Crown of Crystal Flame (38 page)

The Wall of Steel had lost many of its men, and the Brotherhood used the bodies of the fallen as cover for the living. The
dahl’reisen
forming the Wall rotated continuously. Every few chimes, the outer layer of warriors moved back to the center of the ring to rest while the next row of brothers took their places on the outer line. As
dahl’reisen
died, the ring wall shrank in upon itself, always keeping twelve warriors deep.

At the center of the Wall of Steel, protected by a dome formed from multiple dense, impenetrable thirty-six-fold weaves, Ellysetta healed what wounds she could with each rotation of the Wall. At her side, Rain performed all tasks that required laying hands on the
dahl’reisen
—digging shrapnel from wounds, setting bones, holding flesh together—leaving Ellysetta to spin her healing weaves. The pain of so many
dahl’reisen,
crowded so close, coupled with the bludgeoning evil of the Mharog, had long since overloaded Ellysetta’s senses. She was operating now in a numb fog. Healing whatever wound the
dahl’reisen
put before her, moving when they told her to move, collapsing to her knees when they told her to stop.

Mage Fire pounded the dome with relentless fury until the sky overhead was a blue-white storm, but still—miraculously—those shields held.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

“Orest is taken, Most High. The generals await your command.” Primage Vargus bowed low.

Vadim barely heard him. His attention was focused intently on the glowing map of Celieria where the myriad tiny white lights indicating clusters of
chemar
shone moved through the Verlaine Forest. He zoomed in, tracing the progress of Dur and the Mharog as they pursued the Tairen Soul and his mate. Regrettably, the attack on the
dahl’reisen
village had been routed several bells ago.

“Master Maur?” Vargus prompted.

The High Mage held up a hand for silence as he scrolled the view north, illuminating the bright collection of light now sparkling in the Celierian city of Orest, and farther north to Crystal Lake and the abandoned Fey city of Dunelan, where a few bright dots were slowly making their way around the lake. Finally, he scrolled the map west, across the dark, unlit countryside of northern Fading Lands, the Feyls, and the southern reaches of the Pale, where another four pinpoints of light had nearly reached the thinnest stretch of the Feyls due north of Dharsa.

Everything would soon be in place. He waved, and the glowing tracker map winked out.

“Tell them to secure the city and prepare for the next phase of our attack.”

Celieria ~ Verlaine Forest

“Enough with this… siege,” Azurel hissed to the Primage Dur. “We’re no closer to capturing the Tairen Soul’s mate than we were two bells ago. Time for new tactics.”

Dur scowled. “And just what do you propose? We’ve tried everything we can to get through those shields. Nothing has worked!”

“There is a saying in the Fading Lands… sometimes it’s better to send a mouse than a tairen.”

Dur rolled his eyes. “In plain Elden, if you please.”

“We
don’t need to get through their shields. Only this does.” He held up a
sel’dor
-tipped arrow that he’d modified to hold a
chemar
in its shaft. “Surely we can weaken their shields enough to get a single arrow through.”

Dur arched a brow. “How good is your aim?”

Within a few chimes, the Primages ramped up their bombardment of the Fey shields, pummeling them mercilessly, while six of the Mages combined their powers and focused a bombardment of highly concentrated Mage Fire on a single handspan of the Fey shield.

It took a while, but the small area thinned. And when it did, Azurel and his companions let fly.

One of the arrows broke upon the already-regenerating shields, but two of the
sel’dor
-tipped missiles sliced through, into the center of the protective dome.

Ellysetta’s legs went weak as the all-too-familiar sensation of ice spiders shuddered up her spine.

“Rain!” she cried, falling to one knee. “Portal!”

Rain spun, red Fey’cha in his hands. His eyes flamed tairen-bright, pupils disappearing as his beast rose in response to the threat to his mate. Three Mharog leapt out of the portal and dove towards Rain.

“Fey! Ti’Feyreisa! Ti’Feyreisen!
“

In desperation, Ellysetta tore one of the bloodsworn blades from her belts, slicing her palm deep. Blood welled in a swift, scarlet flow, and she smeared it over the shining surface of her bloodsworn-steel-forged armor to summon her
lu’tan.

“Kem’lu’tan! Ku’vallar! Ku’vallar!”
Help me!

A second portal opened behind her. She only had the briefest warning before an icy hand closed around her wrist.

