Queen of the Sylphs Read online

  Claw whimpered again, shivers running through him. He cooed, trying to communicate with her but not able to form words.

  Footsteps sounded in the room outside. Mace and Ril appeared in the doorway.

  Claw screamed, his voice shrill and inhuman. He could feel the panic that caused throughout the town, other sylphs echoing his cry, humans starting in fear, but he couldn’t stop. He could only shriek his agony, terror, grief, horror. He kept on screaming as the other battlers descended on him, not sure he’d ever be able to stop, only knowing that Rachel wasn’t answering him in her soft, gentle, loving voice, knowing that no matter how long or loud he screamed, Rachel would never answer him again.

  Chapter Ten

  Solie was carried in Heyou’s mantle from her palace to Rachel’s home. She was worn out from the accident the night before, and she’d woken early to be told that the five assassins escaped. Now this.

  She could feel Claw’s pain and hysteria beating against her with all of the battle sylph’s strength. The other sylphs in the Valley had picked up his distress and were wailing as well, though their screams were nowhere near as fierce. He felt like a creature about to go mad.

  “Oh, Heyou,” she whispered. Poor Rachel. Poor dear Rachel. Poor Claw.

  Don’t get too close to him, Heyou cautioned.

  He wouldn’t have brought her anywhere near this place if he’d had the choice, Solie knew, and she shared his fear. Battle sylphs could go crazy, and Claw had always hovered near the edge. Without Rachel, Claw was totally alone. Without Rachel, he could only feed from Solie, his queen. She put a protective hand over her belly. She hadn’t needed Luck to warn her not to spend any energy on sylphs during her pregnancy. Claw would need someone new. Only, who? And how could they do that to the poor creature so soon after losing Rachel?

  Heyou dropped to the ground and released her. Solie stood on the street in front of a row of small, bizarrely organic-looking houses that looked like round puffballs given windows and chimneys. A dozen battlers stood in one front yard, staring at the open door.

  Crashing crockery and furniture sounded from inside. Claw’s screams were nonstop, piercing her ears until Solie had to stick her fingers in them. A flurry of sylphs hurried through the air farther down the road, including a few battlers in their natural form, and the neighbors gathered on the road itself, murmuring and looking nervously at the house. Solie didn’t blame them. A single battler could destroy the entire Valley if they weren’t stopped.

  “Will he be okay?” she whispered to Heyou.

  “I don’t know. None of us who had masters before ever cared when they died.”

  He stood close to her, partly to protect her and partly, Solie suspected, out of the nervousness that she might die and leave him the way Rachel left Claw. It was inevitable, of course. Sylphs were nearly immortal. Humans were not. Quietly she reached out to take his hand, and his answering squeeze was almost painful.

  Another crash sounded from inside the house, and Ril suddenly stumbled out. He was dragging Claw, his arms wrapped around the frantic battler’s body. Claw was still screaming, his eyes wide and crazed, but he made no attempt to fight back. The screaming didn’t stop, not even as the pair tripped and fell, landing on the front lawn and rolling, Ril still hanging on to Claw. Mace stepped out of the house next and looked straight at Solie, his face impassive. His emotions felt disturbed. No sylph was unmoved.

  Solie hurried forward, Heyou still holding her hand and keeping himself between her and Claw. She could hear Ril cooing to him. The sound vibrated through her bones as she dropped to her knees only a few feet away.

  “Claw! Claw, please stop screaming. It’s going to be all right, I promise!”

  The battler stopped, unable to disobey, but the hysteria didn’t leave his face and he shuddered uncontrollably. Ril wrapped his legs around Claw’s body as he had his arms, murmuring reassurances. Solie couldn’t be sure how much of it Claw absorbed, and her eyes filled with tears. She kept on talking, not even sure of what she was saying anymore, just trying to pierce the misery that consumed him. He lay there whimpering, and the sound tore at her heart.

  “Oh, Claw,” she mourned.

  “Claw? Claw!”

