The Shattered Sylph (9 page)

She handled it well, of course, the same as she handled the battlers. While their masters were male, to go into the harems and direct a battler took a very delicate female sensibility, for which Rashala was renowned. She could calm the most outraged battler with a touch and a word.

Shalatar found his sister in the quarantine section for new women. The cages were kept tremendously clean, but there was always some chance of disease, and the idea of using a healer for slaves was outrageous. They did have
access to one, for use in the arena in case a fighter was especially valiant and earned the praise of the emperor, or if a sylph was injured somehow, which happened sometimes, if rarely. Once or twice, Shalatar had used her to deal with his own stomach pain, though it always returned when he became stressed. Still, he couldn’t imagine calling on her when a simple standard quarantine would remove all issues.

Rashala was standing on a walkway above the pens, looking down. Like him, Shalatar’s sister was shaved hairless to show her status as a bonded serf, risen from the status of slave due to the excellence of her work. Her quality had given Shalatar the chance to show his own, as her brother, which was a boon he’d never been able to repay. She wore berry juice on her lips, staining them a harsh purple, and her robes were a similar color to his own.

Shalatar walked up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing, my sister?” he asked. “We were supposed to have lunch.”

“Bakl bought a new slave,” she said, and pointed. Shalatar looked down at a skinny, dirty girl with hair like straw and raised an eyebrow. “I’m trying to decide if she’s worth putting in the harem.”

He made a face. The girl was nearly white, with no golden tone to her skin at all. “Eighty-nine might like her. You told me he goes for the unique ones.”

“True, but then he obsesses over them. That girl with the tattoos over her entire body…?” Rashala shook her head ruefully. “We barely got him off her, and then we had to sell her to another kingdom when he kept trying to get to her. He killed the previous three. I don’t want a repeat of that.”

“So sacrifice her.”

“I’ll have to. But Bakl paid twelve gold for her. The idiot
thought he made a good deal because of her yellow hair. The sellers wanted ten times as much.”

“The sellers always do.” Shalatar turned away. “Leave it for now. I’m hungry. You can tell me about it over lunch.”

His sister was reasonable, and so they left, but not before Rashala made a note on her tablet: the yellow-haired girl would be killed on the altar at the next sacrifice. Better that than putting her in the harem and having Eighty-nine decide she was the love of his life. That was far more trouble than it was worth.

Exiting the pens beneath the floating city, they took a shortcut through the cells holding the slaves and criminals intended for the gladiatorial arena. Most of these seemed glum, though they all still had their tongues and at least some chance at glory. Not that any of them had ever found it. Not when their opponent in the arena would be a battler.

Propelled by its trio of water sylphs,
Southern Dancer
made its way down the coast, stopping at seven progres-sively warmer cities before turning at last into deeper waters, pushing against the current toward a far more distant shore. Just to be sure they were right to continue, at each stop Ril stood at the front of the ship, focusing, and each time he shook his head no. When the ship lost sight of land completely, Justin was afraid they were heading away from her entirely, but the battler was not. Wherever Lizzy was, he swore they were headed in the right direction.

“How does he know?” Justin asked Leon one day. They were all gathered at the above-deck passenger tables for lunch, Ril there simply to maintain the illusion. He stood at the prow of the ship, ostensibly eating while he watched waves break against the ship, but he was really throwing spoonfuls of food down to the fish below.

“Know what?” Leon asked.

“Where Lizzy is.”

Leon shrugged and took a swallow of wine. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Justin asked, a little bemused. If it were him, he’d have demanded the answer right away.

“Because if he’d wanted me to know, he would have told me.”

“But he’s your b—” Justin broke off and flushed at the
older man’s expression. “He’s yours. Doesn’t he
have
to tell you?”

“No. He’s not a slave. If he can find my daughter, I don’t care how he does it.”

Justin sighed, returning to his meal. He wanted to know everything the battler did, but Ril frightened him. So did all battlers, but he could avoid the rest. Not Ril. Every time he came to Lizzy’s house, the sylph seemed to be there, watching. He didn’t say anything—Justin didn’t even think he’d ever exchanged a greeting with the battler—but he knew the creature didn’t like him. Sometimes that made Justin mad. He was tired of dealing with someone who could make him want to wet himself with just a look, and he’d always wished Ril would just go away. He’d even had a few daydreams about challenging the battler to a fight and beating him, with Lizzy watching in adoration. Such thoughts would be suicide with most battlers, but Ril was a cripple. A good fighter could beat him, which Leon had proven by knocking him right on his ass. Justin had needed to bite his tongue to keep from cheering about that.

Leon was staring at him, and Justin flushed, staring down at his plate. He wanted this man to be his father-in-law. It would be mortifying for him to learn how Justin wanted to humiliate his battler.

The older man regarded him and then Ril, who had finished emptying his plate and now leaned against the railing, staring out at the empty horizon. He turned back to Justin. “Leave him alone.”

“Sir?”

“Just leave him alone.” Leon finished his wine. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s weak.”

