Crown of Crystal Flame (2 page)

Turning back to Dorian, she said in a calmer voice, “In his sorrow and guilt over today’s terrible loss, my
shei’tan
allows you to heap blame upon him without protest. But I will not. What great evil has he done? He allowed a dying man to spend the last months of his life watching over the woman he loved. If that is a crime, you should pray to the gods you would have the heart to be as guilty as he!”

For the first time since they’d entered this chamber, Dorian looked uncertain. “Vel Arquinas was dying?”

“Ellysetta,” Rain murmured a low warning. The high price of
shei’tanitsa
was a dangerous truth Fey never revealed to outsiders.

“Aiyah,
he was,” she confirmed.
«I’m sorry, Rain, but it’s long past time he learned the truth. He is part Fey, after all.»
To Dorian, she continued, “From the moment you upheld Talisa’s Celierian marriage, Adrial’s life was over. You did not realize it, but by denying him his
shei’tani,
you condemned him to death.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Dorian scowled and began to pace. “Despite what the poets say, a broken heart never killed anyone.”

“Perhaps not among mortals, King Dorian,” Ellysetta said, “but the same is not true for the Fey. Once a Fey finds his truemate, he has only months to complete the bond, or he will die.”

Dorian stopped in his tracks. He turned, glancing uncertainly between the pair of them. “Is this true?” he asked Rain.

Rain sighed, then nodded.
“Aiyah,
it is true.” “But you have yet to complete your bond with the Feyreisa. Are you telling me
you
are dying?” “I am.”

Nonplussed, Dorian leaned back against the window, his hands gripping the stone sill. “How long do you have?”

“Not long. Weeks perhaps. No more than a month or two.” Ellysetta’s hand crept into Rain’s. He squeezed her fingers gently.

“If this is true, why is this the first I’ve ever heard of it?”

“Ellysetta once asked me the same question. My answer to her was the same as it is to you now: If you had so great a vulnerability, would you let it be known to those who might wish you harm?”

Dorian bristled. “You think I wish you harm?”

“You?
Nei.
But you are king of a people who have shown increasing animosity towards the Fey. It seemed wiser to keep our secrets safe.”

“Knowing this,” Ellysetta said, “can you now understand why Rain acted as he did? It’s true he allowed our Spirit masters to weave the illusion of Adrial and Rowan leaving the city while they remained behind with Talisa’s quintet, cloaked in invisibility weaves to avoid detection. And,
aiyah,
he kept the secret of their presence from you so that no blame would fall upon you. But he didn’t do it so Adrial could steal another man’s wife. He did it so Adrial could spend the last days of his life close to the woman he loved.”

Dorian recovered his composure and regarded them both with a mix of suspicion and defensive ire. “Even if vel Arquinas was dying, that doesn’t excuse him. To manipulate diSebourne’s mind the way he did… to run off with the man’s wife. Those are not the actions of an honorable man—Fey or mortal.”

“Nei,”
Rain agreed. “They are not. And that is precisely why Adrial would have embraced
sheisan’dahlein,
the Fey honor death, and why no Fey will attempt to avenge him. What Adrial did was wrong. None of us will deny that. But his brother Rowan tells us he was going to do the honorable thing. He was going to leave his
shei’tani
with her husband and return to the Fading Lands.”

Dorian’s shoulders slumped. “You should have come to me. Trusted me. If I’d known the price of the matebond, I could have tried to do something to spare vel Arquinas’s life. Now it’s too late. Three lives are lost—one of them the only heir to a Great House. Sebourne and his friends will make certain I regret my indulgence of the Fey.”

“I do understand, Dorian, and I will do all that I can to make amends, but we have a far greater threat than Sebourne’s vengeance to worry about now. Hawksheart warned us the Eld would attack tonight.”

“Tonight? I thought you said the attack would come next week? “

“Apparently, things have changed.”

“How many Elves did Hawksheart send to our aid? If the attack does come tonight, will they get here in time?”

Rain hesitated. This, even more than Dorian’s anger, was the part of this meeting he’d been dreading. “The Elves are not coming.”

The king’s brow furrowed. “Lord Hawksheart thinks the Danae alone will be enough against an army as large as the one you expect?” Weeks ago, after warning Dorian to marshall his troops and march to Kreppes, Rain and Ellysetta had traveled south to plead for military assistance from the Danae and the Elves.

