King of Sword and Sky by C. L. Wilson
She laughed, a throaty sound. “But it is not so easy to come by.” She leaned forward, her breasts pressing together invitingly, her sloe eyes fixed on his face. “Chemar, great one, are made from the bones of those sacrificed to Gamorraz. The stones can be manufactured at will and in great quantities. But best of all, as you have seen for yourself, the chemar have no magical properties until they are activated by the proper witchword. Fey wards will not detect it. No sacrifice is needed to make the stones work. You can place chemar anywhere you desire a portal and open the gates at will—and without using Azrahn. You can insert your armies, without warning, anywhere you so desire. The stones are consumed when you use them, but all you need do is simply drop another when you wish to open a gate again.”
The High Mage leaned back in his chair. “Very well. You have piqued my interest.” He gestured to the bag dangling from Zebah’s wrist. “How many of those chemar did you bring with you?”
The witch hefted her black pouch. “Fezai Madia sends four dozen as a gesture of her goodwill.”
Vadim rose to his feet, the hem of his purple Mage robes swirling about his ankles. “You will give me a demonstration of their effectiveness. Then I will decide how useful they may, in fact, be.”
Zebah bowed low, but the slow, confident smile on her face when she straightened belied any implication of subservience. “As you will. It is my pleasure to serve, great one.”
“What price does the Fezai have in mind for more of these chemar?”
The Fezaiina’s smile widened, showing the pointed edges of her small, white teeth. “One of your strongest males for every four dozen stones.”
Vadim’s glance sharpened. “That is a steep price.”
“Perhaps.” Zebah lifted her dark, arching brows. “But consider this, Chazah: Your males will be returned to you when the Fezai is through with them.” She shook the bag of chemar stones and laughed. “Or, at least, what is left of them.”
Three bells later, the Fezaiina took her leave, stepping into the open maw of the Well of Souls. Four muscular, sel’dor-shackled men followed her, tame as sheep, their eyes downcast, their faces blank with the dazed effects of the Feraz witch’s enchantment.
Vadim Maur watched them go with a twinge of regret. The four had been promising men from strong bloodlines, full of latent magic. But Fezai Madia would not have been pleased if he’d sent her less than quality in payment for her latest discovery…and the woman had an evil temper.
The hand holding the chemar pouch began to shake again. He bent a hard gaze upon it, trying to will the trembling muscles into obedience. Instead, the tremors grew more pronounced and shot up the entire length of his arm. The velvet bag filled with chemar dropped from nerveless fingers.
“Master Maur.” A nearby guard started towards him until a snarled command from the High Mage sent him reeling back in fear.
Vadim bent to snatch the chemar pouch from the ground and stuffed it in the pocket of his robes. His trembling hand he stuffed in the other pocket. His gaze swept the room, noting which men had witnessed his moment of weakness. Unfortunately for them, all four belonged to Primages who had apprenticed to a Mage other than Vadim Maur. He did not have access to their souls the way he did to the umagi of his own apprentices.
“You four. Come here.”
Nervously, they came. What choice did they have, really?
“Kneel.”
Two of them swallowed and hesitated. “Master Maur?” The fearful defiance annoyed him. “Do as I say.” Gulping, the four men knelt. “Mast—” The guard’s voice broke off in a gurgle as Vadim’s Mage blade swept out in one clean slice across three of the four men’s necks. The fourth man gave a cry and jerked back just in time to miss the first death strike. He didn’t miss the second.
From the doorway to the Well of Souls—kept open with a combination of Azrahn and frequent sacrifices to the Guardians of the Well—demons howled at the scent of fresh blood and death. Vadim left the creatures to their feast. Souls consumed by what lived in the Well could not be called back from the dead. The four would carry no tales of Vadim’s weakness to their masters.
As he exited the room, he paused to tell the guard outside the door, “Contact your captain. Tell him to send more guards for the Well.”
The soldier brought his heels together with a snap and bowed sharply at the waist. “As you wish, Most High.”
