Leon glanced down at her and smiled, his face tired and dirt-streaked. "Thanks," he said and took it. After draining it, he handed the empty dipper back and clapped his hand on her shoulder. "Good work."

Gabralina sighed as he turned back to his task. According to the sylphs, the wounded were all out now, and most of the remaining debris could wait for daylight. Already Solie was sending people and sylphs home. A few moments later, Gabralina was one of them.

She left with another sigh, her bucket abandoned and forgotten. She still hadn't thanked Leon, she realized as she trudged off to her empty bed. And, Wat. Where had her battle sylph gone to?

Claw let himself back into Rachel's house as quietly as he could. Shivering slightly, he latched the door and pulled off his boots, setting them neatly by the coatrack where he hung his jacket. It was filthy. He hated it when it got filthy, because Rachel had to clean it. He'd tried to do laundry himself, but he always shrank everything. Rachel suggested he got the water too hot, but that didn't make much sense.

Twenty-three people were dead in the warehouse accident, along with seven sylphs and a dozen oxen. Claw didn't know for sure how many were injured-that was Luck's job-but he'd seen how exhausted she was when Mace finally sent him away.

He crossed the tiny sitting room and entered the back bedroom. He was tired himself after so long lifting rubble; he just wanted to curl up and maybe even go to sleep for a little bit himself.

Able to see through the darkness, he moved toward the bed. Rachel lay there, curled on her side with her face turned toward the door. She seemed almost to be looking at him. She lay very still, and he realized for the first time that he couldn't feel her presence, not even the little tiny bit she normally exuded when asleep. Claw paused, puzzled, then moved closer.

She didn't look like she was asleep.

Claw whimpered, suddenly shaking so badly that he nearly fell. Luck. He needed to get Luck. Only, Luck was exhausted and working on a dozen people who would die without her, and she was on the other side of the town, and he knew already that . . .

The blue-haired battle sylph climbed gently into bed, careful not to disturb Rachel as he crawled over to her side and lay down, arms around her. She might be cold, he decided. She liked it when he lay with her, especially when he was there when she woke in the morning.

He whimpered one last time, a sound like no creature born of this world, and then was silent again, lying with his master in the dark.

Mace made his rounds with a dozen other battle sylphs. The warehouse was now secure. Well, the building was too dangerous for humans to enter, but everyone was out.

He didn't like this. Such disasters were never supposed to happen in a hive, and the fact that the queen wasn't blaming any of them only made it worse. So he searched for threats he could stop before they threatened the hive, tracking negative emotions throughout the entirety of the town. There were many. People were scared by what had happened, upset. Almost everyone seemed to know someone who had died or been hurt, and the town resonated with their collective pain. The big battler was looking for more, though. Some emotions alerted him to danger. Those always gave humans away.

Mace found an angry little boy planning to leave home because his parents wouldn't give him a puppy; a single glare through the window dissuaded him. He tracked down a woman furious at her husband for being late, her house on the far side of the town where she hadn't heard about the accident. Mace told her the situation and she was gone, running to look for her husband at the warehouse. Mace had seen him up and mobile, but that didn't matter; Mace let the woman run off, knowing she'd be safe.

Next he found Justin Porter glaring hatefully at the Petrule house from the shadows. Mace knew the story of what happened between him and Ril, but even if he hadn't, he would be drawn to that hate. Other battlers were as well. Justin had almost daily encounters with battle sylphs now, all due to his temper, which was only making matters worse. Mace didn't care. If it weren't for the queen's rules, Justin would already be dead.

Ril wasn't home. Leon, either. The house was full of females, which set off Mace's protective instincts. The big battler started to move forward as one of the females pa.s.sed the lit front window: Lizzy, back from her efforts at the warehouse.

Justin's anger immediately changed to a helpless, hopeless love. He watched Lizzy moving through the house, pacing back and forth, and Mace stopped unnoticed behind him. Justin loved the girl. Mace didn't really care about that; Lizzy was Ril's master and he'd gone through worse than h.e.l.l to get her. Justin had no place in any of that. But love was an unthreatening emotion, and so long as Justin didn't try to force himself on the girl, he could continue to feel it. Mace would warn Ril that the boy had been there, but otherwise he'd do nothing.

He slipped away without Justin ever realizing he'd been seen. But the battler had been distracted by other things, and in return he hadn't felt how that love overlaid a subtle additive of obsession.

