Crown of Crystal Flame (20 page)

«Steli-chakai, we’ll be flying fast. Come when you can—and fly high to keep out of bowcannon range.»

With a roar, Rain banked in a tight circle, and with a burst of magic-powered speed, rocketed high into the sky, heading west, towards Orest and the gateway to the Fading Lands.

The Faering Mists

“Lorelle, I don’t think I like it here anymore.” Lillis clutched Snowfoot to her chest so tight, the little kitten mewed a protest and scratched her hand trying to get free. Lillis barely even noticed. The scratch didn’t hurt and almost as soon as it appeared, it disappeared again, healed by the magic that filled everything and everyone in this valley.

She wanted for nothing. She and Lorelle had a beautiful bedroom of their own filled with all the treasures and toys they could ever wish for. They had an entire roomful of beautiful dresses to wear and delicious foods to eat—including so many rich, powdery chocolate comfits that they’d practically made themselves sick gorging on them.

But despite her joy at being reunited with Mama, something about this place didn’t feel right.

No matter how many sweets they ate, Mama never objected. And Lorelle, who could be so irritating sometimes, had been inexplicably pleasant and good-natured.

Lillis asked about Kieran and Kiel several times now, but each time the beautiful Fey lady Eiliss—or one of the dozens of other beautiful Fey lords and ladies with her—would smile gently, and say, “Patience, kitling. If they survived the battle, they would want you to remain here, where you are safe.”

Papa and Mama seemed in no rush to find Kieran either. Or to leave.

“But it’s so peaceful and beautiful here,” Papa said, when she talked to him about it. “We’re all together and we’re all safe here. Isn’t that enough, Lillipet?”

At first it had seemed so. At first it had seemed perfect. But now, even though only a few days had passed, the perfection was beginning to wear thin. Part of the problem was, they weren’t all together. Ellysetta wasn’t with them. Kieran and Kiel weren’t with them.

And no one but Lillis seemed the slightest bit interested in finding them.

Lillis stroked Snowfoot, then knelt on the floor to nuzzle the kitten’s tiny nose and roll one of the pretty latticework jingle balls across the carpet. Snowfoot leapt upon the ball and swatted it with a tiny paw, sending it rolling across the floor. The bells chimed merrily against the pretty white stone in the ball’s center.

“Maybe we should try to find Kieran and Kiel on our own,” she told Lorelle.

Beside her, Lorelle looked up with a frown, then tossed her own jingle ball for her kitten, Pounce. “Mama and Papa would never allow it. We don’t have any idea where we are or how to find our way back. We’d get lost.” Pounce leapt for the ball, missed, and went sliding across the polished marble floor with his limbs splayed and an expression of pure bewilderment on his fuzzy face. “Besides, you heard Lady Eiliss yesterday. We should stay put until they find Kieran and Kiel, or Kieran and Kiel find us. It’s much too dangerous to go wandering around.”

Lillis frowned. “I don’t think anyone is looking for Kieran or Kiel at all. If they were, why wouldn’t they have found them?”

“We’re in the middle of the Faering Mists,” Lorelle replied. “It’s hard to find anything in here.”

“Lady Eiliss found us easily enough. And Papa. And how can Mama really be here?” Snowfoot pounced on his jingle ball again, sending it skittering, and Lillis caught the toy with an idle hand. Her brows knit together. The worry that had been preying on her mind roused again, and this time it would not be brushed aside. “Lorelle… do you think maybe we’re all”—she bit her lip and whispered her growing fear aloud—“dead? And this is really the Haven of Light? Eiliss looks beautiful enough to be a Lightmaiden.”

“Of course not.” Lorelle rejected the idea immediately, and for the first time since Lillis had come to this city in the Mists, Lorelle’s brows furrowed in a very Lorelle-like scowl. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Lillis lunged for her twin and threw her arms around her throat in a fervent hug.

“Hey!” Lorelle exclaimed in surprise. “What was that for?”

“Nothing. Everything.” Tears sprang to Lillis’s eyes. She swiped at them with backs of her hands. “It’s just that’s the first time you’ve really seemed like you since I got here.”

“You ninnywit.” Lorelle gave her a shove.

Lillis rocked back, laughed, then hugged her again, even tighter this time. “Oh, Lorelle, I’ve been so worried. Everything seemed so perfect, so wonderful. More like a dream than anything real.”

“Why is that so bad?”

“It’s not.” Lillis frowned. “It’s just that…”

“Aren’t you happy here?”

