A Midwinter Fantasy (20 page)

Mace watched her. The guilt he felt was somehow worse than the crossbow bolts, but the pain of both was easing under the strength of her emotions. Those feelings saturated him, drawing him to her, and he wondered if this was what Heyou had felt when he first met Solie. “I make a pretty piss-poor father.”

“No one’s perfect,” she promised. “Even the Gift Giver from the Winter Festival. We just have to keep trying.” That said, she leaned down to kiss him.

It was a soft kiss and comforting, not filled this time with years of passion and frustration. With her love singing to him it was a thousand times better, and he lifted his head toward hers, their mouths working together. She was happy that he was alive, he realized. She’d been just as convinced as he that he was invincible, and now she felt her remorse at his being hurt. She had loved him for years, and this kiss was partly her need to make up for causing him harm.

Mace didn’t agree that she was to blame. She got enough of that from her family and he would have come out here anyway, for Jayden—for
Lily
—but now, thanks to Sally, he was finally doing it for the right reasons. He didn’t mind a
little bit of delightful payback, though, and so he reached up to stroke her as she lifted her dress over her head. She opened his breeches so that she could sit astride him and take him inside her, and she moved gently upon him, biting her lip as she looked up toward the sky.

He let her ride him to completion, too tired to do more and also too sobered by the depth of their connection. He could feel her, could become drunk on her, and he hadn’t known until now how incomplete he’d always been. Neither of them expected anything of the other, but suddenly he knew that he wanted her for his master. He wanted her for the soul tie she could give him. She was his Winter Festival gift, and he was hers.

He didn’t say any of that to her, though. They just shared her pleasure, and the climax when it came shook Mace to his core.

“I’ll find Travish for you,” he promised, cradling her afterward to his broad chest. “I’ll find Jayden and I’ll save him. I’ll find my sons.”

He went back that night, with the moon shining through a finally clear sky. He would have gone sooner, but he’d needed to sleep. This was a rare thing for a healthy sylph to do, and nerve-racking in a lot of ways. He’d only slept a handful of times in his life, and to lose all awareness of his surroundings the way he did was frightening, especially when he knew there was danger nearby. It was wrong. He was supposed to be the guard, not Sally. But she and Ruffles watched him sleep, sitting by the fire he’d helped kindle, and nothing happened.

Mace returned to the camp of brigands that night because he wanted the encounter done with. He wanted Travish and Jayden safe and all of them out of there. Moreover, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait for healing. His injuries weren’t fatal by any means, but he found it harder to hold energy and he was going though it much faster than he should. Ruffles was a good dog, but she didn’t have the reserves needed to keep going like this; she was sleeping like the dead when he left her, nose buried under her tail. What he really needed was the Valley’s healer, and he couldn’t go to her until he had the boys. Saving them was as vitally important now as guarding his queen.

Leaving Sally in the safety of their camp with the fire to keep her warm, Mace shifted to cloud form and flew back toward the bandit camp, his attention focused ahead of him
upon the men he could feel there. He hadn’t been sure they’d stay. He’d seen a lot of people abandon their homes before for the merest threat of a battler. More than once, he had been that threat.

The bandits had already proven they weren’t so cowardly. Once he might have thought them stupid, but they had managed to drive him away. Battlers had lost their reputation for disaster, he guessed. Solie herself had encouraged that, not wanting people to fear them. It had been decades since a battle sylph even flared their hate in Eferem, and these men didn’t believe the stories of what they were supposed to be able to do. They understood the hate aura now, but they certainly didn’t seem to trust in the other stories that a battle sylph could destroy a mountain. Really, they were even right in that conviction, since Mace wasn’t allowed to.

He arched high over the camp, sensing them below. They’d lit bonfires around the perimeter as well as in the main square. They provided light while they watched the woods all around. No one slept that Mace could feel, and tensions were high. He tasted a lot of anger in the camp, and not nearly as much fear as he was used to. One man didn’t feel fear at all, and Mace pinpointed him as the leader. He was the one who must have kept them fighting when Mace first arrived. Mace didn’t like to think about how much control he had over these men to stop them from fleeing an enraged battle sylph’s hate aura.

