Gabralina blinked, not really marking the other woman’s jealousy. She was too used to it. “They obey her? Don’t they have to obey their masters?”
“Sure. But all the sylphs obey the queen first. It’s just the way it is.”
On the other side of the chamber, a door opened, and in came a young woman with long red tresses. She wore rumpled clothes and her hair was a bit mussed, as though she’d just got out of bed, but she was pretty. A battler in the shape of a beautiful young man followed, his gaze finding Wat and not looking happy.
Seeing the redhead, the battlers in the room all bowed, and Gabralina realized something. “That’s the queen?” she gasped. “How did she get to be so important?”
“Uh, she had sex with her battler, from what I heard.”
“Huh?”
Leon’s hand closed around her arm, and Gabralina’s startled yelp echoed through the room. “Quiet,” he soothed. “We’re short on formality here, but this place echoes badly.” He led her forward, Wat following them across the floor.
“I thought you told me bad things would happen if I had sex with Wat,” she whispered.
“Bad things would have happened,” he assured her. “You would have become a queen like Solie. More than one hive is too many, though. Don’t worry, it’ll be safe in a moment.”
“Safe for what? How?”
Leon stepped up to the queen, who was waiting beside her battler, and nodded to a huge, heavily tanned man standing a few feet to her left. “He’s all yours, Mace.”
“What?” Gabralina squealed. Wat glanced over, picking up on her fright and the cry that was unintentionally similar to his name. She was suddenly intensely afraid for him. Leon hadn’t warned her about any of this.
There was no more time to think. Mace lifted his hand and Wat stiffened, eyes widening. Gabralina cried out, feeling his sudden immobility and fear, but Leon held her back. Something inside Wat was changing, shifting, and though she never lost her connection to him, she felt his attention become divided, the essence of what he was reforming itself. He shuddered once, and then it was over. Blinking, he vigorously shook his head. Many of the battlers wandered out of the chamber, including the huge one called Mace. Those who remained didn’t look interested in guarding against him at all, not anymore.
“Wat?” she whispered. “What happened?”
“He’s a member of the hive now,” Leon explained. “He’ll be accepted by the others.” Shrugging, his expression a bit amused, he added, “The warning about not sleeping with him? It’s okay now. Nothing bad will happen.”
Nothing? Nothing. Except now she had a lover and a home in a place where no one would have any reason to ask her about her past. All of the tension flowed out of her as easily as it had from her battle sylph, and Gabralina smiled beatifically as she turned to greet the queen.
Even as introductions were made, Solie stared past the new girl at Leon, who stood with arms crossed, looking tired and hungry but willing to wait until all the protocols were finished. He’d taught her everything she knew about diplomacy and running this kingdom, and he’d probably even make sure Gabralina was settled in and comfortable before he went home—which meant he obviously had no idea about his oldest daughter. Solie’s heart sank. She didn’t want to tell him, but he had to be apprised of what had happened before some well-meaning idiot blurted it out.
Despite sharing the girl’s experience of nearly being sacrificed, and fearing she was being rude, Solie smiled at the blonde who was the newest citizen of Sylph Valley and cut her short. “It’s so good to have you here! Still, you must be exhausted. I’ll have Devon take you to a room so you can rest.” She crooked a finger, and Devon stepped forward, looking surprised. “We have a lot dug, just in case. Most of them aren’t used most of the time…”
The blonde girl just blinked at her stupidly, and Solie realized she was starting to babble. Determined to end things, she waved a good-bye and moved to address Leon. She took his arm. He had both eyebrows raised. “Leon, come with me.”
Without a word of disagreement, he fell in beside her. She led him out of the chamber and into a private room farther down the hall, one near the battler chamber where she’d learned Ril was resting. Heyou shadowed her, wearing a worried expression. He was concerned about how Lizzy’s father would react, Solie knew. So was she.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asked in an undertone once they were alone. Solie just shook her head and closed the door. The room they were in had a narrow bed and a chair, as well as a bucket and a mop. Leon stepped away from her and spun, his arms crossed. “Okay, tell me.”
