She stretched and purred like a cat, and a smile spread across her face. Such luminous beauty. So unexpected, so perfect in every way. If he had ever dreamed of a truemate, she would have been the woman in his arms. Silken curls like sunlight gleaming on golden seas. A body strong and yet soft beneath his hands. And eyes . . . Her lashes lifted, revealing eyes of purest tairen green, pupil-less and blazing with the magic of her kind. Tairen's eyes. Her eyes. The eyes of the soul that he loved.

Tears sprang up, surprising him, shimmering on his lashes. "How could you do it?" he asked. "How could you give up the sky for me?"

She pulled him down for a kiss, licked at his tears in the way of her kind. She was still, in so many ways, more feline than Fey. "Van, kem'san, ken’Fey, I would give up much more than that to spend a lifetime with you. In the pride, love is a choice, and I chose you."

"But your wings . . . your beautiful wings . . ."

She smiled. "How can I miss my wings when you make my soul fly?" She wrapped her arms and legs around him and purred against his throat. "Make me fly now. Van. And fly with me." She gave a smile that was pure woman—nei, pure female, fierce and free. She was silken heat, hot as tairen flame; and he was burning stone, hard, unyielding, absorbing her heat, amplifying it and feeding it back to her with each demanding thrust of his body in hers.

Her inner muscles clenched tight around him, making his eyes close on a sudden gasp and wringing a cry from his lips. "Fellana—"

Rain's eyes flashed open as Ellysetta's body clenched tight around him. Her hair shone bright as flame in the moonlight, and her eyes had gone pure tairen, pupil-less and blazing bright.

"Make me fly, Rain." Her body surged against his. Her nails dug into his back like claws. "Fly with me."

"Aiyah." His voice rumbled low and guttural, choked with emotion and need. His body surged into hers, one powerful, driving thrust after another, as if through strong merging of bodies he could also merge their souls. The water around them whirled with explosions of vivid color as their passions burned higher and hotter. He could almost see them, two tairen joined in a fierce dance of mating, soaring and plummeting, tails twined together, wings outstretched.

With their bodies united, their emotions so closely entwined he could not tell them apart, Rain knew what it was to be pure Light, untainted and absolute. There was no place for Shadow, no place for sorrow or guilt, fear or regret, no place for Rage or remorse. At this moment, he was just Rain, beloved of Ellysetta, whose passion burned bright as the hottest flame and whose soul soared higher than even tairen dared to fly.

Celieria City

The prancing little prissypants had survived!

Gethen Nour stormed about the confines of his boarding-house room, heaping curse after curse upon the perfumed head of Gaspare Fellows, Master of Graces. The knife wound should have seen him dead from blood loss within minutes.

He stopped walking. The Velpin. The Light-cursed Velpin. The Fey had put a cleansing weave on the waters a thousand years ago, and one of the side benefits was a mild healing effect. No doubt that had helped keep Fellows alive until the Fey found him, sealed his wound, and took him back to the palace, where one of the local hearth witches had managed to revive him enough for him to give the name of his attacker.

And now the city streets were crawling with King's Guards looking for the missing courtier, Lord Bolor.

He was ruined.

Returning to the palace was out of the question. He'd be imprisoned and held for torture or Truthspeaking. The queen already despised him, so he could expect no aid from that quarter. As his closest companion in the court, Jiarine would likely be questioned and tortured as well, and even if she invoked the spell to wipe her memories, its effects were not indefinite. She'd give him up to save herself.

And returning to Eld was no better option.

The High Mage had already expressed his displeasure with Gethen's performance in Celieria. To return in utter failure—as the Primage who had revealed his presence to the mortals ...

Gethen shuddered. It didn't bear thinking about.

No, he couldn't stay here, and he couldn't go home. He had to go somewhere else. Merellia, perhaps, or Droga. Or, better yet, someplace no Mage would think to look for him— someplace the long arm of the High Mage hadn't yet reached.

Gethen snatched the small leather case stuffed in the armoire and began throwing into it the cache of magical implements he kept hidden here. Selkahr crystals, rings, and bands of power for the Mage spells he'd thought he might need here in Celieria, somulus powder, other herbs and potions. He had another such cache at the Inn of the Blue Pony. He'd go there, collect it, then find some way to smuggle himself out of the city. He didn't dare use the Well of Souls to travel for fear the High Mage would detect him.

Throwing on a cloak with a deep hood, he exited the room and snuck out the back door of the boardinghouse into the alleyway.

From the darkness, a familiar voice said, "Going somewhere, Nour?"

Gethen spun, magic sparking to his fingertips, but before he could raise his shield, he felt the prick of a dart stab into his neck. His vision went dim, and his legs collapsed beneath him.

"Please, I don't know anything." Jiarine Montevero wept as the guard dragged her down the corridor of Old Castle Prison. "I've already told you everything! I don't know any more. Please! You've got to believe me!"

After Master Fellows's revelation that Lord Bolor was the Mage who had tried to kill him, Prince Dorian had convinced his mother to let him bring everyone closely related with Lord Bolor to Old Castle Prison for questioning. Since Jiarine was Dolor's most constant companion in the court, she had, of course, been among the courtiers taken and detained.