It was so clever that she broke into a fit of giggles; he grinned, and dropped the pretense.
"As long as you don't mind, how could I?" he countered. "Mero is
your
friend, after all, and I don't know what he could have meant to you before this. And I'm not asking," he added hastily, before she could say anything. "Rena is her own woman, and has the right to make up her own mind about who she ties herself to in any way. The Ancestors know she paid for that right."
He fell silent for a moment, but she sensed he had a bit more to say. "She was betrothed to a complete idiot, just before we ran away. It was Lord Tylar's idea, a marriage-alliance with a family that was older and more powerful than ours, and he would have had her mind altered before if he had to if that was what it would take to put the marriage through. She says that, and in retrospect, I believe her. How could I
not
wish her well?"
Shana shrugged. "Mero and I have never been more than friends, although his cousin tried to play matchmaker between us. It didn't work." And the least said about that, the better. "I know that he really likes Rena as a person, and I know he'll never treat her as less than a person. After that?" She shrugged again. "Who knows? Whatever happens, happens. When we get back to the Citadel, though, I don't think you need to worry about the wizards refusing to take her in. Not after what Valyn did for us."
He sighed. "I have to admit that I had been worried about that; if you wouldn't take her, I'd have to go with her. I couldn't abandon her
too
."
Too?
She was aching with curiosity, but she wouldn't ask; not with the pain in his eyes so stark, it matched any of her own burdens. But he looked up from his hands, and he offered her the answer, like a gift.
"Mother—Elven Lady Viridina—is my real mother; it was my father who was the human," he told her softly. "She sheltered me with illusion until I was old enough to understand, told me what I was, and taught me to protect myself. I told you why we had to run, that mages of the Council were coming to test me for illusion, to unmask me as a halfblood. Father
knows
that he is fullblooded; I couldn't stay to be discovered, but by running, I practically admitted I'm a halfblood. So that leaves—"
"Your mother as having taken a human lover," Shana breathed. "And it
would
have to have been a deliberate pregnancy, wouldn't it?"
"It means the end of everything for her," he acknowledged, bleakly. "She can feign insanity; she can create a false memory for the Council members of having her own child born dead and a halfblood substituted by the midwife. If they choose to press the subject, that won't explain why I looked like a fullblood from the beginning, but if she pretends to go insane, all they'll do is lock her up in Lord Tylar's keeping. But she'll live out all of her time in three small rooms, a prisoner in her own home, denied anything but the most basic necessities. Lord Tylar will never forgive her deception; more than that, he will never forgive the implication that
he
could not father a son."
He was more troubled and guilty than he appeared; Shana sensed that clearly. He felt as if everything that was happening to his mother now was somehow his fault. Unfortunately, there wasn't a great deal she could say, and none of it would be very comforting or ease his burden of guilt.
So rather than mouth platitudes, she kept her thoughts to herself, and simply let what comfort could come from her presence ease him. Finally he looked up from his clasped hands with a wan smile.
"I have one question for you, Shana—but I'm afraid it's personal and entirely impertinent, and I have no right to ask it"
Oh
? "Then you might as well," she told him. "I'm supposedly an expert in impertinence."
"Were you in love with Valyn?"
Since she had just been pondering that very question herself, it caught her unawares, and she answered before she could stop herself. "If you'd asked me that a month ago, I'd have said yes," she replied with an honesty that shocked her as she listened to the words coming from her own mouth. "Now—I'm not sure. I'm beginning to think—maybe not."
"Ah," he replied, and his smile became a bit less wan. "Good."
"Good?" she asked sharply. "Why good?"
"Because it means I have a chance," he said, his own candor shocking her further, as he unclasped his hands and captured one of hers. "I can do my best, and see if it's enough—but it wouldn't be enough if you'd been in love with Valyn. I can't compete with a ghost"
"Oh." That was all she could manage, as she stared at him with wide, round eyes. "I see."
