Elvenbane

She played with her hair and considered the idea from all possible angles. It made perfect sense. How many elven ladies, afraid that they would be discarded by a powerful spouse, resorted to their human servants for the fertility their lords lacked?

What elven lord would ever argue with being presented with the male heir he needed so desperately?

The halfblood would not even need to feign mage-powers; he would have them...

For that matter, now she wondered how many elven lords thought of as being powerful mages were actually halfbloods, or the sons of halfbloods?

Now that was a startling thought.

Not Dyran, though. She was sure of that. He'd never have hounded that concubine of his to death if he'd been a halfblood himself...

Unless he didn't know it; unless his mother had kept that a secret even from him.

What a thought!

A wicked smile played about her lips, as she considered every illusion-dispelling incantation she knew.

Imagine casting the spell on him at the right moment...in Council, say...and proof there stands Lord Dyran, the halfblood!

She played with the idea for a while, then gave it up, regretfully.

Really, she doubted very much that he was. He'd made more than enough enemies over the years that he had to have had something like an illusion-breaking spell cast on him at least once. And Valyn showed every mark of pure breeding, and if there had been any illusions cast on him, she'd have noticed. It was an entertaining idea, but there wasn't much chance of it being more than amusing entertainment.

But there was another, equally interesting idea.

The problem for a woman Clan head had always been to find a mate that wouldn't try to take over the Clan seat for himself, and produce an heir that was unlikely to challenge her as he grew older. And yet she couldn't produce an idiot or a weakling, either. That would be just as much a disaster. If she mated with an elven lord of much inferior powers, her offspring was likely to have inferior powers, and either the heir or the Clan would end up being challenged. With a weak heir, they would wind up with a cadet line in charge of the Clan seat, or they would be forced to ally themselves with a Clan that was likely to eat them alive.

But what if she mated with a human...no one asked the Clan heads who the fathers of their children were if they didn't choose to reveal an alliance marriage or mating. What if some of them were mating with humans?

It would be easy enough to cast illusions then! And easy enough to keep them in place.

And all the while the child was growing up, the Lady had herself a budding wizard, bound to her by the strongest tie there was, of mother to child. If that tie stopped working as a controlling factor, the threat of exposure for what he was would keep him in his place.

What an outrageous thought!

And what an intriguing one...

And as Triana stared up at the stars, the most intriguing thought of all occurred to her.

I wonder if I ought to try that...

Chapter 21

SHANA BURIED HER nose in her book as Triana sailed past the door of the library, and smoldered with resentment. The words on the page blurred for a moment as she brought her anger under control. Triana had done it again this morning, made her look like a fool in front of everyone, and had left her no out but to pretend to laugh at the joke. The elven maiden's delicate condescension had not escaped the intended target, and Shana was heartily sick of it...and the general misery brought on by the cold she still suffered from didn't help matters. When she complained about Triana's behavior, Valyn claimed she was being oversensitive. So she had decided to avoid Triana as much as possible, which, in a place this size, wasn't really difficult.

The library was the best place to go, and Shana blessed her foster mother's foresight in training her in the written version of elven tongue. Triana's forefathers had amassed quite a collection of instructional volumes, including those on magic...and Shana had just found the answer to some of her questions here.

Why did the elven lords destroy the wizards one by one, rather than together? And where did they get the power to do some of the things described in the old chronicles...like building manors overnight?

She shifted a little more in the overstuffed, velvet-cushioned chair, and reread the last paragraph of her chapter. Yes, there it was. The answer had turned out to be appallingly simple. If a magic-wielder was unguarded, it was possible to steal his power. It would return, usually within a day, but while it was gone he was defenseless. The trick was that one had to be within a certain distance of the victim...line of sight, usually. You didn't have to be able to see him, so long as you knew him, but you had to be within that distance. This was the first time she had ever seen the spell and its execution and results printed openly.

So that was why they killed off the wizards one at a time...so that they could also steal the wizard's power.

Without a doubt, all of the elven lords stayed guarded against just such an occurrence, of course, whenever they were with others of their kind. This was one spell that was democratic in its effect...the weaker could very easily steal from the stronger if he knew the trick.

Now Shana knew how the old wizards and the elven lords of the past had pulled off major spells that required much more power than a single magic-wielder could ever have...like the one that could transport several people from one place to another, the more elaborate version of the one the wizards now used to steal goods from the elves. They stole it. Or, in the case of the wizards, they loaned it. Possibly the elven lords had cooperated that way in the past, but they certainly weren't doing so now.

The fact that it hadn't been used in so long that the written record of it had 'fallen out' of books wasn't really surprising. Like a fancy 'secret move' in sword work, which, once it is used and known, becomes useless because everyone guards against it, this stealing of power was no longer an effective weapon because everyone expected it when they knew they were in the company of other, possibly adversarial, elven lords. But that didn't mean that they guarded against it all the time...

No one could be on his guard all the time. Especially not when it was something you had to work to shield against.

And it certainly didn't mean that Shadow, Valyn, or even Triana were on guard against the ploy.

Shana closed the book and pondered her options.

Right now, it looked as if Valyn's big plan to help the humans and halfbloods had pretty much come to nothing. So whatever got done, she was going to have to be the one to do it. She nodded grimly to herself. I should have known better than to get involved with those two. I can't undo it, so now I'm going to have to live with it. Maybe if she managed to pull this 'cause' together, that would get Valyn's attention.

She reopened the book, and checked the text carefully, then decided to make some little experiments, figuring that she could probably drain power in such small quantities that it would scarcely be noticed. Considering how much they'd used her, she thought resentfully, it would serve them right.

Shadow, in particular, with Triana a close second.

From the moment they had entered the house, Triana had been making much of Shadow, and mostly ignoring