"You won't hurt me," Justin snapped defiantly, though Ril could feel his fear. "You're under orders."

Ril snorted. "Don't push me."

"Liar," Justin said, his voice low. "You can't do anything to me. You have to do exactly what I say."

Ril's eyes widened as he realized his mistake, but he hadn't actually thought Justin had this in him. The boy had always been afraid of what others would do if he tried anything.

He turned to bolt back into the house or shout for Lizzy or Leon, but Justin pointed a finger at him and said, "Don't move, don't shout, don't speak, don't call for help, don't project your emotions, don't do anything."

Ril froze, swearing inside. Leon was only a few dozen feet away, but he couldn't call for him. He couldn't even project his emotions and alert his master that way. He seethed quietly instead, watching Justin move closer.

The young man walked right up to him, features twisted with hate. "Don't move," he repeated. Then he punched the battler in the face as hard as he could.

Ril licked his lip and worked his jaw. Looking back, he saw Justin holding his fist, gasping in pain. He smirked.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Justin whispered. "You G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I hate you. You've taken everything from me. Do you understand that?"

Under orders not to move or speak, Ril just stared, letting his expression say everything.

Justin obviously understood. He shoved his face right up in Ril's. "I could order you to go away," he whispered. "I could order you to pick a direction and just keep going until you run out of energy and die. n.o.body would be able to find you."

Ril went cold.

Justin grinned. "I could do it," he sn.i.g.g.e.red, poking the battler in the chest. Then the grin faded. "I tried being nice. I tried being compa.s.sionate and understanding about everything Lizzy went through, but she only wants you. She actually thinks you're some kind of person! Well, you're not. You're nothing but a slave, and it doesn't matter what kind of so-called freedoms they give you. You'll always be a slave."

The young man shook his head. "What do you think is going to happen after Leon and Lizzy die? You'll end up being property again, I promise it!" His expression of anger smoothed over. "Only, I guess you won't last that long. I love Lizzy, more than you can imagine, and I won't see her ruined by an animal. She'll be free to love me again once you're dead. Free."

Ril felt a cold but impotent hatred as Justin straightened, clearing his throat and obviously thinking over a set of instructions he intended to relay. Ril watched him warily, still unable to project the fear or anger that would alert Leon and Lizzy and perhaps save him.

"You'll forget this meeting," Justin began. "You'll obey my orders, but you won't remember getting them so you can't tell anyone." He took a deep breath. "You won't feed from your masters' energy anymore. You'll feed from any source but them. And you'll think you're supposed to. That's my order."

Ril stared at him. Justin was ordering him to poison himself?

Of course he was.

Justin smiled. "Don't worry about Lizzy. I know she'll be upset about your lingering death, but I'll make sure to give her all the support she needs. It'll be good for her, to learn someone real is there for her."

More than ever before, Ril wanted to kill. He wanted to erupt, to maim, to destroy. He just stood there.

Justin stepped back into the shadows. Pointing at Ril, he said, "Obey my orders, battler. Take a deep swallow. I want to watch you do it."

Immediately, Ril forgot what Justin had just told him. He even forgot that the young man was still there, standing in the bushes. He was hungry, and the world around him was full of energy, swirling in patterns he could feel tingling all over. He took a deep draught, pulling that energy into his own pattern.

His scream shattered the night air, his agony blasting out along the hive lines to his masters and every sylph in the Valley. Pain-horrible pain, crippling, poisonous agony like no sylph should ever feel-burst through him. His back arched, his mouth gaped in that ongoing scream, and shouts sounded inside the house. Roars sounded throughout the town, battlers rising as the other sylphs took cover.

Snapping forward, Ril dropped to his hands and knees and threw up, energy spilling out of him as a scattering of already dispersing sparks. He couldn't understand what had happened or even where his pain was coming from.

A few feet away, Justin scrambled to his feet. He had tripped backward in surprise at the ruckus, but now he stared at Ril in shock and fear. The battler gaped at him, trying to snarl but only gagging. He threw up again.

Justin backed away, shaking. "Don't you say anything about me being here," he gasped. "I order you-"

A blast wave of power slammed into the ground where Justin was standing, vaporizing everything to a depth of three feet.

Ril was thrown backward. He slammed into the steps leading to the Petrule porch just as the door opened and Leon ran out, Lizzy right behind. Smeared with Justin's blood, Ril clutched his gut and threw up a third time.

"Ril!" Leon gasped, shocked in a way Ril had rarely felt. Lizzy had her hands clasped over her mouth, looking horrified. Betha held her daughter from behind, staring in fear over Lizzy's shoulder before turning back to the house and shouting that the other children shouldn't come out.

Claw landed on the edge of the crater he'd created, stared down at it with a shudder before rushing over to kneel in front of Ril. Leon crouched beside him.

Ril managed to vomit sparkling energy up all over his master's arms and lap. His ears were ringing so loudly he couldn't be sure what anyone was saying. He saw Mace drop down and land in a crouch on the nearby walkway, and other angry battlers descended as well. Pulled into Leon's arms, Ril convulsed, trying to hang on to the energy he'd consumed, afraid that if he lost any more, the rest of him would fall apart.

Mace stepped forward, his expression intense. Ril watched as the older battler knelt and abruptly slammed a hand into him. Ril gasped, and Mace siphoned out a spiderweb of energy, scattering it across the lawn with a snap of his arm.

His pain eased. Ril sagged against Leon, still not understanding what had happened.

"What?" Leon demanded, echoing Ril's thoughts. "What's going on?"

Claw shuddered. "That man. He was doing something to Ril."

"What man?" Lizzy gasped. She stared at the crater. "Oh, G.o.ds!"

