Elvenbane Read Free Page B

knelt in obeisance. And how Lord Dyran had seemed a creature out of a tale; tall, haughty, clothed from head to toe in cream-and-gold satin, and cream-colored leather, so supple and soft-looking that Serina had longed to touch it. How he seemed to shine, taking in the light of the sun and sending it back out redoubled. He was so beautiful he made her breath catch, and she had thought,
He must be a child of the gods
… And the woman with him, like a jewel herself, made Serina ache with envy. The woman was clothed in the softest silks Serina had ever seen, and laden with a fortune in gold chains. Gold chains formed the cap that crowned her golden hair, gold chains depended from the cap and flowed down her back, gold chains circled her neck and arms, and held her cream-colored dress closely to her body at the waist. She was magnificent, nearly as beautiful as the elven lord beside her, and Serina wanted to be wearing that dress, standing in her place.
    She recalled how Lord Dyran had taken an imperfectly made sword that her father had brought to him in complaint, and bent it double, then bent the doubled blade back on itself a second time. That strength took her breath away once more, and sent little chills over her. What would it be like to have that strength—or be the one for whom it was gentled?
    Then he had the smith who made the blade brought to him. All he had done was stare at the man for a moment, then make a little flicking motion of his hand—but the man had bent over double and had dropped screaming to the ground, and had to be carried out. No one protested or lifted a hand to help him. She had heard later that the Lord had cast elf-shot at him; and that should he ever again pass an imperfect blade, the tiny sliver of elf-stone lodged in his chest would lash him again with the same agonies.
    Serina wondered; if her father sent out a fighter judged to be “imperfectly trained,” would the same thing happen to him?
    She shivered as she realized that the answer was “yes” and that no excuses would be accepted.
    “
If you would rise, do so alone
,” she heard in her mind, and recalled the gold-bedecked woman at Lord Dyran’s side, watching the smith writhe in agony at her feet, her face impassive.
    The lesson was there, and easy to read.
    Rise alone and fall alone. If he had cared half as much for me as he did for the purity of his blades
—
but I was less than a blade, and he had a replacement standing ready
.
    As she took each step, each breath in agony, there was a hotter fire burning in her mind. Once Lord Dyran had grown tired of her, she was of less use than one of his pensioners. And he no longer cared what happened to her.
    The pensioners—once she had scorned them; the weak in power, or elven “lords” fallen on hard times, who had lost too much in the ever-renewing duels. The duels were
fought
by their trained gladiators, but they represented very real feuds, and the losses incurred when their fighters lost were equally real…
    Twice as pathetic were the sad cases whose magic was too weak to accomplish more than self-protection. Though these “pensioners” could not be collared, they could be coerced in other, more subtle ways. They often served as overseers, as chief traders, and in other positions of trust. They were neither wholly of the world of the High Lords, nor pampered as luxuriously as the treasured slaves, such as concubines and entertainers. Serina had pitied them, once.
    No. Better to fall, she thought, than eke out a miserable, scrabbling existence like theirs…
    Better to have reigned at least for a little while; to have stood at Lord Dyran’s side, and answered to no one but her master… to have feared only purely mortal trickery. Unlike the pensioners, whose every action was a move in a game they did not understand.
    “So,” Dyran said, regarding the top of the trembling overseer’s head, as the elven subordinate knelt before him. “It would seem the quota cannot be