KEMAN STOPPED IN the middle of the road, with a chilly spring breeze whipping his mane and tail, and raised his head suddenly at the unexpected trill of melody in his mind.
Magic—an elven lord? Here? It “sounded” like someone he knew—
Then he realized why it “felt” so familiar. The last person on earth he expected. Fire and Rain, it’s Shana! She’s alive! She’s all right !
Now Keman knew what was meant by the two-legger expression, “It made the hair on the back of my neck crawl”—if that was the right expression. Did hair crawl? Feeling Shana’s magic at close range for the first time in months did something like that to him. The hair of his mane actually stood upright, and he raised his tail a little as he cast about for direction.
It’s her! he thought, first stunned, then incredulous, then overwhelmed by an avalanche of simple joy. It’s her! I found her! I found her !
And it was Shana’s magic; there was no doubt of that. But it was much, much stronger than it had been when she’d been driven out of the Lair. Stronger, and more controlled as well; be read that in the complexity and implicit power of the melody, and the general feeling that it was effortless. The change in her was astonishing.
All of which boded interesting times for the Kin and the Lair when they got back. If she’d been this strong, she wouldn’t have been driven out in the first place—and they wouldn’t be able to drive her out again! No one would be able to do anything to her anymore—
But that was secondary, really. What was important was that he had found her in the first place. I can’t wait to see her, to find out what’s happened to her ! He tossed his head and pranced with glee, all of his discouragement and depression changed in that single moment of discovery.
He looked about quickly, out of sheer force of habit. It was growing dark, and he hadn’t seen anyone on this wilderness track for—days. There was absolutely no point in keeping to the one-horn form he’d taken to keep predators and hunters away, not now, not when there was no one to see him. Without another thought, he sprang into the air and shifted in midleap, resuming his Kin-shape with a sigh of relief.
Not for the first time, he wondered how his mother could stand it. Anything else felt like his skin was too tight. He’d had no choice, until now. Several times, when he’d thought he was safe, he’d rounded a bend in the road and come face-to-face with a collared human out on some errand of his master’s—or even an entire pack-train of them. With the collars on, it was impossible to sense them; impossible to know where they were. So Keman had kept to a form that, while unusual, was also threatening enough to keep the curious at a distance.
The seductive song of magic came again, this time sustained, as if Shana was doing something that took a good deal of time. And it was joined by other, lesser melodies. She wasn’t alone, then. No, he could feel—hmm—six or seven other wizards, and a lot more people. Humans, but uncollared, and young, he thought. Keman caught his direction and flew off, wings beating strongly, at just above treetop-level. And with every wing-beat, he wanted to sing along with the melodies of well-constructed magery, caroling with joy. I can’t believe it — I finally, finally found her! And no one is ever going to take her away from me again!
It had been a discouraging winter. Lord Dyran’s estate had proved as barren of information as the city, and his rivals offered little* more. Keman’s guise of a young elven lord made him practically invisible—and for some cases, shifting into human slave form was even better, for very little attention was paid to slaves on most estates, so long as they were either working or at least not absent from an appointed duty. But none of this helped Keman in his quest for information, for Shana might just as well have vanished down a hole to the center of the earth.
Finally, for lack of anything else, Keman had taken to the wilderness. There were “wild humans” rumored to be living there; Shana might have escaped to them. Certainly, between them, the terrain and the wildlife made traveling the few roads that passed through those lands quite difficult.
All of which just proved that the elven lords didn’t have quite as much control over this world as they thought they did.
Elves didn’t take to those tracks willingly, and humans not at all unless ordered. Every year, pack-trains were lost to causes unknown, and more than a few travelers desperate or stupid enough to journey alone never reached their destinations. The elves claimed officially that the losses were due entirely to weather and wildlife, but rumors spoke of huge bands of bandit humans, commanded by some unknown or unnamed elven lord, who swooped down on the unwary traveler to rob and kill.
And there were other rumors, spoken in whispers, in corners, that said those bandits were commanded by no elven lord, but by other humans, and that they had sworn to die before wearing a collar.