“Neiiii!
” The shriek of terror and denial ripped from her throat as a Mharog’s black blade with its red Fey’cha hilt slammed into the side of Rain’s neck.

Rain’s vision clouded, and his red Fey’cha fell from abruptly nerveless fingers as the combination of tairen venom and the corruption of the Mharog’s poison blade spread through him. His legs folded, and he dropped heavily to his knees. One hand reached for the hilt of the blade protruding from his neck, then fell away as he toppled to the ground.

He lay on his side, struggling for breath and watching helplessly as Ellysetta shrieked in a Primage’s grip and fought his efforts to drag her into the Well. Rough hands grabbed him by the neck and clawed fingers closed around his jaw, squeezing hard. The foul decay of a rotting soul poured into Rain’s mind. Festering memories of a once bright Fey life, destroyed by the deliberate betrayal of an unfeeling commander. Destroyed by
him
—by Rain.

“She will die in torment, Tairen Soul,” an icy voice hissed. “Think of that as you burn forever in the Seventh Hell, and know that Maron vel Dunne has had his vengeance.”

Rain looked into the hate-maddened eyes of the Mharog without the slightest flicker of recognition. His mouth formed the soundless question.

Who?

The Mharog’s face contorted and he gave a high-pitched shriek. Dark steel flashed as he yanked his
meicha
from its sheath and held it over Rain’s head like an executioner’s axe.

Before the blade could descend, a Fey warrior surrounded entirely by a glow of golden light reached Ellysetta’s side. He slashed at the Mage with blades that gleamed like sunlight. The Primage staggered back away from Ellysetta, a look of shock on his face, bloody stumps where his hands had been and a ribbon of red slashed across his throat. Demons howled out of the Well, surrounding the Mage in a cyclone of shrieking shadow.

Freed, Ellysetta lunged, Fey’cha drawn, towards the Mharog standing over Rain.

Nei… nei, shei’tani. Do not!
Rain tried to shout the warning, but none of the muscles in his throat were working. He couldn’t speak.

Sensing Ellysetta’s presence, the Mharog turned, swift as a snake, but too late to save himself. Her blade plunged into the Mharog’s heart just as another blade, this one blazing like the sun, took off the creature’s head. The Mharog’s decapitated body remained standing for several, long moments, showering Ellysetta and Rain with a fountain of icy black blood. Then the legs collapsed, and the body toppled to the ground. Ellysetta crumpled, too.

She was screaming as if her body were burning from the inside out, as if her skin was being ripped from her bones.

The other two Mharog gave shocked grunts and crumpled to the ground. Someone knelt over Rain, bathing him in warm, golden light. A hand turned him on his side, reaching for the pouch at the back of his hip belt where he kept the cloth-wrapped Shadar horn gifted to him by Galad Hawks-heart.

“You must live, Feyreisen,” a voice commanded.

As Rain’s vision dimmed, and his breath strangled in his throat, he wanted to tell them not to bother. Ellysetta’s face was frozen in a rictus of pain, her eyes as dark as dead stars. The sight shattered his heart, leaving hope a dead thing in his breast.

Shei’tani… shei’tani… nei…

Death wasn’t peaceful.

It was full of shouts and clanging steel, the roars of tairen, and searing heat like the fire of the gods… images flashing for barest instants before his eyes, lights, shadows, familiar faces, a whirl of trees and stars overhead… smells, like the aroma of a campfire burning in a chilly winter night and the odor of something noxious that made him gag and retch.

Hands held him down. Pinned him as he fought and Raged against them. He shouted obscenities, epithets, cursed them and their offspring to eternity burning in the Seventh Hell.

Then silence fell over him like a heavy blanket, and death became a still, black sea into which he sank with an exhausted sigh.

Celieria City ~ The Royal Palace

As he had every night since receiving news of Prince Dorian’s demise, Kolis Manza slipped into the king’s bedchamber by way of the servant stairs that opened to the king’s dressing room.

Master Maur was growing impatient to have Celieria firmly under Mage control. He’d sent a special envoy with an offer to end all hostilities if Annoura agreed to terminate the Fey-Celierian alliance and send what was left of her armies against the
dahl’reisen,
who had been hiding in the Verlaine Forest and using it as a base to attack Eld and murder Celierians along the border who opposed them. Despite a firm push or two from Kolis, Annoura had as yet refused to agree, and it now fell to Kolis to ensure she woke in a more malleable frame of mind.

