“You will be given property and a home in any place you wish. And gold enough to live out your days.” Rianaire stood from the chair. “Beyond that, you may do as you like. Stay among my court as Eala’s advisor. Find some elf man to kidnap and fall deeply in love with. The same for your children, should you have any somehow.”
A rolling, lyrical series of chirps sounded in Gadaí’s throat. “I am past the breeding age and well past any interest in such pleasures and all of my children have gone before me to the dirt. But I will do this thing. I will be this Binse.”
Rianaire clapped once, but felt no satisfaction in the problem she knew she’d solved. “Good. Then we will have a wonderful celebration to welcome you to your post. I have had near enough as I can stand of serious faces and constant meetings.” She paused at the door, Inney pulling it open. “Tomorrow, then. A dinner feast and wine until we can no longer stand it.”
In the hall, Inney walked beside her. Rianaire could feel an awkward tension from her.
“Say what you will, Inney. I will always hear you, even if I do not like what you say. You must keep me honest that way.”
Inney stopped in the hall and Rianaire turned to her.
“I worry what will happen. I do not doubt you…”
“Oh? You are the only one.”
The half-Drow shook her head. “I see the reason in what you do. Perhaps because I have no attachment to the elves, and no reason to fear Gadaí… but how will you make them see? All the others?”
Rianaire drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Do you remember the alehouse?”
Inney nodded.
“Those people… they are the ones who care for their lives. Not their station or their comfort, but that, when tomorrow comes, they wake and draw breath as they did before. Whatever they lose or gain, that will be the most precious thing to them.” Rianaire took Inney by the hand, and swung her around, dancing in the silence of the hallway. “Those are the people I serve from this place above them. The others, they will all kick against the current only when they fear the lessening of their status or comfort.” She dipped Inney and kissed her, pulling her back and waltzing again down the empty, quiet hall. “You see, when a mage may become a simple soldier or a farmer may become a Binseman… then they show themselves for what they are. Wolves who have become comfortable in the skin of a sheep because the shepherd keeps them safe and keeps them fed.” She spun Inney away and brought her back, pulling her close and kissing her deeply. “I do not tend wolves, Inney. Nor do I intend to start.”
U
Aile
She refused to sleep, though the girl they sent time and again implored her to. She was sitting in front of Aile again, rambling as she always did. Aile watched her through cautious eyes. They no longer opened the cell door and she assumed they had given up on keeping the poison behind her ears. The girl said it had been her doing. She’d insisted to someone called Tramman, a Drow name, that it was bad to make her have it on if Aile did not like it. They still did not know her name.
“He was hesitant but I convinced him. It isn’t right, I said. Not right for you to be so upset by it. Not when you are so beautiful as you are.” The girl was mending clothes. She did not so much as look up at Aile as she talked, except when she felt she’d made an especially good point. “Everyone agreed, you know? That you were a true beauty. Oh, I just know you are the most beautiful in the whole of the Blackwood. Such luck for you to come to us as you have. I wish they wouldn’t keep you in this cage as they do. You should see what we have built, our beautiful home here. The trees are not the same, I’ve heard, but we have made it as much like home as we could.” The elf talked nonsense, as they all seemed to. “So many happy families. I do not have one yet, but Tramman promises me I will, one day he says.”
It was nearing night and though there had been no talk of any ceremony like the one from the day before, she did not relish the idea of being in another. The bars were set deep into stone at the ceiling and floor and she’d been left nothing to pick the lock. She’d made an attempt to shape the pestle into something more usable, but the rock was too given to breaking. There was a crate at the far end of the cellar, but it was unlikely to bring her any measure of use at that distance. Were her clothes and her knives not completely destroyed by this point, Aile expected they were either in the crate or stored some place. Likely being come upon by insane elves for reasons beyond imagining.
Aile stood and the girl stopped sewing to watch as she moved from the pad to the edge of the cell. She looked at Aile as a child might watch its mother pull her breast for milking, curious and enthralled. An idea occurred to her.
“What is your name, elf?” She made her voice soft, insipid as she imagined elves liked. “I wish to know.”
The girl dropped her work and came to her feet, rushing to the bars. “You do? You mean it?”
“Of course, you seem… kind.”
“My name… it’s… Inre.” Her head fell. “It is an elf name. Not very pretty, I know. I wish I had another. A Drow name. Tramman told me it would be rude to throw away my elf name.”
“Tramman?”
“He leads us! He is very wise. He was born among the Drow, and knows all there
