Lord of the Fading Lands (The Tairen Soul Book 1)

Ellie woke wrapped in warm strength, the music of a steady heartbeat sounding in her ear. His strength. His heartbeat. Rainier vel’En Daris Feyreisen. Rain Tairen Soul. The man who had claimed her as his truemate, the missing half of his soul.

‘I’m all right,’ she murmured, pulling away to stare up into the watchful lavender gaze of the stranger who named her his beloved. ‘I just got a little dizzy for a moment.’ Something warm and hungry unfurled within her as their eyes met. She backed away from him, hoping he had not noticed. ‘Why did you … say what you did?”

‘That you are my shei’tani?’ he growled. ‘Because it is the truth. Because I must.’ A muscle flexed in his jaw. She was suddenly aware of a sense of driving need, of a hunger not warm like hers but hot and demanding; then the feelings faded as Rainier vel’En Daris turned his back to her and took several deep breaths. ‘We must go,’ he said abruptly. ‘Your countrymen grow restless and too bold by half. The girl children who were with you are worried.”

Her hands clapped over her cheeks. ‘Lillis! Lorelle!’ How could she have forgotten about them? She spun around, only to find her wrist clasped in his hand.

‘Stay close to me, Ellysetta Baristani. I can allow no harm to befall you.’ He gestured. The cone of magic surrounding them disappeared, revealing them both to the swarming crowds jamming the streets. The throngs were so thick, with more bodies pushing into the area by the second, that Celierians dared to crowd within five feet of the small, lethal army of Fey warriors. There was a dull roar of sound— thousands of bodies shifting restlessly, voices murmuring— but all fell silent when Ellysetta and Rainier appeared.

‘Wait here a moment, shei’tani.’ A bubble of multicolored magic enveloped her as Rain Tairen Soul walked several paces away to speak with the shei’dalin and her truemate.

‘Ellie!’ The high-pitched shrieks heralded the twins’ arrival as they raced towards her. Their faces were splotched with tears, their dresses torn, their lovely curls disheveled. Two Fey warriors, looking much worse for wear than the girls, hurried close on their heels.

‘Nei, little Fey’cha.’ One of the Fey, a tall young man with silvery blond hair, a swollen eye, and a set of four bleeding scratches down the side of his face, snatched up Lorelle just as she would have flung herself into Ellie’s arms. Lorelle immediately convulsed into a howling, screaming fit, her little fingers curved into claws, which explained the battle wounds on the man’s face. He subdued her, admonishing in a gentle, genuinely concerned voice, ‘Nei, nei. Do not touch the Feyreisa when the bright light surrounds her. It would do you much harm.”

Lillis stopped a few feet away, her lower lip trembling, tears pouring from her eyes. She looked so pitiful, so woefully in need of a hug that Ellie instinctively stepped towards her. When the warrior behind Lillis grabbed her up, Ellie froze in her tracks.

A lump rose in her throat. She turned towards the Feyreisen. ‘Please,’ she called out. She pushed at the light surrounding her, but it merely flowed around her hands. ‘Release me from this thing.”

The look he turned upon her was once again the cold, frightening Tairen Soul’s gaze. With no expression on his face, he scanned the crowd for several long moments, then dissipated her shield without a word.

As soon as it was gone, she lurched forward to snatch Lillis and Lorelle into her arms, hugging them close as they wrapped their little bodies around her and cried into her neck. ‘Shh, kitlings. Shh. It’s all right. I’m safe.’ She showered kisses upon their curly heads. ‘I’m so sorry you were frightened. Hush, now. Please don’t cry.”

‘What’s going on, Ellie?’ Lorelle asked once she had calmed down enough to speak. ‘Why did the tairen-man attack you, then put you in the fire cage?”

‘It’s all very confusing,’ Ellie told them. ‘And it must have looked very frightening.’ It certainly had scared the wits out of her. ‘But the Feyreisen didn’t attack me. He knew I was hurt and came to my rescue.”

‘Why wouldn’t the Fey let us come to you?’ Lillis asked. ‘We cried and cried, but they wouldn’t let you out of the cage and they wouldn’t let us in!’ Lillis wasn’t used to her tears being so ineffective. She glared at the brown-haired, blue-eyed Fey who had kept her from going to Ellie. He only grinned back at her and bowed.

‘I know,’ Ellie soothed. ‘I’m sorry. But I’m here now and we’re together again and safe.”

‘I want to go home.’ Lorelle’s brows drew together in a scowl.

‘Me too, kitling.’ Ellie murmured. ‘Me too.”

A few feet away, Rain watched the reunion. Her love for the children was obvious, as was theirs for her. He had known love once, but it had died along with all his gentler feelings at the Battle of Eadmond’s Field, where Sariel had breathed her last. That day had changed him forever, stripping him of kindness and compassion, leaving him with sorrow, anger, duty, and the stain of millions of lives darkening his soul. Had he not been the last Feyreisen, he would have been cast out by the Fey for the blood on his hands and the taint on his soul.

