"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Toward Alinor. A significant touch of his hand on her arm, a few carefully
chosen words--both, as if Serina were not present.

White with suppressed emotion, she pretended not to be there; pretended she
was part of the furnishings. Certainly Lady Alinor took no notice of her.

The Lady stared at Dyran as if she could not believe what she had heard--
then burst into mocking laughter.

"You?" she crowed. "You? I'd sooner bed a viper, my lord. My chances of
survival would be much higher!"

She shook off his hand and swept out of the arena, head high, her posture
saying that she knew he would not dare to challenge her. If he did, he would
have to say why--and being rejected by a lady was not valid grounds for a
challenge.

Dyran went as white as Serina; he stood like one of the silent pillars
supporting the roof, and Serina read a rage so great in his eyes that she did
not even breathe. If he remembered she was there--he would kill her.

Finally he moved. He swept out of the arena in the opposite direction that
Lady Alinor had taken, heading for the slave pens.

Serina fled for the safety of her room and hid there, shivering in the darkness
and praying he had forgotten her. After a long while, she heard muffled
screams of agony from Dyran's suite.

He's forgotten me, she thought, incoherent with relief and joy. He's forgotten
me. I'm safe...
If I dared, I would shift and fly off, Alara thought in disgust. The last scene
replayed in Serina's memory had left the dragon limp and sick.

The duel was bad enough. The Kin had no idea that this was the kind of
thing that went on in these duels. The sheer brutality of two thinking beings
battering each other until one finally dropped over dead--moments before
the other also succumbed--was something Serina took for granted. It was
that, as much as the duel itself, that made Alara ill. How could she--she
didn't feel anything at all for those two men, she basically just reacted to the
blood and injuries. She would have been just as nauseated seeing someone
gut a chicken. Probably more. Those were her own kind, and she watched
them slaughter each other to settle someone else's quarrel without a second
thought!

But then, her reaction when Dyran chose some poor, hapless victim to
torture--to feel joy that the victim was someone else--

The dragon forced herself to calm down, closing her mind to the human's for
a moment, telling herself that it didn't really matter. These weren't the Kin;
they were Outsiders. It shouldn't matter what they did. to each other or what