Ril gazed at him. “No, she didn’t.”
Leon seemed grimly satisfied. He nodded and looked away again for a second. “Tell me one more thing. Do you love her?”
The battler swallowed. The pain rose again, the contradiction of caring for something more than this man. He had to answer, though, and do so with all the honesty in him. “More than anything.”
“And you’ll take care of her?”
“As much as she needs.”
Leon nodded, took a deep breath, and put his arms around Ril’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. “All right, son. So long as it’s what Lizzy wants, I won’t regret your being with her.”
Ril closed his eyes and shuddered again, this time with relief. Leon gripped him tightly for a moment longer before finally letting him go.
Chapter Twenty-four
Leon woke, blinking at the darkness that hid the ceiling of the hut in which he lay. There was a hole in the roof and through that he could see a couple of stars twinkling above. There weren’t as many here as in the Valley, where there were fewer city lights to dim them out, but he could still see half a dozen twinkling like happy children with sparklers.
He lay quiet for a few minutes, watching and just breathing, calming himself as he’d been doing since he’d first come to this city. Serenity filled him, but it didn’t go as deep as usual, and finally he sighed. Serenity wasn’t what he needed. He needed to feel, and what he felt was guilt. He’d been angry with Ril; he admitted that now. Lizzy was his daughter. He had wanted to protect her and see her properly married, with children and grandchildren and an ordinary life. But the way Ril reacted to his anger had destroyed all of that. Despite all the ownership Leon forced on him, Ril had been terrified! Leon felt ill, and now his anger was directed at himself.
For fifteen years he’d held Ril as a bird, wanting the creature’s trust and respect, believing as he’d been taught that the battler was nothing more than a clever animal. Upon learning the truth, he’d wanted him to be a friend, or even family, and he’d felt finally he succeeded in that. Now, to see Ril actually begging him…He didn’t want to share, that was the heart of it, but that didn’t mean he had the right to question. Lizzy and Ril were both adults. They didn’t need his approval and they certainly didn’t require his permission. Leon closed his eyes. He’d asked Ril to trust him with everything he was, and then he’d attacked the very core of his need. If he ever expected to be the most important person in Ril’s life, then he didn’t deserve to have him. The same went with Lizzy. It hurt, though. On a fundamentally selfish level, it hurt very much.
He also had no time for it. Leon had no idea how long he’d been sleeping, and Tooie could only wait so long before he needed to return to the harem. He might already be gone.
Scrubbing his hand through his hair, Leon rose and went out into the darkness. Xehm and Zalia sat by the fire along with a few other exiles. The majority had left hours before, preferring to find other places in the desert to set up their camps instead of running the risk of staying. Leon didn’t blame them and was in fact glad they were gone. Battlers didn’t leave the city, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be drawn by the heightened emotions of this place.
One battler was present. Tooie floated at the edge of the desert by the wall, which Eapha sat atop, keeping him company. He was still made of smoke and lightning, due to his orders, and Leon could see the sylph’s growing distress in the rate the lightning inside him flashed. Eapha was talking, but she couldn’t stop him from going if Tooie reached the limits of his orders and had to feed. Worse, he’d been gone so long that his absence could have been noted, so if the battler vanished now, Leon had no guarantee that he would be able to return.
He strode forward, his jaw clenched. Red eyes turned to regard him, as did Eapha. “Did you find out anything?” she asked. She’d been dubious of Leon’s talk of dream-walking, but she hadn’t been entirely disbelieving. He hoped she could keep that attitude.
“I did.” He looked at the battler. “I hope you understand me, Tooie. I hope you understand what this means.”
The sylph stared at him. He couldn’t speak. Leon could tell he was listening, though.
“Ril told me that he made Lizzy his master by reaching for her with his pattern. He says he nearly killed himself trying, but it wasn’t until Lizzy surrendered to him that it worked. She did it thinking he was dying. She didn’t know.” Leon turned to Eapha. “You do. Surrender yourself to Tooie, and he can make you his master.”
