The dahl’reisen cleared his throat, and said, “I’ll go scout the rest of the hall. Forgive me, ki’falla’sheisan, for causing you pain.” He bowed to her with grave respect before cloaking himself in the best invisibility weave Shan had ever seen. The chamber door opened and closed to mark his departure.

When he was gone, Shan ordered Gaelen to spin a privacy weave on the room and fixed a stern eye on the remaining warriors. “All right, Fey,” he declared in a voice that had commanded armies and snapped countless unruly chadins to order. “I want answers. How is it that Gaelen vel Serranis is dahl’reisen no more… and why are Fey warriors keeping company with a Shadowed blade?”

Explanations tumbled out from several of them at once. Time was short, so Shan just let his mind process the overlapping voices, separating and interpreting the individual inputs instantly in his mind—much the way he processed the overload of chaotic information on a battlefield.

“So let me get this straight,” he said when they were done. “Our daughter restored vel Serranis’s soul. Her mate has allowed dahl’reisen to bloodswear themselves to her. And you five”—he gestured to all but the two youngest Fey—“are her bloodsworn quintet, who accompanied her to Boura Fell to rescue Elfeya and me and our daughter’s young Celierian sisters. Is that correct? “

Heads nodded, but he could see the four who knew him growing wary at his calm tone. It was a good thing he’d insisted on a privacy weave around the room.

“Then I have only two other questions for you fine warriors of the Fey.” Shan straightened to his full height, squared his shoulders and drew a deep breath that expanded his chest. “What the scorching flames of the Seven Hells do you think you were doing letting her come here? “ he roared. “And how the flaming Hells is it that you’re standing here, still breathing, while my daughter—the woman you swore your souls to protect with your lives—is in the hands of Vadim Maur, the evilest jaffing son of an Elden rultshart ever to be born?”

“That last part’s not their fault,” said the young, brown-haired Fey named Kieran. “The Eld knocked them out when they arrived. The High Mage must have used his connection to Ellysetta to—“

Shan pierced him with a glare as sharp as a blade. “The questions, vel Solande, were rhetorical.”

Kieran snapped his mouth shut.

Shan turned his focus back to his daughter’s quintet. “If we survive this, each one of you five owes me a year’s time on the training field. I suggest you come prepared for pain.”

Expelling an agitated breath, Shan pivoted on his heel and forced himself to channel his anger, focusing it into grim determination. “For now, however, the only thing that matters is getting our daughter out of this place. Elfeya, can you stand the dahl’reisen’s presence a while longer?”

“Aiyah. The dahl’reisen’s pain was terrible, but bearable. I think the old saying is true: That which does not kill you, does makes you stronger.” She met Shan’s eyes in a moment of communion. «I could not have stood in his presence before these centuries in Boura Fell. But now, I think I could even heal him if he were in need.»

He nodded. He and pain were old friends. And one of that old friend’s harshest but truest lessons was that suffering bred strength.

“All right,” he said. “Did you Fey have a plan, or should we adjust ours?”

The seven warriors shared silent looks amongst themselves.

“Lord Shan,” Gaelen said, “you and Elfeya-falla should get to safety. There is a gateway to the Well of Souls on the level above this one, and it’s under Fey control. Go there, and get out of this place. We will find Ellysetta and Rain and bring them home.”

Shan exchanged a look with Elfeya. Both their expressions turned to stone. “If you think we are leaving this place without our daughter, vel Serranis,” Shan said, “you are greatly mistaken. We have a good idea of where she’s being kept. We know all the possible routes we could take and how many guards and wards to expect along the way. You can come with us if you like, but we are going to get our child.” Shan’s voice dropped to a lethal growl. “And just so we’re clear, the High Mage is mine to kill.”

“Well,” Gil said, slapping his hands on his thighs, “I’m glad that’s settled. Can we get on with the slaughter?”

“Look how your mate is suffering, Ellysetta.” Vadim Maur crouched beside her and grabbed her hair, forcing her to head in Rain’s direction. “Look at him!” he barked.

His icy voiced throbbed with compulsion, and no matter how hard she tried to defy him and keep her eyes averted, she could not.

Rain was displayed, spread-eagled, on a wooden form shaped like two overlapping crescent moons, his body held in place by a series of sel’dor stakes that Den Brodson had hammered through his limbs with grim relish. Every handspan of his once-shining white skin bore signs of brutal abuse. Strips of flesh flayed from his bones. Blistered black char where red-hot brands had scorched deep. Countless sel’dor barbs jabbed into his skin and left to fester. Bones broken. Fingers severed.

She’d felt each moment of Rain’s torment, each scream, each breathless gasp of stunning pain, just as he’d felt each moment of her helpless horror.

She’d tried to stay strong. She knew her presence—her empathic sharing of his pain—was as deliberate a part of his torture as Den’s foul deeds. But she had not been able to stop herself from screaming any more than Rain had. She’d not been able to stop herself from weeping, from begging.