The Sylph Hunter (18 page)

“He loves you,” Airi admitted. Zalia blinked. “It’s what battlers are made for. He’ll love you forever, with all of his heart. If he’s not here now, it’s because he had to go. He’ll be back.”

“Oh,” Zalia said in a very tiny voice. Airi couldn’t tell through the morass of emotions inside her whether she was happy about that or not. Not wanting to be there anymore, since she would have been so happy if things had gone differently, Airi let herself become intangible again, her pattern returning to invisibility as she flew back out the window, wanting nothing more than to return to her master’s side and try to think of a way to tell him about this.

Zalia watched the air sylph vanish in front of her and felt the faint winds of her leaving. She was almost glad of it, for while she appreciated Airi’s explanation, she wanted to be alone to think.

Ilaja would call her a whore. Right now, Zalia didn’t care what the other woman thought. She didn’t feel like a whore, even if she wasn’t really all that sure what she did feel like. Physically, except for a bit of soreness between her legs, she didn’t feel any different. The virginity she’d preserved for her entire life didn’t feel to be worth much now that she’d lost it. She hadn’t suddenly become a new person and she didn’t feel any more or less confused than she had before One-Eleven came into her room. Did she love him? She didn’t know. She’d always told herself that she’d only make love to a man she loved, who was her husband, and she didn’t know that she loved One-Eleven. He hadn’t said more than a few dozen words to her. How could she love him?

Zalia closed her eyes, shivering despite the warm air that still came through the window, even with the darkness outside. It didn’t cool down as much in this hive as it had at the hovels.

Airi said that One-Eleven loved her. He’d certainly told her he loved her, but according to Airi, he had no choice. Zalia took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, rising with the sheet still wrapped around herself so she could go to the bedroom at the back of the suite. Well, she’d done it now, but she refused to keep pretending. She’d love One-Eleven if she could, but she wouldn’t pretend.

She just hoped that it would be that easy.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
here was a thunderstorm high in the air of the desert, far on the horizon but stacked from the ground to the roof of the sky.

Still attached to the harbor gate by one of its thicker tentacles, the Hunter raised a few of the lighter ones and looked at the storm through a thousand eyes. It had seen storms before in the world it left, but nothing like this. There everything was jungles and grasslands that broke for the chaos of huge mountain ranges, full of jagged peaks and deep, twisting canyons. These clouds it saw on the horizon were as tall as a mountain, crackling with the kind of lightning that a battle sylph couldn’t even dream of. Equipped with so many eyes, it could estimate exactly how far away those massive, angry clouds were, and shifted uncertainly as it felt the wind from them blow against its tendrils and tentacles. Storms could be lethal to the soft flesh of its main body and there were no deep canyons to hide in. Nor could it let the gentler leading winds of the storm blow it clear. There was no telling where it would be when the winds finally died. It was far too likely that it would end up back out in the middle of that ocean again.

There was also no way of knowing whether those storm clouds would stay on the horizon, so the Hunter took its cue from the food. As the storm clouds built up in the distance, the human food scrambled to take everything they owned inside, hurrying around with scarves tied over their faces as the winds increased, picking up particles of sand from the ground and tossing them around. The sand didn’t rise high enough to touch even the lowest of its tucked-in tentacles, but the Hunter didn’t trust that the fine grains wouldn’t and it suspected it would be very vulnerable to being flayed alive.

It needed sanctuary. The Hunter looked toward the dome of the hive, risen up over the tallest building in the city and inviolate. That would be a good place to hide, if it could only get in. That wasn’t going to happen unless it found some way to breach the outer shell and it doubted it had the strength, even if it had the time. It could hear the winds of the storm and hear the distant thunder, even as it listened to the fear in the voices of its food.

The harbor it had been dozing above had nowhere it could go to hide. The palace floating above it might be no safer, given how many windows were punched through the fragile thing. It had to find somewhere else to go.

The sand was already starting to flick against it, even with its body so high in the air, so it reached forward with one of its thicker tentacles and wrapped it around a building a block farther inland. Only when it had a secure hold did it release its grip on the gate it had been dozing above and pull itself forward. The building groaned, the strength of its tentacles compressing the clay bricks that made it, but it kept pulling and lashed out for the next one, careful to keep the rest of its tentacles tucked up underneath its body. It didn’t want to waste any food that might wander into them now and it certainly didn’t want to rise any higher.

