I may be the king’s Blade, but I was certainly no lady. In Elverath, I wasn’t even considered a woman. Those who bothered to address my kind called me the same as they did all women with Elvish blood—female. Halflings had dirty blood, part-Mortal and part-animal in the eyes of the king. Calling us by our sexes was just another way he solidified the distinction between our kinds. Our enslavement was for the good of all; Halflings weren’t even human. The guard stepped back from the door. No Mortal man would deign to touch a Halfling.
