Queen of the Sylphs (34 page)

“Ril—” Leon started to protest.

“DON’T FOLLOW ME!” he bellowed, and they both jumped. Turning, he ran, the road blurring under him as he sprinted toward the queen, listening to the silent screams of what was going on, and who was doing it, and why.

Claw, he thought. Oh, poor Claw.

He forced himself to run faster.

Solie backed toward the center of the room, her focus on nothing except the woman advancing on her. There was help coming; she could feel them in the back of her mind and hear them, but it would take time. Only seconds, but seconds right now were an eternity.

To prove it, Sala lunged with her knife.

Solie brought her candlestick around. It glanced off Sala’s arm instead of breaking the woman’s wrist as she’d intended. Sala’s eyes flashed in pain, but she drew back for a moment. She knew as well as Solie that she had almost no time.

Sala advanced again, and Solie readied herself, ignoring her thundering heart, her fear, the pain in her stomach, and the water that suddenly poured down her legs. If she was going to live, she could do nothing else.

The two battlers came together high in the air over the garden, blasting each other with energy and lashing out with sharp and fiery tentacles.

Heyou, younger and smaller, struggled to keep his shield up against Claw’s passionless attack. Claw didn’t want to fight him. Heyou could feel that, and it was confusing, but Solie needed him; no matter how much Claw might not want to win, this battle was for keeps.

Stop this!
Heyou shrilled, desperate to get back to Solie, barely able to think through his fear for her.

You know I can’t,
Claw returned. He lashed out, energy rippling from the tip of his tentacle. It tore through Heyou’s weakening shield and into his body, throwing him back. He shrieked and retaliated, but Claw dodged. The energy blew past him, arcing down into the town. There was an explosion, and a group of buildings was obliterated, the roof of one lifting up into the sky.

Careful,
Claw cautioned, mad laughter in his voice.

Enraged and horrified, Heyou lunged. He was knocked aside, tumbling, and tried to right himself before Claw could hit him again—which was when Dillon slammed into the underside of Claw, both battlers reeling from the impact, squealing.

With his assailant engaged, Heyou’s first priority remained unchanged. He turned and darted toward the house, flickering across the garden to the gaping hole where the doors used to be. He could feel Solie’s focus and determination, her pain and fear underneath. He felt Gabralina’s terror and Betha’s agony; but from Sala, all he felt was her usual calm. Even in this, she felt nothing. Heyou raged that none of them had realized.

Ahead, the doorway grew closer, while behind, Claw rolled over Dillon. Obeying orders, he released a burst of power. It slammed into Heyou, who, squealing, crashed into the garden, plants and paving stones tearing up around him. He trailed ozone and pain.

The other battlers swept in from all directions. They were led by Mace. Claw saw them coming and shot upward, trailing enemies as he raced for altitude, leading them away. Heyou howled, shifting to human form and clawing at the ground to pull himself upright, trying to shout at them not to follow Claw, to come to the queen, to Solie, but he couldn’t speak through the pain, neither aloud nor through the hive line. He could only feel Solie and had to go to her.

One battler recognized the real enemy. High above, Mace dropped away, letting himself fall until he was under the raging cloud that formed the Valley sylph pursuit. Ignoring Claw and everyone else, including Heyou, he blew straight toward the queen, and Heyou felt a moment of great gratitude. Then something changed, and everything inside him thundered to a stop.

Autumn was bent over Betha, cooing to the woman while she healed her. Betha stared upward in weeping terror, frightened to her bones by what had happened and wishing for once that her husband’s battler were there. A few feet away, Gabralina cowered in fear, watching her friends fight and listening to the screams of battle sylphs outside. She didn’t understand any of this.

“What’s going on?” she wailed.

Autumn looked over at her, reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. Some of Gabralina’s fear eased. “She wants to be queen.”

But she
was
queen, Gabralina thought for a moment, thinking Autumn meant Solie. Then the truth hit her and she gave a horrified gasp.
Sala
wanted to be queen? But there was only ever one. They’d told her that, even kept her from making love to her sweet Wat until after he’d been brought into their hive. They’d done that to prevent him from turning Gabralina into a queen.

