Holding a forgotten package on her lap, she looked at the faces of the men around her. "Do you all believe that?”

They exchanged glances, then nodded. "Of course," Adrial told her, and a chill worked up Ellysetta's spine as she suddenly realized how dear to her the warriors had become in such a short time. The thought of any one of them dying was like a knife to her heart.

"Peace, Ellysetta," Rain murmured. She felt a warm touch on the back of her hand, another on her face, even though he sat several feet away from her and had not moved a muscle. "None of them seek death yet.”

"Seek death?" she repeated weakly.

"Sheisan'dahlein," Rowan supplied. "The Fey honor death.”

"You seek death?" She stared at them all in horror.

"When we must," Belliard said. His cobalt eyes held a calm acceptance she couldn't begin to fathom.

"Why?”

The five warriors glanced at Rain, who hesitated, regarded Ellie with a searching look, then nodded briefly.

Setting aside the small golden dish he'd unwrapped and recorded, Bel began to explain. "Each time a Fey warrior claims a life, he takes the weight of that soul upon his. He absorbs the darkness of that soul and the pain of that soul's unfulfilled promise, its sorrows and regrets, and he carries the weight and the pain of it always, like a burning stone hung round his neck.”

Ellie covered her mouth. "I've never heard of such a thing.”

"It is the price the gods decreed for the many gifts they have bestowed on the Fey," Bel said. "And it is just. How much more greatly we value peace, knowing the price for taking a life. It is one of the reasons the Fey avoid war. In war, many good men die, and the soul of a good man is far harder to bear than that of one steeped in darkness, even though killing a dark one brings terrible pain." His voice dropped. Shadows dimmed his eyes, turning cobalt to brooding navy. "I would rather slay a thousand dark ones than cut down one good man.”

"Aiyah," Rowan and Adrial agreed quietly.

"Is there nothing you can do to … get free of these souls?”

Bel blinked, and the shadows fled from his eyes. His hard, handsome face softened. His lips curved, not quite a smile, but almost. "If a warrior is lucky enough to find his shei'tani," he said, "she can help ease his burden, for hers is the spirit of compassion and healing and she alone can touch her warrior's soul. He will still feel pain when he takes a life, but she can banish the darkness that comes with the pain and heal his soul.”

"But shei'tanis are rare and precious," Kiel added. He brushed a lock of golden hair behind his ear, then deftly stripped silver paper from a small package to reveal a delicate china vase. He held it up to the glow of the lamp hanging from the ceiling and smiled as the lamplight illuminated the translucent porcelain. "Most warriors will live and die without ever finding their truemate, yet all of us still hope." With great care, he set the vase aside, and made note of both the gift and its sender on the paper before him.

Hope. Bel's small, not-quite-revealed smile was hope. Ellie felt her throat grow tight. It grew tighter when she realized that even that tiny hint of emotion was already gone from his face, replaced with careful blankness, as if he dared not display his hope for fear of its being stolen from him.

Bel reached for a large package with a huge blue bow. "So, when the weight of the souls he has taken becomes too much for a Fey to bear," he concluded, pulling the ends of the ribbon to unravel the extravagant bow, "when the stain on his soul grows so dark it threatens to consume him, the warrior has only two choices: sheisan'dahlein, the honor death, which gives him the hope of being born again to find the one who will complete his soul, or becoming dahl'reisen, a lost soul, outcast from the Fading Lands, in danger of turning to Azrahn and other dark magics, doomed for eternity." Bel's face went momentarily grim as he mentioned the last.

"But that's horrible.”

"That is the lot of the Fey warrior," he answered. "Of all possible honor deaths, the greatest of them is to die protecting a truemate, for then the warrior is assured of finding his own truemate in his next life. It is one reason we dedicate our lives to the Dance of Knives. We strive for centuries to become the best of all Fey warriors, to earn the right to protect a shei'tani, to earn the right to die for her." Pulling a black- handled Fey'cha from the bands across his chest, Bel slit open the seals on the box he had just unwrapped.

"No," Ellysetta protested. "No. I won't allow it. I won't have any of you dying for me, not for any reason.”

Silence fell in the room. All rustling of paper ceased. All motion ceased. It seemed to Ellie as if all breathing ceased.

Rain touched Ellie, this time with his hand rather than his magic. His long fingers closed over hers. His lavender eyes shone intently.

"You will allow it, shei'tani," he told her in a gentle voice lined with steel. "You will not deny these men their right to the most honorable of all Fey deaths. They live now to protect you, to die for you if they must. Because you represent hope for all Fey, and especially for them.”

For a long, shocked moment, Ellie stared into Rain's steady, resolute eyes. It was one thing to believe these warriors were there to protect her. It was another thing entirely to realize that they would die for her. Perhaps she'd been foolish not to realize it before, yet it had never occurred to her that if her life was in danger, their lives were in danger too. Or that they would each die before allowing harm to come to her. Not even Bel's stirring pledge to devote life and soul to her protection had made her realize, truly, what was at stake.