He swooped in before they saw him against the dark sky and hit the camp with his hatred again. Shifting shape, he landed heavily on one knee in the center of the open square, his face highlighted by the glow from the closest bonfire. Lifting his head, he stared across fifty feet of frozen mud to the man he’d sensed earlier, the one with no fear. He was a shaggy specimen, his face pockmarked by old scars
and his hair greasy. He grimaced at Mace, mouth filled with missing or black teeth. His outrage was palpable.

Mace stood, his eyes never leaving the man. “I want two things. Give them to me and I’ll leave. Don’t, and I’ll turn this camp into a crater filled with ash. You know what I am.”

The bandits eyed each other nervously, some already retreating into the darkness, while their leader spat to one side. “What you want, freak?”

Mace ignored the insult. “I want two boys you have. Jayden and Travish. Hand them over. Now.”

The bandit laughed. “Way I hear it, you monsters got no use for menfolk. And one of those two ain’t a boy.”

“He’s still a boy. Hand them over,” Mace repeated, increasing his hate.

The aura had more in common with a flash of plumage than an actual weapon, and some people were just immune. The bandit leader appeared to be one of them. His men didn’t retreat, either. Mace knew this wasn’t because they were unaffected, but because they were more afraid of what their leader would do to them than a battle sylph. The fact that Mace hadn’t started off by simply killing everyone only helped reinforce that.

The bandit rubbed his nose and snorted a wad of phlegm into the snow. “Now, don’t know if they’d be so interested in that. Why don’t you ask them?” He gestured with his chin that Mace should turn around.

A strange itch burned between Mace’s shoulder blades as he presented the bandit chief his back. Standing behind him were more of the bandits, watching silently, weapons pointed with varying degrees of confidence. Among them was someone Mace recognized immediately. He was dirtier than Lily ever would have allowed back home. His hair was a mess, and
there were bruises on his cheek that Mace didn’t like. He was terrified.

“Mace!” Jayden shouted, then winced. Someone had a grip on his arm, one tight enough to silence him.

Mace eyed the man who held Jayden. He was older than the boy but just as dirty. His eyes were hard with the hatred and bitterness Mace had already felt, and his pattern was so close to Sally’s that there was no way he could be anything but her son.

“So you’re Mace,” Travish spat. “The one my mother keeps saying is my father.” He laughed, the sound fraught with pain. He’d spent a lifetime paying for his mother’s love. “What a joke that’s been.”

“Are you saying he
ain’t
your da?” the bandit leader mocked.

Travish glared. “Do I look like I’m half freak?”

“Mace,” Jayden whined. “I want to go home.”

Travish shook the boy’s arm. “Hey, you volunteered to join us.”

Jayden looked desperate. “They said they’d kill everyone if someone didn’t!”

Mace remembered what the townspeople had told him: Jayden’s had been a noble sacrifice. But the bandits didn’t respect it. The bruise on Jayden’s cheek was days old, forcing one eye closed, and Mace didn’t like the way the boy held himself. He could feel the youth’s pain, and he knew Jayden would need the healer as well. Lily had been right to send him here.

He eyed the boy, really studying him for the first time, with his unnatural male energy and his terror that he’d be left here to rot. Under it all, Mace felt Jayden’s endless admiration for him and his desperate need to be acknowledged, if only once. He regarded the child, his expression softening for a moment. Then he lifted his gaze to the angry young
man who held him. The one he’d promised Sally he’d bring back.

“Let him go or I
will
kill you.”

Terror flashed through Travish, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He had his mother’s courage, tainted with bitterness, and instead he pulled a knife, holding it to Jayden’s throat. “You want to try?” he snapped. Jayden froze.

Mace frowned.

“This is how it’s gonna be,” the bandit leader said from behind him, making Mace turn. “You do what we say an’ we’ll let the kid live. Don’t, an’ we’ll gut him like a fish.”

Mace just stared at the brigand, well aware of Jayden’s terror behind him. “What makes you think it matters to me?” he asked.

Jayden’s terror increased, his surety that he was being abandoned after all sending him on a downward spiral faster than the battler could have imagined. Mace actually felt him give up, and something he hadn’t known was there cringed in the depths of his own soul.