Another truth came to her then, though from Autumn’s touch or her own sudden realization Gabralina never knew. With an abrupt pain, Gabralina saw all of what her so-called friend had done, what she’d been able to do, thanks to Gabralina stupidly telling Wat to obey her.

Wat.

Her Wat. Dead. Killed for trying to murder the chancellor. For doing something that made no sense, except that Sala told him to. Only, Gabralina hadn’t meant for Sala to be able to do that. She’d only meant for Wat to help her carry some luggage. Not this. Not any of this. He’d
died
because of this.

Guilt flooded Gabralina’s broken heart, making her new sylph eye her in concern; but more than that, rage filled her. Pure, blinding hatred. Autumn drew back in shock.

Gabralina shot to her feet, hiking her skirts up out of her way as she clambered onto the bed. She threw herself at Sala with a howl. Her friend. Her confidante. Her betrayer.

Sala half turned, surprised, but Gabralina slammed into her, knocking her to the floor and landing on top. Solie backed away, gasping, one hand to her stomach. Her skirts were soaked, and she slipped on the puddle she stood in, falling against the wall with a groan.

Gabralina didn’t notice. She struggled with Sala, trying to get her hands around the woman’s neck, thinking of Wat, screaming for Wat. Sala just pulled her hand back and plunged the knife she’d been holding deep into Gabralina’s chest.

Gabralina gasped in shock, her limbs suddenly useless and weak. Sala shoved her away, and Gabralina fell onto her back on the floor, soundlessly moving her mouth, gaping at the ceiling.

Autumn threw herself over the bed toward her master. Since she’d come to this place, she’d seen battle sylphs associate with non-hive males, elemental sylphs try to heal the injured, and her own biological imperative turn back on itself. The absolutes of her origin hive didn’t exist here. So, landing atop her master, she flattened one palm against her, healing the damage the knife had caused—and with the other, she punched Sala square in the face.

The woman shrieked in surprise and pain and fell back, tripping over her long skirts and falling onto her backside, her hands raised to her bloody face. Only a foot away, Solie grabbed a heavy porcelain jug off a small table and brought it down as hard as she could. The thick porcelain didn’t break immediately on Sala’s head, but she kept hitting Sala with it again and again until it did.

The scream of a single battle sylph outside was long and echoing. Its tone of gratitude was somehow worse than any sound of despair.

Solie dropped the broken handle of the jug, her face white. It landed in the blood pooling on the carpet. Pain rippled across her expression and she swallowed hard, both hands on her belly. Mace flew into the bedroom, shifting to human form. He barely looked at the body on the floor. Instead, he went to the queen and lifted her, bearing her out of the room.

Gabralina reached up to grip Autumn’s arm. The healer looked down at her, bemused.

“I actually
hit
her,” Autumn said.

“You did.” Gabralina laughed, half sobbing as she sat up. Her dress was bloody and torn, but there was no pain, and Autumn tossed Sala’s knife next to the shattered jug in the pool of blood.

“Is she dead?” Gabralina whispered, not daring to look at the body lying sprawled so close to them.

Autumn glanced at Sala and shrugged. “I don’t think she was ever alive.”

Shivering, Betha stood. She made her way around the bed, her own dress cut and bloody while the skin underneath was smooth and untouched.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, helping Gabralina to her feet. Autumn rose beside her. Gabralina didn’t know how to answer the woman, but Betha didn’t seem to need a response. Leaning on each other, shaken by what happened, the two women left the bedroom. They were careful not to touch anything of what lay in the center of the puddle that was even now stopping its spread.

Chapter Twenty-six

Solie was crying as Mace carried her into the sitting room and over to a chaise near the window. “Why didn’t you know?” she wailed at him, hitting his arm with a trembling hand. “Why couldn’t you tell what she was?”

His sorrow echoed through her. “Forgive us, my queen.”

Solie sniffled sorrowfully. “Where’s Heyou?” she sobbed.

“Solie!”

Mace laid her on the chaise, and she saw her beloved, Heyou, limping badly and hanging onto the broken frame of the doorway to keep from falling. His shape was as perfect as always, but he held himself wrong, flickers of smoke rippling across his skin. He stared at her and nearly collapsed, but she felt his relief at seeing her alive.

