King of Sword and Sky (24 page)

Lady Montevero nodded, swiping at the tears making streaks through the remnants of powder and rouge on her face.

"The maid—Fanette, did you call her? Does she have someone she loves, someone she would feel compelled to protect? A child perhaps? A mother?"

He saw Jiarine's bare shoulder tense. She knew why he asked. "A baby," she whispered.

"Excellent." It pleased him that she surrendered the information, even knowing his intentions. Brodson would follow the maid home tonight. By this time tomorrow, young Fanette would bear the first of Gethen's own six Marks. "And, pet—"

"Y-yes?"

"You will come to me tonight in Manza's rooms by the wharf. You may demonstrate any other intriguing tricks he's taught you." Gethen smiled for the second time that morning, enjoying the way her flesh, not nearly so pampered and flawless as it had been when he'd first arrived, shuddered at the prospect.

And still she answered dutifully, "Yes, Master Nour."

Perhaps Kolis hadn't been quite the softhearted weakling Nour had always considered him when it came to the training of
umagi.

"I look forward to it. Oh, and one last thing…" He bent down beside her and stroked a thumb across the delicate pulse in her throat. His voice dropped to a gentle whisper. "While we are apart today, I want you to find out everything you can about any recent activity near the Garreval. Do not rouse suspicion, but don't come to me empty-handed either. I'm not a pleasant man when I'm disappointed."

The choked sob escaped before she could bite her lip to hold it back. Fresh tears spurted from her eyes. The mass of tangled dark brown ringlets bobbed as she gave a jerky nod.

"Excellent. I can see we are going to get along famously." He rose to his feet and left the room without a backward glance.

In the adjoining room, the maid Fanette, a plump little partridge with cornflower eyes and brown hair wrapped in a tidy plait, sat still as stone in a chair across from Den Brodson. Her hands were clenched so tight in her lap, her knuckles shone white. "Your mistress needs your assistance, girl."

As the maid rose to her feet, Nour reached into his pocket. When she passed by him, he grabbed her arm and blew a small cloud of
somulus
powder into her face. Her frightened blue eyes went blank. "You came in this morning to discover that Lady Jiarine has had a run-in with a rather…brutal…nobleman. You know what harm he will cause if rumor of his habits gets out. So you will tend your lady and you will keep silent, for her sake as well as your own. Now go."

The girl walked with dazed, slow steps into the adjoining bedroom.

"Come, Brodson." He waved to the butcher's son. "The day's half-gone, and we've much to do."

Eld
~
Boura Fell

Elfeya v'En Celay lay upon her
sel'dor
-laced bed, exhausted and aching and filled with self-loathing after the last several bells she'd spent healing the High Mage of Eld. Hatred was a dark emotion no
shei'dalin
should ever clutch to her breast, but over the last thousand years, it had become as much her companion as the constant acid burn of the dread Eld metal against her flesh. Gods forgive her, but she did hate. She hated with every ounce of flesh and every drop of blood in her body.

And if it were not for her
shei'tan,
Shan, chained in the lower levels of Vadim Maur's dungeon fortress, she would have done what no
shei'dalin
ever did.

She would have killed.

If not for Shan, she would have twisted her
shei'dalin
powers and used them to slay the evil Mage who came to her for healing. And she would have wept with joy as the torment of taking a life struck her dead.

Elfeya flung an arm over her face, covering her eyes as the weak, useless tears trickled from them. There was no sense in weeping. A thousand years of tears—enough to fill an ocean—had not spared her one moment of misery.

«Shei'tani.»
Shan's voice, so beloved, whispered across the threads of their truemate bond. Soothing, comforting, Shan's consciousness caressed her own with such vibrant richness, she could almost pretend he was there beside her, holding her, making love to her with the wild, sweet, passionate abandon they'd shared in their all too brief bells together.

She wiped the tears from her face, then laughed at the uselessness of the small vanity. He could not see her tears, but he already knew she'd shed them. «
I am here, beloved.»

«You are alone?»
he asked.

«Never so long as I have you.» A
smile trembled on her lips, then fell away. «
He was here,»
she told him, «
but he is gone now. His health is failing.»
The truth should have pleased them both, but she could feel Shan's deep concern, an echo of her own.

«He will be more dangerous now than ever. Desperate men always are.»

«Aiyah. He knows he cannot delay the inevitable much longer.»
Time was against Vadim Maur now. He could no longer afford the skillful patience that had been the hallmark of his reign.

«At least our daughter is with the Fey now. They will protect her.»

«As much as they can,»
she agreed.

Vadim Maur was too powerful a Mage for Elfeya to rifle through his mind without his notice, but he had come to her many times over the years for healing…and other things. She'd used those occasions to gain what advantage she could, testing his shields, gathering what thoughts he did not consciously guard, and slowly—very, very slowly—burrowing an imperceptible path into the secrets he held locked away in his mind.

She could not pluck thoughts freely from Maur's mind, but when he was weary and came to her for healing—as he had begun to do with increasing frequency—that tiny thread of Spirit allowed her to influence him slightly, pushing him to relax in her presence just enough that the occasional useful tidbit of information could rise to the surface of his thoughts, where she could draw it unnoticed into her mind for later review.

«You discovered what he is planning?»
Shan asked.

Vadim's
umagi
spies in Celieria had been disappearing by the dozens, rendering him blind and weakening the foothold he'd established in northern Celieria. Whoever was behind those deaths, she didn't know, but the Fey owed the mysterious agent a debt of gratitude. With the loss of his
umagi,
Maur had no way to open the portals to the Well of Souls that would enable him to deliver an army for a surprise attack.

He had something up his sleeve, though. Something so important he would not even let himself think about it when he was with her.

