And he did.

Again and again he swooped and he soared. Again and again his roar ripped the skies over Orest, mighty, triumphant.

His presence gave hope to Orest's champions. From the ramparts of Maiden's Gate, archers fired flaming arrows whose hollow shafts were filled with intensely flammable, sticky fluid that burned hot enough to melt leather and skin. Along the last inner walls of Lower Orest, Water masters continued to funnel the waters of the Heras towards every spark of Mage Fire, while Fire masters amplified each blast of Rain's tairen flame and the archer's fire arrows, incinerating rock and stone, flesh and bone. Earth masters, shouting with effort, ripped great ravines across the ravaged sections of the city, swallowing entire legions of Eld before closing up again.

But for every portal Rain seared shut, another four opened. He couldn't understand it. There couldn't possibly have been that many selkahr crystals buried in Orest undetected. Yet portal after portal opened, and legion after legion poured out of them.

Sel'dor arrows filled the sky like swarms of locusts. His swooping attacks drew more of the enemy's fire with each pass, and despite Air masters' spinning whirlwinds and sharp downdrafts to knock the arrows from the sky, scores of acid black metal shafts pricked the membranes of Rain's wings like the thorns of a kaddah.

Exhaustion, blood loss, and pain finally drove him from the sky to the shelter of Upper Orest. He landed in Veil Lake with a clumsy splash. Panting, exhausted, he lay there, letting the faerilas wash over him, too tired to swim ashore. Bel, Gaelen, and Dev simply plunged in and swam to his side to hack the barbs off the sel'dor arrows that pierced him and cut the poisonous black metal shafts from his hide. Freed from sel'dor, his wounds turned the waters around him red.

He closed his eyes, breathing hard as the faerilas seeped into his wounds. Its magic burned like cauterizing fire, healing and searing all at once. He bent his head to drink the restorative waters as his blade brothers tended his wounds.

"You should let Teleos's hearth witches tend you," Bel said. "Some of these wounds are deep."

«There are others in greater need. I will be fit to fly again in half a bell, and the Change will heal my wounds. What news of Teleon?»

Bel's eyes went dark as midnight. "Lost. Teleos got the word while we were in the Mists. The rasa are dead. More than a thousand of them. Teleon is destroyed again. Lord Darramon is slain and his wife missing. The Eld hold the Celierian side of the pass."

«What of Ellysetta's family? The shei'dalins?»

"Gone," Bel gave him the news bluntly. When it came to sorrow, warriors preferred their news served on a sharp blade. A clean cut hurt just a little less. "Kiel and Kieran, too. Dead or captured or lost in the Mists."

Rain flung his head back and roared in anguish. The Change swirled around him, burning with pain as the sel'dor barbs still embedded in his flesh twisted magic to agony. He embraced the pain, welcoming the acid burn. The roar became a scream that tore his Fey throat raw.

Gods. Ellysetta could not lose her father and the twins. Not after everything else. "Has anyone told her?" He didn't need to say her name.

"Nei." Gaelen's eyes were dry but haunted. "None of us had the courage to break her heart."

They'd been waiting for him to do that. "How long ago were they lost? Could they still be in the Mists?"

"If they entered the Mists, it wasn't through the Garreval," Bel said. "One of the few survivors of the battle says he saw them running up the mountain, trying to escape Eld and darrokken."

Hope left him on a low, pained groan. Traversing the Faering Mists was a journey fraught with danger even in the best of times. The Garreval was the preferred path because the pass was flat and wide, unlike the treacherous cliffs of Revan Oreth behind the Veil. Those caught by the illusions of the Mists were unlikely to fall down a cliff and break their necks in the Garreval. The Rhakis mountains, though, were precious little but cliffs.

"I will tell her. She deserves to know the fate of those she loves." He swam to the shores of the lake and pulled himself out. He dried off with a simple weave of Fire and Water, and then there was nothing left to do but spin the news to Ellysetta across their bond threads.

She answered instantly, as if she'd been waiting for his call, but though Bel had served the news to him on a sharp knife, Rain could not bring himself to tell her so bluntly. Instead, he told her about Orest, about the battle and the never-ending supply of enemy troops.

«The Eld are here in force. More than I dreamed they would send. Orest and Teleon are just the beginning. Warn Marissya. Have her get word to Eimar and Loris. They will listen when Tenn and the others will not. The Fey must prepare for war.»

«They know, Rain. Sybharukai sent Xisanna and Perahl to fetch Marissya and Dax. Venarra controls the shei'dalins, but Marissya is going to Orest. The tairen are, too. Steli says the pride will reach Kiyera's Veil within two bells. Wait for them.»

«I wish I could, kem'reisa, but the Eld will insist on making war.» He tried to infuse his words with dry amusement.

«Rain…"»The warmth of her presence dimmed slightly as worry cast a chill shadow. «Have you news from Teleon?»

He hesitated. There was no putting it off. She had to know the truth. «There is word, beloved…but it is not good,» In a halting voice he told her. All of it. Everything, because she would want nothing less. Because despite the heart he could feel breaking in her chest, she was a strong, fierce, brave woman. A Tairen Soul.