Queen of Song and Souls (45 page)

"If you swear vengeance against him, then you must also swear it against me, for what he did, he did so I could be born."

Tajik's brows plummeted. Scowling, he regarded his brother Fey and found confirmation in their set jaws and brooding gazes.

Ellysetta laid her hand on Tajik's wrist.
«He has suffered,»
she told him privately. «
Every
day since before your
sister's
cap
tivity, he has suffered more than he would ever want anyone to
know. He has taken no wife, sired no children, allowed himself no pleasure or joy in his own life since the day he
Saw her
fate.»
All that had come from the brief moment of unguarded communion when she'd met his Elvish eyes and, intentionally or not, he'd dropped the veil of secrecy he kept wrapped so securely about his private thoughts.

"We will find her, Tajik." Bel stepped forward and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I swear to you, we will find Elfeya, and we will set her free."

"Assuming she and Shan still live," Gil muttered.

Ellysetta turned to Hawksheart. "Do they?"

His lashes fell to shutter the drowning sorrow that filled his eyes. The Elf king was far from the cold, unfeeling observer he appeared. He was simply expert at hiding his emotions. But somehow—perhaps through the communion of their souls when he'd joined her to explore the variations of her Songs—he could no longer hide so well from her.

"
Bayas
," he admitted. "They still live."

"Show me."

"Child..."

Her jaw set. Her chin came up. "Show me," she insisted.

Hawksheart muttered something in Elvish, then closed his eyes briefly and gestured towards the mirror pool with one hand.

The shimmering veil of water rising up from the pool dimmed once more, shadow creeping in from the edges while the center swirled with colors that slowly coalesced into a final, grim vision of Ellysetta's parents, both still alive, but bloodied and broken, their bodies little more than oozing masses of cuts, burns, and mottled bruises.

They lay alone in separate cells carved from black rock, chained like dogs with heavy
sel'dor
manacles clamped around their wrists and ankles and necks. Only a dim glow of light from a flickering sconce lifted the darkness that surrounded them.

A choked moan of denial rattled in Tajik's throat. Elfeya— Ellysetta's birth mother and Tajik's sister—was barely breathing, her face bloodied and swollen, her left arm bent at an unnatural angle. The silvery glow of her Fey essence had been extinguished, and those few bits of skin that were as yet unmarred by blood, burns, or bruises were a pallid, sickly shade. Elfeya wasn't dead, but clearly she wasn't far from it.

Ellysetta clutched Rain's arm in a fierce grip. Horror roiled through her, and on its heels came the other emotion, white-hot and venomous.

Rage.

It raced through her blood like a bolt of lightning, enflaming her senses and igniting a bone-deep fury that threatened to explode into the same raw wildness she'd felt the day she'd watched her adoptive mother die beneath the brutal, decapitating chop of a
sel'dor
blade.

The dim light in her father Shannisorran v'En Celay's cell brightened, and a beam of sickly yellow light fell across his face as the cell door swung inward. A tall, robed figure entered, face hidden by the shadowy folds of the robe's deep hood.

As they had earlier, when Ellysetta had seen the image of the High Mage in Hawksheart's mirror, the Mage Marks over her heart prickled as if a hundred tiny splinters of ice had just jabbed into her skin. The cold of the Marks throbbed painfully against the heat of her Rage. Even without seeing the robed man's face, she recognized the High Mage of Eld.

Her tormentor. The murderer of generations of tairen kitlings.

The torturer of her birth parents. The evil man who'd stolen a tairen kitling’s soul and tied it to her own.

Vengeance
, Deep inside, the voice of her tairen hissed.
We
will have vengeance for what he has done. He will scream as we
screamed.
He will fear as we feared. We will make him beg for death.

«
Ellysetta. Shei’tani.»
Rain caught her hand, but the normally soothing peace of his love curled back from her Rage like tinder from flame.

