A Pride of Gryphons

by Kristen S. Walker

  Contents

  Title Page

  Other Stories

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map of Seirenia

  Korinna I

  Galenos I

  Tatiana I

  Varranor I

  Orivan I

  Sympaia I

  Aristia I

  Ameyron I

  Tatiana II

  Orivan II

  Galenos II

  Korinna II

  Tatiana III

  Korinna III

  Sympaia II

  Varranor II

  Ameyron II

  Sympaia III

  Tatiana IV

  Korinna IV

  Galenos III

  Korinna V

  Galenos IV

  Ameyron III

  Korinna VI

  Galenos V

  Sympaia IV

  Varranor III

  Tatiana V

  Korinna VII

  Galenos VI

  Korinna VIII

  Varranor IV

  Galenos VII

  Sympaia V

  Orivan III

  Varranor V

  Tatiana VI

  Aristia II

  Galenos VIII

  Korinna IX

  Galenos IX

  Varranor VI

  Ameyron IV

  Tatiana VII

  Korinna X

  Aristia III

  Sympaia VI

  Ameyron V

  Korinna XI

  Varranor VII

  Galenos X

  Korinna XII

  Tatiana VIII

  Varranor VIII

  Orivan IV

  Sympaia VII

  Thank You & Read More

  Free Book

  About the Author

  A Pride of Gryphons

  Wyld Magic #2

  by Kristen S. Walker

  Other Stories

  Wyld Magic

  Book 1: A Flight of Marewings

  Prequel: “The Duke’s Daughter”

  Book 2: A Pride of Gryphons

  Book 3: The Reign of Dragons (2017)

  Tales of Wyld Magic: Short Stories

  “Together We Will Fly”

  “The Hedge Witch”

  Fae of Calaveras Trilogy

  Book 1: Small Town Witch

  Book 2: Witch Hunt

  Book 3: Witch Gate

  “Witch Test” - a prequel short story “Midsummer Knight” - a prequel short story “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” - short story between books 1 and 2

  The Voyage of the Miscreation Serial

  Episode 1: The Voyage Begins

  Season 1: Episodes 1-6

  For updates about future releases, join my mailing list.

  Copyright

  A Pride of Gryphons

  Kristen S. Walker

  Copyright © 2016 Kristen S. Walker

  Cover Design: Daniela Marquez of MV Covers

  Edited by Diane Shirk

  All rights reserved.

  © Kristen S. Walker and kristenwalker.net

  Dedication

  For Grandma Judy:

  Thank you for encouraging me to write

  MAP OF SEIRENIA

  Korinna I

  The wind tugged at Korinna’s hair, pulling strands loose from her braid and whipping them around her face. She breathed in the salty tang of the sea air and laughed. Below her, the city of Kyratia spread out in concentric circles, the many districts running into one another like patchwork on a quilt. From up in the air, it all seemed so small, with the people no more than ants to her crawling on the ground. Up here she felt free.

  She took one hand off the reins and laid it on Sungold’s shoulder. Beneath her touch, the marewing’s muscles rippled as she continued to glide over the city. Her pale gold coat gleamed in the early morning sunlight and her white mane reflected pink and orange of the dawn.

  It was strange to think that only a year ago, Korinna had had her first glimpse of this city from the same position—aloft on another marewing, her first time flying. She’d never imagined that she’d be on a marewing’s back every day or enjoy it so much. At the time, she’d been afraid of the size of the capital and of Galenos, the rider at her back, then a mercenary commander and a stranger to her. Now she and Galenos had been married for four months, and together they were duke and duchess, rulers of the city and all the land surrounding it. The people below her were relying on her to protect and guide them.

  She’d been born to rule, as the late duke’s only living child, although not by either of his unfortunate wives. Becoming a marewing rider wasn’t supposed to be part of that—but when her father’s old Council had denied her inheritance, they’d had to take the city back by force. It had seemed to her that if Galenos was a marewing rider and a fighter who liberated the city from the usurpers, she’d have to become one too if she ever wanted to be his equal, instead of just the noble-born woman he married to legitimize his claim to the title.

  So Korinna had learned to fight and beat the odds by capturing Sungold to become a marewing rider. She’d played her part in saving the city from the mismanagement of the Council. Now that she was a duchess, she didn’t need to patrol the city’s walls—there were guards for that. But a marewing needed daily exercise, and truth be told, it was far more entertaining to fly than to sit in a boring Council meeting and listen to reports about the state of the harvest or whatever was on the agenda today.

  She stroked Sungold’s neck and smiled. Their morning flights were her favorite part of the day, and she was always reluctant to end them. The two of them moved like one through the sky—at the slightest signal from her, the marewing would turn or climb higher, as if she could read Korinna’s thoughts. Perhaps one day they would drift up into the clouds together and never come down.

