. Elfeya says her Light is failing.”
“What can we do?”
“Call to her. Help her hold to the Light. I’m going to give what strength I can to Rain. If anyone can help her, he can.”
***
