Crown of Crystal Flame (59 page)

«Aiyah, fellana, you do make me roar.»
He was touching her, skin to skin, and their bond was at last complete. Her thoughts were as open and accessible to him as her emotions had been, as her body was now. There was no part of her he did not know as well as he knew himself. No Shadow, no Light, no thought, or hope that he could not share.

Once, that would have alarmed her. To be so… naked. So utterly vulnerable, even to him. Now, it filled her with joy, a warm, radiant happiness like a sun shining forever in her soul.

She smiled into his eyes, loving him with a completeness she’d never dreamed possible. There was no part of her that did not belong to him, no part of him that did not belong to her. They were now one soul, shared between two bodies. One soul existing in a state of grace so perfect, so complete, it was as close to feeling the hand of the gods as a living creature could experience.

Her fingers traced the smooth, proud lines of his face and neck, caressed the breadth of his shoulders, marveling at the softness of the Fey skin that covered such indomitable strength. “You are my strength,
shei’tan.”

“And so I will be for all eternity, Ellysetta
shei’tani.”
He caught her hand and pressed a smiling kiss into her palm. The tip of his tongue touched her skin in a small, catlike lick. The glow kindling in his eyes turned the tiny, feline caress into an erotic promise. “Wilt thou join thy beloved,
shei’tani?”

Her lips curved, lashes lowering in a simmering look. “Always,
shei’tan.”

His mouth touched hers, and heat bloomed in instantaneous response. She arched against him, purring in her throat as his hands smoothed down the sides of her body and tracked trails of fire and longing in their wake.

“Mrowr?”

A rush of cold air swept into the protected warmth of the
shellabah.
Ellysetta’s eyes flashed open, as a familiar voice sang,
«No, no, kitling. When the Feyreisa and Feyreisen are mating they like ‘privacy.’ You must knock before entering their lair.»

She and Rain groaned together and turned towards the purple silk drapes—one of which now sported the face of an inquisitive tairen kitling poking through at the bottom. “Mrowr?” Hallah said again, twitching her black ears.

«Knocking! Knocking!»
three kitling voices chimed with delighted exuberance. Hallah squawked as the silk drape over her head ripped from its moorings and three kitlings tumbled into the
shellabah
on top of her. Fuzzy and adorable, their wings still sporting downy fur, Letah, Sharrah, and Miauren clambered to their feet, and promptly lost all interest in Steli’s lessons about knocking in favor of chasing the pretty, fluttery purple thing now tangled in their wings and tails.

Watching them, Steli purred in maternal contentment then told Ellysetta and Rain, “Steli is teaching the kitlings to do knocking.”

“So we see,” Rain said drily. “Thank you so much, Steli
chakai”

Steli snickered, twitched her nose, then gave a great, feline yawn and fluttered her wings.
«Hunting tomorrow.»

“Somewhere other than here, I hope.” Ellysetta sat up, spinning a gown to cover herself.

«Hunting?»
The kitlings stopped chasing the silk drape and perked up.
«Pouncing!»

Pouncing was apparently a lesson Steli had already taught, because all four kitlings immediately began hunkering down, growling in their throat, then leaping at one another, crying.
«Pounce! Pounce! Pounce!»

Ellysetta squealed and leaped out of the way as Sharra came tumbling past, crashing into the chaise and sending it skittering across the
shellabah’s
warmed marble floors.

«Very good pouncing, kitlings,»
Steli purred in approval.
«But be careful of the pride-kin. In this form, they break.»

«Sorry, sorry,»
Sharra mumbled, then she growled and threw herself on her siblings again.

As Ellysetta laughed and rolled her eyes, a second interruption ended any hope of shooing out the tairen and returning to the peace and privacy she and Rain had been enjoying since returning to the Fading Lands.

A private Spirit weave arrived from Dharsa.
«Rain? Ellysetta?»

«Marissya?»
Rain answered instantly, all humor wiped away by concern. Marissya would not have intruded except for good reason.
«What is it? What’s wrong?»

«Neitha,»
she assured him.
«Nothing is wrong. But we have found something in the Hall of Scrolls. I think you both should come.»

