“We can fill her in tomorrow,” Astar said, doing his best to assume an air of command. The nap had helped, but not enough. “It’s my responsibility to debrief you all—and send a report back to Ordnung. Her Majesty will need to know what happened here, because Gieneke will need help reconstructing.”
“If they even can rebuild,” Jak noted.
“If they even want to.” Stella shuddered. “Some of the things we saw… I wish I could erase them from my mind.”
Beside her, Jak stroked Stella’s hair, careful not to touch her otherwise, and she leaned into the comfort. Astar found himself frowning, which Jak caught and grinned at him jauntily—before swiftly removing his hand.
“Rebuilding will be critical,” Astar said forbiddingly. “This is a major intersection of road and river trade. We can’t afford to have it disrupted, not with a significant amount of winter still ahead.” He let them absorb the implications. “Let’s start with Lena,” he said. “Tell us what you found out aloft, and then you and Nilly can explain what you did.”
“And try to use small words,” Rhy put in, “for those of us who don’t speak bookworm.”
Lena narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t dignify that sally with a reply. “It was some kind of magic storm in the upper atmosphere, but at a much higher altitude than affects normal weather. Above the mesosphere, which is where the—” She glared at Rhy’s snort, but dropped the explanation. “At any rate, I recognized hints of my own magic, and Andi’s, but changed. It was as if something had taken our combined magic from the night of the crystalline moon and—this is not a perfect analogy, but—digested it and spit it out again.”
“Something alive?” Astar asked, trying to get his head around what kind of being that could be.
“Maybe?” Lena answered dubiously. “There’s an intelligence, but what kind and how much I can’t say at this point. Still, something was directing the regurgitated magic, if you will, in order to cause mischief.”
“Mischief?” Rhy echoed in astonishment. “You’re calling the devastation we witnessed ‘mischief’?”
“Stop picking on me, Rhyian,” she responded in a too-calm tone. “Or you will make me angry.”
“Ooh,” he mocked, fluttering his hands in the air. “I’m so scared of—”
“Rhyian,” Astar cut in forbiddingly. “Knock it off. Continue, Lena.”
She flashed him a grateful smile, then poked at a bit of discarded gristle with a rudimentary fork they’d dug out of the cabinets. “That’s the best word I have for what I sensed. Not malice so much as… a desire to cause trouble.”
“I can confirm Lena’s impression,” Stella put in somberly. “I sensed an intelligence—though not like anything I’ve encountered before—and what I’d also call mischief. There wasn’t any remorse or malevolence. It was almost as if something got a taste of that magic and wanted to do something with it.”
“So it created that stone monster,” Astar mused.
“Not created,” Lena corrected. “More like, animated it.”
“Or resurrected,” Stella said, nodding. “Depending on what it was before.”
“Possibly,” Lena agreed. “The hills around here have images embedded in them, left there by people so ancient we don’t have any information about them, not even in the library in Nahanau.”
“And here I thought—” Rhy started.
“Don’t think,” Astar cut him off with a stabbing finger. “Don’t speak.”
“One of those figures,” Lena continued as if the interruption hadn’t occurred, “was of a giant carrying a club. It was delineated by an outline of white stone.”
Jak whistled low and long, and Gen hummed with interest. “So this magical mischief-maker somehow brought the stone giant to life and unleashed it on the town?”
“Seems like a logical explanation,” Lena returned.
“How did it become a gríobhth then?” Gen asked. “We saw the giant from a distance, but it looked kind of human shaped at that point.”
“It morphed when it saw Zeph,” Stella explained. “Lena and I were working together to create a single astral projection to battle the intelligence fueling the giant.”
“Smart, to go to the source,” Astar said, nodding.
“Lena’s idea,” Stella said.
“You provided the power, though. I couldn’t have done it on my own,” Lena replied. “We did something similar with Andi, back at Ordnung, but we clearly need to practice more because it took us way too long to mesh our magics.”
