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

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from the wood and string rattle she was dangling for him. She gathered him into her arms and stood up,
big toddler though he was.
Sarngeld's face was twisted in a frozen sort of smile she couldn't read. "Come, girl."I couldn't fight him
anymore: for your sake, my son. You were his hold on me . The wooden slave-links locked around
her wrists, the chains, to the staple in the floor of the cabin, which he hadn't used for a year…
Lixand had screamed a baby's bird-high shriek as Sarngeld tried to pull him from her chained-together
arms. The black crash in her head as he hit her, the only way to make her let go.My son. You couldn't
know what he would do .
"Sarngeld, master, leave me my baby, please don't drown him. Please, he's your son, don't kill him.
Please, he's only a baby. Don't, please, master." She begged in a way she had never begged before.
She'd never willingly called him master, got down on her knees, on her face.My son. I would have done
anything .
"Kill the brat?" He laughed at her. "He's worth money!"
Maybe I knew what all that would mean, for the years ahead. She'd screamed and lunged to the end
of her chain. All she could do was tear her fingers bloody on the wooden links, maddened, and scream
her child's name as his father carried him on deck. To the other Arkan, just before the ship cast off for
the day. "Lixaaaaaaand!" If she screamed it enough, maybe he would remember it.
Later that night, Katrana the healer had stolen his keys, freed Megan, got her knives.I killed him, and
took the ship. But that was too late to get you back. You were gone, into the Empire, where I
couldn't go, sold Dark Lord knows where to Dark Lord knows whom . Eight years ago.
The family sat down for dinner, in the atrium near the fountain, with candles floating over the flocks of
eye-sized jewelfish. The big lamp overhead threw shadows from the plants over the tables and cushions.
Gar-soup with dumplings, 'maranth bread, roast beef, vegetables and hot sauce, cloudberry tart…
Megan pushed her food around her plate with her eating-pick.I'd have killed for this much food, when
I was eleven and on the street . Shkai'ra was working on seconds, and another stein; she had been out
on the estate with Hotblood yesterday. How she could stand riding a cross between a horse and a
wolverine, that would sooner tear your head off than take a lick of salt from your hand, Megan had never
understood. She herself had a bad enough time with ponies.
Shyll was picking at his food, too. Another Zak in the House of the Sleeping Dragon, first husband: an
open-faced man with green eyes, wheat-blond hair cut shoulder length, but a build too slight and wiry for
anyone to mistake him for a Thane.I seem to have a taste for blonds, despite my past .
Rilla stared, lost in thought, as she nursed littleNess , two iron-cycles old now; the baby's eyes were
closed as she suckled. They were still baby-blue but with hazel flecks, more and more like her father
Shyll's every day.Your mother loves you, as my parents did me before they died , Megan thought.
Soft hair in the crook of her arm, she remembered, hungry lips tugging impatiently at a swollen breast; the
milky smell of a clean baby.Love, Lixand-mi, love … She tore her mind away from that, looked down
at the cold food on her plate, cleared her throat.
Shkai'ra finished her beer and wiped the foam off her lips with the back of a hand. "Well," she said; she