A Midwinter Fantasy (15 page)

Mace hesitated. He had no tie to the animal, but soon enough he would, and deep inside, the thought of leaving it outside wasn’t a lot different from the thought of having to leave Lily outside.

Lily looked at him, picking up on the sudden emotion inside him, but before she could say anything more, the door opened and the queen walked in. Solie had always been a lovely girl, but she’d grown over the years into a beautiful, confident woman, and the battle sylph who followed behind her had paced the appearance of his own age to match hers. They looked as though they belonged together, and Mace could see the soul tie between the two. Their bond was much deeper than any Mace had any hope to experience, and he bowed to both of them in respect.

“My queen,” he said.

Solie smiled at him, while Heyou grinned. “Hi, Mace,” he teased. “Hear you lost somebody. You know, I don’t have to keep a twenty-four-hour guard on
my
kids.”

Mace straightened up, studiously ignoring him. Of course he didn’t. Of Solie’s children, both fathered with the help of two different human men, one was a quiet, contemplative boy, more interested in studying than going anywhere, and the other one
was
guarded twenty-four hours a day by a battler that never left her side. Seeing he was being ignored, Heyou just grinned wider.

“I’m sorry that Jayden is missing,” Solie told Mace. She’d always made it a point to remember everyone’s name that she could, and for that, the humans of Sylph Valley loved her nearly as much as the sylphs did. Mace nodded back, pleased at her concern, but even more annoyed at the boy for doing anything to upset her. Solie just shook her head. Thanks to
her status, as long as she was close enough, she could feel his emotions as easily as a sylph, and she could feel his ambivalence. A moment later, he knew she could feel his ambivalence turn into something else entirely.

“I want you to be very careful in Eferem, Mace. You know how tenuous our peace treaties are. I want Eferem to be more than just our neighbors—I want them to be our friends.”

Both sylphs stared at her, Heyou’s mouth turning down into a frown. “You’re about to take all the fun out of this for him, aren’t you?”

Solie ignored him, eyeing Mace, and he felt the lack of compromise in what she was saying. “I’m not telling you to hide what you are or why you’re there, but I don’t want you to be obvious about it.”

“Meaning?” he asked slowly.

“Meaning no going to your natural shape unless you absolutely have to. Don’t flaunt being there to Eferem’s troops.”

“You really are taking all the fun out of it!” Heyou wailed.

“And no killing,” Lily added. Mace turned to look at her, sitting at the fire with the light of the flame flickering on her wrinkled face. “You’re only going to retrieve a single boy. You won’t have any need to kill anyone.”

Mace looked at his master, wanting to argue, wanting to protest, wanting to point out that, treaty or not, Eferem wasn’t their friend and he didn’t know what he was going to face. He wanted to say that he was one of the most powerful sylphs in the entire Valley and it was beneath his dignity to skulk on the ground and chase a child who meant nothing to him anyway. He wanted all of that and he looked into her eyes, those eyes that had ruled him for so many years, and then he looked down.

“Yes, Lily,” he agreed.

“Well, crap,” Heyou muttered. “Now I’m not going to ask if I can go along.”

At least Ruffles didn’t mind the style of their journey. She ran at his side happily, tongue hanging out and tail wagging, even as the snow fell around them and turned her into a white caricature of herself. Since the shale was sharp enough to cut her pads, they kept to the road through the plains. She seemed tireless.

“Seemed” was all it was, though, and Mace made his pace match hers. She was happy just to be out with him, and curled against him when they stopped to rest well shy of the forests of Eferem. Her emotions were peaceful and happy, calming without being demanding, and Mace nuzzled her, wondering why Lily hadn’t suggested this solution for him for when she passed away. Many sylphs who’d had the strongest bonds now took anchor animals when their masters passed, not wanting to face the pain of potentially losing another human again so soon. Dogs didn’t live as long, but there was no risk of a true soul tie with them.

