“Yes,” Bock thundered. “By
you
!”
Leon shrugged again, and Solie watched curiously as he dropped his leg and leaned forward. “So, don’t attack air ships. That was a stupid shortcut. If you hadn’t done that, Alcor might not have noticed you until you had a kingdom of your own and were sending emissaries. Rebuild the town and the fields, but this time have the sylphs dig a hive underground. You can retreat there in case of attack and use it during the worst part of winter as well. If you
are
attacked, you have Ril, Heyou, and Mace. Even better, you know how to summon battlers now. Keep that a secret and you can soon outnumber any enemy. Do that and sue for peace. Do it right and they’ll have no choice but to parley. Give them something worth trading for and they’ll even be glad of you. No one claims ownership of these lands. I don’t know which one of you figured out that they can be saved using sylphs, but it’s brilliant. Claim them yourselves and make your own kingdom.”
He sounded passionate. More, he sounded right. The men gaped, but their sylphs looked up from the corner and cheered. Solie smiled. The men weren’t so happy at the idea, but the sylphs were ecstatic—and the sylphs had a say in this as much as anyone else. Solie wondered how many of the council had ever thought so far ahead.
She took a deep breath and said, “I think it’s a good idea.”
Bock sneered. “No one asked you.” When his water sylph hissed at him, he started in surprise and his expression turned hateful.
Solie braced herself, her heart pounding. Leon was holding
her hand now under the table, and she took strength from it. “He’s right, we can’t stay here. I say we go back to your valley in the spring.” Leon’s grip tightened. “I mean…I mean
I’ll
go there in the spring, and I’m taking the sylphs with me. All of them. The rest of you can come or not, but we’re going.”
Hard men two or three times her age stared at her in shock, and Leon loosened his grip. Solie had to resist the urge to apologize, but she managed.
“I guess we move then,” Morgal pronounced, his face tight. Even with her empathy, Solie wasn’t sure if his feelings were of hate, relief, or fear, but she nodded and leaned back in her chair, hoping this was the last time she’d have to offer either an opinion or an order today.
After the meeting, Solie and Leon made their way back toward the hive entrance, both huddled in their cloaks. It really was freezing out. Solie had never felt a winter so bitterly cold, and she shivered massively, slipping on the icy ground. Leon put a hand on her back to steady her. No, they couldn’t stay here, not for years on end. No one could, not through winters this harsh.
“I hope Heyou and Ril are okay,” she shouted.
“They will be,” Leon shouted back. “Battlers don’t feel temperature the way we do.” He gave a harsh laugh. “They might even have some fun getting tossed around by the wind.”
Ahead, Solie saw the edge of the stairwell, nearly invisible in the storm. They would ban everyone from coming to the surface until the weather cleared, she decided, then found herself amazed that she was thinking of orders again.
A wail sounded, the horrified emotions that accompanied it more in her mind than the air, though Leon turned at the cry. Solie did as well, and glimpsed a shape looming
out of the blowing snow, arm upraised with a dagger. Screaming, she fell backward, landing on her behind.
Leon roared a warning. Throwing back his cloak, he drew his sword and leaped forward, slashing downward with the weapon. Solie’s would-be assassin jerked back with a shriek, tumbling into the snow. Only a few feet behind him, his water sylph gave another wail like the one that had warned Solie, only this one was filled with grief. Her childish face distorted and inhuman, she vanished back into the storm, still screaming.
Without pause, Leon grabbed Solie and pulled her to her feet, rushing with her to the stairs. “Mace!” he shouted.
“Mace!”
The huge battler appeared through the storm as though it had no effect on him, meeting them at the stairs. Together, both males carried the hysterical girl down to her rooms, where Solie couldn’t stop shaking until Heyou returned and took her in his arms.
The water sylph was named Shore. She huddled in front of Solie’s makeshift couch, four feet of swirling water forced into the shape of a small child. She was miserable, torn between the horror of seeing her master die and knowing she’d saved her queen.
“How come she didn’t vanish?” Morgal asked uncertainly. For all his dislike of Solie and her battlers, he’d been shaken by the news that Bock tried to kill her. He didn’t know how to feel about the fact that it was Leon who was her rescuer. After everything, he didn’t dare trust the man.
“She’s tied to the queen,” Mace told him grudgingly, after a moment of silence and after Solie gave him a curious glance. “All the sylphs here are. If their masters die, their link to her keeps them here.”
Standing behind her chair with his arms crossed, Leon leaned over to Ril. “Does that mean if I die you’ll be all right?”