'I think you do." He stared into her eyes for a moment longer, then got to his feet, tugging her gently to hers. "Meanwhile, I think Mero and Rena have the right idea. Shall we follow their example?"
Sheyrena thought that she had never been so happy in her life. As she and Mero walked slowly in the moonlight soft breezes stirring scent out of the grass beneath their feet, insects and birds singing all around them, it was easy to forget that they were captives and simply hold to the moment.
She had spent her life grasping at moments of transitory happiness; she was well practiced at it.
Mero was completely unlike a hero out of a romance—not too surprising, really, since all those romances were written under the careful eye of elven
males
, and while they would portray the kind of male an elven maiden would find attractive, they would also portray the male other males would find
appropriate
. He had not come into her life, swept her off her feet, and proceeded to wrap her in a cloak of protection and make all her decisions for her. No, be had been supportive, but not precisely protective. When her own uncertainties surfaced, as they were all too prone to do, he would give her a look or a handclasp that said without words, "You can do this. You can contribute. You are clever enough."
That was more important to her than all of the words of protection in the universe. "You can hold your own___"
His hand held out to her was not the hand of the master, but the hand to help her over a difficult spot; one that expected her to do the same in return for him.
"A pin for your thoughts," Mero said softly.
She laughed. "Oh—that I am very glad that you are yourself."
"If I weren't myself, who would I be?" he replied comically.
"Not that idiot I was betrothed to, anyway." She had told him all about that horrid betrothal dinner; he had grimaced in sympathy, but then he had pointed out how the concubine must be feeling in all this. That she must surely be afraid of losing her position, and when that happened, it was a long, long fall—
At the end of that long fall, mere would probably be plenty of her fellow slaves who would be happy to see her brought down.
She had thought, then, of all her own father's former concubines, and had realized that much of their bitterness was due to that very thing. How could they
not
feel bitter? And what other recourse did they have to ease their broken pride but the kinds of subtle insubordination she had seen over and over?
Her mother must have known mat—and it was why her mother had ignored it, showing sensitivity that Rena had not at the time imagined.
"Well, I'm glad I'm myself, too. And I am glad that you are becoming more of yourself." He squeezed her hand gently, and she moved a little closer to him. Cattle lowed somewhere in the distance. "You are stronger every day, you know. You remember, more and more often, not to be afraid."
"Oh, I'm a coward for all of that," she told him, but he shook his head.
"No. You only forget, now and again, that you're really very brave. That's all." He took the hand he held, turned it palm upward, and planted a kiss in it, closing all her fingers around it. "Keep that to help you remember."
She shivered with pleasure and happiness, and felt herself blushing. "I will," she whispered.
"I know," he replied.
And he did. That was the glorious part. He
did
know.
She held to the moment as she held to the kiss. Whatever else came, she had this.
She would always have this.
Chapter 9
TODAY, WHILE JAMAL was watching his warriors in their practice games, the conspirators were meeting for the first time under blue skies rather than beneath the roof of a tent. Keman glanced around their little gathering uneasily; he didn't like the fact that they were meeting in the open, in a clear space between two of the tents belonging to the Priests, but he hadn't been able to voice his objections clearly.
He had been uneasy from the moment when Jamal capitulated to Shana's demand to speak only to Diric. There was something wrong; there had been for some time, but the "wrongness" lay only in the fact that things were going entirely too well. That made his unease all the more difficult to justify. Jamal was silent where they were concerned; he made no inquiries about them, accepted the maps and lists of properties and the means used to guard them with no comment, and didn't seem to care about anything else. There was something very wrong about that—given the fact that Jamal had been shamed before his own people by Shana's declarations, and Jamal was not a man to take such things lightly. He was a bad man to have as an enemy; he would never forget a slight, much less a wrong.
Shana told Keman that he was manufacturing trouble where there was none, and asked him with a touch of acidity if things were simply not perilous enough for him. But he could not get over the feeling that there was something they were all missing, and the clues were in Jamal's behavior, if they could only read them.
