Crown of Crystal Flame

For Kevin.
My one true love.
Ver reisa ku’chae. Kem surah, shei’tan.

Northern Celieria ~24
^th
day of Verados

Death raked like a knife across Ellysetta Baristani’s empathic soul. Talisa Barrial diSebourne was dead. Killed by the tairen venom in the red Fey’cha her husband, Colum, had thrown at her Fey truemate, Adrial vel Arquinas.

Of Colum diSebourne—Talisa’s husband—there was no sign.

The scorch of ozone, the odor of powerful magic released with explosive force, still hung heavy in the air. No one needed to draw Ellysetta a picture. She’d felt Colum’s hate-filled fury, felt Talisa’s death. Adrial’s wild, deadly Rage. She’d sensed the moment Colum’s anger turned to terror, seen the unmistakable explosion of Adrial’s magic, and then… nothing. A vacuum of emotion, the utter stunned silence of disbelief, followed at last by grief and accusation and a chaotic whirl of unchecked thoughts and feelings.

Colum had discovered his wife returning from the forest with her Fey lover, and he’d set into motion the series of events that had led to this: Talisa and Adrial dead. Colum… simply
gone.

“My son.” Great Lord Sebourne—Colum’s father—stepped into the open space where his son had been. His eyes swept the clearing. His jaw thrust out aggressively. “Where’s my son?”

“He’s gone,” Talisa’s father, the Great Lord Cannevar Barrial, answered in a bleak voice. “They’re all gone.” His sons Luce, Parsis, and Severn stood in stricken silence beside him. He swiped at the tears brimming in his eyes and glared at his neighbor. “I hope you’re
jaffing
satisfied, Sebourne.”

Kneeling on the ground beside the bodies of Talisa and his brother, Rowan vel Arquinas fixed his grief-stricken gaze on Ellysetta. “Please, Feyreisa. Save them. If anyone can, it’s you.”

Rowan’s ragged plea spurred her to action. She crossed the field and dropped to her knees beside the fallen truemates.

“Rain, try the Shadar horn on Talisa,” she commanded. A gift from the Elf King, Galad Hawksheart, the curling horn from the magical horses called Shadar was reputed to be an antidote to any poison—even irreversibly lethal tairen venom.

“Ellysetta.” Rain, Ellysetta’s unbonded truemate, laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s too late,
shei’tani.
They’re already gone.”

Her gaze shot up, pinning his. “I have to at least try to save them,” she protested. “You know I must.”

Compassion and understanding softened his expression. Her mate, the King of the Fey, who had once scorched the world in a fit of grief-stricken madness, was no stranger to death or the desperate desire to prevent it. “There’s nothing to be done. They have passed beyond the Veil. Even if you could call their souls back into their bodies, you would only summon them as demons, not as the friends we knew.”

The sounds of shouting made them turn. Lord Sebourne and Lord Barrial were at each other’s throats, swords drawn. All their men had blades in hand as well, ready—even eager—to spill their own countrymen’s blood.

“What are you thinking?” Ellysetta cried. “Haven’t you had your fill of death?”

Though the Fey-Celierian treaty that prohibited Fey from manipulating mortal thoughts with their magic—and though that was precisely the crime for which Adrial vel Arquinas had been sentenced to death—Ellysetta still did it. She spun a weave of peace upon the enraged men, stealing the raw heat of their anger.

“Sheathe your swords,” she commanded, infusing her voice with compulsion. “There will be no more killing here today. Lord Barrial, Rowan, tend to your dead. Lord Sebourne, mourn your son. For the sake of the dear ones each of us have lost, let there be peace between us.”

Though Sebourne sheathed his sword, not even Ellysetta’s weave was enough to still his anger completely.

“Peace?” he spat. “There will be peace when Celieria and her king are free of Fey manipulations and control.” He turned to the king, and declared, “Sebourne will not fight beside these Fey
rultsharts.
I will not spill one more drop of Sebourne blood on their behalf, or trust them at my back. I pray gods you soon find the strength to cut free of their strings.”

Raising his voice, Great Lord Sebourne shouted, “Warriors of Sebourne! Mount up. We ride for home!”

Celieria ~ Kreppes
24
^th
day of Verados

“The bodies of Talisa and Adrial have been sent back to the elements,” Rain said.

After Talisa’s and Adrial’s deaths, the King’s Army continued marching to the great walled city-fortress of Kreppes to prepare for war. Rain and the Fey had stayed behind with Great Lord Barrial and his sons to say their final good-byes and return the bodies of their loved ones to the elements from whence they came.