The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa

The Hall of Scrolls had been badly damaged in the attack on Dharsa, but its Keeper, Tealah vol Jianas, had insisted that all homes and the palace be restored before the Fey diverted any of their efforts to repairing the Hall. Consequently, it was only now, a full week after the battle, that the rubble was cleared. And in doing so, the Fey had uncovered a secret stair that had been hidden behind a thick, solid wall of stone.

At the sight of the broken rock and the gaping, jagged edges of the dark hole that led down below the Hall, the hairs on the back of Ellysetta’s neck stood up. Her hand reached for Rain’s.

“There is a mirror down there,” she said. “Like the Mirrors of Inquiry here in the Hall.” All but a few of those Mirrors now lay smashed and shattered in the rubble.

Marissya looked at her in surprise.
“Aiyah,
there is a mirror. But how did you know? “

“I have seen it before. In my dreams.” She released Rain’s hand and ducked into the jagged doorway, summoning a ball of Fire to light her way. The stair curved down into a small, windowless stone chamber beneath the Hall of Scrolls, and there, in the center of the room, just like her dreams, sat the dark, oval mirror perched on a stone column.

As she approached it, the mirror began to glow a phosphorescent blue, and a face appeared in the center of the glowing light. Blond hair billowed gently around the stern, Fey-beautiful masculine face from her dreams. Green eyes shone like stars. The mouth opened, and a voice spoke, deep and resonant.

“I am the Mirror of Knowledge. I wait for the one foretold to restore all that was lost.”

“That’s all it’s been saying since we found it,” Marissya said. “We’ve asked it every question we could think of, it won’t tell us who the one foretold is, what it will restore, or how to restore it.”

Ellysetta remembered her last dream of the mirror, the intricate weave of
shei’dalin’s
love and Azrahn that had spun from her hand. “I think I know.” She glanced at Rain. “I think I am the one foretold, and I think this is the key.” She showed the others the weave in Spirit. She no longer feared Azrahn—with her soul now joined to Rain’s, Darkness would never again threaten her—but she didn’t want to just impulsively start spinning.

He nodded. He knew every dream she’d ever had as intimately as she did. “Go ahead,
shei’tani.
Though perhaps, to be safe, the other
fellanas
should leave the room?”

“Are you joking?” Tealah sputtered. “This room has been hiding beneath the Hall of Scrolls for who knows how long. Whatever happens, I’m not going to miss it.”

Marissya didn’t want to leave, but as she carried the only other Tairen Soul in the Fading Lands beside Ellysetta and Rain, she chose caution over curiosity.

When she was gone, Rain and Ellysetta wove protective weaves around the stone chamber and then Ellysetta spun the weave from her dream. Azrahn and
shei’dalin’s
love poured from her fingertips, looping and twining in a perfect reproduction of the weave from her dream. The blue glow behind the mirror’s face began to swirl and brighten, and the mirror man’s eyes flashed with sudden green sparks that flew out of the glass.

Rain shoved Ellysetta and Tealah behind him. Magic flared to life in his hands, but the green sparks had already stopped and begun to swirl in a cone of light that became the figure of a Fey king standing tall and proud before them in the golden war armor of the Fey. He had gold-shot chestnut hair and eyes like burning flame. When he spoke, his voice shimmered with gold and silver sparkles, like tairen speech. “I am Tevan, called Fire Eyes, born of the Fey king Sevander and his queen Fellana the Bright, Lady of Light, she who was once tairen and
makai
of the Fey’Bahren pride.”

“Oh. My. Gods.” Tealah covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes huge as saucers. “He was real. The legend is true.”

“I offer greeting to the one who was foretold, the daughter of my line—the line of Fellana the Bright—who carries within her the magic of Fey and Elfkind, tairen and Mage. May the memories I once erased from the world to save it, now be yours to use for the good of all, in keeping with the will of the gods. May the Light always shine on your Path, daughter of Fellana, and may you be as bright a beacon for our people as she who gave me life.”

“Rain,” Ellysetta breathed, reaching for his hand.

“I know,” he murmured, equally as dazed.

The image of Tevan disappeared, and the face in the mirror began to speak. “I am the Mirror of Knowledge, created by command of the Fey King Tevan Fire Eyes, to hold all knowledge that was removed from the world so that it could one day be restored.”

