by Jess E. Owen
Eventually.
Sverin had rarely spoken of his windward home, what Shard’s family had always called the greatland, or the windland, mentioned only how vast it was. Larger than the Silver Isles. One solid mass of land so big that even the gryfon clans hadn’t fully explored it. Mountains, plains and coastland, forested realms and great stretches of red desert. Suddenly every rare tale Sverin and Caj had ever told of their home came rushing back to Shard, and he rolled the information over in his mind as he flew.
The ocean remained still and blue and far below. The panic he’d first felt edged away with the simple focus of flight, and the salt wind kept his mind clear. Soon, fear slunk away in the face of boredom, and Shard almost laughed. For now, his wings felt strong and tireless.
If the Aesir could do this, so can I. Son of Baldr, the Nightwing. Prince of the Vanir. For all that means. A prince in exile.
He should’ve bid farewell to his mother, somehow. At least he had told Catori, so she could explain to them, to Stigr.
How he wished he could’ve told Kjorn that he was flying to Kjorn’s homeland! To the realm of his fathers. If only Kjorn was still his friend, and flying at Shard’s side. It was a journey they had spoken of taking together, though Sverin halted such talk any time he heard it.
Shard realized that for as much as Sverin hated and feared about the Silver Isles, he seemed equally reluctant to return home.
What drove Sverin and his father Per away?
He got no answer from the sky, the wind or the waves.
The day stretched into a long, hot blue. Blue above, blue below, and salt scent everywhere. Like his blindness in the snowstorm of the White Mountain, Shard’s eyes played tricks with him, seeing ripples in the sky that weren’t there, and shimmering shapes on the horizon that became whole flocks of gulls or gryfons or islands and then faded.
Just after middlemark, Shard’s belly snarled. He hadn’t eaten since midnight. He sank lower in the wind to see about catching fish. The water seemed to heave and dazzle and invite him in out of the heat. Shard cast his gaze back and forth across the surface of blue.
Nothing.
There was nothing out that deep. Stigr told him tales of deep fishing, brave gryfons who hunted in deep water for the mighty silverback fish and sailfish. Apparently Ragna had gone on one of those wild hunts in her younger days, but Shard just couldn’t picture it.
Even if he saw a sailfish, it would be foolish to hunt it alone. It took at least four skilled Vanir to bring one down.
Or up, Shard thought giddily. He shook his head and stared hard over the water again. Didn’t Per and his family eat anything on the journey? Or if they were fleeing something, maybe they just went hungry.
Stigr had told Shard that the native Vanir offered the Aesir gryfons help and shelter and food, and been answered with attack.
What must they have looked like, when they arrived? How hungry, exhausted and desperate they might have been, he would never know. Shard, a nestling, had only been aware of scents and sounds at the time. Sigrun, standing over him in the nest and begging Per the Red to spare his life. Fainter, he remembered the scent of Ragna standing near.
Something silver flickered at the corner of his vision. Shard peered through the bright air. He couldn’t tell if it was another illusion.
Another flicker caught his eye, like a white bird leaping from the ocean, then fell back into the water. Shard blinked twice to clear his eyes.
Then, without warning, small, bright fish surrounded him in the air. Flying. They glided along the surface for the length of two leaps before plunking back into the sea. Leaping, splashing, bumping into his hind paws when they didn’t seem to realize he would be there. For a moment he thought he’d gone completely mad, then his hunger took over and he snatched one from the air. A very real, wiggling fish with fins like wings was his prize.
Laughing, he gulped it down and dipped lower to catch more, eating his fill. Who knows if Tyr will bring this bounty to surface again?
He wondered if Stigr had ever seen flying fish, and guilt gnawed him for leaving his uncle behind.
The waves grew choppy as a heady wind rose, and Shard navigated the blustery currents carefully, tucking his talons up against his chest. Almost mindlessly, he relaxed his wings and soared, dipping and rising along the wind, dodging waves that grew larger with each passing sunmark.