Yet now, in a fit of wicked humor, the gods had thrust Ellysetta Baristani in his path and decreed he must mate, binding the darkness of his ancient soul to the shining innocence of hers. He didn’t want it. The responsibility for her safety and happiness was yet another burden, the reawakening of violent tairen-passions a potential danger to them all. But he was the Feyreisen, the last Tairen Soul, repository of all the ancient Fey magics and the only remaining Fey capable of entering the tairen’s lair, Fey’Bahren. He had lost the freedom of choice with the death of all the other Tairen Souls. What remained was his duty to protect the Fey. To live when he would rather die. To mate when he would rather remain alone.

The tairen in him roared again. The Fey in him roared back. The tairen hungered for his mate, was furious at the delay, while Rain, the beloved of Sariel, didn’t want to let another in his heart, as he must in order to fulfill the mate- bond.

«Rain, be calm,» Marissya warned.

«I am calm,» he snapped back, but he grabbed the unraveling threads of his emotions and pulled them tight. ‘Celieria unsettles me.’ There were too many memories here, of Sariel and happier days, of death and war. ‘My shei’tani is not safe here. She must return with me to the Fading Lands. The courtship will take place there.”

‘You cannot just abduct her, no matter how much you worry about her safety. She has parents, a family. Do you think she will accept you if you take her from everything she knows?”

‘I will permit her family to enter the Fading Lands. They can remain until the matebond is complete.’ That was fair. More than fair. No one but Fey had been allowed to enter the Fading Lands since the Mage Wars. ‘She will accept me.’

‘Don’t be so sure you know a shei’tani’s heart,’ Marissya warned him. ‘She may be young, but she would never be your truemate if she weren’t very strong.”

‘Marissya is right, Rain,’ Dax agreed. ‘She doesn’t trust any of us. If you take her from her home, you may never win her. And where will that leave the Fey? We can’t afford to risk losing you any more than you can afford to lose her.”

Rain knew they were right. If Ellysetta Baristani didn’t accept him, he would die. No gift from the gods ever came without a price, and that was the price Fey warriors paid for the truemate bond. He had recognized her as his mate. His soul, for good or ill, was already bound to hers. She, on the other hand, had yet to accept him, and he was ancient enough, powerful enough, that the debilitating effects of an unfulfilled matebond would begin to take their toll on him quickly. Madness first, then death, either at his own hands or the hands of his people.

‘My Lord Feyreisen”

Ellysetta stood beside him, holding tight to the children with the lovely hair. He could feel her fear, and her determination not to be cowed by it. She didn’t trust him, even though she felt the pull of his soul—or perhaps because of that—and she definitely didn’t trust Marissya or Dax. The tairen within pushed against its cage, sensing its mate, seeking release.

‘My Lord Feyreisen,’ she repeated. ‘My sisters and I must return home.”

Logic evaporated. Cold fury took its place. She thought to leave him? ‘Nei.”

Ellysetta’s jaw went slack.

‘What Rain means is that you are welcome to walk with us,’ Marissya hurried to explain. ‘Rain! Do you want to drive her away?» She held out a hand. ‘I would be honored if you would join me.”

‘No!’ Ellysetta all but leapt back to avoid Marissya’s outstretched hand. ‘I mean, no, thank you. We’ve had enough excitement for one day. I’m sure you understand.’ Her eyes turned back to Rain and she said slowly, as if he were thick in the head, ‘My parents will be worried if we don’t come home.”

‘Your sisters may go,’ Rain told her. ‘You stay with me.’

‘I can’t send them home alone!’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re just children!”

Her defiance angered him. The tairen’s cage rattled. ‘The Fey will take them. You stay.”

Her hands fisted. Her body trembled. ‘I won’t!”

The tairen screamed in rage. She is our mate. She will not leave us! She will submit. We will make her submit! Power flamed in his eyes. ‘You will.”

She cried out and shrank back in fear. Suddenly there was a glow of power around her, and it wasn’t his. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he whirled around. Who dared? His eyes narrowed on Dax, who wore the telltale shining aura about him.

‘Rain, stop it.’ With seeming fearlessness, Marissya stepped between her king and her mate. «This anger is the bond-madness talking. The girl must return to her home. She is not leaving you. She has not rejected the bond. Think, Rain! Stop feeling, and think!» She didn’t touch him, but he felt the insistent presence of her power in his mind, urging calm upon him.

He shook his head. He couldn’t think. That was the problem. Since the Mage Wars, caging the tairen required constant vigilance and concentration. His centuries-old vise hold on it had been weakened by the Eye only days ago, and the tairen had reawakened with a vengeance, hungry for freedom. Here in Celieria, memories and the thoughts of millions pounded at him, sapping his concentration. Added to that, the visceral power of the matebond had him in its teeth. Just touching his shei’tani’s hand caused a rush of feelings the likes of which he’d never felt—not even for Sariel. Was it any wonder he was going mad?

