by Jess E. Owen
Then he heard Brynja. “Shard!”
The Vanir echoed her, calling for him, for their prince. As if I was a lost kit, Shard thought, disgruntled and shamed that he had missed the brief skirmish, though he’d only flown above to get focus and try to spot a leader. But it had all happened without him. For half a wing stroke, he was tempted to fly on, to venture into the Outlands, to hunt Rhydda down and end Kjorn’s war before it began.
The thought of the look on Stigr’s face, or what it would do to Brynja, or what his Vanir would think of him if he left again lowered him below the clouds.
“I’m here,” he called, circling once, gliding in to land near Brynja. “I’m fine.”
“Of course you are,” she said, feathers fluffing as she swiveled to eye him placidly. “I just didn’t know where you were.”
Shard huffed, grateful she trusted his fighting ability, ashamed again that, perhaps, she had thought he might’ve run. He turned to take in the rogues. “Now, who have we here?”
All around, gryfons of his mixed band held the rogues in check, snapping beaks and threatening with wing and talon if they tried to fly.
The fight mostly appeared drained from the exiles, as if they’d only had one good effort in them. Shard and Brynja walked to Asvander and one of his Lakelanders, who held the big, pale gryfess between them, wings overlapping her to keep her from flying, each gripping a foreleg. If she hadn’t been hunched she would have stood tall and bulky, her head and breast pale as bone, her broad wings darker gray.
“An exile from the Ostral Shores,” Asvander informed Shard, who could have guessed by her color and bearing. Asvander seemed glad and frustrated at the same time.
“We came for Rok,” she said, snapping her beak. “But like the thieving coward he is, he did not come, and is probably laughing somewhere at that muddy shore he calls home. To think he promised that a prince would actually be interested in restoring us.”
Not wanting to waste arguments, Shard raised his wings. Perhaps his small stature, his foreignness, or the fact that others demurred to him made her fall silent and perk her ears. “Rok was captured and is held at the Dawn Spire. Even now, Prince Kjorn has gone to see to his freedom, and gain the alliance of the Aesir there.”
Her head tilted, regarding him. “Why should I believe you?”
“You don’t have to,” Shard said, growing edgy as true darkness fell. The rain had stopped, otherwise he would have suggested they fly on, into the Voldsom, for the shelter of the canyons. “But you see here I have warriors of the Ostral Shore, Vanhar of the Vanheim, my own Vanir whom you won’t have known, and Aesir once of the Dawn Spire. If that isn’t proof enough—”
“He promised to meet us,” she snarled. That tone rang familiar to Shard, and he perked his ears, listening. “And here we’ve sat, in the rain and wind, with eagles circling like buzzards, watching us.”
“Wait,” Shard said slowly. “I know you. You came upon us in the Dawn Reach not a fortnight ago! You wanted to see Kjorn for yourself but then you disappeared. So, Rok convinced you to join us after all?”
“Yes, then he ran away, and this glorious prince is nowhere to be found. Only you.” She looked less than impressed. “Who are you?” She shifted, glaring at Asvander, who pressed his down in warning against her back.
“I know him!” hollered a rogue gryfess from down the line. “The painted wolves call him—”
“I am the Star-sent,” Shard said, raising his voice, feeling it couldn’t hurt to stir some wind, to try to impress upon them the importance of their presence there. “I am Rashard, son-of-Baldr, prince of the Silver Isles in the Starland Sea. I am wingbrother to Prince Kjorn. I am called the Stormwing, called, by some, the Summer King. I’m here to help the Winderost, to help Kjorn.” He glared at her. “To help you, if you’ll hear us out. Rok and Kjorn will keep their promises to you. Rok helped us to fight against the wyrms. Where were you for that?”
She fluffed, shrinking back a little in Asvander’s grasp.
Shard stepped forward, narrowing his eyes. “In five days time you will see here the greatest meeting of creatures that perhaps the Winderost has ever known. The lions of the First Plains, the eagles of the Voldsom, the painted packs, the gryfons of the Ostral Shore and the Dawn Reach and the Vanheim, and, we hope, the Dawn Spire. Now, you know who I am. You can stay with us or you can flee, but I won’t tolerate skulking ambushes and attacks based on false information.”