“Fine,” he growled, acquiescing before the boy could feel worse. “But if you hurt him, nothing will stop me from killing every man in this camp.”

Nothing except Lily’s order.

The bandit leader nodded, smirking, but the hope infusing Jayden’s pattern told Mace he’d made the right decision. He was of limited use to the bandits with Lily’s order anyway. He couldn’t kill for them, and without Ruffles he’d run out of energy and die. He just had to get both Jayden and Travish out of here before that happened.

Jayden would be hard enough. He didn’t know how he was going to reach Travish at all.

They put him in a small building that had once been a stable, though now it was filled nearly to the rafters with stolen goods. The irony of being in a stable again didn’t escape him, though the company wasn’t nearly so good as the last time.

The bandit leader called himself Raven. His hygiene was appalling, but Mace had to admit that his mind was sharp and he was willing to take risks. Mace honestly didn’t think the man realized the danger of what he was playing with—or perhaps he didn’t care. He was an amoral killer after all. Mace had encountered such a monster before, and he could see this man’s lack of a soul. Raven’s enterprise fed nothing but greed and a lust for power, and the man saw the potential for that power increasing with the acquisition of a battle sylph. Mace could kill every single other person in the camp and Raven would still be willing to use him.

Seated on a crate marked as containing pottery from Para Dubh, Mace watched the bandit leader circle him, rubbing his hands. Mace kept his hate aura up, but Raven didn’t care. He leaned over Mace’s shoulder, his breath foul as he promised, “I’m going to use you to destroy every little shit town in this kingdom.”

Mace didn’t bother to respond or question why. It wasn’t going to happen.

“It’ll be beautiful,” Raven continued.

Distantly Mace could feel Jayden, still in the camp but
somewhere out of sight. The bandits likely didn’t realize that Mace could feel him. Most people didn’t know much about sylphs, after all, and it was just as good that they didn’t. Mace would know immediately if Jayden was hurt, and if the boy
was
taken out of his reach, he wouldn’t be quite so willing to sit here. Right now, Jayden felt nervous but willing to wait, his courage returning again now that he wasn’t completely alone.

“Soon,” Raven purred.

Mace barely acknowledged him until the man clapped a dirty hand on his shoulder; then he turned his head to stare. The brigand just laughed and went out the door, leaving a lackey standing watch. His guard was sweating despite the cold, and Mace focused his hate on him, making him shudder even more. They stayed like that for some time.

Another man opened the door and came in. “I’ll take over for a while,” he said, and the first guard stammered thanks before fleeing.

Mace tilted his head to one side, pulling the hate aura back a bit as he studied his new guard. Travish hadn’t inherited his mother’s fair hair. His was dark and wavy, hanging down to his shoulders and badly kept, bangs in his eyes. He had a beard growing roughly in, and his clothes were filthy. No one here seemed to bother with hygiene. His teeth at least were good.

Travish was affected by the hate aura, but more than the fear in him there was a need to know, something akin to a ravenous hunger. “When the boy told me a battle sylph named Mace was going to come and rescue him, I wanted to beat him for being a liar. Now you’re here.” Sally’s son crossed his arms, still standing by the doorway. “I never thought you actually existed.”

“You thought your mother lied?”

Travish rolled his eyes, though guilt flickered deep inside
him. “Of course I thought she lied! Everyone thought she lied! I spent half my childhood banished to the kitchens because no one wanted to listen to her, and they sure as hell didn’t want to see me.”

“And now I’m here,” Mace said.

“Yeah. Now you’re here.” Travish stared at him, and Mace let the hate drop a bit more, determinedly trying not to project it at him. None of the tension left either of them. “Are
you
saying you’re my father?”

Mace couldn’t quite make out the emotions running through the youngster. Part of Travish didn’t want to believe. Another part, deep inside of him, desperately wanted Sally’s words to be true, wanted her story to give him a place that he hadn’t been able to make for himself. To be the son of a battle sylph would make him special, Mace realized, which had to matter to a man who’d been treated as a pariah his entire life.