A Shard of Sun

by Jess E. Owen

  Shard eyed the storm clouds rushing in. “We may have to wait. It’s safer if we go high again, until the storm has passed.”

  “But you’ve flown in a storm, you told me!”

  “Not by choice. And I escaped it by flying out, remember?”

  “I have to eat,” Hikaru declared, a growl coming into his voice, “or I shall fall out of the sky.”

  “Hikaru—”

  Hikaru’s gaze darted over Shard and, perhaps realizing Shard couldn’t stop him, he spiraled lower toward the waves. Indignity and surprise were a waste of time, Shard supposed, in the face of a hungry young dragon. He angled his wings to follow, keeping his gaze on the storm as Hikaru hunted for fish. Relieved that he seemed to be finding them, if only small ones, Shard relaxed a little.

  Hikaru’s earlier observation had been correct. Thin, small islands of ice floated around them. Shard watched alternately as Hikaru dove beneath the waves, stopping Shard’s heart until he emerged again and either slithered onto an ice floe to eat his catch, or break out of the waves to fly up again.

  “You’re doing really well,” Shard forced himself to call. “I couldn’t do that when I was your age.”

  Whatever his age is. Shard could only compare him to a gryfon by his skill and his range of thinking. A fledge of two or three, at best, and how soon would it be until he seemed to be Shard’s age, and older, like Amaratsu?

  Shard’s own belly snarled in protest at watching someone else eat all the fish. Before he could dive, Hikaru swooped up before him, offering a fresh, wriggling herring.

  “Thank you.” Shard clenched the fish, flight dipping with the weight of it. Hikaru met his eyes silently and dipped his head. By no means an apology, but Shard remembered what it was to be challenged by an adult as a fledge, the frustration of being told what to do, and let him go again.

  The wind picked at the waves and they rose, choppy and large, scattering the reflection of the sky. Clouds covered the true sky, scattering the true stars and turning the ocean black and unfathomable. Shard could barely see his charge. He thought Hikaru had perched on an ice floe to eat, but it was hard to tell in the muddy dark.

  He finished as much of the fish as he could, thanked its spirit, and tossed the bones into the water. Squinting, he knew for sure he saw the black dragon clinging to an ice floe, hunched over the water. “Hikaru! We should go.”

  Hikaru didn’t move.

  “Hikaru.” Shard’s voice bounced over the waves, his patience snapping. “Now!”

  “Shard, there are creatures!” He sounded breathless, not angry or petulant, but breathless with glee. “Shard, huge creatures under the water! What are they? I can see them easily as I can see you.”

  Shard strained for patience as the first drops of sleet hit his face. “Hikaru, that’s wonderful. I have no doubt you’ll see in the dark, and through water, and even underwater in the dark. You must fly with me now. We can’t risk a storm. We’ll have time to explore the ocean when there isn’t a storm. I promise.”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  Hikaru shoved up from the ice floe, rejoining Shard, who drew a great breath of relief. “Up, high now…”

  “Oh, look, Shard!”

  Sleet and snow slashed against them, and the freezing wind gnawed at Shard’s core, even under the long feathers and down of a Vanir.

  He whirled to see what Hikaru saw.

  Great beasts lunged out of the water with squeals and clicks. Their faces, painted in stark, neat whorls of black and white, seemed to match the patches of ice and darkness in the water. Shard, flapping hard against the storm, closed his eyes with a growing sense of dread.

  “What are they?” Hikaru cried, full of awe and joy at seeing something new.

  Shard strained to understand their voices, so different from a gryfon, a bird or creature of the earth. He thought of the waves, of salt water streaming around his face when he swam. A memory of a dream came to him, a pale blue king.

  Jaarl. Perhaps even Shard’s own ancestor, a Vanir king who’d befriended…

  “Whales,” Shard whispered. But not this kind of whale.

  Their voices mingled up from the waves as they breached, crashing against ice and blowing great spurts of air and water against the storm.

  “They’re calling to me.” Hikaru looped around him, seemingly unaware of the driving wind and snow. “Do you hear them? Shard, are they friends?”