‘I must leave this place. I need to find peace … and strength … to do what must be done”

Marissa nodded. ‘Aiyah, but you cannot take the girl with you. We will watch over her until you return.’ He looked at his shei’tani. Her lips were almost bloodless with fear, and the sight stabbed at his Fey heart. He was a monster. And this poor child had just been offered up as a sacrifice. ‘She may return to her home for now,’ he informed Marissya abruptly, adding on a private weave, «She must be well guarded. Half of the warriors will accompany her to her home, stay there to guard her. The other half will remain with you. Belem—he looked at the tall, dark warrior who had been his friend since before the Mage Wars—«Guard her. Use Kieran, Adrial, Rowan, and Kiel for her quintet.» At Bel’s nod, Rain released his power and glared at Dax until he did the same. Only when his shei’tani was no longer enveloped in another’s light did Rain begin to relax.

He crossed the short distance to Ellysetta Baristani, ignoring the tairen’s hissing command to dominate her when she backed away from him. ‘I know I have given you cause to fear me, and I am sorry for that. I am … not myself.’ He held out his hands, shamelessly used a push of Earth to make the ground beneath her feet shift so that she stumbled forward into his arms. His eyelids lowered as the intense pleasure flowed up from his hands where his bare skin touched hers. He breathed in her scent, knowing he would never forget it. ‘Of course you may return to your home, but you must allow me to send warriors to accompany you.”

‘I—’ She looked at the grim-faced army of Fey and gulped. ‘I really don’t need—”

‘It is for your protection,’ he interrupted. ‘They will guard you until I return.”

She looked up at him, green eyes wide. ‘You are leaving?’ Her relief was so obvious that he didn’t need to read her emotions to know it. His young shei’tani thought to be rid of him!

‘Only for a short while.’ There was tairen-wicked satisfaction in dashing her ridiculous hopes. ‘I will come for you tomorrow.’ Releasing her hands, he made a sharp gesture and half the contingent of Fey warriors circled her.

She gathered the twins closer and eyed the warriors with naked fear. ‘This isn’t necessary. Really. One or two to serve as an escort would be fine.’

‘Be at peace, little sister,’ Marissya said. ‘They will not harm you.’ There was understanding and sadness in her voice. ‘Indeed, they would each die to protect you from the slightest harm”

«Go.» Rain saw Ellysetta jerk when his voice sounded in her head. «They will protect you while I am gone. No harm must come to you.» He could not compel her with a thought—she was his shei’tani, so free access to her mind was denied him until she accepted their bond—but he knew she feared him enough to obey. Fear was his specialty. He stood there, alone, remote, imperious, until she bowed her head to his will and began walking.

One hundred Fey accompanied her, with five of the Fey’s greatest warriors ringed protectively around her. Belliard vel Jelani, the oldest unmated warrior of the Fey and Rain’s most trusted friend, walked at Ellysetta’s side. Bel and the other four warriors Rain had designated to be part of his shei’tani’s personal guard would kill hundreds and die themselves before allowing harm to come to her. Magic glowed bright around the procession as it departed from the main thoroughfare, heading into the narrow, winding side streets of Celieria.

Rain waited until Ellysetta was out of sight before he broke into a run, then leapt into the air, transforming in an instant into a massive black tairen. Powerful wings beat the air, lifting him above Celieria into the freedom and silence of the skies. He rocketed high up into the icy coldness of the ether, released a scream of tairen fury, and disappeared over the horizon.

As the Tairen Soul took to the sky and half of the Fey warriors escorted the Celierian girl away, dark eyes watched with interest. Black eyes that glowed with red lights. Elden Mage eyes, steeped in Azrahn, though the magic was tightly leashed to avoid Fey detection.

The Tairen Soul had a truemate. A truemate with tairen- flame hair and green eyes like those of the child that had been stolen from the High Mage of Eld more than two decades earlier. Kolis Manza, apprentice to the High Mage, knew his master must be informed. The decision of how to proceed belonged to the High Mage alone. In the meantime, the girl must be watched.

Kolis made a quick gesture, little more than a flick of one wrist, accompanied by a brief command sent on a filament- thin weave of red-tinged black carefully hidden within a subtle Spirit weave to avoid Fey notice. Two young lads beside him, unfortunate children of the street who’d given Kolis access to their souls in return for full bellies and warmth in the winter, darted after the Celierian girl’s entourage.

Marissya sent calming thoughts over the curious crowds as she, Dax, and the remaining contingent of Fey warriors continued on their way to the royal palace. Despite the long delay, the King and Queen of Celieria and a host of Celierian dignitaries were still waiting on the steps of the palace to greet the Fey with even more ceremonial pomp than usual.

