by Jess E. Owen
Shard straightened, opening his wings. “Truly. Together, we can. Maybe I couldn’t make them hear me, alone, but together, I know we’ll find a way.”
Hikaru nodded once, then his ears turned back and he lowered himself to the ground, crawling toward Shard and looking quite young again. “I’d like a song. A new song. A dragon song.”
Shard flexed his talons against the rock, thinking. They’d gone through his entire knowledge of gryfon songs, into wolf songs Shard had learned over his short autumn before flying to the Winderost, and the Song of the Summer King, the songs of First and Last Light. He struggled to think of a dragon song.
A rich, wry, gravelly voice came into his head. He shut his eyes, trying to block it and the sadness that came with it. Distracted by Hikaru and their predicament, he had managed not to think of it. Now it threatened to push him to the brink of sorrow.
“I’ve told you how stars form the history of the world in the sky?” Shard began, his voice quavering. In his mind he saw a cliff overlooking a cold starward sea. He saw bright stars sweeping across a black sky and heard a low voice telling him the tales of each one. The remembered voice threatened to break his strength.
“Yes?” Hikaru asked, hungry for knowledge.
The dragonet’s face and curiosity dragged Shard from the brink, and he focused on him.
“I remember,” Hikaru said, inching forward, swiveling his head to peer out of their chamber toward the hole in the top of the mountain, past the glowworms and glowing lichens where Shard had promised him the real sky existed, filled with real stars and the light of the sun. “And how they turn in their season, and hunt each other across the sky, how we may use them to guide our flights, and how bright Tyr burns away the dark, and Tor protects us when Tyr is away. And you followed a starfire to find my mother and me.”
“Yes,” Shard said, proud and a little sad. So much joy and eagerness, and so short a life.
It is Tor who commands the sea, rang an indignant, growling voice in his head, a black gryfon under a star-swept sky, teaching a more ignorant Shard all the things he hadn’t learned. She who brings the thunder when Tyr brings the wind and rain, Tyr’s mate.
The memory of the gryfon who’d first told Shard that tale threatened to push him to the brink of mourning again, and so he focused back on Hikaru.
“Tyr and Tor guide us. And the stars tell all our future and our past,” Shard managed, “all the way back to the First Age when the First creatures came from the Sunlit Land, learned their names, and made the world.”
Hikaru coiled up at Shard’s side and watched him with so much hungry adoration that guilt gnawed at him. He wasn’t so special. All Hikaru knew of the world was what Shard could tell him, and he seemed to think Shard knew everything when he knew very little at all.
But I can tell what little I know.
“Across the sky,” Shard continued, “you’ll see a serpent of stars, a bright band that wraps all the way around the world.” In the telling, he found himself calming down. “It’s my favorite, actually. The star dragon is called Midragur.” He paused, surprised for a moment. He realized, in that heartbeat, that the myth he told couldn’t be from the Sunland or the Winderost, as he’d once thought. The timbre of the name was wrong, different than Amaratsu and Hikaru. He wondered where the myth came from—gryfons, or dragons. Or perhaps the wyrms themselves.…
Hikaru tugged his wing, impatient for the tale. Shard flexed his talons against the ground and shook his head.
“Those who believe that the earth was born from Tyr and Tor also believe that a great dragon coils around it, protecting it as a mother dragon would her egg.” Inspired, Shard retrieved the broken halves of Hikaru’s pearly, discarded eggshell, lying all that time near the wall of the chamber. Hikaru perked his ears as Shard fitted the two largest pieces back together, and leaned forward.
“The wise say that the egg that is the world will still hatch one day.” He turned the egg slowly, like the world turned, as if he and Hikaru were the sun and the moon, with all the stars of existence behind them. Shard leaned closer as Hikaru held his breath.
“That day, that glorious and terrible day when the egg of Midragur hatches, will be the end of the world.”
He popped the eggshells apart.
Hikaru jumped.
Shard laughed and the dragonet shrieked, romping away in long, rolling leaps around the chamber.
“I am Midragur!” he cried, his wild laughter echoing around and around the chamber like bird calls. The loud, overwhelming sound of joy smoothed a balm over Shard’s heart. “I am the dragon made of stars!”
