"Oh!" she gasped as she entered. "My poor little duck! Come to Iyala."

Gabralina looked up, saw Galway's widow standing there with her arms open and tears in her eyes, and she squirreled out of Mace's arms. She was soon wrapped in Iyala's embrace, the woman rocking her back and forth.

"My poor little dear," Iyala whispered. "We'll take care of you."

"It was awful!" Gabralina sobbed. "He can't be gone! It . . . it hurts too much."

"I know. I know how you feel, sweetheart," the woman said. "You just cry it out and eventually things will get better. I promise."

Mace nodded to Iyala, who smiled at him sadly, and went out the door. He closed it behind him. Gabralina was innocent, which was a good thing, but he still had no idea why Wat had gone after Leon.

Stupid creature. He'd been useless for the hive, and now he'd left Ril feeling guilty about having to kill a hive mate while he was dealing with all those other stresses. Wat had been a true plague on their happiness.

Mace went up a set of stairs and shifted to cloud form, rising over the town and heading toward the Widow's home. Battlers were on their rooftop perches again, guarding. Those not on duty watched their masters, and the masters of their neighbors; and elemental sylphs were taking up the slack. This would take more organization and communication, and the system was far from perfect, but it was overall progress. No master was more than thirty seconds from a sylph. This wasn't going to change until the person who pushed Leon down those stairs was caught.

Whoever it was, he was clever, like the man who'd slipped by Wat and freed the a.s.sa.s.sins. Perhaps it was even that man Umut, whom Leon told them about. Someone they couldn't sense. Such a concept still resonated in Mace as an impossibility, but Lily had given him a suggestion the day before, in the brief hour they both managed to be together and after they'd finished the more important things. It was a suggestion upon which he was just following up.

"You said that Leon told you he managed to evade the battlers in Meridal by controlling his emotions?" she'd asked, sweat still drying on her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Mace kissed them slowly and deliberately, sc.r.a.ping his teeth gently over her nipple.

"He did. He tried to demonstrate, but we found him right away."

"Of course you did. You know him," she said. Sighing, she arched her back, and he repeated the soft nip.

"That's what he said."

Lily shook her head in exasperation, even as her fingers raked through his short hair, delicately rubbing his temples. Mace closed his eyes and leaned forward.

"I was thinking about that," she said. "When you guard, you look for negative emotions, correct?"

"Correct."

She pushed on the top of his head, and Mace went back to lavishing attention on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She shifted and sighed. "So you look for malice most of all."

"Of course." He shifted lower, sliding under the sheets. Lily closed her eyes and exhaled.

"Have you ever looked for an absence of emotion?"

Mace paused and lifted his head. "What do you mean?"

"Look for someone who doesn't feel malice, or love, or anything else. When I was a girl, they hung a man who took an ax to his neighbors and then sat down to drink tea in their kitchen. He didn't even blink when they executed him." She lifted her own head, eyeing him along the length of her body. "Would you even think to worry about someone like that?"

Mace stared. He hadn't thought of that. The concept was too alien to him. But, how else could a killer move around the Valley so easily when battle sylphs were on the alert? He'd ducked his head again and showed his thanks, and Lily gasped, shivering in appreciation.

Thanks to that conversation, he'd checked Gabralina for the absence of soul. Truly plumbing her depths hadn't been easy-it was simpler for those a sylph was patterned to-but he'd gone deep enough to feel Gabralina's soul and all the grief therein. He'd felt that very clearly indeed. No, Gabralina wasn't the enemy. That left every other man, woman, and child in the Valley who might be.

Mace flew to the top of the colored dome that covered the battler chamber. There he shifted to human form, gazing out over the roofs and fields of the Valley. This was his home as much as anything ever had been. He would die to protect it; he would challenge the ideas he'd previously held.

Battle sylphs, he sent, shouting his silent words along the hive line. We have a new target. Watch for a person with no soul. Watch for someone without emotions-without compa.s.sion, without malice, without rage. Understood?

A chorus of yeses and not a few what-the-h.e.l.ls came back to him.

From below, inside the dome, Claw floated up to the gla.s.s. He flowed out an exit vent and shifted to human form beside Mace. He stood slightly down the slope, his eyes downcast.

