Ruthless, efficient, they rifled through her mind, examining every memory. Her childhood in Hartslea, the seizures, the priests' declaration that she was demon possessed. Her first exorcism and the howling, bloody, violent rage that had swept through her eight-year-old mind when the long, shining needles of the exorcists had plunged into her body. They saw what she'd been thinking, knew how she'd dreamed of rending those exorcists limb from limb and dancing in the shower of their blood.

Ellie wept in shame and horror at her own evil thoughts. When she'd shared the awful truth of her childhood with Rain, he had offered acceptance and loving, healing forgiveness. These shei'dalins were not so compassionate. They dissected without mercy and left her writhing in an agony of self-loathing.

The tairen hissed a furious warning, its claws beginning to shred the last of her control.

"Please," she begged. "Please stop."

The shei'dalins only dug deeper, finding the memories of how she'd restored Gaelen's soul, the devastating recollection of the black Mage Mark lying like a shadow over her heart. They summoned the ghastly, shocking moment in the Grand Cathedral of Light when the Eld blade sliced and Mama's head rolled free of her body.

Heat bloomed. The first warning flare of Rage. They hurt us.

"Stop!" she cried, fearing what would happen if they didn't. Anger was growing inside her.

They found the memories of that terrible nightmare when she'd stood amid a field of corpses and seen herself leading the armies of darkness, slaughtering all who stood in her way. The vile, mocking claim of the Shadow Man rang in her ears: You'll kill them, girl. You'll kill them all. It's what you were born for.

Within Ellysetta, the coiling power gave a terrible hiss. Her muscles grew taut. Her skin burned and strained as pressure built within. Vengeance on those who hurt us…vengeance for what they did…

The shei'dalins summoned more visions, every foul, horrifying nightmare of war and death she'd ever had. Bodies torn and shredded, blood running in scarlet rivers. Only this time all the dead wore the faces of those she loved: Mama, Papa, Lillis, Lorelle, Bel, Selianne, and, everywhere she turned, Rain. In every face, she saw Rain. Rain dead. Rain dying. Rain split asunder, burning, bleeding his life out. Screaming in defiance as Mage Fire consumed him.

"Nei! Do not!" she cried, the words both a warning for the shei'dalins and a command to the destructive wildness gathering inside her.

«Ellysetta!» The sound of Rain's voice rang out across the Mists in speech and Spirit and tairen song, calling out simultaneously in her mind and her soul. Her heart raced, and the threads of their bond flared to life, tingling with a sudden surge of magic in response to the desperate command and raging fear in his call.

The tairen fury building inside her coalesced with sudden focus. Her hands clenched. Her eyes flamed. They dared use her to torment her mate? Ellysetta's power rose up in wild, angry waves, bright and hot.

«Rain!» She shouted his name on every pathway he'd used to call her, her voice vibrating with the incendiary roar of her tairen. «I am here!» Her call pierced the Mists, finding him instantly, seizing him with a searing rope of fire that blazed a path back to her.

Suddenly he was there, fierce and furious, his roar a deafening boom. Flames boiled around them with savage fury as Rain's tairen rushed to defend its mate. The avenue of trees, the shei'dalins, the gathering of cold-eyed Fey, all dissolved in a wall of tairen flame.

The roar rocked Taloth'Liera like a cry from the gods themselves.

One whole section of the Mists turned bright orange, then exploded in a boiling cloud of tairen fire that sent Fey warriors stumbling back. Steel clattered on stone. A great, blazing ball of light hurtled out of the dense flames. The warriors standing on the crenellated wall crossing Taloth'Liera shouted in surprise as it rocketed past.

The light plunged towards earth like a falling star. Bel raised a hand to shield his eyes and caught a glimpse of a shadowy tairen wing at the periphery of the light. His heart rose up in his throat when he realized he was watching Rain streaking across the sky, gouts of flame spewing from his muzzle—and that blaze of blinding light on his back was Ellysetta.

They landed half a mile beyond the Warriors' Wall, dust billowing up in clouds around them. Gaelen and Bel ran towards them. Marissya and Dax sprinted close on their heels, followed by Tajik and the rest of the Fey.

They all skidded to a halt when the tairen screamed and rose up on his haunches. Black wings spread wide in a show of ferocious might, and boiling jets of flame geysered into the air in warning.

When the Fey made no move to come closer, he settled back onto all four paws. Growls rumbled dangerously in his chest, and several more small bursts of flame hissed from his muzzle. The radiant figure of Ellysetta slid from his back and leaned against his foreleg. Her blinding aura began slowly to dim. Rain remained in tairen form, his tail twitching, his ears laid back on his head.

"What in the Seven Hells is going on?" Tajik demanded. "Did the Mists grant passage, or did the Tairen Soul and his mate just burn their way through?" Suspicion filled Tajik's flame blue eyes, and though his hands didn't reach for steel, Bel saw the unmistakable signs of tension gathering.

"Las, Taj," Bel said. "This was Rain's first time through the Mists. None of us were sure what to expect. Clearly, he had a bad time of it, but he's through, and that's what matters."

Tajik wasn't general of the eastern army because he was a trusting man. His eyes pierced Bel as mercilessly as Tajik's blades had impaled countless enemy soldiers over the centuries. "The Tairen Soul wasn't the only one to blast through with magic blazing." He nodded at the still blindingly bright figure of Ellysetta. "What stains could a shei'dalin bear on her soul that would set the Mists against her?"