Mace continued his sweep, checking on the queen and marveling for a moment at her sleeping, pregnant energy. Heyou lay in bed beside her and looked smug. That little donor trick the young battler pulled would make things very different for battle sylphs in the future. They wanted to fight, they wanted to mate, but in the secret silences of their minds, many of them wanted to be fathers. Heyou had first given them a queen. Now he'd given them a way to be parents as well.

He nodded at the young sylph, sure Heyou would be insufferable about this, and slipped away from the window, not wanting to wake the queen. Slipping down into the underground hive where cla.s.ses had been canceled for the night, he saw almost no one at all. The corridors were empty, and at last he floated down to the holding cell used for the a.s.sa.s.sins. The door was unguarded. Only one battler had been a.s.signed, but there was no sign of him.

Mace wrenched the door open and snarled his way down the stairs, his hate flaring out as he reached the lower level. This door was unguarded as well and wide-open. Mace stopped in the archway, seeing the abandoned cots, the empty privy, and some tossed-aside blankets. Furious, he roared, broadcasting his rage to every battle sylph in the Valley. They in turn began roaring, rising, ready to hunt and do battle. The a.s.sa.s.sins were free, the queen was threatened, the hive in danger. A battle sylph had failed in his duty.

Mace backed out of the cell, his lightning swirling in a maelstrom of rage. Heyou was head battler as the lover of the queen, but Mace made the rules and a.s.signed the duties. He thought back to the schedule he'd made for all the battle sylphs, all of it kept in his head instead of on paper. He knew exactly who was supposed to be watching this cell tonight.

Wat.

The battle sylphs all gathered high above the clouds, where the air was cold and clear, the dawning sun still hours away from topping the mountains. Heyou had been granted permission to stay back, but that was strictly so he could guard the sleeping queen; when Mace left, he'd been growling with suppressed anger. Even Ril had come, a red-feathered hawk circling among them, his eyes still a little red from the pain of his change.

Where's Claw? someone asked.

YOU! Mace thundered, flaring out at a much smaller, slower battler. WHY DID YOU LEAVE?

Wat squealed in terror, trying to run, but the battlers were everywhere, suddenly closing around him, blocking him in. They pushed him back toward Mace, who hit him with his hate. Wat squealed again and tried to flee, tried to hide from all of their anger. There was no way out.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE a.s.sa.s.sINS UNGUARDED?.

I don't know! the young battler wailed. Even terrified, his energy flickered slower than everyone else's. I forgot!

You forgot? How could you possibly forget?

Circling above, Ril screamed. Dillon hissed, lashing out with a tentacle at the ignorant Wat, who squealed again and tried to present himself as a smaller target.

I forgot! There was the accident! I came to the accident!

I didn't see you at the accident, Mace thundered.

I-I realized then that I wasn't supposed to be there! Then I didn't know what to do.

So, he'd been too stupid to go back to the cell. Ignorant, foolish, idiotic . . . Mace roared and delivered Wat a blow that would have torn him in two if he hadn't pulled back at the last moment. Wat still tumbled away with the force of it, squealing in terror.

Useless, stupid reject. He would have been killed in the home hive. Inferior, foolish . . . The queen had her rules, though. Much as he wanted to, Mace couldn't kill Wat. From the rage of the others, they agreed, but none of them moved against the idiotic creature. Wat whimpered brokenly, too stupid even to realize that he wasn't going to be destroyed.

No more, Mace growled at him. You'll guard no more.

Wat looked at him without comprehension.

You won't wear the uniform, you won't stand guard, you won't come to any calls. You're not a battle sylph to us anymore.

Wat shivered, not really getting it, not understanding that he'd been ostracized by his brothers and what it really meant. He did grasp that he wasn't going to be murdered, and after a frightened hesitation he flickered downward, racing away from them as fast as he could, returning to his master.

Mace watched him go for only a moment. He turned to the others and said, Spread out. Find those men.

He didn't need to say anything more. The battle sylphs vanished in every direction, sweeping low to the ground in a crisscrossing pattern as they searched for the five escaped a.s.sa.s.sins. Only one stayed behind, circling Mace, wings beating against the still cold air.

Where's Claw? Ril asked again.

The sun was coming up, lighting the room through the lace curtains Rachel knitted so patiently during the evenings of one long winter, working by the light of an oil lamp while Claw watched; he'd been nearly hypnotized by the motion of her hands as she produced yards of airy material from what looked to him to be string and two sticks.