  “No,” Shard gasped against the wind. “Not these. Hikaru, there are some wise sea creatures, but these…” He struggled to breathe against the freezing air, the wind, and could only concentrate on keeping aloft. He’d seen the black and white whales once, as a kit. He’d asked Sigrun about them and she called them sea wolves.

  “Sea wolves,” Shard said. “Not friends. They could be dangerous. Hikaru, fly higher.”

  “But you said wolves are friends.”

  “Hikaru, not these,” Shard snapped, his voice cracking. For Sigrun had told him a tale once of her own youth, of seeing the sea wolves for the first time, apparently playing a game in the water. Tossing something back and forth between them. She and Ragna had flown out to meet them, to welcome them to the waters of the Silver Isles.

  Then Sigrun had seen what they threw in the water between them. Shard had never seen it happen, himself. But he could imagine it. He could see whales tossing a crying seal pup between them as a game.

  Shard couldn’t even tell Hikaru. Despite all the tales he’d told the young dragon of his own life, he couldn’t yet explain to him the concept of taking amusement in another’s pain.

  He strained against the storm, running short of breath, his belly aching from the fish and the sudden exertion. “Hikaru, please fly with me, please…” His voice sounded weak and far away to his own ears. He probably wouldn’t have listened to himself, either. Hikaru dipped lower, calling out to the whales, unable to contain his curiosity. Shard flew after him, trying to stay close and not fall in the water.

  Perhaps they are capable of love as well as cruelty, Sigrun had said, always wary of prejudicing him against any creature unjustly. Just as a gryfon is capable of great love and great cruelty. Perhaps you could speak to one. But I would not trust them in the water as I would not trust a fox in its den.

  Hikaru landed again on an ice floe and Shard, against his better judgment, dropped hard beside him.

  The waves tossed the chunk of ice high and Shard dug in his talons, scrabbling for purchase as they rode down the back of a dark wave. Hikaru looped around him, holding him fast. The dragon’s claws dug into the ice as they had dug into stone. As Shard caught a relieved breath, pressed to Hikaru’s warm scales, Hikaru loosed a series of whistles and clicks, imitating the whales.

  One broke the surface, chattering madly. To Shard it sounded like laughter. Then words.

  “Ho, here, what have we?”

  A long, creaking note laughed behind Shard and he spun, blind in the freezing dark, his wings drenched. Their voices sounded static, broken, he feared he might never understand them as well as an animal of the land or the air. Half of their conversation took place under the water, and the other half barely audible in the storm, barely recognizable as speech.

  “Playmates for my calf?”

  “No!” Shard shouted. “Stay away! Hikaru we must go.”

  “Where is your calf?” Hikaru bobbed as the ice floe surged up and over another wave.

  “In the water, lovely sky snake. Here in the water.”

  Shard sucked in a breath against the sleet. Water loomed over them. He ducked under Hikaru’s wing as fast water flowed over their little ice raft.

  “Hikaru, they will kill us—fly, now!” Though when Shard lifted his wings they felt heavy, sodden, stripped. I am a son of Tyr. I will fly. A son of Tor. I don’t fear the sea.

  “They won’t kill me,” Hikaru scoffed.

  Arrogant fledge, Shard thought wildly, angry, wondering where his sweet, adventurous, obedient dragonet had gone.


  “As one!” sang one of the massive, black whales.

  “What?” Hikaru cried, “I don’t understand y—”

  “As one,” echoed the others.

  Shard turned in time to see a strange wave bulging toward them. It wasn’t natural. “Hikaru, fly! Fly now!”

  At last Hikaru heeded and crouched, opening his wings—but four whales shoved a wave over the ice floe, smashed their noses under to up-end it and knocked dragon and gryfon off the ice into the thrashing water.

  Something slammed into Shard, driving him under. In the blackness and cold he kicked and flung his talons against anything that felt solid. The taste of salt water mingled with blood. The black waves roiled with whales and Shard clawed through them, seeking the surface. Their voices laughed and shrilled around him, filled the ocean with murderous glee.

  “See how he squirms, little one!”

  Shard stepped on a slick, muscled back and shoved, breaking the surface for a raw breath. A desperate look around showed him Hikaru, snaking through the water. He tried to make a sound so the dragon could find him. A calf the size of a full grown Aesir flung itself out of the water, laughing, and landed in the middle of Hikaru’s back, dragging him under the water.

