A Shard of Sun

by Jess E. Owen

  He would never see his family. He would never see Brynja, never get a second chance. He would never see Kjorn again.

  He would die there…if he didn’t do something.

  In the very last dregs of gray light left, Shard rolled to his feet and dived back into the pool.

  He knew three directions that led to dead ends, and only two choices remained. A wide, open expanse that went on and on into abysmal, icy darkness, and a dragon-sized tunnel that was not quite midnight blue.

  Shard surfaced once more, taking a huge breath, and chose the tunnel.

  As he swam, he yanked tiny feathers from his own shoulder and set them to float against the ice over his head, leaving a little trail behind him.

  The light brightened, rich blue and silver. Moonlight. He heard a dull, pounding roar that was the ocean, rocking under the swollen moon. He kicked, pumped his wings, swam hard through the water as the cold slipped squeezing talons around him. He knew he’d emerged from the caves into another, wider cavern, or perhaps the open sea ice.

  Below him yawned a fathomless, featureless blue.

  He didn’t look down again.

  A slow, threatening burn heated his chest. He released a huff of bubbles and turned slowly, looking for an opening.

  Is this the lake where Isora entered? It wouldn’t have frozen over so quickly…and there was no moonlight this bright…

  He’d chosen the wrong way.

  Forcing himself to stay calm, Shard searched for an opening. He didn’t have the breath to return to his prison.

  I will die here.

  I will die...

  I will NOT die—

  Wasting breath with a furious, terrified shriek, Shard whirled in a twist of silver bubbles, kicking hard and squinting.

  A circle of light drew his desperate eye, two leaps away. He struggled for it, his limbs beginning to lock and jerk from the cold. The water shifted, rippling in the little circle ahead. Moving, splashing. An opening.

  Shard thrust his head out, sucking down hard, painful, breaths. He wasn’t sure he would even have the strength to drag himself from the water. Then he realized with hot, crawling dread that he hadn’t found an escape, but only a bubble in the ice, a little pocket of air, perhaps a snow bear’s old hunting hole that had frozen over.

  Treading water, he breathed.

  The liquid ice seeped under his feathers, trailing silky cold across his skin. He’d been there too long. The ice seemed to penetrate and close around his hindquarters so that his steady kicks became weak and loose.

  Shard gulped air, shutting his eyes.

  Go back. Go back. One more breath, then back.

  Back where?

  A violent tremble overtook his muscles and he slipped under water, then shoved himself back up, panting for a breath.

  “Go back,” he rasped to himself, turning sluggishly. Rippling shivers overcame him and his beak slapped the water, then his muscles calmed. “Go back…”

  He kicked, shivering, wings sliding slower and slower until he wasn’t sure if he was moving them or floating.

  He would dive soon. One more breath.

  One more breath.

  His shivers faded.

  At once he felt warm, and he was floating comfortably on warm water.

  Then on warm air.

  “The world is in danger, son-of-Baldr.”

  Shard flew under the moon with a snowy white owl. “My friend,” he cried, but there was no joy in her. “Tell me what to do, where to go. Everything I’ve done has failed.”

  She had guided him before.

  “You must not fail. A longer winter than you know threatens all creatures. The wyrms of the Winderost have begun to feed on fear, and so they will spread it as far as they can. Fly high, my prince, to see.”

  A strange, hot wind swelled under their wings, lifting them beyond the Sunland and the world. That high, he saw the black rim of a forever night sky touching the blue of day, saw that the world curved softly like a robin’s egg.

  The owl circled him, drawing his eye.

  “If they spread their terror further, all will be Nameless with it. You are borne high by the Silver Wind. Look beyond, look at things as they were before, as they may be again.”

  He saw a great battle of Nameless beasts, the First creatures who came from the Sunlit Land beyond the Dawnward Sea who, entering the dark, broke into points of light that creatures of the world called stars. They fought like savage, witless animals, like creatures who had no love or knowledge of Tyr and Tor.

