“Gather your men. She will not bless them—I don’t think either of us could survive her blessing four hundred dahl’reisen—but they can swear their bonds, and I will stand witness.”

“I—” Farel closed his gaping mouth and snapped into a deep bow. “Beylah vo, Feyreisen. For my men and I, I thank you.” Farel started to leave, then turned back. “I almost forgot. Sheyl gave me a message for you, Feyreisa. She had another vision while she lay trapped beneath that tree. A vision about you. She said to tell you that when all seems lost, let love, not fear, be your guide.”

Ellysetta looked surprised. “Hawksheart said almost the exact same thing to me when we were leaving Navahele.”

“I would say it was coincidence,” Rain answered, frowning, “but when it comes to Elves and their portents, there’s no such thing.”

“At least the message sounds more hopeful than ominous,” Farel said. “I hope it serves you well.” And with that, he gave a final bow and strode away to gather his men.

The bloodswearing went quickly. With the enemy approaching, there was no time for pomp or ceremony. The dahl’reisen knelt in groups, and in unison each group of warriors swore on their life’s blood and black Fey’cha steel to protect and defend Ellysetta Feyreisa in this life and the death that followed. Farel was among the last to pledge his bond.

When they were done, the pile of steel at Ellysetta’s feet was too large to even contemplate weaving into her leathers. Instead, dahl’reisen Earth masters gathered and spun her leathers and bloodsworn blades into a gleaming, more feminine steel replica of Rain’s golden armor, complete with its own full complement of blades and a scarlet-plumed helm.

The dahl’reisen formed a circular Wall of Steel twelve dahl’reisen deep around Rain and Ellysetta. Earth magic pulsed with sudden energy, and black leathers flashed to vivid scarlet, emblazoned with a golden tairen rampant with green eyes. The shout rang up from hundreds of dahl’reisen throats, a joyful, defiant cry: “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa!“

And they began to sing.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

What will emerge from this paused emptiness?

What emotions will spark? Which hopes ignite

And burst like fire weaves from nothingness

A fierce blooming in the desperate night.

Quick bursting light, souls reaching in the dark

Where love can take form, unfurl wings, be born

And burn like the stars, silver, spare and stark

Or fail to fly, crash, lie bloody and torn

Lie broken, forlorn, or take wing, fly free

Explode in to life, with Tairen roar

Rending the air. Rending her. Rending me.

To leave us gasping, stunned, searching for more

Forged, anvilled, hammered, tempered, together,

True mated. Loved. Forever. Forever.

Shei’tanitsa Sonnet, by Ellysetta Feyreisa

Two bells and twenty hard-won miles later, the dahl’reisen were no longer singing. The grim battle for survival left little breath for anything beyond shallow gasps to fill straining lungs as magic and blades filled the air, and the forest Verlaine ripped apart at its roots.

The Wall of Steel had lost many of its men, and the Brotherhood used the bodies of the fallen as cover for the living. The dahl’reisen forming the Wall rotated continuously. Every few chimes, the outer layer of warriors moved back to the center of the ring to rest while the next row of brothers took their places on the outer line. As dahl’reisen died, the ring wall shrank in upon itself, always keeping twelve warriors deep.

At the center of the Wall of Steel, protected by a dome formed from multiple dense, impenetrable thirty-six-fold weaves, Ellysetta healed what wounds she could with each rotation of the Wall. At her side, Rain performed all tasks that required laying hands on the dahl’reisen—digging shrapnel from wounds, setting bones, holding flesh together—leaving Ellysetta to spin her healing weaves. The pain of so many dahl’reisen, crowded so close, coupled with the bludgeoning evil of the Mharog, had long since overloaded Ellysetta’s senses. She was operating now in a numb fog. Healing whatever wound the dahl’reisen put before her, moving when they told her to move, collapsing to her knees when they told her to stop.

Mage Fire pounded the dome with relentless fury until the sky overhead was a blue-white storm, but still—miraculously—those shields held.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

“Orest is taken, Most High. The generals await your command.” Primage Vargus bowed low.

Vadim barely heard him. His attention was focused intently on the glowing map of Celieria where the myriad tiny white lights indicating clusters of chemar shone moved through the Verlaine Forest. He zoomed in, tracing the progress of Dur and the Mharog as they pursued the Tairen Soul and his mate. Regrettably, the attack on the dahl’reisen village had been routed several bells ago.

“Master Maur?” Vargus prompted.

The High Mage held up a hand for silence as he scrolled the view north, illuminating the bright collection of light now sparkling in the Celierian city of Orest, and farther north to Crystal Lake and the abandoned Fey city of Dunelan, where a few bright dots were slowly making their way around the lake. Finally, he scrolled the map west, across the dark, unlit countryside of northern Fading Lands, the Feyls, and the southern reaches of the Pale, where another four pinpoints of light had nearly reached the thinnest stretch of the Feyls due north of Dharsa.

Everything would soon be in place. He waved, and the glowing tracker map winked out.