Ellysetta gasped. The faces of her quintet turned to stone.

Beside her, Rain curled his fingers around the hilts of the meicha. scimitars sheathed at his hips. "Is that so?"

The shutters on the windows overlooking the gardens trembled and the curtains flanking them fluttered as if from a breeze. Dorian's gaze flicked in that direction before returning to Rain, whose eyes had begun to glow as his tairen rose.

«Three days. The messenger arrived three days ago.» Anger vibrated in every shining thread of his Spirit voice. «It takes only a week at most for a runner to reach Celieria City from Dharsa.»

Ellysetta processed the calculations quickly. The messenger had left Dharsa ten days ago, which meant—

«Tenn sent his message after he received the battle reports from Teleon and Orest—and after the tairen declared you the rightful Defender of the Fey. Oh, Rain.»

"What else did Tenn's note say?" Rain's voice lowered to a throaty growl.

Another man might well have fled in fear of Rain Tairen Soul's infamous Rage, but Dorian stood his ground with admirable calm. "Among other things, he warned me that your mate was Mage Marked and that your bond to her had clouded your judgment. And he vowed I'd receive no more support from the Fey as long as I continued to count you among my allies. Here." He pulled open his desk drawer and withdrew a scroll encased in a gilded wooden scroll cover. "Read it for yourself."

Rain snatched the scroll from Dorian's grip, removed the protective cover, and unfurled the parchment, Ellysetta looked over his arm as he scanned Tenn's message, and the vile, damning words, written in an elegant golden script, jumped out at her.

To the Most Honorable and Beloved Fey-kin, His Majesty Dorian vol Serranis Torreval, Dorian X, King of Celieria,

It is with Heavy Heart and deep concern that I write....

... Rainier Feyreisen has broken his Honor... confessed under Truthspeaking...both he and his mate did with knowing and willful deliberation weave the forbidden magic, Azreisenahn, also called Azrahn, the soul magic....The Massan had no choice but to declare them dahl’reisen and cast them out of the Fading Lands....

... Ellysetta Baristani’s soul is tainted with Shadow... Elden Mages have begun the possession of her soul... How deeply she is tainted, we do not know, but the danger cannot be ignored.... Already the insidious effects of her presence have divided the Fading Lands... Honorable Fey have discarded their honor to follow her into Shadow... Her influence drove our kin to dishonor....

...The Eye of Truth has foretold a grim future for Ellysetta Baristani, one that honor and duty to the Fading Lands will not allow the Massan to overlook...She will bring destruction

... If Celieria continues to consort with the dahl’reisen Rain Tairen Soul and his Shadow-tainted mate, you may expect no further aid from the Fading Lands....

Each damning declaration drove a spike into her heart. «Dear gods, Rain,» she breathed in horror. «Why would he send this?»

Rain tossed the scroll on Dorian's desk as if it were a polluted thing. His eyes had gone pure tairen, pupil-less and whirling with purple radiance. A muscle jumped in his tightly clenched jaw. "So you received this... message three days ago, and yet still you greeted us with open arms rather than drawn swords. Why?"

Dorian arched his brows. "You forget. My Lord Feyreisen, I am a king, born and raised. I don't take kindly to veiled threats from foreign powers." He picked up the scroll, glanced at it briefly, then rolled the parchment back onto the scroll rods and slid the cover into place. "Nor does the idea that a usurper could strip a sovereign of his crown sit well with me, for obvious reasons."

He placed the scroll back into his desk drawer and closed it away. Tenn v’En Eilan is a stranger to me. I know nothing of him. But I have spent time with you, and with your Celierian-born truemate. Given the long history between our two countries, and my aunt's personal regard and affection for you, I thought it best to withhold judgment until I heard the truth from your own lips."

Rain's expression seemed carved from diamondine granite. "I wish I could tell you that what is written there is false, but Fey do not lie. Not even Tenn." He reached for Ellysetta's hand. "Ellysetta and I did both spin Azrahn. Tenn and three other members of the Massan declared us dahl'reisen and banished us from the Fading Lands because of it."

Ellysetta sensed Dorian's instinctive recoil and hurried to reassure him. "What we did wasn't as evil as Tenn's message makes it seem. I wove Azrahn to save four tairen killings from death, and Rain spun it to save me. The High Mage of Eld was stealing the souls of unborn tairen, and we had to stop him." Quickly, she told him about how the High Mage had been working to breed his own Tairen Soul.

"If Rain and I had not acted, the tairen would have perished with this generation. Tenn knows that, but it doesn't matter to him that we saved the tairen, or that Rain led Lord Teleos's forces to defeat the Eld at Orest, or even that the tairen brought Rain the golden war steel of the Fey king and declared him the rightful ruler of the Fading Lands. All Tenn sees are my Mage Marks, the vision in the Eye of Truth, and the admission that Rain and I wove Azrahn."

"Which facts, you must admit, are troubling," Dorian replied.

Rain took a half step forward, only to freeze when Ellysetta caught his wrist. "We do not deny it. The path the gods have laid out before us is by no means an easy one." Her eyes flashed as she lifted her chin and fixed an unwavering gaze upon the king. "But make no mistake, King Dorian: Azrahn or not, banished or not. Rain is the true king of the Fading Lands and Defender of the Fey. The tairen follow him, as do all Fey who remember that they were born to champion the Light."