It seemed as though the entire court had turned out for their arrival. They were hoping to get a glimpse of the Feyreisen, Marissya knew, and disappointment hung like heavy smoke in the air. She had never seen so much bosom on display, many ladies bordering on indecency with the amount of skin they revealed. They were so obvious, these women, with their foolish hopes of attracting the Feyreisen’s attention.

Unlike the women of their court, King Dorian X and his queen had clothed themselves with both extravagance and decorum, and if they were disappointed that Rain was absent, they did not show it. They stood side by side in royal splendor, King Dorian outfitted in robes rich with gold thread, queen Annoura shining in silver. The queen’s pale hair had been piled high and decorated with shimmering silver birds and jeweled butterflies. The pair of them remained cool and composed while the rest of their court had melted in the summer heat. Marissya suspected King Dorian had wrapped himself and his wife in the same cooling Air magic that Dax had woven around her. Dorian had inherited at least a minor command of magic from her sister’s bloodline.

Standing before the royal couple, Marissya raised the heavy outer veil from her face and uttered the traditional blessing of the shei’dalin. ‘Peace, health, and fertility upon the house of Marikah of the Fey. Greetings from the Fey, your kin”

‘Greetings, Lady,’ returned King Dorian. ‘Truth and light upon you. We welcome the shei’dalin into our walls and vow to protect her from harm. Enter in peace.”

Marissya lightly embraced the king and queen, sending them a wave of healing and peace as she did so. Her brows drew together in the tiniest frown as her fingers touched Annoura.

«Marissya?»

«It is nothing, shei’tan. A whisper of darkness that I don’t remember.» She felt Dax’s concern and smoothed the frown from her face. «She is mortal. It is to be expected.» But it was more than that, too. During the procession, she’d been aware of an unusual level of hostility in the crowd. She’d thought it was in response to Rain’s presence—he was responsible for more Celierian deaths than any other individual in history— but now she wondered if that was the case. She touched Prince Dorian and his chosen bride, Lady Nadela, and was pleased to find little trace of darkness in either of them.

As they moved towards the doors of the palace, the Fey warriors fanned out around them. Several broke off from the main group to stand guard outside the palace. Inside, Dax and five Fey remained with Marissya while the rest of her guard took up pre-assigned protective positions throughout the palace. Dax walked beside his mate, and Marissya rested her fingers on the back of his wrist in the Fey way, leaving his fingers free to call magic or unsheathe weapons should the need arise.

‘Your journey was pleasant, I hope, Lady Marissya, Lord Dax,’ Queen Annoura said as they made their way through a labyrinth of halls and winding corridors. Liveried servants and richly garbed courtiers bowed as the entourage passed. ‘Aiyah,’ Dax replied. ‘Celieria is beautiful as always.’

‘All seemed peaceful,’ Marissya added.

‘Yes, well … Ah, here we are. A nice quiet spot for a private discussion.’ King Dorian led the way into a small, comfortably appointed antechamber. As soon as the door closed, Dax wove shields of Air and Spirit to seal the room and ensure privacy.

Marissya took a seat on one of the cream velvet sofas and removed her heavy veils and hat. She captured Dorian’s gaze and opened up her empathic senses. ‘Your concern weighs heavy on your mind, bond-nephew. All is not as peaceful as it appeared on our journey, then. Tell us.”

‘A minor disturbance in the north, but the Border Lords have matters in hand.”

‘Disturbance?”

‘Dahl’reisen,’ Dorian admitted. ‘They’ve been raiding a few of the small villages along the northern borders. They killed about half a dozen men last month.”

Marissya sat back. Dahl’reisen were banished Fey who had turned their backs on honor and chosen to walk the Shadowed Path. ‘You are certain it was dahl’reisen?”

‘As certain as one can be’ Dorian reached into his robes and pulled out a cloth-wrapped object. ‘Usually they leave no weapons and no witnesses, but this was recovered from one of the raid sites.”

Dax took the small parcel and pulled back the folds of cloth to reveal a small, shining dagger with a red-silkwrapped handle. He examined the blade and checked the marking on the pommel. ‘I do not recognize the name- mark, but it is a true Fey’cha. Fey rarely lose their blades. If you found this, it was most likely left deliberately—either to implicate the dahl’reisen or to issue a challenge.”

‘Are there witnesses?’ Marissya asked.

‘Not from the attack where that Fey’cha was found, but there is an old woman who swears she saw her son murdered in his bed by the Dark Lord himself.’ Dorian said the last bluntly, but his sympathy skated across Marissya’s senses. She stifled a flinch. The Dark Lord was a phrase originally coined to refer to the God of Shadows, but since the Mage Wars, it had been used almost exclusively to refer to Gaelen vel Serranis, Marissya’s brother, the infamous dahl’reisen whose bloody vengeance for his twin sister’s murder had ignited the Mage Wars. She wanted to cry out that it was not true, that her brother would not have murdered a helpless mortal in his sleep, but she could not. For the last thousand years Gaelen had lived beyond the honor of the Fey. She no longer knew what he was and was not capable of. ‘Is it possible to bring this woman to me that I might question her?”

