Crown of Crystal Flame (24 page)

A hail of arrows followed on the heels of the Mage Fire, and yet another volley of Mage Fire followed the arrows. Ellysetta deflected the arrows but Rain could not even slow the Mage Fire.

“Rain.” Ellysetta gasped softly and grabbed his hand, squeezing tight.

A sudden blast of energy from the west ridge intercepted the hurtling balls of Mage Fire and destroyed them.

Their unlikely savior was a blue-robed Primage heading up a second troop of soldiers and archers. “Kill the Tairen Soul, if you must, idiots,” the Primage shouted in Eld to the two apprentice Mages, “but harm the girl, and the High Mage will roast and eat your livers out of your still-living bodies.”

Rain glanced behind them, to the Mages approaching from the west, north, and east, then looked down at the troops standing between them and the river. “That’s our only chance,” he said. “I don’t see any Mages there.”

Ellysetta raised her brows. “So what are we standing here for?”

He laughed, loving her. Then his expression went serious as he handed her two red Fey’cha.

She took the poison blades and searched his face.

“In case, I cannot save us,” he admitted in a low voice.

Her gaze fell, and she nodded in solemn understanding. Their situation was grim. Rain would die before letting the Mages take her, and if he did, the Fey’cha would at least give her a way to avoid capture. She sheathed the poison blades carefully in the knife belt across her chest.

He touched her cheek. “Lend me your strength,
shei’tani?”

“You need not ask.”

“And give me one last kiss?”

She smiled and moved into his arms. “You need not ask for that either.”

Her lips, so warm and soft, parted beneath his. She tasted of life and sweetness and all the dreams he’d ever dreamed as a boy. She tasted of hope and of a future he’d never allowed himself to want since he’d found his wings. Regret dimmed his pleasure. She was so young, her life so unfulfilled.

Ellysetta pulled away to look into his eyes. “No regrets, Rain. I have none.”

Peace settled over him. He nodded, his throat too tight for words, and kissed her once more.
«Ver reisa ku’chae. Kem sera, shei’tani.»

Her hands closed around his. The brightness that was Ellysetta flowed up his arms and filled him with peace and warm, rejuvenating strength. He gave her back the essence that was himself and watched her eyes flutter closed. She smiled, a secret, womanly smile.
“Ke vo san, shei’tan.
I always have. I always will.”

Together they turned to face the advancing line of soldiers.

“There.” Rain directed her attention to the spot where the line of soldiers was thinnest. He gathered his power. They would not have more than a few moments to make their escape. He would have to strike hard and fast, with only one or two concentrated weaves to open up a corridor between the advancing Eld.

She squared her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

They ran down the hill, magic blazing. Earth shuddered violently. The ground split open to the left and right, and dozens of soldiers toppled into the fissures. Fire and Air roared down the hillside, plowing through the remaining line of men and clearing a direct path to the Heras River.

Sel’dor
screamed in Rain’s flesh, amplified by the echo of Ellysetta’s matching pain, but he roared his defiance of it and held his weaves until his very bones rebelled. They raced through the burning carnage as the remaining soldiers converged on them, swords drawn.

A badly burned soldier leapt from the smoking ruins of his fallen comrades to make a grab for Ellysetta. She slashed out with Rain’s red Fey’cha. Blood spurted from the Eld’s torn throat, splashing her face. She swiped her forearm across her face and kept running. Beside her, Rain swung his
seyani
sword in his left hand and fired off red Fey’cha with his right.

Behind them, the Mages had reached the crest of the ridge. A line of archers fired a volley of arrows. As they soared overhead, Rain saw the white stones attached to each arrow shaft already brightening. Rain grabbed Ellysetta’s hand and put on a desperate burst of speed.

Too late. Portals opened like gaping black maws directly in their path. Mages and soldiers poured out, blocking their path to the river and cutting off their only hope of escape.

Cornered, breathing hard, Rain and Ellysetta turned to face the enemy.

The Fading Lands ~ Chatok

With the Baristanis healed and safely in tow, Kieran and Kiel led their small group back up and over the shattered mountain to the edge of the Faering Mists. Though Teleon and the Garreval now appeared completely clear of Eld, Kieran and Kiel took no chances. They traveled just inside the edge of the Mists, following that edge to the Garreval and emerging only to make a swift dash into the Mists-filled pass between the Rhakis and Silvermist mountains.

