Andre Norton & Mercedes Lackey - Halfblood Chronicles 02 - Elvenblood

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Elvenblood
Book Two of The Halfblood Chronicles
by Andre Norton & Mercedes Lackey
Chapter 1
SHEYRENA HAD GROWN very weary of coos of admiration over the last hour
or so. Human voices, harsh and heavy by elven standards, did not normally grate on
her ears, but they did today.
"Oh, my lady, there has never been a gown so lovely, I swear!" The nameless
blond slave out of her mother's household shook her head over the shimmering folds
of Sheyrena's gown. She probably spoke the truth, by her own standards; it was heavy
damascene silk, of peacock-blue shot through with threads of pearly iridescence. The
color was far more vivid than anything ever seen in nature.
And a more wretched color for me could not be imagined. It would, of course,
completely overwhelm her. She would be a ghost in the stolen costume of the living.
'Truly!" gushed another. "You will ravish the mind of every lord who sees you!"
Only if they have taste for a maiden who resembles a corpse bedecked for her
funeral. No amount of careful makeup would ever give her the coloring to match that
gown.
It was suitable for the vivid beauty of a human concubine, not an elven maid, and
particularly not one who was pale even by the standards of her own race. It was
typical of her father to have chosen something that would display, not her, but the
power, his power, that made it possible.
Sheyrena an Treves closed her ears to the chattering of her human slaves and
wished she could be anywhere but where she was. The windowless, pale blue marble
walls of her dressing room were far too confining at the best of times; now, as it was
crowded with the bodies of not only her own half-dozen slaves, but an additional four
from her mother's retinue, she was not entirely certain there was enough air to go
around. There was too much perfume and heat in here; she wished vaguely for an
escape from all of it.
If only she could be outside! Sitting watching the butterflies in that meadow
Lorryn discovered—or riding along the wall around the estate—she thought
wistfully. For a long moment she was lost in her dreams of escape, her mind far from
this room and all it contained, as she imagined herself riding Lorryn's spirited gelding
in a headlong chase along the sandstone wall, the wind in her face, and Lorryn only a
pace or two ahead of her—
Lorryn, if only you could come and rescue me from this.1 Oh, that is a foolish
thought, you cannot even rescue yourself from the bindings of custom.
Two of her own chief attendants—castoffs from her father's harem, twin redheads
whose names she could never keep straight—said something to her directly and
waited for a response, shaking her out of her dreams. She shook her head slightly and
emerged from her thoughts.
"Please, my lady, it is time for the undergown," the right-hand girl repeated
quietly, with no expression whatsoever. Sheyrena stood up and allowed them to bring
the undergown to her. The slaves were all used to the way she sank into half-trances
by now, and if they felt any impatience with her, they were too well trained to show
it. No slave in the household of V'layn Tylar Lord Treves would ever dare to display
anything so insubordinate, as impatience with one of his elven masters. Sheyrena's
handmaids always wore the identical expressions of insipid and vacuous pleasantry
that one would find on the face of a formal portrait. That was the way her father
wanted it, but it always unnerved Sheyrena; she could never tell what they were
thinking.
If I knew what they were thinking, I would at least have some idea of how to think
of them. Then again, I doubt that their thoughts would be very flattering. There is not
much in me, I fear, to inspire a good opinion.
Obedient to their directions, she turned toward the four who bore the gown as
carefully as a holy relic, and lifted her arms. Silk slid softly against her flesh, muffling
her head for a breath, as three slaves pulled the sinuous, soft folds of the sea-green
undergown over her head and arms. They drew it down in place, allowing the skirt to
billow out around her bare feet. The sleeves and body were cut to fit tightly with a
plunging decolletage, the skin flared out from the hips, billowing out into a long
trailing train in the latest style—
So that I look like a green twig being tossed atop a wave. Very attractive. How
can they keep from laughing at me? Another selection by Lord Tylar, of course, to
show that his daughter was no stranger to the highest of fashion. Never mind that the
highest of fashion looked ridiculous on her. On the other hand, did she really want to
look attractive?
