“Airi’s my air sylph,” the man told Zalia and carefully filled his mug again. “She’s very pleased to meet you. She’s shy about talking to anyone she doesn’t know though.” He sipped the water and exhaled heavily. “I didn’t know water could taste so good.” He paused for a moment, blinking, and then turned back to her, his face even redder than it had been before as he blushed. “I didn’t tell you my name!”
“That’s not necessary, sir.”
He stood up. “It is. Leon told me how helpful you and your father were to him. He wanted me to find you.” Before she could stop him, he took her hand and shook it. “My name is Devon Chole. Leon sent me to be the ambassador in Meridal for our queen.”
Zalia yanked her hand back before anyone saw them. Ilaja alone would declare it a scandal, if only so she could take Zalia’s place in the restaurant. “That’s very good, sir. Our kingdom is very honored to have you here.” She bowed.
Devon looked sheepish. “Yes, well, um, thanks. The problem is, no one showed up to meet me when I got here. I was kind of wondering, do you know where I can find the queen?”
CHAPTER THREE
Glutted by its feed, it let itself float with the winds out over the ocean.
It hadn’t ever seen an ocean before and had no idea at first what it was, but some of the food spoke about it. It could hear them here as easily as on the hunting grounds it came from, and it mused on the word as it floated across the waters, past the wall that encircled the other new word it had learned of—city. It only snatched up a few morsels of food that wandered into its tendrils as it went, dissolving them in its belly as it drifted over the ocean, tendrils playing with the waves.
A few hours later, it realized its mistake. The winds kept pushing it away from the city and the water wasn’t as rich with food as it would have liked. There was food, certainly, if it dipped deeply enough, but it was quick and small, tasteless and poor. Food was so much better when it thought, as so many things did in the place where it came from.
It floated for hours, the land dwindling in the distance until it couldn’t even hear the food on the land anymore. It lifted its heaviest tendrils so that it could look more clearly, debating. Continue to float and come to another city with more food, or make itself hungry and return now? The food had believed that the ocean was very big though. It might not make it before the hunger made it sink.
At the edge of its tendrils, it felt motion in the water that wasn’t just from currents. Something bigger than the tiny things it had been eating swam in its direction, filled with alien speech. Patient, as it was ever patient, it waited, watching as dozens of the great blue things came toward it as blindly as food ever did, great fins moving through the water while they blew streams of spray every time they surfaced. Unaware of it, they came closer, and it spread its tendrils outward, knowing that at least some of them would stumble through them.
They did. The first of the creatures, as large as an ancient breeding battler, swam through the rain of its tendrils, both thick and thin. Immediately, it plunged them deep, hooking them through its skin and blubber, intending to draw it in to feed.
It was a mistake. The creature was too large for it to dissolve and it bellowed, its wails sounding of danger, of pain, of escape.
The blue whales dived, fleeing in terror, and the one that it held went with them. The Hunter shuddered as it was suddenly yanked downward, its eyes blinded as its tendrils were pulled into the water. The salt stung them and it had an image of being pulled under entirely, to be left floating in all that water, unable to get airborne again before it sank and died. Terrified, it ripped its tendrils free, letting go with its barbs as fast as it could while the food kept diving, trailing blood behind while it went for the depths, holding its breath in a way that its attacker never could.
The Hunter got the last of its tendrils free as its underbelly and mouth slammed into the ocean’s surface. The water was shockingly cold and it stopped, afraid to move and risk going under. Instead, while it was still, the waves lapped against its underside; and after a time, it slowly started to rise again. It didn’t try to fight or speed the process. It just let itself ascend, lifting until only the tips of its tendrils touched the ocean, and even those it pulled up, not wanting to feel the water again.
This was an evil place, a horrible, hideous world. It looked toward the distant land and the dusty city with the food and made its decision. It would go back. Most of the time it drifted, finding food as fate found it, but it didn’t have to be that way, not when matters grew desperate enough for it to risk the hunger that could keep it from floating.
It pulled its tendrils in, rolling over until its underbelly and mouth faced opposite from the way it wanted to go, and then it released that which let it float, expelling it behind in a wave as strong as any ocean current while it blew back toward the land, sinking ever lower as it did, and hoping its feed earlier had been enough to get it back in time.
Then it would feed again.
Zalia finished her shift long after dark and made her way home, her shawl pulled around her now that it was cold out again. Mr. Chole had gone on his way hours before, still looking for the queen. Zalia was sorry she hadn’t been able to help him; he was a nice man and she liked him. She just didn’t know where the queen was. She wasn’t sure anyone did, not really.
Ahead of her, the streets were empty. Even with everything that had changed, a part of Zalia was still amazed at how many people had left. If they kept leaving, soon there wouldn’t be anyone left in Meridal at all. The battle sylphs didn’t care who left. As long as no one broke their rules, they left people alone. No one Zalia knew felt safe though, since no one knew what the rules were anymore.
“Hello.”
Zalia jumped, looking around in surprise. The street had been empty, and who would talk to a lower-class woman after dark? An attacker wouldn’t bother, and no other man would want to demean themselves, unless they thought her a whore for hire.
