She turned back to Rain. "There, you see? How can you demand that any Fey live with such pain when you know I have the power to stop it?"

"When it hurts you to use that power? Very easily."

She ground her teeth in frustration. He was so stubborn. "I can do what no other shei'dalin can. I don't know how or why any more than you do, but this is the gift I was given. Surely the gods meant me to use it."

"She has a point," Gaelen murmured.

Rain shot him a hot look. The last thing he needed was Gaelen encouraging this madness. "She does not have a point. The gods gave you Azrahn, too, but that doesn't mean you should spin it. Some gifts were not meant to be used. Some gifts are too dangerous."

"All gifts come with a price, Feyreisen," Gaelen shot back.

"And sometimes the price is so high it should never be paid," he snapped. "Nei. I will not allow it."

"Rain, these men may soon be leaving the Fading Lands to defend Celieria—the people I begged you to defend. They could die fulfilling the vow I urged you to make. You must let me give them what comfort I can before they go. The pain I feel when healing them is momentary. It ends as soon as their souls are restored. But if I don't do this and they die, their pain will never leave me." She grasped his arms. «Would you have me bear the same sorrow and regret you shared with me at the Lake of Glass?»

No matter how much Rain wanted to deny it, he knew the shei'dalin in Ellysetta had risen as strongly as the tairen. To sense the pain of the rasa and do nothing to assuage it was hurting her. It had tormented her dreams, woken her from sleep, and driven her here, prepared to endure whatever pain she must to stop their suffering.

And she'd come alone, without him, because she'd not trusted him to let her do what she felt she must.

«Kem'jeto.» My brother. Bel's voice whispered on the private weave forged between them centuries ago. «I think perhaps Gaelen and Ellysetta are right.»

«You too, Bel?» It stung to hear Bel, the most honorable Fey Rain knew, whose opinion he trusted in all things, agreeing with this madness. «How can you suggest such a thing?»

«Our numbers are too few. If our most experienced fighters lose their souls in the first battles, too few will be left to protect the Feyreisa and the Fading Lands.» Bel's cobalt eyes were steady, filled with a mix of bleak sorrow and grim acceptance. «She is here, in our time of deepest need, wielding a power no shei'dalin before her ever has. I do not claim to know the minds of the gods, but the pattern in this weave seems clear.»

Rain spun on his heel and put several long steps between them. The shei'tan in him was torn between protecting his beloved from the pain it would cause her to save the rasa and the pain it would cause her if she did not.

The Tairen Soul in him cast the deciding vote.

Though he wanted desperately to deny it, he knew Bel was right. The Fading Lands would need every warrior who yet lived—most likely even the mates and truemates— to defeat the Eld when open war broke out, but the souls of these rasa were already so damaged, they would die or fall to darkness after the first or second battle. The Defender of the Fey could not afford to lose the oldest and most experienced Fey warriors—and, in truth, neither could Ellysetta's truemate.

Because all talk of gifts and the gods' intent aside, one hard, simple truth could not be denied, and that one truth canceled out every other concern.

If the Eld came and the Fey were not strong enough to defeat them, a torment far worse than sharing a rasa's pain would befall Ellysetta.

Rain spun back around to face his truemate and her two lu'tans. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw. Just because he'd made the decision didn't mean he had to like it. "Very well, shei'tani," he bit out. "As you insist upon this, let us see it done." He put a hand out.

"Wait," Tajik said. "If the Feyreisa is going to do this, I would add my own strength to all of yours to help her." He withdrew a black Fey'cha from his chest straps and dropped to one knee. "Of my own free will, Ellysetta Feyreisa, I pledge my life and my soul to your protection. None shall harm you while in life or death I have power to prevent it." He drew his dagger across his palm and let six drops of the welling blood fall upon the blade. "This I do swear with my own life's blood, in Fire and Air and Earth and Water, in Spirit and in Azrahn, the magic never to be called. I do ask that this pledge be witnessed."

"You are the last of your line, vel Sibboreh," Rain said. "Will you not keep your bond for your own truemate?"

"If the gods judge me worthy of a shei'tani, they will ensure I meet her in my next life. For now, lute'asheiva is my right, and I claim it."

"Then I will not deny you, my brother." Rain nodded. "Your bond is witnessed."

"Witnessed," Gaelen and Bel echoed.

The blade flashed bright in vel Sibboreh's grip. He passed a hand, glowing with green Earth, over the naked blade. When he was done, the sharp glint of steel had been covered by a decorative golden sheath shaped like a sword of flame. Tajik handed the sheathed blade to Ellysetta. "Your shei'tan will always be your first protector, kem'falla, but know that I am another. Through this life and its death until I come to the world again, I am yours." He bowed low. "Miorafelah, ti'Feyreisa."

Ellysetta stared at the sheathed blade in her hand, the third such bloodsworn blade now in her possession, then frowned at the Fey who'd given it to her. "What did Rain mean just now when he asked you about keeping your bond for your own truemate?" She turned to her mate. "Rain?"