Queen Of The Sylphs Part 1

QUEEN OF.

THE SYLPHS.

L. J. MCDONALD.

Dedication.

To all the real friends in my life, only some of whom I have room to name. I hope that the rest of you know who you are. To my husband, Oliver, who is my best friend. To Andrew M, Andrew MJ, Amy, Blandine, Daniel, Ennien, Frank, Gene, Jane, John, Kelly, Perry, and always, always, to Eda.

Acknowledgments.

A lot of people have said that even though it's the author who writes the novel, no book is written in a vacuum. That's true. I owe a lot to my husband, Oliver, who tossed ideas for the plot and the world around with me and suffered through reading my first draft. I owe my beta readers, Kelly Chang and Gene Kinney, who pointed out my periodic stupidities. Any errors still in there can be blamed on me of course, not them.

I also want to thank my agent, Mich.e.l.le Grakowski at Three Seas Literary Agency for helping me navigate the bizarre world of novel contracts and publication. Along with her is my thanks to the great people at Dorchester, from the copy editor to the promotions manager and the cover artist, all of whom helped to bring the Sylph world to life. Most of all, I want to thank my editor, Chris Keeslar, who took a book I wrote purely because I want to write, and believed it was something that other people would actually want to read. It's because of him that you're holding this novel right now.

Prologue.

The battle sylphs watched.

It was market day in Sylph Valley, and a large caravan had arrived with merchants from Eferem and Yed. There were several hundred new people in the town, all jostling and shouting their way through the myriad merchant stalls, and that had brought out the Valley's defenders. Above the crush, sixteen battle sylphs crouched atop poles bearing the Valley's unlit night lanterns, each perched like a giant blue and gold bird. Used to the outwardly human creatures, the people of the Valley went on their way, only glancing up periodically. The newcomers, however, gaped in amazement.

In turn, the battlers didn't appear to pay attention to any of the humans, but that wasn't true. They watched the outsiders with an intentness that bordered on obsession. They didn't like change and given their own way, no one new would be allowed into the Valley unless they were cleared first; but that would limit trade. Without commerce, the town couldn't grow, and if the town didn't grow, it wouldn't survive. They had no allies. Theirs was a settlement against the world.

Seated on his heels with his hands resting lightly on his knees, Mace studied the main street and considered their position. There were those who would trade with Sylph Valley, certainly, but other kingdoms who agreed with their queen's philosophy? So far, none even acknowledged her. The merchants who came to this place weren't the representatives of their kings, after all. In the case of Eferem, Mace had no doubt that they were coming directly against their king's command. The Valley was a good place to trade, for their queen made sure everything was kept fair. No one was cheated in the Valley. No one tried. Not with battlers watching.

Mace shifted on his pole, watching the crowd with more than his eyes. To anyone who saw him like this, he was a tall, heavy-boned man of indeterminate age with short, thinning hair and a face not given to smiling. His form held more power than beauty, he knew, but had a certain hard confidence that appealed to women. He never took advantage of that, not anymore. His loyalty was unquestioned-to the queen, who commanded him before all, and to the Widow Lily Blackwell, who owned both his body and his love. Each of the battlers had a woman, and they would take no other while that woman lived. It was for the women that the battlers guarded the Valley. For the hive.

As the day wore on, Mace studied everyone making his or her way down the street and felt their emotions. Amus.e.m.e.nt, contentment, impatience, worry: a tapestry of feelings. A thousand washed through him but left him unmoved. Empathy was something battle sylphs had in abundance. Compa.s.sion they had not at all.

Mace searched for anger, for violence and hate. A man about to cause harm would broadcast that, giving himself away to any sylph. The elemental and healer sylphs wouldn't react except to run, but battlers would attack. If a man felt rage, they came. If a woman felt fear, they came. Even the queen wouldn't deny them that, for it was their deepest instinct. Battlers protected their hive. It had always been that way.

Below, in an ordinary travel tunic with a pack on his back, a man pa.s.sed through the market without noticing Mace's silent perch. The man felt . . . determined. He was eyeing the elemental sylphs who walked in the form of children. First came surprise, then contempt. He viewed with disgust the women who wore clothes like men and bartered or sold as equals.

Mace leaned forward, balanced unnaturally on his toes. He glanced over at the other battlers, who were watching the newcomer as well, their emotions interested. Mace nodded at the closest, a blue-haired and nervous creature named Claw.

We follow, he said silently into his fellow battler's mind.

Claw nodded spastically. He was a shivering, broken creature who'd been ruined by years of slavery. Mace would never send him on a mission alone, but even if Lily hadn't said to include him, Claw still had his uses. He was a battle sylph and nothing would change that.