The Fading Lands ~ Chatok
Night had fallen. A warm, dry breeze blew from the west, swirling through the long skeins of Rain’s hair. He stood on the battlements of Chatok’s great tower, his face turned to the north, eyes whirling with glowing radiance as he sang a message to his tairen kin in the still-distant nesting lair of Fey’Bahren.
Ellysetta drank in the vibrant notes of his song as she climbed the last few steps to join him. He had changed out of his leathers and steel, trading them for flowing robes of dusky blue velvet over a tunic of heavy lavender silk shot through with silver thread. An intricately woven circlet of beaten silver rested on his brow, and he’d transformed the golden chain and pendant holding his sorreisu kiyr, his Soul Quest crystal, from gold to gleaming silver.
He turned to her, still singing, and held out a hand. She took it, and he pulled her close, his arms wrapping with casual possessiveness around her waist. The folds of his robe swirled about her, warm and rich with the scent of Rain. The tension that had been coiled within him for days was finally beginning to ease. Despite the unkind welcome the Faering Mists had offered them, at last they were here, safe in the Fading Lands, only two days’ run from Fey’Bahren, the nesting lair of the tairen.
“Good news?” she asked when the last notes of his song drifted away on the wind.
“Cahlah fed again today,” he said. “Sybharukai says her strength is returning. The kits show signs of improvement as well.”
“That is good news.” Ellysetta tilted her head back, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps the Fey don’t need me so much as you first thought.”
His arms tightened. “Do not be so quick to discount your importance. Cahlah may be recovering, but her kits aren’t safe until they break from the egg.”
“So we head for Fey’Bahren tonight?”
“Nei.” He smiled and brushed back her curls. “Tonight, we rest and let the warriors downstairs celebrate the arrival of their Feyreisa. It’s been too long since they’ve had cause for joy.”
Together, they made their way downstairs to Chatok’s massive main hall. There, a great fire burned in the center of the room, and all the warriors of the eastern army had gathered for a feast to welcome their new queen.
When she and Rain stepped onto the landing that led down into the main hall, a hush fell over the assembled Fey and all eyes turned towards her. For one brief moment, a shaft of familiar terror froze her in place—the memory of her first, ill-fated introduction to the heads of Celieria’s noble houses—but then hundreds of Fey voices rose in a now-familiar cry: “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa!”
Bel and Gaelen, looking taller and more handsome than she’d ever seen them, approached the foot of the stairs, smiling up at her as she and Rain descended. Like the rest of the Fey, they’d exchanged their leathers and steel for flowing robes. Gaelen wore subtle shades that called to mind images of ancient, misty forests, while Bel wore a drape of cobalt blue over a tunic of lustrous silver and pewter gray. Both men regarded her with warm eyes.
“You are lovely, kem’falla,” Bel said with a smile.
“Beylah vo, Bel.” While Rain had donned robes the color of dusk, he’d clad her in starlight. Her gown was sumptuous white silk beaded with thousands of tiny diamonds that shimmered as she moved. A wide, boat-shaped neckline and snug bodice gave way to full, flowing skirts that trailed behind her. A girdle of platinum links shaped like twining vines circled her waist and dripped graceful loops of sorreisu kiyr, the Soul Quest crystals of the Fey who’d died on her behalf in Celieria. Bel’s and Gaelen’s bloodsworn daggers hung she
With Gaelen and Bel close behind, Rain escorted her to the head table, where Marissya and Dax were already waiting.
Ellysetta stopped at the sight of the five unfamiliar Fey women sitting with them. “Who are they?”
“Shei’dalins from Dharsa,” Rain answered. “They arrived earlier this evening while we were getting dressed, along with the warriors I promised King Dorian I’d send to help secure the Eld border.”
“Shei’dalins?” Ellysetta stiffened.
“Las, shei’tani,” Rain soothed. She’d told him about the shei’dalins in the Mists who’d Truthspoken her. “I promised Great Lord Darramon the Fey would heal his dying wife if he brought her to Teleon. These five shei’dalins came to honor my oath. Come, meet them,” he said, inviting her to follow him.
