A Shard of Sun

by Jess E. Owen

  The land swept back from him in all directions, enormous and white. Upon that second inspection, he saw the dark edges of rock in the far mountains, and long patches of dirt along the nightward shoreline. Far at the end of his vision along that coast, the wall broke into arches, towers and slides of ice, translucent white and blue.

  Distant splashes and high-pitched calls drew his attention to his own shoreline.

  For a moment, having felt entirely alone in the world, he breathed in relief, and looked to the water. Life thrived. Gulls nattered in the distance. Larger splashes told him of seals, and he thought he spied the starkly black and white snowrock birds that he’d only ever seen once, on the starward most coast of the Star Isle.

  With no better ideas, but relieved to find life, Shard angled inland and flew a course that matched the one he and Hikaru had taken over the sea, parallel to the back of the constellation of Midragur. He couldn’t see it in the day of course, but he knew its path across the sky as well as a vein in his own wings.

  For a time, flying, he felt at peace.

  Evening fell shockingly swift around him.

  He’d thought he was airborne for perhaps only a sunmark, then realized the sun was setting. He remembered the short days of winter in the Silver Isles, but during his time in the Winderost, he’d grown used to longer stretches of daylight. Now the whole landscape glowed dull silver in the weak sun. Shard flapped high again and studied his choices. Weariness crept up from the ache in his leg and washed his entire body as the sky darkened. Plains, mountains, coast. He chose the mountains, where he might find shelter from the night wind.

  A whisper trickled through his mind.

  “What?” Shard shook his head, looking around for a bird, or an earth creature below, but saw nothing. The whisper nudged again, like wind, no words that he could make out, but calling. Something felt distantly familiar about it.

  “Who are you?” he whispered. The dark mountains, patched with snow, ringed a small bowl of a valley. Recognition darted through his mind. Shard dipped lower toward the pass that entered the valley, and then the whispering seemed not in his mind, but ahead.

  The sun departed. Stars glowed to life and pulsed in the huge sky. A cold wind swept up and stroked Shard’s wings. Adjusting his flight path to it sent a jolt through his injured leg and he ground his beak to stifle a snarl of pain, peering up to see that he now flew perpendicular to Midragur. No matter, I’ll get back on course tomorrow.

  The mountains stood silent, gleaming white and abyssal black under the impossible stars. Shard dove into the pass, soaring over a frozen river toward the valley he’d seen. The whisper itched now, as if in his left ear. Shard growled and turned, flared to a halt and landed on a ledge that overlooked the pass and the little valley. He caught his breath, listening, and stared.

  The wind rushed through the pass, squeezed in by the walls of mountain, and Shard flicked his ear toward the sound of water. Perhaps the river wasn’t entirely frozen. The whisper had faded and Shard’s heart thumped in fear that he’d lost it, that it wasn’t just his lonely, tired mind, that it was something he was supposed to heed.

  He stood on the cliff, breathing in the wet scent of snow, the mineral smell of the mountain and somewhere underneath, frozen earth. Closing his eyes, his listened, as closely as he’d listened when he was first learning to speak the language of the earth and the birds. Wind flitted through the mountains, combed and played with his feathers. Shard leaned again onto his good leg, shutting out the pain of the other.

  A wavering, distant noise chimed, one that felt more in his mind than in his ears. He flicked his ears, breathing softly. Like the notes of a choir of many birds, the noise pulsed, wavered, folded over itself and faded only to resume again. It was not the whisper Shard had heard. The whisper, he thought deeply, had faded in the face of the new sound. He opened his eyes, and sucked a sharp breath.

  The Wings of Tor unfolded all across the sky, ribboning sheets of violent green, magenta, and blue light, ever shifting. Shard had seen the lights in the Silver Isles, but never as he saw them now.

  The chiming, weird notes pulsed from the light. The very voice of the sky, of Tor, of a world Shard glimpsed only in dreams, sang through his skin. Cramped on his little ledge, he still managed a trembling bow.

  Guide me, he pleaded.

  The wind flitted around him and he remembered the dream he’d had before. The white star in the little valley. The circle of stones. He looked up at the majestic lights, then down to the valley. Though the first whisper had faded, he knew it had called him to the valley, and that it could be the one from his dream.

