Almost, she went to her, but there was no coinciding desire in the woman for help. The nameless sylph had been unimpressed by the other offerings because they all wanted something, but she didn’t want to be tied to someone who didn’t want her, either. This wounded being didn’t want a healer sylph at all.
She couldn’t shut out the woman’s loneliness, which was making her own homesickness unbearable. Against her better instincts, the nameless sylph turned toward her old hive, just wanting to go home. She started toward it.
Leave.
She started, surprised, though after everything else that happened she shouldn’t be. This had been coming for a long time after all. Still, she wailed, feeling the pattern inside her break at last, shattered by her queen.
Her battler pressed against her side, hissing. Now. We have to go now.
Where? This is my home!
Hysterical, the unnamed sylph darted off toward her hive, intending to return to her hive mates despite everything she knew, to deny for good what was happening inside her. Then she learned just how serious the queen’s order had been.
Battle sylphs roared, smaller than she but numbering in the hundreds. They poured out of the hive and soared toward her, bellowing in attack. Her companion swept in front, his shield of energy flashing up between them, and energy exploded, sending him reeling back against her. At the sight of an exile in their territory, the battle sylphs’ rage grew even stronger.
He snarled in response. She healed his wounds even as she heard his angry shout: Run! The queen wants you dead!
Reality came clear. She turned and fled, racing away from everything she’d ever known. Her battler, who would be just as dead as she if they were caught, flew behind her, keeping her safe with his shields. He couldn’t keep them all the way around her, and hive battlers raced to cut them off, to catch them both and kill them.
If she’d left sooner, she would have been ignored and allowed to escape, but she hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted anything other than to be a healer, safe and happy.
A named battle sylph who might have been her own sire dove at her, lightning flaring through his form. She dodged and ducked, her battler squealing in pain as he took a blast of energy meant for her. Twisting over herself, she caught him in a tendril of smoke and barreled over the named battler, arching up to try and avoid his lashing strike. It caught her along the back and she gasped, even as she healed herself.
More battlers were closing in, cutting off escape. Her battler clung to her, matching her flight as he roared in outrage at her brothers, throwing blasts of energy at them until he was exhausted. Still their foes closed, swarming.
She shot upward between four battlers, then rolled over again and dove. It was close. She wasn’t going to escape this, not now that she’d waited until her queen demanded her death—her own mother! At least, she wouldn’t escape by fleeing into the wilderness. Even if she evaded her hive mates, the chance of finding a place to survive there were slim. Which left . . . the gate.
Desperate, she dove for it and for the female with the hurt in her soul. Not an offering, and not interested in her. A life with an uninterested party was better than death. She raced for the gate, tumbled from the pain of a blow that her battler could only partly deflect, and fell through the gate with him still in her grip. She grimly hoped he wouldn’t mind.
Gabralina stared at the gate, her grief not gone but forgotten for a moment at the shock of seeing its swirling noncolor. The sight made her head ache and frightened something deep inside her. Almost, she could see patterns there, but their meaning hovered beyond her ability to comprehend.
Then she remembered the gate she’d seen in Yed and how her sweet Wat had come through. That brought back all of her grief and a surety that he must have gone back home. Was he on the other side even now, trying to find his way back?
Suddenly positive, she hurried forward, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She ran past Petr and his chanting apprentices before he realized what she was doing, and into the circle. There were three people there already, one with a missing finger, the other two apparently showing no obvious illness. Gabralina barely took notice of Cherry, one of the barmaids at the town’s largest tavern, and Syl, a blacksmith’s apprentice. The one with the missing finger was a cattleman. They looked curious as she joined them, and then shocked as she reached upward to touch the swirling slickness of the gate itself.
“No!” Petr shouted.
Gabralina was a short woman, and to reach she was forced to stand on her toes with her arms outstretched. Even then, despite her desperation, she only managed to brush the edge of her fingertips against the hovering circle before Syl grabbed her. Pain shocked her out of her grief-stricken stupor. The touch of the gate was electric, burning her fingertips and leaving her choking, shuddering in Syl’s arms.
“What are you doing?” Cherry hissed. Her face held fear and anger.
Clearly shaken, Petr stopped just outside the circle drawn on the floor. Ash hovered behind him. She was peering at Gabralina, who couldn’t even get her breath back, let alone try to answer them.
A moment later, Ash looked up and squealed, bolting for the far side of the room. The gate bulged outward. For an instant Gabralina thought it was Wat after all, coming back to her, and she gasped, her heart pounding as she stared upward, wanting that more than anything.
“Wa—” she started. Then, “No!”
A huge white cloud came through, not streaked with lightning but streams of shimmering light. She flowed down out of the gate and kept coming. Six glowing balls of silver formed her eyes.
Wano, she was saying silently, the word echoing in Gabralina’s mind.
Everyone gaped, backing away in fright—everyone except Gabralina, who stood there in shock. It wasn’t Wat? How could it not be Wat? And how could she have another sylph talking in her head?