No. No, I don t. I don't want a husband, I don't want any changes; as pathetic as
my life is now, I do not want to find myself the property of some lord like my father.
And since Father chose all of this for me, he can hardly blame me for looking
ridiculous. That, in and of itself, was a relief. If Sheyrena failed tonight, her father
would be looking for someone or something to blame, and it would be best if she
gave him no excuse to place that blame on her. Lord Tylar had made it clear to his
wife and daughter that this particular fete was of paramount importance to the House
of Treves. The glee on his face when he had received the invitation, not only to
attend, but to present Sheyrena, had only been equaled the day that he learned that the
price of grain for slave-fodder had tripled due to a blight that his fields had been
spared. While Lord Tylar's lineage was good, it was not great—and his monetary
wealth was due entirely to his successes in the marketplace. Lord Tylar's grandfather
had been a mere pensioner, and only astute management had brought the House of
Treves this far. He was not one of the original High Lords of the Council, but a recent
appointee, and under normal circumstances, he would not ever have found himself in
the company of the House of Hernalth, much less invited to their fete.
"Turn, please, my lady."
The invitation came not by teleson, but by messenger—an elven messenger, not a
human slave, which showed how Lord Tylar's status had increased since the
disastrous conflict with the Elvenbane. Scribed on a thin sheet of pure gold, it could
only have been created magically—an indirect and subtle demonstration of the power
and skill of the creator.
V'kass Ardeyn el-Lord Fortren Lord Hernalth requests the pleasure of the
company of the House of Treves at a fete given in his honor by his guardian, V'sheyl
Edres Lord Fortren, on the occasion of his accession to the lands and position of the
House of Hernalth. He further requests the boon of the presentation of the daughter
of the House of Treves at this fete. No need to mention dates or time; even the least
and poorest of the pensioners on Lord Tylar's estate knew the date of Lord Ardeyn's
accession-fete, just as they knew why the heir to the house of Fortren had inherited
the House of Hernalth—over the strenuous objections of Lord Dyran's brother, it
might be added.
"Please raise your arm a trifle."
Odd that his given name is Treves. There had been strong words between Lord
Treves and Lord Edres in Council, and Lord Treves had gone off in a huff, taking
what little he owned under the law, becoming a pensioner under the auspices of one
of Lord Edres's opponents. She could only hope that such an unpleasant coincidence
might cause Lord Ardeyn to regard her with a less than favorable eye, for by asking
that she be presented, Lord Ardeyn had made it very clear that he was not only
holding a celebration, he was seeking an appropriate bride.
'Turn a little more, please."
It had been nearly a year since Lord Dyran and his son and heir had died, and the
inheritance had fallen into dispute. But the Council—Lord Tylar among them—had
eventually ruled that the estate and title could only be inherited by the oldest
surviving son—unless there were no surviving sons to inherit. And while it was
presumed (since there were two bodies) that Dyran's heir Valyn had gone up in smoke
with his father, there being no evidence to the contrary, there was still Valyn's twin
alive, of sound mind and body, living in, and the designated heir to, the house of his
grandfather.
That made young Ardeyn a double heir, and doubly desirable in a marriage
alliance. Little matter that Lord Edres was quite vigorous and unlikely to make
Ardeyn a double-Lord any time in the next several centuries; Ardeyn now had all of
Lord Dyran's considerable holdings in his own right. That made him the equal of his
grandfather in status and standing. Lord Tylar's support of Ardeyn's claim had been
noted, and now would be rewarded—though it was vanishingly unlikely that the
reward would be a wedding to Sheyrena. Lord Ardeyn was too highplaced for that,
and Lord Tylar still an upstart, though a valued upstart.
"Lower your arm now, my lady, please."
