I move closer still. “My mother agreed to let this gryphon live because it was pregnant, which meant an incredible opportunity to learn more about these monsters. The more we know, the more easily we can deal with them. This gryphon wasn’t a pet. It was a research subject who taught our monster hunters more about its kind than we ever imagined. That is why we kept it alive, and if it had to be killed, it was supposed to happen after the gryphon had the baby. You had no reason to do it before that.”
“No reason except to ensure you didn’t unleash another monster on our kingdom. Make sure you didn’t decide to add this baby to your menagerie. That beast”—she jabs a finger at Malric—“is menace enough.”
“Malric was my aunt’s companion.” I step toward the doctor. “You treat me like a child, but I am not a child. I’m a princess and the royal monster hunter, and I do not for one moment believe this was your idea. You couldn’t have secured this beast on your own.”
“Those who helped knew nothing of my plans. This was my choice. Mine alone.”
I move beside the dead gryphon, palpating its abdomen, making sure the baby is still moving. Some of the sedative will have passed to it, and its movements have slowed.
Am I doing the right thing? Am I being mature about this? Or am I prolonging a beast’s pain because I’m not ready to let go?
“It’s dying, Rowan,” Dr. Tyesha says. Her voice is calm and gentle, but it still raises my hackles. “As a monster hunter, you know what is best, as hard as that might be.”
“No.”
“Then you truly are a child. A self-centered—”
Alianor bursts in with a medical bag in her hand.
“That’s mine!” Dr. Tyesha exclaims. “You stole it from my quarters.”
“Yep, I did.” She walks up beside me, touches the gryphon’s side and nods. Then she turns to Dr. Tyesha. “So—”
A clomping sounds outside the door. It swings open, and there’s Rhydd, his bad leg wearing its nighttime brace. Jacko hops in past him, and I look around, as if I’m seeing double. Jacko was right beside me…
He was beside me earlier, but during the fight with Dr. Tyesha, I must not have noticed that he’d slipped out.
“Jacko scratched at my door,” Rhydd says. “I figured that meant you were in trouble, and I should follow.” His gaze goes to the gryphon lying on its side. “Is it time for the birth…?” He trails off. Then he puts a hand to the gryphon’s cooling body, and his eyes widen.
“She’s gone,” I say. “We need to remove the baby.”
“Remove…?” He pales and then swallows before squaring his shoulders. “Right. Doctor Tyesha, I presume you’re performing the procedure. Alianor will assist, along with Rowan and myself. Is there anything you require before we begin?”
When Dr. Tyesha doesn’t answer, Rhydd glances at me. I’m beside the gryphon with Alianor, who’s running her hand through the fur on the beast’s belly, assessing.
“We need hot water and towels,” Alianor says to Rhydd. “If you could get those, your highness, we’d appreciate it.”
He looks again at the doctor.
“Doctor Tyesha isn’t in charge anymore,” I say. “She killed the gryphon. Then she tried to kill the baby.”
He wheels on Dr. Tyesha. Before he can say anything, I cut in with, “We really are going to need water and towels, Rhydd. Unless you’d rather assist with the surgery.”
His expression answers that. My brother is a fine hunter, but there are aspects to it that don’t necessarily agree with his stomach. He turns to go and then pauses to face the doctor.
“Doctor Tyesha,” he says, his tone formal. “May I escort you to your quarters, please? You will remain there until morning, when you will explain your actions to the queen.”
I don’t hear what the doctor says. I’m busy with Alianor, who’s using a razor to cut a strip of tawny fur just below the bulge that is the baby gryphon.
Once Rhydd and Dr. Tyesha are gone, Alianor murmurs, “On a practical note, at least I don’t need to worry about injuring the mother.”
“Hmm.”
“Which is good, because I’ve assisted twice, but I’ve never led the procedure. I need to open her up and take out the baby. Preferably without cutting it.”
“Preferably.”
