Elfhome

There was a lot of footage of Windwolf being handsome and princely without throwing around tanks. She loved watching him move effortlessly through the political dance, endlessly patient and yet unbending. He knew what he wanted, knew how to get it and would not stop until he had it. He was the only person she ever met that could match her in imagining huge and making it real. He felt like her other half. That he was handsome, rich, powerful, sexy as hell, gentle and patient, and loved her without reserve didn’t hurt, either.

Realizing she’d been sidetracked for nearly an hour, she dropped Windwolf from her search words and added Prince True Flame. She found a mother lode of recordings from the black willow fight on the north side. Apparently her failed attempt to stop the black willow had given people time to get into position with cameras. From the various recordings, she was able to assemble a composite of the fight. Annoyingly the black willow (which had tried to eat her) instantly seemed to recognize it was out powered and retreated as the prince blasted it into cinders. The increasing distance between the tree and the domana gave Tinker the vectors she needed to determine how the prince controlled the fire strike spell. None of the cameras, however, had caught the prince putting up his very cool fire shield.

She flopped back onto the blanket and held her hands up to the sky, studying her splayed fingers. So much potential locked away from her. So far she only figured out the Stone Clan shield spell and one Fire Clan attack spell — in theory — and she wasn’t even sure she could tap the Fire Clan Spell Stones.

“The Fire Clan esva is combined with the Wind’s at Aum Renau?” she asked the sky.

“Yes, they are.” Pony’s voice was level and calm despite the fact he was fending off Little Egret, Rainlily and Cloudwalker. “Cover!”

Tinker glanced over and watched as Pony whirled back as Stormsong slid into his place, graceful and strong, blocking attacks with her practice sword. They were as beautiful to watch as dancers. They were all smiling widely; they loved to fight, even just each other.

Stormsong took up the discussion. “The first thing we did when we arrived in the Westernlands was set up the stones for both esva at Aum Reanu. We slept that winter among the stones; warmed by their heat and protected by their shields.”

The stones generated a constant shield that could shrug off a nuclear bomb. From what she understood, the shield not only protected the stones but also acted as a safety valve on the massive pool of magic under the stones, bleeding off excess power when the stones weren’t being tapped.

“And the Fire esva is keyed to Fire Clan, not Wind?”

“Windwolf can use both esva,” Stormsong said. “Since he used himself as a blueprint when he transformed you from human to elf, you will most likely be able to use the Fire esva once you’ve been trained.”

Tinker considered her hands again.

Windwolf’s mother was Fire Clan and his father was Wind Clan. Of their ten children, Windwolf was the only one that could use both esva. Tinker knew enough about genetics to know that nature flipped a coin when a child was conceived. Heads, the child had the Fire Clan blonde hair. Tails, the child had the Wind Clan black. How did Windwolf get both esva? Was this like blood type where you could have AB blood from an A blood type mother and a B blood type father? That didn’t seem right, though, since if that was the case, statistically half of Windwolf’s siblings would have had both esva.

It wasn’t simply that the gene was recessive. There was no way that it could be and Tinker still had access to the Stone Clan esva. It had been half a dozen generations since her elfin ancestor was trapped on earth and married a human. If the key was recessive, it would have been bred out along with the immortal lifespan, pointed ears, and almond shaped eyes.

She was aware of movement and suddenly she was bracketed by Pony and Stormsong in full Shield mode. “What’s wrong?”

Lemonseed was Windwolf’s major domo and thus head of the housekeeping staff (embarrassingly enough, Tinker thought she was just very bossy cook for the longest time.) Nine thousands years had made her infinitely patient. She waited a few feet away; hands folded over her stomach in a manner that Tinker had learned meant that someone was here on official business. “Ginger Wine would like to speak with you.”

“Sure.” Tinker sat up.

Only recently Tinker had started to learn how to tell identify castes on sight. What she always considered as “high caste” was actually nivasa-caste. They had been bred by the Skin Clan to be elegant, beautiful, and empathic in nature; they used their gifts to run the enclaves as long-stay hotels. Unlike most of the other Wind Clan members, they weren’t uniformly black hair and blue eyed. Ginger Wine had glorious auburn hair and eyes like emeralds, though she compensated by drenching herself in Wind Clan blue silk.