Rena nodded ruefully, and he continued, turning toward her. "The only problem—it could be very dangerous to you, Rena. I won't risk that if you really don't want to go." His eyes were grave, and his face troubled. "The plan will go better if you are in it, but I can succeed at least in part alone."
"Until you're caught," Mero said grimly. "No, if you go in, I go too."
"And I." Rena lifted her chin defiantly. "I think you're right. Revolt from the women is the one thing that the lords will not be looking for." She thought for a moment, to that long-ago time when she had been staring into the darkness of her room, looking forward to a bleak future as the near-enslaved wife of a complete idiot. What would she have done if she had known that she had a way to shield herself from anything her father or his could do to her? What would she have said if she knew she could not have her mind taken away from her?
Oh, her father could still have used physical force—but there were answers to that as well. And if her mother could somehow have gotten an iron collar locked around his neck, perhaps as he slept…
Mother.
"If nothing else, I have to return to help Mother," she said suddenly. "I have to, Lorryn! Wait a moment, let me think."
She closed her eyes for a moment, and let her thoughts settle. "We can find out if the news got around that I escaped with you quickly enough," she said, finally. "If it didn't—I can start visiting some of my female 'friends,' the farther away from our estate, the better. I can show them my jewels—tell them that they were betrothal gifts—and let slip where they can purchase their own copies. I won't stay more than a day at a time. The men never bother with visitors in the bowers, and they never remember a woman's name. As long as I don't linger, I'll be safe enough."
Lorryn nodded, and so did Mero. Mero's look of approval and encouragement was what she really needed to get on with the next part of her plan.
"That gets the fad started, so it can go on with or without me. Then I go home." She raised her hand to stop Lorryn's protests. "I tell Father that you kidnapped me, just as you suggested. All he has to do is cast a simple spell and he'll know I'm fullblooded. Then I become important, Lorryn, I become the only true child of his blood! I can even tell them that's why you kidnapped me, so that you could use me as a bargaining chip against him. Then I can slip some of the jewelry to Mother, and we can escape together."
"The only question I can think of is—are we going to make an organized revolt over this?" Lorryn said, finally, turning to Shana.
"I don't see how we can afford not to," she told him frankly. "Once the secret of the jewelry leaks out, the more powerful lords are going to start looking for ways to get around it—and they can do that if they can ambush the wearers one at a time."
Rena closed her eyes, bit her tongue, and tried not to show her fear. This was no romance, no dream in her garden. This was real, as real as their trek into the hills, as real as the rug under her hand. When they left this place, and reentered the lands of the elven lords, she would be in real danger. She could die. So could Lorryn.
So could Mero, and he didn't hesitate.
There was an icy hand clutched around her heart, a ball of cold clay in her throat, and a frozen lump of lead in the pit of her stomach. Was it only a night or two ago that she had walked with Mero in the moonlight, and thought that for the first time in her life she was truly happy? And now—
Now we risk all of it.
But she couldn't do anything less, not without making everything she'd gone through meaningless.
There was, for a brief moment while she strove to conquer that fear, another force warring within her. Temptation—to act like a real coward, a selfish coward. After all, she was no fighter, no hero like Shana! She could run back to her father and tell everything she knew. He'd not only welcome her, he'd reward her. He'd give her everything she ever wanted. She could have all those things she daydreamed about, her own manor where she alone would rule, books, music, gowns and jewels, and freedom to do exactly what she wanted. These halfbloods, these dragons—they weren't her kind. Why should she give them her loyalty and service when simply aligning herself with her real people would grant her all the freedom she ever wanted?
But the temptation did not last for more than the time it took for the thought to be born, for it wouldn't be real freedom, would it? She would still be constrained; by custom, by law. She might not be forced to marry a dolt, but she still would not be free to follow her own heart.
But most of all, it would be wrong. She would have bought all of it with blood.
She would be as bad as the worst of her kind if she did that. Worse, maybe. They had built their estates on the blood and bodies of their slaves and underlings. She would not buy hers with the blood and bodies of people who called her "sister" and "friend."
She might be a coward and weak, but she could not be a traitor.
The talk had gone on without her, but she was well aware that she was of no particular help at this point She closed her will around the fear settling in throat, heart, and soul, and listened with an outwardly calm face.
There would be several days of travel before they even reached the edge of the wizards' lands. She had that much more time to try and find some courage. Hopefully it would be time enough.
Keman grew impatient with them all long before the others talked themselves out. Perhaps it was the excitement—he'd noticed that humans had to run a thing to ground before they tired of it if they were excited. Finally they talked themselves into circles, repeating the same things over and over, and Diric declared that they were all too tired to even think properly. He sent them to Jamal's tent, which he had commandeered for them, since the new War Chief was happy with her own home and had no wish to change. Keman was pleased to see that each of them had his or her own little chamber, now cleared of all the personal possessions of the previous owner, and furnished with comfortable pallets and other niceties.
That's probably Kola's doing, he decided, after surveying his own little pie-slice of carpeted tent. She must have been taking care of all of this while we were talking. What an amazing woman! She and Diric work so well together—
It would be so wonderful if he could find someone like Kala…
He lay down on his pallet and waited, listening with every fiber for the sounds of the other people in the tent to die away. He didn't think that Mero and Sheyrena were likely to wander off hand in hand under the moon; not tonight, anyway. If they were as exhausted as he was—
Well, maybe they weren't. They hadn't fought; he had. Unless, of course, they'd all pitched in to subdue Jamal while he - and Myre fought in the skies.
Gradually, though, the murmurs of conversation and the sounds of people moving about, the little shifts in the floor and creak of wood as people walked, died away.
Finally.
He needed to get out. Dora must be frantic by now. And he was starving. He hadn't wanted to take the easy way out and ask for a cow or two; people were frightened enough of him and he didn't want to frighten them further by eating in front of them.
He slipped out of the darkened tent, wound his way through the camp as silent as a cat, moving from shadow to shadow with all of the skill of any predator. There was no moon tonight, which was a help, and most people were so bewildered and agitated by the turn of events today that they were keeping to their own dwellings while they sorted things out.
In some ways, Keman felt rather sorry for them. The Iron People were so ruled by tradition—and yet today so many things had happened that didn't fit within that tradition that they must feel almost as confused as if they had awakened to find themselves camped in the midst of a glacier, floating on the ocean, or perched atop a mountain-peak.