They lay alone in separate cells carved from black rock, chained like dogs with heavy sel'dor manacles clamped around their wrists and ankles and necks. Only a dim glow of light from a flickering sconce lifted the darkness that surrounded them.

A choked moan of denial rattled in Tajik's throat. Elfeya— Ellysetta's birth mother and Tajik's sister—was barely breathing, her face bloodied and swollen, her left arm bent at an unnatural angle. The silvery glow of her Fey essence had been extinguished, and those few bits of skin that were as yet unmarred by blood, burns, or bruises were a pallid, sickly shade. Elfeya wasn't dead, but clearly she wasn't far from it.

Ellysetta clutched Rain's arm in a fierce grip. Horror roiled through her, and on its heels came the other emotion, white-hot and venomous.

Rage.

It raced through her blood like a bolt of lightning, enflaming her senses and igniting a bone-deep fury that threatened to explode into the same raw wildness she'd felt the day she'd watched her adoptive mother die beneath the brutal, decapitating chop of a sel'dor blade.

The dim light in her father Shannisorran v'En Celay's cell brightened, and a beam of sickly yellow light fell across his face as the cell door swung inward. A tall, robed figure entered, face hidden by the shadowy folds of the robe's deep hood.

As they had earlier, when Ellysetta had seen the image of the High Mage in Hawksheart's mirror, the Mage Marks over her heart prickled as if a hundred tiny splinters of ice had just jabbed into her skin. The cold of the Marks throbbed painfully against the heat of her Rage. Even without seeing the robed man's face, she recognized the High Mage of Eld.

Her tormentor. The murderer of generations of tairen kitlings.

The torturer of her birth parents. The evil man who'd stolen a tairen kitling’s soul and tied it to her own.

Vengeance, Deep inside, the voice of her tairen hissed. We will have vengeance for what he has done. He will scream as we screamed. He will fear as we feared. We will make him beg for death.

«Ellysetta. Shei’tani.» Rain caught her hand, but the normally soothing peace of his love curled back from her Rage like tinder from flame.

Rip him. Shred him. Tear his flesh. Let his blood shower like rain upon our face. Let his screams be the music of our Song and his dying breath be the wind on which we soar.

Her head snapped back in sudden horror and she yanked her hand from Rain's. That last hate-filled clamor for blood hadn't come from her tairen.

It had come from her.

Before that realization had time to sink in, the High Mage of Eld gestured, and a pair of stocky, muscular guards stepped forward, gripped Shannisorran v'En Celay under his arms, and hauled him to his feet. His head drooped limply on his chest as the men dragged him a short way across the room and hooked the manacles at his wrists to heavy chains dangling from the ceiling.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Shan's fingers curled around the heavy sel'dor chains that held him upright, and though the effort sent bolts of pain screaming through his tormented body, he pulled himself up and raised his head to cast a cold, defiant glare at the hooded face of his ancient tormentor. Every part of his body and soul ached with such pain and weariness it was all he could do to hold on to consciousness, but he would not give Vadim Maur the satisfaction of seeing how close to being broken he truly was. Days ago the countless agonies visited upon his flesh had become one throbbing blur—and with this latest visit, Shan knew his senses would soon be so overwhelmed he wouldn't feel even that anymore.

Elfeya huddled at the back of his mind, her soul taking refuge in his, her own pain no less than his own. They'd spared her nothing this time. She'd suffered so much, he doubted she would ever recover, and the sound of her screams, reverberating in his mind and soul, would haunt him for eternity.

Gently, each brush of his soul a caress of devotion, he detached himself from her and drew the protective barriers around his mind. He poured his strength into making them as strong as he could in the hope that he could buffer her from what was about to befall him. She was so fragile—so close to breaking—that he feared whatever new torment Vadim Maur had in store for him would push her shattered mind into madness. Part of Shan wanted to let that happen, because if she were lost, there would be nothing left to hold him to sanity. And in madness, there was escape. In madness, there existed no grief, no guilt, no shame for the horrors visited upon the mate he could not protect.

But for now, until pain drove him to the haven of unconsciousness or madness claimed him, he would spit defiance at the High Mage of Eld and dare him to do his worst.

"Hello, Maur" he rasped. His throat was swollen and bruised from the strangulating collar the High Mage had tortured him with two days ago. Each word raked through his ruined voice box like knives, but he forced himself to speak all the same. His lip curled. "I'd say you were looking well, but Fey never lie. Has your flesh begun to rot yet?"

He knew he'd scored a hit when the gloved hand peeping out of the robe's wide sleeve curled into a frail, bony fist. Maur's health was failing, and with Elfeya too close to death to heal him, the effects were accelerating.

"Still have some fight in you, Lord Death?" the High Mage sneered. "We'll see how long that lasts." He gestured and the hulking figure standing in the shadows behind him stepped forward.

Despite himself, Shan felt his spirit quail at the sight of the giant's black war hammer glinting dully in the sconce light.

"I see you remember my umagi Goram and his hammer.” Maur's voice oozed with satisfaction. He nodded his shrouded head in Goram's direction. "You may begin."