Her beak had fallen open, her lashing tail now draped listless in the mud.
Even Asvander stared at Shard as if he did not know him. Beside him, Brynja seemed to ignite with pride, and extended a wing to touch Shard’s side.
“Well,” the female rogue mumbled, every feather standing on edge as she jerked her gaze from him, “why didn’t you just say so?”
“Welcome to our company,” Shard said shortly. Darkness closed swiftly under the cloud cover. “I think it’s past time for the rest of our introductions.”
Shard would have enjoyed a fire, with the damp ground and the chill, and hoped his fire stones were serving Kjorn well. Their camp remained in gloomy darkness.
Rather than follow the big female, whose name was Hel and whom Shard had assumed was leading while Rok was absent, the rogues wandered or kept to themselves. A few fell timidly or boldly into the groups to which they felt they belonged—the Lakelanders or the Vanhar. One old male got to talking of exile with Keta and Ilse, and made himself comfortable with the Vanir. Hel fell in with the Lakelanders, and as Shard circled their encampment, seeing to it that all were present and comfortable, he overheard her telling Asvander part of her story.
“. . . because I’m not a fighter by nature. My father kicked me from the nest when I wanted his affection, rather than spar with my sisters.”
To Shard’s surprise, Asvander ruffled his feathers in apparent agreement. “I had a disagreement with my father over my returning to the Dawn Spire.”
Shard paused, listening openly, as it was dark and they likely wouldn’t see him anyway. Disagreement was a mellow word. As Shard had understood it, his father had all but disowned him until they’d settled things back at the Ostral Shores.
“Yes,” Hel said. “At least you had honorable intentions. I’m just a peaceful coward.”
Asvander’s laugh apparently woke several gryfons, who hissed and muttered at them to hush. “That’s not what I saw today.”
“I was angry.”
“Then be angry at the wyrms,” Asvander said quietly.
“When the wyrms fly, I don’t know that I won’t flee.” Her low, grumbled words resonated over the gathering.
For a moment, Asvander was silent, and Shard had to hold his tongue or give away his eavesdropping.
“None of us know that, Hel,” Asvander finally said. “But here is the thing that has worked the best for all of us—think hard on what you love, and why you fight, and the wyrms won’t be able to frighten your name from you.”
A rough laugh. “Does my estranged family count?”
Feathers rustled, and Shard thought maybe Asvander nudged her with his wing. “Of course.”
Shard slipped on, heard more quiet conversations along the same lines, some snoring.
Familiar, comforting scents drifted to him with the evening chill, along with the mineral scent of mud and the earlier rain.
He walked from the camp, his eyes adjusting to the dim starlight that twinkled through the breaking clouds, and stopped at the edge of the first crag in the earth at the bounds of canyon land.
The shallow canyon cracked just beyond his feet and zagged away to join the larger network. Twitching his ears to and fro, he heard water running below. No wind blew, and a few tendrils of mist drifted up from the streams, caught in starlight, and made it look as if the earth were breathing smoke.
He heard a step behind him, and knew it was Brynja. She walked up beside him, pressing her wing to his, but kept her silence as he stared over the Voldsom.
�
�Listen,” he whispered. Brynja glanced at him, then turned her face and her ears, searching the still air, beyond the muffled noise of their band, for any sound.
“It’s peaceful,” she said quietly, leaning into him.
“Yes.” Shard’s tail lashed, and he clenched restlessly at the dirt. “You don’t find that strange?”
As it dawned on her, she looked at him once more, then out over the canyons, staring, searching, her ears straining one way, then the other. “The wyrms?”
“They’re awfully quiet.” As he said it, he realized they hadn’t heard any wyrms at all over the last days, even so close to the Outlands. Before, they had nearly always broken the night with their screams.
Beside him, Brynja shuddered. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Shard said, voice low.
“Is it possible that you’ve gotten to Rhydda?”
“I suppose,” Shard said. “But I fear what got through.” He explained about the dream of the dragons, Kajar, and his thoughts of Sverin and the Silver Isles.