"Someone with no soul?" he whispered.

Mace eyed him tolerantly. Claw had saved him once, killing his original master when Mace couldn't, and despite his turmoil and pain, Claw had never once failed in his duty.

The smaller battler shivered, his hands clutched together at his chest. "Someone . . . with no soul?" he repeated.

"Yes. Someone who can do evil but doesn't feel evil," Mace clarified.

Claw seemed terrified by the concept, which wasn't a shock. It still sounded strange even to Mace.

"Someone . . . like that . . . They'd be easy to find?" The other battler stared hopefully up at him.

Mace could imagine the source of Claw's pain. With one master murdered already, he likely was horrified by the thought of another being at risk, and by such an aberrant villain. Mace had spent long hours considering his Lily being taken-and the ma.s.s violence he'd engage in as a result.

"I don't know," he replied. It was best to be honest. "I doubt it. If it were an obvious thing, we would have noticed already."

Claw sagged. "Okay."

Mace clapped him on the shoulder. "Just keep your senses open."

"Okay." The battler perked up again. "I guess it could be anyone? I mean, even someone we know?"

"It could. We'll have to be sure to check everyone."

Claw smiled at him beatifically.

Sala walked silently toward the school, her shawl wrapped around her against the cold. Cla.s.ses would be starting soon, and without Rachel she was forced to do a lot more teaching than she'd planned. Still, she didn't dare quit and draw attention to herself.

The only good thing about Wat's botched murder attempt was that it wasn't Claw who'd been killed. The battlers would have been all over her if they'd known she was involved. If she was lucky, Gabralina still forgot whom she'd ordered her battler to obey. Briefly Sala considered having Gabralina killed, just to protect against any last-minute recollection, but such a plan would only make everything worse. She had to be discreet, subtle . . . and murder Solie herself the first chance she got.

She tripped past the bakery and mercantile, the small schoolhouse now in sight. Just shy of it, a battle sylph stood on the stone sidewalk, peering intently at everyone who pa.s.sed.

"What are you doing?" one affronted woman demanded.

"Just checking for a soul," he answered. "You're good."

The woman sniffed and kept on going.

Sala sniffed, herself, and continued toward him. It was Blue, she saw, and she nodded to him as she approached. "h.e.l.lo, Blue. Claw already checked me, naturally."

Blue blinked, caught off guard. "Oh, okay." He turned toward a group of schoolchildren running to beat her to cla.s.s.

Sala kept going.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Cold winds blew through the air as the residents of Sylph Valley readied themselves fully for winter. The town was quiet, the last of the leaves falling from the trees. There had been celebrations to commemorate the harvest, but they were quieter than in years past, everyone aware of the recent tragedies-and that the chancellor was dying. No one seemed to know anymore if there was an actual enemy, but tensions ran high.

Gabralina hadn't gone to work for days. She didn't know how the Widow was managing, but she also couldn't make herself care. She still missed Wat, her heart unable to accept that he was gone, and she found herself more and more just wandering through the Valley searching for him. The sight of her, more often than not without a warm cloak, beautiful and teary-eyed, long hair blowing around her, just put the town further on edge.

Not that Gabralina bothered herself with what the townspeople thought. She just kept searching, growing sadder and more fragile, wandering the tunnels underground and the streets above. Wat was nowhere to be found, so she went into the fields. Those long strips of plowed earth and grazing pastures didn't hide him, either, so she went to the summoning hall, thinking in her grief that if Wat wasn't here, he had to be somewhere and the gate was the only way to find him.

For at least a minute after she entered, Petr didn't notice her; the healer was on the other side of the gate again, and he was directing all of his helpers to hold it open with their chant. Ash saw her, feeling the woman's grief echo like the pain she herself felt when her first master died six years before. Moved, Ash watched the small woman, her heart going out to her.

The nameless sylph had returned. She'd come mostly to look, to peer through the gate once more and satisfy some unnamed desire. The itch was unbearable, and she knew what it wanted from her, which was nothing she wanted for herself. She didn't want to change, didn't want to leave this place, and she definitely didn't want the attentions of the battler who stroked against her side, no matter how good it felt.

