It wasn’t until this morning, when she’d gone back to listen in on the novices practice again, that she’d heard the apprentice warning the novices not to get too bold with their attempts at eavesdropping.
“Don’t try this on a Mage, greenies,” he’d warned. “Unless you’re more powerful than he is, he’s going to know you’re there, and he won’t be pleased.”
And yet she’d tried it on those two Mages—the ones who claimed they were more powerful than the High Mage was now—and neither of them had detected her presence. Just to be sure her success was no fluke, she’d eavesdropped on several other Mages throughout the course of the workday. Not one of them had noticed her in their minds.
Her success gave her courage. And this time, as Melliandra stretched out her senses, she directed them in search of a specific mind, a specific pair of eyes. It was, surprisingly, much easier than she expected, perhaps because the cool, dark path to that mind already existed inside her, forged when she was very young.
In the silence of her mind, unnoticed by her host, Melliandra looked out through the eyes of Vadim Maur.
The Faering Mists
Kieran knelt beside Lillis’s body and prayed while theshei’dalinsworked frantically to save her. Behind him, Lorelle clung to her father and Kiel with desperate fear.
Theshei’dalins,surrounded by a thinner mist and a golden light, had been the first of the lost party Kieran and Kiel located. Both of the women had already healed each other’s wounds from the falling mountain, and rather than heading off blindly into the Mists, they’d decided to wait and send questing calls of Spirit out in every direction. Kiel had stumbled across one of those Spirit threads, and the two of them followed it to its origin. Together, the four Fey began combing the rubble in search of the Baristani family.
Many bells later, they found Lorelle and Sol, both completely covered by a fall of rocks that hid them from view. How they’d found them, Kieran wasn’t entirely sure, but he’d followed a sudden feeling that had taken him off in the right direction. Lorelle and Sol were both barely alive—hardly more than a few heartbeats from death, actually—and as theshei’dalinshealed them, they said that someone or something in the Mists had been holding them to the Light.
It was by tracking the flickering remnants of that Light and the growing sense of urgency pulling at him like a lodestone that Kieran had found Lillis, buried under a pile of rubble, her body shattered, dying.Shehad been the one holding her family to the Light.
There was hardly a bone in her body left unbroken, hardly a fingerspan of skin not horribly bruised and scratched. A large tree limb had impaled her left leg. Sharp rocks had all but sliced off her right arm. Her back was broken in three places.
There was no reason she should still be alive at all—especially after feeding so much of her strength to her sister and father. And yet she was.
Theshei’dalinscouldn’t explain how she had survived, and Kieran didn’t care to try. He only cared that she was alive, and theshei’dalinswere here to heal her, and he was with her. Nothing else mattered.
“I’m here,ajiana,”he whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m here with you. Your papa is fine. Lorelle is fine. You need to stay with us now.” Tears gathered on his lashes and dropped onto her cheek, making little paths through the layer of grime coating her skin.
Her eyes fluttered. Dazed eyes found his face. Her cracked lips parted in a faint smile. “I knew you were alive,” she whispered. “I knew you would come.”
He blinked back more tears and brushed his hand across her hair. “Always,ajiana.Whenever you need me, I’ll always find a way to reach you. No matter what.”
The Forests of Eld
Together, Rain and Ellysetta sprinted through the tall, dense trees of Eld’s old forest. Thick, soft moss, layered with fallen leaves and shed needles, carpeted the forest floor. Undergrowth was sparse, but Rain used Earth to thicken the occasional stands of small evergreen shrubs and thin saplings to provide cover from their pursuers. He had to use a light hand. Too much thickening of the brush, and he might as well blazon their path in sun-bright colors.
Ellysetta ran beside him, her footfalls Fey-silent despite the limp in her gait. She more than kept up his pace, but they still weren’t running even half Rain’s normal speed.
They ran for bells, stopping to rest only when their legs wouldn’t carry them another step. Rain wasn’t certain how far they had run. Forty miles. Maybe sixty. Still nowhere near close enough to expect rescue from thelu’tan.
Rain threw small obstacles behind them. Spirit weaves to confuse and mislead their pursuers: muffled voices to draw Eld attention in a different direction, a flash of Ellie’s bright hair to draw their eyes, splashes of blood leading away to the west.
Within his body, the remainingsel’dorbarbs shifted continually, tearing muscle and flesh, burning, making his every weave a painful exercise. Each time the pain grew too sharp, Ellysetta touched him and stole away the worst of it.
Afternoon turned to evening. They came upon a narrow dirt road that cut a swath through the forest and very nearly stumbled into the path of an oncoming squad of Elden soldiers. Rain grabbed Ellysetta’s arm and hauled her back, and they ducked into the shadows of a small rocky outcropping.
«Do you think they saw me?»she asked.
«Nei.»He cursed softly to himself.«But they’re definitely looking for us. See how they’re scanning the forest as they march?»
One of the soldiers stopped to nail something to a tree.
«What are they doing?»Ellysetta asked.
«I don’t know.»Rain narrowed his eyes. The man had hammered what looked like a round moonstone on the tree trunk. While farther down, another soldier hung a similar stone on the opposite side of the road.«Whatever it is, I don’t like the looks of it.»
They ducked back into a small crevice in the rocks as the soldiers drew closer. He spun the barest hint of Spirit to veil the pair of them and make them appear to be part of the stone itself. The weave would not hold up to close inspection, but unless the Eld stood within a few armlengths of them, it should suffice.
He held himself still, hands clenched, as the Eld approached. Rage, his old familiar friend, burned deep within him, hungering for blood and vengeance.