  With a slow, building thrill in his heart, Shard plunged from the ledge and soared through the pass, exalting under the lights of Tor. When he neared the center of the valley, the orientation of the mountains and the pale gleam of snow all looked familiar. It was as in his dream. He stooped to land, and heard a small voice cry out.

  “Hello?” Shard called in reply, gingerly setting down in the snow without putting weight on his broken leg. “Hello? I’ve come!”

  The night was not dark. Between the stars and the great shifting lights, Shard saw everything in a bright twilight. From above and in the odd light, the circle of stones had looked like odd pockets in the snow, but indeed they were there, Shard had landed right in their center. Again a voice cried out, this time in glee.

  “Hello! You’ve come! She dreamed you would!”

  Shard turned, folding his wings and hobbling, to see a snow fox plunging toward him from outside the circle of stones. He thought of the white star in his dream, and how the dragon Amaratsu had taught him that sometimes, a dream thing meant another thing.

  The white fox before him, Shard decided, was the star from his dream, and was the guidance he had asked for.

  “I’m Shard,” he said, dipping his head. “It’s good to see you.” And as strange as it all felt, it was good to see the fox, to hear another voice, to see a face happy to see him. “Who dreamed I would come?”

  “Nest-mother.” The fox padded forward and sniffed Shard all over by way of introducing himself, discovered the broken leg with a little yip, and returned to face Shard in front again. “But you’re injured.”

  “Yes. Can you help? Who is your nest-mother?” Shard had never heard of a fox using that term. It was a gryfon word, for a parent who hadn’t birthed a kit, but raised it as her own if something happened to the birth mother. “And, what is your name?”

  “I am Iluq.” He perked his ears, his black, narrow eyes glittering. “Come, Shard, Mother will help you with your leg, and she’ll be very pleased to see you, very happy indeed.”

  “Why is that?”

  Mischief stole over the fox’s face. “You’ll see. Come. We will have food and maybe songs.”

  Tingling relief threatened to make him collapse. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

  Iluq laughed and trotted a circle around him, his wide, flat paws not breaking the crust of snow. “Come with me. You can fly above if it’s easier. We must go to the mountain.”

  “I’ll fly,” Shard said, following the point of Iluq’s nose to see that he indicated the far wall of mountains. It would take two marks for him to hobble there. Much swifter if he flew and Iluq ran.

  The lights wavered into pure, summer green as they traveled to the mountain. Shard wondered, with tingling anticipation, who the fox’s nest-mother might be, and then he remembered the milky eyes from another dream, eagle eyes.

  Gryfon eyes? Shard would’ve thought it impossible, but he was learning to use that word carefully.

  He followed Iluq’s darting form across the valley until they reached the foot of the mountains, where Shard landed. There he had to walk, for Iluq led him up a narrow trail that cut into the mountain, and he would’ve been unable to follow by wing. Shard continually slipped and tripped on the snow, biting back curses he’d learned from Stigr, until at last they reached a crack in the mountainside.

  “Ho
me!” Iluq announced.

  Shard’s first instinct would’ve been to carefully smell the entrance and be wary of danger or a trap, but he only stared at the familiar, orange light that glowed from deep within the cave.

  “Iluq,” he said hesitantly, “is that…”

  “Oh yes,” gushed the fox, “it is fire! Mother and I keep it alive. Mother learned from the dragons how to make it, but we must feed constantly, because it’s so difficult for her to make, now, and I cannot make it at all.”

  “Oh,” Shard breathed, and they stepped inside. The scent of wood smoke sent his mind reeling back to the Winderost, the bonfires, and, with a warm thrill, the memory of the gryfess Brynja.

  For a moment he closed his eyes, for with the smell of wood smoke came the memory of her scent. He savored his last good memory of her, her eyes bright as he showed her a sky brimming with stars, her voice warm as she confessed to admiring him. With determination he pictured her standing at his side on the Copper Cliff, as queen of the Silver Isles, and tried not to think of all the reasons why that part couldn’t be.

  He didn’t know what became of her after he fled, Nameless, from the Dawn Spire.