I want to reassure her that if anything goes wrong, I’ll understand. Yet she doesn’t need that. I’ve been raised to act as if I’m sure of my choices and actions. With Alianor, it isn’t acting. She sees something she must do, and she does it, and if it doesn’t go according to plan, she’ll deal with that later.
Jacko has climbed onto the beast and is peering down. He’s staying out of Alianor’s light, so I let him be. He’s curious, like me. Malric is not—the warg stands facing the partly open door, as if guarding, but I can’t help but wonder whether, like Rhydd, he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to see this.
I do want to see it. And, yes, it helps that the gryphon is dead. I hate saying that, but it means we don’t have to worry about what damage we cause getting the baby out of the womb.
As Alianor cuts, I hold the baby-bulge in place. Then I need to stretch the incision while Alianor reaches inside and—
“Oh!” Rhydd says behind us, his boots squeaking as he stops short.
“Look away,” I say. “Just have the blankets and the water ready, and keep your back to us.”
He does, and after a moment, Alianor says, “Pull!” and I need to heave the incision wider. She pulls too, and what she’s pulling isn’t nearly as small as a human baby. As she grunts with exertion, Rhydd appears at my side.
“You don’t need—” I begin.
“Help Alianor.”
He takes my place, and I reach inside and touch what feels like a beak. I don’t want to tug on that. Nor do I want the head I feel next. I keep going until I’m holding the baby’s body with Alianor, and then we count to three and—
The gryphon pops out like a bottled cork and hits me square in the stomach. I stagger, and Alianor yelps and knocks into me, and down I go, flat on my back with something on top of me.
I lift my head to find myself looking into the eyes of a tiny gryphon.
“Hello,” I say.
It opens its beak and lets out a gurgling screech. “You…may not want to hug that,” Rhydd says. “It’s…a little messy.”
It is. It’s also shivering in the chilly barn. I wrap my arms around the baby, ignoring the mess, as Alianor cuts the umbilical cord. I hold the baby tight against my chest and crawl over to the blankets and water. Jacko hops along with me, his ears twitching with interest. When I start cleaning the baby, he sniffs it. Malric looks our way and curls his lips, as if to say, “That’s disgusting.”
It is not disgusting. It is wondrous. In my hands I hold the first baby gryphon we have ever seen, maybe even the first anyone has seen. We only knew they had live births, not egg hatchings. I am looking at something incredible and magnificent…and also adorable.
The baby is as big as a medium-sized dog—at least two feet long, not including the tail, which it keeps tucked around its body. It has huge eyes, the nictitating membrane flicking sideways over amber pupils. Its head looks like an eagle’s, its ears slicked down, and even when I dry them, they’re small and more rounded than an adult’s. Instead of feathers, its upper half is golden down, the same color as the wet fur on its body. It has four legs, the top ones birdlike, and the back ones like a cat’s. Its small wings stay pressed tight against its body.
I sit on the floor, and I clean the baby gryphon, and it stares at me. When I move, its gaze follows me, head wobbling. Rhydd and Alianor crouch beside me, and they reach to pet it, but it doesn’t even seem to notice. It just keeps staring at me.
The door opens, cold air rushing through, and I gather the gryphon to me. Berinon steps in with, “What’s—?” Then he sees
me holding the gryphon and a huge smile lights up his broad face.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” he says. “Did it fly out of the womb and straight into your arms?”
“Not exactly.”
He opens his mouth to say something else. Then he catches sight of the mother gryphon. His gaze travels over it, from its bloodied belly to its lolling head. He rubs his mouth and shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “It happens, but I’m still sorry you had to see that. At least the baby survived. Doctor Tyesha did her job well. Your mother will be pleased.” He looks around. “Where is the doctor?”
Rhydd pushes to his feet. “That’s a long story, and it’s Rowan’s to tell. We might want to wake Mom to hear it.”
