Elvenbane

for the prestige of being taken to his bed. More than one concubine truly, sincerely, loved him...or thought she did. Lusted after him, at least. Certainly yearned after him.

But this particular infatuation was dangerous. Shana was a lovely wench, in her own way; a bit fiery for his taste, but very much the kind of young woman Dyran would have snatched up in a trice and installed in the harem...

Which was exactly the problem. Dyran had snatched up a woman very like her. Her mother, Serina. Valyn didn't remember Serina or the row her flight had caused in the harem, but he had certainly heard about it as he was growing up. She was something of a legend, enough so that her story had intrigued him, though he could never learn why she had fled. Then, from Mero's mother, he had learned the truth; she had been carrying a halfblood child like Mero, and her condition had been betrayed to Dyran. There had been orders out to kill her, but she had learned of them in time to escape. Everyone assumed she had perished in the desert.

From what Shana and Keman had told them, and from what he knew about Serina Daeth, he had no doubt whatsoever who Shana's mother must have been. In the past sixteen or seventeen years there had only been one escaped, pregnant concubine...and add to that fact that only someone of Serina Daeth's astonishing beauty could have produced a daughter like Shana...and the final fact of the infant Shana's birth and subsequent rescue by the dragon...there was only one conclusion he could make. Shana was his half-sister. Which meant that even if he'd been enamored of her, she was strictly out-of-bounds. And not even a dragon would make him think any other way.

Dragons. No, not even Keman could persuade him. Not that Keman would want to, he didn't think...but then who knew how a dragon reasoned?

Valyn certainly didn't, not even after having spent many days with one. He never would have known Keman wasn't another halfblood, if Shana and her 'foster brother' hadn't decided to tell both of them. He had been getting a bit suspicious though, because of the way that Keman would vanish just at sunset, and return just afterwards. He'd tried to find a way to follow, but Keman always lost him. Then Shana had caught him following...and that was when they had decided to show him what was going on, so that Keman could go off to kill and feed without having to sneak away.

That had given him something of a turn, to see one of the legended dragons with his own eyes.

They told him before Keman made the shift that Shana's foster mother had been a dragon; and he'd thought, at first, that Shana and her foster brother were somehow trying to make him look like a fool. But then Keman had proved that there were dragons, after all, in the most final way possible.

When Keman had first shifted shape for them, Valyn had been so shocked, so completely taken by surprise, that he was tempted to conclude that either he had fallen ill and was suffering with a fever, or Shana and Keman were superb illusionists. But he was as healthy as he had ever been...and Keman was quite solid and real to the touch, the proof that he was not any kind of illusion.

So now Valyn knew why Keman and Shana could not return to the wizards' hiding place...at least not until the dragon could learn to conceal those parts of his thoughts that would reveal what he truly was. Which put him on something of the same footing with them, since there was no way he could go there unless and until he learned to mimic wizard-powers and found a way to build and maintain an illusion of being halfblood.

And the true halfbloods were devoted to their 'brothers.' Shadow wouldn't leave him; Shana wouldn't leave Keman.

Which left them all out here in the wilderness...with Keman and Shana having a distinct advantage over himself and Mero. They knew how to live, even prosper, out here. He and Mero were, if not totally helpless, certainly at an extreme handicap. When he and Mero had been out hunting or camping, it had been in the relatively tame woods of the estate, with a dozen slaves to tend to anything they needed, and most of the comforts of being at home available to them. The chances of being able to survive out here on their own were not very good.

If they had to leave Shana and Keman, he and Shadow might as well just stand around and wait for one of those things to come carry them away. She had been the one finding most of the food, especially the roots and things. And even though she'd been teaching Shadow how to use his power to track some of the stranger beasts that hunted these woods, Valyn didn't think his cousin was quite experienced enough at it yet. He had missed the last one-horn, and had never even known that the tree-lurker was anywhere around.

The fire popped and crackled; he threw another log onto it, and watched as the bark burst into flame.

If Shana took it into her head to leave them...as she just might, if he rejected her...he didn't think that he and Shadow would have much of a chance out here. More than once, Keman had shifted to his dragon-form to frighten away predators that neither he nor Mero saw or sensed in any way. Once or twice Shana summoned a small herd of one-horns to trample over their backtrail to confuse it. More often than not, it was Shana or Keman who found and killed the game they ate. The only contribution he and Mero had been able to make was to start fires and rig shelters.

Valyn sighed, and watched the flames die down to glowing coals. The problem was, he'd have been perfectly willing to bed the girl until her infatuation wore off...if only she wasn't his half-sister. Unfortunately, he couldn't prove that she was. He was absolutely certain...but even if she was Serina's daughter, that didn't prove that Dyran was her father!

And even if he had been able to prove it to her satisfaction, he wasn't entirely sure it would make any difference to her. She often didn't seem to have any familiarity with concepts he considered quite basic, and he had the sinking feeling that even if she knew, she wouldn't care.

Whereas he...well, the mere thought of bedding his own sister was enough to make his skin crawl. There had been quite enough of that sort of thing in the early days of the elven settlement here. Valyn half wondered if that wasn't the cause of there being so few births now. Certainly matings and marryings between close kin had caused some real horrors in the way of offspring, as well as other troubles...more than enough to instill in everyone of elven blood now alive a real aversion to the bare thought of incest.

So there was no way she was ever going to get what she thought she wanted from him...and that was going to cause trouble, more trouble than they had even now.

Shadow was getting tired of her attitude, and the way she was neglecting his teaching. She had already threatened to leave them all over little things, and more than once.

If only he had some way of keeping her with them...some bond even she would not be willing to break.

But what kind of bond would that be? Friendship obviously wasn't enough; it would have to be something stronger, something official.

If only there was some; way to bring her into the 'family' and make her feel as if they needed to be together.

He sensed that she felt that need of family; that at least part of her unhappiness...and part of the cause of her infatuation...was that she felt so very alone. After all, she didn't have anyone but Keman anymore. She'd formed no strong ties with any of the wizards.

If he could just find some way to show her that he thought a great deal of her, and wanted very much to make some kind of tie between them all...even though he was not in the least in love with her.

She didn't understand sworn brotherhood, or blood-oaths. And he didn't want to offer anything that could be misconstrued.

It was just too bad that she couldn't have chosen Shadow for her infatuation. She seemed to like him well enough, and he liked her, or so he had confessed to his older cousin. But she made him nervous, and it often appeared that she was just as nervous around him.

If they just got to know each other, they might take to each other. Then she wouldn't even think about leaving. How could he make her stay?

Then he had it...

Handfasting. The dragons had something like it; she'd understand that. If he handfasted her to Shadow, that would bring her into Valyn's family, and protect everyone. It was a perfectly good arrangement...better than most elven marriages, really, since she knew Shadow and there seemed to be some friendship and affection there. He'd put it to her as a Clan alliance. If she'd been watching the elven lords, she'd understand that. If she accepted, she might even start to transfer some of that infatuation to Shadow; but at the least she'd have an obligation to teach him adequately. She'd take that duty seriously...and she wouldn't be distracted by Valyn as much. She wouldn't be quite so ready to run off and leave them.