King of Sword and Sky
Page 64

Swimming was over, and Steli, who seemed to have adopted Ellysetta as her own kit, now held Ellysetta firmly between her forepaws and, like tairen mothers throughout the ages, was diligently licking her kitling dry. The tairen's deep blue eyes gleamed happily, though Rain thought he detected a hint of mischief mixed in with the happiness.
Ellysetta accepted the maternal attention with patience and good grace, once she recovered from her initial shock. By the time Steli finished and blew puffs of warm air to complete the drying, Ellysetta was nearly purring. She leaned against Steli's neck and stroked the tairen's soft white fur. "Thank you, Steli."
Around them, tairen lay basking on the broad, flat drying rocks that encircled the lake. The slow flap of drying wings sent warm breezes circulating through the chamber and rippled the lake's glassy surface. The familiar warm scent of tairen filled Rain's nostrils. It wasn't the clean, light fragrance of the Fey, but something deeper and more complex. Fey smelled of blossom-filled meadows and spring breezes. Tairen smelled of the earth, rich and full of life.
Steli rose to stretch and yawn before settling back down and lifting her own wings to dry. Ellysetta ran her hands through her hair and winced as her fingers snagged on a tangle.
"If you come here, I will brush it for you," Rain offered.
She glanced up, startled, then smiled when she saw a brush appear in his hand. "Magic can be convenient." She walked over to sit beside him.
"Rain?" she asked as he methodically worked the brush through her curls. "What do you think I heard during the Fire Song?"
He paused in midstroke. "I don't know, shei'tani. Sybharukai says you have the scent of old magic about you. Perhaps that allows you to sense what the rest of us cannot."
She turned around. "What's 'old magic'?"
He sighed. "I don't know that either. Sieks'ta. I should have answers, but all I have are the same questions as you. Sybharukai says the tairen will follow us to Dharsa and sing pride-greetings to the Eye of Truth in the hope it will give us more information than it has in the past. The Eye is tairen-made. Perhaps the pride can convince it to cooperate."
"If that's the case, why didn't they do the convincing last time, when you asked it for help and it sent you to me?" There was a fierce light in her eyes. She hadn't forgotten that the Eye of Truth had hurt him. Now he realized he probably should have kept that information to himself.
"Apparently, it wasn't the right time." The tairen were like that—mysterious and unpredictable—and Sybharukai often knew much more than she let on.
"But this is the right time?"
"So it would seem."
Ellysetta's lips pursed, but she nodded and turned back around. He plied the brush again.
"Rain?"
"Aiyah?"
"What happens if I can't do what everyone thinks I can? What if the kitlings still perish, the Fey remain barren, and the magic continues to die in the Fading Lands?"
"I have faith in you, shei'tani."
"But what if your faith is wrong?" she persisted. "What if I fail?"
"You ask that as if you expect me to revile you." He set the brush aside and moved in front of her to grip her shoulders and look her steadily in the eye. "Listen to me, Ellysetta. I vowed the night of our wedding that I would never turn from you again, and I will not—no matter what miracles you do or do not bring about, no matter what sort of magic you possess, no matter even if you never accept my bond. I am yours, utterly and completely, from now until the end of time."
"But—"
"We are both beings of great power, but we are not gods. You are not to blame for our troubles, nor will you be to blame if you cannot solve them." His thumbs traced the soft fullness of her lower lip, then brushed the creamy silk of her cheeks. "Just do the best you can, shei'tani. That's all anyone can ask of themselves." He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, then another to the fragile pulse point at her wrist, and gave her a reassuring smile. "Enough of this dire talk. Come with me, and let me show you the wonders of Fey'Bahren."
The caverns of Fey'Bahren were wondrous indeed, an entire city of tunnels and chambers hollowed out beneath the volcano. The tunnels, Rain told Ellysetta, extended beyond Fey'Bahren itself to the jagged peaks of the surrounding Feyls, a reminder of the days when the tairen had not teetered on the brink of extinction.
Rain showed her the crystal-lined caverns at the mountain's deepest heart, where veins of gemstones and precious metals colored the walls with glittering mosaics, and a stunning, mist-filled chamber where the still-warm waters of the bathing lake merged with the cool silver ribbon of an underground river and plummeted down a sheer cliff face. At the base of the waterfall, another smaller lake formed and spilled over into a stream that disappeared from sight.
Ellie's favorite was a chamber Rain called the Cavern of Memory, whose entrance was guarded by a pair of exquisitely carved stone tairen with diamond claws and glittering Tairen's Eye crystal eyes. Within, every wall was covered with etched reliefs that depicted the countless past ages of tairen and Fey. The scenes, Rain told her, had been carved by artistically inclined Feyreisen over the millennia. Ellie recognized familiar Fey-tales in some of the carvings, famous battles in others, but most were of scenes that the mortal world had long ago forgotten. Ellie could have stayed in that chamber for months, years even, absorbing the amazing visual documentary of ages past without ever losing interest.