An icy breeze swirled through the chamber, blowing back Vadim's hair and the folds of his purple velvet robes. A voice like bones grating on stone hissed, «How shall I serve thee?»

Vadim shaped his command in flows of dark, ineluctable power. "Bring me the souls I seek."

The Fading Lands ~ Fey'Bahren

The kitlings fell silent.

Concerned, Ellysetta summoned Fey vision to examine the eggs. Concern spiked to alarm. The shining light of the kitlings, so bright just moments before, had gone out. The eggs appeared empty, with naught but a blank void inside each shell, just as they had the first time she'd come and again the night Forrahl had died.

Then she heard the whispers, the voices.

"Oh, no. Not now. Teska, sallan, don't let this happen." Desperately, she sent a bolus of power down her weaves, hoping she could hurry the healing.

The tairen began to growl. Sybharukai's tail spikes extended in unspoken menace.

«He's coming for the kits.» Rain's Spirit voice was heavy with certainty.

"Aiyah." Fear made her concentration wobble as something cold and dark brushed against her weaves. The tairen kitlings began to whimper anew. She shivered, and her knees went weak. She clutched the nearest egg to keep herself upright. "But it's not him. It's the other thing…whatever he's using to steal their souls. A demon of some kind, or a soul doing his bidding. I don't know."

She flinched as the thing brushed against her weaves again. The sensation was too vivid, too reminiscent of the horrifying nightmares she'd suffered all her life. Like rats sliding past her ankles or ice spiders crawling up her spine. Her tairen began to growl and claw at its bindings.

«Ellysetta, come away. Do not endanger yourself any further.»

"I can't leave the kitlings to die." Whatever it was, the thing had negated the power of her healing weaves. Worse, she could feel it draining the kitlings' strength, ruining the hard-won progress of the last bells. "I've got to do this, Rain. There is no one else who can. This is why the Eye sent you to find me."

«Was this part of what the Eye said you must do?»

She bit her lip. There'd been nothing in the Eye's vision beyond the weaves she'd already spun. Now she must fight without any idea of what pattern to weave. "Nei, but it makes no difference. If I don't stop this attack, the kitlings will die. I will have let the Mage Mark me for nothing."

Familiar power swelled, and the sparkling mist of the Change billowed around Rain's tairen form. Even before it cleared, Rain the Fey was striding across the sands of the lair to her side, his eyes glowing bright, his face pale and strained.

"Nei, shei'tani." He dissolved the five-fold weave around her and grabbed her shoulders. Intense emotions barraged her senses. "Listen to me. Mage or demon, this thing never takes more than one kitling when it comes. That's how it has always been. Let it have that life; then, when it is gone, you can resume the healing the Eye showed you."

He was terrified beyond reason, else he would never consider the sacrifice of an innocent an acceptable price for victory. And that fear told her more than words ever could how deeply and desperately he loved her.

"Rain." She caught his face in her hands. "I can't. You know I can't. If these were our children, would you stand by and watch one of them die so you could be assured of saving the others? Or would you move the very heavens and the earth to try to save them all?"

He brushed that argument aside with a growl. "I would face a thousand deaths to save them. But you're not asking me to risk my own life. You're asking me to risk yours."

"Yes, I am." She pressed her lips to his, kissing him, loving him. "You say you must become worthy of my bond. But if I let even one of these babies die without a fight, how will I ever become worthy of yours?"

"Do you think I care about our bond more than your life?" he countered. "I will gladly die if it means you may live."

She clutched him to her, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him as if the sheer strength of her embrace could complete the merging of their souls. "And do you truly think there's any hope for me if I lose you?" Gently, she pulled back to meet his gaze. "Without you, I will choose sheisan'dahlein just to be sure the prophecy of the Eye can never come true. I've already asked Steli to see to it."

"Shei'tani …" His expression crumpled.

"I must do this, Rain. Tairen do not abandon their kits. Tairen defend the pride."

Tears shimmered in his eyes. He closed them and touched his forehead to hers in defeat. "Aiyah."

That one word of acquiescence, wrenched by love from a heart drowning in fear, made her love him more than she ever had. She smoothed her thumbs across the warm silk of his skin. "If love were power enough, shei'tan, our truemate bond would be complete a thousand times over." Her lips curved in a trembling smile. "You bring pride to this Fey."

His arms closed tight around her, and his mouth claimed hers in a final, passionate kiss. «Ver reisa ku'chae, Ellysetta. Kem surah.» When at last he let her go, he stepped back a pace, and grim determination settled over his features. "But if this must be done, shei'tani, we will do it together." He removed the Soul Quest crystal from around his neck and settled it in place around hers. "You will use my strength and everything I can give you."

"Rain, nei. If the High Mage can use me to Mark you—"