Now, as he and Ellysetta stood before Celieria’s king in the chambers Great Lord Barrial had surrendered for Dorian’s use, Rain feared that the deaths of Adrial, Talisa, and Colum diSebourne on the fields of northern Celieria today had destroyed far more than three lives.

Only one month ago, the Fey had learned that the evil High Mage of Eld intended to unleash a terrible army upon Celieria. An army one of his Mages had compared to the mythic Army of Darkness, a world-conquering force of millions. Rain and Ellysetta had spent weeks trying to cobble together an alliance to combat the threat, but now, thanks to what had happened with Talisa, Adrial, and Colum, the small army they’d managed to assemble was in danger of coming apart at the seams.

King Dorian X of Celieria, who had not risen when Rain and Ellysetta entered, continued to scan the sheets of parchment in his hand as if Rain had not spoken, leaving the king and queen of the Fey to stand before him like chastised children summoned to the schoolmaster’s office.

Irritation flickered through Rain. Dorian had a right to his anger—and Rain knew he deserved reproach for hiding Adrial’s continued presence in Celieria City from Celieria’s king—but he would tolerate no discourtesy towards Ellysetta.

“The Fey stand ready to fight,” Rain announced, speaking to the top of Dorian’s bent head, “but before this battle begins, King Dorian, the Feyreisa and I must know what impact our recent mutual loss will have on our alliance.”

The hands on the parchment froze. The Celierian king’s head lifted. Eyes hard as polished stones clashed with Rain’s gaze.

“It’s a little late for such concerns, don’t you think?” The quiet venom in Dorian’s tone came as a surprise. Since meeting the descendant of Marissya and Gaelen’s sister, Marikah vol Serranis, Rain had never regarded Dorian as much more than a too-weak, too-mortal product of a great Fey bloodline. Fey in name only, with little to recommend him as either a strong leader or a seasoned warrior. But there was a new edge to Dorian that Rain had never seen before. A flinty glitter in his eyes and resolute hardness to his jaw.

Trusting, accommodating Dorian vol Serranis Torreval had grown steel in his spine—and with it a decidedly less favorable view of the Fey.

Rain spread his hands in a placating gesture. “King Dorian—“

“You knew!” Dorian kicked back his chair and surged to his feet. “All this time, you knew about Adrial and Talisa. You knew Adrial and the others hadn’t gone back to the Fading Lands. Knew they were using their magic to hide their presence from Talisa’s husband. You knew, and you condoned it. Not only that—you participated in their deception!” He jabbed a finger in Rain’s direction. “You, who posture and pride yourself on Fey honor, intentionally set out to deceive me, the Sebournes, and the Barrials.”

Rain’s skin flushed. “I know how this must seem—“

“Seem?
” Dorian gave a harsh, humorless laugh. “You spoke so eloquently about honoring our customs, holding our marriage vows as sacred as your own, and all the while, you plotted to rob a man of his wife. Is this the measure of Fey honor? Is this how low and worthless it has become—or is it merely an indicator of how low and worthless
your
honor has become?”

At Rain’s side, Ellysetta bristled, but he silenced her with a small touch of his hand.
«Nei shei’tani. Dorian has a right to his anger. I
did
intentionally deceive him.»

“You counted on my trust… on my belief in your honor,” Dorian continued hotly. “You manipulated me like the puppet my own nobles have accused me of being. You used my faith in the goodness of the Fey—even my love for my aunt, Marissya, and my ties of kinship to the Fey—to deceive me. You are the reason three people died today! How I wish I’d heeded Tenn v’En Eilan’s warning about you!”

“That’s enough!” Ellysetta exclaimed. Her green eyes shot sparks. “How dare you lay full blame for today at his feet? You, who bear as much blame as he?”

“Ellysetta,
las.”
Rain pulled her closer, half-afraid of what she might do to Dorian. “Dorian has a right to his anger. I
did
manipulate and deceive him. And I will bear the weight of Adrial and Talisa’s deaths, as I bear the weight of all the lives lost to my sword and to my flame.” Silently, he added,
«Perhaps Tenn was right, and I truly have lost my way.»
The leader of the Massan, the Fading Lands’s governing council, had accused Rain of that when he banished Rain and Ellysetta for weaving the forbidden magic, Azrahn. Had he fallen from the Bright Path and been too blinded by his love for Ellysetta and his hatred of the Eld to realize it?

She whirled on him, anger eclipsed by shock and repudiation of his silent confession.
«Rain, nei. Don’t even think that way. You are a champion of Light. Don’t you ever doubt it.»
She clasped his face in her hands and stared fiercely into his eyes, as if, by sheer force of will, she could make him believe her.