Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

Francosz had been in danger.He hadgiven his, and been buried as a warrior— though not with more
honor, Sova had not failed to notice, than Shkai'ra's cat. Grief had been black as Fehuund; like any
brother and sister they'd had their spats, but he'd been all the family she had left. Without him she was
alone.
At the end of it, Sova had accepted her and Megan, along with Rilla and Shyll, as her parents by
adoption. Her blood-parents were dead or gone, run out of Brahvniki; she'd heard the mob cry, after the
race, "To Schotter's house! Bring torches!" She'd also been dimly aware adoption gave her certain
protections, at least on paper.I didn't even know it in words then , she thought, in the dark.I was a
child . It had been instinct to cling to her only shelter, to not want to know what they'd do if she refused
what they asked.What would they have done ?, she wondered.No one respectable in F'talezon or
Brahvniki would have adopted me or taken me for an apprentice. An orphanage, maybe, getting
trained how to do scutwork. Or they'd, have kept me on as a servant. Or just thrown me on the
street .
She'd learned quickly not to complain;never to complain. Never to be anything but happy here,
whatever they did. Never to be difficult in any but an innocent child's way, that they'd expect, in a spoiled
child's way, that they could laugh at. When Shkai'ra hadn't been busy training her to cut off her tongue at
the roots, as the Thanish saying went—"Oh, you evil adoptive parents, if you loved me you'd let me do
what I want," she'd laugh, mocking, reducing it to that—Sova had trained herself, whenever her feelings
weren't the grateful foundling's.
Now she was fourteen and a warrior, if a warrior was one who'd been in a real fight; she had begun to
see it all with an adult's eyes. They were attached to her now; she knew that. Megan, the wicked witch,
had never wanted to consider them slaves and was genuinely loving. Shkai'ra loved her in her own odd
way, even if only because she'd been molded into one Shkai'ra could love by Shkai'ra herself. Whatever
else the world might call her, no one could ever say she, Sova, blood daughter of zight-less Schotter
Valders'sen, adopted daughter of the Slaf Hikarme, didn't know where her bread was buttered. But only
a child need
worry about that.
II
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Matthas Bennas, fessas, resident of Brahvniki, he signed.
Spy, he didn't.
The paper was an invoice for sheet rubber from Karoseth, his home town, southwest of the City Itself,
on the coast. Yeolis called the sea the Miyatara, Zak called it the Mitvald, both meaning Midworld.
Arkans called it the Arkan Sea.
The rubber was only processed in Karoseth, actually, the raw material coming from further south.
Matthas had not seen his birthplace for a decade, having lived here in Brahvniki; for a moment the
memory came sharp. Marble and granite and pink brick, climbing in terraces from the city wall and the
tarry mast-forest of the harbor. Orange groves outside the walls, fields of lavender, warm sun on the blue
mountains rising northwards.