In honest truth, during all his time here Keman had seen no sign of “huge bands of humans,” collared or otherwise. What he had seen was the result of elven tampering with weather and ecology; terrible storms that could sweep up out of nowhere, pounding an area with wind, torrential rain, and lightning, or burying it in snow and ice. He had never seen so many one-horns before, black and white—he guessed that at least half the one-horns still alive and breeding were here, in these wilderlands. And one-horns were by no means the fiercest of the predators prowling these woods. He’d encountered many creatures he had no name for, more evidence of failed elven tampering in hopes of producing creatures that could be sent out to kill hundreds of human pawns in their staged battles. Evidently they had not learned their lesson with the one-horns.
But there was no need for “huge bands of bandits” to explain the losses on these roads. Elven interference and indifference were more than enough to ensure that these wilderlands remained hostile.
The light was failing, but Keman altered his eyes for night-vision; both to use all the available light, and to see things by the heat they radiated. The second gave him an odd kind of view down through the boughs of the trees below. Pine-scent blew up to him as the branches tossed with his passing, as if he were creating a kind of tiny windstorm as he flew.
The magic-song ended, but Keman had his bearings. His own mind-reach was limited, but as soon as he thought Shana might hear him, he began calling with his mind. At first there was no answer, which was pretty much what he had expected, but as he neared, he heard a reply, and much sooner than he thought he would.
:Keman?: The voice in his head was incredulous, faltering a little, a bit stunned. :Keman, is that… That is you! Fire and Rain, I never thought — where are you?: She sounded even better than her magic; her thoughts were strong and clear, and he thought fleetingly that Alara would be proud of her control.
:Northeast of you, and closing.: he replied smugly, feeling rather proud of himself. :Did you really think I’d let you get thrown out here and not at least try to find you? I’ve been looking for you since before the snow fell, and —:
:Keman, I’ve got people with me.: she interrupted warningly. :Halfbloods and humans, and I can’t leave them. And they can’t see you, you know that. You know what would happen to you, and to Foster Mother. It’s bad enough that the elven lords have dragon-skin. At least most of them don’t have the faintest idea what it is. But if anyone, even the elven lords’ enemies, see a real dragon —:
:Not a problem, don’t worry,: he assured her. . I know how to handle the situation. Just be ready for your long-lost foster brother to find you shortly. He’s been looking for you since those humans stole you out of the desert. Umm— halfblood brother, or human?:
Silence for a moment, while powerful wingstrokes closed the distance between them. :Halfblood; I may have to bring you back with me to the Citadel — never mind, I’ll explain all that. You just think up a convincing story about how you found me, why you came looking for me, and how you tracked me from the desert. I’ve told them that’s where I lived, and I said I was a fosterling, but I never mentioned you or Alara.:
:All right,: he replied—scanning the forest ahead for an unusually large grouping of heat-sources. I think I see you ,: he said, when one appeared just ahead of him. : I’ll land and walk in.:
With that, he cut off his mental sendings; landing in trees this thick was going to take all his concentration. In fact, for a moment he wasn’t sure he was going to manage it at all—
Then he spotted the clearing, where one of the forest giants had fallen, taking down an entire swath of lesser trees with it. There was just enough room along the path of its destruction for him to make a prey-catching stoop and backwing into a good landing without getting impaled on the branches…
Moments later, he was in halfblood form, and lurking in the shadows, watching from behind the shelter of a tree trunk and trying to think of how best to approach the camp. He couldn’t see Shana from this angle, but there were three or four others in plain view from where he crouched, one human and two halfbloods, firelight flickering on their faces. They looked very young, at least to him—the human especially couldn’t have seen more than a dozen summers. He was afraid to walk right up to them, for fear he’d startle them; the halfbloods probably could do the same kinds of things Shana could, and he didn’t feel like getting pummeled by rocks—or worse, they might well be able to hurt or even kill with their powers. But he didn’t want to sneak up on them, either; that could be misconstrued, too.
Someone solved the problem for him.
“Don’t move,” said a hard, controlled voice in his ear, as something very sharp poked into his ribs. “And be grateful your ears are a little less pointed than an elven lord’s, or you wouldn’t be standing here alive.”
