Elfhome

Most importantly, she was Windwolf’s Beholden. She could be trusted not to talk to the Wyverns about anything Tinker let anything damning slip.

They cornered her in kitchen garden among the laundered sheets hung out to dry on strands of steel spinner silk. The walls of damp white cotton gave them privacy without making it obvious that they were trying to hide.

“What to you know about the naelinsanota?” Tinker asked.

“Oh, that is not a term I’ve heard for nae hou,” Lemonseed said. “It is not something I would tell you lightly. Do you really need to know?”

Tinker nodded. “Please. Everything that you can tell me.”

Lemonseed laughed and smiled and cupped Tinker’s face in her hands. “Oh, sweetness, it would take years to tell you all that I know.” A measure of her Hand’s trust of the old female, neither Pony or Stormsong moved as Lemonseed touched her. “Judging on the last few months, we do not have years for you to hear it all.”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m not sure if I even have days or hours.”

“Ah the unclean ones?” Lemonseed tilted her head to consider the clouds passing over their narrow cloth hallway. “I was born slave to King Boar Bristle of the Eastern Steppes. He had been born the second son of the King War Axe, but he had murdered his father and older brother for his title, and was quite determined not to spawn any children that could wrestle away his power. We lived in the great jewel-like palace built over a lake that was stocked with the most heavenly smelling water lilies and glow fish so beautiful it would take your breath away. And yet there wasn’t moment of the day where you were totally safe. To the King, we were cattle, there to be used and slaughtered. To his favorites, he gave free rein to take their pleasures however they wished. Half of the people that lived in the palace were loyal to the Skin Clan but the rest of us were secretly Wind Clan. It was my mother who was wet nurse to Quick Blade, Windwolf Great-grandfather’s, the prince’s bastard who he had ordered drowned in the lake at birth. My older half-brother was drowned in his stead.”

Tinker wondered when Lemonseed would get to her point; and the tengu thought that dragons were longwinded. “So the unclean ones?”

“That was how it was,” Lemonseed said. “The Skin Clan had great palaces scattered across the known world where we lived like frightened mice as they moved like gods among us, taking pleasure and killing where they desired. But every century, we were growing stronger and bolder. The Souless One lived on the Inner Sea, half a world away, where Winter Court lies now.”

Obviously there was a huge hole in Tinker’s knowledge as Lemonseed had said the name as if Tinker should recognize the person. “Who?”

“The Emperor of the Skin Clan, Heaven’s Blessing. We called him the Souless One because he was an albino.”

“Albinos are born without a soul.” Pony sounded like he believed it totally.

“Fortunately, albinos are almost unheard of among elves.” Stormsong added. “Mostly because it was ruthlessly eliminated from the main breed stock shortly after Heaven’s Blessing was born.”

“He was brilliant and ruthless. He sensed the coming years of resistance where we would fight open battles against our masters. The greatest at spell-working, he chose to create his ultimate weapons. Of that, we of the Wind Clan only know the rumors.”

In other words — much fewer words: I wasn’t there, I’m not sure how much of this is true. The reason for the disclaimer became obvious with Lemonseed next sentence.

“It is said,” Lemonseed whispered. “That the emperor captured a god. He distilled down its essence and used it to create new castes. The first that he made were the naelinsanota. They were flawed because of his impatience. The second he made were the intanyai seyosa. They looked upon their maker and saw his wickedness. They saw too that he was about to create his own downfall, so they kept their silence. It was with the god’s holy perfection that he made the sekasha.”

Providence had claimed that the Skin Clan had used a dragon to create the sekasha. The children were descended from “brothers” of the sekasha? If the caste was considered flawed, why did the Skin Clan want the children? What abilities had the Emperor been trying to breed into the naelinsanota?

“Why were they considered unclean while the sekasha are holy?” Tinker asked.