Queen of the Sylphs Read online

  Then he turned and went out, not wanting to be there anymore. Betha would either hate him or get over it. There wasn’t much else she could do. He was what he was, and he couldn’t change that. Nor did he want to.

  He walked out the front door and into the darkness, still too restless to go back to his room. He felt hungry as well, but he was more in the mood for Leon’s heavy warm energy than Lizzy’s light sparkling kind, and it would cause all kinds of hell for him to go into Leon’s bedroom right now. He didn’t really need to feed anyway. It was just part of the itchiness.

  He let the energy of the night flow over him instead, trying desperately to relax. It was poisonous to him, but the breeze was cool on his bare skin and the clear sky vaguely hypnotic overhead. Not so hypnotic that he didn’t pick up the emotions coming from beside the rock wall that separated the front garden from the street. He’d felt them earlier, before Betha came in for her little confrontation, and he recognized them now as easily as he would from any of his other masters.

  “You’re not welcome here, Justin,” he said.

  The youth stepped out from the shadows, glaring. Ril glared back. Even before the last few months he hadn’t liked him. As a child, Justin had been needy and obsessive. Cowardly. Since he’d been turned into a feeder in Meridal, he’d become bitter and angry as well. Right now he was outraged.

  Ril held his emotions under control. He couldn’t help but project anything strong he felt to his masters, and he did not want Justin knowing what he was going through. Nor did he want to wake Lizzy or Leon.

  “Go away,” he repeated. “Lizzy doesn’t want to see you.”

  Justin sniffed, ignoring Ril and walking forward. A growl finally stopped him a few feet away.

  “I realized something tonight,” the young man said. “You know what it was?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should,” Justin snapped. “It’s your fault. I went home with my father tonight, and you know who I saw? I saw Stria, my father’s earth sylph, and I realized that I’m stuck being master to you, so I’ll never be able to be master to her.”

  “I sure she’s relieved to hear that.”

  Justin’s face went red, obvious even in the darkness. “I wish you were dead. You took everything from me.”

  Why was it that everyone was thinking that tonight?

  “I didn’t take anything you actually had,” Ril pointed out.

  Justin’s rage exploded inside of him, flashing out so brightly that Ril snarled at the feel of it. So did other battlers. Ril heard a distant roar and sent out his thoughts. I can deal with this. He didn’t want anyone believing he needed rescue. Not from this pathetic human.

  “Go away,” he repeated. “I mean it.”

  “Why didn’t you die?” Justin raged. “You bastard! Just die already!”

  Ril flinched, the absoluteness of that order rocking through him along with a sudden fear. Whatever else he might be, this youth was his master and no sylph could disobey. Leon had bound Ril in Meridal to obey only him, but he’d given that freedom back when they left. That had once again granted Justin the ability to hurt him. And while Leon had warned Justin never to take advantage, the boy didn’t seem to care anymore.

  Ril felt his rage, and he felt his order, but the order had no direction. He bucked anyway, instinctually trying to obey.

  “Justin.”

  Startled, the youth looked up. Betha stood on her front porch, her arms crossed under her breasts.

  “Mrs. Petrule?”

  “Leave my husband’s battler alone.”

  “But . . .” He gestured impotently at the shaking Ril. “But—”

  “Leave him alone, Justin. He’s a member of this family. Go home. Now.”

  Justin glared at her, his lip trembling. Then he turned and stormed away.

  Betha stared at Ril. Walking down the steps, her arms still crossed defensively in front of herself, she approached. Staring him right in the face, a moment later she sighed. “Come on, Ril,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

  She had no control over him, but Ril obeyed her anyway. Neither of them spoke about that night to anyone.

  Half a block down the street, attracted by the shouting and now hidden in the deeper shadow of a home, Sala paused. She hadn’t been able to sleep and had been out walking, thinking about what she’d do with herself here. This was a nice little place with a lot of potential. She really couldn’t have stayed in Yed, anyway. Not after what happened to Gabralina.

