King of Sword and Sky (38 page)

"You're taking me sailing?" She stared at the boat in disbelief. "You bring me here, tell me you're preparing me for your death, and you think I want to go
sailing?
Have you lost your senses?" She planted her fists on her hips, her eyes snapping with outrage.

"Las."
He held up his hands in truce. "Not just sailing. This is the Bay of Flame, and the Great Sun will set within the next two bells. I thought you might like to partake of its magic."

Ellysetta remembered the legends of the Bay of Flame. According to ancient Fey myth, Lissallukai, the first tairen ever to cast a wing shadow over the Fading Lands, had breathed her fire upon the waters of the bay at sunset and spun magic into the world. Young Fey boys came here on their Soul Quest to swim in the waters of the bay at sunset and dream beneath the light of the fairy-flies to find their soul's true magic.

"This is another thing you think I need to do so I can take your place as Defender of the Fey, isn't it?"

He sighed. "I simply thought that since you've never had a Soul Quest, you might want to give this a try. There
is
magic here. Perhaps even enough to help you find your song or learn to trust yourself. Perhaps even enough to show you the path to completing our bond."

The patience in his voice made Ellysetta feel petty. Rain was the one going to war. She was the one staying safely behind in the Fading Lands, risking nothing.

Nothing except the possibility of spending the rest of her life without him. She bit her lip and looked away, blinking against a sudden rush of tears. That possibility didn't bear thinking about.

"Sieks'ta.
I'm being childish. It's just that…" Her chin trembled. Her throat grew so tight she couldn't speak, and the tears she was fighting spilled over. She swiped at them with the backs of her hands. "I don't want to lose you, Rain."

His arms enfolded her, drawing her against his warm strength. "That is an impossibility,
shei'tani.
I am yours forever."

She turned, burrowing against him, pressing her face to the hollow of his throat. "You know what I mean." She spoke against his skin, feeling the pulse in his throat against her lips, the taste of him mingling with the salty wetness of her tears.

"I know." He stroked her hair and held her. "If I could, I would stay by your side and never leave you. But that's not a choice I can make. I must be a Feyreisen worthy of my crown. Only then will I be worthy of your bond."

"You're worthy now," she protested.

"Nei,
I am not. You've always believed me better than I truly am, but now it's time for me to become that honorable Fey I see in your eyes." He tilted her chin up and thumbed away her tears, smiling with such gentleness she nearly started crying again.
"Las, kem'san.
Come share the magic of the bay with me. I've never known anyone yet who hasn't found a measure of peace after swimming the waters at sunset."

She drew in a ragged breath and nodded, drying her eyes with her palms. He would be leaving in a matter of days. There was no guarantee he'd ever return. She wasn't going to waste the time left to them on tears and accusations.

She gave him her hand to help her into the slender craft. Once she was seated, he pushed off from the dock, then took his own seat near the stern and spun a weave of Air to fill the sail and send them skimming across the bay towards the black sand beaches on the distant northern shores. The small, Elvish-made craft was swift and sleek, cutting through the waves and swells with ease.

The Bay of Flame was large, more a small gulf than a bay, and even with the Air-spun winds driving them, the sail from Blade's Point to the northern shores was going to take almost a bell. Needing to be close to Rain, she carefully made her way to the back of the craft to sit between his feet and rest her head on his thigh as he manned the tiller. "Do you know any Elvish sailing songs?"

"A few."

"Will you sing them for me?"

He smiled and stroked her hair. "If you wish." A moment later, his deep baritone joined the sounds of the wind and waves. She closed her eyes and let the melancholy ancient Elvish melody wash over her like the fine spray blowing up from the swells.

When the boat touched shore on the black sand beach at the base of the Feyls, the Great Sun was nearing the horizon, and already the waters of the Bay were glimmering with gold and orange lights. Rain lifted Ellysetta out and carried her to shore, setting her down in the soft black sand.

"We have about twenty chimes before sunset," he estimated. His hands went to the buckles of his leather Fey'cha straps and sword harnesses.

"Do you really think we'll find any answers here?"

