Queen of Song and Souls (24 page)

The empathic part of Ellysetta's soul seemed strangely distant,
unmoved by the woman's obvious distress. Instead, drawn by the
same driving compulsion that had
brought her to this room, she fol
lowed the
attendant carrying the child. A short corridor led from
the birthing room to a nursery. Inside, dozens of cradles lined the
walls of the room, and in each lay a
swaddled in/ant.

Now a sense of triumph filled the distant hollowness that
seemed to have overtaken her senses. She looked about the room
and her chest expanded on a swell of pride. She lifted her hands and summoned her power, and the infants burbled unintelligibly
in response, waving their tiny fists in the air as if happy to see her.
She walked from one cradle to the next, peering
in at the tiny oc
cupants. Each in/ant's eyes shone up at her like gleaming black
coins, and on each tiny, pale chest, a dark smudge lay like a spot
of ink over
the baby's heart.

Without Rain, there would never be a child born of her body. But
that did not mean she would be
childless. These infants were her
offspring, souls
summoned from the Well into bodies created by and
infused with her magic. They
might be flesh of another's flesh, but
she was the one who'd
breathed life and magic into their bodies.

They were hers, and they were just the beginning.

Ellysetta returned to consciousness with a sudden gasp. Her eyes flashed open, and she straightened in the saddle abruptly. Her hands clutched at the leather pommel as she dragged breath into her lungs and tried to still her pounding heart.

«
Shei'tani
.» Rain's tairen head turned, and one glowing purple eye fixed on her in concern. They were still in the air, and the sky was still dark.

Feeling hazy and disoriented, she peered down at the night-shadowed land below them. «
Where are we?»

«About two hundred miles southeast of Celieria City.»

They'd traveled at least one hundred miles since last she remembered. «
I think we need to stop,
» she said.
«I fell asleep, and I was dreaming again.
» She couldn't keep the tremor out of her Spirit voice. The gloating triumph in her dream had felt all too real, and she knew that if the Mage succeeded in incarnating into her body and claiming her magic for his own, he would use that magic to build an army of Azrahn-gifted children who would be bound to him, serving only him. He and they would rule the world of Eloran like gods.

Without another word, Rain tucked in his wings and dove for the earth, spreading them wide again just in time to break his fall. He landed with smooth grace in a grassy field, back claws digging into the earth for balance as he settled. He set Ellysetta on her feet in the center of her quintet and Changed.

"
Bel, bas paravei taris
," he told his second in command. We stop here. Ellysetta needs to sleep.

Bel gave a swift nod and gestured to the gathering
lu'tan
. Protective twenty-five-fold shields sprang up in an instant, and the quintet added a smaller six-fold weave around Rain and Ellysetta for added protection.

Rain spun a bower for them from tender grass and divested himself of armor and steel before gathering her in his arms. He didn't ask about her dream. He didn't pry. He simply held her close, resting his head against hers and stroking one hand along her spine. "
Ke sha taris, shei'tani
," he said. "I am here if you need to talk."

She closed her eyes. She hadn't told him about her visits to the pregnant noblewomen and the magic their children possessed. He was so preoccupied with worries about the war and fear that he wouldn't be able to gather allies powerful or numerous enough to turn back the Eld, she hadn't wanted to add another burden. But now, she could keep silent no longer.

"Annoura's baby isn't the only one with magic," she confessed. "They all have it—and they all wield Azrahn. I'm to blame, Rain. I gave them magic—or the Mage did through me. There's no other possible explanation." Quickly, before she lost her courage, she told him about her dream.

He heard her out, but his only reaction was one of concern, not fear or horror. "I will have Bel contact the
lu'tan
and bid them guard those women. The Mage can't do anything to their children if he can't get his hands on them." He pulled back to look into her eyes. "And you need to stop blaming yourself for everything. You didn't mean to spin that weave. You certainly didn't mean for those women to become pregnant or for their children to be magical."

