Fire exploded from the throats of the surrounding tairen, enormous, unstoppable jets of consuming flame. A fiery furnace raged where Merdrahl and Cahlah had been. Ellysetta raised a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding inferno, yet she could not look away. Tairen wings pumped like bellows. Great clouds of flame and smoke billowed outward, flooding the cavern floor. Heat blasted upwards, flinging Ellysetta off her feet.
She rolled over on her hands and knees and started to rise, but a familiar cold tingling, like the bite of an ice spider, washed over her, sapping her legs of strength. The sensation grew stronger, shooting up her spine, making her every muscle tremble. Fear clutched at her throat.
«Rain…»
Her hesitant call went unanswered. She crawled to the edge of her perch. The cavern floor was completely submerged beneath a deep, raging ocean of fire that buffeted the ledge just below hers. No part of the tairen was visible, yet she knew they were there, at the center of the inferno, unharmed and feeding the flames. She could hear them singing, a single, sustained note resonating in her mind.
She crouched on the ledge, shivering despite the heat. Her flesh trembled as though it would dissolve off her very bones. Beneath the pure, endless aria of the tairen, she could now hear whispers. Insidious, frightening. Voices beckoning, hissing, pleading. Wordless commands that pulled at her and shot terror through her heart.
And then she heard the sound of her name, spoken as if from some nameless monster of the dark. Ellysssettttttaaaaaa.
Gasping, she flung herself back from the edge, scrambling for something, anything to hold on to. As if what called her name could reach out and grab her. She found a small boulder and clutched it with frantic strength, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Rain!” She screamed his name aloud, shrieking it into the fiery wind. Then again, in Spirit and along their bondthreads, like a talisman against the summoning darkness. «Rain!»
Across the room, the tairens’ single, sustained note ended, and a gentler melody ensued, tender and sad, but with a light, hopeful chord running through it. As quickly as they had come, the whispering voices were gone, and with them the disturbing chill that had crawled across her skin like ice spiders. The tairen’s roar quieted, and through her tightly shut eyelids she could see the brightness of their flames dimming until the lair was once again shrouded in shadow.
Rain found her clinging to a small boulder. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and even in the dim light he could see the pulse pounding in her throat and hear her shallow, gasping breaths.
“Ellysetta?”
The first touch of his hand made her flinch, and he frowned in concern. Her flesh felt chill to the touch. She was shivering—and clearly terrified. “It is over, shei’tani. There is no need to fear.” Tenderly he brushed her hair back from her face and cupped her cheeks, letting the warmth from his flesh seep into hers. All he could think was that the tairen rite of passage had terrified her. She’d probably believed she would be burned to death in the flames. “Sieks’ta. I am sorry. I should have warned you about the Fire Song. I know how frightening the rite can seem, but I swear to you, shei’tani, you were never in danger.”
Sariel had always feared the tairen. They had welcomed her as Rain’s mate, but she had never been comfortable around them. She had rarely accompanied him to their lair. Ellysetta was a Tairen Soul, so he’d thought she would understand better, would feel at home here, as he did, but clearly he’d expected too much, too soon.
He stifled his disappointment and pressed his lips to the smooth skin of her forehead. «Sieks’ta, beloved. Forgive me. I should have prepared you, given you time to adjust before thrusting you into the pride and expecting you to understand our ways.» He had not pushed Sariel to accept the tairen half of his soul, nor would he press Ellysetta to accept more than she could. When she was ready, the pride would be waiting.
“I’m not afraid of the tairen.” Ellysetta’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I wasn’t afraid of the fire either, though perhaps I should have been.”
Rain pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were open, her face pale. Her fear was just beginning to subside. “Then what was it that frightened you so badly?
“It was the darkness, the cold.” Her voice shook, and she began to shiver again. “The voices, calling to me.”
His brows drew together. “Ellysetta, there was no darkness or cold, only fire. There were no voices, except the tairen singing Cahlah and Merdrahl and their lost kit into the next life. We did not call to you.”
“It wasn’t you or the tairen. It wasn’t the Shadow Man either. It was something else. Something horrible. Something evil.” Her fingers clenched, digging into his shoulders. “Rain, it knew my name.”
