"Don't listen to him, Sel!" Ellie urged. "Remember Father Celinor's teachings. For children of the Light, there is always a choice. Fight him! Don't let him use you for evil.”

"Selianne, obey me!”

Lauriana gazed through the tangled veil of her hair, gauging the distance between herself and the scepter. If she were quick-and if the gods were kind-she might just be able to reach the scepter and smash it before the Mage managed to kill her.

She accepted the prospect of her death without flinching. Ellysetta was her daughter, her beloved first child. Everything she'd done, she'd done out of love, to save Ellie's soul. Lauriana would willingly lay down her own life to keep her daughter safe.

She closed her eyes and gave a small, fanning wave. "Adelis," she murmured softly, "help me right this wrong. I'll pay whatever price you demand, but please, Bright One, grant me the strength to save my child." She took a breath, gathering courage and drawing her legs up beneath her. She would have only one chance at this.

A powerful boom rocked the Solarus door on its few remaining hinges, and the Mage glanced towards it. Taking advantage of his brief distraction, Lauriana scrambled to her feet and lunged. Her fingers closed around the round head of the scepter.

"Mama, watch out!" Ellie cried.

Lauriana glanced up just in time to see the Mage fling a globe of blue-white magic at her. It came fast. Too fast to dodge.

Selianne lunged towards Lauriana, but instead of attacking her, Selianne pushed her out of the way. "Madame Bari-" Her voice was cut off abruptly as the blue-white light consumed her.

Lauriana cried out in horror as Selianne literally dissolved before her very eyes.

"Fool!" the Mage spat. "Idiot!" A second globe of magic gathered in his palm.

"Mama!" Using her captor's grip as anchor, Ellie screamed and kicked out with both feet. She caught the Mage behind one knee just as he released his magic. The deadly Mage Fire went high, scorching the air over Lauriana's head and exploding harmlessly against the magic-fortified wall behind her.

With desperate haste, Lauriana smashed the scepter against the marble floor.

The crystal shattered.

The Solarus door burst inwards with a thunderous crash. Rain Tairen Soul and Ellysetta's quintet leapt through the Solarus doorway, swords bared, magic blazing.

Never had Lauriana seen a more welcome sight.

"They're coming, Ellie! The Fey are-" Her cry broke off as a sudden sting set fire to her chest and a wave of weakness swept over her. She looked down, half expecting to find a smoldering hole in her chest. Instead, a dark, jeweled dagger hilt quivered inches from her heart.

"Stupid woman." The Mage swept out one arm, and Lauriana went flying. Her body smacked hard against a column to the right of the altar and crumpled in a broken heap.

"Mama!" Ellie cried out, lunging against her captors' grips.

"Nivane, damn you!" the Mage shouted as he flung a roiling, blue-white ball of Mage Fire across the room to halt the Fey's advance. "Get the girl into the Well now!"

Gaelen and Rain reacted with identical speed, spinning fivefold weaves in almost perfect unison and flinging them out with equal force to meet the deadly onslaught of Mage Fire. A third weave from Ellysetta's quintet followed a scant heartbeat later.

Mage Fire and five-fold weaves met with a concussive blast. The room shook from the deafening boom, and in the dome overhead, mirrored tiles shattered into dust.

As the blinding flash of exploding magics faded, Rain saw Ellysetta struggling against two scarlet-robed men, screaming for her mother, whose fallen, motionless form lay crumpled against the base of one of the room's six columns.

His eyes flamed with fury at the sight of Ellysetta's bruised face and the sel'dor manacles clapped around her slender wrists. Worse yet were the filthy, torturous needles plunged deep into her flesh. Without interference of the five-fold weave protecting the Solarus, he could feel every burning pain as if it were his own, and a mix of shame and rage consumed him.

The cowls of her captors' robes were flung back, revealing their faces. The pale-haired one Rain didn't recognize, but the other .. .

The Tairen Soul smiled with predatory fierceness. The butcher's son would pay for every wound he and his soul-cursed companions had visited upon the Tairen Soul's mate.

“Keep the Mage occupied.» Rain ordered. «I'll see to the rultsharts holding my shei’tani.”

«Aiyah, Rain,» Bel answered. Beside him, Gaelen and the other four warriors of Ellysetta's quintet wove powerful ropes of magic to batter the Mage's shields. Blades were useless until they succeeded in breaking those shields, but then ... then the Mage would regret laying his accursed hands on the Feyreisa.

Rain shimmered into invisibility and raced around the perimeter of the room towards the gaping Well of Souls, reappearing beside the two men holding Ellysetta.

The pale-haired exorcist grabbed a fistful of her flame-red curls and thrust the sharp edge of a Mage blade against her throat. "Come another step closer, Tairen Soul, and I'll slit her throat," he warned.

"Nei, I don't think you will." Rain's eyes flamed. Air and Earth shot from his fingertips.

The pale-haired man's eyes bulged and his mouth opened on a desperate, soundless gasp as Rain wove every breath of air from his lungs. The fingers of the man's knife hand straightened one by one until the blade at Ellysetta's throat clattered to the floor. Fire flamed in Rain's eyes, and the man's skin turned bright red and hot to the touch.