Solie took a deep breath. Heyou moved close, his hand caressing her shoulder, and she forced herself to remain calm. This was, of all men, the one for whom she had the most respect. The Community wouldn’t have survived its retreat to the cliff hive six years ago without him.
“Leon, I’m so sorry, but I have bad news. It’s Lizzy.” She was forced to swallow and took a deep breath. “She’s gone. She went to Para Dubh and was kidnapped. I sent sixteen battlers to try and get her back, but they couldn’t find her. We…we don’t know where she is.”
Leon froze, his face draining of all color. So close to him, Solie couldn’t help but share his emotions through Heyou. She felt his pain like a knife. “Wh-what?” he managed.
“Leon, I’m so sorry,” she begged. “I sent them there but I never thought anything like this would happen. Please forgive me.”
She had no idea if he did. Leon turned, fumbling for the doorknob, and was out in the hallway a moment later, rushing toward his home and family. Solie hung her head, and Heyou put his arms around her.
Leon hardly felt his boots touch the ground as he ran, or heard his own panicked gasps. Someone had his baby, and he couldn’t think beyond that. Someone had his Lizzy.
He ran up the same stairs he’d brought Ril down, stumbling and falling to one knee. He didn’t acknowledge the pain, instead leaping up again, crashing through the door at the top and off down the street, his sheathed sword slapping against his leg and his arms pumping at his sides. He might have passed people who stopped and stared, but he wasn’t sure. Someone might have called out to him, but he didn’t hear.
His house lay a few streets over from the main thoroughfare, close enough to the main market to make Betha happy but far enough that they didn’t feel as though the entire town was on their doorstep. Their dwelling wasn’t as large as their old manor in Eferem, but they didn’t have any servants, either. They maintained everything themselves, the girls keeping the interior clean and the clothes and linens washed, and he and Ril seeing to the repairs and upkeep. Everyone took care of the garden in the back and the chicken coop, along with the small barn for their few horses and single cow. Lizzy’s wardrobe door had been squeaking, he remembered. He’d intended to fix it when he got back. She’d told him it drove her crazy, but he’d never got around to it. He should have fixed it!
The top floor of the house was dark, only a single light shining in the sitting room below. Leon clattered up the porch steps and through the front door they never bothered to lock. The hall inside was dark, the light he’d seen from outside shining off to his right.
“Betha!” he screamed.
There was a startled exclamation from the sitting room, and his wife of twenty-five years appeared, clad in a rumpled dress with her hair half-fallen out of its bun, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. They saw each other and crashed together, both of them crying and hugging each other until it was painful. Footsteps sounded from the second floor, and the other girls came racing downstairs in their nightgowns, calling for their father.
Cara was twelve, her curly hair down from its usual pigtails. Behind her scrambled nine-year-old Nali, with dark hair like her mother’s, her eyes filled with tears. Behind her and leading the three-year-old Mia came seven-year-old Ralad, already weeping but determined to be responsible. Hanging on to her hand, Mia babbled questions Leon didn’t know how to answer.
S
till holding his wife, Leon sank to his knees, pulling her down with him and reaching out an arm for his girls. They crowded against him, bawling, and Leon wept, too, wishing he’d never been so foolish as to leave home.
Underneath the town, wrapped by the energy of another battler and floating within him like some sort of unborn child, Ril maintained his natural shape and slept.
And sleeping, he dreamed.
Chapter Six
Feeling both rested and hungry, Ril came awake as Luck shifted him back into his human form. He sat on the floor while she scanned him intently and then, satisfied with what she saw, patted him on the head and left. Glancing up at the battler who’d held him all night, Ril nodded his thanks. Dillon’s reply came back, a wordless welcome.