And no doubt, every unpledged elven maiden of appropriate rank has gotten an
invitation to come and show her paces for the benefit of Lord Ardeyn—or rather, his
grandfather. There was no doubt in Sheyrena's mind who was going to be making the
choice of a bride for Ardeyn. Only those who were fortunate enough to have no
parents or guardians ever made the choice of a spouse for themselves. If the young
Lord was lucky, his grandfather might consult him—but the probability was that he
was so ruled by Lord Edres that he would tamely accept a wedding to a mule if that
was what his grandfather dictated.
Just as I will tamely accept a wedding to a mule if that is what my father dictates,
no matter how I feel about it, for my feelings are of no consequence, she reflected
with resignation, as the maids laced the bodice of the undergown so tightly as to make
it a second silken skin. The effect was not to make her somewhat meager charms
seem more generous, but rather the opposite.
Although the invitation had said nothing about other maidens being presented at
this fete, it didn't have to. It was the word of every bower across the land that Lord
Ardeyn was looking for a bride and a profitable alliance, not necessarily in that order.
There would be dozens of unwedded and unpledged elven women there tonight, from
children still playing with dolls to widows with power and property of their own.
There was only one Lord Ardeyn, however, which meant that it was inevitable that
many other unwedded elven lords or their parents or representatives would be
appearing at this fete as well, looking for prospective brides. It wasn't often that there
was an occasion grand enough that all the houses could put aside their various feuds
and pretend civility for one short night. Any number of alliances might come out of
this fete; old conflicts might be resolved—
"—the train, my lady, please to lift your foot."
And entirely new ones created. The maids indicated that she should turn a full
circle; the silken folds of the skirt swirled around her and settled again with a sigh.
They held up the overgown, and once again she held still while they eased it over her
head, for all the world like a giant doll they were all dressing. The heavier silk of the
overgown poured down over her body and added its weight to the invisible burden of
misery on her shoulders.
So I am to be trotted out like one of Father's prize mares, for all the unattached
lords to check my paces and my teeth. Just as Lorryn is trotted about like a prize
stallion, displayed to the fathers of all the maidens in our circle. Father's will is
everything. She was too well schooled to show her distaste, but her unhappiness sat in
her middle, a lump of sour ice, and made her throat ache with tension. The maids
fussed with the lacings on the side of the overgown as she closed her burning eyes for
a moment to fight for control and serenity.
It was hard, hard, to maintain that well-schooled serenity, especially in light of
the ordeal to come. She had never been comfortable with strangers; the few times that
her father had summoned her to be displayed—presumably with an eye to a possible
marriage—she had wanted to crawl under the rug and hide. The prospect of being
trussed into this torture device disguised as a gown and spending the entire evening
displaying herself to dozens, hundreds, of strangers was enough to make her
physically ill.
"—and this lacing must be tighter, please try not to breathe heavily—"
Her mother had been trying to convince her for weeks that this was going to be a
golden opportunity for her. This would be her one, perhaps her only, chance to make
a marriage that would satisfy her father and herself. This was a rare chance to actually
meet some of the lords looking for brides before one of them was foisted on her. She
might actually find some young elven lord there that she liked', someone who would
allow her to continue her excursions outside the bower, rather than confining her to
the space within the walls of the women's quarters as so many elven lords insisted
was proper.
Her mother's arguments had included those, and many other persuasive
blandishments in the same vein. Her mother claimed she understood Sheyrena's
feelings of doubt, the unsettling thoughts that had been moving through her mind of
late, and her reluctance to contract any marriage. And what would Mother know about
it? Viridina an Treves has never had an inappropriate thought in her life. She has
always been the perfect, obedient Lady, pliant and pleasant, willing to be whatever
her father and her Lord wished her to be… How could someone like that ever
understand the restless thoughts passing through her daughter's mind these days?
"Hold your arm here, please, my lady."