  “Stop it! Stop this now, we’re peaceful travel—”

  A fin slapped him to silence, driving him backward under the water again. Teeth clamped his hind leg. Shard screamed, shocked by the pain. The whale dragged him through the water by his leg and tossed him into the air. The relief of air almost countered the dazzling pain in his leg. Shard flung out his wings and his muscles nearly snapped in protest from the cold. Water soaked him, too heavy to fly. He smacked into the water again like a stone. Frothing waves rocked him back and slapped his face.

  “Hikaru! Get out! Get out if you…” He lurched back as a whale welled up in front of him and surfaced, water spilling down his face, jaws splayed. Shard dove forward and threw himself against the laughing face, slapped his talons out and raked the monster’s eye.

  With a long squeal the whale thrashed away, shaking Shard off to dive deep again. He could not find Hikaru against the black waves, amongst the black, swimming bodies all around.

  “Coward! Let us be! Hikaru, where—”

  A female knocked into him. “Wicked, wicked birdie! Come play!”

  “Shard, no!” The last sight he had was Hikaru, lashing toward him, only to be driven back by a laughing whale.

  The female drove Shard down under the water, down, on the blunt of her nose, until he thought his chest would collapse and his head break from the pressure and the cold.

  Lights flickered. He saw strange things. The red she-wolf Catori, sprinting toward him through the dark, howling his name, calling him toward moonlight above the clouds. He saw Stigr falling beside him, then turning, both wings intact, to give him a baleful, challenging stare.

  Then he saw the dead. In the ice dark, he saw his father, pale Baldr, lit by a sun Shard couldn’t see. The whale shoved her nose against him, nearly breaking his back, and he saw Helaku the wolf king, his son Ahote, saw old gryfon and wolf kings and queens of the Silver Isles. With a shudder he saw the scarlet flash of Per the Red, laughing.

  Then, oddly, Einarr. “My friend,” Shard whispered, seemingly in his mind alone, surprised. His body, shoved about by the furious whale, seemed a distant thing.

  Shard! Einarr appeared to shout.

  Why do you stand with the dead? Shard wondered, calmly. And why, he wondered, did there appear to be a vast, sunlit plain just beyond the bottom of the sea…

  My prince, he heard the younger gryfon say. My king. My king. Einarr opened his copper wings and a strange rush of air came to Shard, sweet as summer, and he took a single breath.

  Pain lanced into his awareness. The whale was trying to kill him, which meant he was still alive.

  He thrashed around, dragging his talons as deeply as he could through the thick, hard flesh. A squeal of pain filled the ocean, drowning on and on as if it were not water but a vast, echoing cavern. She rolled her massive body away from Shard and he kicked, rising. His head ached. His chest squeezed against itself. Nothing gave him any indication of a surface. He felt he would burst.

  My king, my king. The voice called him upward.

  Hikaru, he thought desperately. If he never made it alive back to the Silver Isles, he at least had to make sure Hikaru flew out of this cursed place.

  Then, just as black and scarlet ringed his vision and it seemed the sea would break him, Shard broke the surface.

  Sleet-filled air was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted. He turned in the water, seeking Hikaru.

  A strange sound pierced the storm, a long, hollow, harmonious roar like a lion and many eagles calling together. For a moment, Shard reeled and he thought gryfons flew at them on the wind, for those were the only creatures Shard could conceive of in that moment. But when they called again, he realized the sound was not even close.

  A new, unnatural wind chopped up the water around the thrashing bodies of the whales and the chunks of ice all around. Wing beats. Great wings, stirring the wind.

  “Petty blackfish,” boomed a male…a male…Shard shook his head hard, squinting up into the night. Could it be?

  “Back to the depths with you!” snarled a female…

  It hit Shard like a slap.

  “Dragons! Hikaru! Hikaru, dragons!”

  He heard no answer. The whales laughed and Shard was aware only of pounding wings, enormous clawed forepaws raking the water. He threw himself across the waves toward a floating chunk of ice.