  The stars wheeled and swelled in front of him and became great gryfons, wolves, boar, mountain cats and caribou and bizarre beasts from other lands whose names Shard didn’t know.

  It was not honor or courage that drove them, but fear. Nameless, empty fear such as Shard had only felt staring into the baleful eyes of the wyrms of the Winderost.

  “Fly high, Shard,” whispered the owl, bright as starlight, and her voice sounded like all the voices he loved. Then she winked out like an ember, and he was alone.

  He fell, gliding fast over the world, and grasped for the spiraling dream net. There he snagged his talons around the dream of a red wolf who slept beneath a distant, deep, snow-covered forest.

  “Catori,” he called with relief, with joy, with sudden, immeasurable sorrow. A part of him felt there was some reason he might never see her again.

  “My prince!” She bounded forward and then her happy expression darkened. “My friend, where are you? I search for you on the wind, and there comes no word, no dream, no song, nothing at all.”

  “I’ve failed you, Catori. I’ve failed all of you. It wasn’t meant to be me. Hikaru, the dragon, or Kjorn…”

  He had trouble speaking, breathing, and felt that something choked him. He tried to wade toward her in the snow and had to swim, to kick and glide as if he were in water.

  “Hikaru may be a Summer King to his mother,” Catori said, her fur blazing like flame against the snow, “Kjorn may be king to the pride in the Winderost.” She was in front of him, and Shard strained for her familiar scent. “But you are Summer King to us, son-of-Baldr. You must fly higher. And you must come home.”

  “I’m not strong enough. I failed—I’m dying, Catori—”

  She leaped, fangs bared and snarling, and bowled him over as easily as if he were a kit. Shard gasped, thrashing, lost his grasp on the dream net. The wolf became enormous, and he the size of a wolf pup. She clamped jaws on the looser skin between his wings and shook him, and the moon glowed huge in the sky.

  A voice like Catori’s, but not like hers, boomed around him. “You answered the call, son of the Vanir. You are meant to right the wrongs. They will call you the Summer King, and this will be your song.”

  “I can’t!” Shard screamed into the dream light that was swiftly dissolving to chaotic snow and stars. Catori was gone, and in her place stood a tall, golden-eyed wolf whose pitch black coat glittered with stars, and who smelled of the hot ozone after skyfire struck the air. “I’m weak! I failed!”

  “You must not fail,” the wolf snarled, and flung Shard away. Her long, piercing howl split the stars.

  Fear closed Shard’s throat, and lack of breath swept him with dizziness. Cold locked his muscles. He fell. He fell fast, screaming eagle’s terror into the endless night above the world.

  Air, ice and water roiled around him. Shard seemed to land in a waterfall of ice, falling upward.

  The howl of the black wolf warped into a different cry, desperate, angry cries splitting the air around him.

  Then he realized he wasn’t falling, but that something was pulling him up out of the water. Sweet, icy breath swept into him and he came fully awake to a very real crashing of breaking ice and surging sea. Strong claws grasped him, tugging him away from the hole in the ice. Wings beat the air around him, he was rolling, rolling from the water, held fast to a warm, scaled body.

  Shard fell limp as Hikaru’s scent filled his nose.

  “Please be alive,”
Hikaru moaned, shaking his head hard to send water flying from his mane. “Oh please, Shard—”

  “Al-ive,” Shard croaked, coughing, seizing into hard breaths as Hikaru scooped him closer.

  “I found you,” the dragon breathed, shoving up to fly from the sea ice, carrying Shard almost as easily as Isora had done.

  Shard let his head loll, and pressed to Hikaru’s scales as the dragon bore him toward the mountains.

  Hikaru clutched Shard close to his chest, which felt as warm as a fire. “I have you, my brother. I have you.”

  ~ 41 ~

  Hikaru’s Choice

  “ISORA TOLD ME WHERE to find you.” Hikaru and Shard rested on a ledge overlooking the sea, a good distance from Ryujan. “I think he took pity on us both.”

  Shard flicked his ears, nodding once, still coming back to his senses.