Right now Sheyrena would have given everything she owned to be able to catch
some kind of illness, as the humans did in order to have an excuse to stay at home.
But for all their outward fragility, elven women were as immune to such things as the
males of their kind.
And it's too late for me to manufacture mind-storms like Lorryn has. No one
would believe a bout of head pain coming now was anything other than a ruse.
She turned at her maids' direction, raising and lowering her arms, while they
fussed with the side-lacings and drew the long, floor-sweeping sleeves of the
overgown up over the tight undersleeves and fastened them to the shoulders with
lacings of gold cord.
Do I look as stiff as I feel, I wonder?
She was torn by conflicting emotions. While it was humiliating to know that her
father could not possibly have concocted a less flattering costume for her and that she
was going to look her absolute worst in front of a horde of strangers, still, looking her
worst would make it less likely that anyone would find her even remotely interesting.
Better to be thought of as the sickly looking stick than to find myself—
Find herself—what? Betrothed to someone like her father, perhaps?
Mother would say that wasn't so bad a prospect. There was resentment in that
thought. But then, Mother has never cared half as much about my welfare as she has
about Lorryn's. If he stood in my place this evening, would she be so quick to urge
him to be bartered off to a bride?
"If my lady would hold still for a moment—?"
But Viridina was not her daughter. Viridina was used to her constricted lot in life.
Sheyrena had a brief glimpse of a wider world in the last year or so, and she did not
want to give that up.
In many ways it was much easier to be Lord Tylar's unregarded daughter than his
wife. Viridina's entire existence was bound up by so many rules and customs that she
could scarcely breathe without risking the breach of one or more of them. That most
of those customs dated back to a more hazardous time when women were in constant
danger mattered not a bit to her lord husband; they were customs, and therefore they
were to be followed to the letter. But Sheyrena had little or no importance to the
house until recently; her older brother Lorryn was the important one, the heir, the
male. There were more unmarried females in Lord Tylar's social class than there were
males; he was too proud to send her to wed a lesser lordling, and dared not look
higher. And Lord Tylar, like all the rest of the Lords of the Council, had been very
involved with first the rumor, then the fact, of the Elvenbane's existence—
"Please, lady, a step to the right."
Then had come the second Wizard War, which had occupied his attention to the
exclusion of all else. So Sheyrena had been ignored, as long as she was properly
dutiful, properly trained, properly behaved.
She had found that on the whole she preferred her own company to anyone
else's—except, possibly, her brother's. She hadn't made any effort to find friends or
companions mostly because she had no interest in the things the others of her
generation occupied themselves with. Attendance at a handful of parties had quickly
taught her that she was the kind who would settle into a corner and remain there
during the entire duration of the event, uncomfortable and alone, wishing she could
go home.
"—and this fold should go so—"
She didn't enjoy the loss of control that came with intoxication, she didn't see
what made gossip so fascinating, she was too plain to attract male attentions,
unwanted or otherwise, and the games that the others seemed to find amusing just left
her wondering what it was they enjoyed so much, and why something so
unchallenging to the intellect should be amusing. On the whole, she would much
rather be left to find a corner of a garden, read, and dream her strange thoughts.
There had been a lot more of those strange thoughts in the last year, although
they had begun the day she had first learned flower-sculpting.
"A stitch here, I think."
She had begun by resenting those trivial-seeming lessons that her father had
ordered her to begin. Lorryn learns how to shatter stone with his power. I learn
flower-sculpting.
She would never know if her magic was the equal of Lorryn's, because no elven
maiden would ever be taught anything but useless skills like flower-sculpting, water-
weaving, and the like. Oh, she had heard vague rumors of a few, a very few, elven
women who wielded their power like a man, but she had never met any, and she
doubted that any of them would be willing to share their secrets with her. Yet before
that lesson, it would never have occurred to her that she had a certain power in her
own hands that no elven lord would ever suspect.
For it was during the course of that lesson that she realized something strange,
exciting, and a little frightening.