The pure, expressionless cold of that voice sent shivers up his back, and ice down his veins. He swallowed, and coughed to clear his throat. “I—uh—I’m looking for someone,” he began. He wondered if he ought to turn around, then decided that he probably had better not.
“I’ll bet you are,” the voice said, with just a trace of mockery.
“No, really—I’m looking for my sister, my foster sister, I mean, and I’ve come a long way,” he said, babbling desperately. “All the way from the desert. I’ve been looking for her since fall. She was taken by humans—”
“The desert?” The point digging into his ribs eased up a little. “What’s her name, stranger?”
“Shana,” he whispered, relaxing as the pointed object was removed from his side entirely. “She’s been gone for months and months—the others didn’t want me to look for her because they were afraid of the elven lords finding out about us, but I had to come. I’ve been looking for her for so long, and there hasn’t been a trace of her anyplace and—”
“That’s because she’s been with us for months and months,” the voice said dryly. “You’re not in the clear yet, stranger, but you’re closer. Let’s just move into camp, and see if Shana recognizes you.”
Keman stepped carefully from behind the tree trunk and picked his way across the branch-strewn, root-rutted, uneven ground towards the circle of firelight. As soon as he got a little closer, he saw Shana, who appeared to be deep in conversation with one of the human children. That was when he noticed something interesting—most of the halfbloods were in their late adolescence, and there wasn’t a single human that could be called anything but a child. Although Keman was no kind of expert, he judged them to be no more than ten, and several were younger.
Although Shana had every appearance of being engrossed in talk, Keman saw her taking quick glances about her out of the corner of her eye. Watching for him, he had no doubt. He did not reopen his mental contact with her, though. If she didn’t know when he was going to appear, her surprise would be more genuine, and more believable to his captor. Keman also had no doubt that this was the one to convince of his veracity. This one was woods- and worldly-wise. He had been keeping watch while the others huddled about the campfire. If Keman slipped, he’d catch it.
A twig snapped under his foot just as he entered the circle of firelight, and everyone looked up, variations on alarm and surprise on their faces. And a fraction of a heartbeat later, Shana leapt to her feet, and flung herself at him.
“Keman!” she cried, as he caught her awkwardly. “Oh, Keman, Keman —”
Then she burst into tears, which was not something he expected at all; he held her awkwardly, while the owner of the voice chuckled, and came around the two of them, into the firelight.
“Looks like you’re what you say you are,” the young halfblood said, tossing long, dark hair out of his eyes, and bestowing a half smile on his erstwhile captive. Keman had the oddest feeling, looking at the young man’s deep, troubled eyes, that a half smile would be all anyone would ever get from him…
“Look, family reunions are wonderful, but we’ve got a problem here, Shana,” said another young man—not with the kind of disparaging self-importance that would normally accompany words of that nature, but as if he was genuinely afraid. “We’ve got a dozen human kids with wizard-powers, and nowhere to take them. So now that we’ve got them loose, what are we going to do with them?”
One of the youngest girls snuggled up to him, and he put his arm around her as she looked up at him with frightened eyes.
“He’s right, Shana,” Keman’s guard said soberly. “You know we can’t take them to the Citadel, and they aren’t old enough to survive out here on their own—and even if they were, the elven lords would track them down in a season. They’ve hardly even seen the outside World, they certainly don’t know how to take care of themselves in the wilderness!”
One of the other children began to cry softly, and a halfblood girl got up to comfort her.
Shana stood away from Keman and wiped her eyes, becoming all business. “Why can’t we take them to the Citadel?” she asked, challenge in her voice and stance. “Why not? Who told you that? Who made the rule that we weren’t to let full-humans in?”
The second young man spluttered for a moment, and the one who’d caught Keman moved back a step, startled. “We can’t” the second managed to get out. “It’s never been done. The wizards would never—”
“The wizards did , back in the old days,” she said triumphantly. “And there’s no rule against it, either! That’s one of the reasons why the Citadel’s so big—half the people there were full-humans with wizard-powers, and not halfbloods at all! And there’s records in my room that prove it!”
