A Pride of Gryphons

by Kristen S. Walker

  But worst of all, in the center of the market square, several marewings were gathered in a tight circle. Their heads were bent down to the ground and their wings were folded against their backs. One of them had a familiar white coat.

  Tatiana took an involuntary step forward. “Lilywhite…?”

  Five heads snapped up in unison and turned their glowing red eyes toward the soldiers. Something dark dripped from their muzzles.

  “Watch it,” growled the captain, blocking her path with his shield. “Don’t approach them. Make some noise!”

  A cacophony rose as the other soldiers began to beat on their instruments arrhythmically, but Tatiana was frozen in place. She let the frying pan slip from her fingers and clatter to the ground. “Lilywhite!” she screamed, straining to make her voice heard over the noise.

  Lilywhite tossed her head, sending a shower of droplets from her muzzle. The liquid looked black where it spotted her coat, but when she peeled her lips back to bare her teeth, it gleamed red in the torchlight.

  Blood. “They’re hurt!” Tatiana cried, pushing forward past the others. The captain grabbed for her and she stumbled, dropping her shield, but she regained her footing and ran forward. All she could think was that someone had disobeyed the order not to attack the marewings and now they were bleeding, and she had to get to her marewing to help her.

  Some of the marewings backed up, startled by the noise, but Lilywhite whinnied a challenge and reared back on her hind legs.

  Tatiana skidded to a halt several yards away from the marewings and looked down. It took a moment for her tired brain to process what she was seeing on the ground, but the horror of it brought her to her knees.

  At first, it looked like an indistinguishable mass of red. But then she made out a mangled hand, a skull caved in by cloven hooves, limbs torn from bodies—human bodies. Their blood pooled on the cobblestones. As she stared, one of the marewings bent her gray head and lapped at the puddle—and the gesture, which looked so gentle and peaceful when they drank from a stream, suddenly became a nightmare.

  She doubled over and retched. There was nothing left in her stomach but bile, burning her throat as it came up, but she couldn’t stop the spasms.

  “Tatiana, look out!”

  The shouting behind her pierced through her shock and made her look up. Lilywhite had come back down on all four hooves and was running toward her. There was no time to move. Tatiana threw her hands up to protect her head and turned away from the oncoming marewing.

  Crash!

  Tatiana flinched, but nothing touched her. She blinked and looked up in surprise. Orivan was standing over her, his shield raised to block Lilywhite’s blows.

  “Get back,” he gasped out.

  Lilywhite screamed in frustration and raised back up on her hind legs again.

  Tatiana forced herself to scrabble backwards across the cobblestones. Strong hands pulled her up from the ground and she was pushed roughly back into the middle of the knot of soldiers.

  Orivan dropped his shield, already dented from the hoof strikes, and dropped to the ground in a roll away from Lilywhite’s flailing hooves. He narrowly slipped away just as she came crashing back down to the ground.

  Drums beat and pots clanged loudly, and the other soldiers rushed forward, yelling wordlessly to drive the marewings back. Finally, Lilywhite backed off. The other marewings had already taken flight by then, and without her fellows around her, she seemed to realize she was outnumbered. She ran down the length of the courtyard and sprang up into the air with a final defiant scream.

  Tatiana was still shaking from the encounter. She could do nothing but stare as her marewing flew away.

  Shots rang out from the city’s three cannons on the walls, echoing through the city. She buried her face in her hands, not wanting to see anymore.

  Korinna X

  The taste of blood flooded Korinna’s mouth, hot and coppery as if she’d just bitten the inside of her cheek. The feeling was so real that she reached up to touch her face, but of course nothing was there. She fumbled for the glass of water on the table beside her and almost knocked it over in her haste.

  Aristia reached out to steady the glass and guided her hand carefully to her mouth. “Are you doing alright?”

  Korinna shook her head quickly before tipping the glass back. She gulped down the water greedily, trying to wash away the foul taste. “Sorry,” she gasped once the water was all drained. “It’s getting… harder to block her out.”