‘She has refused out of fear, and her Lord is bitter enough over the recent attacks that he supports her refusal.”

‘Has news of these raids reached Celieria City?”

‘The pamphleteers were spreading tales more than a week ago, and the newspapers began printing the story two days after that—including the bits about an eyewitness and evidence proving that dahl’reisen were behind the attacks.”

That would explain the hostility Marissya had sensed during the procession. Most Celierians considered dahl’reisen and Fey to be one and the same. If dahl’reisen were killing Celierians, the blame would fall on the Fey.

‘Enough of all this doom and gloom,’ Dorian announced briskly. ‘There will be time enough for weighty discussion in the next few days. For now, tell us what happened between the Feyreisen and the Celierian girl. Is it true that he dropped out of the sky and locked himself with her in a cage of magic, then sent her home with an escort of one hundred Fey warriors?”

‘It’s true,’ Marissya confirmed. ‘But those tales are only part of the whole story. Rain has found his truemate.”

The king’s eyes widened. ‘But this is excellent news.”

Marissya exchanged a look with Dax. ‘That remains to be seen,’ Dax replied. ‘There has never been a truemated Tairen Soul before. The bonding period is difficult at best, for any Fey man. But Rain fights the tairen in him as well. It will push him to the brink of madness. Our best hope is that the girl accepts him, and quickly.’

The marching Fey warriors caused an uproar along Celieria’s quiet side streets as Ellysetta, the twins, and their enormous escort made their way to the merchant class district that housed the Baristani residence. Luckily, the streets were mostly deserted, or Ellie’s entourage would have caused all manner of problems. As it was, a crowd double the size of her escort followed them from the main thoroughfare, and more folk joined them as they went. Ellie’s face was flaming with embarrassment long before they reached her street.

Unlike Ellie, once the twins had recovered from their initial fear, they found the attention quite entertaining. They darted to and fro, giggling when they managed to catch a warrior’s eye. The Fey did not smile at their antics. They just watched them, stone-faced and gimlet-eyed, except for the brown-haired, blue-eyed warrior, who would give Lillis a tiny grin each time she stuck her little snub nose in the air to show that she still had not forgiven him for not falling prey to her earlier tears.

The warrior beside Ellie was named Belliard vel Jelani. She gathered he was quite, quite old, though his face was as unlined as that of a Celierian just leaving his twenties. It was his eyes, dark and fathomless, that showed his age. Looking into those eyes, she felt an oppressive weight and terrible sorrow, as if he had lived countless centuries without joy. He did not, she noted, look directly at her for more than a moment at a time, and his stern, studious avoidance of her gaze invited little in the way of conversation.

As they neared the Baristani home, Ellie’s step faltered and her stomach clenched in nervous knots. Her mother stood in the doorway of their house. Someone had obviously run ahead to announce her coming, and Mama did not look happy. As the first of the Fey neared the Baristani residence, the procession smoothly parted in two separate columns that circled around the sides of the house like a black river flowing around an obstruction in the effluvial plain. Within moments the house was surrounded and Ellie found herself deposited on the doorstep, looking up at her mother’s grim face.

The twins ran to her, chattering excitedly about the Tairen Soul and fire cages and having been very afraid though now they weren’t. Lauriana listened with half an ear, then shooed them into the house.

‘What’s this about the Tairen Soul and fire cages, Ellysetta?’ she demanded as Ellie drew close. Her voice was sharp, filled with a brittle combination of fear and anger. She held no affection for the Fey. In her opinion, magic was the scourge of the earth. ‘And why is this … this army of Fey bringing you home?”

Ellie cast a glance at the surrounding avid faces of the neighbors. ‘Can we talk about this inside, please, Mama?’ There was a note of desperation in her voice.

Fortunately, Lauriana firmly believed that respectable folk did not air laundry on the front steps. ‘Very well. Get yourself inside’ Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline as Belliard vel Jelani and four other Fey—including the two who’d seen to Lillis and Lorelle—followed Ellie up the steps. ‘Sers, thank you for escorting my daughter, but you need not follow her into our home.’ Her teeth made an audible click as she gave the men a grimly pleasant smile. ‘Especially as you have not been invited.”

Belliard gave her a deep bow. ‘Eternal apologies, honored one, but we must enter. We protect the Feyreisa. We go where she goes.”

‘The Fey-who?’ Lauriana turned to Ellie. ‘What is he talking about?”

‘Please, Mama. Let them in, if that’s what they want. Let’s go inside.’ Ellie glanced again at the crowd and tried to direct her mother towards the privacy of their home.