Justin went red. “I’d never—”

“You were. I can tell. So can he. You say you want to marry my daughter? Before I give you any blessing, you
better prove yourself man enough for her.” Then Leon stood and walked away, carrying his plate and glass.

Ril turned, watching Justin, but he finally followed his master. When he passed the table, he gazed down at Justin and his lip curled up in a silent snarl. Justin’s cheeks burned. He’d do what Leon said. He’d try. But that wouldn’t stop him from hating the battler as much as he feared him.

Leon had registered both Justin and Ril as his sons in the ship’s books. Justin was young enough and Ril certainly looked young enough, even if he was actually centuries old. None of them really resembled the others, but at least Ril had Leon’s sandy blond hair and Justin a somewhat similar nose. Nonetheless, twice a day Leon took Ril to his room, and he wondered how much of the lie the passengers believed and what they really thought was going on. He doubted they had any idea of the truth.

He now stood in his cabin, his back against the door. Ril fronted him, one arm braced against the wall behind Leon’s head, his other hand resting against the side of his master’s neck. It wasn’t often that the battler touched him. He didn’t touch anyone if he could avoid it, save Leon’s girls, but his hand was warm and relaxed now. His eyes were half-closed and unfocused, his breathing slow, and he fed, drawing in the energy Leon released just as a natural by-product of living. Leon had never really asked, but Ril once remarked that his energy felt like a thick warm mist coming off his master’s skin. After twenty-one years, Leon could feel the drain. Most masters couldn’t—not even Solie—but Leon had always been fascinated by the intimacy he shared with Ril, this proof that there was one being in the world who would always need him.

Standing there, Leon let himself relax. Ril’s feeding felt like a light brush against the hair on his arm, barely there
but undeniable. Except for Solie’s, it was the only energy Ril could digest, or absorb, or whatever term it was he wanted to use. The rest of the world was poison to him unless he took the pattern of another human within himself. That was why before they left the Valley, Leon had suggested Ril be impressed with Justin’s pattern as a precaution. Mace could have arranged it through the queen easily enough; even Petr’s priests could do it. If Leon died—and he didn’t discount that possibility—Ril would quickly die of starvation. Ril had simply growled. It wasn’t just the energy, Leon knew. Easy though the bond was to make, it was also permanent and sylphs obeyed the humans to whom they were patterned. They had no choice. Ril despised Justin, and from the look the boy had just given him on deck, granting him the power to command the battler would be a mistake.

Leon assessed his seemingly human battler. Even if he were killed, he suspected Ril wouldn’t take a new master. He’d let himself die first. Which was just another reason to stay alive, he told himself—for his daughter and for his pretend son. And for Justin as well, whom he’d only brought out of guilt. Was his daughter in love with the boy? He hoped so. For her happiness, he truly hoped so.

Ril took a deep breath, draining one last draft that tingled along the length of Leon’s arms. A moment later the sylph fully opened his eyes, gazing at his master. His irises were pale gray, like ice chips under a cloudy sky, and they were unguarded, as they always were right after he fed. Leon had seen his battler’s soul this way even when Ril was trapped in the body of a bird and hating him for it. He’d never told Ril, though, for fear the sylph would never look at him during that moment again.

His battler’s eyes were troubled, even frightened, and he was desperate to act, though this was all covered by
helplessness. There was despair there, deep and nearly overwhelming. It was heartbreaking to see.

“What’s wrong?” Leon whispered.

Despite himself, Ril was most likely to answer him when he’d just fed. Now was no different. “Lizzy. I could feel her. She was so terrified, I could sense her even from here. She thought she was going to die.”

Leon went cold. “She’s not…”

“No.” Ril pushed away from the wall and went to sit on his bed, staring at the hard pillow. “Her fear is less. At least, I can’t feel it anymore. Whatever happened, she survived.”

Leon felt his terror ease, replaced by both relief and curiosity. Justin had already asked the question, how was it that Ril could track her? He shouldn’t be able to. None of the other battlers could, but Ril had pinpointed her immediately. If anything, given his injury, he should have been even less able to find her. Unless…

Lizzy couldn’t be his master, could she? She
couldn’t.
He’d know, wouldn’t he? Ril didn’t treat Lizzy any different from any of Leon’s other daughters. In fact, he focused more on the younger ones. Lizzy was the last one he paid attention to. That wouldn’t happen if Lizzy were his master. In fact, given how every other battler reacted to a female master…

Leon narrowed his eyes, thinking. One thing he could be sure of was that Ril wasn’t sleeping with his daughter, or with anyone else. He’d heard the jokes, and he knew they were true: Ril had lost all interest in women after he was hurt. Leon ached for him, but that didn’t mean he wanted his Lizzy involved with the battle sylph. She deserved children, a family, and a husband who could think and feel the way she did. Much as Leon personally loved Ril, his sylph
couldn’t provide any of those things. She deserved a human.

So his ability to track her had to have something to do with how Lizzy was Leon’s daughter. Perhaps Ril could track all of his children through his bloodline.

