“Yes, Master Keldo.” The two apprentices raised their arms. The cuffs of their saffron robes fell back, and the air around their hands began to glow as they gathered their energies. Rain clutched Ellysetta close as the sickly sweet odor of Azrahn filled the air, and the temperature dropped several degrees.

He watched the patterns of the weave form, dark ropes of red-tinged black writhing like snakes, looping and intertwining, undulating, pulsing like blood through veins. The chill of Azrahn grew colder until Rain felt his skin tingle with false warmth. The weave outlined a wide rectangle and began to bleed inward upon itself, forming an impenetrable, pulsating darkness in the late-afternoon shadows of the forest. As the edges of the weave touched and the last light shining through was blotted out, Ellysetta began to moan. Her limbs trembled violently.

Bright shafts of white blazed out from the edges of the weave, and it fell inward, like a cloth falling down an abyss. Sheer, inky blackness loomed in the middle of the forest. A low, keening cry issued from deep within the darkness. Whispers, insidious, hungry, frightening, snuck into the world.

“Rain…” Ellysetta clutched at him, her skin gone clammy, her eyes open and unfocused.

“Interesting,” the Primage observed. “She feels the Well open, just like a demon.”

At last Rain’s mind made the connection that had been eluding him for months. The wandering souls that occasionally sent shivers through Ellysetta and made her legs go weak. The whispering voices that had so terrified her when the tairen sang the Fire Song to cut the invisible bonds that tied Cahlah and Merdrahl to the earth and freed their souls to dance the stars. The pieces of the puzzle finally began to fall into place. When the Well of Souls opened, Ellysetta sensed it. The opening of the portal sapped her strength, leaving her weak and trembling. As if some part of her were being drawn back into the Well each time it opened.

Could the infant tairen whose soul had been stolen from the Well and tied to hers be trying to get back where it belonged? Or had whatever black magic the Mage had spun on her in the womb left her somehow uniquely connected to the things that dwelled in the Well?

“Rain…” she whispered. Her body went limp, and she slumped against him, unconscious.

Rough hands grabbed Rain’s arms and hauled him to his feet. Ellysetta dangled from his arms, her head back, her curls spilling to the ground like a waterfall of flame. “Wait!” he snapped. “Something’s wrong with her!”

Primage Keldo sneered. “Perhaps the fact that she’s carrying her weight in sel’dor?” His expression hardened. “Pick her up and carry her, or we’ll do it for you. The High Mage is expecting us, and he doesn’t like delays. You two”—he jabbed a finger at two armored soldiers standing nearby, then jabbed again to the swords, Fey’cha, and weapons’ belts piled a short distance away—“bring their weapons.”

As the two soldiers rushed to gather the Fey steel, Rain lifted Ellysetta into his arms. The Primage nodded, and the soldiers standing behind Rain shoved him towards the gaping maw of the Well of Souls.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Soul stained black by darkness

I’ve been banished to this half life.

All I have left is remembered honor

And for this I now must fight.

I’ll protect those that I left behind

So they’ll never feel this sorrow.

I’ll hold the line day and night

So my Fey brethren will not follow.

Dahl’reisen’s Lament, by Varian vel Chera

The Forests of Eld ~ North of the Heras River

Before the sole of Rain’s boot touched the ground in his third step towards the Well, the world went mad.

A shadowed blur whooshed past his ear. The expertly thrown red Fey’cha buried itself in the chest of one of the apprentice Mages holding open the gateway to the Well of Souls. Red blood blossomed. The Mage’s mouth opened in a soundless scream.

Blackness came rushing out of the Well. Demon!

Rain tightened his grip on Ellysetta and shoved away from the Well, propelling them both backward as the formless dark mass enveloped the Mage. He caught a brief glimpse of the demon’s snapping teeth and bloodred eyes. Then the air turned scarlet as the Mage’s body shredded. Long strips of flesh peeled away from bones; blood sprayed in a fine mist that never made it to the ground, bones pulverized into powder. In an instant, he was gone—utterly consumed.

The red Fey’cha that had initiated the Mage’s death fell to the forest floor only to disappear before it hit the ground.

A savage grin curled the edges of Rain’s mouth. He didn’t know how in the Seven Hells Bel had done it, but he’d somehow managed to reach them in record time. “Fey!” he cried, “Ti‘Feyreisa! Ti’Feyreisa! “

The whistling whoosh sounded again, this time in force as scores of Fey’cha rained down upon the Eld. Half the Mages died before they had time to raise their shields. Demons howled and rushed out of the Well, driven to frenzy by the sudden rush of rich, red blood.

The Fey must have been using Gaelen’s invisibility weave, because Rain didn’t catch a single glimpse of black-clad warriors or even the slightest purple glow of a Spirit weave. But their steel flew with blinding speed and deadly accuracy, and that was all he cared about.

As swift and merciless as the demons that consumed the dead, the Fey rained down slaughter on the enemy. Eld screamed and scattered in fear as invisible foes ripped open Eld throats and chests, parted heads from shoulders, and cleaved mailed soldiers in two. Only the Fey’cha were visible, flying without cease, outpacing Eld arrows four to one.