Sianim 01 - Masques

inexplicably gone after it rather than after the girl they’d been ordered to chase.
    He tried to remember what this Aralorn had looked like—surely he’d have noticed if she were as exotic as his Northland beauty.
    “Describe her to me.”
    “She is short and pale-skinned even with a tan. Brown hair, blue-green eyes. Sturdily built. She moves fast.”
    Not her, then, but still . . . green eyes. He’d bought that slave because she had gray-green eyes, shapeshifter eyes. Blue-green, gray-green—two names for the same color.
    “You say she was good with disguises?”

    Aralorn was too tired to wake up when the covering was pulled back, letting the cool air sweep over her warm body. She moaned when gentle hands probed her ribs, but felt no urgent need to open her eyes. She heard a soft sound of dismay as her hands were unwrapped. A touch on her forehead sent her back into sleep.
    It was the sound of voices that woke her the second time, a few minutes later, much more alert. The nausea that was the usual companion to beggersblessing use had dissipated.
    She noticed that she was in the library, covered with a brightly colored quilt. A familiar cloak, Wolf’s, lay carelessly tossed over the back of the sofa. Men’s voices were approaching.
    She wondered how she’d slept through the trip to camp—because he’d said that he couldn’t have brought the merchant all the way here.
    She started to sit up, only to realize that the clothing scattered on the floor was what she had been wearing. Hastily, she pulled the blankets up to her neck to protect her dignity just as Myr came around a bookcase.
    “So,” said Myr with a wide smile, “I see that you’re more or less intact after your experience with the ae’Magi’s hospitality. I must say, though, that it will be a long time before I loan you any of my clothes again. I didn’t bring many with me.” The pleasure and relief in his voice was real, and she was surprised and not a little flattered that he cared so much about someone he’d known such a short time.
    Aralorn smiled back at him and started to say something, but noticed that Wolf, who had followed Myr, was focusing intently on her hands. She followed his gaze to where her hands gripped the top of the blanket. Ten healthy nails dug into the cloth. The beggersblessing had left her wits begging, too; she hadn’t even noticed that she didn’t hurt at all.
    Aralorn answered Myr absently. “Yes. Though he wasn’t the best of hosts. I only saw him once or twice the whole time I was there.”
    Myr perched on the end of the sofa near Aralorn’s feet and looked, for once, as young as he was. “And he prides himself on his treatment of guests,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. “It doesn’t even look like he left you any mementoes.”
    “Well,” said Aralorn, looking at her hands again, very conscious of Wolf’s doing the same thing. “You know he did, but I seem to have lost them. The last time I looked, my hands were missing the fingernails.”
    “How is your breathing?” asked Wolf.
    Aralorn took a deep breath. “Fine. Is this your healer’s work?” She wouldn’t have asked, would have assumed that it had been Wolf, but he was looking particularly blank.
    Wolf shook his head. “No, I told you that he was not experienced enough to do more than he did.”
    Wolf glanced at Myr. “I saw a few new people here, are any of them healers?”
    “No,” replied Myr, disgust rich in his voice. “Nor are they hunters, tanners, or cooks. We have six more children, two nobles, and a bard. The only one who is of any help is the bard, who is passably good with his knives. The two nobles sit around watching everyone else work or decide to wander out in the main cave system so that a search party has to be sent after them.”
    “You might try just letting them wander next time,” commented Wolf, whose attention was back on Aralorn’s healed hands.
    Myr smiled. “Now there’s an idea.” Then he sighed. “No, it wouldn’t work. With my luck, they’d run into the dragon and lead it back here.”
    “Dragon?” asked Aralorn in a startled tone, almost dropping her blanket.
    “Or something that looks an awful lot like one. It’s been seen by two or three of the hunting parties although it hasn’t seen them, yet,” replied Myr.
    Dragons were even more interesting than her healed hands. She remembered something. “That day I went out”—she glanced at Wolf and away again, not wanting