It reached for the next building, swaying its way over a small square where humans were carrying barrels of oil into a building, chattering fearfully. In even the small amount of time since it had started moving, the winds had doubled and the horizon had turned black. The Hunter’s delicate body was bulbous and heavy, hard to pull through the roaring air, but it didn’t dare let go of any gas yet. Not until it found a place of safety, one with a food source for when this storm was done. Enough air sylphs could stop such a storm, but they were all hiding in their hive, ignoring the outside world.

The irony of that didn’t escape it.

It kept crawling over the rooftops, dragging itself through the air as the wind continued to increase. The food couldn’t see the storm from the ground, but they continued to retreat, all of them vanishing inside buildings and barricading the doors behind them. The Hunter could see though, floating above the buildings as it did, and what it saw only made it grab for safety and pull itself along faster.

In the distance, the storm, even as it became invisible in the setting sun, continued kicking up an increasing amount of sand. Each larger particle knocked loose other particles that knocked loose still others, and then the wind lifted them all up and ran with them. A wall of sand hundreds of feet high and dozens of miles wide raced across the desert, screaming its way forward as the storm continued to feed itself and grow, howling like a live thing. If the full force reached it, the Hunter’s fragile body would be torn apart.

The Hunter searched desperately for a place to hide. The tunnels it had originally come from occurred to it, but they lay on the other side of the city, perhaps too far to reach. More, there was no food left in there and it would have to deplete itself almost entirely to get low enough to drag itself through that tiny opening. If this storm lasted too long, it could starve to death before it was free again. If it didn’t find safety, it would die anyway. Its tentacles were strong enough to resist all but a direct hit from the most ancient battle sylph, but the core of it was next to helpless.

There were buildings around it, none perfect for its needs, though it would wedge itself into the closest in the next minute if it wasn’t able to find anything better. The wall was rushing toward the city with incredible speed and the winds that preceded it forced the Hunter to dig its tentacles deep in order to keep from being blown away. They were hard on the fired clay, and one of the roofs crumpled away entirely as it gripped a little too hard. It saw a group of surprised faces look up at it before its tentacle, no longer gripping anything with the roof gone, swept involuntarily across them. Filled with their energy, the Hunter grabbed again more tightly before it could rise any higher into the storm and dragged itself farther, more buildings cracking now as it pulled itself along.

Ahead, it spotted a long, wide building with a series of empty paddocks around it, easily large enough to fit into. It could sense the food stirring restlessly inside, enough there to make up for the gasses it would have to expel.

The Hunter released most of its gas then, sinking lower to the ground and into the rush of blowing sand. That hurt, and the full wall of sand hadn’t even reached the city yet, though it could see before it dropped that the danger was close. The wall of sand was only a few leagues away and moving nearly as fast as sound.

The stable doors were closed, barred against the storm. The Hunter pulled itself around to the front of the building, which fortunately faced away from the path of the storm, and slipped a dozen of its smaller tendrils in through the cracks under and around the door. It pulled carefully then, wanting the doors open but not broken. It would do no good to take sanctuary if the wind merely followed it in. It broke the doors open at the center, where a crossbar had been placed to hold them shut. The moment they opened, it started to force itself inside, letting even more gasses go in order to make itself small enough.

There were animals inside, glossy creatures with long noses and four legs. They started to whinny and rear as the Hunter entered, kicking at their stalls in a panic. Could they see it? it wondered. That wasn’t supposed to happen; only one of its own kind had ever been able to see it before. To be seen by food was disconcerting and it had to resist the impulse to lash its tendrils out and devour them all to protect itself. That would only swell it to a size that wouldn’t fit in this small space.

The sandstorm lashed against the half of it still outside the stable, abrading it painfully, and it wrapped its tendrils around the heavy supports for the stable’s roof, forcefully pulling itself in. The horses screamed louder and from the back, a human came, bearing a pitchfork and with a frightened look on his face. He clearly saw the Hunter wedging into the stable’s main aisle, its tentacles mostly tucked underneath it and leaving it nearly blind save for the ones it used to pull itself in, and he dropped his pitchfork, his mouth hanging open in shock. The Hunter was almost as shocked itself at the realization that the human could see it.

