Flaming cyclones of Air and Fire shot from Ellysetta's fingertips, driving back the Eld circled around her mate.

Rain closed his eyes as tairen flame poured over him in searing jets. The heat and fire enveloped him, burning the sel'dor net and barbed ends of the arrows from his body without raising so much as a blister on his tairen hide. Moments later, he sprang into the sky. «You should not be here, Ellysetta,» he chided as he circled close to Steli's fierce form.

«Where else do I belong if not by your side?» Ellysetta tossed her head and gave him a blinding smile. «Tairen do not abandon their mates. Tairen defend the pride.»

He gave a snort and blew smoke. Stubborn woman. Headstrong woman.

His woman.

And he would have her no other way.

«You bring pride to this Fey.» He set every thread of their bond singing with the vastness of his love. «In truth, I can use your help at the Veil. There are wounded in need of a shei'dalin's care.»

She didn't hesitate or argue. «I will go.» Her eyes narrowed on the blood-soaked arrows quilling his side. «Finish this, and join me, shei'tan. I will be waiting for you.» She stroked a hand down Steli's neck, and the white tairen wheeled towards Upper Orest.

«What shall we do with the Eld?» asked Pella, one of the other seven tairen, as Steli winged towards the mountain city.

Rain glanced down at the battlefield where so many had been lost. From this height, the Eld looked like nothing but ants scurrying across an anthill. «Burn them,» he commanded. «Burn the Eld and scorch the ground. Leave no finger span unscathed.»

Chapter twenty-five

With the reenergized Fey forces keeping the bowcannons, archers, and Mages busy, the nine tairen made short work of scorching Lower Orest.

Most of the Eld broke ranks and ran for the nearest portal when the pride fired the battlefield. Those who did not died ablaze and screaming. To Rain's great relief, blanketing the entire battlefield in tairen flame seemed to destroy both the portals and whatever had enabled them to open. No more gaping holes in space opened. No more foul armies of the Eld poured out. Lower Orest was left a barren, smoking wasteland, as was the fortified Eld village across the river, but he and the pride did not stop burning until they'd scorched every last remnant of the Eld army from the soil.

Rain sang the same instructions to Fahreeta and Torasul in Teleon, and they burned the Garreval, and the mountainsides, and the valley around Teleon to the edge of the Mists.

When they were done, the Fey in both Orest and the Garreval walked the smoking battlefields to collect the sorreisu kiyr of their fallen brothers. Many had been stripped and stolen by the Eld during the battle, but the rest were gathered, to be sent back to the families and loved ones left behind. Among them were dozens of kiyr from sixty lu'tans who had died defending Orest. Ellysetta packed their sorreisu kiyr in a silk-lined pouch and asked the tairen to take them back to Fey'Bahren, to be placed with honor alongside the kiyranis of the pride.

Leaving Rain and the Celierians to begin the process of cleaning and repairing the city, Ellysetta spun healing on the wounded. Sadly, there weren't nearly as many as she'd expected. Mage Fire, like demon touch, killed rather than maimed. She spun shei'dalin healing on those in direst need, and by the time Marissya and Dax arrived on the back of Xisanna, most of the remaining wounded needed little more than rest and a hearth witch's care.

To Rain and Ellysetta's surprise, Marissya and Dax had not come alone, nor empty-handed. Xisanna's mate, Perahl, bore the Massan Air master Eimar and his mate, Jisera, on his back, and Dax had strapped a large trunk behind Xisanna's saddle.

Dax slid to the ground on a cushion of Air and set the trunk on the ground.

"I don't understand," Rain said as Dax lifted the trunk's heavy lid to reveal the shining golden armor of the Fey king. "The Massan banished me for weaving Azrahn. I am dahl'reisen. I no longer have the right to wear that armor or lead the Fading Lands in war."

"Apparently, you do, my friend," Dax said with a smile. He nodded to the white tairen crouched at Ellysetta's side. "Talk to her."

Steli sniffed and ruffled her wings. «The golden steel does not belong to the Fey-kin, Rainier-Eras,» she said in Feyan. Her blue eyes scanned the gathered Fey as if in Challenge, and a low growl rumbled in her throat. «It is not theirs to give or take. The golden steel is pride-made. It belongs to the Tairen Soul.»

"But I am no longer the Tairen Soul, Steli-chakai," Rain said. "The Massan stripped me of my crown when they made me dahl'reisen."

The white cat snorted. «Fey-kin do not choose the Tairen Soul. Only the pride can choose.»

"The pride never chose me," he reminded her gently. "I was Tairen Soul because I was the only one left."

Steli lowered her head and fixed him with her great, whirling blue eyes. Wisdom swirled there. Much more wisdom than most Fey realized. «We chose, Rainier-Eras. We chose a thousand years ago, when we would not let you die.»

Silence fell over Upper Orest. Even the thunder of the Veil seemed to hush.

"What Tenn did will not stand, Rain." The Massan's Air master, Eimar v'En Arran, stepped forward to stand at Steli's side. The chimes in his hair tinkled in the breeze off the Veil, and his wintry eyes were hard and steady. "No Fey ever swore allegiance to the Massan," he added. "But we did swear allegiance to the Fading Lands and to our king, Rain Tairen Soul. You have my oath that Loris and I will see this set right. Until then, know that we stand where we always have: at the side of our king." He bowed low. "Miora felah ti'Feyreisen."