  Aristia put the glass down and gripped Korinna’s hand tightly, and the sensation of blood began to fade away. As the horrible night had dragged on, the girl helped bolster up Korinna’s own mental defenses with her strange power, but each time it was a little less effective.

  And the effort was draining her. After what felt like hours, Korinna could barely raise up to a half-sitting position without her whole body shaking. Her limbs ached and her belly had cramped up. It had also been a long time since the baby’s last stirrings of movement, but she tried not to think about that too much. She told herself the baby was only sleeping and pushed darker thoughts out of her mind.

  If only she could sleep, too. She was so exhausted that dark spots swam before her eyes if she turned her head too quickly. She’d almost dozed off a few times earlier on, but it seemed that her mental barriers relaxed when she tried to sleep, because the strange feelings had swamped her each time and forced her back to wakefulness. She realized that she would not be able to sleep until whatever was happening was finally over.

  When the wave had passed, Aristia let go of Korinna’s hand and reached for a pitcher of water to refill the glass. “I’m worried about how much this is affecting you,” she said, looking down at the floor. “The priest isn’t even performing his ritual anymore, so far as I can sense. But the wyld magic just keeps going on and so do the marewings. It’s like once he set them off, it triggered something else which just keeps making it bigger. Just like last time.”

  Korinna licked her lips but didn’t touch her water right away, watching the girl closely. “What time?”

  “The last time when the priests used wyld magic in the city,” Aristia explained, shifting uneasily on her stool. She’d pulled it up close to the couch so she could help Korinna immediately when each wave of magic came. “When the vines grew over everything. It’s hard to explain… I almost feel like the city is coming alive under my feet, and it reflects the wyld magic back, multiplying it. Once that kicked off, he backed away from his ritual, and now he only gives it little boosts every now and then.”

  Korinna frowned, trying to remember what she knew about magic. “That doesn’t make sense.” She looked down at Aristia’s feet and the floor beneath them. “Kyratia is built on magestone. It’s supposed to—to block wyld magic, somehow. It’s kept monsters out of the city for hundreds of years.”

  Aristia cocked her head to the left. “Then how do the marewings get in?”

  Korinna blinked in surprise. She’d never stopped to think about it before. Most of the time, she didn’t really think of marewings in the same category as other monsters, especially when she thought about her own Sungold.

  Another cramp rippled across her belly, interrupting her thoughts. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to Lygeia that she wasn’t going into labor. It was months too early for her baby to come now.

  Aristia reached for her hand again, but it didn’t help the pain because it wasn’t caused by the magic. Still, the touch was vaguely comforting. Korinna gripped the girl’s hand until the cramp had passed.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t keep doing this,” she whispered softly. “Something has to change soon, or… I don’t know what will happen.”

  Aristia nodded solemnly. “Should I go to fetch the physician? Or a midwife?”

  Korinna looked to the latched windows. “It’s not safe outside. I can’t send you out there. But maybe we could ask one of the guards? Could you go to the front door and ask them
?”

  Aristia left the room, and a few moments later, the sound of the front door opening echoed down the hallway. There was a long delay before the door shut and locked again.

  Aristia came back shaking her head. “It looks like the guards are gone. Maybe they were needed somewhere else.”

  Korinna closed her eyes again. Then her fate was in the hands of the gods.

  She opened her eyes and pointed to the front foyer. “There are candles on the altar for my ancestors. I can’t get up to pray right now, but maybe if you light them…” She didn’t finish the sentence, knowing how desperate she sounded, but she couldn’t think of anything else.

  Aristia shuffled from one foot to the other. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get someone? I can go carefully, I promise.”

  “No,” Korinna snapped, harsher than she meant it. She forced herself to soften her voice. “I mean, I need you to stay here with me. And maybe the guards or someone else will come back to check on us soon?” She tried to manage a hopeful smile, but it felt more like a grimace.

