Before Rain could answer, Teleos surged to his feet. "Why have the Eld ever attacked?" he called out. "For conquest. For power. For the glory of the real Dark Lord, Seledorn, God of Shadows.”

"To destroy you and your defenses," Rain stated baldly. "Because Celieria is all that stands between them and the Fading Lands."

"Why have you ceased your devotions, daughter?”

"I-" Ellysetta stopped herself before she asked the archbishop why he was weaving magic. "What kind of blessing is that, Father?" she asked instead.

He frowned in annoyance. "It is the traditional blessing of the Solarus required before the initiation of the Bright Bell. Now direct your attentions to your devotions, and allow me to continue. We cannot begin the Bright Bell until the chamber is blessed.”

Ellysetta turned back to the altar and bowed her head. The familiar words fell from her lips by rote, but her attention remained focused on the archbishop as he circled the chamber.

She realized her mistake almost immediately. The archbishop wasn't weaving magic. It was the scepter in his hand. Just as the Fey had long ago cast a Fire-spell on the lamps of the city and a cleansing-spell on the waters of the Velpin, the archbishop's gold and crystal scepter-passed down through generation after generation of priests-contained magic. And the traditional "blessing" invoked the scepter's magic.

«Bel. Gaelen.» She wanted to tell them what she'd discovered, to ask if they could sense the weave, too.

Only silence answered.

She opened her senses, forcing down her own natural barriers in an attempt to examine the scepter's weave. What she found sent a chill down her spine.

Five-fold. The archbishop had enveloped the Solarus in a five-fold weave.

She was imprisoned in a cage of magic.

loin me in the center of the room, daughter, so we may begin the Bright Bell of meditation and purification.”

"Remove the blessing from the room, Greatfather.”

The archbishop seemed genuinely surprised by the request. "I cannot unbless the chamber. And we cannot leave the Solarus until the Bright Bell is concluded. Now come, join me in the center of the room and prostrate yourself upon the Altar of Light.”

She stood and faced him. "Not until you remove the fivefold weave you just constructed around this room”

Behind her, Lauriana gasped. "Ellysetta! Mind your tongue!”

The archbishop's face darkened. "I? Weave magic in this sacred chamber? How dare you accuse me of such blasphemy.”

Her stomach clenched in a sick, terrible knot, but she stood firm. "Whether you intended to do so or not, Greatfather, you just wove a five-fold weave with that scepter. And I must insist that you undo it. Or give me the scepter, and I'll undo it for you.”

He jerked the scepter back, well out of her reach. "You go too far, woman. Get yourself to the altar and beg the Bright Lord for forgiveness." One steely hand clamped around her wrist and he yanked her towards the altar.

The touch of his skin on hers bombarded her senses with the fury of thoughts he was projecting. Ellysetta didn't stop to think, she just plunged into his mind. Flinging open her senses, forging determination into an arrow of power, she forced past his deliberate barrage of thoughts and laid bare his mind.

Thoughts and memories assaulted her. Mama weeping, begging the archbishop for help to save her daughter's soul. His determination, his certainty that magic was evil and must be destroyed. His burning zeal to forge the young Fey queen into a beacon of Light for the Fading Lands. But first, he must strip her soul of the Dark Lord's magic. He must exorcise the demons from her soul.

A scraping groan of marble shifting on old, hidden tracks made Ellysetta's heart clutch. She spun to face the altar as its massive white bulk rolled backwards and slid into a deep pocket behind the marble wall to reveal a small, dark chamber at the top of a secret stair.

Greatfather Tivrest grabbed her in a tight, unyielding grip as three men in the hooded scarlet robes of exorcists stepped from the darkness into the white light of the Solarus.

"No!" She fought to escape the archbishop's surprisingly powerful grip. «Bel, Gaelen, help me!» Her Spirit weave dashed against the barriers enveloping the room and dissolved. She struggled furiously. Around the room, the flames in the sconces roared to life, leaping high, licking with angry, useless hunger at the marbled walls and ceiling.

The archbishop cried out, "She's burning me!”

One of the exorcists leapt forward and threw a dark rope round her shoulders. She cried out in pain as the hot rush of her magic curdled into agony. Sel'dor. The rope was threaded with it. She struggled, trying to free herself from the archbishop and the rope.

The second exorcist threw back his hood, revealing a stern face. "That's enough, girl," he commanded. "I am Father Lucial Bellamy, head of the Order of Adelis. We're not here to harm you. We're here to save your soul. But we can't have you endangering us all with your demonic powers." He pulled a pair of black metal cuffs from one pocket and approached.

"Mama!" Ellysetta cast a frantic, pleading look over her shoulder. "Mama, get help!”

But instead of looking shocked, her mother stood weeping, hands clasped tightly together.

"Mama?" Realization dawned too late.

"Don't fight them, kitling, please. Let them save your soul." Ellysetta turned desperate eyes to her best friend. "Selianne?”

"I-" Selianne glanced at Lauriana, who shook her head frantically and grabbed Selianne's arm as if to stop her. When Selianne turned back, her face was set in a grim, fatalistic expression. "I'm sorry, Ellie. The Fey have bewitched you. This is for the best.”