"She is … is …" He swallowed hard. "I have no words."

Bel clapped a sympathetic hand on his cradle friend's shoulder. "I told you she was bright."

Tajik took two trembling steps forward and fell to one knee, bowing his head. When he rose again, he fixed glowing eyes on the Feyreisa's face and gave the greeting he should have offered her from the start. "Meivelei, kem'Feyreisa. Welcome to the Fading Lands."

Chapter five

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Vadim Maur's left hand was trembling.

The High Mage glared at the betraying tremors, then curled his fingers in a fist until the shaking stopped. His visit to Shannisorran v'En Celay's cell earlier today had wearied him far more than it should have. If not for the war hammer slamming into the Fey lord's skull, the blast of power that had surged from him would have caught Vadim full bore rather than glancing off his left arm. The weak shield he'd thrown up had not been enough to rob the blast of its impact, and his hand had been twitching ever since.

He should have known better than to go to v'En Celay's cell weary. And the last six days he'd spent claiming the Celierian Den Brodson's soul had wearied him. Most Mages who did not have the standard six years to claim a soul settled for a weaker hold on their umagi, but Vadim had never done things by halves. He'd taken the full power of a claiming normally spread out across six years and concentrated it into six days.

Such a reckless expense of power was not his wisest decision, but losing Ellysetta Baristani when she'd been all but his had driven him into a fury. He'd wanted a productive outlet for his rage, and Brodson's screams had been a balm to his soul. He'd also wanted complete and irrevocable control over the Celierian before using him, and since Kolis had tipped his hand in Celieria, time was quickly becoming a luxury rather than a tool at his disposal.

A knock sounded on his office door. "Enter," he called.

The door swung inward, revealing an umagi, who bowed and said, "Fezaiina Zebah Rael has arrived, great one."

"Send her in."

Moments later, his office filled with rich, warm, seductive scents as the beautiful, bronze-skinned Feraz witch swept inside in a flurry of colorful silken veils. "Fezai Madia sends you greetings, Chazah Maur." Zebah's red lips curved in a sultry smile as she approached his desk, but her sloe eyes were filled with an intelligence far sharper than the lush curves of her enticingly clad body would lead a foolish man to believe. Those eyes were scanning everything, missing nothing. She was the envoy of the most powerful witch in Feraz—Fezai Madia Shah, high priestess of the Blood Chalice—and Vadim knew better than to underestimate her.

"You look weary, great one," she murmured. The smooth, potent magic of her voice burned across his skin. Feraz women, particularly among the witchfolk, were a dangerous combination of exotic beauty and compelling natural sexual power. Fierce and bloodthirsty as Feraz men might be, their women held the true power.

Vadim eyed the witch coldly, ignoring the tug of her magic, and kept his still-trembling hands out of sight beneath the desk. "I am neither weary nor weak, Fezaiina, and you are wasting your time testing your power on me. As your Fezai learned long ago, I am immune to such persuasions, no matter how attractive the lure." Sex, though satisfying in many ways and useful under the right circumstances, was a distraction from the one true passion of his life: his quest for magical supremacy.

"In her last communication, the Fezai said she'd made a breakthrough that would please me," he prompted. Vadim's long association with the witches of Feraz had proven mutually beneficial in many ways, most especially in the unique spells and powers they had discovered by combining their powers, their bloodlines, and their knowledge of magic.

"Zim." The Fezaiina left off her attempts to ensnare his senses and produced a black velvet pouch from the folds of her jiba, the wrap she wore loosely draped around her smooth curves in whispering flows of brightly colored silk. "The Fezai sends you this great gift, Chazah Maur." She opened the drawstring at the top of the bag and drew out a small, pearlescent stone, which she laid upon the parchment-cluttered surface of his desk.

Vadim leaned forward and inspected the stone visually before reaching for it. White, oval, and smoothly rounded, it was roughly the size of a peach pit and the shape of a child's skipping stone.

"And this is … ?"

"Magic, Chazah. Great and powerful magic."

"What sort of magic?" He cupped his hands around the stone and summoned a brief spell, but nothing in the stone responded to his flare of power. "I sense none."

"Precisely."

He scowled at her. "Do not waste my time, witch."

"Watch, great one." She bent her head, parted her red lips, and whispered a Feraz witchword. A shadow flickered in the heart of the pearly stone, like a larva wriggling in its egg. Beneath the outer layers of stone, a rune began to gleam with a brightening glow.

Vadim's brows drew together. He recognized the rune and knew its meaning only because of his dealings with long-forgotten Feraz witchcraft.

"Gamorraz?" The rune was beyond ancient, hailing from a forbidden form of witchtongue used in the blackest days of the craft, millennia ago. Gamorraz was a very powerful demon, the father of the four Guardians of the Well of Souls.

"Zim," Zebah breathed. "An ancient and powerful name to summon an ancient and powerful magic."

"And the purpose of this stone?"