Ellysetta took his hand. “Aiyah.” Rich, vibrant music played in her mind: the pride song of the tairen. An answering song rose up within her, filling her soul with soaring joy. Her steps quickened as she and Rain ran up the hill to the courtyard outside the Hall of Tairen, where the pride was waiting. The kitlings were perched on the golden eaves, while the adults had alighted on the grassy expanse of the courtyard and formed a loose circle.

“This is a great honor, you know,” Rain whispered, as they entered. “By bringing the pride here, rather than having you to come to Su’Reisu, Sybharukai acknowledges you a queen and makai in your own right.”

Steli huffed and nudged Ellysetta with her head. «You are all surprises, kitling.»

Ellysetta laughed ruefully and rubbed the great cat’s silky white jaw. “To myself also, Steli.” A tingling spread through her limbs.

A growl rumbled in Sybharukai’s throat, and her tail lashed at Steli’s haunches.

«Sybharukai-makai says time to sing, not talk. Go, kitling. Find your wings so we can fly and hunt together.» Steli pressed her furry white nose to Ellysetta’s back and nudged her into the center of the tairen ring.

«We hear your song, Ellysetta-Azreisa.» Sybharukai opened her mouth and deposited three very large crystals on the ground near Ellysetta’s feet. One was a clear, colorless crystal that shone with a bright, silvery white glow, as if the light of a star had been captured in stone. The second was a deep, dark red sparkling with a kaleidoscope of rainbowed lights. And the third, though obviously Tairen’s Eye, didn’t shine with the inner radiance of normal crystals. It was dark, lifeless, looking more like selkahr than Tairen’s Eye.

“Sybharukai?” Rain frowned. “What is the meaning of this? Where is her Soul Quest crystal?”

«Those are her crystals, Rainier-Eras. She does not sing one song but many. She sings the song of all the prides, but the strongest of them are the songs of Reikaia, one of Cahlah’s kitlings stolen in the egg, the song of Fellana, mother of the first Tairen Soul, and the song of Lissallukai, Light of the Gods, makai of all the prides and the first tairen who sang magic into this world. That is the Old Magic we smelled in her.» Sybharukai’s great, pupilless eyes fixed on Ellysetta. «Take them, kitling. Make them yours. Join them, as you have joined us all.»

Ellysetta reached down and scooped up the dark crystal. It filled one palm entirely, and at her touch, it warmed with sudden heat. Images flashed through her consciousness, familiar images from the dreams of fire and blood she’d had so often, only this time she wasn’t afraid. This time she understood. They weren’t all evil Mage-sent dreams. Many were the cries of tairen whose souls were tied to her own, the memories of their own battles against Darkness and their own memories of grief and rage and loss.

Unlike the rest of the highly empathic Fey women, she was not helpless to defend herself against the evil of others. She was a Tairen Soul, a queen, a young makai of the prides. And though she’d been born to Fey parents and a stolen tairen’s soul had been grafted to her own by the High Mage of Eld, she was something much more than the sum of her parts, and something much more than Vadim Maur had ever intended.

Ellysetta picked up the other two crystals: the starry crystal of Lissallukai and deep red crystal of Fellana. Each began to shimmer and swirl at her touch, the essences of the long-dead tairen recognizing the part of themselves that had been born to live again in her.

Just like them, she was a creature of Light and Shadow, capable of giving life or death, of creating or destroying. She was the living embodiment of the greatest magic of all: Azrahn, the soul magic, in its devastating entirety: the golden shei’dalins’ love wielded by the strongest Fey women, and the shadowy power of destruction and control wielded by the Mages and spun by those warriors of the Fey who dared to use it. The Maker and the Unmaker. The Healer and the Destroyer.

She was the will of the gods made flesh, a living Tairen’s Eye crystal sent to restore balance and strength to the Fey by bringing back into their world the powerful magic their ancestors had surrendered: Azrahn, the double-edged sword. The magic from which all other magic sprang, which was both the greatest gift and the greatest curse the gods had given to the Fey. In Azrahn lay the power of the divine, and the gods’ eternal test of the worthiness of the Fey… for only a soul dedicated to Light could resist the lure of Azrahn’s Darkest and most powerful secrets.

Ellysetta cupped the three Soul Quest crystals in her hands and closed her eyes. Power gathered in her belly. She knew what to do—not by instinct, as so many of her greatest weaves had been in the past, but thanks to the vast repository of knowledge stored in the Mirror of Knowledge and the pride memory it had returned to her.

She closed her eyes and focused the power. «Shei’tan, will you help me?»

«You need never ask.» Instantly, his power joined her own.

She reached for more, and it came freely, from every soul that shared a connection with hers. Bel, Gaelen, her lu’tan, Dax and Marissya, Kieran, Kiel, the twins, Aunt Bessinita, the tairen, the astonishing well of power that belong to her Fey parents, Shan and Elfeya, and finally, the power of every soul, living or dead, whose Light shared a bond with her own. Their power poured into her, and she absorbed it into herself without hesitation or fear, concentrating the magic of their Light inside her until her skin began to glow bright as a star. She gathered their power until she could hold no more, and the electric burn danced across her skin like fire.