"But I did... and they are."

"You gave them a gift, Ellysetta. A great and wondrous gift. What comes of that has yet to be seen, but I will not be so quick to assume the worst. No matter what the Mage may have done to you before you were born, I will not believe you are anything less than the gods intended you to be."

"But—"

"Shh. You are my
shei'tani
and my truest love, and all that you are is bright and shining. I know this, even if you do not. And that means whatever gift you gave these children came from the Light, not the Dark." He spun a small Earth weave to free her hair from its plait and ran his fingers through the spiraling curls before nudging her back into his arms with a gentle push of Air.
"Liath dai taris.
Sleep now. And do not fear to dream. I am with you."

She closed her eyes and settled against him. In his arms, protected by the six-fold weave of her quintet, the twenty-fivefold weaves of her
lu'tan,
and the unwavering warmth of Rain's love, she slept.

She woke to the oppressive weight of evil. The night was eerily still. Moonlight shone down upon the encampment, illuminating the forms of Rain and the other warriors lying motionless on the ground around her, and everywhere the bright scarlet of blood lay upon them.

Panic seized her by the throat.

They were dead and she was sitting in a field of corpses.

But then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to find one of her
lu'tan,
his Fey skin shining faintly silver in the night, walking along the perimeter of the encampment. He paused to speak with another warrior seated on a tree stump and whatever they were saying made them laugh softly.

Ellysetta blinked and the wash of red disappeared. She looked at Rain more closely and noted the faint glow of his skin and the rise and fall of his chest. The air left her lungs on a relieved breath. Not dead, thanks the gods. Only sleeping.

Gods save her. She scrubbed her hands over her face. She'd had so little sleep this last week, her mind was playing tricks on her. She could have sworn that when she first looked at them, she'd seen them all dead. She'd been sure of it.

Even now, she could still smell the bitter stench of death in the air, taste it with each breath she dragged into her lungs. Evil crouched in the darkness, reeking of malevolence. The sensation was so real, so vivid, every muscle in her body drew tight. Her skin throbbed with revulsion and stabbing pain.

Ellysetta drew her hands slowly from her face and strained her eyes to pierce the darkness beyond the borders of the camp. Neither physical eyes nor Fey vision could detect anything amiss, but she knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong, and it wasn't her imagination.

"Rain." She reached for his shoulder, keeping her movements small.
«Shei'tan, wake up. I
think
we're
in
trouble.»

His breathing stilled. He went motionless as stone; then his eyes opened.

«There's something out there
.» She touched her fingers to the skin of his neck so he could feel the sick horror coiling inside her.

«Demon.»
His eyes glowed and their focus went slightly hazy. Around them, she sensed as much as saw the change in her quintet as each warrior woke, and their hands crept towards their steel.

A split second later, the two guards laughing softly by the perimeter of the camp fell abruptly silent. She turned to see them fall to the ground, bodies limp, throats gaping. There was no sign of whatever had killed them.

"Stay dose to your quintet.»
That was all Rain said to her before his shout ripped the stillness of the night. "Fey!
Bote
cha!"
Blades at the ready!
"Lu'tan, ti'Feyreisa!"

Warriors leapt to their feet, magic blazing. Fey'cha flew into the darkness. Her quintet closed ranks around her as Rain shot skyward on a jet of Air, summoning the great magic of the Change.

Whatever was out there still did not show itself, but from all around them came a strange whirring thrum, like a thousand cats purring.

"Shields!" Gaelen cried.

"Air masters, deflect missiles!" Bel shouted alongside him.

Bowstrings, Ellysetta realized. The purring sound was bowstrings, hundreds of them, released in near-perfect unison from a close distance. Her quintet ringed close, spinning a canopy of steel and magic over her head. The rest of the
lu'tan
hefted steel war shields high while Air masters spun a whirlwind to disperse the incoming arrows. The
sel'dor
missiles were too numerous. A dozen
lu'tan
fell to the enemy's fire, and scores more flinched as barbed
sel'dor
shafts sank deep in their flesh. Overhead, Rain's vertical ascent ended abruptly as black shafts, far thicker than standard arrows, slammed into his golden war steel, piercing his chest, hip, and thigh.

