Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [35]
"Did Ebeian send you?" she asked. "Is he in trouble? Did something go wrong?"
For a moment, Leifander considered trying to pass himself off as a friend of this Ebeian fellow, whoever that was, but he decided against trying to satisfy what was only idle curiosity. The schemes of humans were not his concern. More to the point, this woman seemed singularly unconcerned to have discovered a forest elf in her bedchamber. She might be the best one to ask where Thamalon Uskevren could be found.
"My name is Leifander," he said simply. "I am an elf of the Tangled Trees. I have come to speak with Thamalon Uskevren. I bring him a message."
"Do you, indeed?" she asked with an arched eyebrow. "So, messenger, do you always sneak in through second-story windows when delivering your messages-or do you sometimes knock at the front door?"
This woman was truly exasperating. "Will you show me to Thamalon Uskevren or not?"
She did not answer at once. Instead she hung her lantern on a long hook attached to the ceiling and pointedly glanced at the open cabinet above the bed. Leifander stiffened, but when she turned back to him, amusement sparkled in her eyes.
"I see you couldn't resist a little pilfering while you were waiting to deliver your message," she said, clucking her tongue in mock reproach. "It's lucky for you that you're an elf and immune to that drug-otherwise I'd have found you asleep on my bed. Exotic looking as you are, I'd have been forced to ravish you. As it is…"
She strode forward suddenly and planted a kiss on his lips. Startled, Leifander pushed her away. Were all human
women so forward with strangers? He shook his head. It was time to get on with what he had come there to do.
"The message I bear is an urgent one," he told her. "I would deliver it at once."
"Give me your message, and deliver it for you."
Leifander shook his head. "No. I must speak to Thamalon Uskevren in person… and in private."
A slight change in the woman's posture told Leifander that she had grown wary of him. "Why in private?" she asked. "So you can stick a dagger in his ribs?"
Leifander deliberately kept his hands away from the dagger at his hip. "You think me an assassin," he said bluntly. "I am not. I wish only to speak to Thamalon Uskevren about a political matter. The elves sent me because I have a… personal connection with him."
His explanation didn't help. Somehow he had compounded his earlier blunder. The woman's eyes narrowed with suspicion, and her hand came gently to rest upon the hilt of her rapier.
"You have no 'personal connection' with Thamalon Uskevren," she said, running the fingers of her free hand through her short hair in a nervous gesture. "If you did, you'd have known he was my father."
The rapier hissed out of its scabbard. "I think you are an assassin," she added in an icy voice.
Leifander raised his hands in what would seem a placating gesture. In fact, his fingers were already beginning to weave a spell. Before the woman could move to skewer him, he barked out three quick words in his own tongue. Sparks of magic energy crackled from his tattooed fingers-but instead of flying toward the woman's head, they struck an invisible shield and scattered in all directions. In the same instant, the ring on the woman's finger flared as its gem was illuminated from within. The woman stepped forward, and the tip of the rapier was at Leifander's throat. He swallowed carefully and held perfectly still. The woman had the poise and grace of someone who knew how to use a blade.
"I think I will take you to see my father," she said. "It should prove an interesting diversion while I'm waiting for Ebeian. But I warn you: Make one move against him, and it will be your last."
*¦
The prick of the rapier against his back sent Leifander forward into a large room filled with foliage. Enormous ceramic pots crowded the floor, each planted with a small tree or flowering shrub. Smaller pots hung from the ceiling or sat on shelves, their greenery spilling down. A fountain in the middle of the room bubbled water into a trough that snaked