  Bells clanged harshly in the city below. Korinna looked down in surprise. Was it that late already? The Council meeting was already starting, and Galenos would be angry if she wasn’t there.

  Well, at least she could get to City Hall quickly. Korinna leaned forward on Sungold’s neck, gripping onto the high-pommeled saddle designed to keep a rider in place for aerial maneuvers, and pointed the marewing down directly toward the courtyard of the Government District.

  Sungold folded her bat-like wings back and dropped like a stone. The wind rushed past so quickly that Korinna’s eyes watered, blurring her vision. An old coin, hung around her neck on a chain, slipped loose from her leather flight jacket and swung up to hit her in the face, but she barely felt it strike her cheek. For a long moment she was weightless, free falling, unaware if she was still in the saddle or if she would plummet to her death on the cobblestones below.

  She couldn’t see to give the signal, but Sungold acted on her own, snapping her wings back out at the last moment and buffeting them back up from the ground. After a few powerful beats of the leathery wings to slow their movement, she landed neatly in the courtyard, just in front of City Hall’s steps.

  A hearty cheer went up around them. Korinna looked up, blinking to clear her vision, and realized that they’d attracted a crowd with their stunt.

  “Hurrah for the duchess!” one man cried out, and others took up the call. “Hurrah for our Duchess Korinna!”

  Korinna raised her hand and waved to them shyly. Her people had celebrated her as a hero when she liberated the city, but she still wasn’t used to all of the attention she received when she went out in public. She should have realized that landing here with Sungold, who was very recognizable, would attract at least some notice from those who were going about their daily business.

  Fortunately, there were guards posted in front of City Hall to protect all of the government officials, a
nd they stepped forward to keep the crowd from getting too close to her and Sungold. That was good, because a marewing was still a monster. She trusted Korinna, and under her rider’s touch she stayed calm enough around strangers, but she would attack anyone else who came within reach.

  Korinna swung down from Sungold’s back and turned around to see Galenos storming down the hall’s steps toward her.

  Galenos was born in foreign Khazeem, and even dressed in a formal tunic and draped in an embroidered kattar, he was an imposing figure towering over everyone else, even the guards. The locals in Kyratia tended to be short, stocky, and brown; Galenos was darker than the most tanned farm worker, taller than any other man she’d seen, with broad shoulders and broad, flat features. His black eyes locked on her with an angry glower.

  When he stood in front of her, tiny Korinna didn’t even come up to his shoulder. But she’d learned by now not to be intimidated by her husband. She looked back up at him calmly. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, hoping to ward off the lecture with her apology. “I lost track of time in the air.”

  He leaned down closer to her level. “It’s not just your tardiness,” he said in a low tone that still carried his heavy disapproval. “What is this demonstration in front of the building? It’s not safe to bring your marewing here, and your attire is completely inappropriate for the meeting.” He gestured to her flight leathers.

  Korinna smoothed back her disheveled hair and tugged her jacket in an attempt to straighten it. “Well, if I’d landed and changed at the paddock, and then I had to walk back here, I would have been even more late.” She gestured to the hall behind him. “Why don’t we build some kind of paddock close to here where we could land? Then maybe you could make some more time for flying, too. You’ve barely seen Nightshade in days.”

  Galenos stiffened at the name of his own marewing, but he shook his head. “It’s far too dangerous to bring marewings into the middle of the city.” He pointed at Sungold. “You need to get her out of here now. I’ll see you inside.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he turned away and went back up the steps inside before she had the chance. Perhaps it was better if they didn’t argue in front of such a public audience. So she busied herself with taking off Sungold’s tack, then sent the marewing back into the air to join the other marewings in the military compound on the outskirts of the city.

  There was no place to hang the tack, so she slung the saddle over her shoulder and carried it all with her into City Hall. She’d stuff it somewhere in the office she shared with her husband, do her best to make herself presentable, and deal with it after the meeting. It was going to be a long morning.

  ***

  When Korinna came into the Council’s meeting room, the Councilors had already started the meeting without her. She did her best to take her seat next to Galenos at the head of the table without making too much disruptive noise.

  Galenos didn’t look in her direction, but one of the Councilors, an older man named Diokles who represented the House of Lords and Ladies and was an old friend of her late father, nodded to her from further down the table. She smiled and nodded back. Then she sat up straight, trying to look attentive and regal as a duchess despite her unconventional appearance. She’d managed to tie her hair up in a knot so it was out of her face and took off her flight jacket, but she was still wearing her tunic and leggings, looking more like a mercenary than a duchess.

  Each Councilor took turns reporting on various issues with the city and the surrounding state. Most of the problems still had to deal with repairing damage caused by the previous Council’s short but destructive rule and the battle within the city walls to end their reign. For power, they’d joined the rebellious Cult of Varula, who claimed they could control wyld magic—but the magic had run out of their control, infecting a significant portion of the populace with choreomania, the dancing madness, and spreading an overgrowth of stranglevine which destroyed buildings and roads throughout the city. Although it had happened months ago, rebuilding took time and money and planning out their priorities over which things should be fixed first.

