Ellie 's eyes widened. She blinked once, twice, and swallowed the sudden dry lump in her throat. "Uh ... no. Nothing." That was no lie. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was tell her mother Rain was teaching her magic. There were some things her mother was just better off not knowing.

She cleared her throat. "Have a seat, Mama. Everything's ready. I was just about to call everyone to eat." She turned back to the stove and fumbled with refilling the salt and pepper shakers, taking that brief moment to marshal her composure.

She heard her mother pull out a chair and take a seat. Thank you, Bright One, she whispered silently, giving a brief, grateful look skyward. She set the shakers on the table near her mother's place and jumped when Lauriana's hand closed around her wrist.

"I love you, Ellie. You know I only want what's best for you, don't you?”

Ellysetta wanted to weep. She knew. She could feel her mother's desperate worry and deep love as strongly as she sensed Rain's emotions when she touched him. But she also knew how appalled Mama would be if she discovered Ellie had been practicing magic.

"I know, Mama." She bent down to kiss her mother's cheek and hug her. "I love you too. More than I can ever say”

"You'd tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn't you? Or if the Fey encouraged you to do something you knew was wrong?”

Ellysetta pulled back. "I'm not in trouble, Mama, and I'm not doing anything wrong. Please, stop worrying-and be happy for me. I've dreamed of Rain Tairen Soul since I was a little girl, you know that.”

Before her mother could reply, the twins trailed in, squabbling over which of them would get to wear the pink hair ribbons today. Papa followed close behind, and the Baristanis bent their heads to say grace and eat. When they were done, Mama took the girls down to a neighbor's house for lessons while Papa headed off to his shop.

Never, Ellysetta promised herself as she watched her mother walk down the street and disappear around the corner. Never again would she practice even the smallest form of magic within a mile of her mother.

Feeling as though she'd dodged a mortal blow, she turned her attention to her morning lessons with the Fey. Adrial and Rowan had resumed their places in her quintet, and this morning they led the session with an introduction to the legendary Warrior's Academy in Dharsa and the centuries of training and testing a Fey warrior had to complete before he could serve on a shei'dalin's quintet.

"Sel'dor is a black metal that disrupts Fey magic," Adrial was saying. "Our enemies know this. That's why the Eld use barbed sel'dor arrows and blades designed to break off in our flesh. And we, of course, know that. So Fey warriors are trained from youth to fight through what would otherwise be debilitating pain, and to be an effective and lethal fighting force even wounded and without magic. It is a slow process. One that takes centuries to master, and we continue to perfect it all the years of our lives."

The prickle of hay straw stabbed and itched Gaelen unmercifully, the irritation amplified by the endless jostle of wagon wheels bumping over the rutted country highway. He stifled a groan as the wagon hit a particularly deep rut and bounced him hard against the unforgiving edges of a nearby crate. The sel'dor shrapnel peppering his back and arms shifted, shredding new muscle as it dug deeper, but he clung to his weak invisibility weave with dogged determination.

For three days and nights he'd made miserably slow but determined progress towards Celieria City. He'd lost countless bells to unconsciousness when exhaustion, pain, and blood loss took their inevitable toll, but he'd persevered. Running when he could, walking and even crawling when that was all he could manage, he'd pushed on. Last night, when he'd grown too weak to continue, he'd hitched a ride with an unsuspecting farmer heading south to deliver crates of canned goods and fresh produce to Vrest. The ride had been hard, his sleep sporadic, but at least he'd gotten a little rest without losing all forward progress.

The wagon slowed, and the sounds of distant activity reached Gaelen's ears. He forced open bleary eyes and dragged himself to peer over the edge of the wagon. Up ahead, he could see the clustered buildings that formed the outskirts of Vrest.

Time to abandon his ride. He'd barely managed to hold the simple invisibility weave with the amount of sel'dor still in him, and though it had worked to hide him from a farmer preoccupied with driving his team, he couldn't risk having sharper-eyed citizens of Vrest detect him. A wounded Fey with a telltale scar across his brow would draw too much unwanted attention, and if news of his approach reached Celieria City before he did, the Tairen Soul might well flee with his soul-cursed, Mage-sired mate before Gaelen could get close enough to kill her.

Slowly, each motion an agonizing exercise in discipline and determination, Gaelen lifted his body up and straddled the sides of the wagon. As the cart neared a small, bridged creek bed, he pushed himself off and went tumbling down the embankment. Each bump and hard jostle sent agony ripping through him. His invisibility weave failed, and he dragged himself to cover beneath the bridge and wedged himself up high to avoid detection.

Gods, that had all but slain him. He flopped back against the shadowed embankment and drew breath in short, sharp gasps. Beneath his skin, lumps of sel'dor burned like acid.

He fumbled for one of the black Fey'cha strapped across his chest. Two hundred miles still lay between Gaelen and his prey in Celieria City. Healthy, he could have run it in less than ten bells, but in his current condition, he'd be lucky to make it in ten days.