Mace jumped down, landing easily before a woman carrying a basket of potatoes. She yelped and nearly dropped it, staring up at him in fright. Mace just nodded and set off, making his way through the crowd.

Whether they knew him or not, people got out of his way. The battlers here all wore the same clothes, a gold-trimmed blue uniform that made it easy for them to be identified. The queen felt it was kinder than the aura of hatred they otherwise projected, which she believed wasn't needed, not in the Valley. Mace wasn't inclined to argue, even if arguing with a queen or a master were comprehensible to him. People here knew what the uniforms meant. Those who didn't quickly learned.

Several pa.s.sersby started to speak, perhaps to say h.e.l.lo, but they stopped when they saw the look in his eye and Claw at his heel. Mace felt their fear and kept going.

His mark was easy to catch, having to push his way through the crowd that parted for the battlers, but the sylphs held back, instead just following. It was not yet time. One of the queen's rules was that they not attack on instinct. They needed a reason. Not much of one, perhaps, but a reason nonetheless. The man reached the end of the wide road and headed into a square. Everything from food to tools to jewelry was being sold here, but the man didn't care. Mace didn't either. Above, a battle sylph named Wat perched on the edge of a building.

He feels like he's looking for something, Claw sent to Mace.

Yes. The man did, and it was nothing these merchants were selling. The stranger stared at the faces of the women he pa.s.sed, and Mace could feel his annoyance: He wasn't finding what he wanted, and his determination was veering toward violence. He felt like a predator, and Mace let a low growl escape his throat.

A little girl toddled out of the crowd. She grabbed Mace's leg, beaming up at him. "Play with me!" she cried, her happiness a dizzying salve.

Mace scooped the girl up, tickling her under the chin. He pa.s.sed her to Claw, ordering, Take her to her mother. The woman was not far away. She was one of the original Community members, there since the Valley was settled, and her emotions were content, trusting the battlers with her child.

As Claw hurried over to the smiling woman, Mace turned back to his target-and found him nowhere in sight, lost in the emotions of an excited, happy crowd watching a street performer with a dozen juggling b.a.l.l.s. Mace snarled, looking around and reaching out with his senses. A moment later he glared up at Wat on the rooftops.

Where? he demanded.

The battler, dark-haired, slim, and gorgeous by any human standard, stared right back. Huh?

Mace growled and shifted, dropping the human shape he'd chosen years before and returning to his original form of dense black smoke. He had swirling eyes of ball lightning and teeth of pure electricity. Black, drifting wings spread out, and he rose dozens of feet in moments. People who saw him screamed in fright, even those who knew him. Some of those screamed even louder. Battlers only took this shape to travel long distances-or to attack.

Mace had no proof, but he knew exactly where his quarry was headed. Determined, violent, searching for a woman; not expecting to find her in the market but watching regardless, just in case . . .

He rose higher and confirmed his suspicion. On the other side of the square was another road that led eventually to a stone building, its walls as thin and delicate as candy floss, its windows tall with colored gla.s.s. It rose high in the air, a creamy white tower. Wide stairs led to great double doors, both open as they always were when the queen held court. Mace spotted the stranger already nearing the stairs just inside, since the building itself was nothing but a front for a grand stairwell into the underground complex below the town.

He roared. PROTECT THE QUEEN.

His call was a command to every sylph, whether battler or otherwise. The battlers answered, immediately taking to the air. The other sylphs shrieked, changing forms to escape, many dragging their human masters to safety. Those Valley dwellers without sylphs saw the others retreating, heard the battlers roar and fled themselves, all hurrying to stairwells at the corners of each square. These also led into the corridors below. Strangers to the Valley didn't know to follow, but Mace didn't care, not anywhere near as much as he cared about the safety of the human queen who was master to them all.

The interloper froze at the foot of the stairs, staring up at Mace in fear-at all of the battlers, while others rose behind him and created a storm many layers high. The doors to the tower closed, sealed shut by the touch of an earth sylph, and Mace opened his jaws wide, hissing. He couldn't speak in this form, could only project his voice to other sylphs, his master, or his queen. He projected to her now.

There is danger, Solie. A man has come to kill you. We have him.

Don't kill him, she sent back immediately. Bring him to me.

Mace hated it, but he obeyed.

Chapter One.

She was a small, slim, redheaded girl only twenty-three years old, but as the queen of Sylph Valley, Solie was the most powerful woman alive. Most of the time, she didn't feel that way. She did feel like a leader, though. She spent her days doing paperwork, organizing the development of the Valley, and trying to convince the other kingdoms to get over their fear and enact formal trade agreements-or at least not go to war with them.

