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

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the click and creak of harness, a marching song from somewhere behind.
"Zhymata, I learned from you that all Zak are not bad, but some are nice, like any people. Am I—and
was Francosz—teaching you that about Thanes?"
"You certainly are, and he did." Megan squinted up at the sun, at the distant silhouette of a soaring bird.
"I went to see the old place when I went through Brahvniki," Sova said, sometime later. Her voice was
almost casual.
"Oh?" Megan said carefully, raising one eyebrow.
"I know it was on Syevyre Road, just north of the walls. And I remember Teik Anastosi's place, next
door. But ours, I meantheirs , sorry, is all changed now. The house and the gate and even the trees are
all gone, and someone else has built another one there. It's as if it never was."
Megan rode in silence thinking, at a loss for words.I won't speak ill of her father, not to her face .
"Well as long as you remember it, it was. It's not a good thing to forget where you came from; that's
where to start to understand yourself."
"But I thought everything I learned there was all wrong. I mean, Iknow some of it was, like being mean
to Piatr and thinking women should be weak instead of strong and know nothing about month-bleeding.
But everything else was, too. Thanish prejudices and my-father-was-a-cheating-coward and
my-mother-was-a-fainting-cow and we lived too soft and didn't get beaten nearly enough, you know, the
thingskhyd-hira says."
"Well, Shkai'ra lived too hard and got beaten too often and her opinion of your parents is decidedly
biased by the fact that your father was my enemy," Megan said tartly. "The good things you learned there
will ring most true to both old way of life and new." Her face softened as she thought of learning that
herself. "Someone must have loved you there, or you wouldn't know how… keep the best, toss
everything that's bullshit out."
"All Thanesdon't bugger their children, you know," Sova said, somewhat hotly. "Now I know what that
means, so I can tell you. Mine didn't bugger me. So there."
Megan blinked. "I didn't think they did; you don't show signs of it. It's the same sort of crap that the
races fling around to fuel…" She waved at the army around them. "This. Most people don't think twice
about saying 'Zak cannibal, Thanish child-raper, Arkan bastard."… Her glance sharpened on Sova. "Has
someone pointed that particular idea about Thanes and their children to you, ah, recently? Like Shkai'ra?
When it comes to that, she's somehow particularly insensitive."
"Her and every Zak I've ever met except for you, now, andThymata Rilla," Sova said blithely.
Megan heaved a sigh.She's exaggerating , she thought.But even so … "Are you happier being away
from F'talezon?" Megan had avoided letting anyone who was particularly intolerant associate with the
Slaf Hikarme, but she could only do so much.
"No," the girl said, but Megan got at least a vague impression she was just being polite. "I miss Rilla and
Shyll and the baby and the house. And eating nice food. And notmarching , Gotth—-excuse me. But at
least here strangers aren't any meaner to me than anyone else, or just being nice to me because I'm your
daughter."