"Rain!" she cried as he dropped from the sky. Instinctively, she lurched towards him.

«
Stay with your quintet.» he commanded. His Spirit voice throbbed with pain.

He landed hard, but leapt to his feet in an instant. With both hands, he gripped the thick
sel’dor
shaft protruding from his chest and yanked it free. Ellysetta cried out as pain seared her senses, but Rain just set his jaw and pulled the second missile free from his hip, then the third from his thigh. He dropped them on the ground at his feet and spun a small weave of Earth and Fire to stop his wounds from bleeding.

Ellysetta wept. The need to go to him was overpowering, but he was already wading into battle, blades drawn, teeth bared in a snarl. Red Fey'cha flew from his hands into the darkness.

Something else rained down along with the arrows, and the cold, sickly sweet stench of Azrahn filled the air. Black shadows rose up from within the circle of gathered Fey, as if night itself were attacking. All around,
lu’tan
went gray, their glowing essence siphoned away in an instant. Lifeless, their bodies dropped to the ground without a sound.

"Demons!" Warriors near the fallen men shouted the warning. "Five-fold weaves, Fey!" Powerful weaves flared to life, but between the demons, their invisible attackers, and the hail of
sel'dor
arrows raining down. Fey were dropping at alarming rates.

"Where are they?" someone cried. "Flames scorch it, I can't see anything!"

“They're using the Brotherhood's invisibility weaves, like they did in Orest," Gaelen shouted over the din, "If we can find the ones spinning the weaves, we can bring them down."

"Fat lot of use that is," Tajik snarled. "If we can't find the
rultsharts
shooting those jaffing arrows, how the scorching Hells are we going to find the
bogrots
spinning those weaves?"

"Well, we'd better do something, and fast," Bel snapped in reply. "Because they're slaughtering us like sheep in a pen."

On the west flank, a red Fey'cha struck the holder of one of the invisibility weaves in the throat. A body sprawled in the grass, Fey in appearance, except for the scar that ran from temple to the corner of his mouth.

"Dahl'reisen!"
the
lu'tan
closest to the body cried. The dead
dahl'reisen's
invisibility weave winked out, revealing a company of Elden archers and three blue-robed Primages.
"Dahl'reisen
are holding the invisibility weaves!"

The warrior who'd slain the
dahl'reisen
fell to his knees, shrieking as if his skin were being peeled off his body. Fey could not kill other Fey—not even
dahl'reisen
—without losing their own soul in the process, but the
lu'tan
had bound their souls in service to Ellysetta. They could not become
dahl'reisen.
Apparently, however, they still felt the agony of taking a life that had once been Fey.

"Blessed gods," Ellysetta wept as an echo of his agony ripped across his
lute'asheiva
bond. Even protected by twenty-five-fold weaves, she could practically feel her soul be ripped asunder. She fell to her knees and pressed her hands to her temples.

"Ellysetta!" Bel cried.

«
Shei’tani
!»

She clenched her jaw and fought to keep from screaming. «It’s
not me. It's Lathiel. He's in such
pain. Oh, gods, it hurts. It hurts.»

"Fey!" Rain shouted.
"Sel cha!
Unless you see your target, throw black, not red! They have
dahl'reisen
with them!"

Behind the slain
dahl'reisen,
the now-visible Elden archers fired a barrage of arrows towards the Fey, while two Primages loosed large, blue-white globes of Mage Fire as cover. The third Primage spun Azrahn to open a portal to the Well of Souls. Fey'cha rained down upon the Eld, but the Mages and most of the archers leapt to safety into the Well before the Fey daggers hit their marks.