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Chapter 1

The unconscious roaned He did not open his eyes and therefore was unable to appreciate the flamboyant luxury that surrounded him

He lay on the polished h, heavily elow of the vapor lalass fixtures A long, narrow table of polished black stone do a semicircle

Five people sat around the table Two of them, the older man and woman, were obviously the matriarch and patriarch of the clan The other two, a handso woman, were clearly sister and brother The distinctive coht-dark eyes thatThecaenes None of the four could be described as petite The Avylyns were a tall, well-built clan, the men broad-shouldered and the women full-bodied

The fifth person present was another young woman She was quite slender and far more delicately built than the others; she also lacked their regal height, ust There were ti tall and statuesque conveyed very useful She had, however, found ways to compensate

Her neatly arranged brown-gold hair and wide, hazel eyes also set her apart But even if her looks and coloring had not been radically different, her attire would have made it clear she was not a member of the Avylyn Clan

Sariana Dayne was discreetly dressed in a conservative, dark green outfit that featured a strictly tailored jacket and a si little jacket eh collar fras and low-heeled slippers of soft leather were visible She wore no jewelry

The other toowns in vivid ge sleeves and full skirts draped over large bustles Their high-heeled slippers were ed in towering confections of cascading curls

The wonificent The Avylyns were, after all, a clan of jewelers Fragile links of gold set with colorful stones were entwined in their hair Several pairs of earrings vied for space on each pair of earlobes The Avylyn women had their ears pierced in so ht it remarkable that there was any skin left there at all Their aold and silver and two kinds of rare quartz They had rings on aler

The htly colored doublets, scarlet tights and shirts with enough fabric in the slashed sleeves to set a ship asail They wore nearly as many jewels as the Avylyn women

Sariana had noticed lately that Bryer, the handso a vividly decorated codpiece He had one on tonight The truth was, she probably couldn't have failed to notice it if she'd tried Codpieces were not easily overlooked, especially ones set with semiprecious stones

The Avylyns had flair, Sariana observed once again with secret amusement There was not a dull one in the bunch