The second boy’s mouth fell open—and Keman thought he caught a glimmer of approval from the first one. She really was leading them all, he thought with surprise. She was the one making the plans and doing the thinking.
Shana had changed; she’d been rebellious in the Lair, but in a disorganized way. She was still a rebel, but now she had battle-plans to get where she wanted to go—and Fire and Rain weren’t going to stop her.
“Look,” she said, dropping her voice. “Right now the real problem is getting the elven lords off the track. They’re definitely hunting us; Zed’s caught them trying to find us with magic, and I’ve been watching them too. So let’s split the party. If you take the children back to the Citadel, and smuggle them in by night, the masters won’t have a choice about letting them in or not, because they’ll already be there. Use one of the escape tunnels I showed you, instead of the front entrance, and they won’t know until it’s too late.”
“And meanwhile you’ll be doing what?” the first wizard asked, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested to Keman that he already knew the answer.
“Keman and I will be decoying the pursuit,” she said confidently, though he could feel her trembling. “Between the two of us, we can convince them that you’re all still with us, I think. It’ll take some work, but in some ways it will be easier than if we were all still together.”
Keman nodded, feeling that some sort of show of agreement was called for at this point. “Shana and I have done things like this before, losing enemies. We’ve been at it all our lives,” he said truthfully. “We’ll confuse your trail, and make ours the only clear one. Really, it’s easier for two people to look like two dozen than for two dozen to look like two. We’ll lead them north, I think, then lose them.”
“How?” the first one asked, skeptically.
Shana smiled. “Oh, trust me, Zed; they’ll think we sprouted wings and flew away.”
Keman coughed to cover the fact that he almost choked on that statement. When they looked at him curiously, he flushed. “There—there’s dozens of one-horns farther on,” he improvised hastily. “Shana’s always been able to control them. If we drove them down our backtrail, not even a demon would be able to pick it up again.”
Zed shrugged, but Keman caught admiration in his eyes for a moment. “All right. If you can do that, I guess I can take on the masters when they find out about these kids. Maybe I can get Denelor and Agravane to take our side; neither one of them can resist a kid. When do we start?”
“At dawn,” Shana said with determination. “Especially if a storm comes up to wash out your trail.”
-:Well, Keman,: the young dragon heard in his mind. :How good are you at calling rain these days ?:
:As good as I have to be,: he told her, soberly. .-You’re not the only one who’s been learning things .:
:Neither are you. That idea of using the one-horns is a good one, and we might as well do it if we get the chance. Well then,: she replied, with the same seriousness, something that seemed alien to the Shana he had known, :it’s about time we showed each other what we’ve learned .:
Keman hugged her shoulders, a two-legger gesture he had observed, but never had a chance to use. To his surprise, it felt good. Very good. It made him feel… no longer alone.
:I agree,: he said, some of that warmth spreading into his thoughts and coloring them with confidence. .:Let’s show them all .:
She looked at him in surprise; then, slowly smiled.
Valyn crouched on his heels and stared at the muddied ground for a moment, rain dripping from his hat-brim down his back. He saw no reason to use magic to keep himself dry; there was too much magic in use out here as it was. And he wasn’t supposed to be in these wild lands in the first place; if anyone detected him, they’d know in a moment that there was an elven mage out here, and the hunt might switch to him. After all, there had been rumors for decades that there was an elven lord acting as a bandit leader, operating out here with a band of collared humans. Catching such a renegade as that would be as useful as capturing the unknown parties who had released the slaves—in fact, such a leader might well be the one who had released them.
He didn’t need that, and neither did Shadow.
Cheynar didn’t know Shadow was a halfblood, but if he decided to be ruthless and use his coercion-spells on Valyn again—
He just might babble it, he thought unhappily. Now he knew why Cheynar didn’t use magic much. He saved it all for those moments when he really needed to know what was going on in someone’s mind, what things they were hiding, and he was good at it. If he hadn’t stopped questioning me, I would have told him about Mero, I know I would have .