“Zeph was guarding us—I could see that much—and when the giant spotted her, it acted fascinated and changed shape to look like her.”
“Very roughly, though,” Astar mused. “Not shapeshifting.”
“No,” Gen agreed. “It sounds like some other kind of magic entirely. One we haven’t encountered before.”
“May I say something?” Rhy asked.
“Does it involve needling Lena?” Astar asked.
Rhy slammed a fist on the table, making the wooden plates jump. “I have not been—”
“No,” Astar said, cutting him off. He was heartily tired of this and just wanted to lie down again. “You may not speak.”
Rhy clenched his jaw, a muscle bulging there. “It’s relevant to the stone giant.”
“Oh,” Astar said, sitting back and smiling affably, “then, by all means, proceed.”
Glaring, Rhy visibly calmed himself. “When we arrived, the giant was messing around, taking people apart and mashing them together to make new… things.”
“We saw that, too,” Jak said. “Mostly the results of it. Which corresponds to what Zeph saw initially.”
“Exactly.” Rhy nodded. “So what if this intelligence Salena sensed was more like… animating the stone giant, and infusing it with its own interest in making new creatures. The intelligence might’ve reshaped the stone giant into something more exciting once it got a look at Zeph.”
They all contemplated that. “Good thought, Rhy, thank you,” Astar said with a nod of respect. When Rhy gave up being difficult, he could be the sharpest one in the group, besides Lena, of course. “It makes sense,” he continued, “since the giant didn’t seem to be a living creature. The inside of its head was hollow. No eyes, no brain.”
“Because the senses and thoughts came from whatever was using it, more like a puppet than anything,” Gen said.
Astar nodded thoughtfully, then looked to Lena and Stella. “So, how did you destroy it?”
“We basically cut the connection between the intelligence and the giant,” Lena said.
“And scared the intelligence,” Stella added, looking troubled. Here was whatever was bothering her.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
She met his gaze, a rueful half-smile flattening her mouth. “I gathered up all the fear and grief from the townsfolk and…” She gestured with both hands, as if shaping an invisible ball between them. “I kind of compressed it and hurled those emotions at it.”
“It vanished,” Lena said softly, “like it ran away screaming and crying.”
Stella focused on her plate, deeply unhappy, swirling a withered carrot in some gravy.
“I didn’t know you could do that, Nilly,” Astar said, reaching over to take her hand.
She clutched it gratefully. “I didn’t either.”
They all sat in silence for a moment, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Astar glanced at Zeph’s sleeping form in the other room. Still unmoving. Still breathing. “So, we have to expect that it might come back,” he said, “when it recovers.”
“Yes,” Lena agreed, “though not necessarily to here. I got the feeling that it showing up here, at the confluence, was happenstance.”
“All right.” Astar squeezed Stella’s hand and let it go. “I’ll write up a report for Her Majesty, and Rhy can carry it back to Ordnung. I’ll report to King Groningen personally. We should be able to get to Castle Elderhorst by the night after tomorrow, if we leav
e in the morning.”
“No carriages,” Jak pointed out.
“We’ll go on our own,” Astar replied, “shapeshifters carrying non-shifters. The carriages can catch up with us when the ferries are repaired. We’ll be at Elderhorst for a few days anyway. Everyone get some sleep.” He levered himself to his feet, glancing in at Zephyr’s sleeping form. Would anyone argue if he slept beside her?
“A word with you, if you please,” Rhy said through his teeth, though quietly, standing beside him.
Well, at least Rhy was attempting to follow rules of politeness. Astar nodded, gesturing to the bedroom. Nothing would wake Zephyr at this point if the ruckus up till now hadn’t. “Step into my study,” he said wryly.
Rhy nodded stiffly, then waited for Astar to shut the door. “Why are you sending me back?”
Astar raked a hand through his hair. “I need to send a message to Ordnung. You have a winged form that can carry it unobtrusively.”
“Are you getting rid of me?” Rhy demanded, tense enough to break.
