When she looked up at him in disbelief, he smiled sadly. "I deserve your doubt. I rejected you when you needed me most, and I will live with that shame forever. But I will not make the same mistake again, Ellysetta. I will not turn from you. I am yours, no matter what magic you wield, no matter how many Marks you bear.”

"The High Mage will try to use me to destroy the Fey. To destroy you.”

"He will try, but we will not let him succeed." When she didn't respond, he gave a small sigh. "Wait here. I have something for you in the other room." He slipped through the bedroom door and carne back a moment later, carrying a bulky, silk-draped object. "I asked your father to make this for me, that first night. I meant it to be a wedding gift, but I think it's more fitting now as a courtship gift." He drew the silk cover away, revealing an exquisitely carved statue.

Ellysetta's breath caught in her throat, and she reached for the gleaming treasure in Rain's hands. Fingertips touched grainless ebonwood and satiny fireoak. The carving seemed so real, she could almost feel the warmth of life in the wood. "Papa did this? It's the most beautiful piece he ever made.”

"It is a masterful work of art," Rain agreed. "No Fey could have done better.”

Beneath Sol Baristani's skillful hands, a tairen matepair had come to life in fireoak and ebonwood. The female was a lithe and lustrous creature with emerald eyes and gold-veined wings folded against her back. She sat on her haunches, a feline queen. At her side, a larger male Tairen carved of almost grainless ebonwood had extended one wing, curling it protectively over his mate, the underside of his shadowy wing sparkling with diamond dust. Ebonwood and fireoak tails were entwined in an utterly tairen gesture of devotion, but the twining was so intricate that Ellie could scarcely believe her father had managed it without magic. Both tairen wore a look of tender pride as they gazed down on a pair of round little kitlings playing at their feet, one black, one a rosy auburn, both slightly mottled.

"The matepair look exactly as I imagined them," Rain said. "From that very first night, shei’tani, I saw you more clearly than I knew. I saw your true soul-and my true place at your side, protecting and defending you from harm. The kitlings were your father's touch," he added. "He called them a father's wish for his daughter. When I went to see him in the chapel just now, he gave me the statue and told me I should tell you that.”

Outside, the sun hung low on the western horizon. Night was approaching. Rain held out a hand. "Come, shei’tani. Let us see your mother's soul safe to rest. When it is done, I ask that you consent to be my wife. Not because your father pledged to me your troth, and not because the gods declared it should be so, but because you wish to bind your life to mine.”

Ellysetta looked up from the exquisite tairen family in her hands. Rain's eyes were filled with open longing and shining with promise. Perhaps the girl who loved Fey tales wasn't completely gone, after all.

She slid her fingers into his. "Aiyah, Rain, I will marry you."

Lauriana's body was placed on a gilded litter and borne by Ellysetta's quintet down the cobbled roads to her funeral bier outside the city walls. Sol walked behind the litter, holding the twins by the hand. Rain and Ellysetta followed them, then Marissya and Dax. Bringing up the rear marched all the Fey in Celieria, clad in full ceremonial dress, steel gleaming in the waning light, silken banners of red, violet, and gold waving in the breeze. It was a funeral procession worthy of a queen.

"I never thought you would so honor her," Ellysetta whispered, brought to tears by the unexpected tribute. "I thought you would despise her for arranging my exorcism.”

"If honor were reserved only for those who never err, none of us would be worthy," Rain answered. "When she saw how she'd been used against you, she gave her life to set you free. There is much to honor in that.”

As they walked through the city, Fey voices rose in crystalline waves to sing an ancient Fey lament for valiant, fallen heroes. The song was one Ellysetta recognized, usually reserved for warriors who died performing great deeds, and she wept with a mix of love and sorrow and pride. She could not have held back her emotions even if she'd tried. They poured forth like a river overflowing its banks, weaving into the notes of the song.

Ellysetta wore no shei'dalin's veil. She'd refused when Marissya made the suggestion, saying she'd already spent too much of her life hiding who and what she truly was. Her unveiled brightness shone like a beacon. Now unleashed, her innate magic, the compassion and healing peace of a shei'dalin, spread out in waves of light all around her.

In the wake of the procession, the Celierian who had spent their last week in growing turmoil and groundless anger found themselves sobbing as if their hearts would break. The Shining Folk, who'd seemed so threatening of late, now appeared like heroes of old, noble and gracious and good. In their midst walked a woman of incomparable beauty, bright as the Great Sun, her hair like coils of sacred flame. Just the sight of her banished the shadows from their minds, and those who caught her verdant gaze felt seeds of love and hope bloom in their br**sts.

The procession wound through the streets and through the western gates to the last unlit pyre. Ellysetta's quintet bore Lauriana forward and laid her body gently on the oiled wood, then stepped back as Father Celinor began the Celierian service for the dead. When he was done, Sol stepped forward with a lighted brand to ignite his wife's pyre.