Day passed into night, and Shard kept the Daystar directly at his back, which would keep him oriented properly windward. The night air refreshed him, and he kept a close eye out for land. Did the Aesir ever rest? Or were they desperate or just strong enough to make the long flight without tiring?
Shard determined he wouldn’t tire—or if he did, the last thing he would do was fall out of the sky. He flew on the through the night, and into the next dawn without resting.
The Song of Last Light threaded through his mind, whether remembered or sung by the creature from his vision on the mountain, he wasn’t sure.
…they took their Names to that Sunlit Land
But their voice in the wind sings on.
To pass time on the second day, Shard decided to imagine his perfect mate.
He had never spent much time thinking about it as a younger gryfon, for the king only allowed a few select males to take mates. The day yawned long and blue like the last, with wispy threads of cloud creating spiraling wing-shapes above him. Over land, those kinds of clouds usually signaled a drastic change in weather. Over the sea, Shard had no idea if it meant the same.
He imagined his future queen’s feathers like twilight. Not dull and gray like his, but soft with an edge of dusky blue. He could picture how it would feel to have a warm mate to curl up to each night, to hunt with, share secrets.
The wind grew cooler and Shard half noticed a new, sweet scent that wasn’t salty. Rain. He checked the sky above and around. High and cool, only feathering clouds. Another illusion of the long flight. The waves grew choppier below, and he rode the currents with ease, though his wings were tiring.
He tried to figure out if having a mate would be like having a female wingbrother. In his mind, his perfect mate would be a little like Thyra—maybe a different personality, but a friend, and so much more.
Shard rolled along the wind, drawing in his mind an elegantly curving beak and intelligent eyes. She would know of the Vanir ways too. They could explore the night together and find places that belonged only to them. She would admire Shard’s flying abilities, not just that he was a prince, and she could teach him secret hunting techniques.
He thought of the Daynight pledge, of clasping talons and falling together under the bright gaze of Tyr. Then, that night—
A surging wave knocked him into the sea.
Stunned, he held his breath as the water sucked him under, the rolling wave flipping him over and around. Shard released a gasp of bubbles and forced his wings to move, dragging through the water to pull himself up. He kicked hard and his face broke the surface. Gasping, a moment of sheer panic seized his muscles.
Then the unbidden thought of Stigr laughing burst in his mind, and he loosed a chuckle at himself.
Stigr often said females were a worse distraction than fleas, though Shard was certain it was only because Stigr had ended up a bachelor. Shard almost glanced around to make sure no one had seen. But there was no one there to see him. Far off he thought he saw a white bird, an albatross perhaps on its long, lonely migration, but that was all.
“Behold the mighty Summer King,” he said to the empty waves.
He splayed his wings and floated along the swells for a moment, savoring the rest. If nothing else, he’d discovered that he could rest in the water, though it took a little effort to float, it was less than flying. The ocean grew restless, higher waves and a heady wind. He would have to pay more attention to his flight.
“No more thinking of you, my queen,” he chuckled to the air. “You’re not even real and you’re already causing me trouble.” He chuckled again, slightly de
lirious. All alone in the middle of the ocean, with no one to hear, the word didn’t sound as absurd or frightening to him as it had on the Star Isle.
Queen. A mate for him. A mate for the king of the Silver Isles.
Shard closed his eyes, breathing deeply of the sea. “I am Rashard the Stormwing,” he whispered to the water, and it lapped up to splash his beak. “The son of Baldr and Ragna. Prince of the Silver Isles.” All alone, with no one to hear but himself, it felt real and powerful. “King of the Silver Isles,” he declared to the vast and empty sea.
A wave rocked under him and he flexed his wings and kicked his hind paws to remain on top of it, and rode it down again. The water grew choppier. He had to fly out before it grew too difficult. The brief rest had felt good on his wings and the cold water reinvigorated him.
He worked forward into a hard swim, kicking and stroking, and when the next wave shoved him up he lurched out, flapping hard. Water rolled from his wings like a gull’s and he climbed back into the sky.
Wary of the growing waves and tiring of the wind currents, he flew higher to gain more leagues, faster.
