“I don’t know ‘eilissei.’ “

“Sa Dol liath.” Nicolene tilted her head to one side with her hands beneath her cheek and pretended to sleep. “Cordai Sa Dol liath, de sha eilissei.”

The Great Sun is sleeping, she’d said. When the Great Sun sleeps, it is eilissei. Melliandra hadn’t known that the Great Sun needed to sleep, but a little of her tension faded away. Although the world was so different than Shia had described, it was clear Nicolene was not alarmed—not by the dead trees nor the dark nor the coldness of this place.

“Bas arrisi atha legan.” Green Earth spun in powerful waves that sent tingles across Melliandra’s skin, and the tattered threadbare rags of her clothes thickened to dense, warm fabric, so plush she could barely feel the cold. Something equally warm encased her bare feet and ankles. Shoes. The first she’d ever worn. When the green weave faded, all seven of them, Melliandra, Nicolene, the four babies, and the little girl, were bundled warmly against the cold.

The shei’dalin gave a gentle push. “Va, kaishena. Nei siad.” Go, young one. Don’t be afraid.

With Shia’s child and one other cradled against her chest and a little girl with eyes the color of a not-eilissei sky clinging tight to her hand, Melliandra Maureva, descendant and slave of the High Mage of Eld, drew a shaky breath and took her first, hesitant step into freedom.

As Nicolene and Melliandra began their trek towards the Mandolay Mountains in the north and the refugees from Boura Fell made their way through the Well of Souls, the ground over Boura Fell began to shift and bulge. It rose upward, slowly swelling into a large dome of earth and rock and toppling forest.

Then, abruptly, the dome burst, and a brilliant tower of white light shot into the sky.

All across Eld, the tattered remnants of Vadim Maur’s great Army of Darkness turned in surprise as the sky over the dark forests of Eld flared ultrabright. Hundreds of miles away, on the battlements of Orest, and all along the mighty Heras River and the northern provinces of Celieria, the world fell into awed silence. All activity ceased. Fey, Celierian, and Elvish faces alike turned to the north.

The tower of light burned for a full chime, turning darkest night to brilliant day, before it collapsed in upon itself with a soundless boom that shook the core Eld. In the wake of that brightness, a great, glowing light shot up and streaked westward across the Elden sky.

From a distance, the streak of light looked like a giant shooting star racing across the night sky. But for years to come, those close enough to see what lay at the heart of the brightness would speak of a magnificent tairen made completely of light that flew across the skies of Eld. It dipped down and breathed the fire of the gods upon Koderas and Boura Maur, turning both into smoking craters, before continuing westward to disappear high in the Rhakis mountains. What became of that Light tairen, none could say, but soon after its disappearance into the Rhakis, the waters of the Heras once more ran rich with the magical power of faerilas.

And in the place that had been Boura Fell, where the Light tairen first appeared, what remained was a great monument of shining crystal, shaped like a enormous, six-pointed crown—a beacon of Light in the dark heart of Eld. And within the haven of the crystal crown’s radiant golden white light, no Darkness would ever again endure.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Blazing radiance to the Plains of Corunn

Fly high, flame strong; roar far, reign long

Feyreisa, Feyreisen; magic and might

Two Souls, side by side, in tairen flight

Majestic Flight,

a poem by Belliard vel Jelani of the Fey

19th day of Seledos

The Fading Lands ~ Wingshadow,

Shellabah of the Daris Line

Purple silk caressed creamy marble columns, fluttering on a gentle breeze redolent with the aromas of burning fireoak and cinnabar. Outside, a light snow blanketed the northern fields of the Fading Lands, but within the magic-warmed luxury of Rain’s palatial shellabah, the only chill came from the cone of packed snow melting down Ellysetta’s naked stomach.

She closed her eyes and stretched like a cat as the heat of Rain’s tongue followed the path of the ice, drowning in sensation as Rain’s lips and hands slid across her skin, stroking, caressing, worshipping with humbling reverence. There was nothing like this feeling, this wholeness. This completeness. His mind and hers, one. He touched her, and she felt the caress with both her senses and his. An overload of emotion, of sensation. A harmonic that built upon itself again and again with each shift of his silken skin, each flex of corded muscle, each warm breath and stir of flesh.

Her hands tightened, fingers digging into the hard blades of his shoulders, holding him close.

He lifted his head, burning lavender eyes gleaming through a tangle of silky black hair. His mouth curved, and he held her gaze as he licked and kissed his way down her body.

She was him, all burning stone and heady desire, on fire with want, dizzy with the sweet aroma of her scent and the taste of her flesh on his tongue. She knew what he saw, what he felt, when he held her, when he kissed and caressed her.

She arched her back, thrusting her br**sts upwards, glorying in the hot rush that consumed him at the sight. Everything about her gave him pleasure. Her helpless abandon to his tender assault made the blood pound in his veins and the tairen in his soul roar with possession and triumph.

«Aiyah, fellana, you do make me roar.» He was touching her, skin to skin, and their bond was at last complete. Her thoughts were as open and accessible to him as her emotions had been, as her body was now. There was no part of her he did not know as well as he knew himself. No Shadow, no Light, no thought, or hope that he could not share.