For days she'd been trying to think of a way to stop the itch, but the only method with the slightest hope seemed through this gate. If she went through, she'd be bound to one of these frail creatures on the other side. With their pattern in place of the one fraying within her, she would be able to stay herself. She'd be able to fight the change. The only problem-other than the fact that it required a great leap into the unknown-was that the creatures offering themselves on the other side wanted something from her. She didn't want to be what she was becoming, but she didn't want to be a slave either. Was that what waited through this whirling vortex of energy?

Depressed, she studied the humans being paraded past the gate until she felt the fire sylph's attention shift into sympathetic grief. Not the least bit interested in the other offerings, the nameless healer looked further . . . and saw what had attracted the fire sylph.

The female was not one of her kind, but there was a wound in her soul. The pain ran so deep it resonated through the gate and straight into the healer, making her gasp with an abrupt need to go and soothe the woman's pain. For the moment that desire was tempered by fright about what going through the gate would actually mean, but the woman's pain was endless and uncaring, a wail of anguish that demanded action.

Almost, she went to her, but there was no coinciding desire in the woman for help. The nameless sylph had been unimpressed by the other offerings because they all wanted something, but she didn't want to be tied to someone who didn't want her, either. This wounded being didn't want a healer sylph at all.

She couldn't shut out the woman's loneliness, which was making her own homesickness unbearable. Against her better instincts, the nameless sylph turned toward her old hive, just wanting to go home. She started toward it.

Leave.

She started, surprised, though after everything else that happened she shouldn't be. This had been coming for a long time after all. Still, she wailed, feeling the pattern inside her break at last, shattered by her queen.

Her battler pressed against her side, hissing. Now. We have to go now.

Where? This is my home!

Hysterical, the unnamed sylph darted off toward her hive, intending to return to her hive mates despite everything she knew, to deny for good what was happening inside her. Then she learned just how serious the queen's order had been.

Battle sylphs roared, smaller than she but numbering in the hundreds. They poured out of the hive and soared toward her, bellowing in attack. Her companion swept in front, his shield of energy flashing up between them, and energy exploded, sending him reeling back against her. At the sight of an exile in their territory, the battle sylphs' rage grew even stronger.

He snarled in response. She healed his wounds even as she heard his angry shout: Run! The queen wants you dead!

Reality came clear. She turned and fled, racing away from everything she'd ever known. Her battler, who would be just as dead as she if they were caught, flew behind her, keeping her safe with his shields. He couldn't keep them all the way around her, and hive battlers raced to cut them off, to catch them both and kill them.

If she'd left sooner, she would have been ignored and allowed to escape, but she hadn't wanted that. She hadn't wanted anything other than to be a healer, safe and happy.

A named battle sylph who might have been her own sire dove at her, lightning flaring through his form. She dodged and ducked, her battler squealing in pain as he took a blast of energy meant for her. Twisting over herself, she caught him in a tendril of smoke and barreled over the named battler, arching up to try and avoid his lashing strike. It caught her along the back and she gasped, even as she healed herself.

More battlers were closing in, cutting off escape. Her battler clung to her, matching her flight as he roared in outrage at her brothers, throwing blasts of energy at them until he was exhausted. Still their foes closed, swarming.

She shot upward between four battlers, then rolled over again and dove. It was close. She wasn't going to escape this, not now that she'd waited until her queen demanded her death-her own mother! At least, she wouldn't escape by fleeing into the wilderness. Even if she evaded her hive mates, the chance of finding a place to survive there were slim. Which left . . . the gate.

Desperate, she dove for it and for the female with the hurt in her soul. Not an offering, and not interested in her. A life with an uninterested party was better than death. She raced for the gate, tumbled from the pain of a blow that her battler could only partly deflect, and fell through the gate with him still in her grip. She grimly hoped he wouldn't mind.

Gabralina stared at the gate, her grief not gone but forgotten for a moment at the shock of seeing its swirling noncolor. The sight made her head ache and frightened something deep inside her. Almost, she could see patterns there, but their meaning hovered beyond her ability to comprehend.

