The enraged snarl of his tairen screamed along their bondthreads, half-wild with fury over the Fey males who had laid hands upon its mate. She is ours. Ours! Scorch the Fey-kin. Burn away their scent upon her! The tairen's rage whipped at her, making her own tairen roar and dig its claws deep.

Abruptly, Rain put on a powerful burst of magic. A blazing cone of Fire and Air took shape around them, and they shot forward with such force, Ellysetta fell back against the high back of her saddle. Magic poured from Rain in rivers, condensing into great, powerful jets that propelled them across the sky faster than they'd ever flown before. The ground below them flashed by in a blur. Rain's tairen fell silent, the full force of its raging energy now diverted to keeping its wings held steady and tucked close to its body in a backswept vee as they shot through the sky.

Only then, without the scream of his tairen rousing her own, did Ellysetta realize the magnitude of the harm she'd done with her stubborn, selfish determination to heal the rasa. The barriers of Rain's control were stretched so thin, they were all but shredding. He'd kept his torment from her during the healing—or perhaps she simply had refused to see—but now she could not blind herself. Violent clouds of bloodlust and fiery Rage boiled inside him, shot through with streaks of icy fear and grim desperation as he fought to keep control of his tairen and his magic.

Horror consumed her. Oh, gods, what had she done to him? "Rain?"

He did not answer.

Ellysetta could still feel the furious roil of emotion through the touch of her bare leg against Rain's tairen pelt, but he had closed off their bondthreads, silencing the connection between them. «Rain, teska. Please talk to me. I'm sorry, shei'tan. I'm so sorry.»

She leaned forward to bury her hands in his pelt, trying to weave peace upon him. Slowly, far too slowly, she felt some of the terrible Rage begin to calm.

She did not know how long or how far they flew, but when they came to a silver ribbon of river shining in the starlight, Rain swooped down, skimming the treetops of the dense forest growing on the slopes of the Silvermist mountains. Flocks of birds squawked and took startled flight. The shadows of grazing animals darted into the trees and brush, seeking cover from the predator overhead. A growl rumbled deep in Rain's tairen chest. He dove for the ground, and Ellysetta gasped as a slide of Air lifted her from the saddle on his back and deposited her in the dark woods beside the river.

«I must feed. You will be safe here. Speak the command "lissi" to light the lamps.» That was all he said, the first words he'd spoken to her since leaving Chakai. His voice was a ragged thread of sound. Then he was gone.

"Rain!" she called after him. «Rain!»

«Light the lamps, Ellysetta, and go to the hall. I will join you as soon as I am done.» In the distance, Rain's tairen roar broke the silence, followed by the frightened squeal of whatever unfortunate creature had caught his predator's eye.

A shudder rippled through her, but it wasn't caused by fear or squeamishness. The primal sound of the hunt had sent hot energy rushing through her veins. Her muscles tensed. She could picture Rain in her mind, wings spread wide, fangs dripping with the blood of his kill, a powerful, deadly predator. Inside, her own still-restless tairen growled with a hungry bloodlust that made her pulse race and her breath come fast and shallow.

"Lissi!" she called out, hoping to dispel the disquieting sensation. She dragged the folds of her cloak closer around her and took a hurried step forward, towards the soft lights that bloomed in the darkness.

Worry turned to wonder as she drew closer and discovered the abandoned city that emerged from the deep shadows of the forest, lit with a silvery glow. Steadying herself with a palm against the trunk of a nearby tree, Ellysetta let her stunned gaze sweep across the luminous forest treasure.

«Rain, what is this place?»

In the distance, she heard another terrified squeal, followed moments later by a tairen's roar. «It was called Elverial.» His Spirit voice throbbed with dark, dangerous tairen notes.

Elverial. The valley of the elves. The name seemed entirely appropriate. The city was nestled in a deep valley between two peaks of the Silvermist range, and the buildings seemed as much a part of the forest as the trees themselves, rising from the ground in muted shades of green and brown and silvery stone, curling around the living trunks of ancient trees and flowing in graceful levels up the steep rise of the mountainside.

The place looked so Elvish, she was half expecting some point-eared bowmaster to leap down from the tree branches overhead and challenge her presence, but if the elves had indeed ever dwelled here, they had left long ago. Stone walkways led across the leaf-scattered forest floor, and statues darkened by years of neglect stood silent, melancholy guard in gardens reclaimed by the untamed beauty of nature.

A large building she assumed was the hall Rain had mentioned rose from the forest nearby, and Ellysetta followed the nearest pathway, now barely more than a trail of broken stones leading through meadows of ivy and ferns. She climbed a short stairway and passed through the open, arching doorway leading to the interior of the hall.

Within, the hall was beautiful and otherworldly, as peaceful a place as she'd ever seen. Her gasp of wonder became a deep, luxurious breath, brisk with the cool, fresh air of the forest and the tang of mist from the mountain streams tumbling down nearby waterfalls.

Overhead, fire glowed soft in silvery chandeliers shaped like blossoming vines. Soaring, open arches brought the forest into the hall, where the muted green, brown, and gold forest tones merged harmoniously with touches of color—deep purples, rich blues, and occasional bright flashes of buttery yellow and crisp crimson. A mix of Feyan script and Elvish runes scrolled in graceful whorls along the arched doorways and up the stone columns that had been carved to look like tree trunks rising from the floor, their branches holding aloft the vaulted ceiling. Tapestries and elegant furnishings still filled the empty hall, as if some caretaker or protection weave had kept away the ravages of time.