The Shattered Sylph (6 page)

Lizzy wept, wishing he were there—and that, sometime over the years, he hadn’t changed his mind.

The road led around the edge of the wasteland, hugging the mountains that separated Sylph Valley from the kingdom of Para Dubh, but there was still nothing alive on either side, save gray scrub plants or the occasional lizard. Plodding interminably onward, the group reached Sylph Valley after dark, while the moon was still climbing in the sky. The town itself was at the other end, near the small lake the basin boasted. Other than that, there were only a few crofters dotted through the rest of the landscape, set close to the herds or the fields their owners tended.

Gabralina had wanted to stop at dusk, but with them so close to home Ril had refused and just kept trudging, though his head hung low with fatigue. The blonde girl—now mounted on a Wat who at least looked like a normal horse—had been given no choice but to follow, jabbering nervously all the way about what she was going to do if no one there liked her.

“Quiet up and you’ll be sleeping in a real bed tonight,” Leon told her sharply. His butt was just as sore as he’d predicted, but he kept that to himself. He could almost smell home and his family. His need to see them was overwhelming. He’d be
home.
It had been months.

“Really?” Gabralina asked, perking up. “You promise?”

“Yes. Now hurry. Just another few miles and we’ll be in town.” Leon lifted his head into the breeze, imagining that he could almost smell the wheat and corn growing in the fields and hear the lowing of the cattle, and he tightened his
knees against Ril’s ribs, conveying his eagerness to be home. The battler’s ear flicked and he broke into an easy canter, moving quickly down the wide road that earth sylphs had molded out of the broken rock of the plains.

Behind them, Gabralina yelped and called for Wat to catch up. Hooves sounded on stone, and the white horse reappeared. The blonde girl had swung her leg over his back, riding him astride, and her face was lit up as her hair streamed out behind her.

She’d never done anything before but sit placidly on Wat’s back, or on the back of the gelding before that, but Leon could tell she’d ridden at some point in her past by the way she held his mane like reins, urging him forward. Wat cantered past Leon and Ril, his nostrils flaring with excitement. In response, Ril’s ear twitched again and he snorted.

Recognizing what was going on, Leon sank his hands into his battler’s mane, getting a solid grip there and with his knees. “Don’t overdo it,” he whispered, already knowing he’d be ignored. Ril broke into a gallop, racing furiously after the other two. He passed them in an instant and galloped ahead, his hooves like thunder upon the ground.

Leon had to laugh at the look of surprise on the girl’s face. “That’s not fair!” she wailed, and Wat screamed, immediately doubling his pace.

The two battlers charged forward, galloping neck and neck across the stone. Leon leaned close to Ril, chuckling in his ear. “I didn’t know you could run so fast!” The battler just snorted and redoubled his efforts, pulling ahead of Wat by a few feet.

Gabralina was wildly kicking her heels, and her sylph roared and pulled abreast of Leon and Ril again, then passed them a second time. Ril forced himself to make up the distance, and the two once more ran neck and neck.

Faster than any living horses, the pair flew down the road. It curved and bent, and then dipped tremendously down. Deep and huge, the valley proper stretched farther than Leon could see in the moonlight, but he could spot the lights of the town on the far side, single glows from lone farm dwellings shining closer. The two battlers hit the crest and leaped, landing on the sloping road, their bodies stretching out as they raced toward their destination, their hoofbeats echoing through the night. The moonlight was nearly gone in the shadow of the Valley, but Leon didn’t worry about either mount losing his footing. Not these two.

Leaning close to Ril’s neck, he looked over at Gabralina. For the first time her face was alive and unafraid, her eyes gleaming and her smile huge. He hadn’t realized she could be anything but a chattering mouse. He didn’t mind the discovery. Her love of such sport was perhaps the only thing they shared.

Ril won at the last moment. Familiar with the layout of the town, he jigged off the road, hurtled a fence (and the man behind it, who’d been heading to the outhouse), took two strides, leaped the fence on the other side of the yard, and came out into the town square a full ten feet ahead of Gabralina. The look she gave him was thunderous. Leon would have laughed if she hadn’t also looked confused. Instead, he just gave her a smile and she blushed, turning her face away from him.

“You two cheated,” she decided.

“I wasn’t aware there were any rules,” Leon told her mildly, less concerned with her reaction than with what his battler had done to himself during that crazed run. He stroked Ril’s neck and hummed to him comfortingly, aware from the tingling along his arms that his battle sylph was already drawing from his energy.

