Elvenbane

enough to one of them to really see them well, much less listen to their thoughts. Lord Dyran...that must be V'Kass Dyran Lord Hernalth. He was an elder, practically chief in Council. But how did a High Lord's concubine end up in the desert?

She reached out a little, cautious mental finger, and touched the edges of the woman's mind as lightly as she could manage.

With patient sifting, she gleaned a few facts; Serina had been the favorite of the harem, proud of her position, status, and her ability to ride out her Lord's arbitrary nature. That is, until a new girl had been given to Lord Dyran by an underling who specialized the breeding of beautiful human concubines, male and female. Leyda Shaybrel was just as beautiful as her owner had advertised, and as ruthless as she was beautiful.

When Leyda failed to oust Serina as favorite, and realized that Lord Dyran had no intention of replacing Serina, she turned to sabotage.

That had been several months ago, just before Lord Dyran went off to Council...which, due to the havoc and the feuding caused by Alara's meddling, would last a record eight months. Lord Dyran left before Serina realized she was pregnant.

As soon as she knew, she must have been in a panic.

That's death...even if Dyran didn't kill her, he'd cast her off. Alara was fascinated. This was a glimpse into the humans' world she'd never had before. I wonder if I can get into her memory? This could be so useful...Maybe if I just nudge her a little...

Chapter 3

AMAZING, ALARA THOUGHT, pulling delicately out of the memory. She found it very hard to believe what she had just seen: the greed, the selfishness, the completely self-centered personality: Even at their worst, the Kin stood together!

The woman was only interested in her own promotion, not in anything that happened to any of the other girls. She went to her Lord, not only willingly, but eagerly. All of them did.

As far as Alara could tell, the concubines were all like her. There wasn't a single sign of rebellion or unity there.

Alara blinked dazedly. In the past few heartbeats she'd learned more about humans and elvenkind than she had in years. The woman's memories were so strong...and the pull of her mind well-nigh irresistible. But the temptation to allow herself to be pulled back in was too much; there was so much she was learning about classes of the humans that the Kin had never been able to approach, like the concubines and the gladiators.

The woman was a treasure trove of information; with what Alara was gleaning from her, the Kin would be able to infiltrate elven society in the form, not of other elves, which was chancy and sometimes dangerous, but in the forms of the invisibles...

Best of all would be if they could learn enough to fit in as guards, fighters, duelists...

Her father trained gladiators, Alara remembered suddenly. There was that short memory of the duel in the arena, but there were probably more. She'd have to go look...

Serina half fell into the water, hardly recognizing it for what it was until her arms went under the surface. She plunged her face into the blessed coolness, drinking until she could hold no more, crying tears of relief at the feel of the cold water down her throat, and on the parched and burned skin of her arms and face.

When she could no longer drink another drop, she lay beside the pool, her arms trailing into the water, too weak to move. Too weak even to think.

She was still so hot...

The sun overhead was like the bright lights of the arena, too bright to look at directly...

Today the Lord was garbed in a pure sapphire-blue, and his eyes reflected some of that blue in their depths. Serina thought he was even handsomer than he had been the first time she saw him. 'In a very real sense,' Dyran said lazily, as he strolled with his hands clasped behind his back, inspecting Jared's latest crop of duelists, 'I owe something of my prosperity to you.' The men were arranged in a neat line before him, wearing their special leather armor, each set made to facilitate his...or her, there were a few women in the group...weapon's specialty. They stood at parade rest, like so many sinister statues, helms covering their faces so that only the occasional glitter of an eye showed that they lived.

Serina peered out from under the cover of an old tarpaulin flung over a pile of broken armor heaped atop one of the storage closets. She'd learned how to climb up here when she was five or six; at nine now, she barely fit. A few more inches, and she wouldn't be able to squeeze in behind the pile anymore. That meant she probably wouldn't be able to steal any further glimpses of the training, so she had resolved to take full advantage of every opportunity that came along now.

'Thank you, my lord,' Jared replied expressionlessly. 'But it was you, my lord, who gave me the training, and saw to it that I was well matched. It was you who placed me in charge of training the others. I had only the raw ability. You saw to its honing, and made use of it.'

'True, true... still, you're a remarkable beast, Jared. Over a hundred duels, and never a loss.' Dyran stepped back and regarded his slave with a critical eye, his head tilted a little to one side. 'I daresay you could still take any one of these youngsters, and win. Would you care to try? A real duel, I mean, not just a practice.'

Serina knew her father well enough to know that Dyran's 'offer' shook him to the bone. A 'real' duel...that meant to the death. Jared, against one of the young men he'd trained himself. Jared's experience against a younger man's strength and endurance...Jared fighting someone who knew what his moves were going to be before he made them.

'It would be an interesting proposition, my lord,' Jared said slowly, so slowly that Serina knew how carefully he was thinking before he replied. 'But I must point out that it could mean the loss of your chief trainer. It would mean the loss of your chief trainer for a month or so, no matter what. I'm not so spry anymore that I can avoid every stroke, and I'm too old to heal in a hurry.'

Serina waited, holding her breath, for Dyran's response.

He threw back his head and laughed, his long hair tossing, and both Serina and her father heaved identical sighs of relief. 'I couldn't risk that, old man,' he said, slapping Jared on the back, exactly as Serina had seen him slap a horse on the flank; with the same kind of proprietary pride. 'Not with a half dozen duels scheduled for this month alone. No, we'll keep the losses among those we can replace, I think. Carry on.'

Dyran strolled away, still chuckling, as Jared marched his men back towards their quarters...

The bright lights of the arena... How many times had she stood under them? The lights illuminated the audience as relentlessly as the fighters, for the elven lords came to the duels to be seen as well as to be spectators themselves. And they never disputed her presence there, however much it was against custom. They had seen how Dyran wanted her there, and none of them dared challenge Dyran on his home ground. She had made herself indispensable, but it had taken more work than any of them guessed, for no other concubine had dared to do the things she had done...

No other but me, she murmured to herself, her mind and body floating somewhere strange and bright. None but me.

Serina had learned early how to keep up with Dyran's long, ground-eating strides without looking as if she were hurrying. She would never, ever allow herself to look less than graceful. One slip, and she might find herself replaced.

But this was an important part of her plan to make herself Dyran's permanent