  Aristia looked unconvinced, but she bobbed her head and turned back to the foyer. “I’ll just go light those candles real quick. Call if you need me.”

  Pounding sounded on the front door, hard enough to rattle the nearby windows. Aristia froze in place and looked back at Korinna, her eyes wide.

  Korinna swallowed hard, but she nodded and gestured to Aristia. “Our prayers could be answered. Go see who it is.”

  The frantic knocking came again and a man’s voice shouted outside, but his words were muffled by the thick wood.

  Aristia froze again. “I—I don’t think it’s the priest,” she said slowly.

  “Of course it’s not, why would he come here?” Korinna pointed at the door again. “Please open it. I promise it’s alright.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

  Aristia tiptoed slowly out of the room. This time, it was several long moments before there was the sound of the bolt sliding back, and then another pause before the door creaked open slowly.

  A man in a dirty, rumpled robe came bustling into the room and stopped short when he saw Korinna on the couch. “Oh, Your Grace!” He doubled over in a deep bow. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize this was your house. I must have gotten turned around somewhere.”

  When he straightened up again, Korinna squinted in the candlelight and she finally recognized his face. “Mage Ameyron! What are you doing here?”

  ***

  Korinna stared at the mage with a mixture of surprise and hope. Could this be the answer to her prayers?

  Ameyron blinked rapidly and looked around the room. “Well, I’m afraid that’s a little complicated to explain, and I’m not sure where to begin. Do you want the long version or—I suppose I don’t really have the time for that. I have to figure out what went wrong…” He looked down at his hands, which held two oddly-shaped metal rods. He shoved them into a pocket and pulled out a small, battered notebook, flipping between the pages and muttering to himself.

  Aristia came back into the room and peered up at the mage. “What were you looking for?”

  Ameyron jumped and dropped the notebook on the floor with a clatter. “What—who said I was looking for anyone? I mean, anything?”

  Aristia pointed at the metal rods sticking out the top of one of his pockets. “Those things were pointing at me when you came to the door. Did I do something wrong?”

  Korinna cleared her throat and tried to gesture at the girl to quiet her before she said the wrong thing. “Now, now, Aristia, don’t bother the mage. Perhaps you can get him something to drink. What refreshment can we offer you, Ameyron?”

  “Sorry, Your Grace. I’ll go see what we still have in the kitchen.” Aristia dropped a curtsy and turned to leave the room.

  “Wait.” Ameyron walked around the girl and peered down at her. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

  Aristia bobbed her head. “The duke brought me to you when I got sick last year. You cured me of the dancing madness.”

  Ameyron rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How strange. Could I have accidentally been thinking about that incident from before and the loss in focus led to the mistake? I found a person, but otherwise the located target is completely unrelated to my original query…” He continued to mutter to himself, crossing back to pick up his notebook again. He plopped into a nearby chair and fell to studying his notes with intense concentration.

  Seeing that the mage was distracted again, Korinna waved hastily for Aristia to leave the room, then turned back to Ameyron with a strained smile. “I’m sorry, but you still haven’t explained why you’re here. Are you looking for someone? If it’s my husband, I’m afraid he left when the alarm bells started ringing and hasn’t been back here since.”

  Ameyron looked up with a scowl. “No, no, I saw the duke in the military compound. I don’t wish to alarm you, but I think I can say that he asked me to find the person responsible for the current attacks. It seems there’s someone using wyld magic inside the city once again.”

  Aristia rushed back into the room, far too soon for her to have gone all the way to the kitchen and back. “You’re going to stop the priest?”

  Ameyron shook his head without looking up. “I don’t know if it’s a priest. I prefer not to jump to conclusions.”

  Korinna cut off the girl with another stern wave of her hand before she could protest again. “Aristia is merely curious about magic. She hopes to go to your Academy when she’s finished with her primary schooling.” She gave Aristia another stern look with a slight shake of her head so she wouldn’t say anything more. She was afraid what Ameyron would think if he found out both of them had some connection to wyld magic.