«Nei, his mind was too full of last night's triumph. He has created a second Tairen Soul. A boy this time, with vel Serranis blood.»
She closed her eyes in horror. The poor, doomed child. There was no one to save him as she and Shan had saved Ellysetta.

«He must be stopped. If he Mage-claims a Tairen Soul
…» His voice trailed off. Twenty-five years ago, that same fear had pushed Shan and Elfeya to willingly risk death in an effort to bind their daughter's magic and smuggle her out of Eld so Maur could not enslave her soul. The devastating power of the tairen under Mage control—it was a horror so dark Elfeya could scarcely think of it without shuddering.

«Elfeya…beloved
…»

Her body tensed. When her
shei'tan
said her name like that outside of mating, it never boded well.

«The girl who was here earlier
—
the umagi who came to feed me
—
she asked for my help. She wants me to kill Maur.»

Her blood ran cold. «
Nei.»

«Elfeya
—»

«
Nei!
It must be some sort of trap. Some new way to torment us. She is umagi. None of them could even think such a thing without the one who owns their souls knowing it.»

«Perhaps another Mage is her master then. One who wants Maur dead.»

«Even if that's true, there's no way you could kill him without being slain yourself.»

She felt his soul sigh. Then he said, in a voice so soft and weary it made her throat close up, «
After all these centuries of torment, can death truly be so terrible a fate, kem'san?»

The tears she kept telling herself she would not shed pooled in her eyes and spilled over. «
Nei,
teska,
do not think that way. So long as we live, there is hope. A thousand years we have suffered. A thousand more would I bear, just for what few bells he grants us together. Do you love me any less?»

«You know I don't.»

«Then promise me you will not do this.»

«Elfeya
…»

«Promise me, Shan.»

For a long moment he did not answer, and then finally, in a defeated whisper, «
What choices we make, we make for us both. If you do not wish it, it will not be done.»

The Fading Lands
~
Fey'Bahren

«Your mate needs feeding,»
Sybharukai chided.

Ellysetta had been sitting with the eggs for several long bells. Even now, she leaned against them, her hands stroking gently over the leathery shells as she crooned little songs of encouragement and praise.

"Aiyah,"
he agreed, "and sleep." Though inside, the nesting lair remained dark and unchanged, outside the Great Sun had passed its zenith and was already approaching the western horizon. Most of the day was gone, and Marissya and Dax were less than eighty miles away. They would be here before nightfall.

Rain regarded Ellysetta. There was no hint of the weariness he could feel beating at her. Was she even aware of it? Her concentration was wholly focused on communicating with the five small, unborn tairen huddled in their eggs. She was weaving love around the unborn killings the way Fey wove the elements, only her weave wasn't Spirit. It wasn't illusion. It was genuine emotion, real love, warming and welcoming. Tenderness. Devotion. Pride. Encouragement. It shone from her like sunlight, bathing the kitlings in its warmth.

"Shei'tani."
He touched her shoulder. Still singing, she turned towards him, and for a brief moment the song of warmth, love, and tenderness poured over him, soaking into his skin. His breath stalled, and his eyes half closed in pleasure.

He gave a small frown of protest as Ellysetta cut her song short.

"I'm sorry." She started to rise, and a surprised look crossed over her face as her legs—cramped for so long in their crouched position—collapsed beneath her.

He caught her, swept an arm under her legs, and lifted her off her feet, carrying her with effortless strength up the main entrance tunnel.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked as they veered right into one of the larger passageways branching off of the main tunnel.

"You are weary. You need to eat and sleep. There is a sleeping chamber above where you can rest." Globes of light flared to life as they walked, illuminating their path. This tunnel was narrower than the main tunnel but still quite wide. The walls were smooth, the floor well worn.

"But the kitlings—"

"We have time." The tunnel forked in three, one path leading below, two others leading up. They went up and to the left. "The sickness attacking the tairen comes most often in the bells between dusk and dawn."

"I don't think it's really a sickness, Rain. When I was singing to them, I tried to find signs of injury or illness, but I couldn't. I could be wrong, of course—Marissya is a far more experienced healer—but to me they all seem healthy. Tired and frightened, but healthy."

He gave her a grim look. "I feared you might say that."

"So you don't really believe it's a sickness."

"
Nei
. My instinct has always told me the Eld must surely be to blame, but I have watched far too many kitlings die in the egg—dozens of them in my arms when I tried to cut them from the shell to save them—and never once have I sensed Azrahn."

"Well, if it's not Azrahn and the Mages, do you think whatever I sensed during the Fire Song could be behind the deaths of the kitlings?"

"I don't know,
shei'tani.
I just don't know."

The passage snaked around, doubling back upon itself and continuing to rise. Above, dim light shone in from a large opening at the top of the next U-shaped curve. As they passed it, Ellie glimpsed the bright blue afternoon sky. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes, surprised that it was still light outside. She'd lost all sense of time deep within the caverns of Fey'Bahren.

She squirmed in his arms. "You should put me down. I'm certain I must be heavy."

"You are no burden." He bent his head to take her mouth in a long, sweet kiss. "Besides," he added when he lifted his head, "we are already here."

He carried her through another, slightly smaller tunnel that ended in a tall, Fey-sized wooden door. A flick of his fingers sent green Earth spinning out to lift the latch, and silvery Air blew open the door to reveal the chamber beyond. He gestured again, and Fire blossomed in sconces all about the room, adding their light to the sunlight filtering in from yet another passage leading off the main chamber.

Rain finally set Ellysetta on her feet, and she turned in slow circles to glance around the room. The chamber was obviously made for Feyreisen: spacious enough for a tairen to maneuver, yet furnished with human comforts, including a bed piled thick with furs and pillows, and large, beautifully woven rugs to soften the hard stone of the floor. Against one wall stood an elegant, carved desk and matching gilded chair.