Really, Myre chuckled to herself, as she watched Tanhya returning to the dressing chamber, her back stiff with anger, how dense can even a two-legger be? You’d think she’d have known that stupid cook’s helper of hers would be caught. And that he’d talk once he was caught. I don’t care how good you are in bed, that’s not going to keep your paramour from telling everything he knows when his tail is in the fire? After all, it was trying to seduce one of the guards into spoiling Keri’s looks and making it look like an accident that got her sent down here in the first place.
One more incident, and Tanhya would probably find herself sent to the breeding pens. No elven lord would ever take the quarrels between the women in his harem seriously enough to invoke the ultimate punishment on the perpetrators—but no elven lord would ever allow someone like Tanhya to inconvenience him, either. And right now, being without Keri would be a serious inconvenience for Lord Tylar.
This was all the more amusing to Myre because Keri’s rise in the harem was due to her own interference. Keri had been simply very attractive—until Myre slipped into the harem one night, and did a little careful rearrangement of her face. From sculpting stone it was a simple matter to move to sculpting flesh, and anyone who knew how to shape-change would find it very easy to make that transition if the power was there in the first place. Next morning, Lord Tylar found himself possessed of a real beauty, and Keri’s rise from nothing to Chief Concubine had upset the established order of the harem. That had put the idea in Tanhya’s head that she could become Chief Concubine as easily as Ken, and the fight was on.
Strangely enough, it never occurs to the elven lords that the same powers their women use to sculpt flowers could be used to make beauties of their human slaves.
That had been very early in the game, when Myre had first insinuated herself into this particular household as only a dragon could—shape-shifted into the form of a human slave. Her only thought at the time had been to see how much she could learn, and how much trouble she could cause for the elves. She hadn’t picked this House for any particular reason, other than the fact that Lord Tylar’s overseers were not terribly careful about keeping track of ordinary female house-slaves.
The elder dragons would have a fit if they knew. She was not supposed to be here at all, in fact, and certainly not in the form of a human.
She was supposed to be shape-shifted among the wild alicorn herds; that was what the elder dragons of the Lair thought she was doing. They’d have had seizures if they knew where she really was.
Since the second Wizard War, the young dragons of the Kin—those that had not deserted the Lairs of the Kin to help the halfbloods—had orders that were not to be violated. Stay away from the elves. It was bad enough, so the elders thought, that the elves knew that dragons existed. It would be worse, much worse, if the elves had any idea of their shape-shifting abilities, or how easily and thoroughly their very homes could be invaded. Only the oldest and most clever of the dragons would be permitted to walk in shifted form among the elves—only those with experience in keeping themselves safe. And only for the purpose of gathering information—there would be no interference in the lives of human slaves or of elves.
Hah. As if alicorns had anything worth learning about.
Like Tanhya; pretty outside, crazy inside, and just about as much sense. And speaking of Tanhya—
She has her little circle of supporters, and one of them is our supervisor. If I don’t want to end up doing some mindless chore until bedtime, I’d better get out of the way before Maryan finds out who delivered the bad news to Tanhya.
The best, and most entertaining, place to “get out of the way,” as Myre knew from long experience, was the roof. Not that a human slave had any business being on the roof, but she wouldn’t be a human slave once she got up there.
She went up two staircases and a ladder, and out the rooftop hatch, and a moment later there was one more ornamental moonbird-rainspout up on the roof than there had been before. From this vantage, Myre had an unobstructed view of the grounds of the rear of the manor—the place where things actually happened, that is. Not the pleasure garden, but the kitchen garden, the stables, the beginning of the slave quarters. With all the masters gone; but Lorryn, the only activity would be among the slaves.
She watched the slaves scurrying about their business with avidity; after having been one, she had quite a few motions about how the Kin could use the natural abilities of humans. It would be very pleasant to have someone around to oil her skin and groom her, for instance—to heat water for a really good hot bath instead of making do with the odd hot spring—to hunt her kills for her and skin and prepare them in nice, bite-sized chunks—to keep her lair swept and clear of vermin.
The old ones are crazed, cowards, or both, she thought resentfully. Just because the elves know we exist, that doesn’t mean they have a clue about what we can do! They can’t detect us when we’re shape-changed among them, our magic isn’t an illusion that can be broken, and unless they somehow get the idea that we shift mass into the Out, they’ll never know what to look for.’ Her thoughts ran down old, well-worn paths of discontent and rebellion. With proper manipulation, the Kin could easily wear down both sides of this conflict, halfbloods and elves alike, until they were both so worn out with the struggle that we could take over both sides at once. Then we would be the ones to dictate terms and peace, and the humans would probably be so grateful that they would serve us better than slaves!
It was a glorious thought, ripe with a hundred possibilities, all of them currently blocked by the elders’ stubborn refusal to see any other path but that of caution.
Myre was not alone in her restlessness by any means; she had her own coterie of followers among the younger dragons, who chafed at the restrictions that the elders placed them under. They wanted the right to range freely in any shape they chose, and there were at least one or two who found the idea of having two-legger servants as pleasing as Myre did. All of them had decided that the elders were too conservative and needed to be replaced in their roles as leaders of Lair and Kin.
There was only one little problem with this.
The older a dragon became, the more powerful he grew. A dragon never really stopped growing, and with age came physical strength, skill in magic, and power of will. No one dragon, no group of dragons Myre’s age, could ever hope to defeat an elder.
No group of dragons, maybe. If someone had looked up from the garden at that moment, he would have seen the waterspout gape its beak in something like a smile. But it doesn’t have to be a dragon, does it?
The elders feared elves and wizards alike, and with good reason. Small and physically weaker than dragons, their magics were nevertheless quite formidable, even by draconic standards. One against one, and the dragon would win—but elves and halfbloods would never fight a dragon in a single combat.
I’ve seen what they can do, elves and halfbloods alike. If I could get a halfblood on my side, and trick it into helping me get rid of the older dragons, I could pack the Council with my friends. There’s a lot of discontent among all of the Kin, not just the ones in my band. They don’t see any reason why we need to redouble our efforts to keep in hiding now that we aren’t a secret anymore. I don’t even have to do much, just weaken the elders, cloud their minds or something, and take over quietly and easily. By the time they figure out what’s happening, it will be too late to stop me.
The only dragons who would have opposed her were no longer with the Kin, anyway.
But that particular observation brought her no joy, only a sour feeling in the back of her mind. Those dragons—led by her own mother, who should have been supporting Myre instead of agonizing over the wayward behavior of Myre’s brother Keman—were part and parcel of the cause of the very restrictions Myre now suffered under!
If Mother hadn’t brought that damned halfblood cub home—or if someone had just had the decency to get rid of it instead of letting Keman make a pet out of it—none of this would have happened.