Queen of the Sylphs (25 page)

We have those sometimes near my home hive,
her companion said.
I think they’re some kind of predator.

The nameless sylph’s body itched and she felt miserable, but still she forced herself up and into the air, floating forward to see it more closely.

What are you doing?
her battler gasped.
That thing is dangerous!

Looking,
she told him. She’d never actually seen one of these before, and if nothing else, it was a distraction from what was going on inside her and how her home and friends had turned her away. She floated above the circle, looking down at it, and was extremely surprised when she sensed another world on the other side.

There was a healer on the other side of the gate!

Solie stood with one hand on her hugely distended stomach, her ankles swollen and her feet aching, staring hopefully upward at the gate to the sylph home world. Half a dozen of Petr’s assistants were chanting, holding steady the swirling, floating opening.

She’s right on the other side,
Ash was saying.
She’s looking right at it.

Solie took in a soft breath. They needed a healer desperately, needed to find her before someone else got hurt. While sabotage like the warehouse was no longer likely, accidents happened. Theirs was mostly a farming community, with everyone helping during the harvests and thereby being placed in some limited danger, and human doctors and wise women had nothing on healer sylphs’ abilities.

In the center of the circle, a young man named Relig stood and looked up. He’d been used before to try and tempt a healer, with no luck, but he had a serious lung problem that wouldn’t let him exert himself without ending up gasping for breath. Luck had been able to keep it under control while she’d been there, but once she’d left, it grew worse again. He needed a healer to keep him healthy.

Relig stood quietly, clutching his chest and gasping, but nothing came through the gate.

“Is she still there?”

She is.

Solie shook her head. “Isn’t she going to come across?”

I don’t know. There’s a battler with her.

Solie cursed. A battle sylph might just stop a healer from coming through. “Offer her some other choices,” she decided. “We can’t let her get away.”

Petr heard. He gestured, and three other people stepped into the circle, all as nervous-looking as Relig, though each with a different ailment. It was hard to say what attracted a healer, but it seemed to be deficiencies that required their talents, health crises not easily fixed. Solie hoped something in this group would coax the newcomer across.

She’s still looking,
Ash related silently, floating at about eye level in the shape of a rounded ball of flame. She flickered in multiple colors.
The battler is getting upset.

“I bet,” Solie muttered. “Come on, come over. You know you want to.”

Apparently, the healer didn’t know that. Or, if she did, she wasn’t being allowed to come.

She’s leaving,
Ash said, sounding as disappointed as Solie felt.
The battler is, too. Not far, though. She’s still close enough for me to feel her.

This was by far the closest they’d come to finding a replacement for Luck. Solie sighed, frustrated and tired. As far as the sylphs could tell, these gates appeared in a different place in their world every time one was opened. When they next opened one, it might be nowhere near this healer.

“Petr,” she called. “Can you keep the gate open? Maybe she’ll come back.”

Petr frowned, his face covered in scar tissue that he’d never allowed Luck to heal. Solie knew it linked to memories of how his own sylph had died years before, but she’d never asked and he hadn’t volunteered the story. Now he rubbed the scar tissue and shrugged.

“We can leave it partially open. Only one of us is needed at a time for that. If she comes back, we can open it wide again.”

“Yes. Good.”

Solie turned and waddled out, glad this was her last stop of the day. Lizzy was taking on more duties, and of course Ril, Mace, and Leon were always around, with the Widow Blackwell grudgingly helping on a part-time basis, but there were still many duties she handled herself. While she would have to cut back soon, and even more once the baby was born, she wasn’t ready to yet. Though, maybe tomorrow, she thought. Her feet ached in her shoes.

Waiting outside, Heyou grinned as she emerged. Ugly and fat as she felt, she knew he still thought her beautiful, though he’d been devastated when she’d lost interest in sex.

Loren and Shore stood with him, along with Sala. Loren said, “Wow, you’re big as a house. I think you’re twice the size you were last week.”

“Gee, thanks. Always love to hear that.”

Heyou blinked. “So, why did you tell me to stop comparing you to the cows?”