Tooie surged, his lightning flaring throughout the cloud that formed him. Leon hissed for him to be quiet, even as Eapha regarded them both fearfully.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
Immediately Tooie’s energy was contained again, and he reached out with a dark tendril to stroke her cheek. She looked at him mournfully and laid her hand atop it.
“Your life won’t necessarily be any easier,” Leon told her. Ethically, he couldn’t say anything less, knowing she would soon be a queen. He’d told her what a queen was, but she had no background to draw on to really understand. Only by experiencing it could she do that. “But it’s the only way I can see for both of you to be free. You and him.” He nodded at Tooie.
Eapha followed his gaze to her lover. Tooie stared back, his smoke swirling up around the wall and encircling her. Finally she smiled, ducking her head back down.
Leon nodded, stepping away. “If you can, be quick.” Turning, he returned to the camp.
Tooie watched Eapha, the energy that was his heart vibrating on a thousand frequencies at once. What the man had said, how he claimed his battler had done the binding…Tooie never would have thought of that! It wasn’t that it was beyond him, but it wasn’t something that should ever work. To reach out to a mind was one thing, but only the queen could take hold. Everyone knew that. It was a fundamental truth. Only the queen could grasp a pattern. Only the queen could accept a bond.
But sylphs bonded to humans every time one was made their master, didn’t they? Humans could take their patterns, if not as powerfully as a queen, then nearly so. Enough to command them, enough to own them. Always before through ritual, but that was only to force the bond. All they really needed to do in their humanness was to take what was offered.
Tooie shrieked silently, ecstatic and overwhelmed. So much time wasted, by all of his kind. They’d had the ability to forge their destiny this entire time. Or at least to fall in love with those who could.
He regarded Eapha, able to see her energy pattern more easily than her body in his current form. Soon, that pattern would be inside him. It would be one of many, but she was female. Which meant…he could turn her into a queen. She didn’t fully understand that, but he did.
Forming tendrils of his essence, he swept them in the signs Eapha had taught him. He wasn’t quite so proficient in this shape, but he didn’t need to say anything terribly complex. Trust me, he spelled out.
“I do,” she whispered, though he could feel her fear as much as her love.
Tooie reached for her, stretching out his pattern the way he would have to a queen of his own kind, had his queen ever wanted him. Instead he sought Eapha and felt the essence of her just beyond reach, across a tiny distance that he could never bridge on his own. He reached out nonetheless, hoping, and slowly Eapha started to reach back.
Lizzy walked over to the food table, her stomach rumbling. There wasn’t much left, and Kiala was picking over the last of the cheeses.
“Want some?” she asked, offering Lizzy the tray.
“Thanks,” Lizzy said, taking a piece and popping it into her mouth. It smelled like feet, but the taste was divine. She chewed slowly and glanced around. The hour was late, and she and Kiala were the only two women in sight. “Eapha is free,” she said after a moment. “She was taken to Ril at the arena, and my father broke her free.”
Kiala’s jaw dropped. “B-but…,” she gasped. “But how?”
“He’s my father,” Lizzy said. “He won’t leave me.”
Kiala’s lips firmed. She’d heard about Lizzy’s father before and never really believed. “No one’s going to get you out of here.”
“He will. He and Ril.”
The woman shook her head, bitter and defeated. “No battler is going to save anyone. Not from this place.”
The main door suddenly unlocked and opened. It was too late for the handlers to be coming for anything usual, Lizzy realized in terror, but three dozen of them filed in, armed with swords and clubs. Their faces were grimmer than she’d ever seen, and she shuddered upon seeing that Melorta accompanied them. The handler eyed her hatefully, as though she was remembering the interrogation as well. This was going to be much worse than earlier.
Lizzy and Kiala both started backing away. The handlers spread out, clubs at the ready. Behind them came Rashala. She looked serenely over the mostly empty harem, then at Lizzy and Kiala.
“Those two are on the list. Take them.”
