Elvia ~ Navahele
Three bells after sunset, the last of the dinner dishes were finally cleared away and the hauntingly beautiful strains of Elvish night music filled the meadows of Navahele.
Fanor pushed away from the table and rose to his feet. “Come, my friends. It is time. Lord Galad will see you now.”
He led the Fey off the terrace and across delicate bridges that spanned the silvery pools ringing the island at the city’s heart. There, rising in splendor from a wide, mossy knoll, stood the centermost tree of Navahele, a giant king among Sentinels, with a trunk easily twice the width of any other.
“This is Grandfather,” Fanor said. “The ancient I told you about, who was a sapling in the Time Before Memory.”
“He is magnificent,” Ellysetta breathed. She tilted her head back. Grandfather was so tall she could not see his upper branches. Beside it—him—she felt dwarfed. An ant standing at the foot of a giant. Grandfather’s bark was smooth and ageless, shining a silvery gold that shifted color in the glow of the butterflies hanging from the Sentinel’s vines and branches.
“Aiyah, he is that,” a low, musical voice agreed.
Rain put a hand on Ellysetta’s shoulder, and together they turned to face the stranger who seemed to materialize from the forest itself. One moment, the stretch of mossy ground to their left was empty; the next, the Elf king stood there.
Galad Hawksheart, a man who’d been a legend before Gaelen was born, needed no introduction. Tall, broad shouldered, and lean hipped, the Elf king was even more breathtakingly beautiful than most of his kind, with strong, masculine features framed by a fall of burnished gold hair threaded with shining beads, aromatic leaves, and fluttering hawk feathers. Except for the golden cast to his skin and his tapered ears, he was almost Fey in appearance.
Until you looked into his eyes.
Hawksheart’s eyes were a fathomless emerald, swirling with infinite sparkling lights, as if all the stars in the sky had been cast down a bottomless green well. Those eyes looked so ancient, Ellysetta wouldn’t have been surprised to learn they had witnessed the birth and death of worlds or gazed upon the faces of the gods.
Hawksheart studied her with those too-intent eyes, and she could feel him in her mind, probing her thoughts. The tairen shifted inside her, sensing a threat. It gave a warning growl and began to rise. Afraid of what it might do, Ellysetta lowered her lashes to break the Elf king’s gaze and bowed her head in greeting.
“My Lord Hawksheart,” she murmured. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Ellysetta Erimea.” The Elf king had a voice like a song, low and musical and enchanting. The accented Feyan rolled off his tongue like water tumbling over the stones in a brook. “Long have I waited for the day you would stand here among the ancients of Navahele.”
She raised her eyes in surprise. “Y-you have?”
“Bayas. I have lived ten thousand years, Ellysetta Erimea, and I have been waiting for your arrival since I saw my first glimpse of the Dance as a boy.” His eyes bored into hers once more. Despite herself, she flinched, and her tairen growled and roared.
“Parei,” Rain commanded curtly. “Ellysetta is not used to your Elvish ways. You are unsettling her.”
The Elf turned his piercing gaze on Rain, but Rain just narrowed his eyes and stood his ground.
Galad Hawksheart smiled. “We meet again, Worldscorcher.” The Elf turned back to Ellysetta. “Your truemate and I met many years ago in Tehlas when I went there to visit kin of mine.” He paused briefly, almost expectantly, before adding, “Though perhaps he does not remember it. He had only just returned from his Soul Quest and was still absorbing the wonder of being a fledgling Tairen Soul.”
“I remember,” Rain said. “You were there for the bonding ceremony of your cousin Hollen Stagleaper to the niece of Shanisorran v’En Celay. You told my father the next Song of the Dance had begun, and that I was the one who called it. I didn’t understand why that left my father so troubled, until I learned that the ones who call the Song always suffer for it. You can imagine my concern when I learned that Ellysetta calls a Song, too.”
“Is that why you stayed away? Did you think that by ignoring my summons, you could stop her Song?”
“My only concern was to get her to safety behind the Faering Mists.”
“And yet here you stand, and she is less safe now than she was then. The Dance will not be denied, Worldscorcher. Of all people, you should know that.”
Rain reached out with Spirit to probe Galad Hawksheart’s mind, intending to discover exactly what Hawksheart’s intentions were and what he knew of Ellysetta’s role in the Elvish prophecy.
