Ellie blinked at the implacable finality of his statement. "Oh, but—”

"Ellysetta." He gave her a look that made her close her mouth and swallow her objection. "I despise Celieria. I remain here only to fulfill my oath to your father and to give you a little time at least to grow accustomed to me before I take you from all that is familiar to you. I will not cut short my time with you merely to indulge the self-importance of a foolish woman who insults the Tairen Soul's truemate—and I am speaking of both the queen and her servants. The dressmaker will attend you tomorrow morning. Early, before I come to you. The Master of Graces will tutor you after that, while I am there to observe him. And, Ellysetta …" He lifted her chin with a gentleness that somehow made the fierce look in his eyes even more terrifying. "If anyone insults you again, you—not Bel—shall tell me of it.”

Ellie gulped and nodded. She would promise almost anything to stop him looking at her with those eyes that leapt with flickering lights of cold fire.

"Beylah vo. Thank you." The hard lines of Rain's expression softened and his eyes calmed. "Now, what would you like to do?”

"I—" She wet her lips and tried to still her rapidly beating heart. "I don't know" She'd never been courted before, didn't have the first idea of where to go or what to do. Inspiration struck. "You could take me flying. After all, I did win that wager.”

"You did, indeed. Very well, then. Flying it is”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

With wings unfurled and joy unbound,

I dance on laughter-spangled winds.I bathe in freedom's rushing breath

And drink cool nectar from the clouds.

Up, up, through sunlit fields of blue,

I soar through boundless ether.Look! Starlight shines at height of day.

I hear infinity calling.

—Tairen's Flight, by Cadrian vel Sorendahl,

Tairen Soul

"Why did I bring my coat?”

Rain cast an amused glance at Ellysetta. His shei'tani had been an uncorked bottle of questions since they'd dropped off the twins at her home. Her hesitance with him had been replaced by incessant curiosity and wide-eyed wonder that reminded him very much of a young tairen eagerly examining the world for the first time.

"Because, shei'tani," he replied, "it is very cold in the high reaches of the sky. If it gets too cold, I will weave Fire and Air around you to keep you warm, but then you will not feel the wind on your face. Feeling the wind is one of the best parts of tairen flight”

"What if I discover that I'm afraid of heights?”

"You will not be”

"How do you know?”

"Because you know you will always be safe in my care." Ah, blessed arrogance. He wanted to grin. He astonished himself. The Fey and tairen were teetering on the brink of extinction, darkness was rising again in Eld, and Rain Tairen Soul, Defender of the Fey, was happier than he'd been in a thousand years, all because he was taking his mate for a ride in the skies. Even the anger that had simmered in him since leaving Dorian—and roused again upon learning of Ellysetta's treatment at the hands of Annoura's tradesfolk—was gone. If Ellysetta was weaving a shei'dalin's peace on him, he could not detect it.

"Lillis and Lorelle are probably still wailing because they couldn't come," Ellie said. The twins had pitched an unholy fit, complete with copious tears, when Lauriana had informed them that, no, they were not going to ride on tairen- back, and, no, they were not going to tag along with their sister and her betrothed this time.

"This I doubt," Rain replied. "Kiel and Kieran would not permit their unhappiness." Kiel and Kieran had both stayed behind to entertain the girls, while the holders of Water and Earth in Ellysetta's secondary quintet took their places for the afternoon.

They walked through the city gates, out into the open fields that ringed the city. "Tell me again, why do we have to come out here?”

"I prefer to have space for the Change. Besides, there are fewer eyes.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the crowds gathered on the walls. "Right.”

She had a dry sense of humor, very Fey, that made him want to laugh as he had not in centuries. `Just imagine the audience we'd have if we had stayed in the city," he replied.

Rain brought the group to a halt about two hundred yards from the city wall. "Stay here, Ellysetta, and wait until I tell you it is safe to come forward." She nodded.

He turned and began jogging away, slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was sprinting. With a tremendous Air-powered leap, he catapulted himself into the sky and flashed into tairen form, winging high above the earth. Skyward he soared, up towards the mid-afternoon sun and into the bright, endless blue of the warm spring day. Black wings spread wide, he banked left and circled back over Celieria, back over the small knot of black-clad warriors and the single slender figure in navy skirts standing safely in their midst.

He knew he was an impressive tairen, large, sleek, powerful. In flight, his tairen body was even more graceful, forelegs flattened aerodynamically against his belly, powerful hind legs trailing behind, his long, thick tail trailing even further, its blunt, curling tip acting like a rudder in flight. He watched his shadow speed across the Celierian landscape, and basked in the warmth of Ellysetta's dazed admiration.

Slowly, lazily, he glided down to earth and settled with graceful precision on the ground not far from Ellysetta and the Fey warriors. He stretched his wings high, flapped them, then tucked them against his back and padded towards Ellysetta. Stopping a few feet from her, he lay down on his belly beside her and gave a rumbling purr.