  She watched Justin storm past, angry and hurting, and she sighed. In a lot of ways, Sylph Valley was a great deal like Yed. She studied the house she’d been watching and turned away, wandering back to her friend’s tiny, unappealing apartment. If she was lucky, she supposed she’d find some sleep.

  Solie sat in the conference room and listened with amazement to Leon’s story. The romantic heart in her fluttered at the thought of Ril and Lizzy finding each other as they had, in a land far away, and the part that wanted to be a mother could have wept at how far Leon went to find his daughter. She needed to swallow a lump in her throat. Under the table, Heyou gripped her hand.

  The political ramifications of his voyage were what really sank into her mind, forcing out thoughts of romance and family. Leon laid everything down very clearly, and the people around the table reacted so that Solie would have been able to tell their shock even if she hadn’t had their emotions projected at her by each of the present sylphs.

  Leon was dressed again in the blue and gold uniform that both he and Devon wore to show their service to her. Ril’s garb was far more ostentatious—there was more gold, more ornamentation—but he slouched in his chair, not appearing to pay attention. Solie didn’t really mind; she’d brought Heyou, after all, and he wasn’t paying attention either. From the way he and Ril were looking at each other, she suspected the sylphs were having a silent conversation.

  Mace, however, was paying attention. He sat on Ril’s other side, and he was the only battler there without his master. He frowned as he listened, no doubt weighing the danger of making an alliance with a country that had more than seven hundred battle sylphs, all with their own queen.

  Beside him, Galway also leaned back in his chair, the tips of his fingers pressed together. Unlike Leon and Devon, he wore plain clothes; his beard was shaggy though clean, his bald head gleaming. Devon was beside him, scribbling furiously onto parchment, while Airi sat in the chair between him and Heyou. It was one of the few times Solie had seen the air sylph in solid shape, and she’d made herself appear a young woman, probably in honor of the seriousness of the meeting.

  Solie shifted in her chair, sucking her lips into her mouth as she thought. “How much of a risk are we taking of a couple hundred battle sylphs showing up and conquering us?”

  Leon shook his head. “Logistically speaking, little. It wouldn’t be worth their while. It’s an incredibly long distance for them to come; they’d have to set up a supply base on this continent first, and honestly, we’re not big enough to be worth it. Politically, it’s not worth it to Eapha, either. She’s in the same situation you were six years ago.” He gave a brief smile. “Only, she has a lot more sylphs backing her and a human population that doesn’t even know what’s happened. Their system is completely gone. Smashed.” His smile faded, and she could tell he had no regrets.

  Beside him, Ril growled. “Good. They were worse than the masters in Eferem.”

  Heyou didn’t react, but there came a strange energy from Mace and Ril. Solie knew how bad it had been for Claw, also, having come from Eferem. Ril had been blessed to end up bound to Leon, but he’d still been a slave for his first fifteen years in this world.

  Solie felt a flash of Leon’s eternal regret. His battler didn’t react. While Mace’s and Claw’s original masters were both dead, Leon wasn’t. The very fact that Ril was sitting beside him showed he’d been able to forgive.

  Still, murder was murder. Solie didn’t want to think about a floating island f
illed with an emperor, his family, and who knew how many officials, guards, servants, and slaves drifting out over the ocean and being dropped. Nor did she want to imagine the hundreds of officials who’d survived that fate only to be hunted down in the city streets by battle sylphs. Did the many thousands of men and women who’d been locked in cages as feeders with their tongues cut out justify that? These were the new sylph masters in Meridal, and she wondered how many of them were even sane.

  No, she truly didn’t envy Eapha, forced to come out of a harem where she’d been a slave and become queen. At least the girl was safe, what with all those battle sylphs to protect her. Solie glanced at Heyou, who gave her a strained smile in return.

  “She must be lonely.”

  All three present battlers stared at her in bafflement.

  “She has Tooie,” Ril said. “What more does she need?”

  Airi giggled, pressing a hand to her mouth. Her master watched her out of the corner of one eye.

  “Maybe . . . someone who knows how to run a kingdom?” Solie pointed out.