“Shh.” Rain smoothed a hand over Ellysetta’s wild curls and sent a concerned look to Sybharukai. Neither he nor the tairen had sensed any danger, and yet he could not doubt Ellysetta. What she believed, she believed absolutely.
What if Ellysetta, who could bring a dahl’reisen back into the light, could sense what even Sybharukai, wise one of the tairen, could not? Worse, what if the evil that had drained the life’s essence from Cahlah and her kits had made Ellysetta its next target? A low growl rumbled in his throat. The entity that had slain Cahlah and her kits was a mysterious, invisible, untrackable foe that had triumphed over Fey and tairen alike for centuries.
Ellysetta continued to shiver in his arms, and her teeth began to chatter as fear gave way to shock. Rain gathered her in his arms, dropped smoothly to the lair floor on a slide of Air, and headed for one of the large tunnels leading away from the nesting lair.
“Where are we going?”
“You are chilled. There is an underground lake in Fey’Bahren, warmed by the mountain’s volcanic heart.”
“I’m all right,” she protested. “I don’t need a hot bath. And there’s no need for you to carry me.”
“You will take the bath to ease my mind. And it is my pleasure to carry you.” If the formless evil attacked her again, he wanted to be close enough to hold her and sense what she sensed.
“What of Merdrahl? He’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Aiyah. He is gone. That was the purpose of our Fire Song: to free him, Cahlah, and their dead kit from this life so they could enter the next.”
She glanced across the sands to the place Merdrahl had been. Rain knew the moment she recognized what remained of the two tairen and their lost kit. Despite her shivering, her spine stiffened, and amazement flooded every point of contact between them.
“Rain, put me down.” She squirmed free. “Is that…?” She took three steps before he caught her hand to halt her.
“Nei, do not touch it. It is still quite hot.” He glanced at the tumble of dark, glossy crystal, radiance glimmering in its multifaceted depths. Kingdoms had been conquered for the minutest portion of what lay there in the black sands.
“Aiyah, it is what you think.” Tairen’s Eye crystal, two great boulders and one smaller, darker globe of it: all that remained in this world of Merdrahl, Cahlah, and their kit.
“How is that possible? You once told me that Tairen’s Eye crystal could not be made or unmade.”
“I said that the Fey could not make or unmake it. Only the tairen can do so, and only by performing the rite of passage that you just witnessed. The rite requires at least twelve adult tairen to sing the Fire Song.”
She touched the two crystals that hung around her neck. “These are the…bodies of a dead tairen?”
“They once were, but the Fire Song transforms what was and leaves in its place something quite different.” He laid the back of his hand against her cheek. “And that, Ellysetta,” he warned gently, “is a secret you must never tell another soul. Even the Fey do not know how Tairen’s Eye crystal comes into being. It is a treasure guarded by the tairen and the Feyreisen who walk among them as brothers.”
She nodded. “I will not speak of it.”
They passed through the tunnel entrance, to the broad, timeworn pathw
ay that led down deeper into the heart of Fey’Bahren. Small pebbles clattered behind them, and Ellysetta turned her head towards the source of the noise.
“The tairen are following us.” She sounded surprised.
“They are curious. It has been a very long time since anyone but me has come to Fey’Bahren.”
She stopped. “I am not bathing with an audience. Even if they are tairen.”
Celierian modesty. Part of him hoped she would never lose it. He loved the way her cheeks turned pink when she blushed. “I will weave a screen for you, shei’tani.”
The tunnel opened up into another large cavern. Rain called Fire to light the sconces around the perimeter and illuminate the clear, still waters of the lake. Though not as wide as the nesting lair nor as tall, the cavern was still impressive. Scores of adult tairen could comfortably bask on the rocks surrounding the vast, glassy lake, and above, the domed ceiling arched high enough to allow even the largest tairen to fully extend his wings for drying. The walls were smooth and polished from millennia of young tairen testing their flame beneath the pride’s watchful eyes. Rain himself had joined his tairen cradle friends in spewing gouts of flame into rock, learning how to control the flame and its heat, and how to breathe fire without singeing his muzzle.