The white sylph slithered the rest of the way into the summoning hall, the gate rippling and stretching to allow her passage. Pressed to her side, the black cloud of a battle sylph glared at the humans, lightning flaring through him and sparking jaggedly in his mouth. Smaller than the healer but still larger than most battlers in the Valley, he regarded the humans as if deciding whether to destroy them.
“Name him,” Petr gasped from outside the circle. “Hurry!”
Cherry goggled, glanced at Gabralina, and then pointed at the battler. “Fhranke!”
The newly named battler looked as incredulous as everyone else.
Gabralina didn’t even hear Cherry bond the battler. She couldn’t do anything more than look at the white sylph, feeling the creature’s fear and uncertainty as strongly as her own grief. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Not for me.” Not when her heart belonged to Wat. Not when finding someone else was such a betrayal.
Wano watched her with many eyes. She had no mouth, unlike Fhranke, and she was more solid, her form only partially translucent and fluted with soft pinks and opal. Long and tapered, her eyes were reflective, and Gabralina saw her own tear-streaked face in them.
“But I don’t want you!” she cried. Wano looked hurt, and her pain sent something like an itch down Gabralina’s ribs.
Behind them, Petr was speaking urgently to Ash, telling her to bring Solie so that the two new sylphs could be bound into the hive. Syl and the smith were already heading for the doors. Cherry took a nervous step toward her sylph, raising a hand to touch him. Fhranke looked dubious and pressed closer to Wano, nearly pushing himself into her.
Everything happened then. A second battler dropped through the gate, his power flaring. Gabralina screamed, falling back as Fhranke rolled over Wano’s back, a shield coming up between him and the incoming battler. The newcomer roared and Fhranke lashed upward, but his attack was diverted as well.
Wano streaked forward. Leaving the circle embossed on the floor, she snatched Gabralina up and fled for the doors. Held inside the sylph’s mantle, yet visible through her translucent sides, the young woman scre
amed, tumbling until Wano formed a tentacle to hold her in place. Behind her, Fhranke hesitated for an instant, looking at Cherry, then shot after Wano, covering her retreat.
The new battler followed right behind. A third battle sylph dropped through the gate, too, and chased after them before Petr and his assistants managed to close it.
The four sylphs all shot outside and started to gain altitude, arching up over the town. Already, the local battlers were roaring, all of them rising and preparing to eliminate the intruders to their hive.
Wano was pretty sure the battlers rising around her couldn’t be very happy. She’d fled through that gate in desperation, only to be rejected by the woman now inside her, and now she was in the territory of another hive. On top of that, the itch was an agony inside her, her body’s intended changes fighting against her new pattern.
The two battlers from her home hive gave chase, determined to kill her despite passing through the gate. That transit had broken the link to their queen, which probably only made their rage greater. They didn’t have the new bond she did with the woman inside of her, but they hadn’t touched the energy of this world, either. Until they did, the world wouldn’t be able to reject them. Wano and Fhranke could end up dead before that happened.
What is this place? Fhranke shrieked, turning and lashing out with his remaining energy at their two attackers. Both were larger and older than he, and they dodged his blast. Who was that female back there? Why did she call me Fhranke? What’s a Fhranke? Who are you carrying?
My life, apparently. Wano could feel the poison in the world around her, except for inside the female she carried. The woman was full of energy that was soft and light, more wholesome and filling than anything Wano had ever feasted on. Already she wished she’d come through the gate sooner, for now that she was here, all she wanted was to protect the girl who’d named her and heal the pain deep within. Provided either of them survived the next few minutes.
Creatures like the female she carried ran in terror on the ground, minor sylphs flickering around them as they took cover. Battle sylphs raced to attack, but most were young things who would only be used as guards or harvesters in her hive.
Behind her, the first of her home hive sylphs put on a burst of speed, and Fhranke moved to shield her, bracing himself to fight.
A new battle sylph who was bigger than the others appeared, roaring in rage and slamming into her enemy from below. He drove his claws deep and tore his foe wide. The wounded sylph squealed, outmatched in size, but tried to lash back. They both somersaulted together and dropped from view as a half dozen more joined the fight.
The second battler abandoned his pursuit of her and Fhranke as twenty others flashed up after him. All of them were smaller, but that didn’t matter. Even the oldest and strongest of battlers could be outnumbered.
Wano slowed to a stop in midair, fearfully but deliberately putting herself between Fhranke and the dozen battle sylphs gathering before her.
Don’t do anything, she murmured.
They’re the enemy! he protested.
There are too many.
She could also see what he couldn’t with only two eyes and limited senses: All these battlers were originally from different hives, some even from her own, but they had been allowed to live when they crossed the gate by being repatterned. They were part of a hive where she could find a place for herself without having to change what she was.
They closed in, recognizing her for exactly what she was, and Wano twisted herself into a submissive posture. She pulled Fhranke against her side and held him so he couldn’t attack.
Subsume me, she said, her new master cradled and sobbing inside her. Subsume us both.
Chapter Twenty-two
“She’s a queen?”
Mace shook his head. “Yes and no.”
Solie stared up at him, one hand on her stomach as she sat upon a chair that had been brought. Her feet seemed to be getting worse the longer her pregnancy wore on. “What does that mean?”