Ellysetta followed him reluctantly to greet the shei’dalins and murmur what she hoped were appropriate greetings. She tried not to let her distrust of them show, but she did not sit near them either.
The feast that followed was nothing like the studied artifice of Celieria’s royal state dinners, but rather a true celebration. Safe behind the Faering Mists, stoic Fey expressions softened with smiles and laughter, transforming the fierce, deadly warriors into approachable men of uncommon beauty and warmth. Laughter rang out from every corner of the room. The tables overflowed with roasted meat and a variety of tempting delicacies: cool salads, steaming vegetable dishes, fresh and honey-glazed fruits, all accompanied by pale sweet wine and crisp, cool water that made her eyes widen in surprise when she sipped it.
“This is good.” The water tasted like fresh-fallen snow and sunlight, cold, sweet, and pure, with an unexpected energy that radiated through her as she drank.
“I’m glad it pleases you.” Rain drank from his own cup, then set it aside. “We call it faerilas. It is the water of the Source, the great fountain at the center of each of our largest cities.” He smiled as he sliced a nearby round of cheese into thin layers and handed one to her. She took a tentative bite. The cheese was firm, with a creamy, nutty flavor that melted on her tongue. “You may have heard of the Source. Some mortals, who misunderstood the reason for Fey longevity, used to call it the Fount of Eternas.”
“The Fountain of Eternal Youth?” Ellysetta paused before her next bite of cheese to examine the water in her goblet with greater interest.
He laughed. “Las, shei’tani. I said misguided mortals called it that, not that they were right.”
“But there is magic in this faerilas.” She took another sip to confirm it. “I can taste it.” One sip and a tingling energy filled her with renewed strength.
“Aiyah, but the magic will not make you young—nor keep you that way. The waters of the Source replenish magical energies and purify whatever they touch, but no more than that. The cleansing spell the Fey cast on the Velpin River does much the same, though in a less powerful way.” He smiled at her disappointment and reached for a small, teardrop-shaped globe of bright green-and-scarlet fruit.
“Here, taste this.” He sliced the fruit with a few deft strokes of a Fey’cha blade and held out a small segment. “I think you will like it.”
Ellysetta took the proffered morsel and bit into the firm, cool flesh. Sweet, tangy juice filled her mouth with bursting sweetness and trickled down the corners of her lips. Laughing, she lifted a hand to wipe away the dribbles. “It’s very good. And very messy!”
“We call it tamaris. It is a cousin to the komarind, which is more beautiful to look at but no good for eating.”
Her tongue was tingling. “There’s magic in the tamaris too.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Magic is everywhere in the Fading Lands. Legend claims it was the great tairen Lissallukai who sang magic into this world, but after countless millennia, the faer—the magic of the tairen and the Fey—has become a part of this land, and we a part of it.”
She took another bite and more juice spurted against her skin, but this time Rain reached over and caught the runnel of juice before she could. His finger stroked upward, scooping the nectar from her skin, then painting it across her lips with one burning stroke of his hand. His eyes were glowing.
Her laughter fell silent. Everything in the Fading Lands brimmed with magic: the Fey, the tairen, even the waters and the fruits of the fields. But for her, the greatest magic of all was Rain and what he made her feel. “Will it always be like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like magic, between us.”
His eyes flared bright for a brief instant. “Aiyah, Ellysetta, it will. Shei’tanitsa bonds, once forged, will never wane. What exists between us will last to the end of time.”
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur made his way through the sconce-lit stairways and corridors of Boura Fell to the hall that housed Elfeya v’En Celay’s bedchamber-prison. As the earlier episode by the Well had proven, the weakness in his arm required immediate tending. Clearly, the powerful shei’dalin had not been doing her best to keep him strong and healthy. That was going to change.
He unlocked and cleared a heavily warded door. It swung inward, and he smiled at the sight of the flame-haired Fey woman chained naked to the bed within.
He had promised Elfeya and her mate torment beyond imagining for their part in hiding the truth of their daughter’s magic from him and for trying to help her escape the trap he’d set for her during the Bride’s Blessing. True to Vadim’s word, Lord v’En Celay now lay in the depths of Boura Fell, little more than a bloody heap of shredded skin and shattered bones.