“Wouldn’t it be easier?” Astar asked, not unkindly. “I know it’s rough for you, being around Lena. I’m offering you an out. If you go to Ordnung and don’t come back, no one will think less of you for it.” Lena would likely be grateful, in fact.
Rhy stared at him in consternation. “I know everyone else thinks I’m feckless, lazy, and always looking for the way out, but I thought you knew me better than that, Willy.”
He was too tired for this conversation. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he willed himself to think clearly. “I do know better,” he replied. “I know you would never back down from this challenge, so that’s why I’m offering you this opportunity. You don’t have to torture yourself anymore. You certainly don’t have to torture Lena by hounding her relentlessly.”
Rhy sagged, going from bristling for a fight to lost and wounded. “Is that what you all think I’m doing?”
“What is your plan, cousin?” Astar asked. Really, Stella should be having this conversation with him.
“I want to win her back,” Rhy said, bracing himself for a scathing reply—and even glancing at the sleeping Zephyr as if she might sit up and laugh at him.
In truth, Astar had to school his expression not to look incredulous. The room was shadowed, but Rhy’s shapeshifter vision was keen enough to see clearly. “Why?” he asked simply.
“What do you mean?” Rhy snarled. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
“It’s not,” Astar replied crisply. “I find it interesting that you used the word ‘win.’ Is that what this is about—you simply can’t resist the challenge?”
Rhy’s face hardened with temper. “That’s a foul thing to suggest.”
“You asked what everyone thinks you’re doing,” Astar replied evenly, giving in to the weariness to sit at the end of the bed. “That’s what it looks like. You had Lena before—and you deliberately extricated yourself from the relationship with the cruelest betrayal you could think up on short notice.”
“I was an idiot,” Rhy bit out.
“Can’t argue with that, cousin. But you still haven’t told me what your long-term plan is. Do you want to marry her?”
Rhy scoffed reflexively, a very Tala sound. “You’ve been around mossbacks too long, Willy. You know Tala don’t think that way.”
“Lena isn’t Tala, and she does think that way. She wants what her parents have—a lifelong commitment founded on deep love and respect. She wants a partnership like they have, and children. Even I know that about Lena, and I’m hardly in her confidence. How can you not know that about her?”
“I know it,” Rhy insisted, sounding sullen. “I also know she loves her work in that desert more than she loves any person.”
“I imagine there’s a reason for that,” Astar commented wryly. Apparently keen shapeshifter vision didn’t make for keen shapeshifter insight. The man was blind to so much.
“Explain.”
“She can give her love to the work and it will never throw it back in her face.”
Rhy raked a hand through his hair. “That’s what I’m trying to prove to her. I loved her then. I love her still. But she won’t listen to me, and your fucking moratorium is—”
Astar chopped a hand in the air to cut off Rhy’s rising volume, pointing at Zephyr. He didn’t think anything would wake her at this point, but he also didn’t want to listen to Rhyian’s complaints. “I put the moratorium in place partially to protect Lena from you,” he said bluntly.
Rhy clenched his fists. “I knew it. Salena doesn’t need protecting from me. I’d do anything for her.”
“Good.” Astar said. “There’s plenty for you to do—starting with the task I assigned you.”
“I can’t prove myself to Salena if I’m not here,” Rhy growled in frustration.
“Then go and come back. Prove that you can do something against your self-interest,” Astar growled back, then relented, softening his tone. “You broke more than Lena’s heart all those years ago, Rhy. You broke her trust. That’s what you should be trying to fix.”
Rhy threw up his hands. “And how in Moranu am I supposed to do that?”
“By demonstrating your trustworthiness.”
“Not all of us are infatuated with honor, Willy,” Rhy sneered. “You’re so bound by inflexible rules that you might as well be walking around in a cage. Tell me, oh noble crown prince, how are you going to reconcile your two vows? You can’t keep your promise to Zeph and abide by your moratorium. Unless you’re hoping she won’t remember. She was pretty far out of her head at the time.”
