The Battle Sylph by L. J. McDonald

learning the music style she liked and the tunes she loved, trained by his father as his father had been trained by his grandfather. He performed for her. This was the promise made to her when she first crossed the gate, and Devon had always been careful to fulfill it.
    His music was healing to Airi, giving her something to focus on as she fed from his living energy, drawing it into herself. This world was both alien and poisonous to her kind, but after the binding she could feed from Devon, and his music only made him taste sweeter. She drank deeply, and the girl she’d rescued stared at both her and her master as he played, at the man and at the shimmer of air, her fear fading in the face of what she saw. Devon closed his eyes and kept playing, the high, sweet tones filling the entire meadow as the sun finished setting and the stars came out. Grasshoppers started to sound from the bushes, a counterpart to Devon’s playing.
    Airi started to feel better, singing along. That battler could be coming, but it wasn’t important. Her master played for her alone, and even the girl they’d rescued didn’t matter. At last Airi felt strong enough to take on the most corporeal of the several forms she used so rarely: a translucent female child, thin enough almost to be made of twigs—and a shape illegal enough that Devon could be put to death for allowing it. In this guise she sat on the ground, her kneesdrawn up and wrapped by her arms, while her master put down his flute. His expression was relieved.
    The human female sat a few feet away, shivering in her old, battered clothes and watching them both warily. She was terrified, Airi could feel it, and there was no sign of her battler. By this time, Airi knew, he was either dead or defeated. Airi grieved for the girl.
    “I know you, don’t I?” the redhead asked, looking at Devon.
    He nodded, pocketing the flute and crawling forward to put a hand against Airi’s cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked in an undertone, his concern palpable.
    She smiled at him. His care wasn’t what held her here, but it made her happy. I’ll be fine, she breathed into his mind. Thank you.
    He nodded, stroking her cheek again, and turned to the girl they’d saved, his face whitening once more as he stared at her. “Yes,” he told her. “I’m Devon Chole. I saw you in the town a lot when I was growing up there. You’re the baker’s niece, aren’t you?”
    She nodded. “Solie. Do you know what happened?”
    She didn’t? Airi supposed the human didn’t have any way to know. Not coming from being a sacrifice to having a battler. Airi remembered how confused she herself had been when she first crossed the gate, and she hadn’t been cheated of her prize as the battlers always were. Long ago she had communicated to a few of them about it, using the wordless language they’d developed to counter their masters’ rules against speaking, and she knew how horrible it was for them. All of those battlers were gone now. Unlike other sylphs, battlers weren’t handed down through generations, and so they vanished once their masters died. From what Airi knew, they were probably glad of it, for they never recovered from what had been done to them: they wereforced to watch their females die before they had a chance to make them into queens, forced to serve their killers…Solie’s battler had been spared that, but that wouldn’t help him understand what was going on here, or just how lucky he’d been.
    “You know that you bound a battler?” Devon asked her. When the girl nodded he said, “That’s never happened before. I didn’t see it, but I can’t imagine the king was happy.” He sighed. “He sent a man named Leon Petrule and his battler, Ril, after you. That’s who attacked you in the village.” He took a deep breath. “While Ril was distracting your battler, Leon went after you. You’d be dead now if Airi hadn’t grabbed you.”
    The girl turned white, her lower lip trembling as