Much later, as night descended over Dharsa, and the Mother and Daughter moons rose to add their brightness to that of the winter star called Erimea, Rain and Ellysetta gathered in the palace with Ellysetta’s parents, her quintet, and the members of the new Massan to share the incredible secrets revealed by the Mirror of Knowledge. Water master, Loris v’En Mahr, had accepted the role as the leader of the Massan. Eimar remained as its Air master, while Dax joined as the new Earth master. Bel and Tajik had agreed to stand as acting Spirit and Fire masters, until Rain decided which Fey Lord should replace Tenn and the deceased Spirit master, Nurian.

“The Time Before Memory was the time when Fey used Azrahn freely,” Ellysetta told them. “According to the Mirror of Knowledge, the Fey did not come with the prides to this world. Only the Elves did. When Lissallukai breathed her magic across the Bay of Flames, a tribe of mortals living by the bay were the first to swim in its waters and they were transformed by her great magic, just as the legend claimed. Only because they were the first, their gift was the greatest—that gift was the six branches of Fey magic, the power over the four elements and the two mystics. Those mortals became the Fey.”

Ellysetta hid a smile as several of her quintet shifted in discomfort. Though far from mortal now, the ancestral link didn’t sit well with them. These Fey had much to learn. Mortals might not be magical, but they had their own special gifts, and she intended to see the friendship between Fey and Celieria blossom once more.

“Of those six branches of magic, the greatest was the gift of Azrahn, the soul magic,” Rain added, “which has both a Light and a Dark side to it. The Light side, the Fey have spun without fear since the Time Before Memory—it is the power we know as
shei’dalin’s
love.”

Now it was Marissya’s turn to flinch in surprise.

“The Dark side,” Rain continued, “what we know as Azrahn, is very powerful in its own right, but also dangerous. It is a force of destruction and force, rather than healing and peace. Together in its wholeness, Azreisenan, the soul magic, is the true source of our power… of our immortality, of our fertility, of our magic. And in giving the Fey power over the Dark side of Azrahn, as well as the Light, the gods gave the Fey a gift they never gave the Elves—freedom. Freedom to choose our path. But that gift is also our test.”

“All great gifts come with a great price,” Bel murmured.

“Aiyah,”
Ellysetta agreed, “and the price of the greatest gift ever given to the Fey—the gift of Azrahn—is the temptation of the Dark Path. No Elf will ever fall to Darkness. They are incapable of it, because the gods never gifted them with the fullness of Azrahn. But the Fey can, because we can choose to wield our magic for good or evil.”

“If Azrahn is such a boon to the Fey,” Tajik interrupted, “why would it be outlawed and why would its use be wiped from the memory of the world? “

“Because in Sevander’s time—and Tevan’s own—many of the Fey began seeking ever greater and greater power—especially those who were strongest in Azrahn, including Sevander’s uncle. They began to focus exclusively on the Darkest powers of Azrahn. They became the Mages. Sevander’s uncle was, in fact, the Mage who transformed Fellana into a Fey.”

“And then used the tairen’s power he’d gotten from her to wage war against the Fey,” Dax said.

Rain nodded. “And his descendants continued his work, raising an even greater army. A force the like of which the world had never seen.”

“The Army of Darkness,” Gil said.

“Aiyah,”
Rain agreed. “And it was as devastating a force as the legends portray—much worse than the revenant army this Mage put together. It was so devastating in fact, that after he defeated it, Tevan Fire Eyes and his tairen and Elvish advisors decided the Fey were not ready for the great and dangerous power of Azrahn. With their help, he wiped all knowledge of its use from the world. In doing so, he robbed the Mages of all the secrets of their Dark magic and created the Time Before Memory.”

“He and his advisors thought that by outlawing the use of the Dark side of Azrahn, they would spare the Fey the greatest temptation of the Dark Path,” Ellysetta concluded. “And they did. The world entered a time of great peace—the golden years of the First Age. But over the millennia, the Mages began rebuilding their lost knowledge. And as generation after generation of Fey banished their most powerful masters of Azrahn for weaving it, the Fey unknowingly drained their own bloodlines of the magic most essential to their survival.” She glanced at Gaelen. “That’s why the
dahl’reisen
thrive while the Fey wither. Because so many of them are still powerful masters of Azrahn—and because between the High Mage’s breeding efforts and the remnant magic of the Mage Wars, the Light and Dark sides of Azrahn were being combined again.”