Galad brushed aside Rain’s weave with a careless wave. “Fey weaves could never hope to enter an Elvian mind, Worldscorcher; nor is there need. I mean your mate no harm. Look to others for that and guard her well. She will need all the protection those of the Light can give her.”
“Hundreds have already sworn to guard her, in this life and the death that follows,” Tajik growled before Rain could reply.
“Kinsman.” Galad turned to Tajik. “So you have returned to Elvia after all.”
“As you Saw I would,” Tajik said.
“Bayas.” The Elf king held out an arm, which, after a brief hesitation, Tajik clasped in greeting. “I am pleased indeed to see your Light shining bright once more.”
Tajik dipped his head in Ellysetta’s direction. “That is the Feyreisa’s doing, cousin, which surely you must already have Seen as well.”
“I did, but that does not make me any less glad to know that what I Saw came to pass.”
Ellysetta glanced between them. “You and Lord Galad are related, Tajik?”
Tajik shrugged. “His father’s sister wed one of my ancestors fifteen thousand years ago, but Elves never forget their family lines. Once Elf blood joins your own, you and your descendants will always be Elf-kin.”
“Great Lord Barrial of Celieria is another of your kinsmen, is he not?” Rain asked.
Hawksheart nodded. “Descended from a different cousin. Our line comes directly from the first Elf king, who founded Navahele in the Time Before Memory.”
“How many kinsmen do you have?” Ellysetta asked.
Galad turned to her and his mouth curved in a smile that surprised Rain with its warmth. Elves were notoriously aloof with those not of their kind. They lived too long and Saw too much for them to easily form attachments with others.
“Since the dawn of the First Age,” Hawksheart said, “this world has greeted nine hundred eighty-nine thousand, two hundred seventy-three of my kin, but fewer than one hundred of us still live.”
“How many of those that remain are your direct descendants?”
The Elf king’s smile turned pensive. “I have no young; nor does my sister, Ilona. We two are the last Elves born to the direct royal line of the first king. Our remaining kin are cousins.”
“The family history lesson is all well and good,” Gaelen interrupted, “but surely that is not the reason you summoned Rain and Ellysetta to Navahele.”
Now Hawksheart’s expression went cool again. He regarded vel Serranis with an unblinking gaze. “Anio, it was not. Feyreisen, you and your mate please follow me.” He hesitated and gave each Fey a measuring look before adding, “The rest of you must remain here.”
“Ellysetta goes nowhere without her quintet.” Rain’s tone was as hard as stone. “whatever you have to say to us, you can say before them as well.”
“I assure you, your mate is in no danger here.”
“All the same, we all go, or none of us do,” Rain insisted.
Their gazes battled for a several moments before Hawksheart sighed and conceded. “Very well. You may all come. But none of you will reveal what you see to another—not through any method of communication, spoken or unspoken—and I will have your sworn Fey oaths on that.”
“Agreed,” Rain said. “I do so swear.”
After the others gave their own oaths of secrecy, Hawksheart led them though an archway into the center of the enormous Sentinel tree called Grandfather. The trunk opened up to a soaring, cathedral-like hollow. Stairs twined up the interior of the hollow in helix patterns and joined together the numerous levels of graceful balconies that ringed the throne room.
“Rain,” Ellysetta whispered, “look.” She pointed to the ceiling high overhead, where glowing lights formed a shifting pattern that looked like clouds moving across a blue sky. As they watched, the lights left the ceiling and flew about in a complex aerial dance. “They’re butterflies!” Ellysetta exclaimed. When the butterflies resettled, their pattern had changed to a sun shining over a forest meadow blooming with flowers. “How beautiful.”
“The damia enjoy your admiration, Ellysetta Erimea,” Hawksheart said with a smile as the scene on the ceiling changed again into an image of two tairen flying across blue skies.
At the center of the chamber, the Elf king’s throne rose up on a large mound shaped like an exquisitely detailed forest. Aquilines, Shadars, and countless other creatures peeked out between the trunks and leaves of the trees. The entire thing was a solid piece of smooth golden wood that looked as if it had grown in place from the heart of the Sentinel tree.
Expressionless Elvian guards stood at attention at the four corners of the throne, and another two stood beside a small, rune-etched door set into the rear of the throne. The door opened as Hawksheart approached to reveal a long, winding stair that led down below the throne.