The same skills I used to shape the flower could be used in other ways—stopping
a heart, for instance. Those useless lessons? If she ever needed that power, those
lessons might not be so useless after all.
"What is this? A thread? No, cut it off."
She had not mentioned her revelation to her mother, knowing that Viridina would
have been horrified. And she had not really known that the idea would work until a
few days later, when she had found a bird in the garden that had flown into a window
and broken its neck. Without thinking, she had moved to end the poor thing's pain—
and stopped its heart.
She had run back to her own room in horror, fleeing what she had done. But the
deed remained, and the power, and the knowledge of what she had done.
Since that moment she had not been able to look at anything the same way. She
had surreptitiously experimented with her power, working with the sparrows and
pigeons that flocked to the garden. At first she had only made tiny alterations in their
color, or the length of their feathers. Then she grew bolder, until now her garden was
full of exotic creatures with feathers of scarlet and blue, gold and green, with trailing
tails and flaring crests, all of them tame to her hand. Something told her that making
subtle changes with her power could be as important—and as dangerous—as the
kinds of magic that Lorryn wielded.
And yet, at the same time, she was afraid to stretch out her hand and take the
ephemeral power that beckoned her. No other elven woman had ever dared do so—
perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps this beckoning power was nothing more than an
illusion of strength. True, she could make a colorful bird out of a sparrow—but what
good was that? What did it prove?
"If my lady could remove her foot from the sleeve, please?"
But what if it was not? What if it was real? What if she had discovered something
no one else knew?
Her secret thoughts weighed in her soul and made it impossible to accept
anything at face value anymore. Hardest to bear was the way her father treated her
mother and herself.
This very gown was an example of how little he thought of them, how little he
trusted them with anything of import. To Sheyrena's certain knowledge, the only time
he ever came to Viridina's bower with a pleasant face was when he wanted her to
come play the proper wife before his influential friends. In private, neither of them
could ever truly please him. He preferred the company of the human slaves in his
harem, and constantly compared Viridina to his latest favorites, always unfavorably.
Not that I envy them, she thought, glancing out of the corner of her eye at one of
the redheads. Father's tastes are fickle, and his favorites never last long.
And when his favorites were out of favor, Lord Tylar seemed to take a malicious
delight in sending them to serve his wife or daughter in the bower. Sheyrena had
never been able to guess whether he did so to try to torment them with the still lovely
presence of his former leman, or to torment the former favorite with the presence of
the lawful wife who could not be displaced. Perhaps it was both.
Viridina accepted this quietly and without a single comment, ever; just as she
accepted with the same serene resignation everything else that life bestowed on her.
She was not envious of the harem beauties either; there was really no difference in the
world of the harem and that of the bower except that Viridina could not be
supplanted. They had neither more freedom than their putative mistress, nor less. As
Sheyrena had gradually come to understand, the distinction between the bower and
the harem was that the bower was a harem of one. Only when it came to Lorryn and
Lorryn's well-being did Viridina show any signs of interest—though a furtive,
obsessive, fearful anxiety, as if she was terrified that something would happen to him.
She watched over Lorryn with the care and concern she could have shown if he were
an invalid, rather then the healthy creature he was. Or did his attacks of kryshein
mean he was not as healthy as Sheyrena thought? Was there some secret trouble with
Lorryn, something Rena could not be told? But if that was true, then why hadn't
Lorryn told her? He never had kept any secret from her before!
Viridina might accept her lot as an elven lady, but it was more than Sheyrena
could stomach for herself.
Better to be ignored as the daughter than humiliated as the wife of someone like
Father.
She was surrounded by all of the slaves now, each of them making minute
adjustments to the gown, the lacings, as if she were nothing more than a mannequin
inside it and the gown itself was the important guest. Sheyrena had a sudden, absurd
thought, that perhaps this was the real truth—that the gown had a life and purpose of
its own, and she was nothing more than the vehicle it required to propel it to the place
where it would be admired!
