But it was the look in those eyes—a pitiless, unyielding purpose—that made Ellysetta catch her breath and move instinctively closer to Rain. The vol Oros sisters were not gentle empaths suffused with the customary warmth of shei'dalin kindness and compassion. The expression in those searing eyes made it clear they were powerful, confident immortals come to rip truth from an enemy's mind.

Ellysetta's hand crept into Rain's and squeezed tight. The vol Oros sisters reminded her all too vividly of her first passage through the Faering Mists, when a band of ghostly, Mist-spawned shei'dalins had trapped and forcibly Truthspoken her, diving into her mind, ripping at the protective barriers that had shielded her all her life, nearly unleashing the wild, violent thing that lived inside her.

«Las, shei’tani." Rain whispered on the private path they had forged between themselves. «Narena and Faerah mean you no harm.»

His voice rang with certainty, but Ellysetta still flinched as the shei'dalins drew close and gathered their considerable power. No matter how warmly the shei'dalins would have welcomed any other mate of their king, Ellysetta bore four Mage Marks. That changed everything.

But the vol Oros sisters barely even flicked a glance in her direction. Their attention was entirely focused on the Mage.

"We need to know what the Eld are planning and where they will strike next," Rain told the shei'dalins. "And get the size of their forces, too, if he knows it."

One of the two nodded curtly, and without a word, they walked around the Mage and knelt on the ground near his head, their eyes never leaving his face. The two quintets who had accompanied them from the Fading Lands knelt around the Mage's body. Each of the warriors pulled razor-sharp red Fey'cha from their sheaths and held them over the Mage's body. Twenty blades were poised over vital arteries and organs neck, heart, belly, thighs, arms. If the Mage so much as lifted a finger against the shei'dalins, he would be dead in an instant. Ellysetta shivered at the thought.

"Let's go, shei'tani," Rain whispered. "There's no need for you to be here."

"There's every need," she said. "I've never seen anyone Truthspeak a Mage. It's a talent that could come in handy, don't you think?”

He scowled, "Not for you. If you think I'd ever let you put your hands on a Mage ..."

"Once our bond is complete, no Mage can soul-claim me," she reminded him. "Let me stay, Rain. Let me watch ... and learn."

He surrendered with ill grace, but insisted she remain securely at his side. On that, he would not budge.

When the vol Oros sisters were ready to begin, they nodded to the warriors holding the twenty-five-fold weave around the Mage. Ellysetta expected the warriors to disperse their weave slowly, cautiously, but instead, one of the Fey cried, "Now!" and each Fey dissolved his thread in the weave.

The instant the weave vanished, the two sisters leaned in and gripped the Mage's head in their hands. Power exploded in a bright, golden-white light around them.

Ellysetta's belly coiled tight as she watched the shei’dalins spin their weaves. She'd seen Truthspeaking before . .. but never like this. The threads were sun-bright, blazing with such concentrated power she could taste the snap of it in her mouth, feel the shocking tingle race over her skin. It reminded her of the burst of power that billowed around Rain every time he summoned the Change.

She kept her eyes on the shei'dalins, summoning Fey vision in an attempt to see the patterns of their weave. The threads were so bright, they would have blinded a lesser shei'dalin, but Ellysetta saw the pattern—or, rather, sensed it somehow—and her mind worked to commit it to memory. Spirit and shei'dalins love ... not soft, not soothing, but hard and sharp as a knife. It stabbed deep into the mind of the unconscious Mage.

His eyes flew open, filled with shock. His lips parted in a soundless gasp. No other part of his body so much as twitched, because the Fey had spun a paralysis weave on him as soon as the shield weave had dissolved.

Ellysetta heard a voice—a wail. The Mage's wail. His mind rejecting the invasion of his thoughts. On the heels of his cry came a powerful intonation, two female voices, each vibrating with compulsion so strong, a chill shuddered up Ellysetta's spine.

«Open your mind, son of Eld. Let us in. We can feel how it hurts you to keep secrets from us. Don't torment yourself this way. The knowledge you hold is a knife in your belly, twisting deeper with every moment you delay. Let go of the pain, son of Eld. Open your mind, set free your burdens, and let us bring you peace.»

Ellysetta's nails dug into Rain's wrist. The Mage was screaming now—a silent scream that ripped through his soul. The shei'dalins were not spinning pain upon him; he was doing it himself, thanks to the compulsion woven into their voices. Still, he fought to hold his barriers in place and resist the invasion of his mind. He wanted to whisper the death spell, the one that would free him from this torment and keep what he knew safe, but he couldn't remember the word, and his tongue couldn't move to form it.

"Torvan …» The shei'dalins had pierced the outer layer of his mind and discovered the Mage's name and a memory from his childhood—a memory of a time when he'd been young and still innocent, a powerful child already slated for greatness. He had a mother, a Primage's favored concubine, a beauty with brown eyes and raven hair. She had loved him—at least as much as a woman of Eld dared to love her child.