Did the Aesir rest? Is there any land between here and the next coast? The only reason Shard could land in and escape from the water again was his diet of fish and sea creatures, which gave his feathers an oily sheen. The Aesir had no such protection.
Weariness crept back in by the time the sun hung toward his second evening at sea.
Sverin never spoke of how long the journey had been. Shard clung to that thought. If the Red Kings could fly over the sea, then so could he, a true Vanir, make the journey with ease.
Then, Sverin never said it had been easy.
By the last rays of evening sunlight, Shard saw storm clouds piling in the dawnward quarter of the sky.
12
Raven’s Daughter
The scent of damp soil and fermenting pine needles infused the woods of Star Island. Sigrun slipped through the forest with her two apprentices following, just old enough now to have made the flight. Three grown warrior males stalked with them, two along their flanks and one ahead, though Sigrun knew she would be safe.
Am I not a huntress as well? And what beast have they even seen on the Star Isle to frighten them? The guard had been Caj’s doing, and she wouldn’t fight him on it. The new sentinels of the King’s Guard needed something to do, after all.
And how would it look, to say I’m more afraid of their arrogant warrior males than of the wolves?
After all, she was one of the Vanir who had hidden Shard. It made her a traitor, but most had understood her plight. She, a healer, couldn’t let a kit die, not a little nestling.
“There!” cried one of her eager apprentices, and bounded forward to a sprawling nettle. Already the plants on the Sun Isle gave in to the nightly cold, and so they had to range abroad for the proper medicines to ease the discomfort of the pregnant females.
“Well done,” Sigrun said. They trotted forward to the nettle brush and Sigrun trilled to let their escort know they were stopping. Standing alert, Sigrun watched as her apprentices selected what living leaves remained on the bush, careful not to sting themselves on the ready thorns.
“I can’t believe they must put plants in their water,” scoffed the oldest. “I am never having kits. Ever.”
“Me neither,” piped the younger. She’d barely made the flight over, just having molted into her winter feathers that made her strong enough to fly.
Sigrun cocked her head and chuckled. “Plants aren’t so bad.” If only we could fish. Then they’d have all the extra nutrition they need.
That time of year used to be the richest of all, when the salmon ran, and the mackerel and sardines fled in schools away from the seals of Crow Wing. Memories of the days of fat, happy, pregnant females ran through Sigrun’s mind. She remembered watching Ragna waddle through tide pools, laughing and failing to catch the slowest fish. Back then, being pregnant was almost a joy. A break from hunting, from worry and work, and watching the males fly in proudly with the game they’d hunted for themselves.
Before the Aesir.
Sigrun had carried Thyra under the wary eye of Per the Red. And that first winter, that harsh, awful winter, Sverin’s mate got herself killed, trying to swim in the sea.
That had been the end of fishing for the Vanir.
Together with her father who had trained her in healing, Sigrun dug deeper and deeper in herb lore to learn what could replace the rich gifts of the sea. Now her father was gone, free in the Sunlit Land with Tyr and Tor. Sigrun would not see females lose kits under her watch as healer. Not only would the tragedy of it break her heart, but Sverin would no doubt suspect her of purposeful negligence.
Tor, watch our females in this time, she prayed silently, breathing deeply of the woods and the heavy cedar. Wrap them in your wings and keep them strong.
“That’s good,” she said to her apprentices once they’d picked the nettle clean. “We’ll see what else we can find before sunset. Each of you range with one of the males.”
The young gryfess healers exchanged an excited look. “By ourselves?”
“With one of the males,” Sigrun repeated. “But yes. You know what to look for. At the first evening sunmark, we’ll meet at the forest edge where we entered.”
They whooped and trilled and bounded off three-legged, nettle leaves gripped in the talons of one foreleg. Two of the males followed at a trot, having heard Sigrun’s instructions.
Sigrun rustled her wing feathers in amusement and turned to walk deeper into the woods. It had been some time since she’d been to Star Isle. Not since summer, she realized sharply. It had been the last time she’d seen Shard. And Stigr.