“The bigger party went off that way,” he said, pointing. “And I think with luck, this rain is going to wash the trail away long before Cheynar and the others find it. But the one halfblood we want to follow went off that way, or that’s the way it looks, and she isn’t making any attempt to hide her trail.”
“She’s acting as a decoy,” Shadow said flatly, peering through the rain in the direction Valyn pointed. “I’m sure of it. She’s the best they’ve got—Valyn, I have to find her, or I’m never going to learn what I can do, because none of those others will ever trust someone—”
He broke off, and flushed with embarrassment. Valyn stood up, and patted his shoulder awkwardly. “I know,” he said, a little sadly. “I’m a liability to you, aren’t I? If I just went back right now—”
“You can’t, and we both know it,” Mero replied fiercely. “If you go back now, heir or not, your father—I don’t know what he’ll do to you. He might even be willing to kill you. He’ll certainly hurt you a lot, and—you know what he can do. He’ll work spells on you, and when he’s done, you won’t be Valyn anymore. You don’t have a choice. But she’s the one who saved the humans, and she’s the one who convinced the others to take the kids back to—wherever the other wizards are. If anybody will accept both of us, it’s her. And I’m not going without you.”
Valyn swallowed the lump in his throat that threatened to choke off his words. Cheynar had discovered him scrying, tracing the movements and actions of the young wizards, where he and his men had been able to read little or nothing.
He had not been amused. Valyn should have come running to him with everything the young Lord had learned, and they both knew it. So he had used his toughest coercive spells to pry everything he could out of Valyn, and left him in his room, in a sweat-sodden, helpless heap, when he’d heard what he thought was the end of it; where the outlaws were, what they were doing, and that Valyn had been spying on them for his own purposes.
Cheynar thought he knew what those purposes were, that Valyn was working for Dyran, or possibly even working for himself against both Dyran and Cheynar. It was a logical assumption; it wouldn’t have been the first time a son had acted against his father. Cheynar himself had done so, allying himself with Dyran and eventually taking the estate from his father.
Thank the Ancestors, Cheynar had been wrong about Valyn, and had been impatient to take up the hunt. If he’d questioned Valyn a moment longer…
But he hadn’t. Shadow had come in sometime later—how long, he couldn’t say, his mind was still fogged with the effects of Cheynar’s spells—and managed to wake him up. That was when he realized exactly what the results of all this would be, when Lord Cheynar returned, successful or not, from his hunt.
First, as soon as he recovered from the draining of his own magic, he would be at Valyn again, and this time he would not stop until he knew everything the young elven mage did.
He would learn that Shadow was not the trained bodyguard he was supposed to be. He would learn why Shadow was with Valyn—and what Shadow was.
And he would have a halfblood in his possession.
Then he would report everything Valyn had done to Lord Dyran—possibly turning Shadow over to him, possibly not; he might choose to eliminate the “dangerous halfblood” himself. It didn’t much matter. The moment Cheynar returned, Shadow was doomed, and so was Valyn.
Though he had been weak-kneed and shaking, Valyn had laid his plans and packed everything he thought he might need—and so did Mero. In the morning, claiming that they were following Lord Cheynar on his orders, they set out for the wilderness with packs and horses.
Within hours of entering the confines of the forest, they lost the horses—one, while they were setting up their first camp, to something they never even saw, only heard; the second to a broken leg as it fled whatever had carried off the first.
At least they hadn’t lost the packs.
Perhaps it was just as well. If the horses—or their remains—were ever found, it might be assumed that Valyn and Shadow had fallen victim to the unknown predator as well. A young and zealous elven lord might well have decided to follow Cheynar on his father’s behalf, with or without orders. That would give them at least the semblance of innocence, and might prevent Cheynar from being suspicious about why they had left the estate so abruptly.
Losing the horses left them afoot, but gave them an unexpected advantage. Cheynar and his hunters completely overshot the actual location of the wizards, and were now far beyond them. Valyn and Shadow, on foot, but with superior information, found their campsite just before the rains came pouring down out of the leaden, sullen sky.
It would not be long until every trace of the trail of the group was wiped out. The girl’s track, on the other hand, was so clear that it would probably withstand a flood—and that, given her actions so far, had to be deliberate.
