Two familiar warriors were waiting in the palace suite when Ellysetta returned from her visits with the noble ladies of Celieria. Dark haired, dark eyed, and so alike in appearance they could be twins, they turned to face the opening door when she entered, and the sight of them—unexpected and dearer than she’d known until this moment—shoved her troubled thoughts to the back of her mind.
“Rowan! Adrial!” Joy burst from her heart, and she ran across the room to fling herself into first one pair of arms, then another. “Oh, my friends! Mioralas, kem’mareskia. I am so very glad to see you both.” She pulled back, then laughed, and hugged and kissed them both again.
“If I didn’t know better, ’Jonn,” Gil quipped dryly, “I’d say she was happy to see them.”
“Only a little.” Rijonn gave a laugh that sounded more like the rumble of shifting earth.
Ellysetta beamed. “I refuse to pretend any joy less than I feel. These two lived with my family for weeks before Rain and I married. They are beloved friends, and I have missed them greatly.” Emotion misted her eyes. Rowan and Adrial had been with her when she still had a family, and seeing them was like having a little piece of Mama, Papa, Lillis, and Lorelle back in her life. Smiling through the tears, she cradled their faces in her hands and kissed them both again until even brash Rowan’s ears turned pink.
“No offense, Ellysetta,” Rowan muttered, “but please stop that before Rain arrives. I’m only eleven hundred. Far too young to die.”
She laughed and relented, settling for dragging them both towards the cushioned settee. “Come. Sit. Tell me everything. How have you been? How is Talisa? How are you both holding up? Oh, and have you met Gil and Rijonn?”
The brothers shared a dazed look as she bombarded them with her questions, but when she mentioned Gil and Rijonn, Rowan and Adrial glanced in their direction, then suddenly jumped to their feet and stood with spines stiff as pikes.
“Chakai vel Jendahr, Chakai vel Ahrimor.” Rowan executed a shallow bow with crisp military precision. “It is an honor to meet you both.” Beside him, Adrial bowed with equal precision.
“So you do know each other,” Ellysetta said.
“We have never met,” Gil said.
“Only by reputation,” Rowan said at the same time. “These are the heroes of Mowbren Glarn, one of the fiercest battles of the Mage Wars.”
“All were heroes that day,” Gil said, and the silver stars in his eyes dimmed until his irises were almost pure black. “We just happened to be among the few to survive it.”
“The few who did survive owe their lives to you. Your weaves from that day have been taught at the academy ever since.” Rowan frowned. “But I thought you were both rasa.…”
“We were,” Rijonn said.
“Then how—” Rowan broke off. Both he and Adrial turned to look at Ellysetta. “Ah.”
“She restored the souls of three hundred rasa at the war-castle of chakai,” Gil said. “We were among them and serve her now as lu’tan and masters in her primary quintet.”
“Aiyah, well…” Ellysetta cleared her throat and quickly introduced the other lu’tan in the room.
“Where are Rain and Bel?” Rowan asked. “Is vel Serranis still with you?”
“Rain and Bel are with the king, discussing the defense of Celieria. And, aiyah, Gaelen is with them.” She leaned over to take Adrial’s hand. “How are you, really, Adrial?” Even as she asked, she spun a weave of healing and strength to bolster his flagging spirits. The last months had taken a toll on him.
He smiled, but his eyes remained dark, melancholy brown pools. “As well as a Fey can be, under the circumstances. Rowan has been my rock.”
“There is no hope of Talisa leaving her husband?”
Adrial’s gaze dropped.
“It does not appear so,” Rowan answered for his younger brother. “But then, she thinks Adrial left her months ago to return to the Fading Lands. As Rain commanded, we have kept our presence a secret. She does not know Adrial is here. No one does.”
“Poor Talisa.” Ellysetta clasped her hands. What would she have done if she’d dreamed of Rain all her life as Talisa had dreamed of Adrial…if she’d waited for him, year after year, refusing all proposals of marriage until the day of her twenty-fifth birthday…wedding to spare her family the shame and taint of a spinster daughter…only then to have her love arrive scant weeks after her wedding? Even now, Ellysetta could remember the soaring joy and drowning despair that had consumed Talisa when she’d realized her love had come—and she could not have him.