Dillon caught him, holding him up and helping him over. Solie sat up on the chaise, reaching for Heyou and sobbing. The entrance was suddenly full of battle sylphs staring in at them.

Heyou fell to his knees beside the chaise and into Solie’s arms. She hugged him tight and wailed as another contraction shook her, this one worse than any before.

“You’re in pain,” he whimpered, holding her.

“I’m supposed to be.” She laughed and started to cry again.

Autumn stepped up beside them, one hand on Heyou to heal him while she lifted Solie’s skirts with the other. The healer checked on Solie, tapping her belly, and Solie sagged back against the chaise in relief as the pain vanished. The sensation didn’t: she felt the baby coming.

“Wait!” she heard suddenly. “Wait!”

Startled and afraid of what might happen, Solie looked up to see Sala’s other surviving victims.

Unsurprisingly, Ril arrived later than anyone else, sprinting across town as fast as he could. The energy inside him burned. It was all Lizzy’s, Ril not being willing to take any from Leon that the man might need while he was still in recovery. He was fueled by Lizzy’s love instead, staring up at the swirling cyclone of battle sylphs rising high over the ground, all sweeping upward after one of their own.

He felt their rage and confusion. Claw was a hive mate, and there wasn’t one of them who couldn’t feel how badly he wanted to stop fighting them. Everything he felt was in the open now, all the secrets he’d been ordered to keep revealed.

She’ll be queen!
Claw screamed, sobbing.
She killed Rachel to have me! She’ll kill the queen and make me take her. She’ll be queen of us all!

They would kill him. Ril had no doubt of that. He’d kill Claw himself if that was what it took to protect the queen, just like he’d killed Wat, and he’d live with that grief as well. Claw rose above them all, still fighting even as he screamed out his master’s confessions and begged them to finish it before she did.

Then his scream became different.

Ril couldn’t feel the death. None of the battlers could, not with the strange soullessness of Sala that hid her nature from them for so long. Claw did, and lightning flashed through him, turning him bright white for an instant before he fell, dropping back into the swirl of battlers below.

Ril sprinted across the wreckage of a building destroyed during the fight, past a hysterically barking dog and up to the wall that circled the queen’s garden. He jumped it, one hand slapping down against the top of the stone as he vaulted over and landed on the grass on the other side. Claw and the other battlers were there.

Don’t kill him!
he shouted, running straight into the storm of battlers, their cool mist gentle against his skin even as their lightning made him ache to join them in his natural form.

He threatened the queen,
Fhranke hissed.

He didn’t,
Ril retorted.
His master did, and she’s dead
. This close, he could feel it now, through Claw.
If all of you didn’t know that, he’d be dead already.
With the death of the master came the freedom of the sylph. Claw would only be a danger now if he lost his sanity.

He found the battler lying in his human form in the center of the storm cloud, shaking, his hair blue again but his eyes wide with madness. Ril knew exactly how Claw felt. He’d lost his own sanity when he came through the gate and Leon killed the girl who’d drawn him. They’d made peace, but first had been the madness—and it hadn’t been Leon who pulled him out of it.

Inside the building, Solie wailed in pain. Her child was still coming.

Ril hauled Claw upright, pulling the other battler back against his chest and locking arms around him. Claw didn’t help, but he didn’t resist, either, hanging limp in Ril’s grip as he was dragged across the garden and into the house.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait!”

Solie looked toward him in fear. Her feet were drawn up on the chaise, her knees spread and her skirts pulled up. Ril could see her clearly, and the crowning head that was already emerging streaked with blood.

Ril grabbed Claw’s chin, forcing his head down to watch. “Look!” he gasped. “Look at her!
See
her!”

Solie screamed, bearing down, and Ril looked away, afraid to see the birth. That was how he’d regained his own sanity. In seeing Lizzy born.

He looked away and found himself staring at Betha. The woman stared back, eyes wide. Ril just watched his masters’ wife and mother, and he closed his eyes against her understanding, not knowing what to say.

Claw was lost.

Rachel was dead. Wat, Galway, and Justin were dead. Even Sala was dead. He’d felt her die and been able to do nothing about it, and even as he’d reveled in that, he’d shattered. No, there was nothing left of him; only the dying remained to be done. Darkness. He’d welcome that.