They stayed close to the
shei’dalins,
walking in the thinner mist that surrounded them, and the passage into the Fading Lands went without incident. Kieran held Lillis on his back, while Lorelle rode on Kiel, and the girls’ kittens, who had also survived their ordeal, purred happily inside their slings on Kiel’s and Kieran’s chests.

Within a few bells of entering the Garreval, they emerged onto Taloth’Liera, the great, walled field that marked the boundary of the Fading Lands. Fey in full war armor stood atop the wall and flanked the mighty steel gates that led into the Fading Lands.

The warriors guarding the gate greeted Kieran and Kiel as if they’d risen from the dead. Which, Kieran supposed, they had.

“We’re glad to see you alive and well,” the captain of the gate said. “I’m sure Marissya
-falla
will make the Feyreisa’s family feel right at home.”
«Despite the current circumstances,»
he added on the Warrior’s Path.

Kieran and Kiel shared a frown.
«What circumstances?»
Kieran asked.

The Forests of Eld

Eld surrounded Rain and Ellysetta on all sides, swords drawn,
sel’dor
-barbed arrows nocked and aimed. And with them were Mages. Scores of them. Yellow-robed Apprentices, red-robed Sulimages, and twelve of the most dangerous, the blue-robed Primages. The Mages’ eyes were alight with the unholy red-sparked black of Azrahn, and each of them held globes of lethal Mage Fire at his fingertips.

“Throw down your weapons, Tairen Soul,” one of the red-robed Sulimages ordered, “or we’ll see how your mate likes dancing with our Fire.”

Rain sneered at the threat. “Harm her, and the High Mage will roast your liver and eat it from your still-living body,” he reminded them in fluent, perfectly accented Elden.

To the right, the blue-robed Primage gave a wry laugh. “Very true,” he acknowledged pleasantly in equally fluent Feyan. “You have good ears, and a wonderful command of our language.” Suddenly, his eyes blazed black with red lights, and the line of Eld bowmen behind Ellysetta let their arrows fly.

Ellysetta cried out as half a dozen arrows plowed into her back and shoulders, dropping her to the ground and pinning her there. The red Fey’cha in her hands fell harmlessly to the dirt.

Rain let out a choked snarl of fury and reached for his own red Fey’cha, but five more bowmen shifted their stance to aim directly at Ellysetta.

“But,” the Primage continued calmly, “there are degrees of harm. The High Mage wants her brought to him alive, but he won’t mind a scratch or two. And I’m quite expert at knowing how to bring a Fey close to death while keeping her chained to life.” All pretense of warmth left his voice, and his smile vanished. Eyes swirling with Azrahn threatened from the hard, cold face of an unforgiving enemy. “Now drop your weapons, or we’ll see how much more
sel’dor
your mate can take before she cannot stop herself from screaming.”

Rain dropped the sword and Fey’cha still clutched in his hands, then began to unbuckle the straps that held the rest of his weapons.

“Nei,
Rain,” Ellysetta moaned. Her face turned towards him, her eyes glazed with pain. “Don’t do it!”

He shook his head.
«I have no choice, shei’tani, and they know it.»
He’d given her the red Fey’cha to take her own life if he was slain. But fighting would only ensure her torture and his certain death, and she would be left alone and vulnerable in the hands of the Eld.

When all his steel lay in the dirt at his feet, two soldiers and one of the apprentice Mages approached. Two of them gathered his weapons and retreated out of reach.

“Hold out your hands,” the yellow-robed Mage ordered.

Rain extended his arms.

The Mage nodded, and the soldier beside him pulled a pair of black metal manacles from a large leather pouch. Long, sharp black spikes drove inward from the metal cuff, and thick, heavy metal chains joined the manacles together.

“We run across
dahl’reisen
from time to time,” the apprentice Mage informed him, “so we’ve learned to always be prepared.”

Rain shuddered and dropped to one knee as the Eld clapped the manacles over his wrists and drove the
sel’dor
spikes into his bones. The dark metal, poisonous to the Fey, burned where it touched him, making his skin redden and blister, short-circuiting his body’s natural self-healing abilities. His wrists, like every burning wound where
sel’dor
shrapnel still lodged, would remain unhealed and in constant pain until the foul metal was removed.