  Galenos kept his own notes during the discussions, balancing columns of numbers against each other in an attempt to make them even out. He tapped a nearby report with his quill pen. “At least we have extra room in the budget this year,” he announced. “Since the fighting was confined to the city, there was no damage to our fields, and they have been fortunate. The harvest is already shaping up to be one of the best in the past decade. We can sell the excess for a tidy sum.”

  The other Councilors murmured their approval, but Korinna cleared her throat and spoke up for the first time. “We should save the food.”

  Sixteen Councilors and Galenos all turned to stare at her.

  “Of course we’ll put some food aside for our emergency stores,” Galenos explained patiently. He tapped one of the columns on his paper. “That’s already been accounted for. This is extra. Why wouldn’t we sell it to someone else who needs it?”

  Korinna’s hand flew up to touch the coin at her throat. “I don’t think we have enough food in our stores. We should save everything that we can, just in case.”

  Her husband frowned. “But we need this money for many other things. We don’t have extra metal from the mines and the craftsmen in the city have been less productive than usual with all of the chaos that happened, so this is where we can make up the deficit.” He pushed the preliminary budget list across the table to her. “Unless you think there’s some other place where we can cut spending?”

  She skimmed the columns, but she didn’t know what most of the notes meant anyway. “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I just think it’s important that if we have extra food, we should save it, and encourage the farmers to do the same. We should all be saving more food in case of future shortages.”

  The others didn’t look convinced, but Galenos agreed to write down the suggestion for consideration when they finalized their spending plan. It wasn’t a win, but Korinna was happy that they seemed to listen to her, at least a little.

  That would give her time to craft a better argument, maybe when Galenos had calmed down and she had the chance to speak with him in private. She’d had a hard experience with a food shortage once, the first year that she was in charge of running her own farming estate after the death of her mother. Only weeks before the grain had ripened for the harvest, a chimaera had attacked the farm and burned down nearly all of her fields. To feed her people, Korinna had sold everything of value from her own belongings and those left behind by her mother.

  The only thing she kept from that dark time was a single coin, the one she wore around her neck. It was reminder to always prepare for the worst. She hoped they wouldn’t need the food—but what if they did? She would feel better with that insurance.

  “Moving on to elective projects,” Galenos said, his deep voice calling them all back to attention. “Some months ago, I installed two mages, Omalia and Ameyron, as the new administrators of our local mage academy in Sacrimas, which was largely neglected for years. They’ve assessed the facilities and are ready to plan improvements, but they need funds to work with. How much should we invest in them to start?”

  Korinna perked up with sudden interest. She’d only met Omalia and Ameyron a few times, but she was fascinated by their unorthodox research into monsters and wyld magic. “How are they going to improve the school?”

  Galenos opened a letter and read off items from a list. “Hiring more teachers, expanding the living quarters for staff and students, constructing new research facilities—these are the major items. They are focusing on expanding the school and bringing it up to date with similar academies throughout Seirenia.”

  Charis, a portly middle-aged man chosen to represent the Merchant Guild after Pelagia’s betrayal, made a scoffing noise. “Why do we need our own mage academy? It would take a considerable investment to compete with the one in Petropouli or practically anywhere else. We c
an hire the ones who’ve already been trained.”

  “We’re not trying to copy the one in Petropouli,” Korinna said, leaning forward to the edge of her seat. “The mages want to study different things. No other academy has a research program devoted to wyld magic—”

  Diokles looked at her sharply. “Wyld magic is too dangerous!” He waved a finger warningly at her. “Don’t forget what got us into this mess in the first place. Those cultists were meddling with forces they couldn’t control.”

  Others began to echo him, raising their voices in protest.

  Galenos held up his hand for silence. “Calm down and listen before you judge. These mages aren’t trying to use wyld magic themselves, but to better understand its nature, so we can guard against it and prevent its use against us.” He cupped his hand to his forehead, invoking Deyos the Allfather. “All due respect to the Temple, but their prayers failed to protect this city from the cultists, and our own magic barrier didn’t prevent wyld magic from attacking us like it should have. We need to know why so we can stop it in the future.”

  Charis tapped a finger against his chin, mulling over the new information. “So would this be considered part of the defense budget, then? There are fewer mercenaries in your company after that battle, so we could divert the extra pay to this academy for now. If their research is useful, we can always increase the money later.”

  Korinna saw her husband grow tense at the suggestion. It was only a slight change, the tendons in his arms and neck standing out a little more beneath his dark skin, but she knew him well enough now to spot the reaction that he hid from most people. He didn’t call himself a mercenary anymore, but he had felt the loss of each one of his soldiers personally when they fell under his command, and she also felt the sting of Charis’s casual dismissal of their lives.