by Jess E. Owen
She remained quiet, waiting for him ask his questions first.
“Nilsine told you that I dream?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve had visions before,” Shard said, and explained about seeing his dead father, about seeing the Winderost before he’d ever been there. He told her of hearing songs in the wind and Amaratsu the dragon who had called to him. Finally, as she listened in perfect silence, he told her of the spirit Groa, and of his dreams of Rhydda.
She stopped walking, so Shard did too. Gulls cried, echoed by kits cavorting farther down the beach. The priestess looked across the sea, and Shard thought she appeared wistful.
“So. She taught you dream weaving, and you’re able to do it.” Her attention turned to trail along the rolling knolls and waving sea grass, wet and lazy in the clean, gold light. “Just like a vala. Perhaps it is the trait of the Summer King.”
“I think our kinds were one, once,” Shard offered, hoping he hadn’t offended her in some way by being a seer. “I think perhaps we Vanir came from this very shore.”
“I know it to be true,” she said, turning her gaze back to him. She studied him long, paying special attention to his wings, and then, he thought, his talons. He chanced a look at her feet as well. Her talons were longer than his, and hooked, and a trace of membrane like a seabird webbed each toe. The Vanhar seemed even more fit for life near the sea than he was.
“We let the ties die,” the priestess said, still looking at Shard’s feet thoughtfully, “because we’d never heard from the Vanir again. But if you are Shard, son-of-Baldr, and your father was descended from the first kings of the Silver Isles, the first gryfons to leave this shore, then you are a descendent of Jaarl, who could speak to any living thing, and did.”
“Jaarl,” Shard murmured. “Stigr told me of him. He said he spoke to whales.”
Slowly the orange gaze found his eyes again, and Shard suppressed a shiver at her deep, searching expression. The warmth of dawn kept him steady. “Then surely of any of us, you, his descendant—trained by the last known vala, a dreamer, a seer—will be the one to speak to these wyrms.”
“I don’t know if I have the strength, the right words.” Shard ruffled his wing-feathers, feeling restless, helpless. “Groa was a Vanhar. I was hoping you could tell me more of dream weaving.”
The priestess shook her head once. “Groa, daughter-of-Urd, was the last vala of the Vanhar. Their lost art was precious, revered, and valued especially by the kings of the Dawn Spire.” The priestess’s gaze wandered back out to sea. “Perhaps it was the fear of the wyrms that drove it from us, or simply time. Perhaps all gifts fade with time. Many of their dreams and prophecies have yet to pass, and some even said that the coming of the Summer King would mean the end of prophecy as we know.”
“I don’t know if that would be a bad thing,” Shard said, and she looked at him curiously. “Sometimes I didn’t take action because of my dreams, for fear of doing the wrong thing. Sometimes I think I would’ve been better off never having a vision, and just making up my own mind.”
Her short, dry laugh surprised him. “You sound like your wingbrother. We are to stir the winds with our own wings then?”
“Is that so bad?”
She studied him and resumed walking, but slowly as the shore grew rockier and harder on their feet. “Perhaps not. For an Age we listened to the Four Winds, but they could carry us only so far before we came to know of Tyr and Tor.”
“The Four Winds . . . Someone, a Vanhar, sang a song after the Battle of Torches, about the Winds.”
She turned and waded into the shallow water, as if to seek some strength from the sea, and Shard followed, shivering at the cold. “Yes. When we barely knew ourselves, still we knew the rain, the sun, and the wind. Of course the wind, which brought all things, good or ill, and each wind had its purpose.”
“And you think Kjorn will raise the Sunwind, this wind of war?”
She glanced at him sidelong. “It was not I, but Ajia the Swiftest, who said that. I believe you’re acquainted.”
“We are.” Shard ran his talons through the rocks beneath the waves, raising a cloud of sediment. “Do you think that either of you would be able to help me with these dreams? Help me get through to Rhydda?”
The priestess stood quietly for so long that Shard wasn’t sure she would answer, or if she had one. The waves slid and pulled, slid and pulled.