The Eld stripped off his boots and drove a second set of spiked manacles into his ankles. The raw, searing pain left him breathless and dazed. Ellysetta wept openly, sobbing his name.

“What about her, Master Keldo?” the Apprentice Mage asked.

“Bind her hard,” the Primage answered. “Wrists, ankles, and throat. Master Maur said this one is dangerous.”

The apprentice Mage approached Ellysetta with heavy black manacles and chains.

“Leave her alone!” Rain ordered. He strained against his chains. “Do not dare to touch her.”

“The bindings will cause no permanent injury,” the Primage assured him. “But her magic will be contained.” He issued a sharp command, and several soldiers rushed to hold Ellysetta down as the apprentice clapped the spiked manacles into place around her wrists and ankles.

Ellysetta screamed and began to struggle. Panic grabbed Rain by the throat. He lunged forward, trying to reach her, dragging the four Eld soldiers holding his chains off their feet. Someone cracked him hard over the back of his head, and he collapsed facedown on the ground.

The Fading Lands ~ Chatok

Kieran could scarcely believe the “circumstances” that the captain of the gate had been referring to. Once again, Orest was under attack. This time with dragons to combat the tairen. Once again Rain had called for every warrior in Dharsa to head for the Veil.

And once again, proving that his incalculable stupidity knew no bounds, Tenn v’En Eilan had countermanded that order just as he had countermanded Rain’s order to defend Orest and the Garreval this summer.

To justify his command, Tenn had reminded the Fey that Rain was an outcast, a
dahl’reisen
stripped of his crown and banished for spinning Azrahn. He’d even gone so far as to warn that any Fey who chose to fight alongside their deposed king did so at his own peril and should expect no aid from the Fading Lands.

Kieran met Kiel’s gaze in grim silence.
«That scorch-brained fool,»
he hissed to Kiel on a private weave.
«Teleon was destroyed, Orest nearly taken, and Tenn’s still hiding behind the Mists, thinking that will save us? How can he think dividing us will make us stronger?»

«We could head for Orest now,»
Kiel suggested.
«The shei’dalins can take Master Baristani and the girls the rest of the way to Dharsa without us. If we hurry, we could make the Veil in a little over two days. From the sounds of it, the Fey at Orest need every blade they can get.»

Kieran glanced at the girls standing alongside their father and the two
shei’dalins.
He wanted to head for Orest. His hands itched to hold his blades and feel the razor-sharp steel slice through Eld flesh and bone. He could almost hear the voices of his slain blade brothers at Teleon crying out for him to avenge their deaths.

He clenched his jaw and silenced them.
«Nei,»
he said.
«Nei, the Feyreisa entrusted her family’s safety to us. I will not abandon that duty to another. We see them safe to Dharsa, and into my parents’ care. And then we head for Orest.»

«Agreed, but we need to move quickly. The sooner we reach Dharsa, the better.»

Kieran tugged at his lower lip. Where was a
ba’houda
steed when a Fey needed one? Celierians couldn’t run even half the speed of a Fey for more than a few chimes, and they tired much too easily. Kieran and Kiel didn’t have the strength to carry all three of them—and with a war on, the Garreval couldn’t spare a single warrior to help them.

A gust of sandy wind whipped a long scarlet veil off one of the
shei’dalins.
Kieran watched it swirl and tumble through the air, with the
shei’dalin
running in pursuit, and his lips curved in a slow smile.

«I think I have an idea. Wait here.»
Turning, Kieran jogged back into Chatok, returning a few chimes later with a pile of blankets he’d filched from the barracks. He set the blankets on the ground and summoned his Earth magic.

Lillis watched his weave with interest. “A carpet?”

Kieran gave her a grin. “Lillis,
kem’alia,
haven’t you ever heard the story about the Feraz desert boy and his magic, flying carpet?”

Her eyes widened. “Oooh. We’re going to fly?”

He laughed.
“Aiyah,
you are. Hop aboard. You, too, Master Baristani and Lorelle.
Kabei.
Now, hold on.” Kiel and he combined their powers in an Air weave strong enough to lift the carpet several handspans above the sand. Another simple weave propelled the levitating carpet through the air. Soon, the flying carpet and its riders were racing across the sands towards Dharsa, with Kieran, Kiel, and the
shei’dalins
sprinting swiftly alongside.