Mercedes Lackey - Elvenblood

He shook his head violently. "It isn't anything you can guess," he replied, and seized both her hands to pull her over to a seat on the couch opposite the bed. 'Trust me, it isn't anything you can even imagine. I'm in terrible danger—I'm—"

He swallowed audibly, and passed the back of his hand across his forehead. "Something was supposed to happen at Lord Ardeyn's fete. The High Lords of the Council were testing everyone under a certain age as they arrived to see if they were halfbloods in a disguise of illusion."

She nodded, remembering that tingle of spell-casting she had felt as she arrived, and remembering, too, that she had wondered why her father had ordered cosmetics for her instead of an illusion of better looks.

"Well, I didn't go to the fete, and late last night three members of the Council arrived here with orders to test me for illusion," he went on, beads of sweat starting out on his forehead.

She shook her head. "I don't understand," she said, bewildered. "What could be so bad about that?"

She couldn't help thinking about her own plight—how could anything Lorryn faced in the way of some kind of test be worse than the trap she was in?

"They can't test me!" he said hoarsely, his hands clenching on hers until she made a sound of pain in protest and he released his hold. "Rena, they can't test me! If they do, they'll find out I am halfblood!"

She stared at him, the words refusing to make sense. "How can you be a halfblood?" she asked stupidly. "Mother—"

"Lady Viridina is my mother," he said woodenly. "But Lord Tylar is not my father. My father was a human slave, master of her household. She kept the illusion on me until I was old enough to hold it on myself. I am a halfblood, a wizard, and when the Council finds that out—"

Once again, shock—and the fact that this time she might be able to do something—gave her mind speed and clarity.

"They'll kill you," she breathed. "Oh, Ancestors! Lorryn, how—we have to do something! Can't Mother help you?"

He took her hands in that crushing grip again, but this time she hardly noticed. Despair had turned his features into a mask of pain. "Mother can't save me this time; Father locked her in the bower until the testing is over. You are the only person I can turn to. Can't you hide me among your servants or something? Can you—"

"I have a better idea," she replied quickly, as she made, then discarded, a dozen plans in a heartbeat. He couldn't hide here; he had to run away. And if he ran—

He had to take her with him.

She calculated, quickly. "At least, I think I do. One of my maids always seems to have all kinds of information about the dragons and wizards—it's reliable, too; I've checked it against all the things you've found out."

"What has that—" he began, then blinked. "Oh. Oh, of course! If she has a way of getting information, she may have a way back to the source!" A glint of hope entered his eyes. "Do you think she's an agent of the wizards?"

Rena shrugged; the idea had never occurred to her before, but it certainly made complete sense. "What else could she be? She's terribly forward, not much like any slave I've ever seen. She's not one of Father's castoffs, and anyway, they have a different kind of insolence. The wizards must have spies among the slaves, right? Or how else would they know what we were doing? And how else would they know who the halfbloods among the slaves were, to rescue them? She told me that the wizards were always rescuing halfblood children from the slave pens. Didn't they rescue the Elvenbane that way?"

He nodded, and his face took on a grave intensity. "They couldn't have known about me, because I wasn't a slave—unless this Myre of yours was sent here because they thought that either you or me might have had human blood."

"It makes sense," she agreed. "It makes even more sense when you think about all the stories she's told me about the dragons and the wizards, all the news she brought me about what they were doing. She says they're building a new stronghold right now, in fact, and that the dragons are helping them." It was her turn to clutch his hands. "We should run away, both of us, Lorryn! We should go to the dragons!"

"Both of us?" he said, sudden doubt in his voice. "But you aren't—"

"If you disappear, what do you think will happen to me?" she countered fiercely, before he could object. "Father would never believe that I didn't know something."

"He wouldn't use a coercion on his own—" Lorryn began.

"Oh yes he would," she said, with a savagery that took him aback. "He wouldn't hesitate, not for a moment, and especially not with three members of the Council breathing down his neck." Years of resentment at Lorryn's preferential treatment came to a boil, and she gave him truth after bitter, angry truth. "He was ready to wed me to the first drooling dotard or prize idiot that made an offer. He was willing to use coercions to get me to the fete. And he was quite prepared to have me sent away to be Changed if I didn't please Lord Lyon last night. You've never seen him fling his used concubines at Mother and expect her to smile and take them into her service! You've never listened to him insult both of us and expect us to nod and agree with him that we are useless, worthless, empty-headed idiots. You've never had to sit at dinner while he told his friends that you were hardly satisfactory, but if any of them were willing to take you off his hands, he'd be grateful! And you've never sat there in silence because if you dared to look insolent, he'd mage-lash you as soon as you were all in private. Mage-lashing," she added bitterly, "leaves no marks, after all; no scars that might disfigure a potential bride."

Lorryn looked stunned and shocked. "I didn't know—" he began in a whisper.

"It didn't matter," she replied, with bleak forgiveness. "You couldn't have done anything except get yourself in trouble. I learned quickly enough to be meek, silent, obedient, and invisible. Just the way he wanted, and something he didn't have to think about. Then he left me alone."

"But—"

"It doesn't matter," she repeated. "All that matters is that I have to escape with you, because he will use coercion to find out what I know if you leave me behind. So take me with you! I still have those boy's clothes that you gave me; we can find Myre and find out what she knows—"

He nodded, slowly. "If she can help us—if she knows how to find the wizards—"

"She must," Rena replied, "or where would she be getting all her news? I'll ring for her—"

"Don't bring the others!" he said in alarm, as she reached for a bell-cord. "If you call servants to come boiling in here, there's no way we'll keep this silent!"

She shook her head, exasperated. Didn't he know anything about the way a bower was served? There were times when a lady did not want anyone except the personal servant of her body to come anywhere near her. "Don't worry, Myre's bell goes only to her room; that's the price of her privacy and her status as my personal maid. They won't have changed that much yet."

It occurred to her that the timing of this crisis was nothing short of a miracle, so far as their escape possibilities went. One more day, and Myre would likely not be her personal maid anymore. Lord Lyon would surely send over slaves of his own to assure her continued obedience and docility. There had been something in that drink last night that had made her sleep like a stone; surely there would be more such drinks to ensure she had no second thoughts on the betrothal.

And in another week, she would be so busy with wedding preparations that Lorryn would have been unable to come anywhere near her during the day—and at night, there would be real guards mounted on all entrances to her rooms. Nothing was ever left to chance in a situation in which the bride might become—awkward.