As they descended, Rain’s nose filled with the aroma of rich, earthy life, redolent with magic. The scent reminded him of the caverns deep in the heart of Fey’Bahren. No sconces burned along the walls, but tiny glowing golden orbs gave off just enough light that the Fey could place their feet without fear of falling. The stair itself seemed hollowed out of the tree, the walls smooth and unmarred. There was no railing to hold on to, but there was no need. The passage was so narrow Rain’s armor-clad shoulders nearly rubbed the walls as he walked.
After what seemed an eternity, the stair finally opened to a dark cavern and a pool buried deep in the earth. No flames flickered within, but the pool in the center glowed bright blue from phosphorescent mosses lining it, and the soft light lit the entire chamber.
“This is the great mirror of Navahele,” Hawksheart told them when they had all gathered beside the pool. “It is the reason I requested your presence here, and the reason I would accept no ambassador sent by the Fey in your stead.”
“Explain,” Rain prompted. Already the hairs on the back of his neck were tingling as his tairen senses went on alert. This was Elvish magic—the very root of it—and Hawksheart had something up his sleeve.
«There is no need for your distrust.» Hawksheart’s voice plunged directly into Rain’s mind, calm and commanding. «I only seek a better understanding of your truemate’s Song.» Aloud, he said, “When a person calls a Song in the Dance, sometimes the verses of that Song are revealed more clearly when the Caller peers into the mirror. I had hoped, Rainier Feyreisen, that you and your mate would come when I first sent my ambassador to meet you in Celieria City. There were many verses your mate’s Song could have played then.”
Rain moved closer to Ellysetta. “And now?”
“Fewer. All of them dangerous. Most of them shadowed.”
Ellysetta’s fingers closed around Rain’s wrist, and her sudden rush of fear brought his protective instincts to the fore.
“Are you saying the Mage will succeed in claiming my soul?” she asked.
Hawksheart tilted his head. His eyes fixed on her face unblinkingly as he admitted, “Several possibilities of your Song end on that note.”
“Is there no hope?”
“If there were none, I would not have sent Fanor to you except as an assassin.”
A warning growl rumbled in Rain’s throat, and Ellysetta’s quintet instantly closed ranks around her, fingers hovering over red Fey’cha hilts.
Hawksheart held up his hands. “Peace. The laws of Elvish hospitality are inviolable. Once you crossed the river Elva at my invitation, every Elf and forest dweller has ensured your protection.”
The assurance didn’t settle Ellysetta’s quintet. Their hands remained hovering over their steel, and their expressions remained stony, emotionless masks.
A sudden creaking groan broke the tense silence. The satin-smooth, seamless wooden walls of the chamber trembled, and the waters of the glowing blue pool rippled.
Rain dropped to a slight crouch—both to keep his balance and to prepare for an attack. His pupils widened, tairen and Fey vision combining, as he scanned the dim chamber with sudden suspicion, looking for the threat.
“What Elvish trick is this?” he snapped. Around Ellysetta, the quintet struggled to keep their balance as the wood beneath their feet shifted and bucked like a living creature.
“Grandfather does not like the threat of steel so close to his heartwood,” Hawksheart replied. “Put him at ease, my friends. Move your hands away from your blades.”
Warily, the quintet pulled their hands away from their blades. A moment later, the groaning tremors ceased and the floor beneath their feet went still and solid once more.
Ellysetta regarded the smooth wood of the tree’s interior with wide eyes. “This tree really is alive…like a person.”
“Bayas, Ellysetta Erimea. The Sentinels, especially, are intelligent—and deadly when roused. Grandfather was simply giving your quintet a polite warning. Had they truly threatened him or me, he would have slain everyone in this chamber in a matter of moments.”
The warriors tried to hide their unease, but Rain saw several of them flicking suspicious glances at the tree walls. When Rijonn thought no one was looking, he gave the wooden floor a thump with the toe of his boot. The floor thumped him back—hard enough that the great Fey jumped and nearly lost his balance. Gil gave his friend a withering glance.
Hawksheart ignored them both. “Ellysetta Erimea, will you look in my mirror?”
She wet her lips. “What will I see? Because I’ve looked into oracles before, and they’ve never shown anything pleasant.”
“I doubt that will be any different now.” A surprising note of kindness gentled Hawksheart’s voice. “You were born to be a world changer. It is not an easy path to walk; nor, as your mate pointed out, is it one without great suffering and sacrifice.” He took a step forward, arms outstretched as if he meant to take her hands, but Rain and the quintet closed ranks again. The Elf king stopped in his tracks. “The question, Ellysetta Erimea, is not whether you will change the world, but whether you will change it for the good.”
