Mercedes Lackey - Elvenbane

No one could be on his guard all the time. Especially not when it was something you had to work to shield against.

And it certainly didn't mean that Shadow, Valyn, or even Triana were on guard against the ploy.

Shana closed the book and pondered her options.

Right now, it looked as if Valyn's big plan to help the humans and halfbloods had pretty much come to nothing. So whatever got done, she was going to have to be the one to do it. She nodded grimly to herself. I should have known better than to get involved with those two. I can't undo it, so now I'm going to have to live with it . Maybe if she managed to pull this "cause" together, that would get Valyn's attention.

She reopened the book, and checked the text carefully, then decided to make some little experiments, figuring that she could probably drain power in such small quantities that it would scarcely be noticed. Considering how much they'd used her, she thought resentfully, it would serve them right.

Shadow, in particular, with Triana a close second.

From the moment they had entered the house, Triana had been making much of Shadow, and mostly ignoring the others. She'd even cured his cold...ignoring Shana, who was just as miserable. Predictably enough, it seemed that Shadow stopped thinking whenever the beautiful elven woman was around.

Shana's lip curled with contempt. Men. Completely useless .

Valyn had persuaded him to the handfasting...a simple ritual ceremony he himself had presided over...but if he had expected it to make the two of them fall madly in love, he had been sadly disappointed. Shana had no intention of following that particular plan.

Though Shadow's reaction had not been exactly what Shana had foreseen either. She had approached Shadow afterwards, intending to tell him frankly that she wasn't in the least interested in him , only to have him steal a march on her.

She seethed a little inside, with resentment and frustration, and squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. It was one thing to plan on jilting someone...but when the person you intended to jilt had the same thing in mind, it didn't do a lot for your pride... She'd made her little speech, too, just to save face, but it certainly fell flat. He hadn't reacted at all, that she could tell.

Well, let him have Triana, then. She would choose power. She would accomplish great things, while he wasted his time playing the fool to a woman who'd discard him as soon as she tired of him.

And the first task: cure this wretched cold.

The summer wind blew his hair all awry as Valyn set Triana's high-spirited little gelding into a gallop, riding out some of his restlessness and frustration. None of this was going as he had planned or hoped. Once they had reached this safe harbor, instead of everyone in the group pulling together and starting to plan how to take on the elven lords and the wizards, they all fell apart, drifting off to their own interests, the greater tasks ignored or forgotten.

While they plunged through a field of sweet-scented wildflowers, he guided the horse with skillful hands and a light pressure on the rein, and wondered what went wrong.

He'd used glamories on both Shana and Mero to get them to agree to the handfasting...but it hadn't worked. Or at least, it hadn't done more than get them to the handfasting. Once the handfasting ceremony was complete, they had gone off together...he'd thought for certain that they were starting to make a pair of it, that his glamories had worked.

But not too much later, he'd seen Shana alone in the library and Mero with Triana. The handfasting might just as well not have taken place.

He set the horse down a purposely overgrown path, where jumps appeared unexpectedly. The horse strained over the tallest of these, needing his encouragement to tackle them. He guided the gelding skillfully, and the horse responded...but not even the speed and the exhilaration of the jumping-course could shake the uneasy feeling that he'd done something wrong and it was backlashing on him. The horse took obstacle after obstacle, and he could not leave his worry behind him.

He wasn't particularly happy with the way Mero was spending so much time with Triana. His cousin had assured him that he was trying to bring Triana around to their point of view, to recruit her fully for the cause, but it didn't look like there was much recruiting going on...

He was being stupid, he told himself firmly, bringing the lathered horse to a walk and letting him cool himself down. Mero was just getting to her through the things she knew best. She had a good heart; when he got her to listen, Valyn knew Mero would bring her around. It was just a matter of time.

But he couldn't rid himself the premonition that they had an increasingly small amount of that time left.

Triana smiled at Mero, settled down on the couch beside him, and let her glamorie steal gently over him, binding him even tighter to her will. She didn't really have to condition most of her slaves; for all except the really strong-willed or dangerous, all she ever had to do was cast a glamorie. That was her strongest magic, the much-underrated magic of glamorie. The subtle webs of power that she wove were the reason why none of the elders had set their sights on her or her properties...why no one had ever seriously challenged her once she'd come to power...why her slaves were fanatically devoted to her.

She had put her entire stable of favorites aside for Mero's sake; the first few weeks were critical in the weaving of as complex a spell as she was working. Any jarring note could force her to reweave the foundations again. Once the net was in place and tight, she could do anything she chose with her victim, but until then, she had to move very carefully.

Mero's eyes glazed and he smiled happily back at her, gazing at her with his full attention. "And what should we do today?" she asked him. "I think we've surely gone over every bit of the estate by now; we've been riding, hawking, and hunting nearly every day. Is there anything you'd like to see or do?"

His eyes focused a little more, and he tilted his head to one side as he thought. Triana fluttered her eyelashes at him, enjoying the effect her flirtations had. She hadn't taken him to bed yet...she would save that for the moment she set the glamorie. Until then it was rather enjoyable, playing with him, first courting and then drawing back.

Valyn probably thinks I'm bedding him every night , she thought with carefully concealed amusement. And he doesn't approve . She wondered if his prejudices were finally showing...it was all right to befriend a human or a halfblood, but don't go to bed with one.

Poor fool, he couldn't see how that untidy little halfblood girl fawned on his every word. Or if he did, for some reason he was pretending he didn't. Triana hadn't had so much fun since the Midsummer Party last year when everyone turned out to be everyone else's lover, betraying each other on all sides, and no one knew it until they got to the party and the drink started to flow!

Mero blinked, as if he were trying to think of something. "I...you know, this probably sounds boring to you...but I'd really like to see what a Council session is like," he said finally. "I don't think I could get inside alone; I don't know how, I don't even know where it's held. And anyway I'm not good enough to do my own illusion of disguise yet. But you are, and since you're a Clan head, you could get in, right?"

Triana raised her eyebrows in surprise. So he was still thinking for himself. She hadn't thought he had that much willpower left. Obviously she was going to have to be extra-careful in setting the glamorie. "I could. Why?" she asked casually. "Is there a point in going?"

"Well, it's just that you learn a lot about an enemy from the way he acts with his peers," Mero said slowly. "And I want to see Dyran with his peers. I've never seen him as anything other than the master, and I have the feeling that he's the real enemy we'll have to face."