Outside the castle, in the tairen’s makeshift lair, Ellysetta came awake with a gasp. Her body was ice-cold and shivering uncontrollably. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

She reached for Rain. Her fingers closed around his bare arm, gripped tight, shook him hard.

“Rain, wake up. I think it’s begun.” She left her hand on his arm so he could sense what she found as she reached out in search of the trouble that had roused her. Her empathic senses soared on wafts of lavender Spirit gleaming with golden shei’dalin’s love.

Suddenly, she grabbed her throat, feeling the barbs of an arrow pierce her throat. She tried to breathe, but her lungs filled instead with bubbles of blood. The king. Save the king! Then pain eased, and her body went limp.

Rain grabbed her shoulders and shook her with sudden fear. “Shei’tani!”

She blinked. Stared up at him. Feeling returned to her limbs. She pulled back her senses, locking them tight inside herself. “Kreppes. They’re inside the fortress. They’ve taken the castle! They’re attacking our camp!”

“Krekk.” Rain leapt to his feet. Green Earth swirled as he summoned his golden war armor and steel. «Fey! Ti’Kreppes! Ti’Dorian! The enemy is upon us!» He grabbed Ellysetta’s arm, and together they raced for the lair’s entrance.

The tairen erupted from their makeshift lair with roars and jets of flame, springing from hill to sky, soaring up on widespread wings before wheeling back around to dive towards Kreppes.

The Eld had taken the ramparts and were firing the trebuchets and bowcannon filled with shrapnel bolts on the allied camps. Massive hunks of stone, balls of burning pitch, and bolts that separated into hundreds of razor-sharp shards rained down upon the allies. Chaos ruled. Tents were aflame. Burning men shrieked and ran in mindless terror while around them soldiers raced in every direction.

«Kaiven chakor, ti’Feyreisa! Ti’Feyreisa!» Rain cried on her quintet’s path. He swooped low over the Fey tents, and Ellysetta leapt from his back and rode a shaft of Air to the ground.

She landed on her feet in the center of the Fey encampment and was immediately surrounded by hundred-fold weaves and scores upon scores of grim-eyed warriors.

“I need cots and tables,” she told Bel when he, Gaelen, and the others reached her side. “Tell the lu’tan to start bringing me the wounded.”

“Nei, Ellysetta,” Bel said, “we need to get you to safety, away from the battlefield. Rain’s orders,” he added, when her eyes flashed. “It’s too dangerous for you here.”

“I know what he wants, and I know why he wants it, and I’m not going anywhere. There are wounded men who need my help.”

Bel exchanged a speaking glance with Gaelen.

“Kem’falla,” Gaelen said, “it’s not just dangerous for you to be here. It’s dangerous for everyone around you.”

She speared Gaelen with a cold glare. “Don’t try to play on my empathies, Gaelen. I know what I’m asking. I know that my presence puts everyone in danger, and if there were any other option, I’d take it. But we have wounded—dying men. I can feel them right now. I’m all they’ve got, and I will not abandon them. Now get those tables and cots—and send the wounded my way. And tell my secondary quintet to attend to me. All of the generals were in the castle with the king. Rain’s going to need leaders for this army, and you five are it. You stay close, though, Gaelen. I’m going to need your help for healing.”

Gaelen had known her long enough to recognize when she was determined. He gave a curt bow. “La ve shalah, doreh shabeila de.” As you command, so shall it be.

Bel squared his shoulders and signaled to his brother Fey. “You heard her, kem’jetos. Cots, tables, wounded. Gil, you spread the word to send the wounded here. I’m going to track down the Celierians’ next in command.”

«Bel, Gaelen, have you lost your mind?» Gillandaris vel Sendahr hissed his outrage on the quintet’s private path. Of all the quintet’s warriors, Gil was the one who believed that guarding her included protecting her from her own stubborn nature whether she liked it or not. “It will take the Eld two heartbeats to figure out she’s here. This hundred-fold weave lights a beacon to lead their way. We need to get her to a more secure location.»

«Believe me, she isn’t going anywhere no matter what Bel or I or anyone else say or do,» Gaelen told the white-blond Fey. «Or have you forgotten what she’s like when she’s determined to do something?»

«Between the five of us, we could make her go.»

Gaelen gave a bark of laughter. «Good luck with that, Fey.» He clapped a hand on Gil’s shoulder. «I’ll sing a mourning ballad in your name when she sends your charred and shredded corpse back to the elements.»

Gil turned to the other two. «Taj, ‘Jonn. Come on, kem’jetos. You know I’m right.»

Ellysetta’s uncle shook his head. «Nei, Gil. I saw my sister in Ellysetta’s face just then—and more than a bit of my bond brother, too. She’d carve out our hearts and eat them roasted before she’d let us drag her away.»

Gil turned to Rijonn, but the giant Earth master put his head down and went to work spinning cots and tables for his queen.

“Seven scorching Hells!” Gil cursed and kicked a nearby water barrel. “Gods save me from stubborn women!” With a scowl as dark as a thundercloud, he started spinning Spirit weaves to alert the allies where to send their wounded.