Then she remembered the gate she'd seen in Yed and how her sweet Wat had come through. That brought back all of her grief and a surety that he must have gone back home. Was he on the other side even now, trying to find his way back?

Suddenly positive, she hurried forward, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She ran past Petr and his chanting apprentices before he realized what she was doing, and into the circle. There were three people there already, one with a missing finger, the other two apparently showing no obvious illness. Gabralina barely took notice of Cherry, one of the barmaids at the town's largest tavern, and Syl, a blacksmith's apprentice. The one with the missing finger was a cattleman. They looked curious as she joined them, and then shocked as she reached upward to touch the swirling slickness of the gate itself.

"No!" Petr shouted.

Gabralina was a short woman, and to reach she was forced to stand on her toes with her arms outstretched. Even then, despite her desperation, she only managed to brush the edge of her fingertips against the hovering circle before Syl grabbed her. Pain shocked her out of her grief-stricken stupor. The touch of the gate was electric, burning her fingertips and leaving her choking, shuddering in Syl's arms.

"What are you doing?" Cherry hissed. Her face held fear and anger.

Clearly shaken, Petr stopped just outside the circle drawn on the floor. Ash hovered behind him. She was peering at Gabralina, who couldn't even get her breath back, let alone try to answer them.

A moment later, Ash looked up and squealed, bolting for the far side of the room. The gate bulged outward. For an instant Gabralina thought it was Wat after all, coming back to her, and she gasped, her heart pounding as she stared upward, wanting that more than anything.

"Wa-" she started. Then, "No!"

A huge white cloud came through, not streaked with lightning but streams of shimmering light. She flowed down out of the gate and kept coming. Six glowing b.a.l.l.s of silver formed her eyes.

Wano, she was saying silently, the word echoing in Gabralina's mind.

Everyone gaped, backing away in fright-everyone except Gabralina, who stood there in shock. It wasn't Wat? How could it not be Wat? And how could she have another sylph talking in her head?

The white sylph slithered the rest of the way into the summoning hall, the gate rippling and stretching to allow her pa.s.sage. Pressed to her side, the black cloud of a battle sylph glared at the humans, lightning flaring through him and sparking jaggedly in his mouth. Smaller than the healer but still larger than most battlers in the Valley, he regarded the humans as if deciding whether to destroy them.

"Name him," Petr gasped from outside the circle. "Hurry!"

Cherry goggled, glanced at Gabralina, and then pointed at the battler. "Fhranke!"

The newly named battler looked as incredulous as everyone else.

Gabralina didn't even hear Cherry bond the battler. She couldn't do anything more than look at the white sylph, feeling the creature's fear and uncertainty as strongly as her own grief. "You can't be here," she whispered. "Not for me." Not when her heart belonged to Wat. Not when finding someone else was such a betrayal.

Wano watched her with many eyes. She had no mouth, unlike Fhranke, and she was more solid, her form only partially translucent and fluted with soft pinks and opal. Long and tapered, her eyes were reflective, and Gabralina saw her own tear-streaked face in them.

"But I don't want you!" she cried. Wano looked hurt, and her pain sent something like an itch down Gabralina's ribs.

Behind them, Petr was speaking urgently to Ash, telling her to bring Solie so that the two new sylphs could be bound into the hive. Syl and the smith were already heading for the doors. Cherry took a nervous step toward her sylph, raising a hand to touch him. Fhranke looked dubious and pressed closer to Wano, nearly pushing himself into her.

Everything happened then. A second battler dropped through the gate, his power flaring. Gabralina screamed, falling back as Fhranke rolled over Wano's back, a shield coming up between him and the incoming battler. The newcomer roared and Fhranke lashed upward, but his attack was diverted as well.

Wano streaked forward. Leaving the circle embossed on the floor, she s.n.a.t.c.hed Gabralina up and fled for the doors. Held inside the sylph's mantle, yet visible through her translucent sides, the young woman screamed, tumbling until Wano formed a tentacle to hold her in place. Behind her, Fhranke hesitated for an instant, looking at Cherry, then shot after Wano, covering her retreat.

The new battler followed right behind. A third battle sylph dropped through the gate, too, and chased after them before Petr and his a.s.sistants managed to close it.