He supposed that in the long run, Lily knew it wouldn’t work. Ruffles could give him energy, and she loved him with all the doggy fervor in her soul, but she couldn’t give him the deeper connection for which he’d come through the gate from his world. He needed companionship, equality, conversation. He needed a sentient lover to feel complete, not a pet, and though he’d long since given up on finding it, part of him needed the deeper-still soul tie like the one Heyou had with their queen. Still, for all that he’d only taken her on for the sake of this journey, Ruffles was his for life, for the bond between them could only be broken by going back through the gate—which he would never do—or by death.

Mace licked the dog’s ear until she fell asleep, warm against him despite the snow that covered them both. She had a home with him, and he wouldn’t risk her safety any more than he’d risk Lily’s. They’d find the boy and they’d go home, and that would be the end of it.

He lay beside the sleeping dog, not needing to sleep himself, and waited for her to wake. Ahead of them, the forests of Eferem were just a haze barely visible through the snow, and he cursed the stupidity of a boy who would choose this time of year to run away. At the same time he was grateful, since it had brought him Ruffles.

Once it reached the border of Eferem, the stone highway that cut across the Shale Plains turned into a rough, twisting dirt road heavily marked by potholes and ruts from the progress of wagons and horses. Mace doubted it would be used at all if it weren’t the quickest way to both Sylph Valley and the mountainous kingdom of Para Dubh to the east. The fact that it was in such bad shape was a sign of what Solie had been saying. The kingdom of Eferem wasn’t at war with them, but they’d rather ignore the Valley than be friends. Solie was working to change that, but it was slow going.

The road needed so many repairs that after a few moments of thought, Mace abandoned it and led Ruffles up a deer path into the woods. Here, for them, the way would be quicker. There wasn’t much point in staying on the road in hope of tracking Jayden, anyway. The boy had gone through a week before, long enough for the best tracking hound to lose him, and while Mace looked like a dog, he wasn’t one. His sense of smell was heightened, as was his hearing, but he didn’t know what scents would be helpful to pick up. He didn’t even know what Jayden smelled like, so he just ignored his nose. He’d only find the boy by questioning humans. If the boy had left
the convoy, an angry youth traveling alone at this time of year would attract notice. Or so Mace hoped. At any rate, even if he hadn’t, the convoy itself should be remembered. Humans liked mail.

It had been almost twenty years since Mace last came this way, and he’d never expected to return. His last visit had been when he was a bound sylph, traveling with his master in pursuit of a woman Mace never wanted to harm. That wouldn’t have mattered, though, if they’d found her. Mace would have killed her on command, no matter his personal feelings. After all, he’d done it before. Luckily, things hadn’t happened that way, and instead everything had changed. The only orders floating in Mace’s mind right now were Solie’s admonition not to take his original form except in an emergency and Lily’s commands to bring Jayden back without killing any people. He would succeed, even if it was just the boy’s body he returned, even if it was just the boy’s bones and it took a thousand years. Lily thought she understood sylph behavior, but she didn’t. Not really. Even without the soul tie, after nearly twenty years of being hers, her slightest wish was his command.

He and Ruffles made good time through the woods, pausing only to help her hunt down a rabbit to eat. It was easy. Ruffles sniffed the beast out, and the instant it bolted, Mace used the tiniest amount of his fighting energy to kill it. While Ruffles feasted, he shifted to the form of an eagle and flapped his way up into the dim, gray sky to take a look at their surroundings.

There wasn’t much. The clouds were dropping a steady stream of snow that made it hard to see anything other than the dimmest, closest outlines of trees. Mace didn’t bother with sight, though. Though his ability to do so was limited outside his natural shape, he looked at the patterns of life
instead, dismissing any vegetation and animals for the more complex patterns of human beings.

There were a great many only a few miles farther on. Circling there, Mace remembered. When he’d come this way before, there had been a town in the woods, a place called Falloweld, which served the men who trapped animals in the surrounding forests. Mace hadn’t thought of the place in a long time. At least, he hadn’t thought of the town itself. There were other things about it that he did remember with great, unspoken fondness.

He dropped down, landing in his human form again beside Ruffles and retrieving his clothes. As an eagle, he’d been too small to carry them inside of him. She glanced at him and continued with her meal, used to seeing sylphs change shape. Anchor animals were acclimated to that from puppyhood, even if they were never called on to serve, and they faced everything unique about sylphs except for a battler’s hate aura. It was considered cruel to expose them to that. They also weren’t trained to ride inside a sylph’s mantle, since no battler in the Valley would volunteer to help teach them.