“Yes… but…” She couldn’t put her fears into words. The sense of… not exactly wrongness, but more of a not-rightness. She frowned. Lorelle usually knew what she was feeling even before she did. Why didn’t she now?

“Just be happy, Lillis, and enjoy this place. We’re safe here. Nothing can hurt us. We’re with Mama and Papa. We have everything we need—and everything we’ve ever wanted.”

“But not Ellie. And not Kieran and Kiel either.”

Before Lorelle could answer, a knock sounded on the door.

Lillis put a finger to her lips and signaled Lorelle not to answer. Lorelle ignored her and called out, “Come in.”

The door opened, and Eiliss, the tall, shining woman who had found Lillis, stood in the threshold. She wore a gown that sparkled like snow in sunlight, and her long, golden brown hair tumbled down her back in lustrous ringlets. A circlet of fragrant white Amarynth crowned her head, and her warm amber eyes made Lillis want to laugh with joy and forget all about silly things like whether or not this—and she—were real.

“Come,
ajianas,”
Eiliss said. “We have visitors. I think you will both be pleased to see them.”

With a cry of excitement, Lorelle bounced to her feet and bounded out. Lillis paused to pick up Snowfoot, then followed more slowly. Eiliss led the way down the corridors of the beautiful building out into the verdant town square, where fingers of mist swirled and eddied around soaring conifers and evergreens, and a central fountain splashed like the melody of a peaceful song.

There, at the center of a cluster of Fey villagers, stood two Fey warriors clad in black leather: one with flowing, waist-length blond hair, the other with shining chestnut. At the sound of Lorelle’s excited squeal, they turned in unison, their beautiful Fey faces breaking into smiles of welcome.

“Little Fey’cha,” laughed Kiel as Lorelle raced across the square and leapt into his arms. He swung her around in exuberant circles.

“Ajiana.”
Kieran walked towards Lillis, a dazzling smile upon his beloved face, his Fey-bright eyes as blue as sky-flowers.

Lillis stood frozen in place. Her heart pounded like one of Papa’s hammers in her chest. Kieran looked exactly the way she pictured him from her most treasured memories. Exactly. Tall, handsome, his skin luminescent, his eyes Fey-bright…

… with Love the kitten perched upon his shoulder, flicking her stubby little tail against his ear and purring so loud Lillis could hear it clear across the square.

And then she knew, and her nine-year-old heart broke.

“You’re not real.” Tears blurred her vision. “None of this is real.” Mama, Papa, Lorelle, Kieran, Kiel—the family and friends she loved so dearly—all were just an illusion. She turned to Eiliss, sobbing. “Why? Why are you doing this to me? “

“Are you not safe?” the shining Fey replied. “Are you not happy? “

“It’s all a lie!” she cried. “I thought Fey didn’t lie!”

“Is it a lie to offer you what your heart desires? To make you happy and keep you safe from harm. Here, in the Mists, you can be with your mother. Is that not what you want most?”

Hot tears ran down Lillis’s cheeks, and sobs tore from her throat in painful heaves. “But not like this!”

Lorelle—or rather the illusion that wore Lorelle’s face—stepped forward. “Listen to Lady Eiliss. You are in danger out there. Here, with us, you are safe. You wanted to be safe, and so you are. You wanted to be with Mama, and she’s here. You wanted Kieran and Kiel, and they are here, too.”

Lillis backed away. “No! No! I won’t stay here. This isn’t what I want.” Her wild, tear-filled gaze fixed on Mama, standing in the doorway, watching Lillis. She was the only one who didn’t say anything, the only one who didn’t try to convince Lillis to stay. She simply stood there, watching Lillis with wise and watchful eyes.
It’s better to choke on a bitter truth than savor a honey-cake lie.
Mama’s admonition rang in Lillis’s ears.

Lillis squeezed her eyes shut and clutched Snowfoot to her chest. “Go away!” she cried. “Go away, all of you! This isn’t what I want! I want the truth! Show me the truth!”

A hot tingling sensation flashed through her body. The burbling splash of the village fountain and the whisper of the wind rustling through the treetops faded. The pleading voices of Papa, Kieran, Kiel, and Lorelle died away and the world fell into utter silence.

Pain intruded. It started as a dull ache, then accelerated to burning, throbbing spikes of pain jabbing her like knives.

Lillis cried out, and her eyes flew open.