Rip him. Shred him. Tear his flesh. Let his blood shower like rain upon our face. Let his screams be the music of our Song and
his dying breath be the wind on which we soar.

Her head snapped back in sudden horror and she yanked her hand from Rain's. That last hate-filled clamor for blood hadn't come from her tairen.

It had come from her.

Before that realization had time to sink in, the High Mage of Eld gestured, and a pair of stocky, muscular guards stepped forward, gripped Shannisorran v'En Celay under his arms, and hauled him to his feet. His head drooped limply on his chest as the men dragged him a short way across the room and hooked the manacles at his wrists to heavy chains dangling from the ceiling.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Shan's fingers curled around the heavy
sel'dor
chains that held him upright, and though the effort sent bolts of pain screaming through his tormented body, he pulled himself up and raised his head to cast a cold, defiant glare at the hooded face of his ancient tormentor. Every part of his body and soul ached with such pain and weariness it was all he could do to hold on to consciousness, but he would not give Vadim Maur the satisfaction of seeing how close to being broken he truly was. Days ago the countless agonies visited upon his flesh had become one throbbing blur—and with this latest visit, Shan knew his senses would soon be so overwhelmed he wouldn't feel even that anymore.

Elfeya huddled at the back of his mind, her soul taking refuge in his, her own pain no less than his own. They'd spared her nothing this time. She'd suffered so much, he doubted she would ever recover, and the sound of her screams, reverberating in his mind and soul, would haunt him for eternity.

Gently, each brush of his soul a caress of devotion, he detached himself from her and drew the protective barriers around his mind. He poured his strength into making them as strong as he could in the hope that he could buffer her from what was about to befall him. She was so fragile—so close to breaking—that he feared whatever new torment Vadim Maur had in store for him would push her shattered mind into madness. Part of Shan wanted to let that happen, because if she were lost, there would be nothing left to hold him to sanity. And in madness, there was escape. In madness, there existed no grief, no guilt, no shame for the horrors visited upon the mate he could not protect.

But for now, until pain drove him to the haven of unconsciousness or madness claimed him, he would spit defiance at the High Mage of Eld and dare him to do his worst.

"Hello, Maur" he rasped. His throat was swollen and bruised from the strangulating collar the High Mage had tortured him with two days ago. Each word raked through his ruined voice box like knives, but he forced himself to speak all the same. His lip curled. "I'd say you were looking well, but Fey never lie. Has your flesh begun to rot yet?"

He knew he'd scored a hit when the gloved hand peeping out of the robe's wide sleeve curled into a frail, bony fist. Maur's health was failing, and with Elfeya too close to death to heal him, the effects were accelerating.

"Still have some fight in you, Lord Death?" the High Mage sneered. "We'll see how long that lasts." He gestured and the hulking figure standing in the shadows behind him stepped forward.

Despite himself, Shan felt his spirit quail at the sight of the giant's black war hammer glinting dully in the sconce light.

"I see you remember my
umagi
Goram and his hammer.
^”
Maur's voice oozed with satisfaction. He nodded his shrouded head in Goram's direction. "You may begin."

Many long centuries had passed since Shan had last prayed to the gods for anything, but when Goram's hammer swung, his mind went completely blank, void of every thought but one.

Gods
help me.

Elvia ~ Navahele

Though no sound emerged from Hawksheart's mirror, Shannisorran v'En Celay's scream still rocked the rooted heart of Grandfather Sentinel, and every observing Fey warrior flinched and whispered a prayer for mercy.

Ellysetta's fingernails dug deep enough into Rain's wrist to draw blood.

"Setah,
Hawksheart!" Rain bit out. "Stop that scorching mirror. Ellysetta has seen enough."

The Elf king nodded, but before he could do as Rain ordered, the Eld hammer swung again, and Shannisorran v'En Celay's head was flung back, his face twisted in a rictus of unimaginable pain.