Yet, in a sense, that was the whole truth. The gown represented Lord Tylar, his
power, his wealth, his position. She was nothing more than the means to display all
these things, a convenient banner-bearer. It was the banner that was important, not the
hand that held it, after all. Anything would have served the same purpose.
If I'd been as feeble-wined as Ardeyn's mother, he would still have had me
trussed up in this gown and sent off to the fete. And if he were as wise as any of the
High Lords, he would have found a way to command my silence so as not to distract
potential suitors from the message of his importance.
She and her mother were nothing more than things to Lord Tylar—not that this
was a new thought, but it had never been driven home quite so obviously before.
They were possessions, game-pieces, and their whole importance lay in how they
could be played to the best advantage.
She was encased in the layers of this gown as she was encased in the layers of his
power over her, and nothing would ever change that. She knew that, and yet a
persistent little voice deep inside kept asking, "Why not?"
Because that is the way things are, she told that little voice. They have always
been that way, and they will always be that way. Nothing will ever change them.
Certainly not one insignificant female, for females are of no consequence to anyone.
But the little voice would not accept that answer. As her slaves directed her to sit
again so that they might dress her hair, it replied, "Oh no? Then what about the
halfblood wizards? What about the Elvenbane? She is only one female."
Sheyrena had no answer for that. Certainly the High Lords had been certain they
had disposed of all the halfbloods long ago, and had thought they had made certain no
others could be born. The halfbloods, with their melding of human and elven magics,
were holders of the only real power that had ever threatened the elven lords' rule over
this world they had conquered so long ago. Yet despite all the precautions, more
halfblooded children had been born—worse, had escaped to grow into their powers—
and had survived to learn how to use those powers. One of those children had been a
girl who had, by ill luck or conscious direction, matched the descriptions of a
"savior" in human legend called "the Elvenbane." She had found allies the High Lords
hadn't even dreamed existed.
Dragons.
Sheyrena sighed as she thought of the dragons, her chest constricted by the
tightly laced dress. Not that she had ever seen one, but she had heard plenty of
descriptions. Oh, how she would love to get just a glimpse of one! Sinuous, graceful,
glistening in the sunlight with the colors of precious gems as they flew—dragons
lilted through her dreams at night sometimes, leaving her yearning after them when
dawn came, sometimes with her cheeks wet with tears of longing and loss.
'Turn your head this way, my lady."
It was the dragons that had turned the tide for the wizards, and made it possible
for them to hold off the armies of no less than three of the High Lords. There had
been a dreadful slaughter that included many elves. Chief among those was the
powerful, if half-mad, Lord Dyran. Sheyrena had heard it whispered that it was his
own son who had slain him. That hardly seemed possible, and yet, who would have
thought that dragons were possible a year ago?
In the end, the High Lords were forced to accede to a truce. The wizards retreated
out beyond the lands that the elves claimed, and the elves pledged to leave them in
peace.
My father claims we drove them out, and that we only let them go because it
wasn't worth pursuing them. She allowed herself a treacherous iota of contempt. The
last time he entertained guests, he went on for hours about it. They all did. You'd
think we actually defeated them, from the way Father acted!
And that little voice inside spoke up without prompting. "Maybe they aren't as
much in control as they would like to think," it whispered insidiously. "Maybe they
aren't anywhere near as powerful as you think. Maybe you aren't as insignificant as
they would like to make you think."
That's all very well, she told it sullenly, But what exactly am I supposed to do to
prove how free I am?
The voice finally went silent then, having no solutions to offer. After all, it was
nothing more than her own stubborn rebellion.
Still, that was a point. Lorryn called the second Wizard War "a draw at best, a
rout at worst," and he did not mean for the halfblood side. What if the power of the
High Lords had weakened? Did that mean there was room for a female to make a life
for herself, in the midst of the High Lords' scramble to retain what they had?