“How can you doubt?” Rain growled. “You have only to look at her to see she is bright and shining.”
“Elvish eyes see differently from Fey,” Hawksheart answered mildly. “Your truemate’s Song is neither simple nor certain. She holds within her the potential for great good as well as for the greatest evil this world has ever seen. She is a vessel of the gods the likes of which has not been seen since the Time Before Memory. Not even Grandfather has ever spoken of her except to say she was coming and that the Lord of Valorian must look for her arrival. Make no mistake, Tairen Soul, the fate of the world lies in the balance, and your mate will determine which way the scales tip.”
“I have already said I will choose death before I allow myself to fall to Darkness,” Ellysetta told him. “The tairen will see to it. I have their oaths.”
“Bayas. Those are possible end notes of your Song, and they still shine brightly, which means they may yet come to pass. But there are many different verses that lead to other possibilities, and they are the ones I hope to see more clearly. If you will consent to look in the mirror.”
Rain put a hand on Ellysetta’s shoulder. “If she consents, will you commit Elvia to join us in our fight against the Eld?”
Gold-tipped lashes shuttered the Elf king’s piercing eyes. “I cannot. If Elvia joins you now, the fate you fear most will come to pass.”
“All will be lost if you don’t help us,” Rain countered. “We cannot win against the Eld alone.”
“I agree you cannot, but if the Elves enter the coming battle, the High Mage will complete his claiming of your shei’tani—and that will mean the end of all Light in this world. I have seen this in every variation of her Song. It is a certainty, not a possibility. The Elves must not fight. It would seal the doom of us all.”
Ellysetta half turned towards Rain, instinctively seeking the shelter of his arms.
“Explain. How would your aid in this war ensure her Mage-claiming?” Rain persisted. He didn’t even ask how the Elf king knew she was Mage Marked. Elves Saw too much—about everything.
“She will not take the journey she must if the Elves come to your aid. That is all I can say. If I reveal more, the outcome might be equally as devastating.”
“Do not toy with us.” Rain’s fingers itched to pull his blades from their sheaths, but he kept his hands firmly at his sides. “Forgive my bluntness, Lord Galad, but if you want Ellysetta to help you better See her Song in the Dance, you need to offer us something in return. And what she needs now is help to rid herself of her Mage Marks and complete our bond. What I need now are swords and bows and warriors to wield them.”
“There are only two ways to remove her Marks—either complete your bond or kill the Mage who Marked her. As for military aid, you have already been receiving that, whether you know it or not—or did you think the Feraz were going to sit idle in this new Mage War?”
Rain drew up short. “The Feraz?”
“Have been harrying my southern borders for months now.”
“Ambassador Brightwing said nothing of it when we met in Celieria City.”
“And I would say nothing now, except you are determined to think the worst of me.” Hawksheart pinched the bridge of his nose in a weary gesture. “Believe me, Tairen Soul, I will give what aid I can when I know my interference will not send your mate’s Song down the path of destruction. How to help is what I’ve been trying to See since the day I first Saw her Song as a boy—and lest you forget, I dispatched Brightwing to Celieria City to offer you that help the day I learned that her Song had begun, the day a Celierian maiden called a tairen from the sky.”
Rain grew suddenly still. “That day in Tehlas, when you told my father I called a Song in the Dance, did you also know that I would have a truemate—and that she would be the one you’d been waiting for?”
The Elf’s expression grew shuttered, but he admitted the truth. “I Saw it before you were born.”
“You knew that I would scorch the world.”
“I knew. That Song was certain long before you were born.”
Anger simmered in his heart. “So you knew Sariel would die?”
“Your truemate could never have called your soul if you were still bound to Sariel.”
“And you just stood by and let it all happen?”
“Stood by?” For the first time, anger sparked in the Elf king’s eyes. “My people fought beside yours in every battle and died by the tens of thousands—many by your flame—which I and many of those who perished had Seen before it happened. Loved ones I had known for millennia surrendered their immortal lives to help the Fey hold the Shadow at bay, but some things, Rain Worldscorcher, we could not prevent. Some things had to unfold exactly as they did because the gods willed it so.”
“The gods,” Rain spat. “You mean that flaming Dance of yours.”
“Of course I mean the Dance!” Hawksheart exclaimed. “The Dance is the will of the gods, and our ability to See it was the gift entrusted to the first Elf, Taliesin Silvereye, when the gods fashioned our peoples from the stars. You Fey are the champions of Light, the chosen swords of the gods in the fight against the Dark. We Elves are the beacons, born to guide and aid you.”