Ellysetta's body began to shake like it did when one of her seizures began, only this time, she did not fall convulsing to the floor. This time—and far more alarmingly—her power gathered. Her eyes went tairen-bright, the pupils disappearing, and her silvery Fey luminescence became a dazzling light as she called forth the awesome entirety of her magic.

"
Krekk
," Rain muttered. "Ellysetta! Scorch it, Elf, stop that flaming thing!" He sent a blast of Water and Air to do it himself, but instead of obeying his command, the power he summoned spilled out of his body in shining flows .. . and poured into Ellysetta's.

Similar streams of power flowed into her from Gaelen and Bel and the rest of her quintet. Even Hawksheart's Elvish magic swirled towards her in sparkling golden rivers. She was siphoning their power, drawing it into herself, and as she did, her glow grew brighter and fiercer until Rain's eyes burned from the blinding light.

«
Ellysetta
!» he cried. «
Parei, shei'tani
!
Stop
!»

But she didn't.

All around the small chamber, the sturdy, smooth grain of Grandfather's heartwood groaned and creaked in protest as the wood bowed inward, towards Ellysetta, as if—not content to drain only Hawksheart and the Fey—she was summoning every scrap of life and power stored in the great tree's ancient form as well.

In the mirror's shimmering veil, Rain saw the Eld hammer strike again, saw Shannisorran v'En Celay's body convulse in agony.

A roar of pure, unfettered Rage shook the Sentinel's heartwood chamber. Power flashed with concussive force, knocking Ellysetta's quintet and the Elf king to the ground. Rain, who was standing closest to her, found himself lifted off his feet and flung across the room to slam hard against the Sentinel's smooth walls. He struggled to raise himself on his elbows, only to fall back again as his head spun and darkness crowded the edges of his vision.

Dimly, he saw Hawksheart crawling towards Ellysetta on hands and knees and heard him screaming, "
Anio
! Do not touch the water!" as Ellysetta—the only one in the room still standing—plunged her hands into the mirror's veil.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Shan's breath came in shallow pants, and in his pain-dazed mind, set afire by the screaming torment of shattered nerves, he chanted with dogged determination.

Pain is life. Pain is life. Pain is life.

He focused on the words, using them as a shield against the blinding agony, taking each word and adding it as a mental brick in the wall against his pain. If he built the wall high enough, strong enough, he could endure.

Goram drew back his hammer again. Shan closed his eyes against the oncoming blow, and his chant picked up desperate speed.
Pain is life. Pain is life. Pain is life.

The hammer landed with a loud crack of shattering bone. Agony exploded in Shan's right knee, and the fragile wall against the pain exploded with it. Shan's scream ripped from his throat.

Please, gods, then let me die.

He nearly wept. Goram had barely begun, and already Shan was breaking. In spirit as well as in body. For months now he'd been tortured on a near-daily basis—these last weeks with a relentless ferocity that made the last thousand years of torment seem a hard day of training at the academy by comparison. Thanks to Elfeya, he'd survived all those previous tortures, but this time, she was not there to steal away the pain or anchor him to Light and life.

The lure to give in, to simply let his life fade was so tempting. But it wasn't what she wanted. And that meant he had to endure. Without her here to help him, he had to be strong enough for them both.

He swung limply from his chains, breathless and dazed, his numbed mind groping for the words to begin again. This time, he whispered them aloud. "Pain is life
." Elfeya, I love
you.
The first brick settled in place. "Pain is life
." There is no
price I would not pay, no torment I would not suffer for you.
The next locked neatly into place beside the first.

"Pain is life."
You are the. sun that shines Light upon my soul.
Another brick joined the rest
.
"
Pain is life.
"
Because you live, my life has purpose.
And another.

Goram swung his gods-cursed hammer once more.

Shan closed his eyes so he wouldn't see it. "Pain is—"

The bones in his left hip shattered inside his skin. Blinding agony engulfed him. His dazed mind howled and groped for the word.
Pain is
...
is
...
is—