The big battler shrugged. He didn’t look like he’d been hurt in the fight, but she could feel his pain and the Widow stood near the entrance, waiting for him with barely contained impatience. “Most healers don’t become queens. Sometimes, one grows too large too fast and the queen will turn on her, which means the entire hive does. That rejection triggers a change that turns a healer into a queen. By then, she’ll have been driven out and will have to found a hive of her own—or die.”
“That’s horrible!” Solie gasped. “The poor thing!”
Mace didn’t say anything.
Solie made a face. “If the hive rejected her, why didn’t Fhranke?”
“He’s an exile without a hive. He was waiting for her to make the final transition so that he could become her mate.”
“Oh.” A thought occurred to Solie. “If she’s changing into a queen, will she lose the ability to heal?”
“I don’t know. Probably. I’ve never seen a queen heal anyone before. A healer could never order death. Queens do.”
Solie sighed. It would be just their luck to finally draw a healer who couldn’t heal.
She eyed their two newest additions. Both were in human shape now, the foreign battler looking like any other, except he didn’t seem to have an interest in his new master. In fact, he kept leaning away from her whenever she came close. Battlers had a reputation for being all over their female masters from the moment of bonding. This one didn’t seem to want anything to do with Cherry. He sat close to the healer instead, leaning against her to the point where she was about to fall off the bench.
Cherry didn’t seem to know what to make of that. Like a lot of single young women in the Valley, she’d dreamed of having a battle sylph and all that entailed, and Solie had heard her argue more than once that it wasn’t fair for young women to be denied battlers. Only, now she finally had one and nothing was going as expected.
The healer had shifted into the form of an average-looking woman, average except for her hair, which was dark and so short it was more like fur. Her eyes were huge and dark, flecks of gold sparkling in them. Dressed in a garment too large for her, she stared across the hall at Gabralina, who was huddled by the wall and seemed to be in shock.
Shock. Solie didn’t blame her. It had to be rough having your sylph die under such horrible circumstances, and then to find yourself bound to a new sylph you neither expected nor wanted. For Wano’s sake, Solie hoped Gabralina could learn to accept her. If healers turned into queens because they were rejected, Gabralina would have to.
But, there were other priorities. Solie levered herself to her feet with Heyou’s help and waddled toward the new sylph. Incipient queen or not, if she could still heal, they needed her.
People who’d come to trust her as their leader watched as Solie crossed the summoning hall. A lot of them had come out to see what was going on, at least once the sylph battle was over and the other two battlers killed. Not that she could blame them. She hadn’t dared leave her bedroom while it raged.
She saw Nelson in the crowd. He was Heyou’s master now, a fact no one else knew but Heyou and Nelson, Mace, and Iyala. They hadn’t been willing to take any more chances. Near Nelson stood Sala and Loren, with Claw and Shore, and what seemed to be most of the children in the Valley.
Seeing Solie was done talking to Mace, the Widow Blackwell stepped through the ranks and went to her battler’s side. Mace glanced down at her even as she grabbed his wrist and led him to a corner, clearly intending to check his injuries. He could use a healer himself, Solie guessed, but not so much as another.
Wano looked up as Solie approached, then away, her shoulders hunched. Fhranke glared but seemed otherwise confused. He’d been loyal through a lot of chaos, but Wano had no doubt of the reason why. He was obeying instinct, hoping for the chance to breed in a newly established hive. She could feel that instinct waging against the bond he had now with the long-haired girl they’d called Cherry. He was torn in two directions, and she had th
e sad feeling that he’d be like everyone else and turn away from her.
The queen of this hive walked forward, the same species as all the other fixed-form creatures but very definitely the queen. Wano could see the lines of energy that ran from her to every other sylph, and also the life that was growing inside her. That was just like a queen of her own species, she supposed, though this would be a live birth and not eggs.
The foreign queen also didn’t project disgust as she looked at Wano, or even her past queen’s original indifference. The creature looked down on Wano and Fhranke with a tremendous feeling of welcome, and the itch of rejection that had been twisting Wano’s insides eased. The change was so sudden as to be almost painful, and Wano shivered even as she embraced it. Desired it.
“Are you feeling better?” the queen asked. “I know this is all confusing for you.”
“I’m all right,” Wano said.
Solie smiled. “I’m sorry to do this to you. I mean, normally a newly arrived sylph is given time to be alone with his or her master, for the two to relax and get used to each other.” The queen’s voice trailed off, which meant an acclimatization period wasn’t very likely.
Wano shot a look at the other side of the hall, at her master. The queen’s welcome had made her pattern soothe, but the only reason Gabralina hadn’t run away was because the surrounding battlers wouldn’t let her. That made Wano’s pattern shudder again, unable to decide between returning to what she had been or continuing on into the change to something new.
“My name is Solie, and I want you to heal someone,” the queen said. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.” It had been a long time since she’d been allowed to do so, but she had healed Fhranke during the fight and herself as well.
She stood, and Fhranke jumped up beside her.
Queen of the Sylphs Page 23
