King of Sword and Sky (4 page)

"Aiyah
te nei,"
Yes and no. And on that mysterious note, Rain smiled and said, "Come. I think you will find you are not so poor a host as you fear."

Brimming with curiosity, Marissya, Dax, Teleos, and Ellysetta followed Rain as he led them the final half mile to the foot of the mountains.

Near the gate of the small outpost, and stationed along its outer wall, two dozen armored Celierian soldiers stood at attention. To a man, they sported snarling tairen's-head helmets and white tabards edged with scarlet and emblazoned with the arms of House Teleos: a golden tairen rampant on a white field with a rising red sun. Pennants of white, scarlet, and gold fluttered in the breeze.

They passed through the open gate, but when Lord Teleos would have headed for the main hall in the center, Rain stopped him. "
Nei
, Dev, not that way."

Bel ran up just as the small party rounded the corner of the hall and started towards the back wall. Ellysetta turned to greet him, only to find him frowning up at the mountain towering over the back wall of the outpost. The shimmering radiance of the Mists was very bright, like a shadow made of light rather than darkness. Though mortal eyes would not see it, the whole mountainside glowed with undulating bands of magic.

Rain turned to cast a glance over his shoulder and smiled at Bel's perplexed look. The rear stone wall of the outpost lay before him. Rain took another step. The air around him rippled like water in a pond.

With one more stride, Rain passed through the wall and disappeared from view.

"Spit and scorch me," Dev breathed. He glanced at Marissya and Dax, then charged after Rain, plunging headfirst into what seemed like solid stone. The air rippled again, and Lord Teleos vanished too.

"Spirit weave," Kiel said, his eyes sweeping over the mountainside. There was no sign of Rain or Lord Teleos, only the rear wall of the outpost and, beyond that, the tumbled remains of Teleon scattered across the mountainside, tufts of cliff grass and stands of hardy mountain trees waving in the breeze.

"Scorching clever one," Bel said. "They're using the magic-shadow off the Mists to mask the energy of the weave. Not even a Spirit master would see it until he was almost on top of it."

"Well?" Kieran said with an eager grin. He held out a hand to Lillis. "What are we waiting for? Let's go see what's behind the weave."

With a burbling laugh, she stuck her hand in his and they ran up the trampled path after Rain and Teleos. Lorelle grabbed Kiel's hand and yanked the Water master with her as she darted forward in hot pursuit.

Ellysetta, Bel, and Sol followed close behind, and when they stepped through the rippling wall of illusion and cast eyes on the sight beyond, Ellysetta's jaw dropped open in stunned wonder.

"Bright Lord save me," Sol whispered, staring awestruck at the gleaming magnificence before him. "I've never seen anything so beautiful."

"It's like a magical palace from a Fey tale," she breathed.

They were standing at the open, arching gate of an immense mountain fortress of unparalleled grace and beauty. Silvery blue stone soared high into the sky in a dazzling display of Fey artistry and architecture. Crenellated walls gave way to lush, gracefully terraced gardens bursting with trees, fountains, fragrant shrubs, and flowers. Pennants in the bold colors of House Teleos fluttered in the breeze from every tower and along the series of interior walls that ringed up the mountainside and circled the upper keep with level after level of protection and silvery blue beauty.

"Ellie! Papa! Come look!" Lillis and Lorelle stood in the center of a small grassy park nestled against the second inner wall. They laughed and danced beneath the graceful, arching branches of cherry trees as pale pink petals rained softly down upon them. Kieran and Kiel stood nearby, watching the children with indulgent smiles.

Lord Teleos stood dumbstruck at Rain's side as Ellysetta and Sol crossed the lower courtyard to join the twins. "You did it," he said. "You restored her to her former beauty."

"Not completely," Rain admitted. He dragged his gaze away from Ellysetta and the children and gave Devron Teleos his full attention. "A number of the gardens and buildings on the middle levels are still just Spirit weaves, but the walls and gates are real, and defensible, as is the manor at the top."

"Even so … this is an amazing feat. How did you manage it?"

"Three thousand Fey stand guard at the great war castles of Chatok and Chakai beyond the Mists. While we journeyed across Celieria, they came through the Mists to prepare a suitable home for the Feyreisa's family. And to prepare Teleon for battle once more."

