LITMIR.BIZ

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the moment he could toddle and assigned to the boy as quickly as possible. He hadn’t dared entrust this task to anyone else, he’d told her – no one else had served him so faithfully; no one else would take enough care. He told her she would want for nothing, and he would reward her beyond her wildest dreams.

      She would never tell him, but the young guardsman he had assigned to her for the breeding, he of the thoughtful eyes and rippling muscles, had been beyond her wildest dreams. He did everything she told him to; it had been altogether intoxicating to be the one in the position of power for a change. And equally intoxicating to be the one to whom pleasure was given, rather than the one who gave it.

      Perhaps she would ask for him to be assigned to her permanently as part of her reward …

      The pain came again, and she cried out with hurt and anger. What was wrong with the midwives? Why didn’t they do something? Didn’t they realize how important she was?

      She tried to say something, to give them the tongue-lashing they deserved for their carelessness, but she couldn’t manage a single word. Only gasps of agony as the pains came closer and closer together, until she was reduced to moaning mindlessly, like an animal.

      Alara decided that she didn’t care if Serina was a heartless beast. She didn’t care what Serina had done in the past. She was a female, about to give birth, and in that she appealed to the dragon’s deepest instincts. Alara had to help her.

      The decision was hardly even a conscious one; Alara couldn’t help herself. There were precautions she could take against discovery, in the unlikely event that the woman came out of her delirium. It was foolish, it was sentimental, and it certainly violated the letter, if not the spirit, of the law against being discovered. But at this point, after spending so much time living in Serina’s thoughts, she felt she had to intervene, if only as recompense for the stolen memories.

      One last look into the human’s mind before she brought her barriers up and gave her what she needed: the form of one of the midwives of the estate.

      Quickly, she reached for the free power of the pool, and a ripple went through her as she shifted most of her mass into the Out. She shifted carefully, so as not to disturb the equilibrium of the child within her, and just to be on the safe side, as she shifted her own form into human, she shifted the child’s as well. It was a time-consuming operation: the sun was nearing the western horizon, and the woman was close to actual birth, growing weaker with every breath, when she finished.

      As she knelt beside the laboring woman’s body, lifting her easily into a more comfortable position, she saw Serina’s eyes fix on her for a moment with sense in them. Sense enough to recognize what and who she was masquerading as, at any rate.

      The woman opened her mouth, but no words emerged. Alara trickled a handful of water into her mouth. Then, under the pretext of supporting her head, Alara gently exerted a little pressure on certain nerves of the spine, at the point where the neck joined the shoulders.

      Serina swallowed; her eyes went wide with surprise for a moment as the pain ceased. Then she closed her eyes against the light of the westering sun, and slipped further into delirium.

      It was an easy birth only in the sense of being quick. Alara was appalled by the amount of damage and knew, as Serina began to bleed profusely, that there was nothing she could do about it. Within moments the child lay on a scrap of cloth torn from Serina’s skirt, cradled in a hollow scooped in the sand. A little girl – and as ugly as only a human child could be.

      And as the child slipped from her, the mother heaved a great sigh, and then breathed no more.

      Alara stared at the wet, red, wrinkled mite, revolted, and wondering why on earth she had bothered to save the child.

      Fire and Rain! The creature wasn’t even finished yet! She should just leave it here to die with its mother; it would be better that way. She didn’t even know exactly what to do with it – she’d probably kill it by accident. What an awful little beast –

      Then the little creature opened its tiny mouth – and a thin, unhappy wail rose above the desert silence.

      That wail cut straight to Alara’s maternal heart, as sure as elf-shot, and as deadly … and she knew she couldn’t leave it here. Not after all this. It was only a baby. She ought to be able to figure out how to care for it. It couldn’t be that different from other cubs and kits.

      She immersed the baby in the pool just long enough to clean her, and wrapped her in the remains of Serina’s dress. She didn’t look any better clean – but she stopped crying. Though Alara felt unformed waves of hunger coming from the child, she simply stared into the dragon’s eyes with odd intelligence, as if she was able to focus on things even at this early age.

      It’s my imagination.

      Fire and Rain, what am I going to do with the child?

      Take it home, I suppose.

      She reached again for the energy flowing from the pool, and let it ripple through her as she shifted back into her native form. The child lay in the sand, bathed in the golden rays of the sunset, and made no sound at all. Alara was beginning to be a bit unnerved by this silence, as well as by the way the infant seemed to be able to track on her.

      The shaman stretched out her wings to their fullest extent, catching the last of the heat of the sun, her shadow falling long and black over the sand and the child. She’d better go now, while she could catch thermals, she decided. Keman had a whole little zoo. Maybe he could put this thing to nurse with one of his pets.

      She hooked her foreclaws into the fabric cradling the baby, taking extra care not to scratch it, and launched herself into the cobalt sky with powerful beats of her wings and legs.

      You know, she thought to herself, as she took her bearings from the sun and the evening star, and headed back to her Lair, there really ought to be something in the Prophecy about this. Hmm. Maybe I’ll put it there myself.

       Now wouldn’t that sound impressive in the mouth of the old, blind holy woman! ‘Child of dragons, the Elvenbane …’

      She chased the setting sun across the desert and into the high plains. Beneath her, herds of antelope and grass-deer moved out of the shelter of scrub where they had spent the day, heading for water and open grazing. When the shadow of her wings passed over them, they invariably took fright and ran for cover.

      Not tonight, you juicy little creatures. I’m not out hunting right now.

      Besides, that would be poaching. One of the other Lairs managed this part of the country; Leanalani’s Lair, if she recalled correctly. It wasn’t polite to swoop down on another Lair’s territory and hunt without permission.

      The herds kicked up a lot of dust as they ran. It had been a very dry summer here so far. The clouds of dust glowed in the last rays of the sun, red and gold-red; shadows stretched out in purple fingers from everything, across the gilt-edged grass and scrubland. Before her, the sun died in a blood-red and gold sky; behind her the sky had deepened to indigo. Overhead, a thin crescent moon peered wanly down at her.

      From below came the hot breath of the plains; redolent with the aromas of dust and sun-baked vegetation, with a hint of deer-musk and now and then a breath of hidden water.

      As she continued to press westward, the setting sun seemed torn in half along its lower edge, a jagged line of black cutting across it before it reached the horizon.

      Those were the mountains. Not long now …

      Beyond the desert which the elvenkind would not cross, beyond the territories managed only for game, lay the Lairs themselves, nestled into valleys in the mountains. Home had never looked so inviting; and not even the halfblood child swinging from her claw had much importance.

      In fact, Alara longed for her own place, her own cave, so much that she completely forgot she had never completed her meditations.

      Alara circled over the Lair for a moment, waiting for the sentry on duty to acknowledge her before

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