“Visions that are given to me,” she began slowly, “are just that. Given. I will hear a whisper, I will sense a current in the winds or have a flash under the moon from gentle Tor.” She stepped around, standing in deeper water to face him. “Your gift is beyond me, but I will tell you what things I know. If you need strength to see farther, you may stand in the ocean, or under the fullest moon. For clarity, face headlong into a Starwind, or sleep on hallow ground, where the spirits may find you.” She opened her wings. “These things I know, these things were passed from vala to priestess, before they all were gone from us.”
“Thank you,” Shard said, a light flick of desperation in his voice. “Is there any more you know?"
Her gaze hardened to a kind fierceness, like an older sister. “Tell me, you said you’ve had visions while awake?”
“Yes.” Shard stopped fidgeting with rocks and straightened, raising his wings to soak up some sunlight. “But . . .”
“But?” She watched him sharply.
“But my strongest visions have always been . . . always, near death.” Shard had hesitated to say it, but once he did, the truth seemed obvious. “When I saw my father, when I saw others in the Sunlit Land, and when the white owl showed me the First Age and all were Nameless. Every time, I was about to die. I wonder . . .” He stopped, looking away from her fierce orange eyes.
“You wonder if perhaps you should place yourself in peril, to receive visions?”
Hearing her say it out loud, Shard felt embarrassed, but nodded once, not meeting her gaze.
“A reasonable idea,” the priestess said, and he blinked at her in surprise. “But fraught with all sorts of complications. Not the least of which being that you surely don’t wish to die, nor do your fine friends wish you to.”
“No, that’s true,” Shard said. “But—”
“Your clear visions of those in the Sunlit Land came to you because you were nearer to it. But it is your life, your tie to the wind and the ground and water that will help you to reach Rhydda, who may be wild, but she is still a living creature, breathing our same winds, touching our same ground.”
“The owl wasn’t in the Sunlit—”
“Wasn’t she?” the priestess asked gently. “Some messengers may travel between places.”
“Munin,” Shard murmured, struck to think that his friend the snow owl might be much more than she seemed. “He travels in dreams. And the owl told me once that it is the gift of her kind to know when another is going to die . . .”
“Just so. I believe you are best off trying to remain alive. Now, if you’ve had visions while waking, then I believe you might speak to this wyrm while awake, more in control, and more clearly than in your dreams.” She kept her gaze on him now, a hawk stooped on its prey.
“Really?” Hope surged in Shard’s chest and he took two steps forward, splashing her in his eagerness. She shook herself, but gave a soft laugh. He mantled, dipping his head in apology. “Can you help? We’re hoping if I can make peace, then we won’t need to fight them again. Can you show me?”
“I can guide you, but I am no vala.”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
She laughed, a warm rolling sound. “The wyrm slumbers during the day. Let us wait until the night, when you and I both feel strong, and she too is awake. If this helps you, I’ll be glad, but beyond those things, you fly a wind I do not know.”
Shard dipped down, inhaling the scent of the water at his feet, both to show respect and to hide his disappointment that they would not begin immediately. “Thank you. Tonight then. Thank you.” She inclin
ed her head. An odd thought struck him. “My lady, you’ve been so generous, and I see you trying to help Kjorn even though you’re supposed to be neutral, I think. But you’ve only ever called yourself high priestess. I’d be honored to know your name.”
Her topaz eyes crinkled with amusement, and the softer edge of her beak turned. “A thoughtful young lord. I hope you will be a thoughtful king. Son of Baldr, the highest priestess of the Vanhar must give up something for her strong ties to the wind and to the gods, and I, like the content birds, have given up my name. No, don’t look so sad, it will be given back to me when I go to the Sunlit Land, and my voice, stronger than any other in my pride, will sing on. Like Groa, it may be there in the wind to guide others.”
For a moment, Shard stood mute. She gave up her own name for her powers to see, and even she claims they aren’t powers such as I have, or the vala of old. “Then I’m honored to call you high priestess, and to know you.”
“And I you, Rashard of the Silver Isles. I will meet you again here, at the middlemark tonight.”
Shard bowed, shivering with happy anticipation, and she left him, walking away through the water and barely leaving a ripple behind her.