"Bend your head, please, my lady."
But how? That was the real question. How to escape the dreary life that had been
laid out for her from the moment of her birth? These plans had a life of their own,
rolling along whether or not she agreed to them.
And Father can force me if he wants to. That was another fact. He could visit any
number of unpleasant punishments on her if she refused to cooperate. He could
confine her to a single room on starvation meals.
He could even lock a slave-collar on me, and coerce me to obey with magic. She
had heard rumors of that happening to some maidens, faced with exceedingly
unpleasant husbands-to-be. It was easy enough to conceal such a device in a piece of
elaborate jewelry; such things were constructed for favored slaves all the time. She
felt her throat close and her breath come shorter at the very idea. She quickly
controlled herself, before the slaves noticed.
No, there was no escape for her—only the minimal freedom she had now, as the
daughter rather than the wife. But if only there were!
Not that I have any idea what I would do, she admitted to herself. It was just that
she had been feeling so stifled for such a long time, locked up in the bower, doing
next to nothing, listening to the gossip of the slaves. I want to do something with my
life, even if I don't know what. I don't want to become another pretty puppet like
Mother; that much I do know. I couldn't bear that.
But as she watched the slaves braiding and arranging her hair in the mirror, she
was struck by how much she did resemble her mother. And an uncomfortable thought
occurred to her. Had Lady Viridina always been the perfect elven lady? Or had she
been forced to pretend that she was, until the last of her spirit faded, and the pretense
became reality, the facade became fact?
Could that happen to me?
A very uncomfortable thought, that. Sheyrena turned away from it nastily. There
was not and never had been a sign that Lady Viridina was anything but what she
appeared to be. Sheyrena was not her mother. Viridina could never understand her.
If only I'd been born a boy… Another thought-path, this one worn by travel. If
only she had been born a male, Lorryn's little brother instead of his sister They were
nearly as close as brothers anyway, for despite custom to the contrary, because of his
mother's obsessive need to oversee his welfare, Lorryn had spent plenty of time in the
bower instead of being sequestered away with a series of male tutors. Viridina
encouraged this, and even dropped her fanatic watchfulness whenever her son and
daughter were together. He had shared plenty of lessons with Sheyrena as they grew.
She had trailed along after him countless times, dressed in his castoffs, without
anyone seeming to notice. Even now he smuggled her out in disguise as a male slave,
sharing rides and hunts with her, whenever their father wasn't in residence. Discipline
was relaxed whenever Lord Tylar was gone; there wasn't such a close watch kept, and
Lorryn's age and status kept awkward questions from being asked.
She enjoyed the rides, although the inevitable conclusion of the hunts generally
made her feel sick and she avoided the kill whenever possible. It was Lorryn who had
told her most of what she knew about the real conclusion of what he called "the
second Wizard War."
"Please close your eyes, my lady."
Sheyrena obeyed the request, and continued to follow her own thoughts. She
assumed Lorryn picked up most of what he knew from the other el-Lords, the young
heirs and younger sons that he saw socially. Most of what Lorryn had told her, she
suspected, was not anything their elders would approve of her hearing. -Very little of
it was flattering; Lorryn and his contemporaries did not have a high opinion of their
elders' intelligence or ability.
She had the feeling that Lorryn secretly admired the now-deceased Valyn, Lord
Dyran's heir, who had actually joined forces with the wizards, turning traitor to his
own kind. Lorryn swore that he had done so to save his presumably halfblooded
brother, Mere; though how he could know that, she hadn't a clue. He seemed obsessed
with that part of the story, but as for her, she could not hear enough about the
dragons.
Oh, the dragons…
The slaves were working on her face now, with tiny brushes and pots of
cosmetic, trying to give her some semblance of a living person. That was going to be
difficult to do; her hair was the palest white-gold imaginable, and her face completely
without color in its natural state, her eyes so pale a green as to seem gray. Anything
they did with cosmetics was doomed to look artificial. At the best, she would
resemble a porcelain statue; at worst, a clown.