Valyn hitched his pack a little higher on his shoulders, and set off on the girl’s trail, bow in hand, with Shadow following closely behind, keeping mental track of her. In this much, at least, Valyn had an advantage over Shadow; one of the expected pastimes of young lords was hunting, and Valyn had a great deal more practice at handling his bow than Shadow had. In fact, it was a violation of rules that Shadow knew the use of weapons at all. Only fighters, gladiators, and assassins, all of them carefully conditioned and trained, with special coercions on their collars, were allowed the use or knowledge of anything other than a simple kitchen-knife. Mero’s possession of weaponry had raised no eyebrows in Cheynar’s household, since he was assumed to be an assassin/bodyguard—but in Dyran’s, it could have been punished with death.
So Valyn took the lead, in case they roused something else as formidable as whatever killed their horses. And if an arrow tipped with elf-shot couldn’t kill whatever came at them, magic certainly could.
Or so I delude myself. Valyn had taken a look at the prints left by the thing that killed their horse, and had a fair notion of its speed. If it or another like it was lying in ambush for them, he wasn’t sure he’d have the time to get that first shot off.
But he wasn’t going to tell that to Mero. The young man was already apprehensive enough about being out in this untamed forest. Mero knew life between four walls very well; he was adept at intrigue and the ways to circumvent nearly anything. Out here, he was quite lost.
“How far ahead of us is she?” he asked over his shoulder. Mero was plowing doggedly through the underbrush, plainly miserable, head down and shoulders hunched.
He couldn’t help it; the cruelly logical and analytical part of him added: And paying no attention to anything around him, just on the ground in front of him .
“I think we can catch up with her just after dusk,” Mero said, his voice muffled and indistinct. “She’ll probably make camp about then. I doubt Cheynar will be close enough to pick up her trail until tomorrow, he’s off west and south of here, sure as anything that the goat he’s following is her.”
Valyn choked on a laugh.
“I just thought I’d tell you,” Mero continued, with just a hint of sullenness, “there isn’t anything close enough to be dangerous for—well, for a lot farther than we need to worry about. I am checking. I’m not as useless as you might think.”
Valyn flushed, wondering if Shadow had picked up some of his earlier thoughts. But then he remembered last night… and spoke, words he really hadn’t meant to say, but said anyway.
“That’s assuming it can’t hide its mind from you,” he retorted. “The thing last night could—or at least you didn’t know it was there until it got the horse!”
“I wasn’t looking for it!” Mero shot back resentfully, raising his head to glare at his cousin. “I’m looking now!”
“Are you willing to bet your life on being able to’see’ it?” Valyn said, after a moment of silence between them. “I’m sorry, Mero—I’m not. I’m not willing to bet my life on much of anything right now.”
More silence. Valyn glanced back over his shoulder, to see Mero plodding along, head down again. Then—
“Neither am I,” came the quiet reply.
Valyn checked the arrows in his quiver, and the tension on his bowstring. “Then let’s both do the best we can,” he suggested gently, guilty for making the point in the first place, even if it was a good one. “And let’s find this girl as quickly as we can, because she’s obviously better at this than both of us together!”
That earned him a wan chuckle and, feeling a little better, he turned his attention back to the trail.
Shana tensed, and snatched up the bow that had been lying beside her, as a chill of fear ran like icy lightning down her spine. She scanned the darkness beyond the range of the firelight, with eyes and mind; there was someone out there, out in the dark, watching them. Someone who hadn’t been there a moment before—
Or who had been cloaking his presence until this moment, which meant magic, the kind of magic only an elven lord or a halfblood could use. Humans could hide their thoughts if they had the power, or if they had been collared, but only elven magic could hide someone’s presence. The greatest of the wizards could, in the old days, even conceal the telltale “sounds” of magic use. Elves could do it routinely, but seldom bothered. Which meant the intruder was either an elf, or a wizard more powerful than any Shana knew.
No, wait. Her chill deepened, and her hands closed harder on the bow. The unknown was cloaking a double presence. There were two of them out there. One of them moved, and the sharp scent of disturbed, wet leaves came to her nostrils.