Lord Teleos turned to him in surprise. "You think the Eld will strike here? With the Mists blocking any hope of entrance to the Fading Lands?"

Rain looked across the flagstone-cobbled courtyard to the lower garden, where Ellysetta, Sol, and the twins were inspecting a marble fountain of dancing maidens whose slender, upstretched fingers rained veils of clear water into a small pond.

His expression lost any hint of softness. "If the Eld come," he said, "I doubt it will be passage through the Mists they're after."

Ellysetta stood on the balcony of a well-appointed bedchamber in one of Teleon's spacious upper towers and looked up at the Mists. Several bells earlier, the lowering sun set the Mists ablaze, giving the illusion of a curtain of fire burning across the world. Now the night was deep and the Mists were a shifting, shimmering glow of multicolored radiance against the dark of a near-moonless sky.

The clap of boot heels on stone made her cast a glance over her shoulder. Still clothed in black leather and full steel, his Fey skin as pale and luminous as pearls in moonlight, Rain approached. He'd been meeting with Teleos, Bel, Kieran, and Kiel to discuss the defense of Teleon and review troop strength and dispersal in the rest of Teleos's holdings.

War was coming. No matter how some still tiptoed around the truth, all of them knew it. They only prayed there would be time enough to prepare before Celieria's borders erupted into open battle.

And though it seemed a terrible thing to ask, Ellysetta had secretly prayed that when the attack came, the Eld's first strike would come in some far-distant part of Celieria, like Orest or Celieria City, so the Fey would have enough time to evacuate Lillis, Lorelle, and Papa to safety behind the Faering Mists.

That secret prayer seemed ill-considered now. The hearth witches of the north—and there had been plenty of them living in her childhood town of Hartslea, despite the strong Church presence there—believed that wishing harm upon others would bring three times that harm to the wisher. Was hoping the first battle of a war started somewhere else the same as wishing harm upon another? Ellysetta shivered at the prospect.

"Cold?" Rain asked. His eyes narrowed. "Or have your wandering souls returned?"

Ellysetta often experienced inexplicable sudden chills, like ice spiders crawling up her spine. The chills—or "wandering souls" as Rain called them—were insignificant compared to the hideous nightmares and frightening seizures that had afflicted her all her life, and she'd always brushed them off as yet another oddity about her. Rain didn't consider the strange onset of chills as harmless as she always did.

"Nothing like that," she assured him. "Just a worrisome thought of war."

His arms tightened. "Your family will be safe. The Fey will see to it."

"I know." And she did. Kieran and Kiel would die to defend her family. All the Fey staying at Teleon would.

Rain rubbed a thumb across her lower lip, then bent his head to follow the small caress with a kiss. "There is a thing I need to do tonight before returning to the Fading Lands. I had hoped you would come with me, but perhaps you should stay here, instead, and try to get some sleep."

"No, I'm fine." She reached for his hand. "You know I can't sleep without you beside me." He was her talisman against the call of the High Mage of Eld, and she feared to fall asleep without him lying there beside her, him arms wrapped about her, protecting her from the very real terrors of the night.

"Then let's go—and bring your cloak."

Ten chimes later, they were soaring through the night skies high over Teleon. Ellysetta stretched out her arms and turned her face up to the stars. Rain spun a light Fire weave to keep her warm as the chill, thin air swept past.

«Hold on.»
The brief command was her only warning before Rain twitched back his rounded tairen ears, spouted a warming jet of flame that lit the night, then tucked in his mighty wings and dove.

Ellysetta screamed with laughter and grabbed for the high, curving pommel of her saddle just as the unsettling thrill of weightlessness came over her. Together, she and Rain fell through the sky, plummeting freely towards the ground miles below. The moonlit sky went silvery white, and fine droplets of water misted Ellysetta's face as they plunged into a cloud bank. She caught the tangy-fresh chill of cloud mist on her tongue, drinking its bracing sweetness.

One heartbeat; two; then they burst through the clouds back into the crisp, clear darkness of the night.