And then to be led to believe Adrial had simply…walked away.
The breathtaking cruelty of it ripped at her heart.
“How can either of you bear it?” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Adrial made a choked sound and his flare of pain scorched her senses. “Adrial! Sieks’ta! Forgive me.” She laid her hands upon his, spinning what love and peace she could to soothe his tormented soul.
“We don’t bear it. We die a little more each day.” He buried his face in his hands, shoulders heaving. “She cries herself to sleep each night and there is n-nothing I can d-do.” His voice cracked.
“Adrial.” She went to sit beside him and gathered him in her arms the way Mama had so often gathered her. Silky black hair fell across her bodice as she pressed his head to the hollow of her throat and held him close while he wept. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away and felt the hot fall of teardrops track down her cheeks as she met Rowan’s bleak gaze over Adrial’s head.
“What do you mean, there’s nothing to be done?” Ellysetta whirled away from the curtained windows to face her truemate, who had returned to the suite at her request when the war council broke for a short recess. “There must be something! Rain! We can’t just leave them like this. They’re suffering!”
Beneath the dictates of a powerful Spirit weave, Adrial lay sleeping in one of the suite’s attached bedrooms. An exhausted Rowan napped in a chair by his side. Ellysetta’s quintet had gathered in the sitting room, their expressions blank and stony as they watched their king and his mate argue over Adrial’s fate.
“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I didn’t realize when we left Talisa in her husband’s care that I was condemning Adrial to death? Celieria is at war, and Dorian is barely holding together the opposing factions of his court. If his control snaps, there is no hope these people can defeat the Eld. No hope for any of us. No matter how my heart aches for Adrial and Talisa, I can’t allow that to happen.” Rain spread his hands. “I’m sorry, Ellysetta, but my answer must be the same as it was before. In this matter, my hands are tied.”
“Then what about Lord Barrial? Talisa is his daughter. Why can he not appeal to the king on her behalf? Then the Fey would not be involved and our enemies could not use this against us.”
“Ellysetta, Lord Barrial has enough on his plate. The Eld are coming—and his lands are directly in their path. He knows he’s likely to lose his entire estate—his whole family–before this war is through.”
“All the more reason for him to save Talisa now, while he still can.”
“At what cost? The Sebournes are his closest neighbor, and the largest military force in the area besides his own. If he alienates them, he runs the risk of losing their aid when he needs it most.” Rain sighed and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the long dark strands into tousled disarray. “Bitter though the situation may be, Talisa made her choice when she wed diSebourne.”
“But—”
“But nothing. The joy of a shei’tanitsa bond is a treasured gift, not a right. Many Fey die without ever hearing their truemate’s call. Many others die without completing their bond. Adrial and Talisa have found each other in this lifetime. Gods willing, they will find each other again in the next…and with a happier outcome.”
She took a half step forward. Why was it everyone around her had to suffer? Mama and Selianne dead, her family lost in the Mists, Rain banished. Could no one she l
oved find happiness? “Rain, please…”
He turned away. “There is nothing I can do, Ellysetta.”
“The Feyreisen is right, Ellsyetta.”
She looked up to find Rowan standing in the doorway, his face drawn with fatigue and sorrow, his dark eyes filled with grieved acceptance.
Rain turned to face him and squared his shoulders. “Rowan. Sieks’ta. You know this is not what I would choose.”
“I know,” Adrial’s older brother said softly.
“The best I can give him—could ever give him once Dorian upheld Talisa’s marriage—is this time to watch over and protect her until…”
Rain’s voice trailed off, but Ellysetta knew what he’d left unspoken. The madness caused by an unfulfilled matebond would eventually take hold of Adrial’s mind, as it did all Fey males who found their truemates but could not complete their bond. When that happened, Adrial would either commit sheisan’dahlein, the honor death, or Rowan would have to kill his brother—at the cost of his own soul.