The battler dressed while he waited for her. The clothes were real, and while the eagle was too small, his dog form was just big enough that he could carry them inside, since he only needed to look like a dog on the outside. There were battlers skilled enough to shift and have their clothes simply appear real, but Mace had never bothered to gain that kind of competence. Lily had made both his shirt and pants for him, and while they were plain cotton, they served him well. Better yet, they smelled of her from when she washed them. Other than his uniform, he couldn’t imagine wearing anything else.

From the look of it, they’d arrive in Falloweld shortly after noon, sooner if they continued cutting through the woods. It
would be better to go by the road from here, he decided at last. He’d have to interact with the humans in the town, and he didn’t want them to think he was anything other than one of them. Even humans back home sometimes reacted oddly to battle sylphs, and in the Valley they weren’t used solely as mindless weapons, as in the other kingdoms. No one in Eferem who was outside their capital had likely seen a battle sylph in years, and even before then they’d been rare, so he wasn’t sure what they thought about his kind. Likely they only knew rumors of the truth, and he didn’t know what any of those were or how much they were believed. Mace didn’t even want to imagine how awkward it could get here if they realized what he was. It was entirely possible the Fallowelders would refuse to help.

Ruffles finished her meal and lifted her head, her tail wagging and her muzzle bloody.

“Come on,” Mace told her, and he set off, his big shape vanishing in the misty light of the snowy woods, the dog padding patiently by his side.

Falloweld had grown since Mace last visited. What had been a rough collection of buildings and a single inn had become a fair-sized town. It was also far less rough than it used to be, the homes well built and cared for, though the entire place was surrounded by a log wall that looked both very strong and new, and also as though it didn’t belong. There was a single-gate entry on the side he approached.

While he was allowed to pass, Mace was watched by the guards as he did. He was observed pretty closely by the people in town as well, even as they moved around in that annoying visiting routine that marked the Winter Festival. Mace frowned as he trudged through the snowy streets. He had his orders to be discreet in his mission, and he looked like an ordinary human, but he wasn’t used to actually pretending to be one and had forgotten some fundamental truths about how frail they were. It was December, snowing, and cold, and he’d arrived as a stranger in town with no wilderness gear or even a cloak. Even as they went on their way, invading their neighbors’ homes and forcing their gifts on each other, they shied away from Mace. It wasn’t that these folk were suspicious of him—not so much—but they seemed almost frightened to see him. Not for who he was, he realized after a time, but for what his arrival seemed to mean. It was almost as if they’d seen him before in their streets, or someone like him.

A few looked as though they wanted to talk, but Mace wasn’t interested in their concern. His plan had been to start his search at the inn. He didn’t see a reason to change that.

Despite Falloweld’s growth, Mace still saw a few buildings he recognized, and it wasn’t long before he reached the center of town. There, the same inn that his master had stayed in all those years ago was still standing, though expanded now with an extra wing and a new stable in the back. Its walls were clean and well mended, and despite the snow, light showed in the windows. Mace heard laughter from inside. The exterior was decorated for the Winter Festival, and he could see that someone had taken an entire small tree in and set it up. In the Valley, people went visiting each other’s private homes, but from the numbers he could sense inside, it appeared Falloweld spread the tradition to businesses as well.

He went inside, Ruffles padding contentedly at his side. Back in the Valley, anchor dogs were allowed in any building their sylph might go into, but he learned the inhabitants of Falloweld didn’t feel the same way the moment he stepped through the door.

“Hey! Whoa! Get that dog out of here!” the innkeeper shouted from behind the bar, gesturing with a large mug. “No animals allowed!”

Mace hesitated. If the man had been brandishing a knife, he would have been tempted to blow him to pieces, though of course Lily’s orders wouldn’t have allowed that. As it was, everyone was staring. With an annoyed frown, he backed out the door and settled Ruffles in a sheltered spot with a very firm “Stay.” If she was frightened by anything, he’d know and come for her. She licked his hand and he went back inside.