  Solie saw Sala pushing through the crowd, showing more emotion than Solie had ever seen from her. The young woman’s eyes were wide, her brows raised as she hiked up her skirts and ran across the road and onto the lawn.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, dropping down beside Claw and Ril. She looked toward the house. “What’s happening? Where’s Rachel?”

  Claw made an inquiring sort of coo, and he stretched his head in her direction.

  Sala didn’t seem to notice. “Where’s Rachel? Rachel!”

  Solie grabbed the woman’s arm as she began to rise. “Rachel has . . . passed away,” she whispered. Claw still heard her and he howled.

  “Oh, no.” Sala bent over, her breasts against her knees. She wrapped her arms around Claw’s head, and her hair fell forward to hide both their faces. Ril leaned back, not letting go but watching.

  Mace watched, too. “Girl,” he said, crouching down next to Sala and the blue-haired battler. When Sala eyed him, he asked, “Claw needs a master. Will you do it?”

  “Of course,” Sala said.

  A twinge of doubt filled Solie; there was something about Sala that didn’t sit quite right with her. But this was an emotional moment, and it was hard to think with all these feelings flying around. Claw had stopped wailing, though he still shook.

  Mace reached out and put one hand on Claw, another on Sala. He focused, and Solie felt his energy move and interact with her own. This was the only time he ever touched her energy, but using it now, he took the pattern inside Sala and the energy that was Claw and combined them, binding the battler to the young woman forever. As long as Sala lived, Claw would be hers, and so long as she had him, Sala could never bind another sylph.

  It only took a second, and Sala blinked as she felt Claw’s emotions for the first time, carried to her along the patterns that bound them. For his part, Claw shuddered and lay still, his eyes wide.

  Gingerly, Ril let go and rolled back.

  “He needs to rest,” Mace told Sala. “Take him to wherever you’re sleeping and stay with him.”

  This was an important time for the couple, a private time, and all the sylphs moved away, giving them space. Heyou’s hand under her arm, Solie rose, too. She backed away, still not sure about this, but the battlers seemed content. They would know, wouldn’t they?

  Solie let Heyou lead her away. Behind her, Sala stood and brushed off her skirts, watching silently as her new battle sylph finally managed to get to his feet and join her.

  None of the sylphs who witnessed Claw’s grief returned to their duties right away. Instead, slowly, as though there weren’t anything unusual happening, they drifted to where their masters were, to see and hold them and reassure themselves that they weren’t like Claw, that their masters were still very much healthy and alive. The other sylphs all did the same, and by nightfall the word had spread and every sylph was with his or her master, all of them frightened and secretly relieved that it hadn’t been them to suffer such a loss, even though they knew someday it would be.

  Ril went home, hearing the Petrule women chattering as he strode up onto the porch and in through the door. They were in the front room, Lizzy knitting a shawl while Betha showed Cara how to sew together patches for a quilt, and the younger girls played on the floor. Lizzy glanced up, immediately recognizing her battler’s mood. He crossed the room and reached for her.

  “What—?” Betha said as the blond battler silently pulled her daughter to her feet and into his embrace. His face buried against her neck, he just held Lizzy. The shawl she’d been working on tangled at their feet.

  “What’s wrong?” Betha demanded, rising, but Lizzy shot her a look and waved her back with one hand.

  “It’s okay,” Lizzy whispered, holding Ril. “Whatever it is, it’s o
kay.” He just tightened his grip, still not speaking.

  The others were dumbstruck. Mia stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked like she was about to cry. Nali slid over and took the three-year-old into her arms while Ralad just stared.

  “What’s wrong with Ril, Momma?”

  “I don’t know,” Betha admitted.

  A boot heel sounded on wood, and Leon walked in. He looked tired. When he saw his battler hugging his oldest daughter, he stopped.

  Ril opened his eyes and glanced slowly toward his first master, the man who’d killed the girl used to lure him across the gate and bound him to silent slavery for fifteen years. He studied Leon and lashed out a hand, bunching up in his fist the cloth of Leon’s shirt. Leon’s eyes widened, and then Ril yanked him into the embrace. Lizzy giggled.