"How can it hurt to try?" Deftly slipping the strips of leather free of their binding, he shed his steel with a quick shrug. He shed his tunic next and tossed it casually on the sand before sitting down to remove his boots and leather trousers. He jumped to his feet, completely and magnificently naked, and arched one speaking black brow.

Ellysetta cast a nervous glance towards the towers and ramparts of Blade's Point across the long miles of bay. Fey sight was far keener than mortal, and though more than sixty miles of bay stretched between this shore and those towers, she still half expected to see Fey eyes gleaming at her from the silhouettes of the distant turrets. "Are you certain we're alone?"

"You mean apart from the legion of Fey that followed us from Dharsa?"

"Ha-ha." With an exaggerated sigh, she stripped off her own leathers and arched a brow back at him, refusing to be cowed, though she was quite certain she wasn't glowing Fey silver but rosy red. Her chin tilted up.

His brows rose.
"Tema storris,"
he acknowledged with grave approval. "Very brave."

Ellysetta made a face, tossed her leathers and steel in the boat, and dove into the waves. She surfaced immediately, shrieking and trembling from head to toe. "It's freezing!"

He laughed. "Of course. What did you expect? The currents that feed these waters come from the Pale, the ice desert that lies north of the Feyls. If you hadn't been in such a hurry, I would have told you most boys who come here on their Soul Quest wait to take the plunge until the Great Sun touches the horizon." His lips curved. "That way they spend less time freezing in the water."

"Oh!" She swiped her arm across the waves, sending an icy spray showering towards Rain, but he spun a quick weave of red Fire to evaporate the spray before it touched him. She clasped her arms over her chest, shivering and glaring at him. "It will serve you right if I catch my death of cold."

Rain smothered his laugh and tried to look penitent. "Ah,
nei,
do not say such things." He stepped into the waves and waded to her side, unflinching as the icy water lapped around him. "You are Fey. The cold cannot harm you. You need not even feel it, unless that is your wish. Here, I will warm you." His eyes glowed, and red light gathered around his right hand. He touched one finger to the water, and brilliant fiery red weaves spun out. The water around them rose quickly to the temperature of a warm bath. "Better,
kem'san?"

"Much." Her teeth stopped chattering. She let her knees fold and sank beneath the now-steaming waves to warm her head and shoulders. They swam together in the circle of water kept warm by Rain's magic and watched the Great Sun descend slowly in the western sky until its lower edge almost touched the horizon. "So if the Fey don't feel the cold," she asked as they waited for the sun to set, "then what was that Fey tale you were telling me about boys on their Soul Quest freezing in the water? Or were you just taunting to get a rise out of me?"

"I? Taunt you?
Nei,
I am too sweet a
shei'tan
for that." When she narrowed her eyes, he laughed again and stopped teasing. "I said Fey don't
need
to feel the cold. Even those who do not weave Fire can spin a simple Spirit weave to block the chill. But the Soul Quest is meant to be a journey without magic. Those who swim here for their Quest do not weave even for their own comfort."

She frowned, cast a regretful look at the steamy water, and said, "Then you should stop weaving. Quickly, before the sun touches the water. We came here for answers. I wouldn't want to ruin our chance of finding them by breaking the rules."

"As you wish,
shei'tani,"
he said. His Fire weave went out and the water's pleasant warmth quickly faded.

When her teeth began to chatter, Rain wrapped his arms around her and shared the heat of his body to ward away the cold. Together, they floated in the salty bay, Rain's face pressed against hers, as they watched the Great Sun sink towards the horizon.

The moment the huge, glowing orange ball of the Great Sun touched the horizon, the waters of the bay lit up as if they'd caught fire. Across the vast expanse, dolphins and whales broke the surface of the waves to watch the sun's descent and dance on the fiery waves.

"It truly is magic," Ellysetta whispered as tingling warmth and breathtaking wonder washed over her.

"Aiyah.
Every night, so long as the Fading Lands still live, this is Lissallukai's great and lasting gift to this world: a moment of pure magic to celebrate the greatest magic of all."

Enchanted, Ellysetta turned to Rain, her body bobbing and sliding against him in the rhythmic rock of the waves. "What greatest magic?"