‘And what are they doing?’ Outraged, Lauriana turned to glare at a group of warriors weaving an intricate, nearly invisible mass of shining magic over the front of the house. ‘You there! Stop that this instant!’ Four of the Fey behind her took advantage of her distraction to slip into the house. Belliard remained, his gaze intent and watchful as he waited for Ellie.

‘Mama, I’ll explain inside. Please!’ Ellie tugged her mother across the threshold as yet another group of Fey took up guard beside the front steps. The rest seemed to melt away into the shadows of alleyways and rooftops. Ellie knew they were still there, unseen. She could feel them, like a ripple of wind on the back of her neck.

Inside the house, the five Fey guards positioned themselves by the doors and windows of the large main room. They stood silently, arms crossed over their chests, fingers a mere breath away from the countless knives they wore. After one look at their stern faces and resolute stance, Lauriana did not even attempt to oust them. Instead, she turned a dark look on Ellie.

‘Well, young lady, what is the meaning of this?”

‘It’s a long story, Mama.”

Lauriana crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I have time, Ellysetta.”

Ellie bit her lip. When Mama called her Ellysetta and had that darkling look in her eye, she meant business. ‘Well … I took the twins to see the Feyreisen like you asked me to …’ She related the series of incredible events, leaving out the more alarming parts like the bit about Rainier vel’En Daris claiming her as his shei’tani. ‘… and he sent the Fey to escort me home … and, well, here we are.’ Conscious of the five pairs of Fey eyes watching her steadily and her mother’s patent disbelief, Ellie flushed and stared at her feet. Her story was a fabrication of partial truths laid over gaping chasms of omitted pertinent facts.

Before Lauriana could take Ellie to task, a commotion outside the front door drew her attention. ‘Now what?’ Scowling, she marched to the door and threw it open.

The enormous crowd outside had grown even larger. It now included the strangers who had followed the Fey, nosy neighbors in search of gossip, and, to Ellie’s dismay, Den Brodson. He had bullied his way to the front of the pack and was now loudly demanding to know what was going on. Den’s mother, a plump woman with ruddy cheeks and frizzy brown hair, stood beside him, clutching his elbow and adding her shrill voice to his.

When she caught sight of Lauriana, Talla Brodson waved a frantic hand and yelled, ‘Lauriana Baristani, what in the name of the gods is going on? Tell these Fey to let us pass!”

At Lauriana’s insistence—and a subtle nod from Belliard—the Fey allowed the butcher’s wife and her son to enter the house. As they passed the Fey guards, Talla sniffed and stuck her nose in the air, while Den puffed out his chest and eyed the warriors haughtily.

Once inside the house, Den’s haughty look changed to a scowl, and he marched across the room towards Ellie. ‘What’s the meaning of this, Ellysetta Baristani?’ he demanded in a bullying tone. ‘You have quite a bit of explaining to do, my girl.’ He reached out to grab her arm in what was sure to be a bruising grip, but before he could lay a finger on her, the sound of unsheathing swords cut the air. Den, his mother, Ellie, and Lauriana froze. Each of the five guards held naked steel in his hands. Though Belliard vel Jelani was still easily the most frightening of the Fey, now even the youthful smiling one looked like death waiting to be set free. Belliard tested his thumb on the edge of his blade, eyed Den’s hand, and shook his head ever so gently.

Den withdrew his hand.

The Fey clucked in approval and began sharpening his blade.

Ellie was grateful for the intervention. The feel of Den’s fingers squeezing her flesh always made her ill. Lauriana, however, wasn’t impressed. She planted her hands on her hips and glared. ‘Now, you see here, sers. This is Ellie’s fiancé. Her father signed the agreement just this morning. You’ve no business entering my home and coming between a lad and his betrothed”

‘Betrothed?’ Ellie gasped. The Fey shared looks and a patter of quick Feyan words. The young brown-haired warrior pointed at Den and laughed in disbelief. Then he grinned and shook his head.

‘Nei, nei, little sausage,’ he told Den. ‘The Feyreisa is not for you.”

Obviously feeling a bit braver after seeing Lauriana stand up to the warriors, Den thrust out his jaw. ‘Ellysetta is my betrothed, and you demon-souled sorcerers have nothing to say about it. She bears my mark, her family has signed the agreement. We wed in a month’s time”

‘Your mark?’ Ellie cried. Her hand flew to her throat. ‘Is that why you bit my neck, you horrid little toad?”

‘Ellysetta Baristani,’ her mother snapped, ‘mind your tongue!”

Den’s face turned purple at the insult. Without warning, his meaty hand slashed out towards Ellie’s face. Never having been struck before in her life, Ellie was too stunned even to think of defending herself.

She didn’t need to. Den’s arm froze in mid swing, and the intended blow never landed.

Den’s eyes went wide with surprise that changed quickly into fear, then terror. He clawed at his chest, mouth opening in a soundless gasp. It was as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs. He fell to his knees.

