Prologue

Eld ~ Boura Fell

"Two Primages and sixty of my Black Guard slaughtered, and yet somehow the pair of you survived. While my prize escaped."

In the lowest levels of Boura Fell, the subterranean fortress buried deep beneath the dark-forested heart of Eld, High Mage Vadim Maur paced the sel'dor-veined floor of a small, sconce-lit cell. Before him, two battered and bruised men sat chained to a pair of black metal chairs. One wore the blood and filth-grimed remnants of an exorcist's scarlet robes. The other wore shredded and stained crimson rags that had once been the silken garb of a Sulimage, a journeyman practitioner of the vast and ancient arts of Magecraft.

Vadim Maur's pacing came to an abrupt halt. Luxuriant purple robes swirled about his spare form. Long, bone-white hair slid across his shoulders, accentuating the pallor of a face that had not seen sunlight in a thousand years. One beringed hand shot out. Thin, cadaverous fingers closed around the swollen jaw of Kolis Manza, Eld's most famous and esteemed Sulimage, who had until only a few days ago served his master Vadim Maur's bidding in Celieria City.

Now, the Sulimage's sash had been stripped of its jewels of achievement, and the shredded, honor-bare swath of cloth had been tied around the man's throat to mock his once-proud status as the High Mage's most accomplished and magically gifted apprentice.

"Capture her," Vadim hissed. "Bring her to me. That was my command." Long, ridged nails dug deep into the Sulimage's skin. "Yet you returned empty-handed."

"She was too powerful," Kolis protested weakly. "Not even the Primages could stand against her."

"Powerful?" Silver eyes snapped with fury, and white frost formed on every surface as the room's temperature plunged in sharp response. "Of course she was powerful! She is the crowning achievement of my last thousand years of work! The Tairen Soul I created! My greatest triumph— and you let her slip through your fingers!"

"What more could I have done, master? The Fey broke through our defenses." The Sulimage coughed, then groaned as his broken ribs protested. "I tried to hold them off, to give the others time to get her into the Well, but then she…her magic…just exploded. She surprised us all."

"Silence!" Vadim's free hand shot out with vicious force. Despite the High Mage's great age and increasingly frail appearance, his fist smashed hard against his apprentice's face. The heavy rings of power decorating each of his fingers amplified the force of his blow, and the crack of bone and the crunch of breaking cartilage echoed off the stone walls of the chamber. Blood sprayed from Kolis's mouth and nose. A groaning breath wheezed out of his lungs, and he slumped senseless in his bonds.

Vadim turned to the man in the ragged exorcist's robes and whipped a wavy-edged Mage blade from the sheath strapped to his waist. He snatched a handful of greasy brown hair and yanked hard, pulling back the prisoner's head and exposing his throat to the dagger's razor-sharp edge.

Pale blue eyes, surrounded by stubby black lashes, looked up at him in mute fear. Fresh blood trickled from both nostrils and the corners of the man's mouth, and vicious purpling bruises swelled on skin still mottled from earlier beatings. A pulse beat like a trapped sparrow in the man's throat, and his barrel chest rose and fell with short, rapid breaths.

The prisoner swallowed convulsively, and the skin of his neck pressed against the razor-sharp edge of the Mage blade. Even that light touch tore a fresh slice in the captive's skin. No blood trickled from the wound. The dagger's thirsty black metal drank every drop before it spilled, and the dark cabochon stone in the blade's pommel began to flicker with ravenous red lights. The man froze in breathless silence.

Vadim's mouth twisted in a snarl. "And you, butcher's boy. Did you seriously think for even the tiniest instant that your miserable, insignificant mortal life held any value to me except as a means to capture Ellysetta Baristani?" Vadim leaned forward, letting his silver eyes turn to dark, bottomless wells of blackness sparkling with red lights as Azrahn, the sweet, powerful magic of the Mages, gathered within him.

Den Brodson, son of a Celierian butcher and former betrothed of Ellysetta Baristani, stared up into those twin pits of blackness and knew he was staring death in the face. He'd seen death before, a few days ago in the Grand Cathedral of Light, when Rain Tairen Soul had pulled a Fey blade from its sheath and smiled into Den's eyes.

Then, Den had turned and leapt into the Well of Souls to escape. Now, gods help him, he had nowhere to go.

The white-haired High Mage leaned closer still. "Your only value to me now is what small service the Guardians of the Well will offer in return for the delivery of your rotting corpse as a sacrifice."

A mewling whimper broke from Den's bloodied mouth. He'd seen the Guardians' handiwork…seen what they did to the dead and dying. As long as he lived, he'd never forget the high-pitched, animal screams of Eld soldiers being eaten alive when fresh blood seeped through their bandages and drew the hunger-maddened demons like wounded creatures drew thistlewolves.

Gods, he didn't want to die that way. "Please…"

Black eyes sparked with a sudden flare of malevolent red. The High Mage put a hand over Den's chest, directly over his heart, the fingers curved like claws so that only the fingertips touched. All five pointed nails gouged into the skin as if the Mage intended to bore through Den's chest bones and rip out his heart. The black eyes whirled. The skin where the pallid hand touched grew cold.