“Guide us? If the Mage Wars were the outcome of your guidance, the Fey can scorching well do without it!”
“And yet, here you are, seeking my help and guidance.”
Rain opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Damn the Elf. “Because I have no choice. Because my shei’tani needs answers only you can provide. And because I know we cannot win this war without your help—and you know it, too, yet still you refuse to provide it.”
“There is much you do not understand.”
“Because you refuse to tell me.”
“Because I cannot reveal the future I have Seen without changing what will happen!” Hawksheart snapped. “Too much is at stake, Tairen Soul. More than you can imagine. You distrust me, and I understand that. But I assure you, the Elves are in the service of the Light and always have been. My people left the Fading Lands when the Fey raised the Mists, but the moment you returned to the world, I sent my ambassador to you so that I could offer guidance and counsel as I have to every other Defender of the Fey who has ruled the Fading Lands. Your response,” he added pointedly, “was to send one I did not invite in your stead.”
Rain scowled. “I needed to get Ellysetta behind the Mists. Keeping her safe from the Mages was my first priority, and that took precedence over any desire of yours, Elf.” Violence simmered just beneath the surface of Rain’s skin. Already he could feel the tairen raking at its bonds, claws unsheathed and sharp as knives, the hunter’s growl rumbling deep within him.
Ellysetta put a hand over his. «He is not the enemy, shei’tan, and though he is definitely keeping something from us, he is sincere in his desire to help.» Aloud, to Hawksheart, she said, “Rain did what he thought best, Lord Galad, just as I’m sure you do. I will look into your mirror, but I want three things in return.” Her voice throbbed with low, persuasive shei’dalin tones.
Whether influenced by her push or not, Hawksheart bowed his head in agreement. “Name your price, Ellysetta Erimea. If I can give you what you request without endangering the outcome of your Song, I will.”
“First, I want your oath, sworn on all you hold dear, that you will do everything in your power to stop me from becoming the monster I saw in the Eye of Truth.”
The Elf king nodded. “This I am already sworn to do. If you fall to the Mages, Ellysetta, Light falls with you, and the Dance of this world dies. What else?”
“I want to know how to complete my truemate bond with Rain.”
Even before she finished speaking, Hawksheart was shaking his head. “Anio. That, I am afraid, I cannot tell you. That is a journey you and your mate must take together—without outside aid or interference.”
“But—”
“I am sorry,” he interrupted, his tone firm and uncompromising. “I cannot guide the journey your souls must take. Only the two of you can do that.”
“Will you at least tell us if we will complete our bond?” she persisted.
The Elf king hesitated, clearly reluctant, but after several moments, he admitted, “There are several variations of your Song that contain that verse.”
“Beylah vo, Lord Galad.” She threaded her fingers through Rain’s. “That gives me a measure of hope, at least.” She took a deep breath. “Then I have one final request.”
“Which is?”
“I want to know the truth about myself. I want to know how I know the things I do. Why can I wield Fey’cha like a master when I’ve never touched one before? Why can I heal souls in ways no other shei’dalin can? Where did I come from and what was done to me—and can it be undone? I want to know who my birth parents were and if they’re still alive.”
Hawksheart bowed his head for a moment, and his eyes closed as if he were suddenly weary. “What was done cannot be undone, my child. The past can only be used to shape the future.”
“I understand that. But if I agree to look in your mirror, you must give me the truth about my past.” She took a step closer. “You do know it, don’t you? If I am the one you’ve been waiting for, surely you must have Seen it.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled a heavy sigh. “Bayas,” he admitted. “I know your truth. If you are certain you wish to know it, too, then I will share it with you. You have Seen a part of it yourself already.”
“Thank you.” Ellysetta drew a deep breath. A sense of fatalistic calm suffused her. Not knowing was far worse than any unpleasant secret Hawksheart might reveal. She couldn’t change what she was or where she came from, but she could at least face the truth and find a way to make peace with it. She was tired of jumping at shadows and fearing what she was.
“Then we have a compact?”
Rain’s arm tightened around her waist. «Be very sure this is what you want, shei’tani,» he whispered. «Once you strike a bargain with an Elf, he will hold you to your word; and inevitably what you bargained for doesn’t turn out the way you expected.»