His hunger not unlike a man’s for food, Ril stood and walked out of the room, yawning. Nearby, battlers wandered in and out of the queen’s audience hall, all of them dressed in blue and gold, and Ril looked down at his travel-stained clothing before ducking into the next chamber, one layered with dozens of cubbies. His own space was near the door, specifically chosen at a level easy for him to reach.
He retrieved and put on his blue and gold pants and white shirt, the blue and gold coat over top. This uniform had been Solie’s idea, so that anyone who didn’t know their faces would be aware whenever they were dealing with a battler—there had been a few accidents early on. The clothes felt stiff and formal, but he’d never intentionally have been seen in town without them. He was a battler, no matter what anyone might think or whisper.
Ril straightened proudly as he did up the buttons on the coat, and then he made his way to the surface, his thoughts not much farther-reaching than finding breakfast—or perhaps lunch, he realized as he saw the sun already high in the sky. Some people found it odd that sylphs used such terms for feeding from their masters, but what other words were they supposed to use for it?
Walking down the sidewalk, humans parting to let him pass, he headed to Leon’s house. He could tell where his master was at all times, though he didn’t always bother to focus on what the man was feeling. But right now—Ril frowned—Leon felt upset. Very upset. Almost hysterical.
Ril sped up, and before he even realized it, he was running, nervous humans ducking frantically out of the way. Above, other battlers roared, picking up on the distress that was being fed to him via his master, and every sylph outside vanished, many of them taking their masters with them. Not that Ril noticed. He soon took Leon’s porch stairs with a single bound and crashed through the house’s front door. It flew off its hinges, slamming into the wall as Leon appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall, a knife in hand. He was bare chested and unshaven, his eyes wild and bloodshot. Ril hadn’t seen him look so bad since the day he was nearly hanged, and he skidded to a halt before his master, staring. Behind Leon, Betha and the youngest girls sat around the kitchen table, all of them still in their nightclothes.
Ril stared. “What’s wrong?”
Leon swallowed heavily, choked, and let the knife fall to his side. “We lost Lizzy.”
That didn’t make any sense. Ril tilted his head to one side. “What?”
“She’s gone,” Leon said miserably. “She was kidnapped. No one can find her. We don’t even know if she’s alive.” At the table, Lizzy’s sisters started weeping.
That really didn’t make any sense. His head still tilted, Ril kept staring at Leon, though he didn’t really see him. He was hungry for the man’s energy, but he didn’t think to take it. Lizzy? His Lizzy? He’d seen her birth, guarded her childhood, even promised her she would be his queen, until Solie got to him first and subsumed him into her hive. He’d promised Lizzy everything—until Yanda the battler tore him in two and left him broken and unworthy.
“Ril?” Leon said.
Ril turned, moved unsteadily down the hall and back out onto the porch. The neighbors, who hadn’t known Leon was home but had seen Ril go inside, were gathering to give their condolences. Ril ignored them and closed his eyes. His Lizzy, his beautiful Lizzy! He’d loved her, wanted her to be his queen, had even begged for her love, and in her innocent granting of it, he’d taken her pattern into him, beneath Leon’s and Solie’s. He’d ignored it for years now, knowing that he wasn’t good enough for her anymore and that she lived in a town surrounded by whole battlers. They would protect her, he’d told himself. They’d kill for her, and she could find a life for herself. Marry, have children. Forget him.
Ril focused on that years-old pattern, let it fill him. Then, while the humans all watched, he lifted his arm, pointing, reaching and slowly turning, angling more and more to the south, pointing off toward the edge of the valley.
“There,” he said at last. “She’s there.”
Behind him, Leon’s shock nearly broke his trance. “What are you saying?”
“She’s there,” Ril breathed. “I can track her.”
Leon shoved clothes furiously into a travel pack, not caring that they got rumpled or perhaps even torn. Clothes, money…He’d need money to hire a ship and to buy horses on the other side. An ablution kit. Would he need that? Of course he would, what was he thinking? Something of Lizzy’s? Some clothes for her? He had to stop for a minute and put a shaking hand over his watering eyes. He’d thought she was lost to him, only Ril could track her. How the hell could he track her? Leon didn’t care. They’d hunt her abductors down and kill them and get his baby back. Just him, forty-seven years old and starting to feel it on cold nights, and a crippled battler. None of the other battlers would come along and risk their precious masters.