Brynja lifted a wing and draped it over his back. “Shard, even if that’s so, she doesn’t know the way. If she flies toward your home, she might well get lost over the sea before she ever finds the Silver Isles.”
“I hope for that, then,” Shard said quietly. “Or that on some chance, she simply goes to wherever her home is.”
For a moment more they stared out together across the misty labyrinth, and Shard knew with climbing dread that he would have been less disquieted by the familiar shrieking of the hunting wyrms than he was, now, by their strange and utter silence.
~26~
Sverin’s Penance
“I AM GRET, DAUGHTER-OF-GUNNR. Gunnr, my father, who was killed in the Conquering.”
The Vanir gryfess stood before Sverin, and Ragna saw that she quivered, though with fear or rage was unclear. The day dawned crisp, cloudless, and bright, and the scent in the air hinted at wet earth rather than winter. Across the expanse of the Sun Isle, the tips of brown grass showed through melting snow.
Sverin stood on the King’s Rocks, wings bound, as still as the dark rocks themselves. A clustered line of Vanir waited to climb the rocks, tell their tale, and demand his penance. It had not been Ragna’s idea, but perhaps it should have been.
Two guards flanked the fallen king, and Ragna watched his face steadily, waiting, wary that one too many stories of pain may crack his mind, which she still considered fragile.
Gret’s pale, brown tail whipped back and forth. She sucked a breath and snapped her beak once. “My father was killed. Then after battle was done, one of your Aesir killed my mate.” Her gaze lashed the gathering, pleased to not see him there. He was one of the gryfons who had fallen in the battle with the wolves last summer. “He killed my mate, and my yearling kit. Then he expected me to mate with him. What do you say to this, Sverin? When I refused him, when I fought him, your father banished me.” She raised her head, and though her voice trembled, she seemed to find strength in the dawn, in Sverin’s silence. “He sent me to exile for refusing to mate with a murderer, with a coward. What do you say to this, my lord?”
Ragna’s skin prickled and she shifted her feet. Before, they had simply accepted the way of the Aesir, the way of conquering, like barbaric, Nameless animals, letting them take over by brute strength. Now they had to face that. She watched Sverin carefully, fully expecting him to blame his father, to blame the dead Aesir, to remind her they were gone now, and she was home.
“I should have intervened,” murmured the red gryfon instead. Ragna watched his face.
Gret’s feathers ruffed slowly, her talons flexed on the melting snow. “You should have,” she breathed, voice tight. “Yes, you should have. My mate and my kit are dead.”
“Forgive me,” Sverin said, his voice careful, low, and pinched, though his severe, golden eyes never left her face. “For all that you endured. I hope you . . . find peace.”
Gret loosed a sound of disbelief. “You have no right. You have no right.”
“Forgive me,” Sverin said again, louder, for all to hear, and lowered his head.
Ragna’s muscles trembled. It was the tenth such tale, the tenth heartbroken confession and demand for penance and closure. The tenth time Sverin asked forgiveness, and was refused.
No, she thought, wanting to collapse with weariness. No, it’s I who should be asking forgiveness, I who should have spoken, who should have intervened. I should have been stronger. But I was too silent, too afraid for Shard.
The regretful, waiting Widow Queen.
Briefly, Ragna shut her eyes. Astri had demanded this. Astri, demanding it of Thyra. Let Sverin see and hear and suffer his crimes again in his right mind. All had agreed, all but Ragna, and Caj, who stood on the rocks as well, watching his wingbrother’s face, his own a dark, cobalt mask. Seeming to feel her look, he glanced over, and appeared surprised by whatever he saw in her face. Ragna tightened her expression.
“Gret, you may step down,” she said.
“All winds take you,” she hissed to Sverin. “The queen is too merciful. I hope your wings remain bound ‘til they rot. I hope your son dies at the claws of his enemies, as mine—”
“Gret,” Ragna said again, swiftly, for quick fury swept over Sverin’s face before disappearing again, like the shadow of a cloud over plains. “Step down. I will hear the rest of your grievance later, if you wish.”
