"I know that too.”

"It could mean the end of the Fey-Celierian alliance.”

"Shall I kill Adrial now, then, and save us the trouble?" Rain said. Ellysetta gasped, and Rain bit back his temper. "The alliance is already lost. There's no way Dorian will declare primus now, and we don't have enough votes to keep the Eld out of Celieria.”

"Who cares about politics?" Dax interjected. "Doesn't anyone besides me realize that for the first time in a thousand years we have not only one but two shei’tanitsa bonds recognized within ten days of each other? To Celierian women? Doesn't that strike anyone else as odd?" He glanced around the room at the other Fey. "No warrior has ever found a truemate outside the women of the Fey, yet a week ago, Rain, you found Ellysetta, and now Adrial has found Talisa. It defies all logic.”

"At least there is some manner of explanation for Talisa," Rain said, remembering Cann's sorreisu kiyr. "There's Elvish blood in the Barrial line, and apparently Fey blood, too." He looked at Marissya. "Lord Barrial wears your cousin Dural's crystal.”

She sank onto the couch where Adrial lay. "Dural?”

"I discovered it the night of Teleos's dinner. I wasn't certain they shared kinship, but now it seems impossible that they do not.”

"But Barrial wasn't truemated to his wife," Dax protested. "The bond was purely mortal-clearly mortal or he would have died when his wife expired in childbirth. And if Lord Barrial is Fey, as you say, how could he sire a daughter outside the bonds of shei’tanitsa?”

Female Fey were only born to truemated couples, and even then such a blessing was so rare, a girl child's birth was cause for great celebration.

"I don't understand it any more than you do, Dax." Rain lifted his hands. "Talisa and Ellysetta are both from the north. Perhaps there is something there we have too long discounted. Perhaps something about the remnant magics from the Mage Wars, when combined with other magical blood, can make the impossible possible.”

One thing seemed certain to Rain: Lord Barrial's heritage and Talisa's existence explained the twenty-five dahl'reisen camped on Barrial lands and the personal interest Gaelen had taken in Lord Barrial. There was vel Serranis blood in the Barrial line, and somehow, though he'd not been truemated to his wife, Lord Barrial had sired a daughter. A daughter who had never felt comfortable around dahl'reisen, as if she-like all Fey women-could feel the pain of their lost souls. The dahl'reisen had been protecting a potential truemate. And probably hoping that somehow the Barrial line might produce a truemate for one of them.

"Does it really matter how Talisa came to be Adrial's shei’tani?" Rowan interrupted. "She is, and he will not leave her. No matter what you say, Rain, no matter what the cost to our relationship with Celieria, he will try to win her bond. None of us has the right to deny him that. If any wish to try, they'll have to take me first." He glared his challenge at them all.

Without warning, Adrial jolted back to consciousness. His body jackknifed into a sitting position, and his eyes scanned the room with fast, frantic sweeps. "Talisa-”

Rowan was at his brother's side in an instant. "She is safe. She is with her father.”

Adrial clasped Rowan's arms, holding on tight, as if he needed his brother's strength to anchor his own. "The Celierian ... diSebourne?”

"With his father.”

"Gods, Rowan, it's not supposed to be this way. How could I not know she was there? How could I not have found her before she wed that man?" Adrial covered his face with his hands. "That night, at the pleasure house, she was there in my mind." His fingers raked through his hair in agitation. "I betrayed her even as I found her, and she was with me the whole time. She felt it all." He gave a harsh, choked laugh. "I don't even remember anything I did under that cursed Spirit weave, but she does. And she blames me for it.”

Ellysetta gasped, and her hand flew to her throat as she finally understood the full extent of the sorrow that had been in Talisa's mind. "Adrial .... She started to reach out to him, but he flinched away from her. "Adrial, I'm so sorry.”

A hand closed over her shoulder, and fierce reassurance poured into her. "It is not your fault, Ellysetta." Rain's voice was firm. "It is no one's fault. Even without the weave, Adrial's shei’tani would still be wed to another.”

Adrial stood abruptly. "Your pardon, Ellysetta. The Feyreisen is correct. I should not have implied that you were at fault in any way. I am ... not myself.” He turned towards Rain. "I must forfeit the honor of holding Air in the Feyreisa's quintet. I no longer have the right to guard her, nor can I return to the Fading Lands. My place is with my own shei’tani." He squared his shoulders and raised his chin in a faintly defiant challenge. "I cannot ask that you provide a quintet to guard Talisa, only that you do not try to stop me from doing what I must.”

"Five guard her already," Rain answered evenly. "They are yours to command. No Fey will stop you from following your shei’tani. But, Adrial-do not shed Celierian blood. No matter the provocation.”

"Not even to protect her?”

"Only if her life is in immediate danger. For no other reason.”

Adrial nodded stiffly. "Agreed.”

"And stay out of her husband's path. There will be trouble if he knows you're there.”