"Life, Ellysetta." His hands slid up to cup her face and carry her lips to his. "And love."

Her arms wound about his neck, holding him close. All the world around them burned with the cooling fire of the setting sun, while between Rain and Ellysetta the now familiar flame of passion ignited.

"Aiyah,"
she murmured against his lips. "The greatest magic."

In the dimming twilight after the Great Sun had disappeared below the horizon, Rain and Ellysetta swam back to the shore where their boat was moored. He dug two long lengths of absorbent cloth from a basket in the boat and handed one to her.

She wrapped the cloth around herself. The air was much warmer than the bay had been, and her shivering quickly faded. "What now?"

"Now we make our bower so we may sleep beneath the light of the fairy-flies and dream of our soul's true purpose. Look." He pointed to the forests nearby. "They are waking." Sure enough, in the dark forests at the volcano's base, tiny lights were flickering.

He led the way into the forest. His bare Fey skin glowed faintly silver in the darkness and made him easy to follow as he picked his way down a narrow pronghorn trail through the dense brush and soaring trees.

"Here." The trail opened to a small glen at the base of the nearest volcano. "This will do." The glen was little more than a bare space in the forest where the rock lay too close beneath the fern-covered ground for trees to grow. A waterfall streaming down the side of the volcano had formed a small pool at one side of the glen. "Come,
shei'tani."
Rain unwrapped the cloth from about his waist and snapped it out to its full length, lowering it over a dense bed of ferns. "Time for sleeping." One black brow arched, and his lavender eyes began to glow. "Or other things."

Smiling, she went to him and offered no protest as he tugged free the end of her wrap and let the cloth slip from her naked, gleaming body. Her hair spilled down her back and over her shoulders, framing her small, round breasts with vivid licks of flame and curling down her back to brush the swell of slender hips.

Sunset on the Bay of Flame was indeed great and powerful magic. Without a doubt, something had changed in her tonight as she'd swum in the flame-kissed waters set afire by the setting sun. For the first time she stood naked before him and was not the least bit ashamed. Instead, her veins hummed with nascent womanly power.

She reached up to cup his face in her hands. "Do you love me, Rain?"

"More than I knew it was possible to love. All the stars will fall from the heavens before I ever stop."

His truth was pure and absolute. So unswerving there was no hint of doubt in him. She took a deep breath, dazzled by his utter devotion to her.

He had told her he must go to war to become a king worthy of his crown and a Fey worthy of his truemate's bond, but the truth was, he was already so much more than she deserved.

She ran her hands over the sleek, rounded muscles of his arms, adoring his faint trembling when she touched him, the crackles of magic that leapt to her touch as if every part of him yearned to become a part of her. Such a fine, beautiful Fey. Her Fey. Her love, her heart, her soul's truemate. So strong, so brave. Everything she never had been.

Everything
she
must become to be worthy of
him.

Not a frightened girl, clinging to him for reassurance and protection, but a brave woman, strong and self-assured in her own right. A Tairen Soul. His equal.

All around them, the dark of the forest began to glow with shimmering lights as fairy-flies by the dozens awoke and took wing from whatever small nest had sheltered them through the day. The small, glowing creatures danced like stars in the shadowed forest. The waterfall splashed softly into its pool, and in the distance the muffled roar of the surf filled the air with the tang of the sea. Ellysetta stepped back, her bare foot finding the soft expanse of the cloth he'd laid down for them. Her knee bent and she sank lightly to the bower he'd prepared, pulling him with her, but when he would have covered her body with his own, her hands pushed against his shoulders, urging him to his back.

"Nei, shei'tan.
Let me." She'd taken the lead in their lovemaking before, but only when her tairen had roused and its passions overrode the shy Celierian that remained so much a part of her. This time, she was neither wild nor shy, neither tairen nor mortal. This time, she was simply Ellysetta, mate of Rain, a woman taking the final step from girlhood.

