"Aiyah, well …" Ellysetta cleared her throat and quickly introduced the other lu'tan in the room.

"Where are Rain and Bel?" Rowan asked. "Is vel Serranis still with you?”

"Rain and Bel are with the king, discussing the defense of Celieria. And, aiyah, Gaelen is with them." She leaned over to take Adrial's hand. "How are you, really, Adrial?" Even as she asked, she spun a weave of healing and strength to bolster his flagging spirits. The last months had taken a toll on him.

He smiled, but his eyes remained dark, melancholy brown pools. "As well as a Fey can be, under the circumstances. Rowan has been my rock."

"There is no hope of Talisa leaving her husband?"

Adrial's gaze dropped.

"It does not appear so," Rowan answered for his younger brother. "But then, she thinks Adrial left her months ago to return to the Fading Lands. As Rain commanded, we have kept our presence a secret. She does not know Adrial is here. No one does."

"Poor Talisa." Ellysetta clasped her hands. What would she have done if she'd dreamed of Rain all her life as Talisa had dreamed of Adrial... if she'd waited for him, year after year, refusing all proposals of marriage until the day of her twenty-fifth birthday ... wedding to spare her family the shame and taint of a spinster daughter... only then to have her love arrive scant weeks after her wedding? Even now, Ellysetta could remember the soaring joy and drowning despair that had consumed Talisa when she'd realized her love had come— and she could not have him.

And then to be led to believe Adrial had simply... walked away.

The breathtaking cruelty of it ripped at her heart.

"How can either of you bear it?" She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until Adrial made a choked sound and his flare of pain scorched her senses. "Adrial! Sieks'ta! Forgive me." She laid her hands upon his, spinning what love and peace she could to soothe his tormented soul.

"We don't bear it. We die a little more each day." He buried his face in his hands, shoulders heaving. "She cries herself to sleep each night and there is n-nothing I can d-do." His voice cracked.

"Adrial." She went to sit beside him and gathered him in her arms the way Mama had so often gathered her. Silky black hair fell across her bodice as she pressed his head to the hollow of her throat and held him close while he wept. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away and felt the hot fall of teardrops track down her cheeks as she met Rowan's bleak gaze over Adrial's head.

"What do you mean, there's nothing to be done?" Ellysetta whirled away from the curtained windows to face her truemate, who had returned to the suite at her request when the war council broke for a short recess. "There must be something! Rain! We can't just leave them like this. They're suffering!"

Beneath the dictates of a powerful Spirit weave, Adrial lay sleeping in one of the suite's attached bedrooms. An. exhausted Rowan napped in a chair by his side. Ellysetta's quintet had gathered in the sitting room, their expressions blank and stony as they watched their king and his mate argue over Adrial's fate.

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I didn't realize when we left Talisa in her husband's care that I was condemning Adrial to death? Celieria is at war, and Dorian is barely holding together the opposing factions of his court. If his control snaps, there is no hope these people can defeat the Eld. No hope for any of us. No matter how my heart aches for Adrial and Talisa, I can't allow that to happen." Rain spread his hands. "I'm sorry, Ellysetta, but my answer must be the same as it was before. In this matter, my hands are tied."

"Then what about Lord Barrial? Talisa is his daughter. Why can he not appeal to the king on her behalf? Then the Fey would not be involved and our enemies could not use this against us."

"Ellysetta, Lord Barrial has enough on his plate. The Eld are coming—and his lands are directly in their path. He knows he's likely to lose his entire estate—his whole family-before this war is through."

"All the more reason for him to save Talisa now, while he still can."

"At what cost! The Sebournes are his closest neighbor, and the largest military force in the area besides his own. If he alienates them, he runs the risk of losing their aid when he needs it most." Rain sighed and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the long dark strands into tousled disarray. "Bitter though the situation may be, Talisa made her choice when she wed diSebourne."

"But—"

"But nothing. The joy of a shei'tanitsa bond is a treasured gift, not a right. Many Fey die without ever hearing their truemate's call. Many others die without completing their bond. Adrial and Talisa have found each other in this lifetime. Gods willing, they will find each other again in the next... and with a happier outcome."

She took a half step forward. Why was it everyone around her had to suffer? Mama and Selianne dead, her family lost in the Mists, Rain banished. Could no one she loved find happiness? "Rain, please..."

He turned away. “There is nothing I can do, Ellysetta."

"The Feyreisen is right, Ellsyetta."

She looked up to find Rowan standing in the doorway, his face drawn with fatigue and sorrow, his dark eyes filled with grieved acceptance.

Rain turned to face him and squared his shoulders. "Rowan, Sieks’ta. You know this is not what I would choose."

"I know," Adrial's older brother said softly.