“We never met with the Danae. Hawksheart’s Elves intercepted us before we crossed Celieria’s borders. He promised he would speak to the Danae on our behalf, but even if they agree to come, it will be days, possibly weeks, before they reach Kreppes.”

“Then we are doomed.” Dorian began to pace again.

“The keep is heavily guarded, and the shields are strong,” Rain said. “Between your twelve thousand men, Lord Barrial’s two, and my three thousand Fey, we’ll give the Eld a good fight. The Mages will not claim one fingerspan of Celierian soil without paying a high price.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Dorian snapped. “I’ve read the legends about the Army of Darkness. It was millions strong, they say.”

“Legends often grow over time.”

“Yes, but even if this Mage has built an army only a tenth that size, our seventeen thousand would still be outnumbered twenty to one. If the Elves and the Danae had agreed to fight, we might have stood a chance.
Might.
But now…”

“Now, if this Mage truly
has
built an army to rival the legend, the best we can hope is to hold back the tide and kill as many of them as possible before we are overrun,” Rain agreed baldly. “And pray our defeat will spur the Elves to action, as our pleas for aid could not.”

“You must hold out some hope of success,” Dorian insisted. “You would never bring your
shei’tani
here if you thought defeat was certain.”

“She is here because I am, but if the situation becomes dire, her quintet will take her to safety.”

At his side, Ellysetta went stiff as a poker.
«Rain, I’m not leaving you.»

«We will talk later.»
He would not look at her.

«Nei, we won’t. Because there is nothing to talk about. I won’t leave you. You’re mad if you think I would.»

The corner of his mouth quirked, and despite the seriousness of their situation, he cast her a quick glance that sparkled with wry humor.
«I believe we’ve already established that, shei’tani, and I’m getting madder by the day.»

She glowered.
«That’s not funny.»

Thick swaths of embroidered velvet hung across the glass, buffering the room against the chill of the north’s snowy winters. Dorian pulled back one of the hangings and peered out across the torchlit northern battlements into the darkness of Eld.

“It is late. My scouts have reported no armies on the horizon. My generals have already sought their beds. I suggest you do the same. If an attack does come tonight, ‘tis better we face them rested and ready to fight.” Dorian returned to stand beside his desk. “Lord Barrial’s servants have prepared a suite for you and the Feyreisa. Her quintet may stay with you, of course, and you may post another quintet to stand watch with the tower guard. But have the rest of your troops make camp outside the walls. I am not the only Celierian unsettled by today’s events. Emotions are running high, and I prefer to avoid any potential conflicts.”

“Of course.” Rain gave the brief half nod that served as a courtesy bow between kings and held out a wrist for Ellysetta’s hand. “We have no wish to cause you further distress.”

After leaving the king, Rain and Ellysetta went out to the Fey encampment—Rain to meet with his generals and Ellysetta to ease what she could of Rowan’s grief. One of Lord Barrial’s servants was waiting for them upon their return and showed them to a spacious suite in the inner fortress’s west wing.

Now, secure behind her quintet’s twenty-five-fold weaves and Kreppes’s own impressive shields that self-activated each night at sundown, Ellysetta lay in Rain’s arms in the center of the room’s opulent bed. A warm fire crackled in the hearth, illuminating the room with a flickering dance of shadows and firelight.

“How is Rowan?” Rain stroked a hand through her unbound hair.

“Devastated.” Her head rested on his chest. She snuggled closer, needing the feel of his arm around her, the sound of his heart beating beneath her ear. “The loss of his brother eats at his soul. Bel offered to spin a Spirit weave to Rowan’s sister, but that only made things worse. He couldn’t bear the thought of telling her their brother is gone. He blames himself for Adrial’s death. I don’t know how he could possibly think that. None of this was his fault.”

“Grief isn’t always logical. And with a Fey, it’s never mild. Our kind do not love in half measures.”

The Fey did nothing in half measures. That intensity of emotion was part of their appeal. It made them the fiercest warriors, the staunchest allies, the most passionate lovers. The most devoted mates.