Kiala froze, gawking in terror. Lizzy screamed instead, and tried to run, but there were too many handlers and she couldn’t escape all of them. They caught her after only a few steps and dragged her back by her hair. Frantic, she still tried to fight, but they pushed her down onto the ground and twisted her arm behind her back.
“Ril!” she screamed. “Ril!”
“Get the others,” Rashala ordered, and the rest of the handlers obeyed, Melorta calling commands and breaking them into groups.
It was obvious that they knew just where they were going, where their targets were sleeping, for within minutes nine more women were dragged out of alcoves, crying and screaming. Four battlers trailed behind them, following the women, and their distress was obvious.
All of the women were from the circle. Lizzy gasped in horror, which drew Rashala’s eyes. The woman’s expression was worse than smug. “No,” Lizzy whispered. How had they known? “Ril…”
Rashala cast her gaze over the frightened, assembled captives. “Take them to the feeder pens.”
The concubines began screaming, struggling madly, and their battlers begged in silence, trying to come to their aid but ordered back by the handlers. Other women and battlers appeared at the openings to the alcoves and at the door in back, watching in terror but doing nothing. There was nothing they could do, nothing any of them could do.
“Ril!” Lizzy screamed again, shrieking with her mind as loudly as her voice. “Ril!”
His eyes snapped open as he heard Lizzy scream. Her panic beat at him, along with the terror of a great many other women, along with the rage and fear of countless battle sylphs, along with Leon’s order to protect his daughter. Ril rolled over, swaying sleepily, but smacked himself across the face. The pain shocked him more fully awake, and he shook his head, forcing himself to his feet.
The intensity of his dream still had him, and he tried to change shape. The pain of that brought him all of the way awake, and a moment later Ril ran out into the harem. His boot heels thudding on the marble floor, he stumbled over a pillow, nearly falling, but he caught himself and looked up. Handlers occupied the harem in force, dragging nearly a dozen women toward the door. Rashala watched. Four battlers cowered and wailed in silence, their murderous wrath barely held back by orders. Ril recognized them as easily as he did the women.
Lizzy was closest to the door, and as he stood there she was pulled through, still screaming his name. Ril charged forward, his rage absolute, no matter if it was his or if it was her father’s.
Seeing him approach, Melorta nodded at one of her handlers. The woman turned toward him, her palm uplifted. “Stop!” she ordered, her voice clear and firm.
You are mine, Leon’s voice whispered in his mind.
Ril ran up to the handler and drove his fist into her face. It slammed through her nose and the bones of her skull, punched through the soft tissue of her brain and out the back. The woman’s body convulsed, then dropped off his bloody arm to fall with a splat on the ground. Ril stared at the corpse in silence, realizing that he’d killed a female. It wasn’t as though it was an impossible thing, but battlers normally never would. Females were female, not the enemy. He shuddered, aware that everyone was staring at him, the battlers shocked, the handlers and concubines terrified. Lizzy’s fear stood out above them all.
Rashala passed a stunned Melorta and moved slowly toward him, her hands raised. “Seven-oh-three,” she soothed. “Be calm. That’s a good boy.” Her will pushed forward onto him, dominating, overwhelming. “You’re a good boy.”
You are mine, Leon promised.
Ril smiled and spread his arms, one bloody and the other clean. Rashala took another step toward him, her will potent and focused…and Ril hit her with the full aura of his hatred.
His attack made the other battlers howl, but Ril didn’t care. The women all screamed in panic. Many of the handlers lost their grip on the concubines, only a few of whom had the presence to run before Melorta yelled for her subordinates to master themselves. Few obeyed right away, but the concubines didn’t need much controlling. The only directions they could run were either back past Ril into the harem or out the still-open doorway where Lizzy had disappeared. Most of them cowered instead, as frightened as the handlers.
Rashala stumbled backward, her eyes wide with horror, but she didn’t give in to her fear. “Kill him!” she screamed instead. “Kill him!”
She cried out the order to the handlers, but Ril could tell that she meant it for the battlers as well. He laughed aloud. “You’re not allowed to order battlers to fight, isn’t that true?”