  “H-help,” he gasped, at once aware of everything wrong with his body. One hind leg was surely broken, and ached with a wicked pain. The ice beneath him darkened from blood. He dragged himself out of the water, nearly splitting his talons on the ice. “Help! There’s a young dragon…”

  But it seemed they knew. Whether sentries far out from shore, or dragons fishing and caught in the storm like them, they must have heard Hikaru and come. Shard hugged the ice, fighting the waves and rising nausea. Their beautiful voices, like giant birds, like Amaratsu’s, flickered around him.

  “Witless bullies! I should skin them.”

  “None of that, now. They’re gone. Where is he?”

  “There he is.”

  “Come, little lost one. Come home. You’re lucky we flew out in this storm.”

  “Shard!”

  Shard’s ears perked in relief. He tried to cry out again, to respond to Hikaru, but his chest clamped, his body wanted only to breathe. As long as Hikaru was safe, it didn’t matter. His charge, his brother. He gripped the ice.

  One of the dragons laughed. “He’s not so little!”

  “Winterborn, but growing strong. That’s good. Come now, young one.”

  From the commotion and wing beats, Shard knew they dragged the young dragon from the water.

  “Wait!” Hikaru cried.

  “What’s that?”

  “Shard, my…my brother.” Hikaru coughed. At least he was speaking. Speaking, safe, and surrounded by his own kind.

  “Did Amaratsu have a second egg?”

  “Only one.”

  “He’s delirious. Come home. You need a meal, and fire, look at the state of you. Like a witless, wild beast.”

  “What of that?”

  Somehow by the tone, Shard knew the dragon spoke of him. He tried to move but it felt so good to be still, to let the ice cool his wounds. The whales were gone. The storm was passing. Or perhaps the dragons, with their power, drove it away. He bobbed and floated on a calming sea.

  “That’s Shard. He must come with us,” Hikaru pleaded. Shard tried to open his eyes, then didn’t bother. It was dark. He couldn’t see the dragons anyway. “Please!”

  “We can’t just leave it to the whales,” a female argued, and Shard was grateful to her.

  “They won’t come back. And the land isn’t so far off.”

  “Yes, he’ll drift in. Don’t trouble yourself.”


  “Please, he’s my brother!”

  “Shhh, you’ve had a difficult time. Ooh, there you are, heavy young one. You’re lucky your wing’s not broken, but let us carry you.”

  “Wing breakers!”

  “They don’t understand the crime. They’re of the sea. Besides, it’s not broken.”

  “I’ll break their tails and see how they fare!”

  “Calm yourself, Natsumi.”

  “Shard!”

  “No more,” rumbled the male. “Mind your elders.”

  “He takes after his mother.”

  Some halting laughter. Waves splashed at Shard’s heels and he clung to the ice, shivering.

  “What of the…Shard?” The female again, the one called Natsumi.

  “Leave it.”

  That was the final decision, and the last Shard heard of them, except for Hikaru’s low, angry howls piercing higher and higher into the night air.

  ~ 14 ~

  Isle of Earth and Fire

  THE THICK SMELL OF sulfur and something akin to sun-baked rock stung all of Caj’s senses as he crawled out of the cave.

  Despite the falcon’s help, they had found no trace of Sverin on Talon’s Reach. Wary, Caj peered around for any marks of life, for Pebble’s Throw was one of the most dangerous islands.

  A raven glided in happy circles above him, riding the buoyant warm air above the lava flows. Caj watched, one ear slanting back. Silently, the bird dipped down and lighted on an outcropping of dusty black rock, watching Caj in return. Ravens were wolf birds, Vanir birds, and he realized he waited with held breath to see if this one might somehow carry a message from Shard.

  But the raven hopped up and flew away, almost oddly silent, into the mist. Caj sensed a presence behind him in the tunnel and crawled forward to make way.

  “I will not go here,” whispered the golden wolf, Tocho, still crouched in the entrance of the cave. He’d shown Caj the particular tunnel under the islands that brought them out again to the surface of one of the scattered little isles of Pebble’s Throw.

  Caj blew a long breath out through his nostrils, drew in again to satisfy himself that the air wouldn’t poison him, and turned to the wolf. “I won’t ask you to. But I have to search.”