A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [45]
Mace landed before the front door, shifting back to human shape, and charged inside, not bothering to knock. The door led straight into the living room, and the couple standing before Lily jumped at the sight of him. Even if they hadn’t recognized Mace, they would have known what he was from his blue uniform with its gold trim, worn by all battlers so that there were no mistakes made by human men. Angering a battle sylph might just turn out to be fatal.
“What’s going on?” Mace demanded.
The woman before Lily held a boy, her arms around his neck and her hands clasped so that the knuckles were white. Her husband stood nearby, swallowing nervously at the sight of the battler. The boy was rebellious and scared.
Lily spun toward him, years seeming to drop away in her concern and anger. She looked glorious to Mace. “I came to get Jayden. He was never here!”
She was upset about that? “Where did he go?” Mace asked. It had been five peaceful days since the boy left. Still, he mused, even a human could travel a long way in that amount of time. Perhaps Lily had a reason to be upset.
Crem’s parents felt concerned to him. “He didn’t come here,” the mother told Mace. “We didn’t know he was supposed to be staying with us.”
Lily muttered something under her breath that was completely unrepeatable.
“We d-didn’t know,” the father stammered. Most sensible men were afraid around battle sylphs, Mace especially.
The young boy’s defiance grew, and Mace looked down at him. “Where did he go?” he repeated.
“I dunno,” Crem said.
“You’re lying,” Mace told him flatly. The boy jumped. His parents looked at each other. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Crem said again, and Mace’s hand shot out faster than any of them could react. It locked around the boy’s throat, and he hoisted him up until his shoes were four feet off the floor. Both parents screamed, but Mace ignored them—though he did feel a little bad about the mother’s fear.
“Where is he?” he asked a third time.
The boy was ashen-faced, his father trying to work his terror into enough anger to attack. That would only get him killed, so Mace stared at him. The man blanched and backed up. The mother clenched her fists, though, readying herself for a charge that Mace wouldn’t be so quick to retaliate against.
“MACE!” Lily barked. “Put him down!”
That was definitely an order. Mace set the boy down. “Where did he go?”
The boy started to cry. “To Eferem!” he sobbed, turning to find comfort with both his parents. “He went to Eferem!”
“Why?” Mace asked, totally baffled. The kingdom of Eferem wasn’t quite the threat it used to be, but he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to go there.
“Tell us why, child,” Lily demanded as Crem kept crying. His parents felt like they very much wanted to tell Lily to take her concerns and get out of their house, but neither of them wanted to face Mace’s reaction.
Crem eyed the battler over his shoulder, his face covered in snot and tears: little boys were especially disgusting. “He said he wanted to show you. He wanted to be a swordsman,” he spat, “but no one here gets to. So he took a mail convoy to Eferem.”
To be a swordsman? For Eferem? Mace had heard of plenty of stupid human motivations before, but this was definitely up there. He looked at Lily to see her regarding him, and he had a sudden, very uncomfortable understanding of exactly what her next order was going to be.
Chapter Three
Ruffles adored him.
Mace padded along the dusty road, all four feet moving smoothly. A great deal of work had been done in the Shale Plains since the