Free Queen of the Sylphs by L. J. McDonald Page A

few notes about the ways she could get her manufacturing base working again; he’d have to discuss them with Devon. Providing the man intended to go. Galway looked over to see him sink down in his chair as the meeting ended, his air sylph invisible and playing with his hair.
    But, Devon and the Valley’s economic future weren’t his most immediate concerns. He’d sat through the entire meeting feeling his battler’s emotions jumping around like a swamp bug. Solie hadn’t seemed to pick up on it. She could feel the emotions of everyone in the room, so he had no doubt that Devon’s near hysteria was swamping her.
    She left ahead of the others, with Mace following. Devon hurried out almost on her heels. Galway gathered his notes and traversed the hallway behind Leon and Ril, right after Heyou. When the young battler made as if to follow his queen, Galway put an arm around his neck and pulled him aside.
    Drawing him close, he steered the battler across the main audience chamber and back toward the more public area of the underground complex. Heyou looked surprised, but he didn’t pull away and let himself be guided. They walked in the same direction as Ril and Leon.
    “So, what’s wrong, boy?” Galway asked, careful to keep his voice low. Ril could probably hear him, but the battler wouldn’t care. The chancellor shouldn’t know Heyou’s issues, though. This felt like a private matter.
    “Wrong?”
    Galway tightened his arm around the battler’s neck. Heyou made a fake gagging sound but pressed closer, suddenly burying his face against the trapper’s chest. His aura sad, he stopped walking.
    Galway stopped, too, worried. Ahead, Ril and Leon vanished through the main doors, leaving them alone. “What is it, Heyou? Tell me.”
    The battler wrapped him tight in his arms, standing very close. He wasn’t tall in this chosen form, and his face pressed into Galway’s collarbone. “It’s Solie,” he said, his voice muffled. “She wants to have babies. I don’t know what to do.”
    “Ah. I see.”
    Galway brought his free hand around and laced it through Heyou’s long, dark hair. To him, Heyou being a battle sylph didn’t mean much; the boy was just like any of the other children he and his wife had taken in over the years. Not all of them were blood, but all of them were family. His wife felt the same.
    “Come on,” he told the battler. “Come home with me. We’ll talk.”
    He ruffled Heyou’s hair and started walking, dragging the boy along behind him. Heyou sighed, but he came along obediently enough. Galway felt a spark of hope flare through the battler and that was good enough for now.
    Ril yawned as he and Leon walked down the wide, well-lit corridor that formed the main throughway of the hive’s underground complex. The ambient light came from a lattice of crystals in the ceiling and walls, lit by a single fire sylph in a central location who illuminated the entire network of corridors and rooms.
    The corridors were all clean and easy to navigate, but there were still few humans to be seen. Most still found the idea of living here too alien, and they stayed aboveground when they could. Sylphs liked it more. There were a lot of those in the halls, and at night, while their masters slept, there were hundreds enjoying the camaraderie of a proper hive.
    Leon looked over appraisingly at his battler. “Do you want to go to the nest?” he asked. “I can do this without you.”
    Ril shook his head and yawned again. “No. I can manage.”
    Leon just nodded. Once this was done, Ril was going to the nest, the chamber by the main audience and throne room that the battlers had taken as their own. They congregated there in their natural form, relaxing, and Ril slept in it, the other battlers necessary to hold him in his original shape. He’d fall to specks of light anywhere else. He still sometimes needed to take that shape and rest that way, but it was usually his choice about when.
    “Have you thought