When the echoes of laughter faded, Shard’s ears twitched back and forth at a strange sound. No, not a sound. A lack of sound. He angled his head to peer out of the crystal walls. He still saw the dark, stalking shadows of the wyrms, but they were silent.
Chilled, Shard wondered if they’d fallen silent to hear Hikaru’s laughter. Shard watched him playing, coiling around his own eggshell as Midragur, then “hatching” the egg as Shard had done, and rolling away into oblivion at the end of the world.
Amaratsu had hoped that somehow her son would help to form peace with her wrathful cousins in the Winderost. If they fell silent in the face of his laughter, perhaps that could be a start.
“The Nameless shall know themselves,” Shard whispered, watching Hikaru turn his eggshell around to hatch it again. “And the Voiceless will once again speak…”
The boom and crack of a wyrm’s roar split the dark. Shard flinched, the ground shuddered and tiny bits of eggshell skipped across the chamber. Hikaru fell still, then cast a petulant glare upward, his luminous eyes narrowed to slits.
We have to escape, Shard thought, bleakly following the black dragonet’s gaze.
Hikaru reared up on his hind legs, flaring his narrow wings to their full length, and bellowed at the shadows outside.
“I AM MIDRAGUR!”
A shock thrilled down Shard’s spine. He could only stand, amazed.
“I am the mountain born, son of the earth, son-of-Amaratsu of the Sunland! I stand with the Summer King, the mighty Shard of Sun, and I don’t fear you!”
Hope and worry curled in Shard’s chest. Somehow, Hikaru was learning courage, if only from the songs they sang. The mighty Shard of Sun. Amaratsu had told Shard he seemed like a shard of sunlight in the cave, when he couldn’t remember his own name. He’d told Hikaru all of it. All that had passed. How large and powerful Shard must seem to him now. How small and pathetic he would seem, soon, when they faced the large world outside.
To Shard’s surprise, the roars fell silent for a few heartbeats again, perhaps in shock that any sound came from the crystal at all.
A rumble shook the cavern, but it was not wyrms.
“Earthquake!” Hikaru cried, and laughed as if thrilled, perhaps thinking he’d caused it.
Shard looked at the ground as the tremor grew, shaking the crystal chamber so that the seam where it met the ground rattled, but it didn’t move from its place. He feared what the quakes might mean, since the Horn of Midragur had once been a volcano.
The ground stilled. Then, as if fueled by the knowledge that Hikaru was growing strong within, the wyrms shrieked and fell upon the chamber, smashing claws and horns against it, biting, ramming, to no avail.
Shard sat slowly, eyeing the walls, and the shallow groove he’d dug. Hikaru crouched a moment more, wings wide, jaws open in a low hiss. Another wyrm smashed its body against the chamber. Hikaru winced and fell back, folded his wings and slunk over to Shard, twining up to coil around him and perch on his shoulders as he’d done when he was smaller.
Shard braced against his weight even though he was lighter than he looked, like a bird or gryfon, his bones light as any flying creature. Shard didn’t discourage him, wanting the dragon to feel safe as long as he could.
“I am the star dragon,” Hikaru said again, his coils loose and gentle around Shard’s wings and chest, his delicate claws nervously comb
ing the feathers of Shard’s neck. Shard closed his eyes, letting Hikaru’s voice soothe out all others in his memory, the dragon coiled warm around Shard like the stars around the earth.
“I am Midragur,” whispered Hikaru. “And Shard, you are the world.”
A nightmare.
Shard knew it wasn’t real, yet could not fly out of it. He veered through a chaos of wings, talons, and massive snapping jaws, the wyrms smashing into the towers and arches of the Dawn Spire, killing. Black feathers rained around him and he shouted for his uncle. He shouted for Stigr, then for Asvander, for Brynja. For a moment the ruddy gryfess winged beside him, and his heart thrilled, beating hard, but when she looked at him, her pale golden eyes only condemned.
He thought he saw Kjorn, below, sprinting across the plain with a pack of painted wolves behind him.
He screamed for Tyr to intervene, begged for the sun to rise. A sharp, high pitched voice answered him, calling his name.