:Yes,: came the halting voice in her mind, before she could barricade it. :-There are two of us. We have been trying to find you. We need your help, most urgently .:
The “voice” was uncertain, uneven in tone and strength, as if the “speaker” was not used to communicating this way. Shana’s fear did not lessen, however, and she remained tense; she had never yet come across a case where an elven lord had used a human or halfblood with wizard-powers, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen—there were those suspicions in the old journals after all. Was this, the worst of her fears, about to be shown as the truth?
“Come out here where I can see you,” she said aloud.
:Shana, one of them is—: Keman began, as the two lurking in the shadows stepped into the light of their fire. The light reflected off dark hair, slightly pointed ears and green eyes—and, features shadowed behind his companion, white-blond hair, sharply pointed ears, angular features, pale alabaster skin and green eyes.
:— an elven lord,: Keman concluded lamely.
Well, there was this much; the elven lord didn’t look very lordly at the moment. Wet hair straggled down into his face, obscuring what the shadows didn’t. They both looked very much the worse for wear, rain-soaked, dirty, and weary, with clothing torn by brambles, and faces pale with cold. The expression in the halfblood’s eyes was one Shana might have empathized with: hopeful, and not a little desperate.
:My friend and cousin,: amended the halfblood defiantly. He stepped forward, placing himself between the young elven lord and Shana. “We came to find help, Valyn and I. He’s saved me so many times I’ve lost count,” the halfblood continued aloud. “He’s not like the others—and right now, he’s in just as much danger as we are. Maybe more.”
A nice story, if it’s true. Shana leveled her crossbow at his chest; at this range, especially with her own magics backing it, the powerful bow could quite easily send its single bolt through both of them. They both backed up a step, and she leveled an openly hostile gaze on them. “That’s exactly what you’d say if he was using you to find more wizards,” she pointed out, stalling for time while Keman readied himself for a quick change if need arose. “You’ve come out of nowhere, when I know I’m being followed by elves, and you tell me that I should help you because you’re in danger. That sounds like a trap to me. Right now I don’t see any reason to believe you. He could easily be controlling you.”
The halfblood’s reaction surprised her; he cursed, and reached up to his own throat, tearing off the collar and throwing it to the ground. “There!” he said angrily. “Does that convince you? Dammit, we’re cold, we’re hungry, we’re tired, we’re in as much danger as you are—and we’re helpless!”
“All of which can be feigned,” she replied coldly. “And he could be controlling you by some means other than a collar. Collars just happen to be a convenient vehicle for the coercion- and conditioning-spells.”
The elven lord—Valyn?—stepped out from behind his companion, though his face was still in the shadows. “You seem to know quite a bit about it,” he said mildly. “But Mero says you have much stronger mind-powers than he does. So why don’t you read his thoughts and see if what he is saying is true. Ancestors, for that matter, you can read mine, and welcome!”
That rather surprised her. Shana looked over at Keman, who shrugged. “I can watch them, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said quietly. “They won’t be able to get past me, I don’t care how good they are.”
Shana privately doubted that he could stop them, but she kept her doubts to herself. He’d been among elves for months, and he’d seen some of what they could do. If Keman thought he could counter the work of a powerful elven mage, then perhaps he could.
And perhaps he couldn’t. There really was no telling. But right now the situation was at a stalemate; they couldn’t trust these strangers, but neither could they drive them away.
She nodded reluctantly. “All right,” she said, lowering her bow. And, to Keman, : I hope I know what I’m doing, here. And I hope you weren’t boasting.:
She closed her eyes…
A moment later she opened them, grinning like a fool.
“Get in here and get warm,” she told them, as first Mero, then his cousin, relaxed visibly. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Mero grinned uncertainly back, and moved aside to let his cousin get by him. Valyn raked his sodden hair out of his eyes, and smiled at her, and only then did she really see him.
She flushed, and stared at him, then quickly looked away from him. Rain-soaked, filthy, and worn as he was, she had never seen a more incredibly handsome being in her life…
And she hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do about it.