"Do you know how much I love you?" It stunned her how much that love had grown in so short a while. And she had grown, too, from the breathlessly infatuated girl who'd loved Fey tales, to the grief-stricken realist who'd seen her mate leave and her mother die, to the raging tairen in the Mists who'd reached out in desperate fear and trust for her mate, to the young Feyreisa determined to master both
shei'dalin
and warrior magic and find the answers to save her new kingdom. Each step of the journey, she'd taken because of him. For him. Nourishing her increasing strength with the deepening love she bore him.

Her hands slid down his body, marveling at the smooth warmth of his skin. Pale as silver mist, sleek as satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her hands, the strength and power coiled within such devastating beauty. She laughed softly as she discovered his ticklish feet and the way his thighs quivered when she smoothed her hands over the long ropes of muscle and bent her head to take tiny bites across his flesh.

"Fellana…"
he growled, hands reaching for her.

"Nei,
Rain," she admonished, evading his grasp. "This time is mine." His sex was already full and thick, pulsing with the heavy beat of his heart. She stroked him, filling her palm with the hard heat, brushing her lips across the velvety softness of his skin, then dancing away to lave kisses on the flat, ribbed muscles of his abdomen.

He groaned and shifted, his hips bucking up against her in instinctive demand. "You tease."

She purred and touched her tongue to the round indent of his navel. "I but prolong the pleasure." The sweet fragrance of his skin—anchored with the darker scents of tairen—made her muscles tighten. Arousal became a heavy ache, a ripple of clenching inner muscles, a slow burn of flesh.

His nostrils flared at the betraying scent of dark honey, and his eyes, which were already glowing, blazed with sudden fire.

"You want me," he whispered.

"More than you know." She bent to his chest, nipped at the taut buds of his nipples, followed with savoring licks, tasting him, drawing him into her mouth.

A low, vibrating growl purred in his throat and chest, the seductive hum of his tairen's need. "Then come,
kem'fellana, kem'tani,
and take what you desire."

The low purr sent heat flashing through her veins. Her breasts grew tight, the nipples hardening to aching points. She sat back, straddling his thighs, and flexed her spine, hissing as his hands rose to cup her breasts and his thumbs flicked over their sensitive tips.
Gods.
All it took was one touch of his hand on her, and the harmonic pleasure intensified so rapidly it was all she could do to hold back her first shuddering orgasm. She didn't want that yet. This was her time, her seduction, her night to tease and torment until his control hung in shreds and he begged her to take him. This was her time to claim him, as he had so often and exquisitely claimed her.

Gasping, she arched away from his dangerous hands. "Do you think weaves spun for loving would keep the fairy-flies from working their dream magic?" Her fingers trailed along his chest, and she shared her essence with him the way he'd taught her back in Celieria.

He shuddered and gave a laughing groan. "I'm willing to risk it."

With a slow smile, she bent her head to his chest and wriggled her way down his body, trailing kisses and teasing sparks of magic in her wake. She caressed his flat belly, his lean hips. Her fingernails scraped lightly across his skin, and she reveled in every tiny shiver and catch of his breath and the brightening glow of his half-lidded eyes as he watched her near the length of straining flesh that throbbed in anticipation of her touch.

Smiling up into his eyes, bold with feminine power, she bent her head and took him into her mouth. His eyes closed on a groan and his jaw thrust up in the air as his head tilted back and he abandoned himself to her. The heat, the salty-sweet taste of his skin, the rich, heady scent of male Fey arousal bathed her senses.

His hands came up, lavender Spirit glowing brightly around them, but she waved them away.
«Nei, shei'tan. This weave is mine to spin.»

Always before, he had been the one to weave the magic over her, his Spirit spun with such vivid perfection and devastating power, she'd not been able to separate reality from illusion.

Now, it was her turn.

She called upon her power, summoning it as Jaren and Venarra had spent the last weeks teaching her. The magic came to her call, a heady rush of pure power. She pictured the images and sensations she desired, spinning the intricate pattern of the weaves. Spirit was her strongest branch of magic—it always had been.

When the weaves were as full and rich as she could make them, she let the magic spill forth in great shining flows. It fell over him like a veil, wrapping him tight in the enchantment of illusion so finely spun, even he could not tell where reality became magic.