She patted the golden steel brace covering his forearm. «I need to do this, Rain. Mama always used to say it’s better to choke on a bitter truth than savor a honeycake lie. He has the answers I need, and this may be my only chance to discover them.» She stroked his hand, each touch a caress filled with love and understanding and pleading. After a few moments, his arm fell reluctantly away from her waist.
“Well?” Hawksheart prompted. “Do we have an agreement?” His piercing Elvish eyes never left her face.
Ellysetta swallowed a sudden stab of fear and nodded. “Aiyah.”
“The offer has been made and accepted. The bargain is Elf-struck.” He clapped his hands and sparks shot out in a blossom of gold and green fire to swirl in the air between them. A sudden electric tingle raced through her veins. When the sparks faded, the Elf king waved an arm towards the shining blue pool. “Kneel beside the mirror. I would first See your Song, and then I will give you the truth of your past.”
As Ellysetta moved towards the pool and knelt on the spongy moss at its bank, Hawksheart walked towards the edge of the dim chamber. He laid his hands upon the inner tree wall and murmured something in lyrical Elvish. A moment later, the chamber was flooded with a pleasant but rather overpowering woodsy aroma, sweet, earthy, and pungent.
Ellysetta swayed as dizziness overtook her.
Do not fear, and do not resist. Hawksheart’s voice rang in her head like the tolling of a bell, resonant and irresistible. Not Spirit but something else. Something deeper and more powerful. Grandfather merely shares the scent of his liferings. It will help open your mind to the mirror. Breathe deeply. Take his scent into your lungs.
Without hesitation, Ellysetta breathed as deeply as her lungs would allow. The dim room took on a hazy cast, as if a mist had crept into the chamber to throw everything out of focus. Beside her, in the depths of the shimmering blue pool, colors began to gather and swirl.
Now hold your hands over the mirror. When I tell you, put your palms upon the surface of the water…but be very careful not to submerge them. The mirror is powerful magic, and you are not trained in its use.
Her hands moved of their own volition out over the water. The colors in the pool leaped and twirled towards them as if in greeting. Ellysetta watched with a dazed sense of detachment, as if those hands belonged to someone else.
«Shei’tani?» Rain’s thoughts pressed against hers. Some part of her was dimly aware of his concern, but she couldn’t seem to summon a response. Her lungs were filled with the overpowering fragrance of the Sentinel, and her mind felt muddled.
She watched with a strange, detached disorientation as her hands lowered, palms down, fingers splayed, until at last the cool water of the mirror touched her skin. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she felt a strange, electric tug, as if the liquid in the pool were pure magic. Perhaps it was—and it was trying to draw her into its blue depths. She leaned forward.
Stop.
Hawksheart’s command froze her in place. Her hands barely kissed the still surface of the pool.
You know how to share your essence with a thing. Share it with the mirror now.
She drew a breath, closed her eyes, and summoned the brilliant rainbow-lit darkness of Fey vision. In that darkness the world around her was a bright weave of glowing magic: red Fire, green Earth, gleaming blue Water, silvery Air, and lavender Spirit. Here, in the heart of Grandfather, the colors were so dense the darkness was virtually impossible to see, and the water of the mirror shone a blinding blue-white. Into that dazzling brightness she poured a portion of the potent energy that was her essence, the living magic unique to her alone.
The pool flared. The colors of Grandfather flared as well, and the entire room went so magic-bright Ellysetta cried out and opened her eyes. Fey vision still overlapped natural sight, and what had been a dim, windowless hollow lit only by the glow of the mirror pool was now as bright as the Great Sun. She glanced over her shoulder. Rain and her quintet stood in a protective semicircle directly behind her, and though their silvery Fey luminescence was dazzling to her enhanced vision, each of the Fey appeared as dim shadows against Grandfather’s searing light.
Concentrate, Ellysetta Erimea. Find the essence of your Song.
Ellysetta turned towards Galad Hawksheart, but like the Sentinel tree and the mirror pool, the Elf king was so bright he made her eyes hurt. “The light is blinding. I can’t see.”
You do not need to see. You only need to think of your Song.
“But I don’t know my song. Even the tairen could not hear it.”
I do not speak of tairen song. You have not yet accepted that part of your soul, so of course you do not hear it. I speak of your life’s Song. Everyone has one. It is an individual life’s unique pattern, its joys and sorrows, its loves and fears, its memories and dreams. Think of those things. Summon your Song.