The early morning light glistened off the edges of her hair, though most of her still lay in shadow, blocked by his body lying next to her, pressed against her back. She was cold. Despite his attempts to keep her warm, she was cold and still. Lifeless.

Claw whimpered again, shivers running through him. He cooed, trying to communicate with her but not able to form words.

Footsteps sounded in the room outside. Mace and Ril appeared in the doorway.

Claw screamed, his voice shrill and inhuman. He could feel the panic that caused throughout the town, other sylphs echoing his cry, humans starting in fear, but he couldn't stop. He could only shriek his agony, terror, grief, horror. He kept on screaming as the other battlers descended on him, not sure he'd ever be able to stop, only knowing that Rachel wasn't answering him in her soft, gentle, loving voice, knowing that no matter how long or loud he screamed, Rachel would never answer him again.

Chapter Ten.

Solie was carried in Heyou's mantle from her palace to Rachel's home. She was worn out from the accident the night before, and she'd woken early to be told that the five a.s.sa.s.sins escaped. Now this.

She could feel Claw's pain and hysteria beating against her with all of the battle sylph's strength. The other sylphs in the Valley had picked up his distress and were wailing as well, though their screams were nowhere near as fierce. He felt like a creature about to go mad.

"Oh, Heyou," she whispered. Poor Rachel. Poor dear Rachel. Poor Claw.

Don't get too close to him, Heyou cautioned.

He wouldn't have brought her anywhere near this place if he'd had the choice, Solie knew, and she shared his fear. Battle sylphs could go crazy, and Claw had always hovered near the edge. Without Rachel, Claw was totally alone. Without Rachel, he could only feed from Solie, his queen. She put a protective hand over her belly. She hadn't needed Luck to warn her not to spend any energy on sylphs during her pregnancy. Claw would need someone new. Only, who? And how could they do that to the poor creature so soon after losing Rachel?

Heyou dropped to the ground and released her. Solie stood on the street in front of a row of small, bizarrely organic-looking houses that looked like round puffb.a.l.l.s given windows and chimneys. A dozen battlers stood in one front yard, staring at the open door.

Crashing crockery and furniture sounded from inside. Claw's screams were nonstop, piercing her ears until Solie had to stick her fingers in them. A flurry of sylphs hurried through the air farther down the road, including a few battlers in their natural form, and the neighbors gathered on the road itself, murmuring and looking nervously at the house. Solie didn't blame them. A single battler could destroy the entire Valley if they weren't stopped.

"Will he be okay?" she whispered to Heyou.

"I don't know. None of us who had masters before ever cared when they died."

He stood close to her, partly to protect her and partly, Solie suspected, out of the nervousness that she might die and leave him the way Rachel left Claw. It was inevitable, of course. Sylphs were nearly immortal. Humans were not. Quietly she reached out to take his hand, and his answering squeeze was almost painful.

Another crash sounded from inside the house, and Ril suddenly stumbled out. He was dragging Claw, his arms wrapped around the frantic battler's body. Claw was still screaming, his eyes wide and crazed, but he made no attempt to fight back. The screaming didn't stop, not even as the pair tripped and fell, landing on the front lawn and rolling, Ril still hanging on to Claw. Mace stepped out of the house next and looked straight at Solie, his face impa.s.sive. His emotions felt disturbed. No sylph was unmoved.

Solie hurried forward, Heyou still holding her hand and keeping himself between her and Claw. She could hear Ril cooing to him. The sound vibrated through her bones as she dropped to her knees only a few feet away.

"Claw! Claw, please stop screaming. It's going to be all right, I promise!"

The battler stopped, unable to disobey, but the hysteria didn't leave his face and he shuddered uncontrollably. Ril wrapped his legs around Claw's body as he had his arms, murmuring rea.s.surances. Solie couldn't be sure how much of it Claw absorbed, and her eyes filled with tears. She kept on talking, not even sure of what she was saying anymore, just trying to pierce the misery that consumed him. He lay there whimpering, and the sound tore at her heart.

"Oh, Claw," she mourned.

"Claw? Claw!"

Solie saw Sala pushing through the crowd, showing more emotion than Solie had ever seen from her. The young woman's eyes were wide, her brows raised as she hiked up her skirts and ran across the road and onto the lawn.

"What's going on?" she demanded, dropping down beside Claw and Ril. She looked toward the house. "What's happening? Where's Rachel?"

