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

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Lixand is your realname, the name she gave you, after her father . They'd had plenty of time to talk,
and she'd told him howmata had killed the man who'd stolen him, taken his ship, built the merchant
house, battled against the Thanes, crossed the Lannic, mether , taken the house back from Habiku,
fought in this war. Rasas—No, it's Lixand, I've got to think of myself ashimagain, now —had taught
Shkai'ra more Arkan just to hear what happened next.
It all seemed like a story. The black and silver green-eyed horse-wolf-thing that had materialized out of
the dark one night, and would do what the sword-lady wanted without her saying anything, the stringless
blue kite with a person hanging under it, circling over the ruins of Arko—the Yeolis' flying-machine, it's
real. As they had come into the city: familiar sights horribly changed, brightness turned to darkness
everywhere, marble soot-blackened, gold stripped… The streets near the Temonen Manor,
Banatammas, Morroa, Rameras, all were nothing but littered spaces between double rows of smoldering
rubble; the marble and glass trees of House Arboretus were all felled, fragments of craven branches,
green glass leaves strewn across the pavement; only by a miracle had Boulevard Jibaennen been spared.
And now… the swooping orange tabbybat ? No,cat , cat, with orange tabbywings , where else could
such a thing be, but in a story? He kept waiting to wake up in the boys' barracks, to find it had all been a
dream. In Master's manor… he saw the smashed windows, and the rooms beyond them empty, felt in his
pocket, a brown-stained pack of cards.
The woman sitting on the edge of the fountain, the small woman with a silver-white fall of hair amidst jet
black, was real. She wasmata .
"Lixand!" Two steps and she was next to him.My son . She touched his shoulder, still afraid he wasn't
real, felt its firm warmth, swung him down from the Ri's back into her arms. He threw himself into her hug
and they clung, laughing, crying. His smile was the spitting image of hers. "Lixand-mi, my son, my
beautiful son. You're not my baby anymore but grown so big, Lixand!"
She was world-big back then, he thought…because Iwas small! "Mata …" She was real; so, in a
way he'd never known before,he was, as real as his true name.
Shkai'ra swung down off Hotblood's back, while Fishhook mewed protestingly; on a closer look at the
Kommanza's face, Megan's joy faded, in concern. "Love, are you all right? Koru, I heard thoughts, I
thought you were dead…"
"Bad wound," she said, smiling gently. "Lixand was my healer. After he belted me over the head with a
chair-leg—that was before we were introduced." She seized Megan in a bear-hug; they kissed, long and
hard and deep.These tears I don't mind , Megan thought. "Oh, gods, love, it's good to see you again.
How's the daughter?" Lixand glanced from one to the other through tearful grinning eyes.
"Khyd-hird!" Sova limped up the laneway. "Oooh! We'veboth been wounded!"
"Rasas!" Beside her the other boy, the blue-eyed one, broke into a run.
"Ardas!" The two boys flung themselves into each others' arms so hard they knocked themselves over.
"I thought you weredead ! I thought you weredead !"
"Mata…" Lixand's voice, already more familiar with the word, held a hint of pride. The two boys hadn't
let go of each other, even as they picked themselves up off the ornamental gravel. "Mata, this is my best
friend and, umm pretend brother, Ardas." His eyes shone with optimism.