“We are grateful for that much,” Rowan said. “Even though he cannot let her know he’s here, at least he can watch over her when she sleeps at night and keep her safe from harm. That brings him a mea sure of peace.”
Ellysetta’s heart ached. Rowan, the laughing prankster of her first quintet, had been drained of all humor and happiness. He was watching his brother die a slow and painful death, and she knew each terrible day killed a piece of his own soul.
“We must get back to the king,” Rain said. “Before we go, Rowan, you should know we think there are Mages at work in the city, possibly even inside the palace. Have you seen or heard anything suspicious since you’ve been here?”
“No hint of Azrahn, if that’s what you mean.”
“Do you know who is fostering the increased hostility towards the Fey?”
Rowan shrugged. “Talisa doesn’t come to the palace much. She spends most of her days in her father’s house in the company of her brothers, and we stay with her. From what little we’ve seen, most of the public discord comes from the same group as last time. Sebourne and his cronies. The queen. A few of the lesser lords looking to gain power.”
“Keep your eyes and ears open, and not just for that.” Rain told him quickly about Truthspeaking the Mage and what they’d learned. “Stay alert. If you see or hear anything suspicious, send a private weave to Bel straightaway. Don’t use the Warriors’ Path. In fact, you shouldn’t even use it amongst yourselves.”
“Understood.” Rowan bowed his head in acknowledgment of the command.
Rain glanced at the closed door to the bedroom where Adrial lay in his weave-induced sleep. “Tell Adrial I am sorry I did not have a chance to speak with him. As soon as we finish with the king, Ellysetta and I head for Danael and Elvia.”
“I will tell him.”
Rain held out a hand. “May we meet again in happier times, kem’chajeto.”
Rowan clasped his forearm. “Gods will it so, Rain.”
Bel and Gaelen bade Rowan their own farewells; then they and Rain exited the room. Rowan’s spine remained straight, his shoulders squared, as they filed out the door, and when they were gone, he drew a shaky breath and returned to the bedroom where his brother lay. “We should go, too.”
Ellysetta followed him. “Teska, let him sleep.” She stood with Rowan at the bedside, looked down at his sleeping brother. Adrial’s lashes lay thick and dark on his pale cheeks, and his hair spilled like a skein of black silk across the pillows. The tension had faded from his face, leaving tender, youthful beauty in place of his hard warrior’s mask. His hands lay across the chest that her lu’tans had stripped of steel. “He looks so peaceful.”
Rowan murmured a wordless agreement. “It’s a shame he can’t just sleep like this until Talisa is free to complete their bond.”
The moment he spoke, it was as if a great Light suddenly burst forth from the darkness. Ellysetta looked up at Rowan, hope sparking in her eyes. “Why couldn’t he?”
“Why couldn’t he what?”
“Sleep like this until she is free to come to him?” Excitement shot through her. “Rowan, that’s it!” She grabbed his arms. “Just like the Fey tale of the sleeping princess.”
“What Fey tale? What are you talking about?”
“Have you never heard the Fey tale about the sleeping princess? An evil witch spurned by a handsome king took her revenge on him by cursing his firstborn child to prick her finger on a rose and—Oh, never mind about the Fey tale.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Why can’t we put Adrial in a weave that keeps him sleeping peacefully until Talisa lives out her life with Lord diSebourne? Then when Lord diSebourne dies, she will be free to go to Adrial.”
“But that could be de cades from now.”
She laughed. “What’s a little time to the immortal Fey? Rowan, don’t you see? She could go to the Fading Lands as a ninety-year-old crone and the shei’dalins could heal her back to youth. Her age would make no difference. Keeping Adrial safe from the bond madness is all that matters.”
“You’re assuming the bond madness won’t afflict him if he’s sleeping.”
She nodded. “Yes, I am. But it’s a chance, at least. All he faces now is certain death.”
Rowan frowned down at his sleeping brother. “I don’t know. Nothing like this has ever been done.”
“There has to be some sort of weave the shei’dalins could spin on him. The Fey made the Faering Mists, and that takes people out of time. If they could spin a similar weave on Adrial—or even put him to sleep and take him into the Mists to wait for Talisa. Then Talisa’s quintet could continue to watch over her and bring her to the Fading Lands when she’s free.”