  Putting his arms around them both, Ril closed his eyes again. He had other masters—the men who’d been his feeders back in Meridal, and Justin, who’d come home with him—but none of those mattered. He wouldn’t care if they lived or died, would never think to come to their aid. But these two . . .

  “I don’t know what’s wrong,” Lizzy whispered to her father. “He’s upset.”

  Leon just stood, returning Ril’s embrace. “I see that. Girls, out.”

  The children shuffled out. Betha followed, watching her husband uncertainly. He nodded to her, so she herded the kids toward the back of the house.

  Alone, Lizzy, Leon, and Ril stood in their three-way hug, their arms wrapped around one another.

  “What is it?” Leon whispered, his breath warm on Ril’s ear. The battler just held him closer, not wanting to speak.

  Of course, with these two, he didn’t have to speak. He told them silently, Claw’s master died.

  “Oh—” Lizzy started to say, but her father shushed her. They all just stood, holding one another, letting their battler draw energy and comfort for as long as he needed.

  Mace returned to Lily’s house well after dark. Sitting in the front room and doing their homework by lamplight, several of the orphans she fostered looked up as he walked through the front door, but Mace just strode to the kitchen. That was the heart of this home; it was where he’d find her.

  She was cleaning up the last of the dishes from the day’s baking, while Gabralina knitted socks. The pair had been chatting calmly, the younger of the two dropping stitches as she talked, but Lily stilled and looked past her when Mace entered.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded. Gabralina stared over her shoulder.

  “Rachel died,” he said. “Claw had to be given to a new master.”

  Lily’s lips thinned. Though none of it showed on her face, she was pained. Rachel had been a friend.

  She looked at Gabralina. “Get the rest of the children to bed and take yourself home.”

  Gabralina nodded and set her knitting in the basket. She wasn’t the smartest person Mace had ever seen, but she didn’t lack in compassion. She hurried out to do as instructed.

  Lily turned fully away from the sink, drying her hands on a towel. “That’s . . .” she started to say. “That’s . . .” A tear trickled down her cheek. “Oh, now I’m being foolish.”

  Mace crossed the kitchen and put his arms around her. “Never foolish,” he murmured, his arms sliding around to press her closer against him. “Not my Lily.”

  It took a moment before her arms came around him as well. Lily hated weakness in herself more than others. Mace knew how lucky he was to have her. He was domineering and proud, used during his slavery to flexing the aura of his lust at any woman he wanted and having her lift her skirts. Not after Lily. She wouldn’t allow it. It was just the two of them.

  He wanted to make love to her, wanted to reaffirm their bond as he was sure every other battle sylph in the Valley was doing. He still had assassins to hunt down, and none of them could figure out how they’d escaped, but he needed this.

  Lily pushed her hands against his chest, forcing him back so that she could look up at him. “Who’s the new master?” she asked.

  “Her name is Sala,” Mace said. “A friend to Gabralina.” He didn’t know much else about the young woman, other than she was spending more and more time with the queen and her friends these days.

  “Will she make a good master?”

  “I don’t see why not. I can’t sense anything malicious about her at all.”

  Lily sighed and leaned against him again. “That’s good. Now, take me to bed, Mace. I don’t want to think about anything more. Not tonight.”

  He did, and she didn’t.

  Chapter Eleven

  The exile was the only one happy to see her anymore.

  In the hive, the alienation continued. It was growing worse. The nameless sylph wasn’t allowed in the queen’s chamber anymore, or where the food sylphs were fed and milked. Or in the chamber with the hatchlings and eggs. That last restriction hurt the worst, for she longed to see the eggs and the tiny babies coiled in their beds.

  She wasn’t allowed into the energy stores either, though that rule was still only loosely enforced. She managed to get enough to feed herself—and her new friend as well. Half in and half out of a storage room now, guarded by a small, sullen little battler, she scooped up balls of energy, tucking them into her mantle.

  You done yet? he groused.