Alerted by their noisy arrival, or more likely aware of the group from the moment they entered the Valley, three battlers in blue and gold dropped down into the street, eyeing them warily. Wat just stood there like an idiot. Behind him, men and a few women stepped curiously out of the tavern that doubled as the inn.

“Claw,” Leon called to one of the battlers. “Please get the queen. I’ll need to see her in her audience chamber as soon as Ril is settled.” The bizarrely blue-haired battler shivered and disappeared, flowing as smoke toward one of the air vents that fed into the underground section of the city and disappearing down it.

That finally got Wat’s attention. He stared after the vanished battler, his ears pricked up.

“Gabralina,” Leon called. She looked at him. “Welcome to Sylph Valley. I’d like you to take Wat to the queen’s audience chamber. She’ll be thrilled to meet you.” He nodded at one of the tavern serving girls. “Cherry, please take her there.”

“Where are you going?” Gabralina asked, clearly nervous all over again. She slid down from Wat’s back, and he shifted immediately back to human form. The battlers all tensed. Anywhere but here, they’d have attacked him already.

“I’ll be right back,” Leon assured her. “Promise.”

He could feel Ril trembling under him, but he nudged the sylph with his knees as though there was nothing wrong and trotted him around the corner. The instant they were out of sight, he was off the battler’s back and braced against him, helping to hold him up. “You
ass
,” he said. “Are you trying to run yourself into the ground?” When Ril shot him a venomous look, Leon shook his head. “Come on.”

He led the battler to a door set in a wall between two
buildings. On the other side, steps descended into the complex that stretched under the town. It was a place where the entire population could retreat in harsh storms or if they were attacked. The way was lit by oil lamps that were always kept full, and Leon helped Ril down the stairway, which was wide enough for them both, though really too steep for either a human or a horse. In the corridor at the bottom he saw an earth sylph stomping toward them.

“Please get Luck,” he told the small creature, nodding at her. She regarded him from a genderless face made of mud and hurried off, not much faster than they.

Leon took Ril to a chamber that was right next to the queen’s throne room. He hadn’t wanted Gabralina to see it, or to bring Wat there. At any time, ten or more battle sylphs floated in the huge chamber, intertwined, and the arrival of an unfamiliar sylph in the heart of their home would likely have gone badly. He had no idea how many battlers were there now.

The chamber was a hundred feet across, the ceiling made of clear glass that actually reached aboveground and into the air, but which was currently obscured by a cloud of smoke and lightning. Myriad minds looked down on them, and a few battlers drifted free, detaching to swarm Ril. He stepped away from Leon and walked farther into the chamber, enveloped by swirling energy.

Something shimmered behind him. Leon turned and saw a vaguely human shape enter the room, floating directly to Ril: Luck. She was the only healer they had, and she was Ril’s savior. She put her hands on him, and he changed painlessly, shifting to smoke and lightning.

He didn’t look complete somehow—his form seemed less substantial than the others, less
there
—but Luck soothed the transformation while the other battlers surrounded him, holding him within their mantles as they apparently
would their own newborns. It was the only way Ril could take his own shape, and Leon felt his battler’s relief. Some of the other sylphs would stay with him while he slept, and when he woke Luck would change him back. It had been this way for the last six years, and would continue for as long as his battler lived.

“Sleep well, Ril,” Leon murmured and went to deal with his other responsibility.

Gabralina glanced around fearfully, holding one of Wat’s arms with both hands. The sylph had ignored Ril the entire trip, she supposed not recognizing either him or Leon as a threat, but he now watched the dozen battlers who stood around him, lip curled hatefully back from his teeth. It was the longest he’d gone without trying to feel her up, she realized, and tried to process the underground chamber to which she’d been brought. It was well lit by a fire sylph, had tables and chairs along the walls, and an ornate stone chair rose in the back. Gabralina had never seen anything so delicately beautiful.

“What is this place?” she whimpered.

Her guide, a far less attractive woman wearing an apron, shrugged. Her name was Cherry. “The queen’s throne room and audience chamber.”

“Do all these battlers have to be here?” They made her nervous.

The woman shrugged again. “They protect the queen. They’re kind of crazy that way. At least they obey her. She’s the only woman here to have one who isn’t ancient.” Cherry regarded Gabralina with vague disgruntlement. “Except for you. It’s not fair, you know.”

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.