Shard rolled and bumped into a warm, scaled body.
Hikaru loomed over him, wings hunched around them both in a protective mantle.
The world seemed to tilt and reel as Shard found his breath. Real wyrms, not his nightmare, screamed out in the dark and beyond them, the silent, false sky glowing with splashes of the glowworms.
Shard lay on his side, panting, staring up at Hikaru, now the size of a mountain cat—much larger than a gryfon fledge. His length made him seem larger. When he saw that Shard was awake, he lowered from his crouch to coil his body in a circle around him.
“What did you dream?” His voice flicked like a winter wind, warming toward a new depth. Shard yearned to hear the accent of the Sunland, Amaratsu’s warm accent, but Hikaru had learned his speaking from Shard, and his speech was the half-lilted, rough burr of a gryfon. “You were crying out so loudly I thought the wyrms had broken in.”
Shard shut his eyes. “I dreamed the battle at the Dawn Spire, when the wyrm cut down my uncle.” He stood slowly, stretching inside Hikaru’s coil. “Or maybe it was a battle to come.”
“I hope not.” Hikaru loosed a strained chuckle. “It sounded horrible.”
“It was,” Shard agreed, closing his eyes briefly as he remembered Stigr, motionless in the red mud.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Hikaru said, averting his gaze and seeming, Shard thought, to purposefully change the subject. “I want to show you something.” Hikaru slipped out of his coil, and Shard realized he was losing some of his youthful awkwardness, coming into the strength and grace of his delicate bones and his serpentine body. He tried to determine if it had only been another day or if he was losing track of time entirely.
“What is it?” Shard followed him to the crystal wall, to the shallow groove Shard had managed to create by wearing his talons dull.
Hikaru crouched, and, his eyes on Shard, dug his paws against the dirt and rock.
“Don’t,” Shard said quickly. “I know you want to help, but let me. You’ll wear your claws dull and then where would we be? Hikaru…”
He trailed off as Hikaru’s gaze became sly. He held up a paw, full of dirt and rock, then dropped the dirt to the ground. Where Shard struggled to carve the shallowest groove in the ground, Hikaru dug steadily. Easily, he scooped another paw full of dirt, and another. Shard stared, then grasped one of the dragon’s forelegs, holding it up to examine the claws.
In the false star light they gleamed, sharp as shaved obsidian.
“I think,” Hikaru murmured with suppressed delight, “my talons are stronger than yours now.”
“I think you’re right,” Shard breathed. He’d been a fool. Of course Hikaru’s claws would be sharper, stronger, and Shard needn’t have been so protective.
“We can escape,” Hikaru said quietly, his gaze moving to the dark beyond the walls.
“Yes,” said Shard. “Let’s fill the hole again. I don’t want the wyrms to suspect. Not all of them leave when they hunt. A few stay, to wait, but they do sleep. We’ll wait for them to sleep, and dig more.” He pressed his own talons to the rock, relieved and then terrified. He shivered, brightening his voice. “Are you ready for the rest of the world, Hikaru?”
“Yes.” Every little pointed fang showed. “I’m ready for everything.”
~ 4 ~
Mourning
“Only the long day brings rest
Only the dark of night, dawn.
When the First knew themselves, the wise will say
They took their Names to the Sunlit Land
But their Voice in the wind sings on.”
GRYFON AND WOLF VOICES rose with the gusts of winter wind on the smallest, barren island of the Silver Isles, called Black Rock. Snow covered most of the surface of the isle, which was true to its namesake. On a high slope amid a half ring of broken boulders stood an odd gathering, a mix of Vanir, Aesir, half-blooded gryfons born from each, and several wolves from the Star Isle.
Caj stood at the back of the gathering, more keenly aware than ever how his feathers stood out against the snow, unnatural in that land—unnatural in any land, feathers the blazing hue of a sea in summer. Other Aesir stood just as bright, their feathers somehow divinely or sorcerously stained in outlandish hues. Supposedly it was a sign of their right to rule, their forefathers’ victory in a war with dragons at the bottom of the world. Caj had begun to doubt, and wondered if anything that he’d ever been told was true.