Gret looked to her, eyes narrowed, then mantled and stepped down. Two more replaced her—a brother and sister who were only fledges when the Aesir killed their parents in the Conquering. They’d fled, raised themselves in the White Mountains, but, fearing discovery, left the islands and flew farther nightward.
“Nothing can repair that,” Sverin said, so quiet Ragna thought he meant it only for them. They looked surprised, the female angry, the male confused, as it almost sounded as if he were trying to counsel them. “I hope you’ll find happiness now, with your pride.”
“We’ll find happiness,” the female, Istra, growled, “if you suffer as we have.”
“Perhaps I will, yet.” The words held no trace of mockery, but drew another growl.
“Istra, Istren, step down,” Ragna said quietly. Her strength for this exercise waned. She trembled as if she’d sprinted leagues up hill, and she wondered if they’d really been doing it for a full mark of the sun. She might break before Sverin did.
Another widow came up, and spoke of how bravely her mate had fought, and how bravely he had died. Then a male who, like Stigr, had left of his own accord rather than be ruled by the Aesir. After him came another orphaned kit, now grown into full hatred, for it was Sverin himself who had banished her mother and herself when she was still fledging. Her mother had died in exile.
Ragna watched them, watched Sverin, her heart pattering along as if she were in a fight, not standing still on the snow-covered rocks under a strengthening sun.
At last a lone male advanced through the cluster, and the sight of him made Ragna’s heart seize. Silence settled as he climbed the rocks and stood before Sverin. His wings were rich brown, eyes gray, the feathers about his face prematurely pale. Ten years ago, a lifetime ago, he had been a friend. Now, to Ragna’s eyes, he looked like a ghost.
“I am Vidar.” His voice checked as his gaze traveled, mute, discerning, over Sverin’s broad, bound wings, his broken posture, his silent face.
Each crime was equal in weight, stinging in pain and numbing with horror. But time had done its work on many of them, like water over stone, smoothing, softening pain into new shapes of strength, regret or resolve. Not this one. This wound remained sharp, fresh, and aching.
“Vidar,” he tried again, coarsely, “son of . . .”
Sverin sank to the ground, dropping his head until his beak grazed the snow. His wings flexed as if he would mantle. “Son-of-Eirikur. Forgive me. There is no excuse, no recompense to give, no crime I regret more than Einarr’s death.”
His voice rasped, cracked over the nam
e. His eyes darted to his own talons, as if he still saw blood there. Ragna’s muscles cramped as she forced herself not to intervene. Caj stepped forward and she cast him a warning look. Eyes narrowing, he stood down. She wondered what he saw in her face, if she looked cold. She wondered if he thought she was cruel, and if she even cared what he thought.
“He did everything for you,” Vidar said, his voice as warm and rich as Einarr’s had been, a singer’s voice carrying clearly over those gathered. “He dreamed of being a warrior.”
Sverin’s ears slicked back against his skull and his black talons crunched the snow, but he didn’t look at Vidar’s face again. “He was a warrior. Braver than all, braver than I ever was.”
Vidar stared at him, and Ragna could see he had no words.
“He stood against me,” Sverin said, loudly, against the snow, then raised his head, pushed himself to his feet, as slowly as if he weighed much more. He looked around, tail lashing. “He stood against me at the height of my madness, when I would have exiled Thyra herself.” His voice strained and his gaze flicked around until he found Caj, the sight of whom seemed to steady him. “He stood against me when others would not.” He drew a breath, and looked directly at Ragna.
Ice lanced down her spine.
Sverin looked away from her, back to Vidar. “He died as he lived, a warrior, with a true and courageous heart. There is nothing I can do to change the past, but I beg that someday I will have your forgiveness.”
Vidar’s wings opened slowly, his beak. He stood like a witless, vengeful hawk, ready to fly. The guards near Sverin tensed, and Caj looked ready to leap. Ragna did nothing, staring, her whole body locked to the snow and stone.
“Someday?” Vidar whispered at last, looked around him, and folded his wings. “No. I will not add hatred to the burden on my heart. I cannot bear the weight of it.” His eyes never left Sverin’s face, and though Ragna didn’t see pity, neither did she see hate. “Son of Per, for my part, I forgive you.”
