«Rain!» Shocked into sudden sobriety, Ellysetta dug her fingers into the fur at the back of his neck. «My family.»

Rain instantly sent a Spirit weave racing across the distance to Dharsa. «Marissya… Dax… get Ellysetta’s family to safety.»

And then, several long chimes later, Rain’s wings faltered and she felt sorrow and concern well up inside him. Even before he spoke, she knew he’d received a private weave, and she knew the news wasn’t good. Inside her chest, Ellysetta’s heart turned to stone.

«Shei’tani… » Rain hesitated. «I’m sorry, beloved. Your father is safe, but your sisters are gone. Dax says a portal was opened in their room. They’ve been taken.»

“No.” She said. Her lips felt numb. Her whole body had lost all feeling. All she could think of was the dream, that horrible, hateful dream of Lillis and Lorelle, their eyes black as pitch, dancing in a shower of blood. And she knew, just as Sheyl knew when she had a vision, that her dream would come true «Ellysetta.» Rain turned his head as he flew. “No.” She said again, louder.

«Ellysetta, we will get them back. I promise you, shei’tani. As soon as this is over, as soon as we’ve defeated this army, we’ll find out where he’s taken them and we’ll get them back.»

“NO!” This time she screamed it. The sound ripped from her throat like a tairen’s roar. Rage blasted up from that place deep inside, the cold, Lightless place where the beast lived. Ice enveloped her. Hatred consumed her. She wanted these Eld and their foul creatures dead. She wanted this battle to stop.

She wanted her family back.

Now.

Her body began to shake.

On the battlefield, lu’tan and Fey cried out as their magic spun out of their control. One moment, they were spinning fierce weaves to hold back the revenants, the next moment the shining flows of their magic headed skyward, sucked away by a power greater than their own.

Standing between the retreating forces and the revenant hordes, Bel, Gaelen, and Gil all looked up towards the sky, knowing instantly what was happening.

“Ellysetta,” Bel whispered.

Half a tairen-length away, Gaelen saw in shock that even the flows of Elvish and Elden magic were pouring into her.

“Bel, Gaelen,” Gil called, “we have no magic and those revenants are still coming. I suggest we run, kem’jetos.”

Dragging their gazes away from Ellysetta, they ran.

Hissing, the revenants followed.

The magic didn’t burn inside Ellysetta, it froze. Her whole body felt encased in a block of ice.

«Shei’tani?» She heard Rain’s call, but it came as if from a great distance.

These Mages liked death? Murder? Destruction? Well she would give them a taste of their own evil ways.

Her hands shot out, fingers splayed. Concentrated magic roared down her arms, setting her palms ablaze. She knew the weave. She’d seen it often enough. Fled from it often enough.

Power coalesced, blazing blue-white between her palms. She poured it forth, not in a great globe of power like the Mages did, but in a continuous, boiling jet, like tairen fire.

Mage Fire spewed from Ellysetta’s hands, and spilled across the battlefield from the walls of Orest to the allied lines in the east. It consumed revenants and the enemy forces fleeing the lava-ribboned volcano that had been Orest and gouged deep furrows into the earth.

«Shei’tani, nei.»

The tairen beneath her tried to bank, to turn her away, but she seized him with her power and forced him to her will. He flew where she bid him.

A voice was screaming in her head. Whether hers or his, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She wrapped herself in a weave of silence and kept pouring her wrathful river of Mage Fire upon the Elden army.

Vadim Maur watched the blazing, blue-white fire consuming everything in its path. Even the mass destruction of his great army couldn’t stop the pride and savage satisfaction that surged through him at the sight.

“You wonderful, magnificent girl,” he breathed. And with a crow of delight, using the bonds that already connected their souls as a conduit to keep her from absorbing his magic, he sent a concentrated weave of Azrahn stabbing into her soul.

He expected her to scream and flinch back as she had every time before, but instead a great force like nothing he’d ever felt suddenly fixed its gaze upon him. Power ripped through him. Her power. Purest Azrahn of a magnitude he never knew could exist. It plundered him, assaulted him, peeled him down to the smallest particle of a single cell, then put him back together again in the blink of an eye.

And even as his weave forged its fifth Mark upon her soul, her own weave stabbed him through to his core and seared every layer of his body and soul, leaving not just a Mark, but a smoldering brand.

His knees went weak. His bowels turned to water. She had Marked him. She had Marked him.

Vadim Maur grabbed the tent pole for support. Her power ripped from him the way a female tairen might retract her tail spike from the still-twitching body of her prey, but he knew she wasn’t done. He could still feel her eye upon him, dread and merciless. He felt her gather her power for another strike and for the first time in centuries, he whispered, “Gods, help me.”

His savior came from as unlikely a source as the one he’d called upon.

An Elf streaked across the sky on a white Aquiline charger. Light blazed from the Elf’s upraised hand, and the beam fell upon Ellysetta Baristani like a shaft of concentrated sunlight. Now Ellysetta reared back in the way she hadn’t done when Vadim Marked her, and the terrible force of her power turned away from the Mage, freeing him to sink helplessly to his knees.