“De sha Amarynth. Ve am Amarynth?”

“Yes,” Melliandra said, staring at the flower. “I know Amarynth.” She lifted her gaze to the shei’dalin with dawning comprehension “Are you telling me you’re going to have a baby?”

“Aiyah.” The woman’s expression crumpled, and for a moment Melliandra thought she would break into tears, but this Fey woman was made of sterner stuff. She shook off the emotion and reached for Melliandra’s hand again. “Teska. Ve bos’jian valir eva vo. Ku te kem’behba.” She laid a palm on her still-flat belly.

Melliandra closed her eyes. If there was one thing she understood, it was the driving need to free an innocent baby from this dark place. “All right. All right, you can come.” She thrust her chin out. “But the chime you fall behind, I leave you. Understand?”

The woman nodded, the black tangles of her hair falling across her face. Tears glistened in her dark eyes. “Beylah vo. Beylah vo. Sallan’meilissis a vo.”

“Yes, yes. I get it. You’re grateful. Now, stay here and don’t say anything to anyone. I’ll come get you when it’s time.” Melliandra turned back to the door. She’d been in here so long, any watching guard would get suspicious.

“Ke sha Nicolene,” the shei’dalin said in a rush as Melliandra reached for the handle. The shei’dalin pressed her palm to her chest. “Nicolene. Ke sha Nicolene.”

“Your name is Nicolene.” She nodded and pointed to Nicolene to indicate she understood.

“Te ve?” Nicolene asked. “Arast sha ver mana?” What is your name?

Since the day Shia had gifted a worthless umagi with a name, that umagi had never shared that name with another. Until now.

“I am Melliandra.”

Ellysetta lunged towards Rain, shrieking and writhing like a mad thing when her chains yanked her back. Her hands clawed at the air. Her eyes flamed as her tairen rose, deadly fierce and furious.

She would kill Den and the Mage. She would shred them. She would snap their bones and rip their still-living flesh from their bodies while they screamed and begged for mercy.

Power gathered in a wild, savage rush—only to slam her to the stone floor as her sel’dor bonds turned the fullness of her Rage back against her. She lay there, dazed, lungs wheezing, muscles convulsing as she struggled to stay conscious.

The spray of Rain’s blood fell upon the faces of the twins, and to her horror the pair of them opened their mouths to catch the droplets on their tongues. Their frozen, doll-like expressions changed. Blood-reddened lips curled into macabre smiles.

Black-eyed and laughing in delight, the twins began to dance in the shower of Rain’s blood just like the vision from the most frightening dream she’d ever had. Only now she knew it wasn’t their own evil that drove them. It was the Mage’s. He was controlling them like human puppets, watching her with his cold, merciless eyes as he did.

Rain’s glazing eyes met hers. His lips moved. Though Den’s knife had cut clear to Rain’s spine, severing his windpipe and making speech impossible, she read the words on Rain’s lips. Ke vo san, shei’tani.

“Shei’tan,” she rasped in a broken whisper. “Stay with me. Stay with me, Rain!”

She watched in horror as the light in Rain’s eyes began to dim, and with it dimmed the silver luminescence of his skin. With each drop of blood that flowed from his throat, more and more of his Light faded. His lashes fluttered closed.

Forgive me, shei’tani. I have failed you. The words brushed across her mind, a whisper of regret sighed on the faltering threads of their bond.

His hands, the hands that had caressed her a thousand times, so broad, so strong, twitched weakly, then went limp. His head fell forward onto his chest, and the long, straight strands of his silky black hair hung down over his face like a shroud.

“Nei, Rain. Nei! Stay with me, shei’tan!” Tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision. “Sterr eva ku!”

But she had fought enough death to recognize it. His soul had slipped from his flesh and was beginning its descent into the Well. When he reached the Veil and passed through it, no shei’dalin in the world would be able to heal him. Not even her.

“Rain!” The scream ripped from her throat.

The Mage would not save him. Rain was more useful to him dead than alive, because without Rain, it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the Mage’s sixth Mark.

But if she spun Azrahn to hold Rain’s soul to the Light, the Mage would simply Mark her now.

Either way, the Mage would own her, body and soul. And she would become the monster of Elvish prophecy. Ellysetta Erimea, Seledorn’s Dark Star, the Light Eater, Corrupter of Worlds.

“Can you let him die?” the Mage had asked.

As Rain’s soul fell deeper and deeper into the Well, and the threads of their incomplete truemate bond stretched thin, Ellysetta had her answer. No matter what fates lay in the balance, no matter the cost to her soul or all the souls in the world, when it came to Rain’s life, she was as vulnerable as every other truemate who’d ever come before her. Rain was her shei’tan, and she could not let him die.

Spurred by Fey instinct, the desperate, driving need to save her mate, Ellysetta spun the only magic her sel’dor bonds would let her weave and plunged into the Well of Souls.

«Rain!» Riding an icy wave of pure Azrahn, she dove after his fading Light.

“Hurry,” Shan urged as the dahl’reisen Farel spun Azrahn to unravel the next layer of the wards securing the chamber against intrusion.