"The Fountain of Eternal Youth?" Ellysetta paused before her next bite of cheese to examine the water in her goblet with greater interest.

He laughed. "Las, shei'tani. I said misguided mortals called it that, not that they were right."

"But there is magic in this faerilas." She took another sip to confirm it. "I can taste it." One sip and a tingling energy filled her with renewed strength.

"Aiyah, but the magic will not make you young—nor keep you that way. The waters of the Source replenish magical energies and purify whatever they touch, but no more than that. The cleansing spell the Fey cast on the Velpin River does much the same, though in a less powerful way." He smiled at her disappointment and reached for a small, teardrop-shaped globe of bright green-and-scarlet fruit. "Here, taste this." He sliced the fruit with a few deft strokes of a Fey'cha blade and held out a small segment. "I think you will like it."

Ellysetta took the proffered morsel and bit into the firm, cool flesh. Sweet, tangy juice filled her mouth with bursting sweetness and trickled down the corners of her lips. Laughing, she lifted a hand to wipe away the dribbles. "It's very good. And very messy!"

"We call it tamaris. It is a cousin to the komarind, which is more beautiful to look at but no good for eating."

Her tongue was tingling. "There's magic in the tamaris too."

The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Magic is everywhere in the Fading Lands. Legend claims it was the great tairen Lissallukai who sang magic into this world, but after countless millennia, the faer—the magic of the tairen and the Fey—has become a part of this land, and we a part of it."

She took another bite and more juice spurted against her skin, but this time Rain reached over and caught the runnel of juice before she could. His finger stroked upward, scooping the nectar from her skin, then painting it across her lips with one burning stroke of his hand. His eyes were glowing.

Her laughter fell silent. Everything in the Fading Lands brimmed with magic: the Fey, the tairen, even the waters and the fruits of the fields. But for her, the greatest magic of all was Rain and what he made her feel. "Will it always be like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like magic, between us."

His eyes flared bright for a brief instant. "Aiyah, Ellysetta, it will. Shei'tanitsa bonds, once forged, will never wane. What exists between us will last to the end of time."

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Vadim Maur made his way through the sconce-lit stairways and corridors of Boura Fell to the hall that housed Elfeya v'En Celay's bedchamber-prison. As the earlier episode by the Well had proven, the weakness in his arm required immediate tending. Clearly, the powerful shei'dalin had not been doing her best to keep him strong and healthy. That was going to change.

He unlocked and cleared a heavily warded door. It swung inward, and he smiled at the sight of the flame-haired Fey woman chained naked to the bed within.

He had promised Elfeya and her mate torment beyond imagining for their part in hiding the truth of their daughter's magic from him and for trying to help her escape the trap he'd set for her during the Bride's Blessing. True to Vadim's word, Lord v'En Celay now lay in the depths of Boura Fell, little more than a bloody heap of shredded skin and shattered bones.

Elfeya's punishment wasn't quite as bloody—he needed her body whole enough to work the healing magic that was so useful to him—but torture wore a million faces. He sat on the edge of the bed and cupped the soft globe of her naked breast. One long, cold thumb brushed across the still-raw bruises and lash marks marring the perfection of her luminous skin.

She flinched and glared at him, her golden eyes afire with loathing.

"Your mate has had a very bad day," he murmured. "Much worse than your last night." His thumb dug into her soft flesh, his sharpened nail drawing a thin line of sweet, scarlet blood. "His tomorrow will be much worse yet if you don't heal me very well tonight. Do you understand?" He bent his head and licked the blood from her skin, savoring the tingle of powerful magic that infused it. "I can be quite cruel to pets who displease me."

Several floors below the Fey shei'dalin's cell, two stocky umagi hauled away the bloody remains of the last pet to displease one of the Mages of Boura Fell. A ragged young girl with a mop of tangled black hair held the refuse cart steady as her companions dumped the limp body inside. Shattered limbs flopped like wilted flower stalks, the man's bones little more than pulverized dust within a bloody bag of flesh.

"Well, he didn't last long," one of the men muttered.

"Most don't once Goram gets his hammer out." The second man jerked his chin toward a door at the shadowy end of the corridor. " 'Cept for him. Never seen any creature, mortal or magic, survive what he does. It's like Death himself fears to claim him."

The first man shuddered. "That's what they called him, you know. Desriel, Lord Death. Deadliest Fey ever to walk the earth…killed near as many as the Tairen Soul did when he scorched the world…only Lord Death did it with nothing but blades and magic. Even Master Maur fears him—I thought he was going to wet himself two weeks ago when all the sel'dor that one wears came off."

"Watch your tongue, Durm. There's ears here." The second man jerked his head towards the girl holding the cart. He cuffed her on the side of the head. "Go on. Dump this lump of flesh in the pit. Master Maur's pets are hungry. Then get up to the next level. There's more work for you there."