Free Queen of Song and Souls by C. L. Wilson Page B

people. And they'd both died at Mage hands.
    "If that was their desire, they had their chance to take it after the Mage Wars. They chose not to."
    The sound of many booted feet coming down the adjoining corridor made Ellysetta swallow her next remark and turn towards the door. A score of warriors— lu'tans who had blood-sworn themselves to protecting her—-entered the room. Behind them, garbed from head to toe in brilliant scarlet and surrounded by ten unfamiliar warriors, two Fey shei'dalins followed, while another score of lu'tans brought up the rear. The large room seemed suddenly much smaller with close to ninety Fey crowded around its perimeter.
    The shei'dalins walked towards the Mage without fear or hesitation, throwing back the veils covering their faces.
    Narena and Faerah vol Oros were stunning even by Fey standards, with clouds of thick, curling black hair framing alabaster faces dominated by full red lips and large, thickly lashed black eyes.
    But it was the look in those eyes—a pitiless, unyielding purpose—that made Ellysetta catch her breath and move instinctively closer to Rain. The vol Oros sisters were not gentle empaths suffused with the customary warmth of shei'dalin kindness and compassion. The expression in those searing eyes made it clear they were powerful, confident immortals come to rip truth from an enemy's mind.
    Ellysetta's hand crept into Rain's and squeezed tight. The vol Oros sisters reminded her all too vividly of her first passage through the Faering Mists, when a band of ghostly, Mist-spawned shei'dalins had trapped and forcibly Truthspoken her, diving into her mind, ripping at the protective barriers that had shielded her all her life, nearly unleashing the wild, violent thing that lived inside her.
    «Las, shei’tani." Rain whispered on the private path they had forged between themselves. «Narena and Faerah mean you no harm.»
    His voice rang with certainty, but Ellysetta still flinched as the shei'dalins drew close and gathered their considerable power. No matter how warmly the shei'dalins would have welcomed any other mate of their king, Ellysetta bore four Mage Marks. That changed everything.
    But the vol Oros sisters barely even flicked a glance in her direction. Their attention was entirely focused on the Mage.
    "We need to know what the Eld are planning and where they will strike next," Rain told the shei'dalins. "And get the size of their forces, too, if he knows it."
    One of the two nodded curtly, and without a word, they walked around the Mage and knelt on the ground near his head, their eyes never leaving his face. The two quintets who had accompanied them from the Fading Lands knelt around the Mage's body. Each of the warriors pulled razor-sharp red Fey'cha from their sheaths and held them over the Mage's body. Twenty blades were poised over vital arteries and organs neck, heart, belly, thighs, arms. If the Mage so much as lifted a finger against the shei'dalins, he would be dead in an instant. Ellysetta shivered at the thought.
    "Let's go, shei'tani," Rain whispered. "There's no need for you to be here."
    "There's every need," she said. "I've never seen anyone Truthspeak a Mage. It's a talent that could come in handy, don't you think?”
    He scowled, "Not for you. If you think I'd ever let you put your hands on a Mage ..."
    "Once our bond is complete, no Mage can soul-claim me," she reminded him. "Let me stay, Rain. Let me watch ... and learn."
    He surrendered with ill grace, but insisted she remain securely at his side. On that, he would not budge.
    When the vol Oros sisters were ready to begin, they nodded to the warriors holding the twenty-five-fold weave around the Mage. Ellysetta expected the warriors to disperse their weave slowly, cautiously, but instead, one of the Fey cried, "Now!" and each Fey dissolved his thread in the weave.
    The instant the weave vanished, the two sisters leaned in and gripped the Mage's head in their hands. Power exploded in a bright,