Loren laughed. “Oh boy. Nice.” She shook her head. “We thought we’d stop by for lunch. Sound good to you?”

Solie hesitated. With everything that was happening, she hadn’t had much time for her friends. The thought of lunch with Loren and Shore appealed, especially if they could get Lizzy to join them, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted Sala around. She risked a glance at the woman, but Sala just stood quietly and Solie decided she was being silly. She had to stop picking on the girl.

“Sounds lovely,” she said. “Let’s go to the garden.”

The women headed off, and Heyou trailed along, swinging his arms. There was no way into Solie’s chambers except for being lifted over the wall by a sylph or going in past the battler chamber, so she led the way around to the auxiliary stairs that would lead down past the throne room, thinking as she always did that they should have made the steps less steep. Someone was bound to get hurt.

Chapter Eighteen

The two other women and Loren’s sylph stayed seated at the garden table, the queen barely able to reach over her huge stomach, while Sala went inside to make tea.

She glanced around. She’d been here before, but she hadn’t spent much time absorbing the details. The dwelling and furniture were all sylph work, if more angular than their usual aesthetic. Too, the layout was logical, contrary to the earth sylphs’ usual whimsy, with the sitting room adjacent to a hall to the kitchen and bedrooms. There was also a door to a stairway that Sala knew went down to the queen’s office behind the throne room. They’d used that to get in.

The garden doors opened into a sitting room filled with ornate stone furniture. There were lots of windows and skylights, and everything seemed light and delicate despite being made of stone. There were pillows to soften the places people sat. Sala went into the kitchen, where a fire burned in a stove, pumping heat into the room but not seemingly fed by anything. More sylph work, she knew. They’d have to keep replenishing such a flame, which was why not everyone had them. Sala looked briefly for the entrance the fire sylph would use. It was under the stove, small and out of the way.

She filled a kettle with water from pipes pressurized by water sylphs and set it on to boil. While that was happening, she set out a tray with tea cups and crackers and cheese, then collected some cream and sugar. Of the three tea cups, she lightly dusted the middle one with a white powder from a tiny tin in her pocket. Then she tossed some leaves into the kettle and dawdled just long enough for the tea to steep. With that, she went back outside.

Lizzy had joined them, which gave her a moment’s pause. Recovering quickly, Sala carried the tray over and set it on the table, lifting the pot and filling the cups where the women could see her but filling the poisoned cup first, before anyone noticed the powder. Adding sugar and cream, she set that cup on its saucer before the queen.

“For you,” she said. “I’ll have to get another cup for myself.”

“Thank you,” Solie said, and turned back to her friend. “Did he say why?”

Lizzy shook her head, accepting an unpoisoned cup and sipping from it immediately. “No. He just said he wanted to test something.”

“Is Ril all right?” Solie asked.

“Yes. At least, he is as far as I can tell. I don’t know what Dad’s up to.”

Solie still hadn’t drunk any tea. Sala poured for Loren and sat down. “The chancellor is worried about him?” she asked.

Lizzy shrugged. “Yes, he’s worried. I don’t know about what. I just know he has Ril doing something.”

“Great,” Loren pouted. “Leon Petrule is worried. That can’t be good.”

Sala didn’t say anything, instead watching out of the corner of her eye. Solie was picking up her tea cup and blowing on it, readying to take that fatal sip . . .

Solie was trying to hide her discomfort at Sala’s presence. It was stupid, she knew. The woman hadn’t been anything other than nice, and no battler was worried by her. Heyou hadn’t even stayed around, finding girl talk boring beyond comprehension.

She tried to let it go and focus on what Lizzy was saying.

“I wish he’d confide in me,” the girl sulked. “I mean,
I
care, too.”

“Did you ask?” Loren said, her mouth full of cookie.

“Of course. He said he didn’t want to worry me. Too late, I’m already worried! I think he’s going to give Ril an order. I mean, we don’t
do
that. We promised.”

Solie blew on her tea again, preferring it cool. She could feel how upset Lizzy was. She supposed she would be upset, too, if someone suddenly took Heyou away and told her to stay out of it. She hoped this was nothing. Probably it was nothing. Things were getting back to normal.