~15~
Kjorn's Riddle
FROM AHEAD, THE ELDER RANDOMLY mused, “Which came first, the mountains, or the sea?”
Kjorn perked his ears. It was not a riddle—or perhaps it was—but a words from a song the wolves had taught Kjorn over the winter.
“The Song of First Light,” Kjorn said, trotting to walk abreast with the elder, though it put him off the trail and into the high grass. He fell back again and walked behind, and the old Vanhar didn’t speak again.
Which came first, the mountains, or the sea?
Kjorn tried to remember the rest of the song, and it came to him in the she-wolf’s voice, Catori’s voice. “Not even the eldest could tell, whether first came wave or tree.”
One ear tuned to him. “Which came first, the silence, or the song?”
“Not even the rowan could say,” Kjorn continued, “had it a voice, and lived so long.”
The elder raised his voice.
“Only in stillness the wind
Only from ice the flame.
When all were Nameless, the wise will tell . . .”
He trailed off and it took Kjorn a moment before he finished, “It was only by knowing the other, that they came to know themselves.”
They walked on in silence, and Kjorn wondered if song lore was part of his test. He didn’t ask, supposing the elder wouldn’t answer anyway. They trailed down to the shore, and the soft roll of waves on sand reminded him sharply of home. Of the Silver Isles.
I am home, he reminded himself. No, the waves reminded him of Thyra, his beloved, waiting for him. It reminded him of his father, who might still be mad and Nameless and lost somewhere. His sense of anxiousness swelled, his driving purpose making him impatient. But he could not be impatient with these gryfons.
“Elder Elof!” a gryfon called.
Kjorn realized he hadn’t asked the elder’s name, but would remember it. Not even glancing to Kjorn, Elder Elof turned without comment to walk toward the voice—a gryfess fledge ten leaps away down the shoreline. She sat in a pile of knotted seaweed, and looked like a gray little storm cloud. Bemused, Kjorn followed.
“What troubles you?” Elof asked, sitting beside her. Kjorn watched them, standing somewhat awkwardly five paces away. The elder hadn’t dismissed him, so he didn’t leave, and stifled his sense of urgency.
“The net, I can’t remember the knot sequence.”
“Ah. A tricky one to be sure.”
There was nothing to be done. He would have to wait. With a glance over his wing, Kjorn sat and watched them, intrigued.
He saw with no little surprise that the knotted mat of seaweed was actually a lacework net, such as a spider web. Looking away down the beach, he saw groups of Vanhar using other such nets along the shore and in the tide pools. He supposed they were used to catch and transport fish for Vanhar who were too old or too young to fish for themselves.
“There, you have it now?”
“Yes, Elder.” She fluffed and looked happily at their work. “I can finish it now.”
“Good.” Elof stood. “Prince Kjorn of the Aesir will assist you. Fair winds.”
He continued on down the shore, stopping to speak with every Vanhar he saw along the way.
Kjorn and the fledge stared at each other. At last he gathered his wits and inclined his head. “Fair winds. I’m Kjorn, son-of-Sverin.”
The fledge perked her ears, and offered a kind of mantle while still sitting. “Ide, daughter-of-Tyg.” She looked him up and down uncertainly. “Do you know how to tie a net?”
Kjorn drew a long breath, forcing himself not to look down the shoreline after Elder Elof. Perhaps his only riddle for that time had been to test if he knew the Song of Last Light. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention. Will you teach me?”
She brightened like sun coming from behind a cloud, and lifted the tangled seaweed. “Of course.”
Kjorn sat beside her, and for the remainder of the morning, he learned how to tie a firm knot that wouldn’t tangle, and to pattern in a series of diamonds, and how large to make the holes depending on what fish was desired. Vanhar stopped to stare at them. Kjorn tried to greet them all until Ide warned him against distraction, and chided him for inadvertently doubling a knot.
After that Kjorn bent his focus to the task, and when he raised his head again, was almost surprised to see the grand net he and Ide had created, and Nilsine standing before him.