Ril considered and nodded. Leon straightened, looking pleased.
“She’ll need a new master, though,” Mace added. “No one should feed from the energy of the queen.”
“Does that include me?” Heyou asked. Solie smiled at him and shook her head. He beamed.
Morgal sighed, looking around at the audience chamber, for lack of a better term. It was now five hours after the attack, and the battlers had been outraged. It had taken everything the redheaded girl had to keep them from killing anyone they even thought might be a threat. He shuddered.
It might have been better if Bock had succeeded. The battlers would have been gone, then, along with all their outlandish ideas.
Across the room, Ril looked straight at him and growled. Terrified, Morgal cringed back, and Leon looked in his direction. The man studied him for a moment before raising an eyebrow. He first pointed a thumb at Solie, and then at himself, then jabbed it discreetly in Ril’s direction.
Morgal didn’t understand at first; then it came to him. Leon was Ril’s master. If Solie died, Ril wouldn’t be banished. If Solie had been killed…Morgal sagged against the wall and Leon nodded.
“What’s wrong?” Solie asked nervously. She could feel his emotions with sylphs around, Morgal remembered, and he shuddered again.
“I think our friend just realized what would have happened to this place if you’d died,” Leon spoke up. Solie looked puzzled. “Ril’s still tied to me,” he explained. “I think he would have been…upset.”
“I would have turned this bluff into ash,” the battler said. There was no trace of humor in his voice at all.
“Ril!” Solie gasped, and Morgal distantly found himself marveling that she was hesitant and uncertain around the council but bossed around the deadliest creatures in the world like children. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“It would be wrong!”
All three battlers looked entirely unconvinced.
Solie puffed out a breath. “No one is turning any bluffs into ash, is that clear?”
“You take all the fun out of it,” Heyou sulked.
Solie rolled her eyes and shifted her attention to the little sylph huddled in the center of the room. “Shore? Um, how long had your master been planning to, uh…you know.”
“Hadn’t,” the sylph said out loud, her voice bubbling softly. “He just…got angry. I—I—I warned. Didn’t want him to die! Didn’t want you to die! It’s so lonely!”
She sounded utterly miserable, and Morgal reached for Ash. The fire sylph pressed against his side, also in the shape of a child, her heat turned down as low as possible. He could feel her relief that her queen was safe. She was much calmer than he himself felt. He’d apologized for the council once he heard about the attack, and Solie had accepted, but it was clear now: no matter what any of them thought, she was in charge. Having never wanted power, Morgal tried to convince himself that he didn’t mind, but putting a girl in control felt fundamentally wrong.
Heyou looked at him and hissed. Morgal ducked his head.
“It’s okay,” Solie told Shore, kneeling on the floor with her hand against the sylph’s cheek. “You can have a new master—someone to take energy from who’ll pay all the attention to you that you need. Is there someone you’d like?” The water sylph hesitated. “It’s okay. You can choose.”
Shimmering, Shore became a pool of water and flowed across the floor, leaving the stone behind her dry as she passed over it. Glancing at the battlers, Solie followed. Curious himself and not wanting to stay, Morgal pushed in pursuit.
The hall was crowded, people making their way carefully around in what were still tight quarters. Solie followed the water sylph, Morgal somehow ending up just behind her, and he realized in one terrified moment that he was between her and her battlers. A moment later a red hawk flew over his head and landed on her shoulder, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
They went into the eating area. It was the largest open space in the hive, the high ceiling held up by columns of thick stone and already half-full at the dinner hour. The
smell of whale soup and potatoes drifted through, making Morgal realize that he was actually hungry. People eyed the newcomers, nodding at Morgal but watching Solie with uncertainty. They didn’t know how to deal with her any more than Morgal did, but no one tried anything as Ril ruffled his wings on her shoulder and the other two moved past Morgal to her side.
Leon followed, his hands clasped behind his back. People gawped at him with real hate, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t react. Morgal doubted it was the former. No one said anything about the assassination attempt, either. So far, none of them knew.
All of them watched Shore. She flowed into the center of the room and hesitated. There wasn’t much for her to choose from, Morgal thought. There were only twenty or so men who didn’t have a sylph already, and many had already tried to get one without success. She’d probably have to settle for a youngster.
The water sylph headed away from the men, moving at Solie’s encouragement toward a table with teens sitting at it, just as Morgal predicted. He had just realized the teens were all girls, though, when she shaped herself back into a more human form and reached for one. It was fourteen-year-old Loren Malachi. The girl gawked at the water sylph for half a second, and then realized what she had. She gave the biggest grin Morgal had ever seen.