Rashala gasped and finally ran, spinning around and exiting the room in only a few steps. Melorta was on her heels. The door slammed shut, leaving Ril with nearly thirty handlers. Most were still frozen in terror, but close to a dozen started forward, swords drawn. They were afraid, shivering under the effect of his hatred, but determined.
Ril snarled, not liking the odds. Even if he had the energy to take them all in one energy blast, he’d kill Lizzy’s friends as well. Fighting in the arena had taught him to use his power in a more focused manner, but he was still terribly outnumbered. Leon, though…Leon had forced him to learn to fight with a sword.
The handlers moved forward, even a few who had been paralyzed before. Ril glanced over his shoulder at the four battlers of Eapha’s circle, creatures not of his hive to whom he would ordinarily never speak. Under normal circumstances, he would fight them, not these women. That was what was natural, what he was made for. Ultimately, though, the battlers were as useless in this struggle as the concubines.
The first handlers came for him, swords swinging. Ril lunged at each in turn, much faster than they, and buried a bloody fist in the gut of one as he ducked under the blade of another. Changing the shape of his left arm, hissing in pain as he did, Ril plunged what was now a jagged, multiangled sword into his assailant’s side. She gasped, vomiting blood as she fell into two pieces. The handler he’d punched curled over and fell to the floor, trying to breathe. Straightening, Ril fought to breathe himself.
His right arm he changed next, making it a blade slimmer but just as lethal as the first. The transformation was agonizing, but he had no choice. He didn’t have enough energy to make any greater changes, and he couldn’t hold them back with the hate aura. He couldn’t even keep that up much longer.
He charged in amongst the handlers. Captive concubines dropped to the floor or ran, screaming, and he leaped over one woman with whom he’d pretended to be lovers to take a handler’s head off right above the jaw. The woman beside her screamed and threw up her hands, dropping her sword. Ril drove his arm through both her and the handler cowering behind. He then pushed forward into a group of a half dozen more, including another of his fake lovers. When she shrieked, he booted her in the backside to get her moving toward safety.
The handlers kept attacking. Ril ripped his sword arm free, yanking it around just in time to block several blows before finding the gut of another assailant. The woman gagged on blood as he drew her
upward, impaled, lifting her over his head and throwing her across the room into another half dozen handlers set upon killing him. Ril leaped after her, arms swinging.
Every impact ran up his arms, and he soon was slipping on blood, his body aching. A club thrown at him rebounded off his shoulder, and he cried out, nearly falling. A handler charged, hoping to get the better of him, but he felt her emotions as she approached and brought his arm up. She crashed against him, transfixed, and blood splattered his face and made it hard to see. Her emotions stopped with a crunch the same as a cockroach under a heavy boot.
Everyone was screaming and sliding on the bloody floor. The other battlers watched with interest as the women who’d tormented their beloveds died, over a dozen of them now gathered together. The women of the harem were in hiding, the last of Eapha’s circle finally running for safety. Their battler lovers collected them but otherwise stayed still. Ril rather wished they’d help him.
He shook the dead woman off his sword and backed away from the remaining handlers. They were determined to fight now, knowing they would perish if they didn’t, and they called out to each other, the more senior among them issuing orders. He could still be beaten, they shouted. Ril wasn’t sure they were wrong. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath anymore, and he couldn’t maintain his hatred. The aura faltered and fell, and he sagged, gasping and half blind from a face full of blood.
There were ten handlers still on their feet, several others stunned but trying to get up. Without his hate aura battering them, they quickly regained courage and determination. Distantly Ril could feel Lizzy, still terrified. He didn’t have time for anyone else. He swung toward the main door to the harem.
His teeth gritted, he forced his arms to return to normal, trying to ignore the pain it caused. Facing the door, he focused. He’d learned a lot while fighting in the arena, given no choice but to use his blast wave in very controlled ways. Pressing his palms against the door lock, he used just enough energy to break the mechanism. Shoving the door open, he fell through and pushed it shut behind him, bracing his back against it, intending to keep in any handlers who tried to follow.
The Shattered Sylph Page 25