  She grabbed a few more, tucking them inside herself with the others. Some were for her, some were for her friend, and a lot was to hoard just in case. The impossible horror of “just in case” seemed to be becoming more probable every day, and a deep, rippling itch speared her, making the nameless sylph shudder.

  What are you doing? the battler demanded.

  Almost done, she replied, scooping up an entire pile and hoping he didn’t notice how much fatter she was with the energy hidden inside. When she backed out of the room, the battler eyed her dully. He was obviously of an inferior mating, doomed to always be small and stupid, his lightning slow and sluggish. She wondered for a moment what had happened to his father. But, she knew, didn’t she? His father might well be the battler hiding on the outskirts of the field—though he’d said he’d never been with a queen.

  Thank you, she said to the little battler, turning and hurrying away before he could get too close a look.

  He glared after her. Don’t come back! he shouted, making her glad she’d hoarded all she had. There were many storage rooms in the hive, but if even the dullards were picking up on her disgrace, she’d lose access to them all very soon.

  The nameless sylph glanced in the direction of the queen’s chambers and for a moment felt an instant of deep hatred, but she quickly suppressed it. Malice would just bring battlers. Instead, she made her way toward one of the exits, taking a circuitous route that kept her away from as many battle sylphs as possible. Not all of them were as dim as the one she’d just left.

  As usual, she was mostly ignored, except for some elementals cringing away from her and a few glaring battlers. None of them said anything.

  The nameless sylph flitted out of the hive and away across the fields, her back itching almost unbearably, and she finally put on some altitude so that the earth and water sylphs who tended the crops wouldn’t get too close a look at her. She found the exile near where she’d left him the previous day, desolately munching on a few leaves from a purple plant while he waited.

  At the sight of her, he perked up immensely, his inner lightning increasing in speed. Being around him made the itch inside a hundred times worse, but who else did she have to be with? Her kind wasn’t designed to be alone.

  “So, they escaped while the rest of us were dealing with the accident at the warehouse?”

  Mace stood immobile at the door. “Presumably.”

  Leon frowned, hunkering down and lifting the edge of a blanket abandoned in the prison cell. There was nothing under it. He dropped the blanket and rubbed his jaw. “Left during, or caused the accident in order to cover their escape?”

  “We would have known,” Mace said.

>   Leon sighed and straightened, looking past the big battler to where Ril leaned casually against the wall. Solie stood next to him, alongside Heyou and Galway. With all of them there, the room was getting a bit crowded. Ril blinked at him and smirked.

  “Let’s back out, shall we?” Leon suggested.

  They returned to the main conference room, where Heyou shut the doors. Dillon stood guard outside, currently shaped like a mix of a lion and an eagle. Leon rubbed the back of his head, kicking himself.

  “I should have thought of this,” he grumbled. Too many things were happening at once, what with getting Lizzy back and reacquainting himself with his family, preparing Devon for a mission to a far-off land, and then the accident.

  “Thought of what?”

  Leon glanced at Mace, pretty sure he’d need to demonstrate in order to prove his suspicions to the creature. The sylph was intelligent but could be tremendously inflexible. Proud.

  “There’s a way to outwit a battler.”

  Mace’s expression didn’t change, but his thoughts about Leon’s statement made Ril growl. Heyou stepped in front of Solie while Dillon peered in, his posture tense.

  Leon returned the big battler’s stare, knowing that, more than any of the other sylphs, Mace hated men. He’d despised his original master, and Jasar’s eventual death had been truly unpleasant. For Leon to still be alive as Ril’s master was undoubtedly incomprehensible for him.

  “It’s how I stayed alive in Meridal,” Leon explained. “You react to malice, to negative emotions. I controlled what I felt, and I was able to escape notice while they were hunting for me.” He rubbed his bearded jaw thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have expected these four to be able to control their emotions enough. We wouldn’t have caught them in the first place if they were.”

  “Someone must have helped,” Solie suggested. “They must have caused the accident at the warehouse to draw the battlers off and then freed these men while everyone was distracted.”