He sobbed hard but swallowed it, shoving more gear he couldn’t focus on into his bag. Ril was changing in the next room. Mace had said he’d take them to Para Dubh, and Solie had given them as much money as she could, including several gems now hidden in the fake heel of his boot. Lizzy was probably going to be sold. Maybe they could buy her back.
They were going to sell his little girl? Leon had to put both hands over his face.
He heard his name and looked up to see his wife standing in the doorway. She’d never yelled at him for all the times he’d deserted the family to go on one of his damn missions, or for how he spent more time with Ril than with her. She had to be aching to get him going this time, but she walked forward instead and put her arms around him.
“Make sure you come home,” she whispered. “All of you. You got it? Don’t you come back without her!”
“I won’t,” Leon promised, hugging her tight. “I’ll bring her back.”
“Then we’ll never let her out of our sight again,” Betha added viciously.
Leon started to weep. He couldn’t help it, and his wife wept, too, her fingernails digging into his back as she held him.
“Papa!” Cara shouted. “Papa, come down here!”
Leon separated from Betha, wiping his eyes. “I better get down there,” he said, managing a smile. His wife matched it, her eyes shining with tears.
“You do that. I’ll finish packing for you, silly man.” She turned him to the door and patted his bottom to send him on his way.
Leon went out into the hall and down the stairs to the front porch. Outside, Mace was sitting on the swing beside the Widow Blackwell, his master. Leon didn’t have the faintest idea what the woman’s first name was, but she looked at him sympathetically. Of all the others, he knew she was the most likely to go with them, but she was the dorm mother of every urchin and orphan in town. She was the last one who could leave—which meant Mace couldn’t go, either. Not farther than Para Dubh.
He considered her for only a moment before turning to the front yard. Most of the neighbors were still there, standing in groups and conversing, all of them shooting looks at the young man waiting nervously at the foot of the stairs, a heavy travel pack by his feet. Justin Porter. He looked up at Leon, twisting his hat nervously between his hands.
“Um,” he stammered. “I’m coming with you.”
Leon blinked. “What?”
The boy took a deep breath, and Leon wondered distantly where his father was. Cal Porter would have a heart attack if he knew what his son was suggesting. Either that, or he’d talk them all to death.
“I was with Lizzy when she was kidnapped. I should have protected her, and I let her down. I need to make up for that.”
“We’re not going out there to salvage your pride, boy,” Leon responded coldly.
“That’s not it!”
“I don’t have time to care,” Leon replied, turning to go back into the house.
“I love her!” Justin shouted. Leon stopped, every muscle tense. “I love her,” the boy repeated. “I want to marry her.” Leon turned and saw how miserable Justin looked as he added, “I have to go. If you don’t take me, I’ll just follow you anyway. I don’t care what it costs, I’m going to get her back.”
Leon studied the youth, really studied him, wishing for once he had Ril’s talent for empathy. Not that Ril cared what others thought. Right now, Leon envied the battler that as well.
“Fine,” he said, vaguely aware that he would never agree if he weren’t already emotionally drained. “But you have to keep up.” When Justin beamed, grin huge and innocent, Leon sighed and said, “Get inside.” The boy ran past, carrying his pack, and Leon rubbed his forehead and looked at Mace. The big battler stared quietly forward, one of the widow’s hands held in his own. She was smiling.
Leon headed back inside, stepping over Mia and around Ralad. He could hear Cara and Nali in the kitchen yelling at each other. As he walked down the hall, both girls turned from Justin to him.
“I wanna come, too!” Cara demanded.
“Don’t you start with me,” he told her, and looked at Justin. “Show me what you brought.” The boy nodded frantically and started to dump the contents of his pack onto the table.
The Shattered Sylph Page 6