  “Precisely,” Leon agreed. “I thought about staying there myself to help her.”

  Very slowly, Ril straightened in his chair. He turned his entire torso to stare at his master, his hands gripping the chair arm until the wood creaked. “Pardon me?” he said with tremendous indignation. “You thought about what?”

  Solie saw Leon fighting not to smile and had to bite down on a laugh herself. Leon lost his battle, but he suppressed the grin just as quickly. “I won’t do that to you,” he promised. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Good.” Ril glared a moment longer and then returned to his slouched position. Behind his back, Leon chuckled.

  “Who are you sending?” Mace asked. “I assume you plan to send someone.”

  “Yes.” Leon’s eyes sought the end of the table. “I want to send Devon.”

  Devon, who’d been in the process of putting more ink on his quill, started and knocked the bottle over. That led to a frantic scramble to try and sop up the spill with parchment, but he finally gave up and stared at Leon, his stained fingers crushing the pages.

  “Me?” he squeaked.

  “You have the experience Eapha needs,” Leon said, and Solie found herself agreeing. From the emotions of the others, they agreed, too, but Devon felt terrified. Airi stared at him in shared fear, shimmering back and forth to invisibility.

  “You can guide her through this and make sure that she remembers us as her friends,” Leon continued.

  “But . . . but . . .”

  “I’ve trained you for six years,” Leon said. “You can do this.”

  “But, I can’t! I wouldn’t know where to start!”

  “At the beginning. You’ll see what needs to be done when you get there, and you’ll be able to tell her.”

  “No, I won’t!”

  “Devon,” Leon growled. “There’s no one else. I gave that woman my word, and it has to be you. I’m sorry, but you are the best choice, whether you believe it or not. You and Airi both.”

  Devon glanced at his air sylph as though he’d never seen her before. She gaped back at him, and Solie felt both her trepidation and intrigue.

  Leon was right. Devon was the only one left in the Valley with the experience to help create a new society. Neither Leon or Galway could go without splitting or relocating their families. Their battle sylphs couldn’t go without angering the battlers of the other hive. While the battlers could be ordered not to attack, the tension would make the whole situation next to impossible. Ril had likely needed to leave Meridal as fast as he could.

  Solie would have liked to meet Eapha, but she already knew that was impossible. She’d never be able to leave the Valley. Nor could Eapha leave her home.

  Devon could. Airi wasn’t of Eapha’s hive, but air sylphs didn’t stress battlers the way other battlers did; and she would give Devon the company he needed as well as the ability to know what others were feeling. Her insight would be valuable.

  “It won’t be forever,” Solie promised. When Devon turned, she added, “You just have to go long enough to help Eapha figure things out.”

  “It shouldn’t be more than a year,” Leon clarified. “We want her strong and friendly, not reliant on us or resentful.”

  Devon sagged in his chair. Airi reached over to squeeze his hand, her gaze never leaving him.

  “I have to think about this,” he managed. His face was still pale.

  Leon nodded. “I can’t ask for anything more—but don’t take too long to make up your mind. She needs help now.”

  Devon shuddered and stared down at his ruined parchment. “Who’ll take my job here?” he whispered. “I mean, do you have someone in mind for that, too?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Leon said.

  Slowly, Ril turned to look at him again.

  Chapter Six

  There was something wrong with the queen.

  Yes, wrong. The recently returned healer just didn’t know what it was. She’d tried to talk to the others, but none of them wanted to listen, perhaps for fear they would also become a target. The queen was growing sullen and short-tempered, lashing out with a tentacle whenever she came near. The queen hadn’t laid an egg in days, either, and she wouldn’t let her close, though the other healers still lounged contentedly nearby. The one time the unnamed healer dared ask if the queen was feeling unwell, she’d been chased out of the royal chambers, her hindquarters stinging from a slap.

  She hurt. Not her hindquarters but her heart. It felt like the link between her and her queen was being stretched thin, pulled taut until it was about to snap. That made her feel itchy all through herself where she couldn’t scratch.