The scents of the forest summoned heavy memories of young days as fledges, daring each other to go deeper and deeper into the woods with the hope of seeing wolves.
The hope, she thought ruefully. The hope, not the worry. Of course, the wolves never bothered them, because they didn’t go to the woods to hunt. They only flew to the Star Isle to explore, to gather herbs or fish the streams. Sigrun fell into fond memories. Ragna, Sigrun, Baldr and Stigr, the inseparable quartet.
We thought we could conquer anything. She narrowed her eyes and ruffled out of the past.
“Healer, wait!”
Sigrun’s guardian bounded up to her. He was younger than Thyra. A full-blooded Aesir from a pair who’d flown already-mated to the Silver Isles, but only succeeded in bearing a kit a few years into their lives there.
“Vald,” Sigrun said. She’d helped to bring him into the world. It was almost an affront that he felt she needed nest-sitting. “I appreciate your concern. I’m perfectly capable—”
“Caj commanded I guard you. All respect, but I follow his command, not yours.” He stood nearly as tall as Kjorn, with feathers of rich orange. Sigrun couldn’t fathom their plumage. Nothing any gryfon ate could turn their feathers that color, and she couldn’t imagine that even the windward land of Per the Conqueror held plants so bright that an Aesir would blend in with feathers like that.
Not that it mattered. They had arrived, and brightly colored, and she treated them as any other gryfon. She wouldn’t win an argument with him, and any argument would make it back to Caj.
But she didn’t need a barnacle on her tail during her herb gathering.
She flattened her ears as if in worry and widened her eyes, swiveling her head to stare into the woods. “Did you hear that? Off over there.” She spread a wing out, pointing vaguely, and when he glanced that way she added, “Something large.”
He slanted one ear, uncertain, and peered at her doubtfully. Then to his great surprise, and Sigrun’s, a crashing racket in the brush beyond them sent birds spiraling up out of the trees.
“Stay here,” he barked.
“Mm-hm.” Sigrun watched him go. Maybe it’s a deer. Maybe we’ll have meat. Sigrun had no illusions that it would be a wolf, and even if it was, she wasn’t particularly worried.
Maybe I’m b
eing too flippant. I have eaten meat of the Star Isle, after all, and they might consider me an enemy and a thief now too.
With the brave young warrior busy with a mission, Sigrun trotted forward under the cedars. Far ahead she saw the blaze of rowan berries through the trees, and larch pine turning as yellow as the birch trees. Sun filtered through the trees, a little warmth reaching the day. For a moment she felt free, and only then realized how trapped she felt on the Sun Isle between Ragna, Sverin, Caj.
I am a healer with each sunrise, she reminded herself. And healers take no sides.
“Daughter-of-Hrafn!”
The clattering title drew a squawk of surprise from Sigrun. She whirled, then looked up to the trees. “Who speaks my father’s name?”
“Daughter of Hrafn, the healer, the Raven, ha! Daughter of the Raven, they say!”
A raven shuffled about in a high cedar branch. Sigrun realized then what had saved her from the young male gryfon’s protective company. A raven, playing tricks.
He hopped from the tree and let himself fall three leaps before flinging his wings out to land, bouncing twice, in front of Sigrun. He mantled, mockingly, as a gryfon would to a king.
Or a queen, she reflected.
“Fair winds,” she said, gaze flicking to the side to make sure no other gryfon from her little band was in sight or earshot. It wouldn’t do to be rude to the raven, in any case. She had learned that early on.
“Does no one speak great Hrafn’s name on the Sun Isle anymore? He was a friend to ravens.”
“He was named for them,” Sigrun confirmed. Her father had been a healer so talented and powerful many whispered that Tor had granted him healing magic. Or ravens had. Sigrun wasn’t sure about that. She had never seen that ravens had special powers other than speaking and being particularly clever and bothersome and perhaps intruding on dreams.
“Raven’s daughter!” The black bird called into the forest, and Sigrun winced at his volume even though the others would probably only hear a raven’s chatter. They didn’t listen properly.
