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

jewelry; that was why she had nearly been tricked into seizing it.

As Serina's memories had confirmed, the elves controlled the fertility of their
human concubines with fanatic strictness. What Serina did not know was the
reason why. Elves were not only cross-fertile with humans, they were more
fertile with humans than with their own kind. Nowhere near as fertile as
humans were alone, but there had been enough elven-human crossbreeds to
make a formidable force in the Wizard War.

All the elven factions destroyed the offspring, should a slip occur, as soon as
the pregnancy or resulting child was discovered.

The halfblood wizards had come very close to destroying their former
masters, closer than the elves cared to admit, even in the chronicles of the
times. When she was researching the war at Father Dragon's urging, Alara
herself had been forced to read between the lines to discover how much
damage had actually been done, by finding the rolls of the dead, and the
account of destruction of property as noted in the surveys at the end of the
war. Entire elven Clans had been wiped out; many, many of the strongest
mages had learned too late that the human mind-magic not only combined
well with elven powers, but could even increase the sorcerous strength of the
wielder, from doubling it, to squaring it.

If it hadn't been for a schism that developed within the ranks of the wizards,
the elves would be the slaves, the hunted. She wondered what position the
full-humans would have had in that society. And would the halfbloods have
kept any elves around to ensure that their kind continued? The elves surely
wondered about that before the conflict was over. That factional fight on the
verge of victory was the only thing that saved them. With luck like that,
maybe they had a reason to think of themselves as children of the gods--

Serina moaned and Alara turned her attention outward, watching the human
woman speculatively. The former concubine should, by all rights, be dead--
she should never have been able to escape. If her lord had been anyone but
Dyran, she'd have been struck down by magic as soon as her elven master
learned of her pregnancy. Dyran somehow underestimated her--or her rival
had. By the time the guards came for her, Serina had made her escape, bare
feet, inadequate clothing, fear of open spaces, and all. Somewhere in her was
still a spark of courage, an echo of the child that had found a way to watch
the fighters practice, a hint of the woman who had the strength of will to defy
elven custom to claw her way to Dyran's side. No one else had ever dared do
that; Alara had never heard of a human concubine dancing such close
attendance on her lord, whether or not custom permitted it. That will and wit
had given her the seed of rebellion, and survival instinct had overcome every
mental and physical obstacle standing between herself and flight.

It certainly wasn't maternal instinct that drove her, Serina's thoughts had
revealed that she considered the child she carried to be nothing more than a
dangerous burden. She knew the elves hated the halfbloods, and that it was
death to bear one, should the lords discover it, though she had no idea why.