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

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spoke good Zak now, but with a rough accent she would probably never lose. "We'd best settle who's
going, shouldn't we?" She looked sideways at Rilla and smiled a little crookedly. "Damn, I'd been looking
forward to having one myself. Well, needs must when the demons drive; sooner started, sooner finished."
Dammit, Megan thought,I should be used to her saying what I'm thinking by now. We've been
together long enough . "Rilla isn't going anywhere for now," Megan said. "Not with Ness on her arm."
Her cousin looked up from the baby and nodded, the thought unspoken:I could have another, or three
more, if I liked. You'll only ever have one . "Nor Shyll either."
"Wait a moment—"
"No, husband. Our family has a business to maintain. Can Rilla carry that alone, as well as the baby? Or
would you have Shkai'ra look after the books?"
There was a general shudder around the table at that. Shkai'ra snorted and reached for another wedge
of pie. "Better I'm at your back, Megan, or you'd come home to find us all sold off to pay the debts."
"What about me?" Sova; her pale brows, long enough almost to join in the middle, were even. She'd had
two years of Shkai'ra's rigorous war-training now; at thirteen, she'd been blooded, against minions of
Habiku on the river.
"No," said Megan. "You're well into this year's school and you're not wasting time gallivanting about with
us."
"Wasting time?I thoughtkhyd-hird," —she nodded her head towards Shkai'ra— "would want me to
squire."
"la," said the Kommanza. "It'd be good practice for her."
"No." Megan cut the air with her down-turned hand.Play us off against each other, will you, girl ?
"Sova isn't Shadow's Son going to be away from school for the length of time it will take to find Lixand."
To the Thane-girl: "I want to give you all the opportunity you can to learn more than how to sneak and
kill. You re staying here and that's final."
Shkai'ra tilted her head on one side and visibly restrained herself from speaking.We'll talk later , Megan
thought. Sova dug back into her dinner, face unchanged.Showing no sign of what she wantsto do, go
or stay. I love her but she makes me angry sometimes. I suppose all children would at that age. I
wasn't a child then; I never had time to be. Yet was I ever such a stranger to those who loved me,
as she is to us sometimes ?
"It's damn risky," said Shyll.
"It'll be less so now than ever before, love. Look how the Arkans are getting cut up in Yeola-e. They've
spread themselves so thin that patrols will be fewer, borders more weakly guarded; it'll be easier to
move, and hide."
"From the news," said Shkai'ra, "the Yeolis were on their last legs only five months ago. How have they
won back so far?"
Ivahn, the Benaiat of Saekrberk, had told of this in his letters to Megan. It was useful to have for a friend
the one who was as close to a head of state as the freeport of Brahvniki could have; he knew everything