Tairen wings spread wide, snapped taut, and the wild, reckless plunge became a swooping ascent. Ellysetta screamed again, a breathless, exuberant sound, and clutched the saddle tight. «
Rain! I think I left my stomach back there.»

The now-familiar, chuffing sound of tairen laughter joined the rush of the wind in her ears. «
Hold on again, shei'tani. This is even better.»

Flows of magic spun out to bind her securely into place, and Rain shot forward on a thrust of magic-powered speed. The world rushed by in a dizzying blur, and with a subtle shift of his wings, he sent them spiraling into a corkscrew roll. Shadowy earth and moonlit sky whirled in a wild kaleidoscope before Ellysetta's dazzled eyes.

Another woman might have shrieked in fear and begged him to stop. Ellysetta only flung back her head and laughed in delight. Freedom coursed through her veins like a potent drug.

She would never tire of flying. The limitless joy of dancing, laughter-spangled winds, the thrill of diving through misty clouds and soaring so high she could almost scoop Stardust with her fingertips: Flying was a joy so rich, it chased back all sorrows and fears. Well, she amended silently,
almost
all.

«Rain, do you honestly think when we get to Fey'Bahren, I can just walk in and spin a weave that will cure the kitlings of whatever is killing them?»
That was the reason Rain had come to Celieria to find her. Unbeknownst to the outside world, a mysterious sickness had been killing unborn tairen in the egg for centuries, decimating their numbers until scarcely more than a dozen of the great cats still lived. The Eye of Truth had sent Rain to Celieria to find the key to saving them.

She, Ellysetta Baristani, was that key. Even if none of them actually knew how she was going to manage the miracle.

«I know it doesn't sound like much of a plan,»
he said, «
but the tairen have never let any of our healers into the lair
—
not even Marissya. You, however, are both a Tairen Soul and my truemate. You'll be able to enter the lair and weave healing on the kits as no other shei'dalin has been able to.»

«This assumes I'll even know what weave to spin when I get there
—
let alone how to spin it.»

«That's why Marissya will be going with us to Fey'Bahren
—
so she can continue your training and counsel you while you're healing the tairen. But you may not even need her help. I heard you healed
Ravel's new Fire master well enough this afternoon while I took your sisters flying.»

She gave a short laugh. «
Oh, yes, I healed him all right. I made that wound vanish as if it had never been.»

«There, you see
—»

«And I erased every hint of weariness from the last week of travel,»
she informed him. «
And wiped clean every shadow on his soul. And filled him with such an abundance of energy that he shone like a newly minted coin and spent the rest of the day racing circles around my quintets until Bel and Ravel both threatened to pull red on him if he twitched another muscle.»

There was a brief silence; then Rain said in an oddly choked voice, «
Well, shei'tani, there are worse tribulations in life than healing a Fey too well.»
Chuffing tairen laughter vibrated in his throat.

Her eyes narrowed. He found that amusing, did he? «
And when he wasn't annoying his brother Fey, he was following me around like a lovesick puppy.»

The chuffing laughter changed instantly to a low, rumbling growl. Licks of flame seared the air before Rain's muzzle. «
Oh, was he?»
The fur on the back of his neck rose up, and his rounded ears lay back. Tairen were territorial creatures, and they definitely did not appreciate encroaching males trespassing too near their mates.

«Ha! You see? It's not so funny anymore, is it?»
She ran a frustrated hand through the wind-tangled spirals of her hair. «
I'm like a rultshart in a spider-silk shop. If Marissya asks me to summon a puff of Air, I call a gale so strong it knocks her off her feet. If she asks me to summon Water, I nearly flood the encampment.»

«Your power is vast,»
Rain soothed, «
and no longer restrained by the weaves set upon you in childhood. You simply need time and practice to learn how to wield it in moderation.»

She sighed. «
Even assuming I can learn to control my power enough to spin the right weaves, what if healing doesn't stop whatever's killing the kits?»

His right wing dipped, and he banked, wheeling back around towards the south. «
Then we go to Dharsa and start from the beginning. Perhaps you can help us discover something we have overlooked all these years.»

«Rain, be realistic.»

