"Bayas," Hawksheart acknowledged without flinching. "I knew."

Tajik snatched two red Fey'cha from their sheaths and whipped his hands back to throw.

"Tajik, nei!" Gil cried.

Before the Fey'cha could leave Tajik's hand, Gaelen drove a fist into the side of the Fire master's head. The red-haired Fey dropped like a stone.

Ellysetta cried out and ran to kneel at Tajik's side. After checking to verify that the warrior was unharmed, merely unconscious, she cast Gaelen a reproachful look.

The former dahl'reisen met the gazes of his shocked friends with a grim, set jaw and wintry eyes. He snapped a hard glance at Rain. "We should take his memory before he wakes."

"Take his memory?" Bel protested. "This is his sister you're talking about. He has a right to know—"

'To know what?" Gaelen whirled on Bel. "That she's been a captive of the High Mage of Eld for the last thousand years? Tortured, raped, forced to endure and serve gods only know what sort of evil?" His lips curled back, "I know what a powerful Fey can do to avenge his sister. Marikah at least died quick. If she had suffered the same fate as Elfeya, and I knew of it, I would have laid such waste to Eld, not even the gods themselves would have been able to redeem my soul. Dahl'reisen? Bah! I would willingly have become the blackest soul of the Mharog and gorged myself on blood and death."

Violence raged just below Gaelen's surface—not hot, as Rain's Rage was, but deadly, icily cold. Only his will kept the power of that Rage from spilling over in a freezing wave.

"Tajik is almost as powerful as I am. If he wakes remembering that the Eld took his sister, all the magic in the world won't keep him from trying to reach her—or seeking his vengeance for what's been done to her. I may not like vel Sibboreh very much, but I've no mind to see him walk the path I tread. Do you?" He looked around. No one could hold his challenging gaze without looking away. "Take his memory. One day, he will thank you for it."

"He is right," Gil said.

Rain's jaw tightened. "Aiyah."

"Anio."

Five warriors whipped their heads around and bared their teeth in a snarl at the Elf king. "Stay out of this, Elf," Rain bit out. "You have done enough."

"This is his verse in the Dance," Hawksheart insisted. "Elfeya is my kin, and more beloved to me than you know, but what has happened—no matter how brutal—was her verse. Her captivity had to happen just as it did. And her brother must have that knowledge."

"Scorch your flaming Dance," Gaelen growled, "For a thousand years, you've watched the torment of your own cousin and done nothing to help her—even knowing her shei'dalin powers made her helpless to defend herself. There are not words enough to describe the contempt I feel for you."

Hawksheart lifted his chin. "I understand your feelings."

"Well, I don't understand yours." Bel's voice was colder than Ellysetta had heard it in months. He sounded like the rasa he'd been when she'd first met him; dead to emotion, perfectly capable of murdering without a qualm. Perfectly capable of slaughtering Hawksheart right now. "How could any man who claims to be dedicated to Light willingly surrender his own cousin to the Dark as you have done? You let her be taken, and did nothing to save her."

"You think I am a monster, but what happened to Elfeya had to happen."

"Why!" Gil snarled.

Hawksheart clamped his lips shut and did not answer. His piercing eyes turned to mirrored stones, hard and aloof. But one betraying flicker in Ellysetta's direction—one fleeting glimpse of searing, all-revealing agony—made her heart rise up in her throat.

And then she knew. She knew why Elfeya and Shannisorran v'En Celay—her birth parents—had been left to suffer the Mage's torments for the last thousand years. She knew why Hawksheart had stood by and let it happen, though he'd internalized his cousin's torment and made it his own, suffering each day as if he were the one imprisoned.

"Because of me," Ellysetta whispered.

"What?" Rain turned to her, outraged. "Do not even suggest such a thing. You have nothing to do with this. You weren't even born!"

"And if my parents had not been captured by the High Mage of Eld, I never would have been. At least, not as I am. Not as the Dance needed me to be." Her voice was soft but sure, her unwavering gaze pinned on Lord Galad's face. The sorrowed closing of his brilliant, haunted eyes confirmed her suspicions. "I wouldn't have been a Tairen Soul. I wouldn't have been your truemate."

Rain drew back in horror and muttered an instinctive shei'dalin's denial. "Of course you would have. Our bond was created by the gods, not some Elden Mage."

"But without the Mage, I wouldn't have a tairen's soul tied to mine. That part of my soul wouldn't exist, and that part of your soul would have no mate." She glanced back at Hawksheart.

“What will I do that is so important to the Dance that so many people had to suffer so much?"

"I've already told you. You were born to decide the fate of this world—to secure it for the Light or plunge it into eternal Darkness."

"But if I hadn't been born, I wouldn't be a threat. You could have stopped my birth simply by preventing Shan and Elfeya from being captured and tormented for a thousand years. Why didn't you end it then?"