Above him, a dazzling bright blue sky stretched out. Below him was the soft, musty prickle of-he pulled a handful of the stuff up and stared at it-hay. He was lying in a haystack. In the middle of some farmer's field. With a big, heavyset shire-horse nibbling haystraw from his face and hair and munching loudly in his ear.

He shoved himself off the haystack, away from the horse's hungry, grazing mouth, and staggered to his feet. Gods, he hurt. Every muscle, joint, and sinew ached from the bitter, arduous bells he'd spent battering himself against last night's fierce, unnatural winds.

Sybharukai, bless her for the wicked tairen she was, had known exactly how to punish him for his stupidity while leading him roaring and fighting from rage back to reason. She'd beaten the fury out of him, shoved bilious truth down his throat until he gagged on it, then left him exhausted and filled with the bitter taste of humiliation, to make the final choice on his own.

Now, in the bright light of day, as he stood in the quiet peace of a farmer's field with Eld behind him and hope beckoning from Celieria City far to the south, he knew, with a certainty of purpose he'd long been lacking, that his choice was the right one.

For every great gift the gods demand a great price. Rain should have known the gods wouldn't grant him the stunning, unexpected miracle of a truemate without demanding something in return. Even Marissya had warned him of it on that very first night after he'd claimed Ellysetta. You cannot shirk your duty, not to the tairen, not to the Fey, and definitely not to your truemate. Because, Rain, one other thing seems certain ... whatever task the gods have set before Ellysetta Baristani, it is fearfully dangerous. Else she'd not need a tairen to protect her soul.

What could be more dangerous to her than bearing the taint of the High Mage himself? Yet just as Ellysetta had flinched from her first encounter with the tairen, Rain had flinched from his first true test of courage as well. Worse, he'd fled and left her thinking she repulsed him.

She was not to blame for who her father might be, nor for any cursed Mage Mark set upon her in infancy. And Rain's first duty was not to the world, or the Fey, or even the tairen. His first duty was to her.

Gathering his strength, he spun a swift query on a weave of Spirit and sent it arrowing south towards Celieria. The answer that returned several chimes later came from a young Spirit master Rain did not know well.

«The Feyreisa is at the cathedral. The twenty-five-fold weaves have gone up. Marissya and Dax are with the mortals in the Council. Those weaves have gone up as well. Marissya said if you contacted us, we should tell you to hurry.”

“I come,” Rain returned with grim curtness. The weave dissolved as soon as the last crisp word was sent. His hands clenched into fists.

Ellysetta was safe, secured behind a powerful weave and protected by more than one hundred of the Fading Lands' strongest warriors. The Council, however, was another matter.

He'd promised her he would not let Celieria fall to the Eld. After his terrible betrayal last night, he was determined not to fail her again.

He had to get back to Celieria City. Now. Without delay.

Rain bent his knees and sprang into the sky. A frenetic cloud of gray mist and magic swirled around him. The familiar exultation of the Change shattered his senses, unmaking Rain, the Fey, scattering him to the clouds, then gathering him back up again as Rain, the Tairen Soul. Below him, the startled farmer in whose field he'd slept looked up from his plow, and in a small fenced pasture near his fields, a herd of cattle scattered in instinctive fear of the predator overhead.

Rain circled the farm and the penned cattle. The Great Sun was already nearing its zenith, and he was still hundreds of miles away from Celieria City. He would need to fly as fast as he could to get there in time.

He swooped down on the cattle pen once, twice, three times, thinning the small herd until his tairen belly was full, and then he swooped a fourth and final time over the haystack where he'd slept. Earth magic spun out, reaching deep into the rock below the field, finding what he needed and spinning it into his gift.

«The Tairen Soul thanks you, Goodman,» he called out to the farmer. «I offer payment for your cattle and Fey blessings on your house. »

Ropes of Air spun out behind him, generating a powerful tailwind that sent him racing across the Celierian skies at three times his normal speed. He swept through misty clouds like a gale, leaving them swirling madly in his wake.

Behind, in the field he'd just left, the farmer and his family laughed and danced around a haystack with exuberant delight and threw fistfuls of haystraw into the air. Haystraw Rain had just transformed into purest, gleaming gold.

Following opening remarks given by Lords Sebourne and Teleos and half a bell of ineffectual salvos fired by half a dozen lesser lords, Lord Morvel, one of Celieria's twenty Great Lords, took the floor to address the Council. He began by reminding his peers of his initial, magnanimous gesture of goodwill and acceptance towards the Fey-and the reason for his subsequent change of heart. Then he proceeded to expound upon the many economic benefits of demilitarizing the northern borders and expanding Celierian trade.

From her silver throne, Annoura listened to Morvel's bombastic posturing with half an ear and kept a surreptitious eye on the door to the chamber, watching for any sign that Gaelen vel Serranis's capture had been accomplished.

"The borders have been all but silent for the last hundred years," Lord Morvel concluded, his voice carrying easily across the length of the marbled chamber. "The Eld have extended the hand of friendship. Celieria must not cling to the narrow-minded exclusionism fostered by the fear mongering of the Fey and a few misguided Celierian lords.”