“The Mists do take people out of time,” Rowan agreed. “It’s possible what ever weaves the Fey spun to create the Mists are still recorded somewhere in the Hall of Scrolls.”
“We can ask Tealah to look into it. She’s the Keeper of the Hall of Scrolls now.”
“Do you really think this could work?”
“Aiyah,” she said. “I do.”
For the first time since he’d stepped into the suite, she felt hope flicker inside him.
Unfortunately, when Adrial awoke a bell later, he didn’t share his brother’s interest. Instead of embracing the idea—or even considering it—he shook his head.
“I will not leave Talisa.”
“But, Adrial,” Ellysetta protested, “if you stay, you’ll die. This gives you a chance, at least—hope that you can still find joy together in this lifetime.”
Adrial smiled gently. “I know you mean well, Feyreisa. And I appreciate the idea—truly, I do. But my place is at my shei’tani’s side. I cannot leave her.” He rose to his feet and adjusted the straps of the Fey’cha belts crisscrossed over his chest. “We should go now, Rowan. We’ve been away long enough.”
Rowan’s eyes fell, but without a word, he followed his younger brother to the door.
“Adrial…” Ellysetta followed them. “Please. Stay with her if you must for as long as you can, but before the bond madness has you in its grip, before you take your own life or force Rowan to slay you, please reconsider. The Fey are too few. Every life is precious. We can’t afford to lose you—or Talisa, for that matter.”
Adrial hesitated, then nodded before he stepped out the door.
The war council continued past the first silver bells of night. Together, and with the aid of Bel’s Spirit weaves, they examined scenario after scenario for the coming battle of Kreppes and the naval invasion of Great Bay.
“There’s one last possibility we must consider,” Rain told the assembly. “Celieria City.” He paced over to the wall of maps and pulled out the map of Celieria City and Great Bay. “We must assume the Eld are here in the city, and we must assume they can simply open gateways inside the city and release their armies directly. We cannot leave the city unprotected. When Prince Dorian goes to King’s Point, we must leave an experienced commander with enough forces to ensure t
he safety of the city.”
“The queen will be here,” said Dorian. “She will oversee the defenses of the city.”
Rain’s expression turned to stony blankness. A glance at Bel, Gaelen, and Tajik showed similar reactions. Queen Annoura’s blatant distrust of the Fey would make her an uneasy ally at best. He didn’t trust her to put her people’s safety above her own animosity towards the Fey.
Reading their doubts, Dorian bristled. “Ser vel Serranis has already checked the queen for Mage Marks. She bears none. I can think of no reason why I should not entrust the safety of the city to her, as I always have in my absence. Lord Corrias will be at her disposal, as will Lord General Voth. Both of them have ample experience in military matters.”
Rain exchanged a brief glance with Bel. What choice did they have? Despite their concerns, she was Dorian’s queen and the ruler of Celieria in her own right. Reluctantly, Rain inclined his head. “If that is your will, doreh shabeila de. I suggest, however, that we leave a contingent of Fey here in the city to aid her in the event that the Mages do open a portal within the gates.”
«The regiments remaining in the city should be checked weekly for Mage Marks,» Gaelen remarked on a private weave. «And we should check all other troops before they depart. No sense in leaving a fangtooth in the woodpile.»
«If there were time, I would agree,» Rain replied, «but we cannot delay our departure to Elvia.»
«I could send for the dahl’reisen.»
Rain’s muscles clenched in instant protest. «Out of the question.» No matter how much he might trust Gaelen now—no matter even that Rain was technically dahl’reisen himself—putting his faith in warriors who walked the Shadowed Path was an altogether different matter. «Even if Dorian would approve it, I would not. I could never trust them. You saw the same thing I did in Orest.»
«I cannot deny some dahl’reisen have chosen to serve the Eld; but the dahl’reisen who serve the Brotherhood are not so devoid of honor. They remember what it was to be Fey, and they fight each day against the Dark.»