  Ameyron nodded absently. “Well, I don’t have time to answer questions right now. The warlord and the duke both told me it’s of utmost importance that we find whoever is responsible as soon as possible.” He consulted a page in his notebook, then pulled out the metal rods from his pocket and looked them over carefully.

  Another wave of pain washed over Korinna. She groaned and doubled over, clutching at her belly. Aristia hurried over to grab her hand and held it until she pushed back the harmful magic once again, but the effort left Korinna panting and sweating.

  Ameyron dropped his rods on the floor and jumped up from the chair. “What was that?” He pointed at Aristia with an accusing finger, his eyes widening. “What did she just do?”

  Korinna put a hand up to protect the girl, who took a wary step back. “Don’t jump to conclusions,” she said, throwing his own words back at him. “She’s only trying to help me. Whatever is happening to the marewings…” She paused for breath, still exhausted from the latest attack. “It’s hurting me and my baby somehow, through my own marewing, Sungold. She’s just trying to hold back the wyld magic.”

  Ameyron sputtered in disbelief. “How is such a thing possible? No, wait.” He held up a finger. “As much as it hurts me to say it, there is no time to figure this out. More importantly, I need you to tell me exactly what it is you are doing. This could explain what’s been going wrong with my dowsing spell.”

  Aristia looked down at Korinna, who nodded in reluctant approval. She swallowed nervously and pointed to her left ear. “I can hear them, the marewings and the priest who is doing the ritual to make them all riled up. I can’t stop the shouting, so I guess I sort of shout back until it drowns them out.” She touched her head. “But on the inside. I know it sounds crazy—”

  “Who cares?” Ameyron interrupted with a shake of his head. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about wyld magic, it’s that it doesn’t follow the same internal logic as any other type of magic I’ve ever studied. If you say this is how you perceive it, and you can produce demonstrable results…” He trailed off, staring at Korinna. “Well, if you say it feels like this is helping, then I will have to accept that as proof enough for now.”

  Korinna cleared her throat. “She did it earlier tonight, when the
gryphons were here. She called the marewings to the city and saved us all.” She raised her eyebrows at the girl, hoping she would take the hint.

  Perhaps it wasn’t the kindest thing she’d ever done to pin her own actions on a young girl. But Korinna couldn’t admit her use of wyld magic to the mage, who would no doubt tell her husband. Even if it didn’t get out to the general populace and cause a scandal—Kyratia’s own duchess, able to control dangerous monsters!—at the very least, Galenos would be angry at her for risking their child. She had to keep her own abilities a secret.

  Aristia’s eyes widened a little, but she nodded quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know they would go mad. I just wanted to help.”

  Ameyron had already whipped out a new notebook and was scribbling furiously, bracing it against his upper leg. It seemed to Korinna that his handwriting couldn’t be very legible in that position. “Oh, this is miraculous. The biggest discovery I’ve made in all my years of studying wyld magic.” He looked up at Aristia again. “I wonder if you would be willing to try something. Whatever, ah, call you used to bring the marewings here, could you reverse it? Do you think you could send them out of the city?”

  Aristia looked down at Korinna, her face blank with shock.

  Korinna opened her mouth and closed it again. She hadn’t thought of sending them away. It seemed so simple when he said it like that, but he didn’t know the truth—that Korinna had actually been the one to call them, that she couldn’t use any more magic without potentially hurting her baby, or that both her and Aristia had exhausted themselves almost to the point of dropping. Did either of them have the strength left to pull off something that big?

  Korinna rested a protective hand over her stomach and looked up at the mage with pleading eyes. “What would that much magic do to my baby? I mean, since it’s already affecting me. There’s already been so much strain today, and I haven’t been able to rest.” She reached for Aristia. “If she weren’t helping me, I think I would have already lost the baby.”