«Kill him!» Bel shouted the command to his brother Fey, demanding the sacrifice without a second thought. «He's got the Feyreisa. »

«Nei. You will stand down.» The command came from Ellysetta, but her voice was different, resonant with power, her order irresistible. Blades fell harmlessly from Fey hands.

Behind Bel, the warriors guarding Rain gave a shout. "The Tairen Soul! He's free! Our weave is down! We cannot call magic!”

At first Bel thought it was Gaelen vel Serranis using dark dahl'reisen magic to control them all, but then Ellysetta turned her head ever so slightly towards him. Her face was expressionless, her eyes glowing.

Fear shivered up Bel's spine. "Ellysetta ..." The soul that looked out at him from those glowing eyes was not the gentle spirit that had claimed his devotion. "Ellysetta, you must let us stop Rain_ In his present state, he's a danger to us all." He tried to summon his magic, but nothing came to his call. He could sense the source within him, rich and powerful, but it was as if the flows of his magic had been redirected.

To her.

« Aiyah, it must stop.» With strength beyond her slender form, she turned the dahl'reisen on his back and ripped the wet leather of his tunic down the middle, baring the pale skin of his chest and the myriad bleeding wounds that marred it. She laid her hand over the dahl'reisen's heart, and a brilliant weave blazed to life, intricate and bright as the Great Sun. Bel raised a hand to shade his eyes against the stabbing brightness. The weave spread out like a net above the dahl'reisen's chest, then dropped, sinking into him, and every fingerspan of Gaelen vel Serranis's exposed skin glowed like a candle shade lit from within.

The dahl'reisen cried out, a sobbing, ragged sound. His body convulsed in a rigid arch, muscles clenched and straining. An anguished moan rattled out between gritted teeth, the sound of torment beyond bearing. And Belliard vel Jelani saw something he'd never believed possible.

The scar bisecting the Dark Lord's brow-the mark of his lost soul-began to fade.

Bel raised astonished eyes to Ellysetta. The picture of her at this moment would be indelibly burned into his mind for all eternity. Her eyes so fierce in a face of pure serenity.

Her body stiffened. Her head reared up, and her eyes blazed with a sudden flare of blinding light that lit the river's edge bright as day for a moment's span. Then the light in her eyes and the glow in vel Serranis's body winked out, gone as quickly as a snuffed candle flame.

"Rain ... where's Rain?" Ellysetta's voice was a thin whisper; then she gave a tiny sigh and crumpled over the dahl'reisen's still form.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Vadim Maur backed away from his two Fey captives. The cold sweat of terror-something he'd not felt in centuries-trickled down his spine.

The v'En Celay matepair lay motionless on the dirty stone floor of their cage. The sudden blaze of light that had enveloped them was gone, and the broken shards of what had been sel'dor manacles and earrings lay scattered around their whole, unblemished bodies.

The High Mage backed out of the cage, slamming the door shut and locking it with shaking hands. He shouted for the guards waiting outside the chamber. "Get the manacles! Pierce them both. Hurry! Before the male wakes.”

If Shannisorran v'En Celay woke unrestrained by sel'dor...

Vadim shuddered. The Fey lord had been unshackled only once since his capture, and then only to test the success of Vadim's experiments. The crazed beast that raged into life had slain four Mages and two platoons of guardsmen. A barrage of sel'dor barbed arrows had done little to slow him. A knife in the chest of the shei'dalin was the only thing that had finally brought him back under control.

The Fey lord and his mate flinched but never roused as the guards snapped needle-barbed sel'dor manacles into place. Only then did the tension begin to leave Vadim's body.

What had happened just now? Where had that blast of concentrated power come from? Vadim had never known anything that could vaporize sel'dor within a Fey's skin. He'd never heard anything like the commanding voice in his mind that said, “It must stop." Even the memory of it made him shiver.

One of the guards paused a short distance away and cleared his throat. "What shall we do with the captives, Most High?”

Vadim took a breath and struggled to keep his voice level. "Have the servants tend them.”

"Shall we separate them, Most High?”

He thought of the flash of power, of the astonishment of sel'dor disintegrating into harmless brittle shards. If that were to happen again while the v'En Celay matepair were together and conscious .. .

"Yes. Put the female back in her cell. Inform me when either of them rouses.” Vadim waited for the guards to remove Elfeya from her mate's cell, then wove magic around the sel'dor bars. Whatever power had decimated the Fey captives' sel'dor piercings would not find it so easy to shred a six-fold weave, especially as that sixth thread was a thick rope of Azrahn. Just to be safe, however, Vadim added a shield of blackest Feraz witchcraft.

«Primary, to me. Ravel, choose twenty-five men to guard the dahl'reisen. The rest of you, see to the Tairen Soul.' Bel barked the commands over the common Fey thread. The stunned silence and frozen stillness of the warriors in the park ended as Bel's orders spurred them into quick action.

Bel hurried down the remaining steps and gathered Ellysetta's limp body in his arms. Her skin felt cool and clammy to the touch, and her pulse stuttered rapidly beneath his fingers. "Kiel, check vel Serranis. Is he alive?”