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dangerous—as the kinds of magic that Lorryn wielded.
    And yet, at the same time, she was afraid to stretch out her hand and take the ephemeral power that beckoned her. No other elven woman had ever dared do so—perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps this beckoning power was nothing more than an illusion of strength. True, she could make a colorful bird out of a sparrow—but what good was that? What did it prove?
    "If my lady could remove her foot from the sleeve, please?"
    But what if it was not? What if it was real? What if she had discovered something no one else knew?
    Her secret thoughts weighed in her soul and made it impossible to accept anything at face value anymore. Hardest to bear was the way her father treated her mother and herself.
    This very gown was an example of how little he thought of them, how little he trusted them with anything of import. To Sheyrena's certain knowledge, the only time he ever came to Viridina's bower with a pleasant face was when he wanted her to come play the proper wife before his influential friends. In private, neither of them could ever truly please him. He preferred the company of the human slaves in his harem, and constantly compared Viridina to his latest favorites, always unfavorably.
    Not that I envy them
, she thought, glancing out of the corner of her eye at one of the redheads.
Father's tastes are fickle, and his favorites never last long
.
    And when his favorites were out of favor, Lord Tylar seemed to take a malicious delight in sending them to serve his wife or daughter in the bower. Sheyrena had never been able to guess whether he did so to try to torment them with the still lovely presence of his former leman, or to torment the former favorite with the presence of the lawful wife who could not be displaced. Perhaps it was both.
    Viridina accepted this quietly and without a single comment, ever; just as she accepted with the same serene resignation everything else that life bestowed on her. She was not envious of the harem beauties either; there was really no difference in the world of the harem and that of the bower except that Viridina could not be supplanted. They had neither more freedom than their putative mistress, nor less. As Sheyrena had gradually come to understand, the distinction between the bower and the harem was that the bower was a harem of one. Only when it came to Lorryn and Lorryn's well-being did Viridina show any signs of interest—though a furtive, obsessive, fearful anxiety, as if she was terrified that something would happen to him. She watched over Lorryn with the care and concern she could have shown if he were an invalid, rather then the healthy creature he was. Or did his attacks of
kryshein
mean he was not as healthy as Sheyrena thought? Was there some secret trouble with Lorryn, something Rena could not be told? But if that was true, then why hadn't
Lorryn
told her? He never had kept any secret from her before!
    Viridina might accept her lot as an elven lady, but it was more than Sheyrena could stomach for herself.
    Better to be ignored as the daughter than humiliated as the wife of someone like Father.
    She was surrounded by all of the slaves now, each of them making minute adjustments to the gown, the lacings, as if she were nothing more than a mannequin inside it and the gown itself was the important guest. Sheyrena had a sudden, absurd thought, that perhaps this was the real truth—that the gown had a life and purpose of its own, and she was nothing more than the vehicle it required to propel it to the place where it would be admired!
    Yet, in a sense, that was the whole truth. The gown represented Lord Tylar, his power, his wealth, his position.
She
was nothing more than the means to display all these things, a convenient banner-bearer. It was the banner that was important, not the hand that held it, after all.
Anything
would have served the same purpose.
    If I'd been as feeble-wined as Ardeyn's mother, he would still have had me