Sala was watching her. The woman wasn’t looking in her direction, but suddenly Solie knew it with an instinct that made her gut tighten; Sala was looking at her out of the corner of her eye even as she listened to the conversation.

She tried to read the woman. Except for when she spoke to the assassins, it wasn’t something Solie had ever done deliberately. So long as a sylph was close by, she could read anyone’s emotions—and with Shore at the table she could feel Sala’s calmness. Still, she tried, looking for anything beyond the facade. But, no. Calm serenity. Beautiful, clear, inviolate. Solie had to hide a shudder. No one was that serene. It felt wrong.

Stupid! There was nothing wrong with Sala. The sylphs trusted her. She even had a sylph of her own. You couldn’t fool them.

Except, Leon had done just that in Meridal when he rescued his daughter.

Solie set her teacup down, suddenly not wanting anything Sala touched. The woman’s emotions didn’t even flicker. Didn’t that mean Solie was being foolish?

She put a hand on her stomach and stood. “I’m sorry,” she lied, “but I’m not feeling well. I think I’m going to go lie down.”

The other women stood, exclaiming worriedly, but Solie excused herself, just wanting to escape. The quiet of her bedroom felt wonderful after the tension in the garden, tension that she was now sure was all in her own mind.

Heyou pushed open the door and came in, crossing over to where she lay down on the bed. “Are you okay? Lizzy found me and told me you weren’t feeling well.”

Solie smiled and took his hand. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.” For a moment she considered asking him to keep a watch on Sala but let it go. She was just suffering pregnant lady vapors. She didn’t like the woman. That was all. It happened.

“Lie with me,” she said.

Heyou grinned and lay down, spooning up against her back. Solie sighed, content to have him there. Minutes later, she was asleep.

Leon sent his daughter away despite her protests. If he was wrong, he didn’t want her getting ideas. If he was right, he didn’t want her in danger.

Sitting behind his desk, Ril eyed him suspiciously. “You want to give me an order?”

Leon nodded, leaning on the blotter on his desk. “I have to, Ril, if I’m going to be sure. I want your permission, though.”

Ril frowned and finally shrugged. “Fine, whatever. Just do it.”

Leon straightened. The problem wasn’t that Ril didn’t like getting orders, it was that, in a lot of ways, he liked getting orders too much. In Meridal, Leon had needed to take absolute control of the battler just to keep him safe from other masters. Ril had submitted to him completely, and Leon had felt his clear contentment and happiness at that surrender. It had felt good for Leon as well. But in the long run it wasn’t healthy for either of them. Not if Ril was to be a free individual.

Even crippled as he was, Ril was very likely going to survive many generations of humans. He would need the ability to think for himself. That was why Leon had given up control once they were all back and safe, unintentionally leaving Ril open for Justin to abuse. And now, to confirm what Leon was afraid of, he had to take control again.

“I want you to go to the other side of the town,” Leon said, making sure to keep his tone commanding. Ril’s eyes dilated a bit, in that way they did when he was accepting an order. “I want you to change shape. It doesn’t matter what form you take, but I want you to hide the change from me. I don’t want to feel it. Do you understand? Not one bit.”

“Yes,” Ril said.

“Go then.”

Ril went out. It would take time to cross town, Leon knew, at least ten minutes unless he ran.

Leon stood for a while in the front reception area where Ril’s desk was, and then he went back into his office. He felt restless there, cooped up in that windowless place, so he went out into the hall and crossed the throne room to the main corridor that led to the surface. He ignored the grandiose staircase for visitors and ambassadors, instead going up the steep, narrow stairs near the battle sylph chamber that most locals used when they had business with the queen. It was quiet as he did; even the battle sylph chamber was deserted.

He climbed to the top of the steep stairs, opening the doorway out onto the street. A few horses were tied nearby, outside a blacksmith’s stable and beside a wagon half-full of manure. A shovel lay beside it. The sylphs hadn’t been thinking about how it could look when they tossed up a stable there by the queen’s palace, just that they had space for a building and a need to create. Solie insisted that it stay, liking how it reminded her whenever she went outside to be humble.