Rain gasped as his blood ignited, becoming liquid flame, searing him from the inside out. Heat filled him, gathering in his loins and swelling his flesh near to bursting as her sweet mouth devoured him with relentless ardor and her magic overwhelmed his senses. Every muscle in his body clenched and strained as he fought to hold himself in check.

The wild coils of her hair feathered across his burning skin, stroking him in a rhythm that matched the devastating ebb and flow of her mouth. His lungs filled with her warm scent, his hands with the hot satin of her flesh. She was everywhere, commanding his body, whispering in his mind, torturing him with teasing touches and long, slow licks of velvet heat, pouring out upon him such boundless, unfettered passionate love as he'd never known before, never dared dream of. All the while, her mouth drove him to madness until he shuddered and cried her name on a sob. "Ellysetta!"

He spun a Spirit weave of his own, merging it with hers, urging her to give him the union he wanted. She slowly—ah, blessed gods, so slowly—released him and sat up, straddling his thighs. His hands clutched her hips, fingers digging into the soft curves, dragging her closer.

Ellysetta shivered as Rain's need beat at her. Her body was on fire. Every delicious, incendiary touch and stroke she'd bestowed upon him had come back to her tenfold through the press of his naked, burning flesh against hers.

A trilling melody filled the air. The fairy-flies, sensing the Fey in their midst, had come to investigate. They swooped and soared in dizzying aerial displays. Trailing sparkling showers of dust from their jeweled wings, they spun and danced in the air above Rain and Ellysetta. Strangely, their presence did not seem an intrusion, but just a natural part of the sweet, wild enchantment of the moment.

Ellysetta closed her eyes, letting the wordless crooning tunes of the fairy-flies wash over her. Fey vision came without call, and the glen became a jeweled wonderland, velvety darkness shining bright with iridescent magic and showers of tiny sparkling lights falling like crystals in the wake of the fairy-flies. Beneath her, Rain was a blazing maelstrom of power, dazzling, brighter than she'd ever seen. The dark web that usually veiled him had all but disappeared before the radiant blaze of his essence. And she…she was as golden-white as the Great Sun.

"Now, beloved," he begged.
"Teska,
come to me now."

"Aiyah"
she agreed. "Now." She guided him to the entrance of her body. The moment the blunt tip of his sex touched her, his hips surged up in one powerful stroke. Her eyes squeezed shut and she bit back a ragged cry as pleasure ripped through her. Her inner muscles clenched around him, holding him tight and drawing him deep.

She began to move, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as each rise and fall of her hips brought her closer to the brink of orgasm. She could feel every thread of their partially completed bond, pulsing in rhythm. She could hear the tairen roaring inside her—and in him—the sounds wild and fierce and passionate.

"Rain…"

His hands gripped her, urging her faster, faster, until her vision began to whirl. Her eyes flew open, her gaze locking with his. His skin was shining bright as the moon, his eyes twin purple stars, his soul a gleaming beacon that had called to her long before she'd ever met him. She bent to take his mouth in a kiss, lips meeting, tangling, breaths mingling.

"Ve sha kem'san,"
she whispered against his mouth.
"Ke vo san."
And with one last thrust of her hips, she pushed them both over the brink. Their voices cried out in a single, inextricably woven thread, and sparkling lights showered down upon them from the fairy-flies dancing overhead.

Ellysetta dreamed of darkness, warm and comforting like a thick blanket tucked 'round a sleeping child. She dreamed of voices singing, both tairen and Fey. The songs were different, yet somehow all familiar, comforting, crooning to her in dulcet multilayered tones. The voices sang of courage and strength, of love and joy, of welcome and of hope. She wanted to sing back, but the notes and words would not come.

She shifted, limbs pushing and fluttering against the confines of the warm darkness. The songs became a sweet lullaby.
Hush, little kitling…patience.
A whispered warning, sung in silence. «
Las, ajiana. Shh. Be silent. Be still. Do not let him hear you.»

The darkness changed, growing colder. Flutters for freedom became tremors of distress. Sickly sweetness filled her nostrils, making her dizzy and ill. Cold hands dragged her back from the warmth of the voices. She cried out in fear. Anguished wails mingled with roars of fury and blistering sorrow.