Elfeya’s punishment wasn’t quite as bloody—he needed her body whole enough to work the healing magic that was so useful to him—but torture wore a million faces. He sat on the edge of the bed and cupped the soft globe of her naked breast. One long, cold thumb brushed across the still-raw bruises and lash marks marring the perfection of her luminous skin.
She flinched and glared at him, her golden eyes afire with loathing.
“Your mate has had a very bad day,” he murmured.
“Much worse than your last night.” His thumb dug into her soft flesh, his sharpened nail drawing a thin line of sweet, scarlet blood. “His tomorrow will be much worse yet if you don’t heal me very well tonight. Do you understand?” He bent his head and licked the blood from her skin, savoring the tingle of powerful magic that infused it. “I can be quite cruel to pets who displease me.”
Several floors below the Fey shei’dalin’s cell, two stocky umagi hauled away the bloody remains of the last pet to displease one of the Mages of Boura Fell. A ragged young girl with a mop of tangled black hair held the refuse cart steady as her companions dumped the limp body inside. Shattered limbs flopped like wilted flower stalks, the man’s bones little more than pulverized dust within a bloody bag of flesh.
“Well, he didn’t last long,” one of the men muttered.
“Most don’t once Goram gets his hammer out.” The second man jerked his chin toward a door at the shadowy end of the corridor. “’Cept for him. Never seen any creature, mortal or magic, survive what he does. It’s like Death himself fears to claim him.”
The first man shuddered. “That’s what they called him, you know. Desriel, Lord Death. Deadliest Fey ever to walk the earth…killed near as many as the Tairen Soul did when he scorched the world…only Lord Death did it with nothing but blades and magic. Even Master Maur fears him—I thought he was going to wet himself two weeks ago when all the sel’dor that one wears came off.”
“Watch your tongue, Durm. There’s ears here.” The second man jerked his head towards the girl holding the cart. He cuffed her on the side of the head. “Go on. Dump this lump of flesh in the pit. Master Maur’s pets are hungry. Then get up to the next level. There’s more work for you
Cold silver eyes regarded him from beneath strings of tangled hair. Without a word, the girl pushed the heavy cart towards the refuse chute at the opposite end of the corridor. The body didn’t have far to fall when she dumped it. This was the lowest level of Boura Fell, and the pit was only a few manlengths deeper.
The boneless body hit the bottom of the pit with a dull thud. Mad barking, snarling, and the scrabble of racing feet followed instantly.
The girl peered into the chute, silver eyes observing with cold interest as the pack of leather-hided, wolflike darrokken ripped into their newest feast. One of the beasts glanced up, its red eyes glowing in the darkness of the pit, jagged yellow fangs bared. It saw her peering down and raced for the walls of the pit, leaping and snapping barely a manlength below her. The girl drew back quickly, covering her mouth as the foul reek of the darrokken wafted up.
The two umagi had already finished and were heading upstairs. As she put her foot on the bottom stair to follow, she cast one last considering glance towards the guarded cell door at the end of the corridor. Desriel. Lord Death. She whispered the names under her breath, and ran up the steps.
The Fading Lands ~ Chatok
Midway through the meal, Marissya leaned towards Rain and murmured, “Has Tajik had a chance to speak with you?”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since we came through the Mists. Why?”
“Apparently the Massan convened in our absence.” Rain’s hands tightened briefly on his silverware.
“What is the Massan?” Ellysetta asked.
“Not what,” Dax murmured. “Who. The Massan are the five Fey lords who work with Marissya and Rain to govern the Fading Lands.”
“You mean like the Twenty?” Celieria’s twenty great lords, the nation’s largest landholders, were the most influential men in Celieria after King Dorian, and they voted on all important matters of state.
“More like his personal council of advisers.” With a slender, two-tined fork, Dax speared a slice of one of the crunchy, slightly sweet root vegetables Ellysetta had tried earlier and bit into it. “There are five Fey lords of the Massan, each mated, and each a master of the magic he represents.”