The Battle Sylph by L. J. McDonald Page A

she raised a hand to her mouth. A moment later she was sobbing, bent over double to press her forehead against the ground. Devon looked at Airi in desperate confusion, but Airi didn’t know what to tell him. He was the master. Finally, he crawled over and put an arm around the girl. She leaned against him, still crying, and he held her while she wept herself out.
    It took a while, and Airi again faded incorporeal. She climbed wearily into the air and sensed outward as far as she could. Smoke was lifting from the village in the distance, darker than even the night sky, but she could see nothing more. There was no sign of either battler. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but she wasn’t going to go check without Devon’s express order. She was no fighter, and she was too tired to run. Even having just fed, she didn’t have the strength to try and hide. She needed rest.
    Below, Solie spoke softly to Devon, telling him what had happened: how she’d ended up with the battler and what they’d gone through, how she’d come to feel about him. Airi didn’t bother to listen. The girl was bound to the battler fully, her soul patterned inside him as his was in hers. She’dalways want the feel of that bond and would suffer for being away from him, just as Devon would if Airi left. Airi couldn’t deal at all with that. It was up to Devon to decide what they needed to do, and it was up to her to do it. She would wait for his order.
    Wearily, she stayed on watch and swirled in memory of his music, dancing a dance that no one with human eyes could see.
    Solie clung to a man she didn’t really know at all and wept, trying to understand how she could be so upset about someone she’d only just met. She was, though. She missed Heyou, missed him terribly, and neither of the two who’d saved her could say if he was still alive. From the sound of it, the answer was no.
    The thought of Heyou’s death hurt more than she could have imagined. He’d protected her. It didn’t matter how basically crazy he was, growling at any man who came near her, or how much he tried to get into her skirts. Even then he’d made her feel safe, and when she spoke, he listened. Solie wasn’t too used to that, not in her family. From her aunt, sure, but the older woman still gave advice and direction. Heyou didn’t try to tell her how to think at all. He might edge with giddy skill around what she directed, but he still listened, and he’d wormed his way into her soul somehow. Without him there, she felt empty.
    She sniffled and wiped her eyes on Devon’s shirt. It seemed impossible not to blame herself for Heyou, the town, and everything. She could imagine what her aunt would say to that. If you take the blame on yourself, you let the real culprit get away. But she still felt responsible.
    She should have realized that the king would be after her, and she should have taken Heyou so far away they never would have been found. It wasn’t as though it would have been hard for him to carry her. Instead, she’d run to thetown closest to the castle and let him announce himself to the world by trying to defend her. How could she have been so stupid? Now she didn’t even have Heyou at all, and she couldn’t go home. Her father would never accept her, the townspeople would blame her, and she wasn’t so idiotic anymore as to think the king would just let her go now that her battler was gone. He’d want revenge for his son at the very least. He’d also want her dead for being proof that a woman could bind a battler just like a man. She’d have to run, find somewhere that the king’s hunter wouldn’t find her…and now Devon would have to go with her, for having committed the crime of saving her life. He was in just as much danger as she was, he and Airi both.
    “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I got you involved with this!”
    Devon stroked her hair. “I’m pretty sure I got myself involved with no help from you,” he disagreed. “Don’t