«I am. I asked for the key to saving the tairen and the Fey, and the Eye sent me to you. To me, it seems quite clear that whatever is killing the kitlings, you are integral to making it stop. I do not doubt this, even though you do.»

Rain's wings spread wide, and he sank through the sky in a circling glide, alighting on a stretch of empty field. A cradling ribbon of Air magic deposited Ellysetta on her feet while the Change swirled around Rain's tairen from in a sparkling mist.

His hands rose, long fingers threading into the wild spirals of her flame red hair, the pad of his thumb brushing across her lips and leaving tingles of awareness behind. "We're here,
shei'tani."

Ellysetta glanced at their surroundings. Nothing looked familiar.

"Where is 'here'?"

His eyes went dark. "This is Eadmond's Field."

The Lake of Glass stretched out for miles, its dark, glossy surface glittering beneath the dim light of the moons overhead. Mist swirled in ghostly eddies along the silent, lifeless shores of the lake, and in the scant moonlight the shifting vapors looked like spectral maidens dancing forlorn pirouettes.

Ellysetta could hardly breathe as she regarded the wide expanse of what once had been the most infamous battlefield in the history of Celieria. Here, a thousand years ago, Rain's first mate, Sariel, had been slain by Elden Mages, and in grief-stricken madness over her death, Rain had given himself to the Wilding Rage and scorched the world with tairen flame.

As they approached the southern shore of the glass lake, they passed a bronze statue set in a circle of carved stones. Her throat grew tight as she realized the bronze was a life-size replica of the doomed couple immortalized by Fabrizio Chelan's famous painting,
Death of the Beloved:
Rain Tairen Soul clutching his dead mate, Sariel, and crying out his despair to the heavens. The stones circling the statue retold the fateful battle through scenes carved into diamondine granite. Millennia would pass, she realized, before weathering finally laid to rest the story of Rain and Sariel.

Ellysetta traced the last of the etched slabs, reading the tragic conclusion of the tale she knew so well. " 'Some say if you walk to the center of the lake, you can still see the Lady Sariel, beautiful as a sunrise, appearing merely to sleep beneath the surface.' " Rain's sudden stab of sorrow slapped her senses, and she gave a gasp of dismay. "Oh, Rain, I'm sorry." She'd told the tale so often to her sisters, the words had spilled out automatically. "I shouldn't have read that aloud."

"Nei,
it's all right," he said. "I like that story much better than the truth."

She bit her lip, hating her thoughtlessness. She knew the fanciful Fey tale couldn't possibly be true. The Mages had severed Sariel's head and burned her with Fire.

"I killed millions that week," Rain added. His voice was a low scrape of sound. "Thousands of them here. Eld and their allies mostly, but even Fey and mortals and Elves and Danae who were not quick enough to flee my wrath."

Ellie knew that too. Celieria had erected smaller memorials at various points around the site in memory of all the allies of Celieria who had perished in a sea of tairen flame. The flame had rained down without cease, turning the very earth into a lake of molten obsidian glass that swallowed every trace of the armies on the battlefield.

Ellysetta left the circle of stones and went to his side. "You must stop blaming yourself, Rain. You didn't know what you were doing."

"I knew," he corrected her. "I was simply beyond caring."

The Wilding Rage had taken him: the terrible fury of the Fey, a sweeping, conscienceless wrath that knew no mercy, no remorse, just the pitiless, relentless drive to destroy whichever enemy had spawned it.

From here, Ellie knew, Rain had flown northward, searching out the armies of the Eld and their allies, raining fire and death upon all in his path. He'd blanketed the entire nation of Eld in scorching clouds of tairen fire, leaving naught but smoldering ashlands in his wake. Even then, his Rage still shrieked for more blood, more death. He'd skimmed along Eld's eastern coast, boiling the seas with tairen flame and sinking fleets of enemy naval vessels. By the time the Fey and the tairen had finally forced him from the sky, half the continent lay in ruin and millions had perished.

"You ended the Wars," Ellysetta reminded him.

"I almost ended the world."

"But you did not. Even in your Rage, you focused the bulk of your fury on the Eld."

He would not let her cling to her illusions. "I was coming south to scorch Celieria off the map when Marissya and the others stopped me."