* * *
An hour later, I’ve told my tale, and I’m sitting on the floor in the throne room feeding ground meat to the baby gryphon. We weren’t sure what it would eat, but I theorized it would be more like feeding an eaglet than a kitten, since the mother didn’t have mammary glands. I guessed ground meat, similar to the regurgitated food a mother raptor would use. That seems to be correct, though I’ll need to closely monitor the baby to be sure its stomach doesn’t reject the food.
I’ve told Mom and Berinon my story. Heward was there, too—Berinon fetched him as soon as he realized we were dealing with sabotage. Yes, Heward will be a suspect, but Berinon was also making sure Heward heard my story from the start.
I went through it twice, with Alianor supporting everything. Rhydd brought the syringe and the doctor’s bag with the sedative, and Berinon posted a guard to watch the gryphon’s body so no one could tamper with it.
As for Dr. Tyesha, she’s gone. Rhydd had escorted her to her quarters, but we hadn’t thought to set a guard, and she slipped away before Berinon could fetch her. She left a note taking full responsibility for what happened and being very clear no one else had been involved, which means someone else almost certainly was behind it, someone powerful enough that she’s taken her payment and fled.
Berinon didn’t need to track down the guards who’d assisted Dr. Tyesha. As soon as they heard the commotion, they turned themselves in. The three claim they were approached last night by Dr. Tyesha herself, who’d said the gryphon was about to give birth and she needed their help. She’d told them the queen insisted on discretion to avoid curious onlookers. After the gryphon was bound, they’d returned to their quarters, on the doctor’s orders.
While their story makes sense, Berinon will assign them to non-castle duties while he investigates. We cannot risk having guards who might be loyal to anyone other than their queen.
I listen to Mom and Rhydd discuss the situation while I feed the baby gryphon. Finally, Mom says, “Rowan?” and I look up.
“You realize that will be a problem,” she says, nodding at the newborn. “Whoever is behind the plot will be looking for an excuse to claim that baby endangers us all.”
When I open my mouth, she says, “Yes, it’s a newborn. But it won’t be forever.”
“I know. I was just going to say that I understand.”
“Do you?”
I nod. “I understand that raising her will be my responsibility. I understand that it might not be possible to raise a gryphon in captivity, and she might…” I swallow. “Not survive. If she does, then eventually she will need to be returned to the mountains. We can’t keep a full-grown gryphon here. She must be taken far into the mountains, where she cannot return and endanger humans. If that isn’t possible, she will need to…” Another swallow. “She will need to be euthanized. The kingdom’s safety comes first. This is not a pet or a monster companion. She’s a research project to help us better understand gryphons and protect ourselves from them.”
Mom walks over and bends to kiss the top of my head. “Thank you for understanding that.”
“I do.”
She lowers herself beside me, sweeping her skirts out of the way. “Then let’s enjoy this project while we can,” she says, as she reaches for some of the ground meat to feed the gryphon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TWO MONTHS LATER
“You need to do something about that gryphon.”
Mom stands in the pasture, hands on her hips, Berinon at one side, Wilmot at the other. All three look down at me with matching expressions of frustration. I feel like I’m five again, when both my parents and Berinon would cluster like that, a stone wall of disapproval.
I glance at Wilmot. He’s about Mom’s age, with hair the color of hay and the pale skin of those who live over the mountains. His blue eyes narrow as I glance his way, promising me no shelter there.
“I know,” I say. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know how she—” The gryphon bumps me from behind. I put a hand out to warn her this is not the time. She only bumps me again, annoyed with this interruption to our play.
“I don’t know how she escaped,” I say. “I’m sorry she frightened the chickens.”
“They won’t lay eggs for days now,” Wilmot says. “My basans might never lay again after that scare.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. She’s eating almost half her body weight every day, and she’s still hungry, and I honestly don’t know how she keeps escaping.”
“Are you sure she can’t fly yet?” Mom says.
I glance at Tiera, who bobs her head and then flaps her wings weakly, as if they’re far too small to lift her body from the ground.
