Elvenbane

next to hers. He was playing a game of draughts against one of the slaves when she came in, but jumped to his feet with a speed that was tremendously gratifying. The slave likewise sprang to his feet, and quickly took a place at the side of the table, ready to serve.

He was coming along nicely. 'I didn't know you played draughts,' she said, gliding across the room and taking the seat the slave had hastily vacated for her. 'I used to be quite good at it, actually. I like strategy games...but then, the best kind of strategy game is the kind played with real people, like the one your friends are setting up.'

'What?' Mero said, frowning with puzzlement as he resumed his place.

'Didn't they tell you about it?' she said innocently, and covered her lips with a slender hand, as if she had said too much. 'Oh...never mind what I said. It probably didn't mean anything anyway.'

'Probably not,' Mero said, and picked up one of his game pieces, moving it carefully, as if he were concentrating on the game to the exclusion of all else. 'They're always hatching half-fledged plans and discarding them.'

But they always included you in that, didn't they, dear? Triana thought with sly satisfaction. They never left you out of a planning session. But now it's beginning to look as if they're conspiring without you...and maybe even against you.

She tightened her glamorie on him, wishing more than ever that she had wizard-powers to control his thoughts. All she could do at the moment was manipulate him through the actions of others.

She moved her game piece, and studied the dark head across from her, bent over the draughts board. She rather thought she was doing a good job of manipulating all of them so far. The special treatment, special quarters, and frequent gifts were making it look as if she was singling him out...which of course she was. And that was indubitably giving rise to a certain amount of envy and jealousy. She had been encouraging him to think of himself as being somehow 'better' than the others...and that should be reflected in his behavior to them. Certainly it seemed that way. She knew that several times he had come upon the three friends talking intently about something...and that they had broken off the conversation when he entered the room, turning the talk to something innocuous.

Any creature with an ounce of perception would be certain that he was the topic of conversation the moment before. He was, of course, but probably not in the sense he thought.

As for Shana...the attention she had been giving the boy, and the concubines she'd been sending him nightly were undoubtedly the cause of the black looks the girl had been sending his way. That relationship was certainly dying, if not already dead.

Mero made his move, and sat back in his chair, the frown still creasing his brow. She chose another piece and moved it, taking one of his.

And now she'd hinted that there were plans he hadn't been informed of. By now his skin must be crawling.

He moved again and, with a tight smile of triumph, took her royal piece. 'I'm afraid you've lost, my lady,' he said smoothly. 'What's your forfeit?'

She smiled back, having had this in mind the moment she sat down. 'I think this will do,' she told him, slipping off a beryl-set ring and handing it to him. 'After all, it was only a game of draughts. If you want higher stakes, you'll have to play a different game.'

He took the ring, and kissed the back of the hand that held it. 'Perhaps I shall,' he replied, the frown gone from his face. 'And perhaps if I lose, I shall think myself the winner, hmm?'

She laughed softly. 'My word, Mero, you're becoming quite the courtier! I had no idea you could be so gallant!'

He released her hand reluctantly. 'I've never been moved to play the gallant before, my lady,' he replied, 'but you can be assured that I will wear this, not as a token of triumph, but as a token of regard.'

Just as I'd hoped, you silly child, she thought with elation, as he tried the ring on each of his fingers. One of her best spells was in that beryl. Once he put that ring on, he was never going to believe a bad word about her again. And once she took him to her bed, he'd be hers entirely. If she told him to fling himself off a cliff, he would. And I think that should be the stakes in the next game or two.

'Hmm,' Mero said, when it wouldn't fit on any of his fingers. 'I'll have to size it to fit me.' When she started to reach for it, he waved her hand away and dropped it in his tunic pocket. 'Don't worry your lovely head about it, my lady. After all you've taught me, resizing a ring will be child's play. I'll take care of it later...and don't worry, it will never leave my finger.'

She sat back as he began rearranging the draughtsmen for a new game. Oh, I shan't worry, dear Shadow, she thought, keeping her eyes down on the board, lest the gleam of satisfaction in them give her away. That was the last thing that she was going to worry about.

Shadow opened the window of his room and made sure there was no one in the gardens below. A quick mental check showed that there were no watchers, human or magical, lurking about either.

He cleared the table and carefully pried the prongs from around the beryl without touching it with his flesh. When the stone popped out of its setting, he picked it up in a bit of silk, took it to the window, and flung it away from himself as hard as he could.

The tiny beryl quickly sailed out of sight. The bit of silk fluttered to the ground.

He nodded with satisfaction, and went back to the table.

A cloak brooch supplied another, unused beryl of the proper size and shape. He pried the gem out of its setting and placed it in the ring, using magic to soften the prongs long enough to mold them securely about the stone. Then he smoothed out the place in the cloak brooch where it had been, inscribing a leaf-shape in the softened metal, making certain that he left no traces of his tampering.

There. He put the brooch down beside the ring, and eyed them both critically. That should do.

The past few days had been agony; it had especially hurt him to say those awful things to Shana. She was a good girl, and she deserved better than that...but he'd had no choice, not if he was going to convince Triana that her glamorie was still in place.

The knock on the head he had taken during the fight had evidently dispelled it. The first thing he had noticed was that Triana's little affectations no longer were endearing, they were annoying. Then he had realized that for the first time in several weeks, he was able to think for himself. That was when he remembered that they had all come here only as a stopgap measure, a temporary hiding place, and that they had originally planned to get back to Shana's Citadel, enlist the wizards in their cause, and work towards freeing the slaves and saving the halfbloods still in hiding.

None of that had happened. Instead, he had drifted into a sybaritic dream with Triana at the center, ignoring his friends, his causes, everything he had thought was important. Shana had seemed both childish and an arrogant, overbearing fool. Now, while he still found her arrogant, he realized that she was not being childish when it came to Triana. She was suspicious of the elven lady, and had every reason to be.

He'd been casual about his relationship to Keman...but after he'd had a chance to think about it, and to observe Triana with clear eyes, he'd been angry. She'd been using him. At least he could say this much for Shana, she never used him. And Triana had been toying with him. He didn't know what her game was yet, but he was certain she had one.

That was when he decided to find out just what, exactly, she was up to...and the best way to do so was to fool her into thinking he was still enthralled and spellbound.

Even though, to do that, he had to keep up the act with his friends.

That had hurt, more than he wanted to admit. It had hurt especially when he'd had to insult Shana to her face.

He hadn't realized until then how much he liked her, and seeing her crumple under his insults had made him feel as if he were the lowest thing in the world.

But it looked as though things were about to come to a head. Taking Triana's hint, he had set up the chessboard instead of draughts for their second game...and she had lost. Deliberately, he was sure...he'd made a couple of very clumsy moves that could have given her the game, which she had totally ignored. She had dimpled, fluttered her eyelashes, and told him to name the forfeit. He had, naming what he figured she was expecting. After all, she'd been keeping him at arm's length for weeks now; deliberately heating his blood, then putting him off. And