  Hikaru tightened his coils. “When I realized you’d swam down the wrong way, trying to escape, I thought I would find you dead. But I saw your feathers and followed…”

  He took a trembling breath, and bumped Shard gently with his nose. Shard ran his talons through the silver mane on Hikaru’s back, trying to calm the dragon, and himself. The warmth from Hikaru’s scales helped to soothe his frayed nerves and trembling muscles. His body felt achy, light, as if no amount of fish or red meat could fill him again.

  A part of him curled in that icy cave still, a small, cold piece of him that would never escape that prison, would always try to panic at a space that was too small.

  Shard’s stomach was not so panicky, and snarled.

  Hikaru laughed, ears perking, and shifted. “I’ll get you some fish.”

  “No.” Shard grabbed for his foreleg. “No. Just—stay with me, Hikaru. Stay and rest.” He twitched his ears, and drew a breath of the wide, starry night. “What happened after they took me away?”

  Hikaru shook his head in disgust. “The empress was merciful, at least, because we are young. Natsumi was sent to her family. I’m to remain in my den. She thinks I’m still there.” He showed his teeth, then gusted a sigh. “Isora told me that Empress Ai did go with Ume to see the pillar and the Tale of the Red Kings, but still denies the truth of it. They’ve been lying to themselves too long.”

  Shard shook his head slowly, and closed his eyes, listening to the wind against the snowy plains, and the wash of the sea. For a moment, he pretended they were in the Silver Isles, and all was peaceful.

  Hikaru glared out at the sea. “I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that she didn’t have me killed or exiled to the white waste, and that no one else was exiled or…” His ears twitched and a spasm of irritation tightened his whole body around Shard for a moment. “She said we had been misguided. I don’t understand, Shard, how she can say those things, when the truth was plain in silver on the wall. A dragon who was there left it for everyone to remember, but they don’t want to.”

  Shard shook himself, ruffling his feathers. “I don’t understand either. I suppose Sverin and Per did the same thing, retelling history, making themselves out to be conquerors. But we don’t know what else is in her mind.”

  “How can you only say that? Aren’t you angry?”

  “Of course,” Shard said quietly. “But I’ve also seen what anger without intent of justice can do. Your empress won’t hear me, but I know the truth about Kajar now, and I know a little more about the wyrms. I can tell Kjorn that his great grandfather was honorable, and courageous. I can help him to reclaim his own birthright, do what needs to be done for my pride, and then…”

  “You’re going to face them again,” Hikaru said. “You’re going to face the wyrms.”

  “I have to try.” The owl’s vision circled around him like a vulture. He crawled from Hikaru’s coils, his muscles warming and anxious to stretch. “I tried to talk to the wyrms in a way that I understand. It’s time to approach them in a way that they understand.”

  Hikaru perked his ears as he unfurled his full, lengthy body. “How?”

  At that, Shard ground his beak. The stark, terrifying nightmare of Nameless beasts and endless night weighed on his heart. “I don’t know yet.”

  Hikaru loosed a breathy laugh. “I admire you.”

  Shard flashed him a grateful look. “I admire you. You saved my life, Hikaru.”

  “You would have escaped.”

  “No.” Shard met his eyes. “I would have died. Without you, I would have died.”

  “So would I,” Hikaru whispered, and bent his head forward. Shard leaned in, and pressed his brow to Hikaru’s broad, delicate face.

  Accepting his close moment of near death, Shard backed away with sudden vigor, tail lashing. “You mentioned fish?”

  Hikaru laughed, drawing up, but didn’t open his wings.

  “Race you.” Shard leaped, shooting free of Hikaru’s coils and risking cramps by flinging himself from the mountain face and throwing open his wings. The harsh wind battered against him and he gasped, laughed, made a full, sweeping turn in the night air to clear his head before winging back to Hikaru, who waited, bunched on a ledge outside the tunnel.

  Shard hovered, and the dragon joined him in flying out to sea, though Hikaru insisted that Shard let him do the fishing. Shard did, gratefully, and watched, realizing how quick and graceful the young dragon had become—both in body and in heart.