Claw made an inquiring sort of coo, and he stretched his head in her direction.

Sala didn't seem to notice. "Where's Rachel? Rachel!"

Solie grabbed the woman's arm as she began to rise. "Rachel has . . . pa.s.sed away," she whispered. Claw still heard her and he howled.

"Oh, no." Sala bent over, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against her knees. She wrapped her arms around Claw's head, and her hair fell forward to hide both their faces. Ril leaned back, not letting go but watching.

Mace watched, too. "Girl," he said, crouching down next to Sala and the blue-haired battler. When Sala eyed him, he asked, "Claw needs a master. Will you do it?"

"Of course," Sala said.

A twinge of doubt filled Solie; there was something about Sala that didn't sit quite right with her. But this was an emotional moment, and it was hard to think with all these feelings flying around. Claw had stopped wailing, though he still shook.

Mace reached out and put one hand on Claw, another on Sala. He focused, and Solie felt his energy move and interact with her own. This was the only time he ever touched her energy, but using it now, he took the pattern inside Sala and the energy that was Claw and combined them, binding the battler to the young woman forever. As long as Sala lived, Claw would be hers, and so long as she had him, Sala could never bind another sylph.

It only took a second, and Sala blinked as she felt Claw's emotions for the first time, carried to her along the patterns that bound them. For his part, Claw shuddered and lay still, his eyes wide.

Gingerly, Ril let go and rolled back.

"He needs to rest," Mace told Sala. "Take him to wherever you're sleeping and stay with him."

This was an important time for the couple, a private time, and all the sylphs moved away, giving them s.p.a.ce. Heyou's hand under her arm, Solie rose, too. She backed away, still not sure about this, but the battlers seemed content. They would know, wouldn't they?

Solie let Heyou lead her away. Behind her, Sala stood and brushed off her skirts, watching silently as her new battle sylph finally managed to get to his feet and join her.

None of the sylphs who witnessed Claw's grief returned to their duties right away. Instead, slowly, as though there weren't anything unusual happening, they drifted to where their masters were, to see and hold them and rea.s.sure themselves that they weren't like Claw, that their masters were still very much healthy and alive. The other sylphs all did the same, and by nightfall the word had spread and every sylph was with his or her master, all of them frightened and secretly relieved that it hadn't been them to suffer such a loss, even though they knew someday it would be.

Ril went home, hearing the Petrule women chattering as he strode up onto the porch and in through the door. They were in the front room, Lizzy knitting a shawl while Betha showed Cara how to sew together patches for a quilt, and the younger girls played on the floor. Lizzy glanced up, immediately recognizing her battler's mood. He crossed the room and reached for her.

"What-?" Betha said as the blond battler silently pulled her daughter to her feet and into his embrace. His face buried against her neck, he just held Lizzy. The shawl she'd been working on tangled at their feet.

"What's wrong?" Betha demanded, rising, but Lizzy shot her a look and waved her back with one hand.

"It's okay," Lizzy whispered, holding Ril. "Whatever it is, it's okay." He just tightened his grip, still not speaking.

The others were dumbstruck. Mia stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked like she was about to cry. Nali slid over and took the three-year-old into her arms while Ralad just stared.

"What's wrong with Ril, Momma?"

"I don't know," Betha admitted.

A boot heel sounded on wood, and Leon walked in. He looked tired. When he saw his battler hugging his oldest daughter, he stopped.

Ril opened his eyes and glanced slowly toward his first master, the man who'd killed the girl used to lure him across the gate and bound him to silent slavery for fifteen years. He studied Leon and lashed out a hand, bunching up in his fist the cloth of Leon's shirt. Leon's eyes widened, and then Ril yanked him into the embrace. Lizzy giggled.

Putting his arms around them both, Ril closed his eyes again. He had other masters-the men who'd been his feeders back in Meridal, and Justin, who'd come home with him-but none of those mattered. He wouldn't care if they lived or died, would never think to come to their aid. But these two . . .

"I don't know what's wrong," Lizzy whispered to her father. "He's upset."

Leon just stood, returning Ril's embrace. "I see that. Girls, out."

The children shuffled out. Betha followed, watching her husband uncertainly. He nodded to her, so she herded the kids toward the back of the house.

Alone, Lizzy, Leon, and Ril stood in their three-way hug, their arms wrapped around one another.

"What is it?" Leon whispered, his breath warm on Ril's ear. The battler just held him closer, not wanting to speak.