"A gentleman who'd purchased a parlor suite from a local woodcarver, a Master Baristani, who used your fabric for the cushions." When the chain still remained firmly in place, the Sorrelian's smile disappeared. "Forgive me. It's obvious I've intruded with my too early call. The gentleman gave me another master weaver's name as well. A Master Frell. I will try him instead.”

Tuelis bit her lip. A dozen bolts would bring a sizable sum of cash. Careful as she was, being a woman alone now that her husband was dead and her daughter Selianne wed and gone, Tuelis was too much a businesswoman to let such an offer slip past. Especially if the business would then go to Frell, the smirking bloat toad. The Sorrelian was well dressed, after all, and he knew that Sol Baristani used Tuelis's cloth for his upholstery. "My pardon, Captain Batay. Of course, you may come in." The chain rattled as she unlatched it and opened the door.

"My thanks." The captain entered the small shop.

Tuelis closed the door behind him. "What would you like to see first? Brocade? Velvet? Or something finer? I've just finished a bolt of spider-silk in a Celierian blue so rich you'd think I'd woven the sky itself.”

"To be honest, Tuelis, my pet, what I really want to see is your obedience.”

"What?" she gasped in affront. Captain Batay turned to her, his dazzling smile now cold and dreadful. Tuelis fell back a step, pressing a hand against her chest where a long- forgotten ache began to throb. "No! Oh, no!" The sea captain's striking blue-green eyes darkened to deep, shadowy pits that flashed with red lights.

She managed one, two racing steps towards the door, but Captain Batay moved with inhuman swiftness. His bronzed hand, circled with deceptively beautiful blue cuffs, slapped against the door. In her mind, a cold, insistent voice called her name, demanding submission. The pain in her chest grew sharper, and a foreign yet horribly familiar black malevolence consumed her, engulfing her in an icy darkness she hadn't felt since her early childhood in Eld.

Tuelis had one final, desperate thought before her consciousness fell to total subjugation. Selianne! Dearling, what have I done?

Several bells later, bright, late-morning sunlight streamed through the curtained windows of Rain's palace suite, casting ribbons of warmth across his skin. Rain lay in his too soft Celierian bed and stared blindly at the velvet canopies overhead. He'd only just awakened from the few snatched bells of restless sleep granted a courting Fey, and his mind whirled with a mix of shock and wonder that had nothing to do with the shei'tanitsa need humming through his veins.

For the first time in a thousand years, he had not dreamed. Not of the Wars. Not of the dead.

Not of Sariel.

How was it possible? Rain sat up and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. He remembered last night, holding Ellysetta beside the riverbank and wondering at the flood of peace that almost made him weep in her arms.

Cautiously he checked the internal barricades that held back the sorrows of all those millions of souls whose weight he carried on his own. The barriers were still in place, and behind them, the torment of a thousand years still throbbed—yet the familiar pain seemed muted now, the burden lighter.

Ellysetta had healed his soul, just as she'd healed Bel's. Not completely—that would have been beyond miraculous—but to a greater degree than Marissya's substantial shei'dalin powers or even tairen song had managed over the years. And she'd done it without even trying, in one brief moment of communion.

Who was she? No simple Celierian, that was certain. But if not that, then who? What? He sent a thread of Spirit across the city. «Be!?» He didn't even have to ask the question. Bel. knew him too well.

«We are on our way to the cathedral to meet with her family's priest and the Archbishop. She is well.”

«I must meet with Dorian this morning. I will join you when I can.» And because he could not help it, Rain sent another thought along a different path. «Shei'tani.» He felt her sudden alertness, sensed the moment of fear followed by the hesitant happiness. She didn't like that he could send his thoughts to her, and yet she was glad he did.

«My lord?» It was a tentative mental touch at best, a whisper unbacked by power. It barely reached him. Yet because it was her whisper, it sounded in his mind with the force of a gong. His body clenched, his need for her deep and strong and instant.

He felt the jumbled heat of her emotions and knew that half a city away his desire was lapping over, making her nerves sing with awareness, demanding a response. Innocently, doubtlessly unable to prevent it, she did respond. Nectar-sweet, liquor-potent, her own awakening desires reached out with a delicate hand and gripped him with the strength of steel. He staggered from the impact of her untutored, unshielded emotions. He flung out his hand, fingers curling around the bedpost to steady himself, and sucked in a deep, ragged breath. Gods have mercy. Within him, the tairen stretched and dug its claws deep. He felt it reach for her, felt her quick flare of fear as she sensed it. He slammed down his mental barriers, groaned as he pitted his will against the tairen's and battled it back into submission.

«I will come to you soon, shei'tani,» he sent when he could, accompanying the thought with the mental projection of a kiss that he placed with warm promise on her lips.

How did he do that? Ellie touched her lips. The Spirit kiss had felt every bit as convincing as the real thing. She could even smell Rain's fresh, distinctive scent and feel the warmth of his arms pulling her close. "I hope the meeting with Father Celinor and the Archbishop doesn't take too long," she said. She glanced at her mother as they walked down Celieria's busy streets. "I promised the girls I'd meet them in the park for a game of Stones.”