“Einarr’s voice will sing on.” Ragna’s declaration carried across the wind, and Caj shuddered at the sight of her. Gone was the false humility, the meekness, the quiet Widow Queen. Standing before the gathering now was the ruling regent, proud and powerful as the moon. She commanded the Vanir of the Sun Isle until their king returned.
Until Shard returned.
And what will I be then? Caj wondered, unsure how his nest-son felt about him, in his deep heart. When first he’d heard that Shard survived his plunge into the sea, he’d felt relief and joy. Now, only doubt. Everything was doubt.
Ragna called out the other names, those who had fallen that winter, either to starvation, the cold, or the final clash with the mad Red King. Caj lowered his gaze to behold the bodies laid out in the snow, their wings stretched out as if they might, at any moment, lift from the snow and fly to the Sunlit Land. Pitiful keening made his ears twitch, and he looked over furtively to see Einarr’s widowed mate, white Astri, huddled between her wingsister Kenna, and Einarr’s mother, a full-blooded Aesir.
Caj looked away before any of them lifted their eyes to see him. He had failed the pride, failed to restrain his own wingbrother, and now they stood singing songs of mourning for the dead.
Sigrun pressed to his side, offering wordless reassurance. Caj shifted his wing against his mate, attempting comfort, then flinched at the pain. Hard mud and splint still bound his wing to form, the break not yet fully healed. He’d had to walk, following Sigrun and a wolf through the labyrinth of underground tunnels that connected all the islands. At least Sigrun had walked with him. At least he hadn’t borne the humiliation of being ground bound alone.
His gaze flicked to the wolves on the far side of the group. If not for them, he too would be among the dead.
Ragna finished her recognition of the fallen—Einarr, another elder of the Vanir who’d succumbed to hunger, another who’d died in the sea attempting to fish. She turned her attention to the largest wolf of the gathering, a tall, strapping male with black shoulders that blended down into gold and cream on his chest. Two gryfon feathers, braided into the thick fur of his neck, flicked in the breeze, gray and gold.
The feathers of future kings, Caj thought, poetically, and managed not to scoff. It seemed a vain tradition, the wearing of gryfon feathers, that was growing in popularity among the younger wolves, but there were many things about wolves that Caj still didn’t understand. Still, they had saved his life that winter, and had asked only for his friendship in return. He supposed he didn’t need to understand them completely to befriend them. His sense of honor begged
tolerance and curiosity for their ways, rather than disdain.
Ragna mantled to the young wolf king. “We thank you, Great Hunter, for attending our farewell. It honors our fallen. We hope you’ll join us for feasting on the Sun Isle. We know your hunting has been not much better than ours on land, but now that we’ve returned to the sea, we eat well.”
Ahanu, the wolf king, dipped his head.
Ragna cast a look to several fledges, who straightened to attention, then with her nod they trotted away to fetch something from behind the tall boulders at Ragna’s back. “And we also offer you a gift.”
Ahanu raised his head, as did the other wolves. The fledges reappeared from behind the boulder, dragging heavy pelts. Wolf pelts. Ahanu’s gaze drifted to them, then back to Ragna’s face, neutral, reserving judgment.
“The act of skinning was a desecration of your fallen kin,” Ragna said, her gaze slashing over the Aesir gryfons in the gathering. “We return these to you to lay to rest as you will. All those who fell under the conquerors’ reign.”
She will never stop punishing us, Caj thought, meeting her gaze when it swept by him. He wondered how Shard would act when he returned—if he did return—if he would work toward restoration and harmony. He had grown up with the Aesir, after all. It was, apparently, what his true father had wanted, for Shard to be raised among the Aesir as a brother, so that when he learned his birthright, he could bring peace to the prides. Privately, Caj thought Baldr a coward, leaving his son a legacy he himself couldn’t bring to pass.
I made him strong, Caj thought, a sense of injustice heating his chest. I lied to Sverin and to Per, and took him under my own wing as my son, even if he never recognized it.
If Shard thought that justice would mean exiling Aesir who had made the Silver Isles their home, or more likely, kill them, Caj knew it would only be the vengeance of war. But, when he thought more reasonably about it, he couldn’t see Shard giving an order like that.