Ellie looked at Belliard. A faint white glow emanated from him.

‘You may not touch the Feyreisa,’ he told Den. His voice was glacial, his eyes flat and lifeless. This was a man who would kill without a qualm. ‘I will not take a life in the Feyreisa’s home unless I must, and so I let you live.”

The room echoed with the raw sound of air rushing back into Den’s starved lungs. He coughed and his shoulders heaved. His mother rushed to his side, trying to hover over him, only to be batted away.

Ellie swallowed. Her innate compassion roused a twinge of sympathy, but her outrage at the way he had tried to trap her into marriage kept her standing where she was. Talla whirled on Lauriana. ‘How can you stand there and allow my son to be treated this way? No young man with any pride would have allowed his betrothed to speak so rudely without punishment. Most would have taken a stick to her rather than a hand, and you know it!”

Lauriana dragged her dazed stare away from the butcher’s gasping son and faced his outraged mother. ‘Talla, please—”

‘It’s obvious your daughter is a creature of loose morals. Who else has put his mark on her that you don’t know about? This Fey Lord perhaps? Is that why he sends his sorcerers into your house? To watch over her until he is done with her?”

‘Now, just a blessed minute!’ Lauriana’s cheeks flushed at the insult. To accuse a girl of loose morals was to accuse her family of the same.

‘I’ve a good mind to break the agreement and demand the bride bond, which I scorching well know you can’t afford to pay!’ By Celierian custom, all families bonded their betrothed daughters with a price three times the girls’ dower. It gave the families of the suitor insurance against unacceptable brides and provided strong incentive for the families of the bride to guard the girl’s virtue and ensure she behaved with modest circumspection until her marriage.

‘Talla Brodson, that is outside of enough! Are you threatening me in my own home?”

‘My son has no need of a wife who is unattractive, poor, and loose with her favors to boot!”

‘Shut up, Mother.’ Den had recovered his breath and gotten to his feet. He glared at his mother, glared at the Fey, then settled a narrow-eyed look of promised retribution on Ellie. ‘The betrothal stands. She’s mine. I want her. I will have her. And Rain Tairen Soul can go flame himself. The laws of Celieria are on my side.’ He straightened his clothes with a few sharp tugs and stomped towards the door. ‘Come on, Mother. We’re leaving.’ At the door, he stopped to pin Ellie with a final hot look. ‘Prepare yourself for our wedding, Ellysetta Baristani. And our wedding night.’ The door slammed behind them with a resounding bang.

In the ensuing silence, Ellie began to tremble as shock set in. She clasped her shaking hands together and hid them in her skirts, then turned to face her mother. ‘Mama, I can’t marry him. Surely you must see that.”

Lauriana sighed. ‘Ellie, your father signed the papers. You must marry him.”

‘But, Mama—”

‘But nothing. You let him put his mark on you. In this very house. That’s the same as agreeing to wed him.”

‘I didn’t let him do anything, Mama! Besides, the mark’s just on my neck! I thought it had to be someplace more’— she glanced at the onlooking Fey and blushed bright red— ‘intimate.”

Ellie knew very little about claiming marks. Both she and her best friend, Selianne Sebarre, had overhead Kelissande and her friends giggling about the marks a time or two; but Selianne’s mother wasn’t from Celieria and didn’t know the ancient custom, and the one time Ellie had asked Mama about it, Mama’s nebulous reference to ‘passion roses’ and stern caution to ‘stay away from boys and dark corners’ had shed little light on the subject. The suspicion and close maternal supervision Ellie had received for weeks thereafter ensured that she never dared ask again.

It was only five years ago, after Selianne wed Gerwyn Pyerson, that Ellie and Selianne finally learned what a claiming mark was. Ellie still remembered Selianne’s fiery cheeks as she’d unbuttoned her chemise to reveal the dark smudge on the top of her left breast and the giggling that ensued when she explained how the mark was made. It never occurred to Ellie that a mark could be made against a girl’s will—or put on a place as non-scandalous as her neck.

Lauriana set her straight on both counts. ‘The location of the mark doesn’t matter, Ellie. It doesn’t even matter if you were willing. Den Brodson put his mouth on your body and left proof that he did. You’re now a marked woman, a claimed one.’

‘But—’ Panic was setting in. Ellie took a deep breath and clung to the shreds of her composure. ‘Nobody needs to know about the mark. I’ll stay in the house until it fades.”

‘Ellysetta, if your father hadn’t agreed to sign the betrothal, Den vowed to destroy your reputation. With that mark on your throat, there’s no one who would doubt him.”

‘Then let him! People can say and think what they like.”

‘Ellie, there’s more at stake here than just you. There’s your father’s business—and the queen’s commission. There’s Lillis and Lorelle and their future. A stain on you is a stain on us all.”