  “Shard?” Iluq nosed a talon.

  Shard shook his head. “Lead on.”

  They walked into the stone cave, and the warmth overwhelmed him. The thick smoke overpowered any scent of animal, and so he had to wait for any hint about Mother until Iluq led him from the tunnel into a cozy chamber. It was roundish, with a crackling fire in the center and an enormous stack of wood along one wall. Two wooden poles stood upright like bare trees near the wood stack, with smaller poles rising between them in rungs, bound at the meeting points with sinew. On those rungs hung drying, smoked fish. Shard tilted his head, studying the clever frame, and Iluq slipped past him toward the fire.

  Little bones littered the edges of the cave, some fish, some hare, some bird, and some larger, perhaps seal. They looked ancient and dusty, as if larger game hadn’t been brought to the cave in a very long time.

  One pile of bones in the corner beyond the fire looked to be a wolf or some other larger creature, but Shard couldn’t identify them through the smoke, and then, something else caught his attention.

  A ring of wood hung on the rock wall behind the pile of bones, a long sapling branch warped into a circle, holding together a strange web that looked woven of thin animal sinew. Bits of shell dangled from it, and several long feathers, some gryfon, one enormous one that Shard recognized from his first dream of the fox. The work was too clever for fox paws. Maybe dragon, raven or, perhaps…

  “Welcome.”

  A voice drifted, like the smoke, to Shard’s ears, though it was so faint he could’ve dreamed it, like the noises from Tor’s Wings, or the whisper at the head of the valley. Startled, he blinked, peering through the smoke. The whisper. It was the same, only it had become words. She had called to him. Shard stepped fully into the cave and sideways, out of the stream of smoke that followed the tunnel out. Peering across the fire, he saw the milky, blind eagle eyes from his dream.

  He almost fell back, so surprised to see her sitting across the fire from him. Distracted by the fish, the fire and the bones and the strange false web on the wall, he hadn’t even noticed her, and realized too that she blended perfectly with the color of the cave around her. Now, he tried not to stare. Never had he seen a creature so ancient, so thin that her feathers, which no longer held their hue, seemed only draped over her skeletal frame.

  Foolish words came out despite himself. “You’re a gryfon.”

  A dry, wispy chuckle. “Welcome, Summer King. My, how you shine. Like sunlight.”

  Iluq padded around the fire and settled next to the ancient gryfess, looking pleased with himself.

  The gryfess seemed oddly still—but then, Shard thought, it probably took every bit of strength she had just to keep breathing.

  “Tell me about yourself, Summer King. Your name. Your land. What brings gryfons back to the Sunland.” She shivered. Iluq perked his ears, leaped to the woodpile and snatched up a few sticks in his teeth to deposit them into the fire.

  Shard took a careful seat at the fire, favoring his injured leg. He would have to set it later. Hopefully they would let him use a few of their gathered sticks and perhaps, if there was no clay to be had, some sinew to bind the sticks to his leg. “I’m Rashard, son-of-Baldr. I’ll tell you everything. But first, please tell me about you. This…I don’t even know what to ask. Who are you? Why are you here?”

  A soft, dusty wind shuddered through the cave, somehow, making the fire dance and their shadows flicker to life. “I am Groa, daughter-of-Urd.” She took a breath. The names sounded old, like something from a legend. “I flew here seeking treasure, seeking adventure. I followed a starfire.” Shard bit back a sound of disbelief. The ghostly creature looked ready to disintegrate. There was no conceivable way she’d flown, following the same starfire he had.

  Unless she hadn’t followed the same…

  He guarded his voice. “I, too, followed a starfire. How did you…” He didn’t want to insult her, and stopped.

  Amusement crinkled the corners of her blind eyes. “You don’t understand. I didn’t follow the same starfire as you, this autumn past.”

  Shard watched her face, his amazement and understanding growing. Wind whispered and flittered through the cave and Shard tried to determine where it was coming from, then shifted closer to the fire. “Others have told me that it only flew once before.”

  Groa fixed her blind eyes on him steadily as if, through the fire, she truly saw him. “Yes. I flew when last the starfire soared. I flew with the first band of gryfons to come here and meet the dragons.”