The sylph jerked and looked up at him, his eyes again guarded. Leon nodded. That’s what it was: a link through the blood. There was still so little he and the others knew about sylphs. Even the sylphs themselves didn’t seem to know. They just accepted and acted on instinct. Humans needed a reason.

“You don’t know what happened to her?” he asked.

“No,” Ril said. “Just that she expected to die and didn’t.”

Leon sighed. “At least she’s alive. Can you feel what’s happening now?”

“No.”

Leon stepped close, reaching out to run a hand through his battler’s soft hair. Ril gazed up, silent. “Try,” Leon said, his emotions roiling. He meant to comfort and encourage, so he didn’t realize that he’d inadvertently given an order instead.

Lizzy’s terror had been real—real and overwhelming. She’d lain nude and spread-eagled on a stone table dark with blood, a gag in her mouth and her limbs tied down. A man had towered over her with a hand sickle sharp enough to cleave off her head. A gate shone above.

They’d known there was a battler sniffing around on the other side, were told so by a healer sylph who didn’t look the slightest bit inclined to save Lizzy even if her head did come off. She’d been so terrified, she’d been screaming inside her mind, wailing for her mother, for her father, for Ril, for Justin, for anyone. She’d soiled herself as well, and her
heart pounded until she thought it would just burst and spare her all of this.

Despite that, nothing had happened. The battler circled the gate and she felt him looking at her, but he didn’t come through. He watched her for a while and finally vanished, leaving the man who was supposed to bind him screaming at the priests who’d set up the ceremony. Apparently, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Eventually, the man left, still swearing, as did the priests. Finally Lizzy was untied and returned to a cell, tossed a simple cotton shift to wear, and left alone. There she’d collapsed in a daze, shaking. She might have fainted for a while, as she lost track of time, and when she woke, a woman with neither head hair nor eyebrows was standing outside her cell, staring in and talking to a muscular woman at her side.

“There’s no point in putting her up as a sacrifice again.” The hairless woman frowned, regarding Lizzy as though she was a terrible inconvenience.

“Do you want to send her to the feeder pens?” the second woman asked.

The first frowned even more. “She’s completely useless to me then. I still want my twelve gold out of her.” The bald woman turned away. “Put her in the harem.”

“Yes, mistress.”

While the second woman groveled, bowing deeply, the bald woman looked in at Lizzy one last time before she left. Lizzy shrank into the corner, wondering what was going to happen to her now.

They cleaned her. Lizzy had been washed for her aborted death sentence, but now she was bathed in scented water, her hair shampooed and combed before being curled into ringlets all around her head. The servants who did this
tutted about her skin tones and spent hours scrambling for light enough makeup for her to wear. Then she was dressed in a gown made of she didn’t know what kind of material, which was pale green and completely translucent.

They hadn’t needed any makeup, she decided. She was too red in the face for any of it to show.

“You can’t be serious,” she gasped, seeing a mirror on the wall. She tried to cover herself, but she wore fine chains on her wrists and the guards kept pulling her hands away from her body.

“She’s too thin,” decided the woman who’d directed her transformation. The other women who held her chains, and therefore her hands away from herself, sniggered in agreement. Lizzy closed her eyes, not wanting to see them laughing at her.

“Are you a virgin? Girl!” Lizzy’s eyes opened after a sudden slap. “Are you a virgin?”

“Y-yes.”

“At least they’ll like that.” The woman sighed. “If Eighty-nine goes for her first, though, just pull her out. I don’t want him killing another girl.”

“You can’t do this!” Lizzy gasped. They started to haul her forward and she balked, trying to brace her bare feet on the slippery floor. “I won’t go!”

“Shut it, girl!” the woman snapped. “The only reason you keep your tongue in there is because some of the battlers like the screaming.”

Lizzy fought them all the way down the hall and up a short flight of stairs. There were no windows, but there was light coming from somewhere, shining down through vents in the ceiling. The floor and walls were the same pale, adobe color, but the door ahead was pure ebony wood and heavily carved. Two women with spears guarded it. Any hope Lizzy might have had about getting away
were dashed. Any one of the five women looked stronger than she, and there was nowhere to go but back the way she’d come.

Only one of them needed to hold her, despite her struggles, while the others opened the door. Perfume and screams wafted out. “Oh gods,” Lizzy whispered, just before they yanked her inside.

Within was a massive room, well lit and soft, the ceiling held up by columns that were draped with gauzy silk. The floor was covered with pillows, and on many of them lounged women dressed no better than Lizzy, providing they were dressed at all. Others were dancing or playing music. The room was fifty feet wide but hundreds of feet long, stretching away from them. A smaller door could be seen distantly at the other end.

The long walls held dozens of small archways covered by gauzy curtains. From many of them came moans, and right in the middle of the floor, she saw with her first startled glimpse, a man had a woman on her hands and knees, backside hiked high as he pumped furiously into her. Lizzy went even redder than before and made a strangled sound.