‘Mama, I hate him! I can’t marry him—no! I won’t!’ For the first time in her entire life, Ellysetta defied her mother. She didn’t know who was more shocked—herself or her mother.

Lauriana’s face lost all expression. ‘If you refuse, you’ll see this family destroyed.”

Ellie’s fingers curled into fists. Her chest heaved. In a billow of skirts, she whirled and fled upstairs to her bedroom, locking herself within as her tears began to fall.

Rain raced through the skies, flying as fast as his tairen form was able until the worst of his wild emotions passed. He wasn’t aware of the passage of time or distance until he recognized the frozen heights of the Tivali Mountains near Elvia’s border and realized the Great Sun was beginning to set.

Exhausted, he set down on a mountain peak, draping his massive black tairen form across a rocky outcropping. Snow drifted around him, but he did not feel the cold. He rested his tairen muzzle on his forepaws and looked out over the snowy peaks and the fertile Celierian lowlands to the north. His mind was calmer now, more rational.

A truemate. It was not what he had ever expected, never what he had wanted after Sariel’s death. He knew the agony of loss, knew it in rich, memorable, fresh detail, thanks to the Eye of Truth. Which, upon reflection, seemed a bit too tairen-devious to be coincidental. In the process of punishing him for laying hands upon it, the Eye had resuscitated centuries-dead feelings, then sent him straight into the path of the only living being capable of making him feel those feelings again. The only living being for whom he would risk an emotional attachment capable of rousing the Fey Wilding Rage.

Once recognized, the truemate bond was irrevocable. He could no more deny it now than he could deny his own body breath. Not even sheisan’dahlein, the Fey honor death, was an option for him. He was the last Tairen Soul, the only living Fey capable of entering the tairen’s lair, Fey’Bahren. He could not seek death until another Tairen Soul was born.

«Rain.» The familiar sound of Bel’s Spirit voice sounded in Rain’s mind.« You must return. There is an … inconvenience .. . here.»

Bel quickly relayed the details of the recent confrontation with the man who stupidly thought to claim a Tairen Soul’s shei’tani. Rain’s exhaustion fled in an instant, along with all thoughts of Sariel, loss and death. Rising up on all fours, his tairen form crouched on the outcropping, bristling with tension, claws digging deep into solid rock. His wings unfurled and spread wide, the long, curving mid joint claws stabbing at the air. His tail whipped against the mountain, sending showers of rock plummeting down the sheer cliff face. Venom pooled in the reservoirs in his fangs.

«I will return soon. Guard my shei’tani well, old friend.» «Aiyah, Rain. With my life.”

Rain Tairen Soul launched himself into the air. His massive form plummeted, then soared high as his wings snapped taut on an updraft. The truemate bond tugged at him, urging him to fly faster back to Celieria City and the warmth of Ellysetta Baristani’s beckoning soul.

After his angry departure from the Baristani house, Den Brodson escorted his mother back home and marched five miles across town to the imposing colonnaded white stone edifice of Celieria’s Office of the King’s Law. There, he headed down a twisting maze of corridors to the small, cramped office shared by four apprentice Clerks of the King’s Law, including Garlie Tavitts, an old chum from Den’s early school days. With Garlie’s help, Den spent the rest of the day completing, filing, and validating all the legal paperwork necessary to confirm his betrothal claim to Ellysetta Baristani and obtain a Special License for an immediate wedding.

After painstakingly copying the last of a series of legal documents, Garlie pushed one final parchment across his crowded and deeply scarred desktop. lust make your mark here, Den, so I can submit the Petition for Special License to Master Wiley. Though I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I remember Ellie Baristani, and believe me, Den, there’s an entire ocean of finer fish out there just waiting to be caught. Fish with a little more … meat on their bones, if you catch my drift.’ The young man cupped his hands in front of his chest and jiggled them suggestively.

‘There’s more to love than big tits, Garlie.’ Den dipped a ratty old quill into Garlie’s tarnished inkwell and labored to scratch his name on the parchment.

‘Yeah, like money, but she’s got none of that either, Den. And don’t even think I’m dimskull enough to fall for that `love’ line. You never liked her. `Flat-chested, freckle-faced, wood-scratcher’s git’ was the nicest thing you ever called her. And stop your glaring. You know it’s true.”

Den gave the scrawny, big-nosed paper-pusher a last, hard look. ‘Careful there, Tavitts. That’s the future Madam Brodson you’re insulting.’ He sprinkled sand over his signature and helped himself to Garlie’s blotter to remove the excess ink from the parchment. ‘There.’ He blew on the document for good measure before handing it back to the apprentice clerk. ‘She might not have tits, coin, or much to recommend her in the looks department—though that does seem to be slowly improving—but Ellie Baristani has something else that out-weighs all the rest. Something that’s going to make me a rich man.”

‘And what’s that, Den?”

Den smiled, his eyes twin coins of cold blue greed gleaming in a broad, brutishly handsome face. ‘Magic.’