“Decent work,” she noted, and Kjorn felt a little spark of pride, even though the work took him from his purpose. “Come with me.”
“Am I to face my test now? It’s almost middlemark.”
“One of my sentries has fallen ill,” she answered blandly. “I thought it might interest you to take her place, and learn our nightward border.”
Kjorn stared at her. “Truly, Nilsine? Your council wishes me to perform their ritual or test to earn their trust. I cannot leave now.”
“When the council wishes to test you, they will find you.” She lifted her wings in invitation. “Are you so busy you cannot spare a mark of the sun for a patrol with a friend?”
Kjorn scanned the beach once for any of the elders. Seeing none, and all Vanhar happily engaged in fishing and flying, he looked to Nilsine. She would not lead him astray. He trusted her. “Of course not. Lead on.”
Her ruby eyes shone with approval, and together they flew nightward, while she spoke of their borders and their treaties with the lions, and other things she thought he should know.
Other things, everything but the ritual the elders had asked of him. For a mark of the sun he guarded the border with her and asked no more questions, for he knew they wouldn’t be answered.
After that, one of the elders found them and asked if Kjorn would be interested in hearing the great sagas of the first Vanhar, and what they knew of ancestral dealings between the gryfon clans before the first king had risen from the red dust of the Winderost.
At a loss, Kjorn said he would be honored.
So it went the rest of the day, with odd errands and requests until sunset, and Kjorn still had not heard what task he was to perform, what ritual or riddle would win him the council’s favor. He ate his supper in stormy silence, and not even Shard could rouse him from it. Then Shard left to nap in preparation for his meeting with the priestess later that evening, and Kjorn walked to the shoreline.
The broad nesting cliff of the Vanheim left the waves in violet shadow, but a slow sunset glittered gold farther out to sea.
A soft step in the sand made him turn. A Vanhar fledge stood before him, her tail ticking back and forth as if she stalked a mouse, her beak lifted to the evening wind as she sniffed uncertainly. Her wide eyes looked like pearls set in her face, milky and bright. She was blind.
“Son of Sverin?”
“I
am.”
When he spoke, her head tilted, ears flicking to focus on him. “I am the only acolyte of the high priestess. She wishes to meet with you tonight, at midnight, where the council gathers.”
“Very well.” Kjorn watched her, bemused.
The pearly eyes gazed at Kjorn, or something slightly beyond him. “Before you meet with her, think on these three things: what bears a gryfon when there is no wind, what treasure can be grasped only by claws open wide, and what is the measure of a king?”
Kjorn lifted a foot uncertainly, and had a feeling she would not repeat the questions if asked. “I will. Thank you. Midnight. Tell the priestess I’ll be honored to meet with her.”
She dipped in a brief mantle, and turned to stride up the beach. Kjorn watched her gait, and how she appeared to keep herself walking a straight line by listening to the roll of the waves on the sand.
He stood there until full darkness fell, then walked back to the fire. Asvander, Brynja, and Dagny sat there, swapping stories of their day. The Vanir sat away at a separate fire, chatting with the Vanhar and the Aesir of the Dawn Reach, and the Lakelanders kept to themselves.
Perhaps seeing his troubled expression, Asvander stood as if preparing for a fight. “Your Highness. What did that whelp say to you earlier? We saw you talking.”
“That whelp is the only chosen acolyte of the high priestess of the Vanheim Shore.” Nilsine’s cool, smooth voice came from the shadows before she did.
“It’s all right,” Kjorn said to Asvander, then looked to Nilsine. “I think she gave me my test at last.”
“Did she indeed?” Nilsine’s ruby eyes were eerie and captivating in the firelight. All Kjorn could think of was how each of his allies in the Winderost embodied some element of his friends at home, and how dearly he missed Thyra.
To distract himself, he repeated the questions, since no one had said he couldn’t ask for help.
“Water,” Dagny said immediately. “For the claws open wide bit. If you squeeze your talons, it’ll spill.”
“Clever,” Asvander said to her, and she fairly glowed.
“Or light,” said Brynja, looking out toward the rumbling ocean and the stars. “If you closed your claws, you create a shadow.”
