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

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repeat it under truth-drug. You didn't even have me searched coming in here. I was the enemy, I tried to
kill you, and now you want me to work for you. How can you trust me so much?"
"They'll swear you in again, drugged. Policy." Shefen-kas shrugged again, and gave a smile that was
almost childishly ingenuous, with a flash of gold teeth. "But I know who to trust."
Lixand put his hand into his mother's as they walked up Flutterwing Lane, at the head of the
wagon-train, to the House of the Sleeping Dragon. It was cold here, the cold of his fantasy cities.
F'talezon . Ardas couldn't pronounce it to save his life, but it was easy for Lixand; his tongue somehow
remembered. He made a plume of steam in the air with his breath. "Mata, are we… are we reallyAitzas
?"
"Ya, and far too dignified for snowball fights," said Sova, shoving a fistful of snow down the back of
Ardas's coat, to his squeal. "Ow! That white stuff iscold !" The manor was no smaller nor less rich than
House Temonen, but in an utterly different style.
Megan smiled and put an arm each around the boys. "It's not the same, but we're wealthy enough—oh,
no ."
From the gates ahead came a thunderous chorus of barking. Dee and Dah barked, puppy-shrill no
longer, but close to the belling tone of full-grown greathounds. Inu led the pack.
Megan put her hands up, as always. "Inu, sit!" As always, he gently knocked her over and washed her
face with a dinner-plate-sized tongue.
"Inu! Back, you son-of-a-bitch!" Shyll's clear shout and Rilla's laugh rose through the noise. Over it all,
they could hear the baby crying.
Shyll gave Megan a hand up, and the hugging started—Shkai'ra picking up Rilla, then Shyll as well, then
Shyll having to prove he could pickher up, and Sova rushing to hug Rilla…
Ardas dropped back beside Lixand. "We sure have a lot of family now, don't we, Ra—I-mean-Lixand,"
he whispered.
"Yeah. But I think I could get used to it."
The Arkan boy's grin split his face. "Yeah. Me too."