“Damn,” he heard, someone else verbalizing his reaction, and he looked over in shared sympathy to find he was staring at Mace—which made him nearly swallow his own tongue in fright. “I wanted that girl for myself,” said the battler with regret.
The girls were never going to get to sleep. Every last one of them seemed to be piled on Loren’s bed, each trying to become the new best friend of the water sylph. The widow
doubted any sylph in the history of the world had ever received so much attention.
“Fifteen minutes!” she bellowed from the doorway. “If you’re not in bed in fifteen minutes, I’ll tan the backsides of the lot of you!” Giggles echoed back, and she slammed the stone door on them. Fifteen minutes to curfew. They’d better obey, or else.
Turning, she gathered her skirts and stomped toward the boys’ quarters. Knowing them, they were all awake complaining about how
they
didn’t get a sylph. Still, she admitted with a sigh, it was good they were happy. The last month had been rough. Many of the children had lost their fathers or brothers, and all of them their homes. She understood that pain. It was ten years since she’d lost her husband, and she still thought about him from time to time. The young were resilient, though. She wished she had their resiliency—and their youth. Nowadays, she just felt old and unappreciated. Witch, they called her. She sniffed and walked on.
When she’d been told they were moving all the children belowground, she’d made sure the arranged rooms for the boys and girls were as far apart as possible. She wasn’t so foolish as to think none would get together, but she was going to make it as hard as possible. The separate sleep areas were situated so that to get to either, you had to pass through the mess hall, making anyone on a midnight raid sure to be seen. Or so she hoped.
The widow turned a corner and stopped in surprise. “Don’t you dare,” she snarled. “You are
not
coming in here!” She glanced back toward the girls’ chambers.
Mace stared down at her, easily a foot taller, and she was not small. “I wasn’t going to. I’m patrolling,” he said calmly.
She snorted, not believing that for an instant. Planting her fists on her hips, she advanced, refusing to give in to the fear she felt. “You’re not patrolling in there. One sylph is more than enough!”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he told her. “I wouldn’t have given her to the girl.”
“Because you’re interested in her yourself?”
“Of course.”
Over the years of her life, the widow had made many a man cower in fear. Mace didn’t even flinch, which she found both intensely irritating and a little intriguing. He just observed her.
“What is so fascinating about Loren?” she asked.
The battler shrugged. “She’s strong. I like strong females and I need a master.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I thought you had a master already.” And the thought of what the girl Solie was probably doing with those battlers infuriated the widow. The fact that she wasn’t permitted to do anything about it drove her mad. It certainly drove her other female wards to giggling distraction.
Mace stepped closer. “Solie is my queen. But I don’t want to drain her energy to fuel myself, and she doesn’t have time to give me the attention I want. I need a master. Someone who can bind me to this world as she does and from whom I can draw the energy I need to fight. Someone I can be with.”
The widow found she was getting warm, and crossed her arms. “You are not draining
anything
out of those girls. Go find some man to be your master. And stay away from my boys!”
“I won’t have a man,” he said, circling her. The widow started to feel ever so slightly trapped.
“You’re not taking a child!”
He leaned in, his face moving close to hers. The hallway was abruptly warmer, tingles running through her entire body. “I should have said I liked strong
women
. Loren’s strong. You’re stronger.”
The widow nearly lost her train of thought. The battler
smelled delicious. But a moment later her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing to me?”
“Seducing you.”
He was quite good at it, too, she thought—right before she grabbed his ear and twisted. Mace was so surprised, the aura of lust he’d been filling her with vanished. “Good,” she hissed. “Now, you listen to me. I’m not some little trollop you can just turn on and have your way with. Understood?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, not letting go of his ear. “Good. Now, are you going to behave yourself?”
“Probably not.” He sounded amused but didn’t try to extricate himself from her grip.
“Stay away from my girls,” she repeated loudly.
“I don’t think I want any of them anymore,” he replied. His meaning was clear.
The widow was shocked. She let go of his ear, and he straightened. “But I’m old!”
“You’re younger than I am.”
“I can’t have children anymore.” She’d lost three to miscarriages.
“Doesn’t matter to me. I can’t get you with child anyway.”
“I’m no virgin.”
“I would have fixed that anyway.”
She paused, thinking. “You won’t use that power of yours on me again?” The question came out with more hesitation than she liked.
“Not if you order me not to.”
“Good. Consider yourself ordered.” And with that, she took his hand and led him to her bed.
Eventually the girls realized that their fifteen minutes had been greatly extended, but the widow didn’t return.