Sitting on a stone wall around one of the many empty houses, the battle sylph she’d seen just that morning smiled at her. He was wearing the same clothes as before, his hands clasped around one drawn-up knee. He really had a beautiful smile, she thought, and blushed wildly, remembering. He’d seen her naked! He’d touched her!
Zalia turned and ran, not knowing what to say to him, afraid of what he might do, afraid that someone would see her with a battler and think…what?
He was after her in an instant with a whoop of glee and she wondered suddenly if he thought they were playing. Weren’t sylphs supposed to know what people were feeling? How could he mistake this for a game? What was she feeling? Confusion. Shyness. Fear.
Desire.
Zalia gulped and ran down a side alley, aware of the battler so close behind her that he could have reached out and touched the trailing end of her shawl if he’d wanted. Ahead of her, the alley opened out into a square and she almost flew out into it, panting but exhilarated at the same time and not really understanding why. All Zalia really knew was that she was running through a beautiful, moonlit night, a battle sylph laughing in unabashed delight behind her, and the only thing she could think of clearly was how warm he was. And how, for all his strength, if he caught her now, it was because she let him.
It was wonderful. It was sinful. It was freedom. It was too much. Zalia’s unexplainable exhilaration turned into real fright and she heard him sigh.
Something rushed over her. Skidding to a gasping halt, Zalia looked up to see a black cloud streaked with lightning lifting into the sky above her. There was something almost happy about the way the lightning flashed through him, and One-Eleven formed a tentacle of black smoke, waving down at her as he flew away.
He was letting her go? He really was. Maybe they actually could tell what a person was feeling. Shifting her shawl back around her shoulders and gasping in the cold air, Zalia looked around at the empty squar
e, seeing he’d chased her into a place where no one would ever have seen them, and smiled a bit as she continued on home.
Devon, to his utmost relief, didn’t get chased by any battle sylphs after his departure from the restaurant. After the first one, they must have decided that he was harmless. Certainly they’d communicated about him. Devon knew that, for he’d seen the battle sylphs back home do it all the time. A threat one had encountered was shared among them all. It only took them seconds to talk to each other, Airi told him once. Likely, they were ignoring the two of them now.
I like being ignored by battlers, Airi said.
“You and me both,” he muttered.
It had been a long, useless day. He’d thought he had a real break when he found Zalia, but she hadn’t been able to help him. She didn’t know where the queen was. No one did, or at least no one they could ask did. Devon certainly wasn’t going to be demanding answers from a battler, and the other kinds of sylphs didn’t seem to congregate on the streets at all. He tried seeing if Airi could ask, but she’d been against the idea. The battlers were treating them as harmless right now. That could change if a foreign sylph started asking about the location of the hive’s queen. Devon figured she had a point and didn’t press.
It was frustrating though. He’d been sent to represent Solie and to help Eapha sort through the problems a new leader would inevitably have. Devon had no idea what those problems would turn out to be, but Leon had felt that Devon had enough experience with seeing Solie go through it to be able to give some kind of assistance. Devon had been doubtful, but with Heyou vehemently wanting him gone, he hadn’t argued as much as he could have.
Now he wished he had. Places such as the restaurant where Zalia worked were still functioning, but they were unusual and in the long run, this kingdom was falling apart. People were leaving at a rate that was alarming, given they had no real place to go, and no one seemed to be in charge of anything. If something didn’t change soon, everyone would have to leave, just to try and survive.
Someone had to take charge. Devon gazed up at the beautiful colors that tossed across the sky while the sun set. Taking charge was supposed to be the queen’s job; at least it was back home. It would have to be the same here; the battlers had killed everyone else who could have kept the infrastructure going. Granted, it was an infrastructure based on slavery, but still…He looked at a child huddled in a doorway, his face gaunt from starvation, but when he tried to approach, the boy ran off, vanishing around a corner. Meridal was going to die at this rate, along with everyone in it. Die or be conquered by someone else.
Devon sighed and kept walking, headed back toward the harbor, his feet aching and his mood depressed. He’d spend the night on the Racing Dawn with Kadmiel and Ocean Breeze and try again in the morning to find the queen.
Suddenly, he stopped in the center of the road, feeling Airi ruffle the hair on the back of his neck while he slapped a hand over his face. What is it? she asked.
“I’m an idiot,” he moaned.
Really? Why?
Devon dropped the hand and started trudging again. “Ocean Breeze. I bet she can take us straight to the queen.”
Airi thought about that for a moment and started giggling again.
Kadmiel sat on the deck of the Racing Dawn, watching the sun set behind the ocean. He sat cross-legged as he always had in his cage, his hands resting lightly on his knees. No one had come by to tell him what to do, but that was fine. He didn’t know if he was supposed to turn the Racing Dawn over to someone or if he should leave her or even if she belonged to him now. That didn’t matter either. There was food below deck, water by the barrel, and he had nothing to bother him.
