Ellysetta closed her eyes, letting the wordless crooning tunes of the fairy-flies wash over her. Fey vision came without call, and the glen became a jeweled wonderland, velvety darkness shining bright with iridescent magic and showers of tiny sparkling lights falling like crystals in the wake of the fairy-flies. Beneath her, Rain was a blazing maelstrom of power, dazzling, brighter than she'd ever seen. The dark web that usually veiled him had all but disappeared before the radiant blaze of his essence. And she…she was as golden-white as the Great Sun.

"Now, beloved," he begged. "Teska, come to me now."

"Aiyah" she agreed. "Now." She guided him to the entrance of her body. The moment the blunt tip of his sex touched her, his hips surged up in one powerful stroke. Her eyes squeezed shut and she bit back a ragged cry as pleasure ripped through her. Her inner muscles clenched around him, holding him tight and drawing him deep.

She began to move, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as each rise and fall of her hips brought her closer to the brink of orgasm. She could feel every thread of their partially completed bond, pulsing in rhythm. She could hear the tairen roaring inside her—and in him—the sounds wild and fierce and passionate.

"Rain…"

His hands gripped her, urging her faster, faster, until her vision began to whirl. Her eyes flew open, her gaze locking with his. His skin was shining bright as the moon, his eyes twin purple stars, his soul a gleaming beacon that had called to her long before she'd ever met him. She bent to take his mouth in a kiss, lips meeting, tangling, breaths mingling.

"Ve sha kem'san," she whispered against his mouth. "Ke vo san." And with one last thrust of her hips, she pushed them both over the brink. Their voices cried out in a single, inextricably woven thread, and sparkling lights showered down upon them from the fairy-flies dancing overhead.

Ellysetta dreamed of darkness, warm and comforting like a thick blanket tucked 'round a sleeping child. She dreamed of voices singing, both tairen and Fey. The songs were different, yet somehow all familiar, comforting, crooning to her in dulcet multilayered tones. The voices sang of courage and strength, of love and joy, of welcome and of hope. She wanted to sing back, but the notes and words would not come.

She shifted, limbs pushing and fluttering against the confines of the warm darkness. The songs became a sweet lullaby. Hush, little kitling…patience. A whispered warning, sung in silence. «Las, ajiana. Shh. Be silent. Be still. Do not let him hear you.»

The darkness changed, growing colder. Flutters for freedom became tremors of distress. Sickly sweetness filled her nostrils, making her dizzy and ill. Cold hands dragged her back from the warmth of the voices. She cried out in fear. Anguished wails mingled with roars of fury and blistering sorrow.

The multi-ply song grew thinner as the tairen songs faded and fell silent, leaving only Feyan voices, male and female. An unmistakable thread of fear and concern ran through their melody now. A low, cold voice spun a new thread into the mix, this one an icy, sibilant whisper that struck terror into her heart. She curled up in a tight ball, trembling helplessly, and the warm Feyan voice sang urgently in her ears, gentle but commanding: «Be silent… be still.»

And she was.

The Feyan song became discordant, the notes broken, weeping. «Sieks'ta. Forgive us, kem'kaidina. Forgive us.»

Lights shone in the darkness, brilliant, spherical, surrounding her like a ball spun of rainbows. Warm and bright, almost as beautiful as the vibrant colors of tairen song. She stared up at the lights, transfixed by their beauty and unafraid, not understanding when the sphere contracted, shrinking, closing in upon her. The lights filled her vision and drew tight around her.

The world went dark again. Dark and silent and kissed by an icy chill.

When light returned, it came from two round silver coins that shone like twin full moons in a night sky. The light grew brighter, and the moons became a pair of cold silver eyes, gleaming in a pallid, cadaverous face. Triumphant laughter turned her blood to ice as clawed hands lifted a tiny newborn high.

The scene changed. She was in a dark, black-walled cave dimly lit by weak torches on the its walls. Two shadowy figures, a man and a woman, stood inside a barbed cage, locked in an embrace. The man was manacled and chained to the wall. She couldn't see their faces, but their skin had a dim silver glow. At first Ellysetta thought she was looking at herself and Rain, captured by their enemies, but then, as if sensing her presence, the man lifted his head.

His eyes blazed with fearsome savagery, filling her vision completely.

Pupil-less. Radiant prisms of opalescent green that whirled with powerful magic.

Tairen's eyes.

Slowly they began to change, turning from green to gold, and the scene shifted once more. The man's face became the proud, regal head of the tairen Cahlah. The dark cave where the man and woman had been became Fey'Bahren's nesting lair. Cahlah lay on the black sands, curled around a tairen egg, filling the tunnels of Fey'Bahren with her keening wails. She gnawed and clawed at the leathery shell until at last it broke open and spilled out the limp body within.

But the motionless form that tumbled forth wasn't a kitling. It was Ellysetta, naked and lifeless, her eyes gone milky white.

Ellysetta woke with her pulse racing and her lungs starved for air, as if she truly had been sealed in that tairen's egg, slowly dying.

She sat up and pressed a hand against her hammering heart, willing herself to calm. The forest was still night-dark around her. The fairy-flies swooped and chittered with anxious energy, darting in and out of the nearby trees and whirling in dizzying circles.