Faces flashed across her memory, vignettes of the happiest days of her life. Mama, Papa, the twins. Her fear and awe the day Rain Tairen Soul swooped down from the sky to claim her. Selianne Pyerson, laughing and giggling over some girlish fancy. Lillis and Lorelle squealing and dancing in circles, their mink brown curls bobbing against their slender shoulders. Rain gathering her into his arms, his eyes glowing stars that regarded her as if she were the sun around which all his world revolved.
Gradually, other not-so-happy memories emerged as well. Kelissande Minset’s sneering superiority. Queen Annoura’s scarcely veiled mockery as she assessed Ellysetta during her first appearance at court. The Church of Light priests in Hartslea who’d come to examine her for demon possession. Rain drawing back from her in horror as the black smudge of the Mage’s Mark bloomed like a dread flower over her heart.
Bayas. You are doing well. Keep concentrating. Let the memories come.
The memories turned darker still. Nightmares from her childhood. Dreams of blood and death and war. Screaming. The exorcists with their terrible needles. Pain! Oh, dear gods, such pain! Hot tears gathered in her eyes. The tairen dying. The High Mage, with his burning, ember-kissed eyes, laughing in triumph. You’ll kill them, girl. You’ll kill them all. It’s what you were born for. Mama dying in her arms. That horrible, unchangeable moment when a sel’dor blade had flashed and Mama’s head rolled away from her body.
Rage.
She cried out and started to pull her hands from the mirror’s surface, hoping that breaking the contact would stop the onslaught.
Anio! Hawksheart barked, his voice a hammer of command. No. You must continue.
“I don’t want to.” She whimpered like a child afraid to set foot into a dark room. Cold shivered down her limbs. She couldn’t feel her legs tucked beneath her, but her hands and arms had turned to lumps of ice, freezing and burning all at once.
You must. This is the price for the truth you asked of me.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want it anymore.”
The bargain was Elf-struck. It cannot be undone.
The images of her life began to flash faster as the events became more recent. The Massan. Venarra holding the soul of a dying Fey woman to life while other shei’dalins worked frantically to heal her broken body. The death of the tairen kitling Forrahl. Ellysetta’s descent into the Well of Souls to save the other kitlings. The terrible piercing anguish of two more Mage Marks, and Rain’s own daring plunge into the Well to rescue her. The battle of Orest. Rain emerging from Veil Lake, wreathed in blinding magic as he donned the golden war steel of the Feyreisen. Saving Aartys and Truthspeaking the Mage. The dark voices whispering in her mind. The Azrahn-gifted children conceived as a result of her weave. Rain’s Rage during the Eld attack. The way Fey’cha fit so comfortably in her hands. The moment she made her bargain with the Elf king.
The images came faster and faster as the scenes they depicted grew closer to the present. When they reached this moment, Ellysetta cried out and her spine went rigid. The flashing images became a blur, yet she could see them with vivid clarity.
War. Armies stretched as far as she could see. Dharsa in smoldering ruins. Rain, in tairen form, roaring in pain as a sel’dor bowcannon bolt ripped through his chest and sent him tumbling from the sky. Rain and Ellysetta, captured by the Eld and draped in sel’dor chains as black-armored soldiers and a blue-robed Primage prodded them towards a great gaping black maw.
In slow motion, so that each moment seemed to last a lifetime, Ellysetta saw a red Fey’cha plunge into Rain’s back, saw Rain’s eyes widen in surprise and pain. He fell dead at her feet, his limbs shaking with tremors as the lethal venom from the blade raced through his body. She saw herself standing over his body. Her eyes were black as night, sparkling with malevolent red stars, as she raised the bloody Fey’cha over her head and laughed.
“No!” Ellysetta shrieked the denial and tried to pull her hands from the mirror, but something held them in place. She could not free herself, and the visions continued to flash in the bright light of the pool, each more awful than the previous. The worst visions from every nightmare she’d ever harbored. A future so grim she could not bear it.
The world in flames. Millions slaughtered. Celierians, Fey, and Elves in chains. Fey’Bahren a scorched boneyard baking in a merciless sun, while overhead winged monsters that once had been tairen dominated the sky, their hides as bare and scabrous as those of the foul darrokken. Acid dripped from their fangs, leaving smoldering pits in the monsters’ wakes.
Lillis and Lorelle not dead, but worse: dark-eyed imps of evil, laughing and dancing in showers of blood while they played Stones with the skulls of slaughtered children. And watching them fondly, from a diseased throne of death: herself, the Queen of Darkness.
