She shifted in Rain's embrace, as if she intended to pull away, but he would not release her. «Las, Ellysetta. Does he look hurt? Nei, because he is not. He challenged your authority. You showed him your claws. It is the tairen way.»

«Nei, it's more than that. The weave felt wrong. Like a sweetness gone sour. It reminded me of when the High Mage set his Mark upon me.»

«You are imagining things.» He scowled at her, not liking the implication that any part of her magic was similar to the black arts practiced by the High Mage.

«Am I? Rain, you know part of him is in me, and you know night is the time when I feel it most. What if he's using the Marks he put on me to…change me?» More than anything, she feared the evil High Mage would use those Mage Marks to corrupt her soul and destroy the Fey. «What if the power I just used on Gil came from him…the Mage?»

«Ellysetta, look around you. You're surrounded by the oldest, most experienced warriors of the Fey. If anything in your weave was like Eld magic, these warriors would have felt it.» He reached out to brush a tumbling lock of hair from her face. «You didn't hurt Gil; you restored his soul. Don't misunderstand. I'm not happy that you've chosen to heal the rasa—and I'm certainly not encouraging you to continue—but I won't let you see Mages every time the tairen shows its fangs.»

She drew a breath, and he could see her almost visibly pulling a veil of calm around her emotions. «Bas'ka,» she said. «Perhaps you're right.»

He smiled and bent to kiss the worry from her face. His song sang notes of confidence and reassurance until the tension in her shoulders melted and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

Behind them, Tajik cleared his throat. "Kem'falla, may it please you, this next fine warrior of the Fey is Rijonn vel Ahrimor, my oldest and dearest friend. He and I were cradle friends, and chadins together in Tehlas. He is one of the strongest Earth masters ever born to the Fey."

"Ser Ahrimor." The warrior standing beside Tajik was the tallest and most heavily muscled Fey Ellysetta had ever seen. His eyes and hair were brown as the fertile earth of the Garreval, and there was a deep, stoic strength about him, as if mountains would fall before he did. She liked him instinctively and immensely. Ellysetta held out her hands. "Will you allow me to heal your soul?"

The Earth master gave a nod and offered his enormous hands, not putting them in hers but leaving her to make the final choice.

The only sound he made was a soft gasp when she laid her hands upon him. Whatever wrongness Ellysetta had sensed when she'd healed Gil, it did not recur, nor did touching Rijonn wound her any worse than laying hands upon Gil had done. When she was finished, he sank to his knees and spoke the lute'asheiva oath in a low, gravelly voice.

From pallet to pallet, barracks hall to barracks hall, she walked the silvery white corridors of Chakai, seeking out the rasa and offering the gift of peace for their battered souls.

Many of the warriors she approached refused her offer. Some were unwilling to inflict their pain upon her. Others refused to touch another Fey's unbonded mate. A grim-faced few declared it dishonorable to escape the suffering the gods had seen fit to lay upon them.

But for each Fey who turned away her gift, there were two or three others who did not.

Lured by the promise of confronting the Mages of Eld in battle once more—and seeing the growing number of dazzle-eyed lu'tans standing at Ellysetta's side—warrior after warrior stepped forward and offered his soul up for healing. Warrior after warrior wept as the peace he'd lost to war showered down upon him again. One after another, those who had been rasa sank to their knees and swore the bonds of lute'asheiva to their new queen.

Chimes became bells. The ranks of the rasa shrank by the score. Word of what was happening traveled across the mile-long Warriors' Wall to Chatok. The warriors guarding the silvery blue ramparts heard of it. The shei'dalins sleeping in their chambers woke to shocked whispers: «Come quickly. The Feyreisa…she is healing the rasa!»

Chatok emptied. Its inhabitants made their way across the wall to the white towers of Chakai to witness the miracle.

Marissya found Ellysetta in Chakai's main hall, healing the rasa who had laid pallets upon the floor there. Her eyes were afire, her body enveloped in a shimmering aura of golden white light. Behind Ellysetta, his own eyes blazing with restrained fury, Rain bored crumbling holes into stone with his bare fingers as he allowed Fey after Fey to lay hands upon his mate.

All the lu'tans were feeding Ellysetta their power now. As each newly healed Fey fell to his knees and bloodswore himself to her, she seized his strength and added it to her shining web. The glow of magic surrounded them all, bright and golden white.

Marissya stared in horror at the Fey warriors who should have been protecting Ellysetta—the same warriors who were instead crooning encouragement. "Gaelen! Bel! What are you doing? Have you lost all sense? How can you allow this madness?"

"She said the pain is manageable," Gaelen said.

"She said?" Her voice rose. Her hands clenched into fists. "Gods save me from fools and men! One may have been manageable—she's so strong, even the first dozen or so might be bearable—but how many rasa has she healed? Do you not understand that theirs is the sort of pain that accumulates?"

Marissya bit her tongue to stop from launching into a furious tirade. Even though her brother and Bel should have known better—much better!—they could not feel Ellysetta's emotions. They did not know what this was truly costing her. Marissya and the five shei'dalins standing in stunned silence beside her did.