“She…hasn’t flown for me,” I say. “Nor has anyone else seen her fly, but I suppose…”
“She might be smarter than you think?” Berinon says. “And keeping her flights a secret?”
Tiera begins cleaning her feathers with her beak.
“She needs to be contained,” Wilmot says. “When she’s not with you, she must wear a leg shackle.”
I shiver at the word shackle.
Wilmot gives me a hard look. “Would you prefer we put her into a cage? Or confine her to the hay barn?”
“We cannot confine her to the hay barn,” Mom murmurs. “Not unless we want the staff driven mad by her shrieking.”
“A shackle with a very long, lightweight chain to provide as much freedom as possible,” Wilmot says. “While we make plans to return her to the mountains before winter.”
“Before winter?” I squeak. “She’s only a…”
I turn to the gryphon, and the word baby dies in my throat. We had theorized about her growth rate. That’s part of science, coming up with theories and seeing if you’ve predicted correctly.
Predatory monsters tend to have long juvenile stages, to give them time to learn to hunt. In the three months Jacko has been with me, he’s doubled his weight, but he’s still only half his adult size. In that same time frame, a baby rabbit would be grown. Dogs take over a year to mature, and wargs require twice that. Therefore, it stood to reason that the massive gryphons would take years to reach maturity.
I glance at Tiera. She lifts her head, and when she does, we’re nearly at eye level. She’s as big as Malric, and getting bigger every day. The problem with my calculations was that I was comparing her to predatory mammalian monsters, like jackalopes and wargs. But she’s half bird, and they mature faster.
Tiera no longer looks like a baby anything. She’s a miniature gryphon, with powerful beak and talons.
As if reading my mind, Mom says softly, “She’s becoming dangerous, Rowan.”
“She’d never hurt me,” I say.
The gryphon nudges my back, more gently now, making a rasping sound that means she wants petting. I scratch her ears, and she leans against me, rubbing her head against my shoulder…and I brace myself against being knocked over.
“She wouldn’t,” I say. “No more than Jacko or Sunniva would.”
“I agree,” Mom says. “Which is part of the problem. She’s imprinted on you.”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t intend that,” I say. “We had no idea that gryphons imprinted, but it’s a fascinating characteristic, one that requires further study—”
“Enough,” Mom says, lifting her hand. She steps forward and gives me a one-armed embrace. “I know you’ve made the most of this time with her. You’ve learned a lot, and I have, too.” She looks at the gryphon, and her expression softens. “I’ve learned that they are more than the terrible monsters I came to hate, and I will always be grateful for that. I also agree that she wouldn’t hurt you.”
The gryphon reaches her head out for Mom, who sighs and pets her. “You are a beautiful, wondrous creature, but you do not belong in a castle. Nor do you belong with a princess, even if she’s the royal monster hunter.”
Mom turns to me. “She wouldn’t hurt you intentionally, Rowan, but the bigger she gets, the more likely she is to do it by accident. She may also injure someone else. She is…less fond of some people than others.”
Wilmot harrumphs at that.
Mom’s right. She’s also being very understanding, given the circumstances. Her husband and sister were killed by gryphons, and now her daughter is raising one that’s already big enough to…
I look at Tiera’s beak and talons.
I’m about to say something else when Dain strides out from behind the barn. He’s holding something red in his arms, and his gaze is fixed on me as he marches over.
“Watch—!” I begin.
Too late. The moment he’s within reach, Tiera swings around, knocking him clear off his feet with her tail. I hurry over and put out a hand to help him up, but he ignores it and gets to his feet as the gryphon wedges her body between us, hissing.
“As I was saying…” Mom murmurs.
It’s not just Dain that Tiera doesn’t like. She isn’t fond of men in general. That seems odd, but when I started asking around, staff mentioned having dogs or cats that preferred humans of one sex or the other. Maybe it’s because Alianor and I were the first people to hold her, and my mother was one of the first to feed her.
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