Elvenbane Read Free Page A

knives, metal-barbed whips, tridents—all meant to prolong combat, all requiring great skill in the handling.
    The two fighters in the arena now, practicing under her father’s careful eye, were armed with gladiatorial weapons. One had a trident, the other, a chain-flail; both were also armed with knives.
    The exchange seemed to be an even one; the red-haired giant with the chain-flail managed to stay out of reach of the trident points, while the swarthy man with the trident avoided having his pole fouled by the chains of the flail. Serina watched them with wide eyes, remembering that she had seen one of the breeder women taken from the red-haired man’s cubicle this morning, her face a mass of bruises.
    And she knew already that
she
was destined to serve these men, or others like them—unless she managed to save herself from that fate.
    “Your fate is in your own hands,” Jared had said. “Always remember that, girl. Make it your first concern to please your Lord, because no one else can make any difference to you.”
    The slave-master had already remarked to Ambra, her mother, just how fast she was growing, and how she was going to have to go into training soon. Serina knew what that training was for; Jared had explained it to her with blunt words; explained the difference between a concubine and a breeder. And he had hammered home the lesson that any change in her fate lay only in Lord Dyran’s hands and her own diligence.
    She had seen already how true his words were. Only last year they had taken her older brother Tamar away, sold or given him to another elven lord who had admired his fragile grace. Her younger brother Kaeth was being trained now in the assassins’ school, taken there two weeks ago, when his agility had been uncovered during a foray on the Lord’s fruit trees.
    She had cried when Kaeth left in the hands of his trainers, and her mother had taken her aside, into her own room, and sat her down on the edge of the bed; told her sternly to dry her tears. “The lords rule everything,” Ambra had said, without pity, but with tears shining in her eyes, tears that Serina sensed she dared not shed. “We are fortunate in having a lord such as Lord Dyran to rule us. He rewards us well for good service; there are lords who reward no one and nothing, and punish as their whim leads them. If Kaeth does well, he will be rewarded. He
deserved
to be punished for stealing fruit, and instead he is being given a wonderful chance. He
could
have been killed out of hand. That is the difference between our Lord and others.”
    “But
why?
she had cried. “
Why
do they rule us? Who said they could? It isn’t fair!”
    Another parent might have cuffed her; might have said: “Because that’s the way it is.” But not Ambra.
    “They rule us because they are strong, and powerful, and they have magic,” she said, and Serina sensed a resigned sadness in her words. “We are weak, and the gods gave us no magic at all. The lords live forever, and our lives are short. If we are to prosper, we
must
please the lords, for the gods love them, and despise us.”
    “But
why
? Serina had wailed.
    Ambra only shook her head. “I do not know. There are those who say that the lords are the children of the gods; there are those who say the lords are demons, sent by the gods to punish or test us. I only know that those who please them live and are rewarded, and those who do not, die. It is up to Tamar and Kaeth now, to please their lords. As you must please Lord Dyran, and those he sets over you. Nothing else matters, and neither I, nor your father, nor your kin or friends can help you. They can only hinder you. If you would rise, you must do so alone.”
    Serina remembered that, and remembered the glimpse she’d had of Lord Dyran this afternoon, when he had come to see how the training of his fighters was progressing. She’d watched as her proud, stern father bent until his forehead touched the ground; how the other fighters had