Elven Star by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Author:Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman [Weis, Margaret & Hickman, Tracy]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-08-09T21:23:40.324000+00:00

WEIS AND HICKMAN

"I thought maybe you might need one, after Callie's little scene. Perhaps we should rejoin the others—"

"I'd rather talk to you alone, if it's allowed."

"You mean can we be alone together without a chaperone? Of course." Aleatha laughed, light, rippling. "My family knows me. You won't damage my reputation with them! I'd invite you out to sit on the front porch, but the crowd's still there, staring at your 'evi! contraption.' We can go into the drawing room. It's cool in there."

Aleatha led the way, her body rippling like her laughter. Haplo was protected against feminine charms—not by magic, for not even the most powerful runes ever traced upon a body could guard against love's insidious poison. He was protected by experience. It is dangerous to love, in the Labyrinth. But the Patryn could admire female beauty, as he had often admired the kaleidoscopic sky in the Nexus.

"Please, go in," Aleatha said, extending her hand. Haplo entered the drawing room. Aleatha came behind him, shut the door, and leaned up against it, studying him.

Located in the center of the house, away from the windows, the room was secluded and private. The fan on the ceiling above rotated with a soft whirring noise—the only sound. Haplo turned to his hostess, who was regarding him with a playful smile,

"If you were an elf, it would be dangerous for you to be alone with me."

"Pardon me, but you don't look dangerous."

"Ah, but I am. I'm bored. I'm engaged. The two are synonymous. You're extremely well built, for a human. Most of the human males I've seen are so big, with hulking bodies. You're slender." Aleatha reached out, laid her hand on his arm, caressing. "Your muscles are firm, like a tree branch. That doesn't hurt you when I touch you, does it?"

"No," said Haplo with his quiet smile. "Why? Should it?"

"The skin disease, you know."

The Patryn remembered his lie. "Oh, that. No, it's only on my hands." He held them out. Aleatha gave the bandages a look of faint disgust.

"A pity. I am frightfully bored." She leaned up against the door again, studying him languidly. "The man with the band£!ven Star 185*

aged hands. Just like that old looney predicted. I wonder if the rest of what he said will come true." A slight frown marred the smooth, white forehead.

"He really said that?" Haplo asked.

"Said what?"

"About my hands? Predicted ... my coming?"

Aleatha shrugged. "Yes, he said it. Along with a lot of other nonsense, about my not being married. Doom and destruction coming. Flying a ship to the stars. I'm going to be married." Her lips tightened. "I've worked too hard, gone through too much. And I won't stay in this house any longer than I have to."

' "Why would your father want to go to the stars?" Haplo recalled the object he'd seen from his ship, the twinkling light, sparkling brightly in the sun-drenched sky. He'd only seen one. There were more, apparently. "What does he know about them?"

". . . lunar rover! Looked like a bug.

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