Dressed in a long gown of silk the same blue as the uniforms the battlers wore, she rose from her throne, shaped from stone by an earth sylph to be beautiful but still comfortable, and descended the dais stairs to the polished floor. Her reflection strode beneath her and Heyou bristled at her side, his feelings obvious even if she weren't able to feel them. His anger was no different than that of every single battler and elemental sylph in the room, or that of the humans here.

Heyou was specifically hers, the battler who bonded to her and made her queen. When they first met, he'd made himself look like a boy. As she'd aged, he'd aged his appearance as well. Now he looked very much like a man, though he was still not much taller than her own five feet two inches. And he was still the same Heyou: immature and devoted, and determined to protect her. Still, with twenty sylphs in the room, Solie didn't exactly feel any danger.

Her erstwhile a.s.sa.s.sin knelt on the floor, Mace twisting his arm behind his back. Solie didn't ask the battler to release his grip. Mace would be upset by that, and he wasn't actually hurting the man. She knew he wanted to. If it hadn't been for her order, the a.s.sa.s.sin would already be dead.

She studied the stranger. He seemed perfectly ordinary, sweat dripping down his dirt-streaked face. He smelled of travel, like many men who came to town, and he stared at the floor in silence. Once, she would have thought him an ordinary soul frightened into silence, but not now. Not anymore.

Solie was still human, for all her sacred status with the sylphs; she wasn't an empath. But one of the advantages of being a sylph's master was that she could feel the emotions they projected. And while a normal master could feel only what their own individual sylph did, Solie as queen could feel the emotions of any of her sylphs, and they could project to her anything they picked up from others. Thanks to that, she could nearly feel this man's mind churning as he tried to think his way out of his predicament.

He had indeed come to kill her. Once, that would have frightened her terribly, but Solie had spent six years as queen and she wasn't the naive little girl she'd once been. Neither circ.u.mstances nor her advisers had let her be.

She glanced over at Devon Chole, wishing that he wasn't the only one of her three advisers currently in the Valley, but Thom Galway was off in the woods, as he often was, and Leon was across the ocean, searching for his kidnapped daughter. Devon was far younger than either, being only five years older than herself. Still, he had a good heart and a great liking of people, and he'd been a true a.s.set to her. He arranged her social schedule and audiences, somehow always able to figure out who needed to see her and when, and how to manage her time so that she was able to do all the things she had to. He also protected her time for herself and Heyou.

Devon wore the same blue uniform as the battle sylphs, but the gold piping on his coat was greatly diminished. The last thing Solie wanted was for someone to think he was a battle sylph and challenge him to a fight. It had happened before. The only reason anyone survived was because she'd ordered it.

Leon wore the same suit as Devon when he was working, but he could defend himself. Galway couldn't be bothered. The old trapper hadn't sworn himself to her like Leon and Devon had, either. Not that it mattered. However he'd learned what he knew, the man was a great source of information on how to set up an economy and make it work. He had seven children living in his house, three of them not his. He knew how to make successful compromises.

For now, though, however competent her other advisers were, Solie only had Devon and a great number of angry battlers.

"Do you recognize him?" she asked.

Devon eyed the man uncertainly, thinking. In the still air of the audience chamber, his hair moved as his invisible air sylph tossed it around.

"Do you recognize him, Airi?" Solie asked the playful little creature.

I'm not sure, the sylph sent. I don't think so.

"I don't think so either," Devon admitted, hearing his sylph as easily as Solie. "I don't think I've ever seen him before." He shrugged and whispered, "If he's from Eferem, Leon would know."

Solie made a face. Leon had been King Alcor's head of security and lead battler master. He'd also nearly been her a.s.sa.s.sin, himself. He'd got a lot closer to success than this one.

She stared deep into the a.s.sa.s.sin's heart. Seeing the resentment, she doubted he'd ever turn out to be one of her closest friends the way Leon had. Either way, she had to decide what to do with him. For the battlers, it was simple: kill him. But Solie couldn't do that. It wasn't just that she'd been raised kind and nonviolent, killing him would be too easy. She didn't need Devon and the others to warn her that such methods led to corruption.

"Who are you?" she asked instead.

The man looked up at her. "N-no one," he stammered. "I'm just a traveler. I don't understand!"

He did, though. Solie could feel it. He knew exactly why he was there. He still wanted to see her dead, and the urge was only stronger now that he'd been taken. Too easily, he seemed to feel. He'd been taken too easily. He really didn't understand how battlers worked. No one who lived in a place that bound sylphs to slavery ever did.

Solie wasn't going to tell him. "You're lying," she snapped. "You're not a traveler, you're an a.s.sa.s.sin."