Astar slowly rubbed his hands together, not letting himself look at Zephyr. A part of him—a reckless, wild, and dangerous part—was secretly thrilled at the bind he’d gotten himself into. At last he had a reasonably honorable excuse to give into his longing for her. But he wouldn’t confess that to Rhy. He and his cousin both had enough trouble governing their wilder natures as it was.
“Even if she doesn’t remember, I’d abide by my vow to her,” he explained slowly. “You might have contempt for the rigidity of the rules of honor, but this is how being trustworthy works. Being worthy of someone’s trust means that you abide by your promises to them—stated and implied—whether they are aware of it or not.”
“I don’t need lessons from you,” Rhy ground out.
“You certainly don’t have to listen to them,” Astar agreed. “Which is why I’m giving you an out. Take the message to Ordnung. If you don’t rejoin us, no harm, no foul. But if you do come back, no more teasing Lena. No more needling her for a reaction.”
“I’m just trying to get through to her. She’s giving me the cold shoulder and—”
“And that’s her choice,” Astar cut in. “She told you, in front of everyone, that she does not want to get back together with you.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No. There is nothing after ‘but’ in that sentence. She said no. So there will be no more flirting or attempts at seduction. You will be a friend to Lena and nothing more.”
“I am not your subject,” Rhy spat out, pacing away from him.
“If you’re here, you are. You want to be free? Don’t come back. It’s that simple, Rhy.”
Rhy spun back. “Go write your report. I’ll take your message. Now. Tonight.”
Astar inclined his head, opening the bedroom door and gesturing for Rhy to precede him. He’d far rather sleep now and write it in the morning, but no sense stalling Rhy’s departure, especially with him in such a foul mood.
In the outer room, Stella lay on the rug by the fire, curled up in cat form and sound asleep. Jak sprawled snoring on the hard floor nearby, twin daggers close to each hand, guarding her even in his sleep. No sign of Gen—she’d probably elected to sleep in owl form in the nearby woods. Lena, who’d been sitting at the now-cleared and scrubbed wooden table, dozing with her head on her folded hands, woke with a start. She flinched at the sight of Rhyian, averting her sleepy gaze immediately,
and he growled under his breath—both of which reactions only confirmed Astar’s decisions.
“Why don’t you take the bed with Zephyr, Lena?” he suggested gently. “I need to write up this report.”
She nodded, looking grateful, and headed for the darkened bedroom, giving Rhy a wide berth. He started to reach for her, dropping his hand at Astar’s quelling look. “I’m leaving for Ordnung tonight,” Rhy told her, his tone fraught with enough meaning that Astar wanted to slap him upside the head. The guy simply wouldn’t learn.
“Oh,” Lena said, rubbing one sleepy eye. “Fair travels, then.”
“I might not be back,” he warned her, flicking his gaze at Astar, the defiant glint in his eye making it clear he knew he was skirting Astar’s instructions—and that he didn’t care.
Astar was opening his mouth to intervene when Lena straightened her spine, looking far more alert as she sparkled with irritation. “No surprise there, Rhyian. We’ve all learned better than to count on you to commit to anything.” With that, she slipped into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Rhy looked like he’d been gutted where he stood, and Astar figured that would suffice for the last word. “Give me a few minutes to write this up.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Rhy hissed. “I can give a complete report. Or am I not even that trustworthy?”
Astar hesitated, preferring to relate the story in his own words—and also aware that was him wanting to retain control. And him not trusting Rhy. “All right,” he agreed, sending a mental plea to Moranu that Rhy would come through. Rhy belonged to Her, whether he liked it or not, so it would be helpful if the goddess gave him some guidance.
A bit surprised at Astar’s ready capitulation, Rhy paused a moment before heading for the door. “Rhy?” Astar called to him, waiting until Rhy looked over his shoulder warily. “I really hope you come back.”
Rhy’s lip curled, and he left without another word.
~ 16 ~
The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince: An Epic Fantasy Romance (Heirs of Magic Book 1) Page 14
