"You brought evil into the Mists," Sariel accused. "You damned us all." Her voice was soft, and throbbing with shame and recrimination. Tears filled her eyes, spilled down luminous alabaster cheeks.

"I bring no evil. I bring our salvation," he replied. "And if you meant to torment me, you chose the wrong form. Rain, the mate of Sariel, is no more. Now there is only Rainier-Eras, truemate of Ellysetta Feyreisa."

The Mists must have realized their error. Sariel's beautiful face wavered. Her body stretched and split, re-forming as a man and woman. A tall man, fierce-eyed, black-haired, unsmiling. A woman, slender and shining. Beautiful. Beloved. His parents: Rajahl vel'En Daris and his e'tani, Kiaria.

They were no more real than Sariel had been, but the sight of them was like a knife to his heart. The blade twisted painfully when the two of them spoke.

"You are a Tairen Soul of the Fey'Bahren pride," his father said, "sworn to defend our lands against those who wish us harm, yet you have betrayed us all." Rajahl wore an expression of stern disapproval and, worse, disappointment—a look Rajahl had directed at Rain only once or perhaps twice in his entire life, because that look cut Rain so deeply he'd done everything in his power to ensure that his father never regarded him that way again.

His mother wept. "Oh, my son, my son, better you had died than come to this."

Even the illusion of their censure seared him. He wanted to cry out in protest, but he did not. He shoved his feelings aside. Illusion gained strength only when one believed it.

"Show your true face!" he challenged the pair standing before him. "I know my parents do not live in these Mists any more than Sariel did."

"We wear the faces of those whose counsel you once sought," his mother said. "We wear the faces we hope will make you see reason. Listen to us, my son."

But even as she spoke, her image shimmered. Both she and Rajahl faded, and then it was Johr vel Eilan who stood there, the Tairen Soul who had been king when Rain first found his wings. Johr, the fearsome, granite-jawed warrior who had led the Fading Lands for eight hundred years.

When Johr had sat upon the Tairen Throne, the Fading Lands had been strong. He had been a king worthy of his crown: strong, decisive, unwavering, fierce. Not some untried Feyreisen who'd been handed the crown simply because there was no other to take it, but a Tairen Soul who had trained for centuries in military tactics, diplomacy, leadership. A man who had earned the right to lead both in times of peace and prosperity as well as the grimmer years of blood and battle.

To see Johr—a true and rightful Defender of the Fey—roused all of Rain's most bitter self-doubts. He knew he was not the king the Fading Lands deserved.

The Mists knew it too.

"You cast a shadow on the Tairen Throne, Rainier vel'En Daris. You are not worthy of your crown."

Rain gave a bitter laugh. "That much I will grant you. My soul is black with the deaths of those millions I slew in the Wars. But if you banish me, who will be the Tairen Soul?"

"You know of what I speak—and of whom. You know whose dark hand lies upon her. She will cement the destruction of both the tairen and the Fey. Yet still you bring her. Because you choose self over duty."

Johr's jaw flexed, and his green-gold eyes flared with a sudden, angry burst of power. "This is not the choice of a king, Tairen Soul. You shame your crown, your steel, and the line of your forebears. She brings death to our world."

For one dreadful moment, Rain remembered Ellysetta's seizure and her black, Azrahn-filled eyes and her low, hoarse voice shouting, "I am Death."

Almost as soon as the doubt arose, he shook it off. Nei. Nei, he wouldn't believe that. The only death associated with Ellysetta was the foul Eld evil that stalked her, the dread reason the gods had fashioned a tairen for her mate.

He thrust out a clenched jaw. "Ellysetta is bright and shining. She is the one the Eye of Truth sent me to find—because she brings life to the Fey, not death. She is a shei'dalin and a Tairen Soul and my truemate. You will not speak against her."

"And when the evil she bears comes into bloom? What will you do then, Rainier vel'En Daris? How will you defend the Fey against this serpent you clasp to your breast?"

"She will not fall. We will complete our bond, and the Mage whose Marks she bears will lose all power over her." He clung to that hope, because without it he had nothing. "What else should I have done, if not bring her here? Left her out there in the world, unprotected? I did what any Fey—what any shei'tan—would have done. I brought her to safety."

"And endangered us all."

Rain stiffened his spine and lifted a clenched jaw. "The tairen do not agree. Sybharukai, makai of the Fey'Bahren pride, does not agree. Tairen do not abandon their kin. Tairen defend the pride."

A cold smile curled the edges of Johr's mouth. "Tairen also honor Challenge, for the health of the pride."

Sudden cold swept over Rain, leaving his flesh clammy and his heart stuttering with fear.

"Where is Ellysetta?" he demanded. "What have you done to her?" He spun away from the image of Johr and cried, «Ellysetta!»

Ellysetta screamed until she thought her throat would burst. With none of the gentleness and compassion Marissya had always shown her, the shei'dalins of the Mists plundered her mind, tearing into private thoughts and memories, prying loose even her most closely guarded secrets and deepest fears. She tried to rally a defense, but each time she managed to focus her will against them, they would turn those fearsome eyes upon her and her thoughts would scatter like hapless leaves in the wind.