Elvenbane

The arena was alive with color and light, and buzzing with conversation. Serina replaced a red velvet cushion that had fallen from Lord Dyran's couch, trying to remain inconspicuous and very much aware that she was the only other human in the audience.

She had followed Dyran out to the arena, even though it meant crossing under that horrid open sky to do so, and he had made no move to stop her. Nor had anyone barred her from his side when he took his place in his private box with his guests, V'Tarn Sandar Lord Festin and V'Kal Alinor Lady Auraen. The Lady had given her a very sharp and penetrating look when Serina entered behind Dyran, but when she made no move to seat herself, but rather, remained standing in a posture of humility, the Lady evidently made up her mind to ignore the human interloper.

All three elven lords were in high formal garb, in their house colors, wearing elaborate surcoats stiff with bullion, embroidery in gold and silver thread, and bright gemstones, all in motifs that reflected their Clan crests. Dyran sported gold and vermilion sunbursts, Lord Sandar wore emerald and sapphire delphins, and Lady Alinor pale green and silver cranes.

The occasion for all this finery was the settling of a disagreement between Lord Vossinor and Lord Jertain. Serina wasn't entirely sure what, exactly, the disagreement was about. It did involve a disputed trade route, and a series of insults traded in Council...and it was by the ruling of the Council itself that the duel was to take place.

'... and I, for one, am heartily sick of it,' Lady Alinor murmured to Dyran as she dropped gracefully into her seat. 'Jertain might actually be in the right this time, but he has lied so often that how can one know for certain? I truly believe that he doesn't know the truth of the matter anymore.'

'The Council is exceedingly grateful to you and Edres for providing the means of settling the damned situation once and for all,' Sandar said, with just the faintest hint of annoyance.

Dyran only smiled graciously. 'I am always happy to be of service to the Council,' he said smoothly, handing Lady Alinor a rosy plum from the dish Serina held out to him.

He's been working toward this for months, Serina thought smugly, offering the dish to Lord Sandar as well. This way the Council owes him for getting a nuisance out of their hair, and neither side can expect him to take a side. No matter who wins, he wins. Not to mention the favors owed for providing a neutral place, and fighters matched to a hair.

'And what about the dispute between Hellebore and Ondine?' Sandar asked Alinor. 'Is there any word on that?'

'Oh, it's to be war, as I told you,' she replied offhandedly. 'The Board is going to meet in a few days to decide on the size of the armies and where they'll meet. After that it will be up to the two of them. I told you they'd never settle an inheritance dispute with anything less than a war.'

'So you did, my lady,' Dyran replied, leaning toward her with an odd gleam in his eye. 'And once again, you were correct. Tell me, which of the two of them do you think likely to be the better commander?'

He's been so...strange...about Lady Alinor. She's challenged him in Council, and he doesn't like it. But he's been challenged before, and he never acted like he is with her. It's almost as if he wants her, wants to possess her, and she keeps rejecting him in ways that only make him more determined to have her. Serina shivered, and did her best not to show it. Dyran had never been this obsessive about anything before. She wasn't sure what to do about it...or even if she dared to try.

Lady Alinor laughed, laughter with a delicate hint of mockery in it. 'Ondine, of course...' she began.

A single, brazen gong-note split the air, silencing the chatter, and causing every head to turn towards the entrance to the sands. A pair of fighters, one bearing a mace and shield, the other, the unusual weapon of singlestick, walked side-by-side into the center of the' arena. The mace-wielder, with shield colors and helm ribbons in Lord Jertain's indigo-and-white, turned smartly to the left, to end his march below Jertain's box. The other, with helm ribbons and armbands in Vossinor's cinnabar-and-brown, turned at the same moment to the right, to salute Vossinor's box.

Both elven lords acknowledged their fighters with a lifted hand. The gong sounded again. The two men turned to face each other, and waited with the patience of automata.

Dyran rose slowly, a vermilion scarf in his hand. Every eye in the area was now on him; as host to the conflict, it was his privilege to signal the start of the duel. He smiled graciously, and dropped the square of silk.

It fluttered to the sand, ignored, as the carnage began.

In the end, even a few of the elven spectators excused themselves, and Serina found herself averting her eyes. She'd had no idea how much damage two blunt instruments could do.

But Dyran watched on; not eagerly, as Lady Alinor, who sat forward in her seat, punctuating each blow with little coos of delight...nor with bored patience, as Sandar. But with casual amusement, a little, pleased smile playing at the corners of his mouth, and a light in his eyes when he looked at Alinor that Serina could not read.

And when it was over...as it was, quickly, too quickly for many of the spectators...when all of the other elven lords had gone, he made his move. Toward Alinor. A significant touch of his hand on her arm, a few carefully chosen words...both, as if Serina were not present.

White with suppressed emotion, she pretended not to be there; pretended she was part of the furnishings. Certainly Lady Alinor took no notice of her.

The Lady stared at Dyran as if she could not believe what she had heard...then burst into mocking laughter.

'You?' she crowed. 'You? I'd sooner bed a viper, my lord. My chances of survival would be much higher!'

She shook off his hand and swept out of the arena, head high, her posture saying that she knew he would not dare to challenge her. If he did, he would have to say why...and being rejected by a lady was not valid grounds for a challenge.

Dyran went as white as Serina; he stood like one of the silent pillars supporting the roof, and Serina read a rage so great in his eyes that she did not even breathe. If he remembered she was there...he would kill her.

Finally he moved. He swept out of the arena in the opposite direction that Lady Alinor had taken, heading for the slave pens.

Serina fled for the safety of her room and hid there, shivering in the darkness and praying he had forgotten her. After a long while, she heard muffled screams of agony from Dyran's suite.

He's forgotten me, she thought, incoherent with relief and joy. He's forgotten me. I'm safe...

If I dared, I would shift and fly off, Alara thought in disgust. The last scene replayed in Serina's memory had left the dragon limp and sick.

The duel was bad enough. The Kin had no idea that this was the kind of thing that went on in these duels. The sheer brutality of two thinking beings battering each other until one finally dropped over dead...moments before the other also succumbed...was something Serina took for granted. It was that, as much as the duel itself, that made Alara ill. How could she...she didn't feel anything at all for those two men, she basically just reacted to the blood and injuries. She would have been just as nauseated seeing someone gut a chicken. Probably more. Those were her own kind, and she watched them slaughter each other to settle someone else's quarrel without a second thought!

But then, her reaction when Dyran chose some poor, hapless victim to torture...to feel joy that the victim was someone else...

The dragon forced herself to calm down, closing her mind to the human's for a moment, telling herself that it didn't really matter. These weren't the Kin; they were Outsiders. It shouldn't matter what they did. to each other or what was done to them.

Yet she was utterly disgusted by the way the woman had let herself be manipulated, geas or not. The human was intelligent, she saw what was happening, and Alara guessed that she had come very close to breaking her own geas a time or two. Yet nothing of what she saw mattered to her, only her own well- being, her luxurious life. Perhaps at one time she would have felt something...but that time had vanished with her childhood.