He gave no physical response, just stared at her in seeming confusion, but his insides flared with anger. Which just proved she was right.

She turned her gaze to Mace, who was watching her over the prisoner's head. He could hold the man forever, so she could take her time with this interrogation.

"You're lying," she said again. She looked back at the a.s.sa.s.sin. "Are you from Para Dubh?" It would be bad if he were. She really didn't want them to be enemies. The kingdom of Para Dubh on their eastern border had signed a trade agreement with them, encouraging the sale of certain goods in return for Sylph Valley's ore, but they hadn't officially acknowledged Solie. Yed, far to the south, still ignored them while trying to increase their army, even as merchants from there regularly came through. According to her battlers, most of them were spies. The kingdom of Eferem was right on their southern border, and King Alcor hated everything she stood for. She wondered if her would-be killer was from there. West were impa.s.sable mountains while north was nothing but ice and snow. Just worrying about the south and the east was enough for her.

No emotional reaction. The man was tense, waiting to see what she said next and still figuring a way out of this. He had no idea how much he was giving away.

"I've never been there," he said.

"What about Yed? Are you from Yed?"

He nodded, licking his lips in feigned nervousness. "Yes. I came up with a caravan. Is that illegal?"

He was lying. Solie's eyes narrowed. "You're lying again. You're from Eferem."

Fear shot through him, confirming her suspicions.

"You're from Eferem," she continued. "King Alcor sent you to kill me."

The more she spoke, the surer she was. She was also angry, if not surprised. Solie had actually been born in a hamlet only a few miles away from the capital, and she'd been taken for a sacrifice used to trap a battler. Her death had been meant to bind Heyou to Alcor's only son, but the prince ended up dead and Solie as Heyou's master-the first woman ever to link with a battler. It was when they'd become intimate that she'd become a queen. Alcor had tried to have her killed and lost five battlers. The only reason he hadn't attacked again was from fear. He had six battlers left; she had over fifty.

But, Leon had taught her that there were other ways to cripple a country than outright war. Whether he'd thought of it himself or someone finally suggested it to him, Alcor had just tried one.

"Are there more of you coming?" she demanded, her attention so focused that she wasn't aware of Devon watching her or the preening, proud looks of her battlers. She didn't want war with Eferem, but she wasn't so childish as to think she could ignore an enemy. Not anymore. If they didn't come after her again, who would they try to hurt next? How much damage could they do?

The a.s.sa.s.sin stared at her, his eyes wide. He finally realized she knew what he was feeling. Or probably he thought she was reading his mind. She saw-felt-him shudder and try to draw within himself so as not to give any more away.

It was too late. While sylph empathy could be fooled and someone with their emotions under control could slip by even battlers, it took tremendous skill. This man didn't have it. In moments, Solie knew there were more a.s.sa.s.sins coming.

"How many?" Alcor sent two battlers to kill her once, and when that hadn't worked, he sent three more and an army. "Two? Three? Four?" She stared into the captive's ashen face. His brown eyes were dilated and wide, irises surrounded by white. "Four more a.s.sa.s.sins?" She glanced at Mace. "There are four more of them."

Mace growled and she heard a call go out. Battlers roared outside and she felt their hate wash over the town. They were only allowed to do that in protection, but the hive was definitely threatened. Was she the only target?

"Who else are you after?" she demanded.

The power structure of Sylph Valley was no secret: Solie was queen. Mace directed the battlers. Devon was her secretary. Galway took charge of economics and trade. Leon governed just about everything else. Half a dozen others filled important, smaller roles . . .

"You're after the council," she realized. Leon and Galway were away, but Alcor didn't necessarily know that. "Send battlers to protect the council and their families." When Mace nodded, she knew it would be done.

Solie turned, eyeing Heyou by her side. To battlers in their own world, the oldest and most powerful usually won the queen-and the right to rule. Heyou had skipped around that, but only to a degree. He bowed to Mace as much as any other battler. She knew he didn't mind. He'd rather be with her than take on the responsibilities Mace carried.

Right now, however, there was something he could do that Mace couldn't. "Go to Galway," she told him.

Galway could be anywhere, but the trapper was his master. Heyou's pattern was bonded to him much like all the other sylphs were bonded to her, if in a lesser position. Galway could give Heyou orders and feed him his energy, and through that bond Heyou could find him.

Heyou nodded and leaned in, kissing Solie. Then he turned to smoke and lightning and was gone, hurtling out the door.

Solie eyed the a.s.sa.s.sin. All the resistance had gone out of him, and he stared at her in true bafflement.

"How do you know?" he whimpered. "How could you possibly know?"