  A quiver encompassed Shard’s entire body. “You mean…”

  “Yes.” The fire shivered as Shard met her unseeing gaze. “I flew with Kajar.”

  ~ 18 ~

  Stirring the Wind

  THE WARM, RED, MEAT scent of pronghorn floated to the spot where Kjorn crouched in the grass. Flanked by Nilsine and the lioness Ajia, he waited, grateful he had some practice hunting on land in the Silver Isles.

  As Ajia wished, they had waited for the egg moon, bright and nearly full. They had waited, as Ajia wished, for an infuriating three days. All the while, Nilsine assured Kjorn that even the Vanhar were rarely invited to hunt with the lions. He didn’t want to make an enemy of someone who claimed to be a friend of Shard’s and might know his whereabouts, so Kjorn accepted their hospitality and waited. Now at last, the hunt.

  “The herd,” Ajia said, her voice a warm purr. “The herd grazes under the moon, and now the dark is high. The herd grazes under the moon, and one knows its time is nigh.”

  The other lionesses echoed her, and they fell into a hunting chant.

  Ajia’s voice woke something in Kjorn’s heart and muscles, a thrill along his back that made him not want to fly, but to leap and sprint along the ground.

  “The eye of Tor watches, her light guides us on.”

  “The breath of Tor whispers, we follow her song.”

  Only he, Nilsine, and the other female Vanhar with them had been allowed on the hunt. The male lions did not hunt with them, and Fraenir and the male Vanhar remained behind as well. Beside Kjorn, even Nilsine seemed caught up in the chant, and just as she began to hum along, the lionesses fell silent. It was time to close in, time for quiet.

  Without a word Ajia crept forward, and Kjorn blinked as she disappeared in the grass. Ever shifting to remain downwind, he crept forward to remain within earshot of the lions. He could see a little in the moonlight, but not like the lions, who saw, he knew, as if it were day. The pronghorns wouldn’t see them at all, but would hear or smell if they made a wrong move, possibly spot movement under the moon if they emerged from the grass.

  Remembering all he’d learned of ground-hunting from Thyra, Kjorn stalked forward, placing his talons carefully, lifting his beak to smell through the hazy air. He spotted the herd, outlined in white moonlight. Se
veral lookouts stood poised at the edge, and when they lowered their heads to crop a quick bite of grass, other heads raised, ears turning, ever alert.

  A quiver slipped through Kjorn, a silent knowing. Tuned to the lionesses, he sensed and saw them fanning out. Ajia had chosen a target.

  Kjorn saw it. An aged male with a crooked hind leg, a lookout at the far end of the herd. He and the Vanhar followed wordless cues from the lionesses and took up stations to flank the pronghorn.

  Nilsine had told him they would not fly, that they were to hunt as lions. Another quiver trailed down his spine, some voiceless understanding that all the lionesses were in place. A liquid movement caught his eye, and he met Ajia’s glowing stare through the grass.

  The great honor of running down and killing the pronghorn was to be Kjorn’s.

  Under the piercing light of the moon, feeling suddenly as if perhaps the goddess Tor did watch his hunt with interest, Kjorn slipped forward. His breath tightened. He resisted the urge to hold it and breathed deeply and silently. Something larger seemed to poise on this hunt and his performance, and he meant to show well.

  The old pronghorn’s head flew up. Kjorn froze. The pronghorn’s ears wagged back and forth. The wind shifted, bringing the scent of haze and meat, and Kjorn bellied forward. The pronghorn’s head turned, and he bleated a warning.

  “Mudding…” Kjorn swore. The herd broke into a springing run in all directions. Kjorn locked on his prey, bounding fast and dodging panicked pronghorn who leaped around him.

  One sprang over Kjorn, caught a hoof on Kjorn’s wing and went sprawling. Kjorn nearly turned to take that beast instead, but an electric bolt of pride shot through him. No. He would take the one the lions had chosen.

  The old pronghorn had frozen rather than run, perhaps thinking Kjorn would lose him in the chaos. The lionesses hadn’t moved from their stations. Kjorn bolted forward again, bowling through pronghorn like an avalanche, knocking aside any who crossed him. The old one spotted him and broke into a sprint.