At the moment, she was inclined to hope for the clown.
Lorryn had also been the one to tell her about the Elvenbane, who summoned the
dragons. Some of what he had told her she had also overheard when her father had
made conversation with guests, but not that. Her father never even acknowledged that
any such creature existed.
That wasn't particularly surprising. The Elvenbane was female and halfblood,
and must represent everything Lord Tylar hated and feared.
But if I could choose anything other than a boy—I would choose to be her. Oh,
how that would shock Lady Viridina! But that was what Sheyrena dreamed, in the
secret dark of the deep night: that she was the Elvenbane. Powerful in her own right,
bending the world to her will and her magic, riding across the sky on a dragon; that
was the way to live!
If I was the Elvenbane, there would be no father to stop me, nothing I couldn't do
if I wanted to. I could go anywhere, see anything, be anything that I wished!
She settled back into her daydreams as the slaves worked on her face, tiny
brushes flicking across her cheeks, lips, and eyelids with the kiss of a thousand
butterflies. She envisioned herself mounted on a huge scarlet dragon, soaring under a
cloudless sky, so high above the forest that the trees blurred into a mossy carpet of
green and there was no sign of walls or buildings. In her dreaming, the dragon carried
her toward the mountains she had never seen, which rose to meet them, towering
spires sparkling with fantastic crags of crystal and rose quartz, amethyst and—
A polite cough woke her out of her dream. Regretfully she opened her eyes and
regarded the handiwork of the slaves in her mirror.
It was appalling. It was also the best they could do, and she knew it. Her eyes
were washed out by the heavy peacock-blue they had painted on her lids; her cheeks
had hectic red circles that looked as clownlike as she had imagined, and her rosy,
pouting lips simply did not look as if they belonged on her face.
She dared not approve it, but she did not disapprove either. If Lord Tylar didn't
like it, let him be the one to say so.
When she said nothing, the slaves went back to the final arrangement of her hair.
Left alone, it was her one beauty, but they were building it into an edifice that
would match the dress, and as a result, it looked like a wig made of bleached
horsehair. They had piled most of it on the top of her head in stiff curls, coils, and
braids, leaving only a few tendrils, stiffened with dressing and trained into wirelike
spirals, to trail artificially about her face. Now they were inserting all the bejeweled
hair ornaments her father had dictated; heavy gold and emerald, of course.
If I had been dressing myself—I would have chosen the pale rose silk, with
flowers and ribbons, pearls and white gold. Nothing like this. I would fade into the
background, but at least I would not look like a clown.
By the time they were done, no one would ever recognize her. Which was just as
well. She wouldn't want anyone to recognize her, looking like this.
It wouldn't have been so bad if only Lorryn could be with her. He'd have been
able to make her laugh, he'd have helped her to keep her sense of humor about it all,
and he would have kept anyone she actually disliked from getting too close. But
Lorryn was subject to spells of terrible pain in his head—the one affliction that elves
were subject to—and he had been overcome by one of those spells just this morning.
It's just as well. I wouldn't even want Lorryn to see me looking like this.
Lorryn lay on his bed, with one eye on the door, one eye on his hard-won book
about an ancient and extinct tribe of humans called the Iron People, and one ear
cocked for the sound of footsteps. He had carefully positioned himself so that he
could drop the book to the floor and fling his arm over his eyes at the slightest sound
摘要：

ElvenbloodBookTwoofTheHalfbloodChroniclesbyAndreNorton&MercedesLackeyChapter1SHEYRENAHADGROWNverywearyofcoosofadmirationoverthelasthourorso.Humanvoices,harshandheavybyelvenstandards,didnotnormallygrateonherears,buttheydidtoday."Oh,mylady,therehasneverbeenagownsolovely,Iswear!"Thenamelessblondslaveou...

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