Ellysetta walked to the edge of the lake and knelt to dip her hand. “It is warm.”
“Fey’Bahren is a volcano. Its heat warms the waters of this lake.” He smiled faintly. “The tairen like their comforts.” He led her to a shallow section of the lake, where underwater ledges formed a perfect soaking spot. “Here, Ellysetta.”
She hesitated. “I’m really much warmer now.”
“Ellysetta, if you stripped naked and raced through the tunnels of Fey’Bahren, the tairen would think nothing of it.”
“Yes…well…” Her cheeks flushed a brighter pink. “I don’t believe I’ll be putting that to the test anytime soon.”
So prim. So…Celierian. He smiled and shook his head. Earth blazed at his fingertips, and her travel leathers became a soft linen bathing dress. “There. Now get in the water and let it warm you. And stay there until I say you may get out.”
She arched a brow at his high-handedness. “Teska.” Please.
She sniffed. “Fine. I’ll get in. But I’ll get back out when I say so, not you.”
Sybharukai purred and climbed to her basking ledge. «It is good your mate lets you know who is makai.» Her dark gray ears twitched with amusement.
Rain gave the wise one a sour look. «You will not think so when it is you she challenges.» He took a seat on a boulder beside Sybharukai and watched his mate ease into the warm waters, her eyes closing in bliss as the heat penetrated her cold skin. “Ellysetta said she sensed a presence when we sang the Fire Song for Merdrahl and Cahlah. Something cold and evil. She said it called her name. Did you feel it?”
Sybharukai’s ears flicked. «Nei. There was only the Fire Song, and then peace and sorrow when Merdrahl and Cahlah flew free of this life.» She paused, then added softly, «Of the kitling, there was nothing.»
Rain nodded. He had not felt the unborn kit’s passing either. As with all the other victims of the withering disease, it was as if his soul had leached away before he could be sung into the next life.
Rain’s gut still told him the Eld were to blame, yet there was no hint of Azrahn at work, and no indication that any sort of magic had breached the protective shields of the Faering Mists.
And yet, Ellysetta had sensed evil…dark and cold and beckoning.
A quiet splash drew his attention. Ellysetta had completely submerged herself and was lying still beneath the surface of the lake. With her eyes closed and the long coils of her bright hair floating around her, she looked like one of the beguiling Danae water sprites who delighted in luring unwary mortals to watery graves.
«She brings song back to your heart,» Sybharukai observed. “Aiyah.”
«You no longer wish for your own Fire Song.»
Rain met Sybharukai’s eyes. “Nei, I want to live.” Until that night when he’d flown along the borders of Eld, the tairen had never discussed how he’d longed for death after Sariel’s murder, but of course, all the pride had known. They had accepted his desire. Tairen mated for life. But they had always known he would not seek death until his responsibilities to the Fey and to the tairen were met.
Sybharukai purred and stretched, flexing her claws.
«Ellysetta-kitling is a better mate for you than the other.»
“She is my shei’tani. Sariel was e’tani.” The tairen had never called Sariel by name. Always, she had been “your mate” or “that one.” And now, apparently, “the other.”
«The other was friend, but not tairen.»
Rain glanced at Sybharukai in surprise. It was unusual for the makai to be so talkative. “Nei,” he agreed. “Sariel was not tairen, but Ellysetta is.”
The great cat’s ears flicked. «She smells so, but her song does not sing to us. We cannot choose her sorreisu kiyr or lead her through First Change until we know her song.»
“Perhaps she does not yet know how to sing. The Celierians never could have taught her.”
«Tairen sing in the egg. There is no need to teach.» “But she is tairen. I saw it in her eyes. She hears my song.”
«Yet you do not hear hers.»
He frowned, perplexed. No, he had never heard her song. He’d seen the tairen in her eyes, he’d felt its power coiling inside her, witnessed its devastating fury, but he’d never heard it sing. “Nei,” he said slowly. “I thought perhaps I had not heard it because our bond is not complete.”