Ocean Breeze hummed behind him, her winds keeping him cool as they had all day. He’d sung for her earlier, but right now he was comfortable. He’d watch the sun go down. When he became hungry, he’d get food. When he became tired, he’d sleep.
Will you sing to me again? Ocean Breeze asked.
Of course, he thought, and did so, his tenor echoing across the deck, down to a few workmen still doing their duty and unloading an oceangoing ship. His father had taught him to sing many years ago, in order to bring a better price on the block. Kadmiel’s voice had been so high and sweet then, and so quickly lost when he reached puberty. His voice wouldn’t entertain the halls it once did, but Ocean Breeze liked it and he still remembered the old songs.
Lady alone, silent in solitude,
gown drained to white like the stone.
Shadow behind her, light in her eyes,
Her thoughts all inside and unknown.
Ocean Breeze sighed behind him and started to dance, swirling around the deck while he sat under her, his voice carrying across the wharf as he watched the sunset.
We question, we wonder,
what this lady does feel.
Within her soft skin
is she real?
Or just an illusion
before a bare wall.
A picture of beauty,
not a woman at all?
The harbor was quiet, the people he’d seen on the docks before the Racing Dawn gone now, though he hadn’t watched them leave. The sunset shone in his eyes, making afterimages like threads drift across his vision.
Lady alone, is she a person?
Someone who hates and who loves?
Free like a bird or trapped in a painting,
watching yet never involved.
The song ended, the last echoes lingering. Kadmiel heard Ocean Breeze sigh again, happy.
Then he heard her scream.
Her pain was there and gone in an instant, gone so fast he wasn’t sure he’d felt it. Her absence though was ongoing and he turned in shock, reeling from the realization that she was dead. How could she be dead so fast?
He couldn’t see her, not that he ever could, since she liked to be invisible most of the time. He saw a shimmering rain cross the deck instead, except this rain was more like dangling strings that flowed independently from each other, feeling across the wood toward him and so clear that he couldn’t even be sure he saw them at all.
Kadmiel ran in terror. It was a twenty-foot drop over the side to the wharf. He’d break his leg if he went that way and the tendrils hung there as well. He was in a forest of them, all of them next to invisible but still making the world beyond hazy and hard to see. He could see through them though, enough for him to bolt for the hatch down into the ship, his heart pounding from fear and from grief as well. Ocean Breeze…
Kadmiel reached the door, ducking around a dangling tendril and feeling it brush against his arm as he ran inside and slammed the door. He backed up, staring at the thick door, and stopped, not by choice. Something held him and he stared down at his arm. The skin was dimpled, something shimmering and nearly invisible lying across it. He gasped.
The tendril wrapped around his arm, something sharp biting deep, and it pulled. Kadmiel howled as he was yanked off of his feet. He struggled, but then he slammed into the door so hard that it shattered and, of course, Kadmiel shattered as well.
The tendril pulled him upward, dissolving him with unimaginable speed until he was just a pool of energy, the same way it had Ocean Breeze. His killer sucked him in and ate him slowly, relieved that it had reached the shore after all, and floated back toward the city, using its tendrils to pull itself forward when the wind threatened to push it the wrong way. It was hungry and heavy, hanging far lower than it would have liked, but there was plenty of food here, just waiting to stumble across it, as it always had.
Once known as battle sylph 417, he’d been assigned to patrol the streets of Meridal and keep the peace. Now called Yahe, he did the same thing, though now he did so properly. He soared over the city as a cloud filled with lightning, scanning the people below him for any sign of danger.
Yahe didn’t f
ind any. No one was feeling the kind of malice that would have him diving down to destroy them before they threatened the hive. He felt a great deal of discontent though, which made no sense to him. They were free, they had no reason to be unhappy. He felt hunger and thirst as well, but didn’t bother to wonder why they didn’t just eat and drink something. Humans were strange creatures and only two of them had any real importance to him. Kiala, who was his master, and the queen.
He continued on his rounds, sweeping past other battlers following their own routes as he flew around the city toward the ocean. Where the battlers had all hated one another before, now they were hive mates and he dived around his brothers playfully, exchanging news of what they’d seen during their guard duty, or of how their masters were doing. Not all of them had female masters yet, but all were working toward it, and Yahe felt immensely grateful that he had Kiala. The thought that she might have chosen another battler, or even turned away from them entirely, wasn’t something he let himself dwell on. It was just too horrifying to contemplate. He was lucky; that was all he let himself know.
From the harbor area, he felt a sudden surge of terror, quickly gone. Yahe paused, stretching his senses out, but the fear didn’t return and after a moment, he continued on his way. Humans were like sylphs in that they felt brief little surges of terror from time to time, and he wasn’t going to waste his energy running to attack because someone saw a scorpion. He continued on his usual route and when he passed over the harbor a half hour later, there was no one there. It was late so he didn’t worry about that. Humans had homes, didn’t they?
He continued on.
Devon reached the harbor past dark, and after almost getting lost more than once. To his surprise, it had become quite cold once the sun went down and he hugged himself tightly as he walked. Airi wasn’t much help with cold, though she did keep any cool breezes away from him.
The Sylph Hunter Page 4