“Stop!” Ellysetta cried. “Did you bring me here only to torture me? You said there was still hope! Where is the hope in this?” She writhed and yanked at her hands, fighting the unseen power that kept her chained to the mirror pool, but she could not free herself. «Rain! Help me!» she called on the bond threads that tied part of his soul to hers.
He didn’t answer.
Fear hollowed her out and left her shaking. “Where’s Rain? What have you done with him?” She tried to see him but both her Fey vision and her physical sight were now completely blinded by the blazing magic that filled the chamber. All she could see was burning, blinding, dazzling white light.
Calm yourself, Ellysetta Erimea, Hawksheart chided. Your fears are groundless. Your mate is safe, and exactly where you left him. Be calm.
Calm? She was blind and trapped and couldn’t reach Rain, and this stranger whom Rain didn’t trust wanted her to be calm?
“Then why can’t I hear him? Why can’t I see him? Why are you holding me against my will?”
She heard something that sounded like a sigh. You cannot leave because our bargain was Elf-struck. Your own magic binds you until the price you agreed to is paid. The harder you struggle, the more powerful the bonds become. You cannot see because the magic that blinds you is a reflection of your own power. The more magic you expend trying to free yourself, the more blinding the light becomes. If you calm yourself and cease your struggle, the light will begin to fade.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before I touched the mirror?”
I had not believed it necessary, but you are much stronger than I Saw. He sounded slightly embarrassed and not quite as sure of himself as he had seemed at their meeting. And much brighter.
Ellysetta wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but as she stopped fighting to free herself, the blinding whiteness around her began to dim. Not much, but once again she could make out the faint shadows of her truemate and her quintet standing nearby.
Her head drooped in relief. Her hands remained touching the cool, motionless surface of the pool, but she was afraid to look again, afraid of what else it would show. “You told us there was still hope, yet every future the mirror has shown me so far is evil. I saw Rain murdered—and I was the one wielding the blade.”
Bayas, but you looked into the mirror with fear, and so the mirror reflected the thing you fear most. I looked with a different heart, and I saw other paths…several not so bleak. The Elf’s voice softened with compassion. Hope remains, faint though it may be. Look again, child. But this time, let love, not fear, guide your Song.
If only it were so easy. “I don’t think I know how to stop being afraid. It’s been such a part of me my whole life.”
There are some fears, young Ellysetta, that can never be conquered. Sometimes, all you can do is acknowledge your fear, then act in spite of it. Look again, Ellysetta, but fill your mind with hope.
Hope. The word made her want to weep. When had she ever truly known hope? Her nightmares, her seizures, the fears of demon possession: Evil had haunted her all her life, tainted every happiness with shadow. Most of the few people she’d allowed herself to love had died or been lost because of her: Selianne, Mama, Papa, and the twins. She loved Rain, but all she’d brought him was banishment from the Fading Lands and the threat of certain death.
Somewhere deep inside, some part of her knew their truemate bond would never be complete. Rain would die because of her. Whether battling the Eld or from bond madness, it made no difference. In the end, she would kill him as surely as she killed him in her nightmares. As surely as she had caused the death of Mama and Selianne.
“He’ll die because of me,” she wept.
He will most certainly die if you do nothing. But more than that, all the Light of this world will die as well. Is that what you want, Ellysetta?
“No, of course not!”
Then look in the mirror, child. The gods sent you to fight the Dark, Ellysetta Erimea. Do not fear what you were born to do.
If it were only her life at stake, she could not have made herself look in the mirror again to see what other horrors would be revealed. But hers was not the only life at risk.
She knew the face of evil. She’d seen it in her dreams, and too often, lately, it had worn her own features. It must be stopped. There was no other option. Because, as Rain had once told her, when evil came calling, you couldn’t reason with it. You couldn’t bargain with it or strike terms of peace. You couldn’t hide behind a locked door and hope that it would go away. Evil had no mercy. Evil didn’t value life. It nursed its children on blood and hate. It celebrated death and hailed murder in the name of its Dark God.
She could not fail. No matter the cost to herself. For reasons she would never understand, the gods had apparently chosen her, Ellysetta Baristani, to be the hinge on which the fate of the world turned. And if there was anything in Hawksheart’s mirror that would help her defeat the Shadow threatening all she held dear, she needed to find it.
Ellysetta lifted her head and looked back into the mirror.