Elvenblood

the ringleaders sprang up of their own accord as soon as word of the power of the jewelry began to spread.

And Lorryn had hardly been able to restrain himself when he saw, this very morning, copies of the filigree jewelry showing up in shops—but in gold, of course, and with none of the detail and intricacy of the genuine article. Before long, the er-Lords themselves might just start plating the silver with gold, and no one would ever be able to tell the difference between the genuine article and the copies.

Except by the effect—or lack of it.

'I wish you well, sir,' he said gravely, giving the young er-Lord the signal that the interview was over. 'And do enjoy the party.'

'I shall, trust me, I shall.' And with that, the young elven lord was out of his seat and striding out of the room with no sign whatsoever that he had put away enough wine to knock out a cart-horse.

Lorryn waited a little longer, but the hour was late, and it appeared that this was going to be his final 'customer' of the evening. He paid the tavern-keeper—and paid him generously. The tavern-keeper was a human, and under his livery tunic he wore a much simplified version of the filigree-work torque, a cross between the women's jewels and the warriors' torques. These were being turned out by the clever hands of human slaves, craftsmen bought with the gold the lords were paying for the prettier styles.

They were very popular with the slaves, although Lorryn was being very careful whom he sold—or gave— these little baubles to. It had to be to someone who had a strong grievance against his current or past masters— and yet someone who was unlikely to be on the receiving end of his current master's power. Shopkeepers were good prospects; tavern-keepers, some overseers, a concubine or two. These, Lorryn tested himself, heart and soul.

He left the half-finished pitcher of wine on the table, and went up to the third floor, bypassing the second altogether. Here was where the tavern-keeper had his own quarters, and where the offices were. And here the tavern-keeper had made a small apartment, which Lorryn lived in with his sister and with Mero.

He paused outside the door, and sent a delicate thought-touch to the occupant. Mero opened the door for him, and he slipped inside.

'Convenient, this wizard-power, when you're building a conspiracy,' he remarked, as Mero returned to the task he had left, of carefully wrapping silver-clad iron in swaths of silk, then slipping the resulting packet into a pouch like the one Lorryn had just given the young er-Lord below.

'That's precisely why the elven lords have been trying to destroy the power for so long,' Mero replied, but he looked more troubled than the simple remark called for.

'What's the matter?' Lorryn asked, answering Mero's frown of anger and worry with a frown of concern.

'Shana—has her hands full,' came the slow reply. 'Keman and Dora went off on some quest of their own just after we left, and as soon as they could manage it, Caellach Gwain and a good half of the wizards called a wizards' Council against her, the alliance with the Iron People, and anything else they could think of. They don't believe that the elven lords are going to come after them—and even if they did, Caellach has the old whiners all convinced that all they have to do is give Shana up to the elves and the danger will be over!'

Lorryn did not shout his anger—but his hands clenched into fists, and a hot rage burned up in him. 'They have a flexible notion of honor,' he drawled. 'Almost as flexible as that of the elven lords.'

Mero stared at him for a moment, then his mouth twitched involuntarily. 'Can I quote you on that when I talk to her?' he asked. 'That's too good a line of argument to waste.'

Lorryn relaxed, just the tiniest trifle. If Mero was able to see the humor in something, the situation couldn't be a total disaster—at least, not yet.

She has her allies, and she's very powerful in her own right. The other dragons will support her. If she has to, she can escape before they can make her a prisoner. 'Of course,' he said, 'and while you're at it—remind her to tell them that if the elven lords are treacherous enough to break the treaty in the first place, they are certainly treacherous enough to accept Shana, then attack anyway.'

'A good point,' Mero agreed. 'Oh, I'm worried, but right now it's only at the talking point, and all the dragons are backing Shana, so the very worst that would happen would be that Alara would have to fly off with Shana and the rest of her followers, and take them all down to the Iron People.'

Since that was precisely what Lorryn had just been thinking, he relaxed a little more. It was just the thought of Shana being in any danger at all that put his stomach in a knot…

We're had so little time to get to know each other—but did them and Rena have more? And yet— I wish I knew what she was thinking, what she thought of me. What Rena and them had that we had none of was time alone. She and I have to keep thinking of things besides ourselves…

'But taking her to the Iron People would lead the elves to Diric's clan,' Lorryn pointed out. 'And we pledged to avoid that. Is our honor no better than theirs?'

Mero grimaced. 'Maybe—I don't know. Shana is worried, but not in a panic, so I can't worry too much. But that means that we are going to be pretty much on our own here.'

There was another tap on the door, Lorryn sent an arrow of thought out, and relaxed when he recognized Rena. He nodded at Mero, who leapt out of his seat and made a dash for the door, opening it and seizing Rena to pull her inside with something that was as much embrace as it was anything else. He shut the door, and Lorryn politely averted his eyes as Mero made it into a real and wholehearted embrace.

I'm glad they found each other, he thought, wistfully. I just wish—

He didn't complete the wish. He had no idea if it would even be possible. Shana was an infuriating combination of everything he had ever hoped for in a woman—and everything he found maddening in any person. She was stubborn—strong-willed, his conscience reminded him—opinionated—a leader—too quick to speak her own mind—intelligent—impatient—a fast thinker—self-centered—self-sufficient—

Well, the list and litany could go on for hours. He could not get her out of his mind, though. Even when he should have been thinking of other things, he often dreamed about her at night, and found thoughts about her intruding during the day. He had made the excuse to Mero that his own mental powers were too feeble to reach her from elven lands, but the real reason he did not want to speak mind to mind with her was that he was afraid he would reveal his own decidedly mixed feelings about her. She could not afford the distraction, especially not now. And he—

I can't afford the distraction either. I'm walking a knife-edge here. And— I don't want to know how she feels. Not now. Maybe not for a long time. I—I just don't want to know if she does think of me as no more than another wizard. I'd rather cherish a few illusions for a while.

Besides, it wasn't as if he didn't have other things to think about!

Rena coughed politely, and he turned back to face them. They stood discreetly enough, side by side, but their hands kept creeping toward one another. He kept his eyes above the level of their hands.

'How did it go?' he asked.

Her face shone with pleasure at her own accomplishments. 'Perfectly,' she replied. 'I showed my jewelry— they'd already been seeing it, of course, at fetes, and I told them where they could find it. I told Lunalia and Merynis the truth about it—their fathers are horrid people—and I slipped them pouches then and there. It's really dreadful; this was supposed to be a prebetrothal party for poor Lunalia. Her father's pledged her to some arrogant er-Lord who seems to think she should act like his concubine, and not even having vapors at the mention of anything indelicate or pretending to faint when he took off his shirt made him—' She stopped as Lorryn choked on laughter, and doubled up, gasping. 'What are you laughing at?'

He told her about his last 'customer,' and had to hold on to a table when she started to giggle too.

She was not the gentle little ineffectual Sheyrena she had been—the Sheyrena who would have reacted to his laughter with indignation, and who probably would have burst into tears at the notion that he could have found Lunalia's plight funny. She'd found that spine he had wished she would grow, and he had a notion that she'd found it somewhere back in the alicorn-hills.

She wasn't 'his' little Rena anymore, though. In a way, that made him a bit sad. She didn't look to him for a partner in jokes or a source of company—she looked to Mero.

Oh, it was natural and inevitable, but it also meant that little Rena had grown up…

As if to underscore that point, she sobered. 'The only thing is—Lunalia was the last,' she said. 'We agreed that I couldn't risk the private estates, because it would be too easy for me to be trapped there. That means there is only one more place on our list for me to go.'