Justin, Ril thought. It had been Justin. He'd seen him. Starving and miserable, he reached out for the energy in the air and the ground, drawing it into him, trying to find sustenance and relief.

"Stop!" Mace shouted.

"What?" Leon said.

Mace leaned toward Ril. "He tried to drink the wrong kind of energy. Not yours."

"What? Why?" Leon stared at Ril. "Why aren't you drinking my energy?"

Ril regarded him wearily. "Why would I?"

Everyone was silent.

The battlers and humans looked grim. Leon's arms tightened around Ril as Lizzy knelt down, staring at him. "It was Justin, wasn't it? He did something to you."

Leon stroked his hair. "Ril, you need to drink my energy. Or Lizzy's."

"Are you insane? It's poisonous."

Leon sighed. "Someone get the queen."

Chapter Sixteen.

Her stomach greatly distended, the pregnant Solie waddled around the house and toward a small cottage at the end of the back garden. Small faces watched her from the window, and she smiled at the Petrule girls as she made her way through the darkness. Heyou guided her with an arm around her waist.

"They're sure it was Justin Porter?" she asked.

"I think so. Who else could it have been? Not much left to identify him, though."

Solie grimaced. She'd pa.s.sed the crater in the front yard and was glad the night was now too dark to see any blood. "Has anyone told his father?"

"Uh, I don't know."

Solie eyed Heyou and cupped his cheek with one hand. "Make sure someone tells him. Someone . . . kind."

"What, you don't want us to shout it down the chimney?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"I promise we won't laugh much."

When Solie shot him a look, he grinned. "a.s.s," she said.

Lizzy and Ril's cottage was a tiny thing only twenty feet wide, formed of swirling stone with a thatched roof. The windows were round and the door made of dark wood. Dillon stood outside, in human shape for once and looking moody.

"How's Moreena doing?" Solie asked.

Dillon shrugged and bowed. "Good. Blue's watching her. Mace said to tell you he and Claw went to look over the corpse's place."

"Right." Solie looked at Heyou. "Can I at least suggest the lot of you show a little compa.s.sion?"

"You can always suggest," Heyou replied. "Considering he tried to kill our hive mate, I'd suggest you make it an order."

Dillon opened the door. Solie rolled her eyes and went inside.

The cottage was a single room, its wooden floor covered by a patterned rug. A small couch was placed near the front, while a dresser was turned lengthwise and pushed against the back wall to create two separate living s.p.a.ces, one with a small table and the other featuring a double bed. Lizzy and Leon sat on wooden chairs pulled up by the bed. Ril was mostly buried under the covers.

The two Petrules looked up as she entered, and Solie held open her arms. Lizzy hurried toward her. The young woman hugged her warmly before she stepped back.

"Ril's messed up. Somehow, Justin has him thinking that he's supposed to drink any energy but ours. Father doesn't want to risk making it worse. We don't know what else was done to him."

"Doesn't Ril know?"

"No. He doesn't remember."

Solie approached the bed. "How is he?" she whispered to Leon.

"I'm fine," Ril said loudly. He pushed the bedcovers back and sat up, jabbing a finger at his master. "He won't let me up. I'm not sick." He put a hand against his middle and made a face. "Maybe a little queasy in the stomach is all."

"You don't have a stomach," Heyou pointed out. Ril glared.

"We think Justin ordered him to drink the wrong energy and then to forget about being ordered to do so," Leon said.

Ril protested. "He didn't!"

"Well, I want to be sure anything Justin told him to do is completely gone," Leon said.

"Hey, Justin's dead," Heyou argued. "Any order he gave, Ril can just ignore now."

"Obviously he's not," Leon shot back. "Justin set him up so that he doesn't even know he's obeying an order."

The chancellor's expression was flat, but thanks to the battlers Solie could tell how utterly furious he was. Even when Alcor's battle sylphs were attacking, Solie hadn't felt him so angry. Or so frightened. He had no idea what had been done to Ril, and he had been paired with the sylph for over twenty years. She understood the intensity of such a bond.

Solie waddled heavily over to the bed, and Ril moved his legs so that she could sit down. He looked at her with exasperation before finally lowering his eyes in respect.

She smiled rea.s.suringly and took a deep breath. "Ril, what did Justin order you to do tonight?"

"Nothing."

She waited for him to look up at her and focused. "Ril, what did Justin order you to do tonight?"

Solie wasn't a sylph. Even so, after six years as their queen she'd learned a lot. She still used Mace to help bond sylphs to new masters, but she didn't need that so much anymore, and she certainly didn't need it now, for this. She focused, and the force of her will swept irresistibly through Ril. He had other masters, more masters than any other sylph in the Valley, but, human or not, she was queen. He had no choice but to obey her first if possible.

Ril's eyes widened, locked on hers. "I . . . I . . . I don't remember."

"Tell me what Justin told you to do tonight."

He shuddered. "I don't remember!"

"Solie," Leon cautioned.

Solie frowned. If Ril remembered, he would have told her; she could feel how badly he wanted to obey. That made their enemy's plan sneaky but really smart. Ril couldn't tell anyone what had been done to him if he couldn't recall it. So, she'd have to get around that somehow.

For the moment she could only tell how hungry he was. Leon's direct order was holding him back from poisoning himself again.

"Ril," she said, making her voice as firm as she possibly could. "You will feed only from your masters or your queen. You will never feed from any other source again, no matter who orders you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said.

He sounded so unsure that she had to smile. "Drink some of Leon and Lizzy's energy, Ril. I promise it won't poison you."

The battler frowned, but his eyes half lidded as he drew in energy from the Petrules. She felt his surprise and confusion, but he immediately gained strength.

"What orders has Justin given you before this?" Solie asked.

"He told me to die," Ril answered, distracted.

Lizzy shrieked. "WHAT?"