  Hikaru caught two wriggling herring, and Shard joined him back on the mountain ledge, where Shard consumed both fish, to Hikaru’s satisfaction.

  “Thank you,” Shard said, flicking scales from his talons.

  Hikaru bent his head and gently touched his nose to Shard’s brow. “Of course, my wingbrother. Of course. I wish I could do more. I wish the empress would help you.”

  “You’ve done enough. Don’t risk yourself for my sake again. I can only hope that now that the seed has been planted, curiosity will grow. Perhaps one day…” Shard huffed, shook himself, and looked around in attempt to gain his bearing. “But now, Hikaru, we must fly this very night. Too much pulls me away, and I can’t risk being captured again. For your sake, or mine.”

  “No,” Hikaru said hesitantly, “I know you can’t.”

  A strange note touched his voice, and Shard studied his face, and his eyes, with dawning sadness.

  “But you’re not coming with me, are you.”

  Hikaru lowered himself to his belly, forelegs on the ground, like a mountain cat, so that he was more at Shard’s level. “No.”

  The relief Shard felt at his escape tightened back to anxiety. “Why, Hikaru? There’s nothing for you here. The dragons don’t care about the truth, and if you make another mistake, who knows what the empress will do?”

  “I know. But you’re wrong—there is something for me here. Many things. Some of us do care about the truth, Shard, and I must find those who do and we must stand together and rejoin the rest of the world. That is what my mother wanted. That’s why she left the Sunland, and why she left me with you.”

  Shard swallowed against his dry, tightening throat. “I had so many more things to teach you.”

  “You taught me the most important things first.” Hikaru huffed a cloudy silver breath and laid his head on the ground near Shard. It was nearly as large as Shard’s whole body. “I thought I would fly beside you always. But I think Mother knew this would happen. That we would become brothers and through that, my heart would be stronger, that I would need a good heart because I am winterborn.”

  “You have one of the strongest hearts I know,” Shard said softly. “I hope you will let it guide you. I only wish you would come with me. You can always return here.”

  “Maybe, or not. Journeying out into the world isn’t quite safe, either. I learned that the hardest way.” He winced, perhaps thinking of the whales. “Besides, now gryfons are in everyone’s thoughts. They’ve seen you, the young are curious, and I might have a chance at opening their minds.” He showed his teeth in attempt at an amused expression.

  Shard couldn’t laugh, and Hikaru sobered.
The wind tickled them, icy and unsympathetic, the stars piercing like eyes above.

  “Shard, do you remember when you told me that we always think we know what we’ll do, but then when we really face a decision, it’s not as easy as we thought?”

  “I remember,” Shard murmured.

  Hikaru closed his eyes. “This moment is like that for me. One of the warrior virtues is loyalty. I must be loyal, and help my kin here if I can. I was disappointed to find out what they think of you, to know that they wouldn’t help us. But now I understand that they needed my help. They shouldn’t be secluded or ignorant any longer. Shard, I owe you a great debt for all you did for me—”

  “No you don’t,” he said sharply. “You owe me nothing, do you understand?”

  “I understand.” Hikaru tilted his head. He looked as if he might speak, but his large, liquid gold eyes only studied Shard thoughtfully, gently, as if to memorize him.

  Shard watched him in return, his gaze traveling each black scale in the moonlight, the wispy mane and growing silver horns, the black wings. His thoughts drifted to Amaratsu and his promise, to the other dragons, the help they could have been, the help Hikaru could have been.

  Then, simply, he knew with a hollowing pang how much he would miss Hikaru’s bright laughter and the dragon’s presence at his side.

  He knew, with hard certainty, that Hikaru’s short life meant this would likely be the last time they saw each other.

  But he couldn’t linger any more. The stars in the black sky reminded him of the black wolf in his chaotic dreams. Cold wind brushed against the rock and snow and with it, her words.

  You are the Summer King, and this will be your song.

  He stepped forward and rested his talons on Hikaru’s scaled brow. “Fair winds, little brother.”