“I wove what peace on him I could,” she said, “but I’m worried. There is a look in his eyes… a shadow I’ve never seen before. Almost as if some part of him died with Adrial, and the rest is only going through the motions of living. When this battle starts, I don’t think he intends to live through it.”

“I will talk to him tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” Rain knew loss. He knew what it was to wish for death. Ellysetta traced a pattern across the skin of his chest. She ran a hand down his torso, fingertips stroking the silky-smooth skin. All she had to do was touch him to set her world to rights. “Rain…”

“Aiyah?
“

“About what you said earlier to Dorian. The bit about my leaving if the battle grows grim.”

He caught her hand, stilled it. “I’ve already commanded your quintet to take you to safety, when the time comes.”

She rolled away and propped herself up on one elbow so she could see his face.

“Lord Hawksheart said we should stay together,” she reminded him. “‘Do not leave your mate’s side,’ he said. ‘You hold each other to the Light,’ he said. And he said we could only defeat the Darkness together.”

“He said many things. Most of which I don’t trust.”

“I see.” Ellysetta freed her hand from his and lay down on her back to stare up at the ceiling. “So we kept information from Dorian for our own purposes, yet you expect him to forgive our transgressions and trust us as if nothing has ever happened. But when it’s we who are deceived—when it’s Lord Galad keeping information from the Fey for his own purposes—somehow that makes
his
every word suspect?”

Dead silence fell over the room, broken only by the snap and pop of the logs on the fire.

Rain sat up, furs spilling into his lap as he twisted to face her. Silky black hair spilled over his muscled shoulders. His brows drew together.

“You think I have treated Dorian the way Hawksheart has treated us?”

She met his gaze. “I think we decided which truths to tell him and which to keep secret, just as the Elves have done to us. So now he distrusts us. Just as we distrust the Elves. Yet somehow you think he should just forget our deceptions and heed our advice without question—while you will not trust Lord Galad.”

Rain scowled. “The two are not remotely comparable. Hawksheart left your parents to suffer a thousand years of torment. He sent gods knows how many people to their deaths. He refuses to fight the Darkness he
knows
is coming.”

“And three people are dead because we let Adrial stay with his
shei’tani
and hide his presence from the Celierians. And now, though you’ve been told we must both face the High Mage together, you want to send me away and ensure our defeat.”

“You are twisting the facts. I want to keep you alive! How is that so wrong?”

She sat up and put her arms around him. “I don’t want to die, Rain. But I won’t be sent away so you can sacrifice yourself. You need me.” She stroked her fingers through his hair, smoothing the long strands back from his beautiful face. The bond madness was upon him. He fought it every moment of the day, and without her close by, the battle was more difficult. “And I need you, just as much.”

The last three weeks, they’d been each other’s constant companions, never apart for more than a few chimes, and tonight, when he met with his generals while she went to heal Rowan, she’d felt his absence acutely. She’d come to rely on the strength she drew from him when he was near, just as she’d come to rely on Lord Hawksheart’s magical circlet of yellow Sentinel blooms to keep the Mage out of her dreams when she slept. Just this last bell apart from Rain had left her feeling stretched thin. She’d found herself constantly reaching for him through their bond threads, drawing his emotions to her and soothing him with her own. Needing to know that he was close, that he was well, that she was not alone.

It frightened her, a little, how much she needed him.

“Sending me away won’t save me, Rain. Without you to keep me strong, it’s only a matter of time before the High Mage claims my soul.” She already bore four of the six Mage Marks needed to enslave a soul, shadowy bruises upon the skin over her heart, invisible except in the presence of the forbidden Dark magic, Azrahn. Two more Marks, and she would be lost forever. “You know that, even if you want to deny it.”

His face crumpled. “I can’t lose you.”

“And that’s why you can’t send me away. Because the only way you could ever truly lose me is if the Mage claims my soul. Besides,” she added softly, “if you sent me away, where would I go? You’re the only family I have left.”

Ellysetta was, essentially, an orphan. Mama—Lauriana Baristani, her adoptive mother—had been killed by the Eld. Papa and her two sisters, Lillis and Lorelle, were lost in the magical fog of the Faering Mists. Her Fey parents, Shan and Elfeya v’En Celay, whom she had never met, were prisoners of the High Mage of Eld, and had been for the last thousand years. Except for Rain, she had no other kin.