  The queen’s chambers were the deepest in the hive. Above were the egg chambers and hatching rooms, and above those the chambers dedicated to food. The healer slipped into these, flowing through a crowd of chattering air sylphs, and she looked down at those that handled sustenance. There were more than two dozen, eyeless and fat, their cloud shapes a soft blue-green, though most were solid right now, forms that were all mouth, stomach, and udders.

  The food sylphs ate, devouring the purple crops brought in by the air sylphs and drinking deeply of the funnelled-in water. In turn, they were milked of pure energy, balls of light that were packed into storage rooms for the rest of the hive to eat later. Any sylph could eat the plants outside, but except for the food sylphs it was a wasteful effort with far less return. The amount they’d need to consume would rise exponentially. A food sylph could drag out every bit of energy.

  It didn’t make the creatures intelligent, which the healer supposed was a blessing. She flowed over them, looking for any sort of illness. Food sylphs didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t even feel. They just lay where they chose and ate, only rolling over so that they could be milked.

  It was a peaceful place to visit. Food sylphs knew their place in the hive, and they didn’t have to be concerned with anything else. The healer floated over them, wanting their peacefulness to soothe her as well, but it wasn’t working. The queen was still snappish and angry, and she didn’t know where she fit in the hive anymore.

  The itchiness grew inside her, and the healer scratched, shook herself, and continued on. Restless and not knowing what to do about it, she knew only that for no reason she could fathom, her queen was starting to hate her.

  Galway sat patiently through the long meeting, putting in comments and giving his analysis of economic reports regarding the Valley. The situation wasn’t too bad, but without more trade they’d have to start imposing taxes. It would be easier if their fledgling government didn’t pay the sylphs even the pittance they did—the sylphs would have worked for free, anyway, and most didn’t know what to do with their admittedly tiny salaries—but Solie wouldn’t want to concede the point. Only slaves worked for nothing.

  The possibilities inherent to forming a trade partnership with Meridal were immense. The old empire was already known for i
ts luxury goods, and Eapha had inherited everything. Galway made a few notes about the ways she could get her manufacturing base working again; he’d have to discuss them with Devon. Providing the man intended to go. Galway looked over to see him sink down in his chair as the meeting ended, his air sylph invisible and playing with his hair.

  But, Devon and the Valley’s economic future weren’t his most immediate concerns. He’d sat through the entire meeting feeling his battler’s emotions jumping around like a swamp bug. Solie hadn’t seemed to pick up on it. She could feel the emotions of everyone in the room, so he had no doubt that Devon’s near hysteria was swamping her.

  She left ahead of the others, with Mace following. Devon hurried out almost on her heels. Galway gathered his notes and traversed the hallway behind Leon and Ril, right after Heyou. When the young battler made as if to follow his queen, Galway put an arm around his neck and pulled him aside.

  Drawing him close, he steered the battler across the main audience chamber and back toward the more public area of the underground complex. Heyou looked surprised, but he didn’t pull away and let himself be guided. They walked in the same direction as Ril and Leon.

  “So, what’s wrong, boy?” Galway asked, careful to keep his voice low. Ril could probably hear him, but the battler wouldn’t care. The chancellor shouldn’t know Heyou’s issues, though. This felt like a private matter.

  “Wrong?”

  Galway tightened his arm around the battler’s neck. Heyou made a fake gagging sound but pressed closer, suddenly burying his face against the trapper’s chest. His aura sad, he stopped walking.

  Galway stopped, too, worried. Ahead, Ril and Leon vanished through the main doors, leaving them alone. “What is it, Heyou? Tell me.”

  The battler wrapped him tight in his arms, standing very close. He wasn’t tall in this chosen form, and his face pressed into Galway’s collarbone. “It’s Solie,” he said, his voice muffled. “She wants to have babies. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Galway brought his free hand around and laced it through Heyou’s long, dark hair. To him, Heyou being a battle sylph didn’t mean much; the boy was just like any of the other children he and his wife had taken in over the years. Not all of them were blood, but all of them were family. His wife felt the same.