«You hear the songs of the pride.» “Aiyah, I hear all the pride, but we are not mates. I hear the thoughts of all the Fey, too, but until Ellysetta and I complete our bond, I can hear only the thoughts she deliberately sends to me. Perhaps her song works the same way.”
«We do not hear her either. She is…» Sybharukai abandoned words and sang a series of notes that summoned the image of a tangled net of string with tairen kits diligently tugging at the loose ends, only to tangle the string even more.
Rain nodded. “Aiyah. I could not have said it better.” Ellysetta was a conundrum, a fascinating mix of innocence, astonishing power, and countless secrets that taunted him with their presence while remaining stubbornly concealed.
«When you return to the Fey-lair, the tairen will fly with you and sing pride-greetings to Shei’Kess for your mate, since she has no song of her own.»
His jaw dropped open. The tairen had not entered Dharsa since before the Mage Wars. “Why would you do that? You didn’t even come to ask the Eye for help saving the kits.”
Sybharukai sniffed. «Why should we have gone then? We sent you.»
He blinked, nonplussed. They’d sent him? Nearly a month ago, in an act of sheer desperation, he’d laid bare hands on the Eye of Truth in an attempt to wrest answers from it. The oracle had not been pleased. Now, Sybharukai implied that she’d somehow been responsible for his actions. His eyes narrowed. “Did you put the idea of confronting the Eye of Truth in my head?”
She extended her claws and began sharpening their tips against the rock. «You are pride. You knew our need. You did what was necessary when the time was right.»
Rain gave a short laugh and shook his head. That nonanswer was answer enough. The Fey would never dream of using their magic to manipulate other Fey, but the tairen had never pretended to be so civilized. They were not tame and did not live by the laws of those who were. “And Ellysetta? Why would you sing pride-greetings for her? What are you not telling me?”
Sybharukai heaved a breath and flapped her wings. Tairen might be wild, wicked, and unpredictable, but like the Fey, they never lied. «Ellysetta-kitling smells tairen,» she finally said, «but she smells of something else too.» Her eyes closed, and a low purr hummed in her throat. «Old magic.»
He sat up straight. “What kind of old magic?” Sybharukai’s purring ceased. Her bright green eyes opened and her
claws dug into the rock. «The scent is too ancient. This tairen’s pride-memory does not go back far enough to name it, but Shei’Kess will know. Shei’Kess keeps the memories of all the prides.»
More ancient than Sybharukai’s pride-memory? The possibility shocked him. Sybharukai was makai of the Fey’Bahren pride. She herself had lived more than two thousand years, and her pride-memory stretched back to the start of the Second Age, passed on from each dying makai to her successor.
A loud splash interrupted him before he could ask. Steli had entered the water and was paddling beside Ellysetta’s ledge, snorting sprays of water. Ellysetta gave a tiny scream of surprise that broke into laughter, and she swept her arm across the water’s surface to direct a retaliatory splash back at the playful tairen.
Steli’s play surprised Rain. The tairen of the Fey’Bahren pride had never offered Sariel anything but aloof disregard and tolerance, yet here was Steli treating Ellysetta like a tairen kitling. Even without hearing Ellysetta’s song, Steli and the others accepted her as one of the pride.
Fahreeta leapt into the water, sending a massive splash arcing though the air. The golden tairen gave a crowing roar of victory as her wave swamped both Steli and Ellysetta, then dove beneath the surface as Steli gave chase. Ellysetta watched, laughing.
Rain turned back to Sybharukai, intending to continue their conversation, but the makai of the Fey’Bahren pride had risen to her feet and was padding down towards the rim of the lake. «Enough talk, Rainier-Eras. Time for play.» With an impressive roar, Sybharukai jumped in. The rest of the pride soon followed, and within moments, the lake was filled with wet, playful tairen.
Knowing he would get no more answers today, and unwilling to be left out of the pride’s fun, Rain stood up, stripped off his leathers, and dove smoothly into the warm, clear waters to join them. Merdrahl and Cahlah were gone, but their suffering was over. The Fire Song had awakened a sense of joy and renewal in them all, and he, like his tairen family, could spare time for a little happiness before resuming the battle with the darkness that threatened them all.