The Hunter forced the last of itself into the stable, pressing against both the floor and ceiling, as well as the doors of the stalls on either side. Looping two thin tendrils around the door handles behind it, it pulled them closed and wrapped a dozen more around them, holding them closed despite the rising winds outside. The storm was screaming even louder than the animals and the stable shook, the door fighting to tear itself back open. Fortunately, it wasn’t so hard to hold it closed, not when it had the strength to tear apart all but the strongest stone.

Finally regaining his wits, the human food bent over to grab his pitchfork and ran back for the door that he’d come through. The Hunter lashed out, careful not to hit him, and slammed the rear door closed, holding it shut.

The man skidded to a halt before he ran into the tendril, which saved him from being absorbed and proved absolutely that he could see it. The Hunter shifted uncomfortably, not liking this situation, but knowing it didn’t really matter. This food would fulfill his purpose soon enough and the chance that he would draw the attention of the battlers was minuscule. Not in this storm, and even if the storm were over, the battlers would never bother to save a man.

The Hunter settled down to wait out the storm, ignoring the screaming of the food inside the stable as much as it did the shrieking of the wind without. No one was going to hear any of them anyway. It used the time instead to test how well the human could see it, learning eventually that the man could only see it very imperfectly indeed. It wasn’t ideal, but better than it could have been. Overall, it was a peaceful wait.

Yahe searched for any women not able to find sanctuary in the storm. It wasn’t easy at all, not with the massive winds that threatened to throw him into the buildings around him, provided they didn’t tear him apart first. He’d certainly experienced storms hitting the city during his time in this world, but he’d always been sent to the harems for the duration. The air sylphs would stop the storm instead, most of them going out to meet it while it was still weak, while the rest lifted the emperor’s island high enough not to be threatened. They’d already done that for the queen and her entourage, including his beloved Kiala, but the air sylphs didn’t dare emerge now, and that left no protection for the other women in Meridal other than what he and his brothers could give. He suspected that Kiala would have a few things to say about that—he could feel her irritation with him in the back of his mind—but he could also sense she was safe, and instinct demanded he do this. He loved Kiala dearly, but if she had her way, he’d never see another woman again in his life. It was silly; he’d never dream of betraying her. But it was easier to just do what he needed to right now and deal with her anger when the city was safe.

Unfortunately, doing what was needed meant Yahe wasn’t safe at all. The battle sylph fought against the winds, fueling his flight with rage as he forced himself forward through the blasting sand. He was deafened and next to blind, but his other senses were still good. He couldn’t detect the Hunter—no sylph could—but he doubted it was out in this nightmare. Instead he focused on finding any women who needed his help. He hoped on one level that the storm destroyed the Hunter, but in all honesty, he’d rather kill it himself. Any proper battler would.

The wind screamed all around him, blowing sand so fast that he had to stay partly intangible just to keep it from tearing him apart, even as he remained solid enough not to be sucked away. It was a hard balance to maintain.

Below him, he felt fear. No storm had been allowed to hit Meridal in centuries and the humans were all afraid of it. Yahe flew low to the ground, winding his way through the winds that filled the streets, and tried to find any women who would need him.

There were a lot of women in the city, holed up in different buildings, sometimes together, sometimes alone. He ignored any men that he sensed with them. After all, they didn’t enter into his consciousness any more than frightened animals did.

A child was crying, a little girl child not yet to breeding age, and there was discomfort in her fear. Yahe dropped down, pressing against the side of a building. The sandstorm was so bad now that he couldn’t see at all, but he reached out with a tentacle formed from his mantle and felt along the wall. There was a window badly boarded up and a door cracked with age. It was no wonder the child was hurting, he thought as he felt the place where the sand was coming in.

He squeezed in along with it. Inside, he found a small room with bare, cracked walls and old furniture. A man huddled there against the storm, shielding three small children with a tattered blanket. Seeing Yahe, he gasped in terror, dropping the blanket to expose the three children.