Shan went high, racing up the wall and launching across the ceiling on an Air-powered leap, just as the door opened. His senses merged with Elfeya’s, and he used her empathy to pinpoint the enemy he could not see. Black Fey’cha flew with unerring aim and blurring speed. The dahl’reisen grunted. Shan dropped to the floor, as magic spun from Elfeya’s fingertips, wrapping the still-invisible dahl’reisen tight in bands of power.

Shan thrust his hands into the center of Elfeya’s net, and sparks flew where his sel’dor bands touched the dahl’reisen’s invisibility weave. He caught a brief glimpse of a pale scarred face and a mouth opening—no doubt to shout the alarm. His fingers closed around the dahl’reisen’s throat, squeezing tight and cutting off his cry.

“I can’t kill you, dahl’reisen rultshart,” he hissed, “but I can make you wish I would.”

“That would be a shame, kem’chatok, since he came to save you.”

Shan’s spine went straight as a board, and he spun around, Fey’cha flying from their sheaths into his hands. “Vel Serranis,” he snarled, and he let fly his blades.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Come fly with me my love

Spread your wings with glee

Into the skies above

Together we will fly free

Come fly with me my mate

The one that fills my heart

Together passion we will sate

And never will we part

Flight of the Tairen Lovers,

a poem by Rainier v’En Daris, Tairen Soul

Shan’s most infamous chadin dodged and deflected with a skill that would do any chatok proud, but he still didn’t manage to escape all of Shan’s blades. One Fey’cha caught him in the shoulder and one in the back of the right thigh as he spun away, before a cry on the vel Celay family path brought Shan up short.

«Parei, Shan! Parei! Gaelen and Farel are friends.»

“Tajik?” Elfeya rose from behind the overturned table, whispering her brother’s name.

«Elfeya, get down!» Fearing a trap, Shan thrust the dahl’reisen away from him and backed towards his mate, blades drawn. He’d never betrayed the vel Celay family path—at least not that he remembered—and he didn’t think Elfeya had either. But after a thousand years of torture, anything was possible.

And yet, there he was, Tajik vel Sibboreh, Elfeya’s youngest brother, appearing inside the room as he shed his invisibility weave. He looked older—much harder and world-worn—than Shan remembered him, but he was still, unmistakably Tajik. Blue-eyed, fire-haired, and staring at his sister like she was the sun and he was a man who’d spent a lifetime in darkness.

Elfeya’s empathic senses could never have been fooled by an imposter posing as her brother, so when she abandoned all caution and ran around the table to throw herself into Tajik’s arms, Shan knew his eyes must be seeing true.

“Tajik!” Wrapping her arms around her brother’s neck, Elfeya wept and laughed in a show of joy too great to be contained. “You are here. It’s really you.”

Tajik’s arms tightened around her. “I thought you were dead,” he told her. “I would have ripped Eld apart to find you if I’d known you were still alive. Sieks’ta. Forgive me for not coming sooner. I didn’t know. I came as soon as I could.”

“Las, las, kem’jeto. Ssh.” She stroked his hair and kissed him, then drew back to cup his face between her hands. “There is nothing to forgive. I am here, and you are here, and we are together once more. Today, the gods are kind, and my heart is full of joy.”

“I don’t understand.” Shan looked around the room in confusion. He was beginning to think the madness that had haunted him all these centuries had taken fresh root in his brain. Three more Fey had appeared inside the room. Two of them were very distinctive Fey he recognized and remembered. Like Tajik and vel Serranis, Gillandaris vel Sendar and Rijonn vel Ahriman had been his chadins at the Warriors’ Academy in Tehlas. The third warrior, a Fey with black hair and cobalt eyes, he did not know. Nor did he recognize the two young, unshadowed warriors shrouded in Mage robes who slipped in after the others and closed the door behind them.

After spending the last thousand years in solitary confinement, the sudden appearance of so many Fey—and so many familiar faces—left Shan feeling overwhelmed. And the fact that these Fey could all be standing there, without a shred of concern for the dahl’reisen among them, confused and stunned him. He shook his head, trying to still all the thoughts and questions whirling about in his mind, and fixed his gaze on Gaelen vel Serranis.

“You were dahl’reisen,” he said bluntly. “Why aren’t you still? And why are Fey warriors keeping company with dahl’reisen?”

A ghost of a smile played about Gaelen’s mouth. “You always were direct, kem’chatok.” He gestured to the Fey’cha still embedded in his shoulder and thigh. “Do you mind?”

Shan spoke his return word, and the blades he’d sunk into both Gaelen and the dahl’reisen returned to their sheaths.

“Ve ku’jian vallar, Gaelen,” Elfeya said. Allow me to help you. Withdrawing gently from her brother’s embrace, she crossed the room to vel Serranis’s side and laid glowing hands upon his wounds.

“Beylah vo, Elfeya-falla,” Gaelen said, as the torn blood vessels and flesh knit back together.

Elfeya glanced uncertainly at the dahl’reisen, who had already spun an Earth weave to staunch his wounds and seal the torn flesh until his body’s natural healing properties could repair the damage.