The village in the misty valley was gone. Lorelle, Papa, Kieran, Kiel—Mama—all were gone. She lay buried in a pile of rubble. The world was dark except for a tiny shaft of pale light that illuminated the prison of rocks and dirt and broken tree limbs that lay heaped over her body.

She couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe. Something heavy pressed down on her chest. She tried to move her hand, then cried out when bones grated and a sharp pain lanced up her arm.

She coughed, then cried out again. Her chest was on fire. Each breath felt like the stab of a knife. She had no sensation at all below her chest, and she had a terrible feeling she knew why.

Just two years ago, Tomy Sorris’s older brother had fallen from the roof of his family home while trying to sneak out his bedroom window and get into mischief with his friends. They said his back was broken and that he couldn’t move his arms or legs. His injuries had been too grave for the local hearth witch, and he’d died before a more powerful healer could come.

Was that why the Mists had created that illusion of Mama and Papa and the beautiful city in the valley? Had whatever magic lived here in the Mists been trying to make her last bells as happy and peaceful as possible?

Lillis closed her eyes and let the tears welling in her eyes spill down into her hair. “Mama… Papa…” This bit of hard truth wasn’t just bitter, it was the most awful torment she’d ever known.

She was dying.

She’d thought she was going to die before, when war had broken out at Teleon and she’d seen the
darrokken
racing up the mountainside towards her, but now she knew it for certain. Death was crouching patiently, just beyond what she could see. She could feel its cold nearness in each painful, struggling gasp of breath. Soon it would pounce, just like Snowfoot pouncing on a jingle ball.

Frightened, she tried to call out, but her throat was too dry, her lungs too short of breath to do more than croak raggedly. “Papa? Lorelle?”

No answer.

“Kieran? Kiel? Anyone?” Her weak, raspy call fell like a coin into a bottomless wishing well, swallowed quickly by silence and darkness.

Her head fell back. More frightened, desolate tears spilled from her eyes, and her broken ribs sent jolts of pain radiating through her with each small, ragged sob she couldn’t manage to hold back.

For the first time in her life, Lillis was all alone.

And she knew, if someone didn’t find her soon, she would die here, lost in the Faering Mists, trapped in the rubble of a shattered mountain.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

A knock sounded at Vadim Maur’s office door.

“Enter.”

The door pushed inward, and Primage Zev stood on the threshold. “Generals Corag, Grosh, and Daemor are in position, Most High.”

“Excellent. And our Celierian friends?”

“Awaiting your command, Master Maur. The Tairen Soul is approaching Primage Fen’s position.”

Vadim leaned back and touched his steepled fingers to the underside of his chin. “Tell Fen to spring the trap.”

Celieria ~ Northern Border

The missile struck without warning.

It came from behind and plowed into Rain’s hind leg just below his left hip, detonating an explosion of raw pain. He roared and wrapped Ellysetta in an instinctive buffer of magic as he careened through the air and fought to regain control. Instantly, a new agony seared him, worse than weapon’s initial bite. Needles of white-hot pain shot through his veins and stabbed behind his eyes. A familiar bitter tang filled the back of his mouth.

Sel’dor.

«Ellysetta, hang on! We’re under fire!»
Despite the pain, he maintained his protective weave around her.

A moment later, the sky before them turned black with a barrage of bowcannon spears flying faster and higher than any he’d ever encountered. Rain reared back. A second bolt pierced his chest, near his foreleg, while a third skimmed by so close it tore the edge of his right wing. He roared and banked with desperate speed as a fourth bolt scored his ribs and tore a hole through his left wing, leaving splinters of
sel’dor
behind. With Ellysetta on his back, he could not Change to avoid the missiles.

«Rain! To your left!»
Ellysetta spun a dense pattern of Air and slammed it into the volley of spears, batting them away bare moments before they pierced Rain’s heart.

«Hold on. Keep low.»
His wings flapped wildly as he fought to retain his balance and keep them aloft while he scanned the ground below for the source of the weapons fire. A Celierian Border Lord’s castle hugged the bend of the Heras River, and he spied the bowcannon on its ramparts just as they spat a fresh volley of
sel’dor
-tipped missiles.

Tairen breath heaved from his lungs, meeting the fine mist of venom that sprayed from his fangs and igniting just a few fingerspans from his muzzle when the two combined. Tairen fire poured forth in a roaring jet, incinerating the incoming spears to harmless black dust. He screamed a defiant challenge and dove toward the ramparts, raining fire upon the castle walls, consuming one full line of bowcannon and the soldiers scrambling to reload them.