Today had begun warm, and was soon sweltering; muggy, without a hint of breeze. Heat shimmered the air above the grasses, and sweat did not dry, it only trickled down the body without cooling anything. The tents had collected so much heat that not even the Iron People could bear to remain within them; even Diric had agreed to Shana's suggestion that they conduct their business outside for a change. After all, Jamal and every warrior in the Clan were supposed to be engaging in contests today, to determine their fitness—though fitness for
what
, Jamal was not yet ready to reveal. Not to the majority of the Clan, anyway. It seemed safe enough for them all to meet in the open.
Yet Keman could not escape the feeling that they were all somehow following a plan of Jamal's devising.
"If we could arrange for the roof of the tent to part, as if we had all grown claws to rend it, then wings to fly away," Shana suggested, as Keman returned his attention to the group. "Or would it be better to look as if we had escaped into the earth instead?"
"That would be my preference," Kalamadea began. "Perhaps by—"
"
Oh, what a touching little gathering
," a slow, drawling voice interrupted loudly.
Kalamadea, Shana, and Keman all jerked upright as if their heads had been on strings pulled by a puppet-dancer, for the language of the speaker was
not
the Iron People's tongue.
It was that of the dragons, and the voice was someone Keman recognized only too well—
Myre?
A tall woman of the Iron People, lean and muscular and dressed as a warrior, leaned indolently against the side of a wagon. It was no form that Keman recognized, and yet the woman had all of the arrogant stance that he associated with his sister. And she had a dragon-shadow.
"You see, Lord Jamal," the woman continued in the tongue of their captors, a sly smile on her face, "it is as I told you. The Priest confers with the demons to aid in their escape, and as I claimed, the two Com People are not Corn People at all, but yet more demons."
Even Lorryn's illusions were something the Iron People were able to see through, if they simply stopped believing in them. Jamal's eyes narrowed as he stared at Lorryn and his sister, and he nodded, slowly.
Keman's heart stopped.
"So I see." Jamal stepped forward a pace, and stood with his arms crossed over his chest, an angry smile on his face. "I see six enemies, and one traitor. Or—perhaps not. I shall give you a chance to save yourself, Diric. Perhaps you have grown senile with age, Diric, and these demons have deluded you. Perhaps it is time for the powers of the Priest to pass into the hands of the War Chief. Should you decide to come to your senses and grant me those powers, I might forget this meeting."
This all had the sound of something carefully rehearsed, as if Jamal was reciting words he knew by heart. But—why?
Diric stood up, slowly, his face as still as the iron of his forges. "You will have those powers only if you dare to challenge me for them, young fool," he replied, his own voice as cold as the snows in the mountains. "And remember, I can name a champion."
Diric had been "courting" the Man-Hearted Women, who were angry with Jamal's treatment of them—and who composed some of the best fighters in the Clan. He could name one of them as a champion, and not only would the fight likely go to her, since Jamal was somewhat out of practice, but Jamal's defeat would mean disgrace in his
own
eyes.
"As can I," came the lazy reply. "And I choose—her."
And, unexpectedly, he pointed to Myre.
"I think you have no champion her like," the War Chief continued gleefully, openly reveling in the shock of Diric's face. "If I were you, I should surrender your authority now. It will go easier on all of you."
And Myre smiled, the smile of someone who knows that the dice are loaded, that the game is already decided.
Of all of them. Keman was the swiftest to realize what the sly smile on Myre's face meant, and the smug one on Jamal's.
She's told him! Or she
showed
him! He knows that she's a dragon
!
And before Diric could make the fatal error that Jamal was probably expecting, of naming one of the other Man-Hearted Women as his own champion, Keman acted.
He pulled open his collar, threw the collar to the ground, and shifted as quickly as he had ever done in his life, forcing the others to spring to their feet and back away as his rapidly increasing bulk filled the space between the tents. He shifted so quickly that it made him dizzy, but he fought back his dizziness, as he towered over them all.