He stood in the darkened dressing chamber until he heard Annoura settle into bed, then waited for her breathing to assume the steady rhythm of sleep before he slipped into the room and padded silently across the floor to her side.

He blew a puff of
somulus
powder in her face even though he doubted it was necessary. Annoura wanted to believe. She wanted to think Dorian had really returned to her, that it was truly he holding her in his arms each night, making love to her.

He began to spin the Spirit weave of Dorian, returning to his love, but as he reached for the tie of her nightgown and sent the first, faint pulse of masked Azrahn into her body, he froze. His nostrils flared, and in a sudden motion, he snatched the wavy-edged
sel’dor
dagger from the sheath at his waist and plunged it into Annoura’s chest.

The queen’s expression didn’t change, and her breathing continued uninterrupted. But the area of her chest around Kolis’s dagger spat small showers of lavender sparks.

“I told you a Spirit weave wouldn’t fool him for long.”

The voice came from an empty part of the room. Kolis leapt to his feet, Mage Fire blooming in his hands just as five-fold weaves and several red Fey’cha flew from the empty room around him. His Mage Fire dissolved, and he staggered as the blades sank into his chest.

Five Fey and a mortal materialized inside the room.

“You!” he exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the mortal’s face. “But you’re…” His words slurred as the tairen venom raced through his body. His eyes rolled back and his body collapsed.

Prince Dorian—the new King Dorian XI—eyed the twitching corpse coldly. “Dead?” he finished. “So they tell me.” He flicked a glance at the Fey. “Get this piece of
krekk
out of my palace.”

Leaving the Fey to dispose of the body, Dorian exited his father’s bedchamber and strode down the hallway to a warded room where Gaspare Fellows and the
dahl’reisen
sent by Dorian’s father were watching over his unconscious mother, the queen.

The
dahl’reisen
looked up when he entered. The spiral of shadowy Azrahn in his palm winked out, and he nodded. “It worked, Your Majesty. The Marks are gone.”

Dorian closed his eyes and bowed his head in weary relief and murmured a brief prayer of thanks that at least he’d been able to save one person he loved. He sat on the edge of the bed beside his mother and took her hand as the
dahl’reisen
removed the weave keeping her unconscious.

His mother’s lashes fluttered, then slowly lifted. Her delicate silver brows drew together in hazy confusion when she saw him. “Dori?”

Tears sprang to his eyes. “Yes.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “It’s me.”

“You’re alive!” She sat up, flinging her arms around him. “Thank the gods. They said your ship went down.”

“It did, Mama. The Danae saved me. The Tairen Soul’s trip to Elvia brought us the allies we needed to defeat the enemy at Great Bay.”

“Oh, Dori!” Abruptly, tears filled Annoura’s eyes, and her features twisted with a mix of elation and grief. “Dori… oh, Dori, he’s gone. He’s gone.”

“I know, Mama.” Dorian put his face against his mother’s neck as he hadn’t done since childhood. They both wept, mourning the loss of the husband and father who’d been the center of their lives.

Eld ~ Boura Fell 9
^th
day of Seledos

Damn them! Damn them! Damn them for their incompetence!

Vadim Maur snatched the silverglass mirror off his bedchamber wall and smashed it against the stone. It exploded with a satisfying crash, sending shards and splinters of glass flying in all directions. He grabbed the carved chaise in the corner of the room and slammed it into the wall until it broke into kindling. The small private desk and chair suffered a similar fate a few chimes later.

Vadim stood in the center of the wreckage, panting with exertion and trembling with rage.

Did he have to do everything by himself?

Kolis Manza was dead. Prince Dorian—the new king—was not. Annoura and the unborn child who were to have been Vadim’s power in Celieria were lost to him. And working in league with the
dahl’reisen,
the new King Dorian had instantly begun a purge of not only his court but the entire city. Centuries of planning and careful cultivation were unraveling with increasing speed.

And to top it all off, Ellysetta Baristani had escaped capture. Again.

Of all the bitter disappointments—of all the gross ineptitudes—that was the worst.

His Mages had failed him. All of them. Nour had failed. Manza had failed. Keldo had failed. Dur and the Mharog had failed. Every Primage and Sulimage he’d entrusted to bring his great plan to fruition had failed.