by Jess E. Owen
“Very good,” Orn said, looking around for any more objections. There were none. “Valdis,” he called. She walked to his side. “You brought them here. Show them to a dwelling on the low tiers. Night falls, and we must be in.”
“Wait,” Dagny piped up, and to Shard’s surprise, even the king and queen looked to her patiently. “Shard lost to Asvander, but Asvander lost to Stigr. What does that mean?”
“It means you owe me two rabbit pelts,” said the queen. Dagny scoffed, scowled at Shard, then Asvander in disbelief, then bowed to the queen. With that, the queen, the king, and most of the elders took wing to find their dens. Dagny followed them up, muttering.
Brynja gave Shard a furtive glance and Asvander looked imperiously toward Stigr. “Outlander. Report to the Wind Spire at daybreak.”
Stigr inclined his head as Asvander pivoted and shoved into the sky, leaving them.
Shard looked at Stigr. “What’s the Wind Spire?”
“How should I know?” Stigr grumbled. “But I wasn’t about to ask that fluffed up jaybird, was I? I’ll find it. Don’t you mind about me. You stay on your own wind, nephew, and remember why you came here.”
As soon as he’d said that, they both realized that Brynja was still standing there. Valdis had already begun walking and an older gryfon followed her, arguing about the whole thing. Shard could hear his beak grating and tapping as he mumbled to himself about the days when they simply dispatched Outlanders and didn’t worry about discussing it in committee. Valdis talked him down and sent him off, and Shard looked at Brynja.
“Thank you for your help,” Shard said hesitantly. “Where should I report tomorrow?”
“I’ll fetch you.” Brynja looked from Stigr to Shard and one ear slanted back in skepticism. “You two will be all right?”
“We will,” Shard said before Stigr could say something crude. He fixed his gaze on Stigr’s narrowed expression. “We have good practice lying.”
Stigr growled low. “Nephew.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to lie all winter,” Brynja soothed, though at Stigr’s growl she stepped a hind paw back defensively. “This was the best way. I promise, once you’ve proven yourself, Orn should grant you whatever you need. And, you have friends here.”
“What friends?” Stigr’s gaze rolled up and around the rock cliffs. “You’re making a lot of half promises.”
Shard followed his look and cocked his head, squinting. A strange orange light pervaded the whole nesting colony of the Dawn Spire, as if it were still sunset. Strange, bobbing shadows filled the crannies and shivered along the walls—but since Brynja didn’t jump and spook at their movement, Shard forced himself to stand still.
“The queen,” Brynja said firmly. “Valdis. Me. Even Asvander. The queen will be most glad to know that her sister, Sverin, and their kit made the flight across the sea.”
So I’m not crazy. The queen is the sister of Sverin’s mate. That’s why she looks familiar. Shard and Kjorn had grown up hearing that Kjorn took after his mother, but Shard had never realized how much—or that Sverin’s mate had a sister.
Shard met Brynja’s eyes. “Will the queen still be our friend when she learns that her sister is dead?”
Brynja hesitated. “If you are Kjorn’s wingbrother as you say, then yes, she will be your friend.”
“What is this light?” Stigr hissed, and Shard felt relief at knowing that he wasn’t just imagining it.
Brynja blinked, then laughed and opened her wings to indicate they should look up again. Shard tilted his head, gaze traveling up the high walls, ribbons of rock covered in strange, flying shadows. A low, uneasy thrum sounded from Stigr’s chest.
Patches of fire flickered at the top of every column and spire and along the rocky crest of the Dawn Spire itself. Pyres burned along the ground every ten leaps or so, shedding light throughout.
“Tyr’s beak,” Stigr muttered, ears flattened in plain fear. “What is this witchery?”
Shard didn’t understand his uncle’s reaction. They knew of fire from Pebble’s Throw, from skyfire strikes that split pine trunks and sometimes burned in the heavily treed areas of the Silver Isles. That kind of fire was dangerous, wild, and uncontrolled, a nameless force of the First Age like the wind and the sea.
The fire in the gryfon aerie of the Winderost, contained on burning stacks of wood, lighting the rock walls and towers and stream, delighted Shard’s heart.
“No witchery,” Brynja said, her voice warm with adulation. “Tyr’s greatest gift. His light, his warmth, all through the night. Years ago a terrible storm ravaged the Outlands, and we saw the fires burning. They burned for days and days and my father and others finally knew that Tyr had given it to us. We harvested the flames using the same branches it burned, and we’ve learned more of its ways ever since.”
“It’s incredible.” Shard stared. He soaked in the perfect heat of a summer’s day, though through the wood and smoke he smelled frost gathering in the areas beyond the aerie. The possibilities reeled his mind if they could harness skyfire for the Silver Isles.
Then they need never fear the long, dark, icy winters.
“We don’t know how to make the fires,” Brynja said. “So they must be fed.”
“To what end?” Stigr demanded. “This is unnatural. Darkness and light, that is the way.”
Brynja turned to him, closing her fanned wings. The orange light cut dramatic angles against her lovely face, making her appear more stern and distant, the way Shard imagined eternal Tor. He shivered, eyes locked on her face, as Stigr’s were.
“When you truly know the danger of the darkness in the Winderost, you’ll begin to love the fire.” She looked lovingly up toward the torches and bonfires and patches that filled the aerie. “The sun never sets on the Dawn Spire.”
“Daughter-of-Mar,” snapped a withering voice. All three startled, looking askance. Valdis strode back to them when she’d realized Shard and Stigr hadn’t followed. “To your nest. You needn’t worry about these two until the dawn.”
Brynja squinted in amusement, but without a word she spun on her heels and loped twice before flying into the air. Shard watched, mesmerized as the firelight shivered over her russet wings and cast her in dramatic shadow.
“Enough now,” said Valdis. “With me, you two. This way.”
She turned and Shard and Stigr fell into step behind. While Stigr’s gaze traveled warily along the walls, watching the shadows, Shard studied Valdis’ feathers. He thought of Brynja’s wings, their coloring russet and rich with the slight iridescence of a higher creature. Then he thought of red Sverin, and how the firelight would have made his feathers look.
“Uncle,” Shard whispered as low as he could. Valdis’s ears didn’t twitch. If she listened or cared, she was pretending not to. Stigr dragged his gaze from the fires. “Have you noticed…have you realized how none of these Aesir are as brightly colored as Sverin’s pride?”
Stigr slowed, then twitched his head. “I’m only half blind, you know.”
“I just mean, I wonder what it—”
“Will knowing gain you your kingship?” Stigr’s fierce mutter threatened to rise to shouting. “Will knowing help you to rid the Silver Isles of the Aesir?”
“I don’t—”
“Stay on your wind,” Stigr warned. “We have only one reason to be here. Your vision. And we never should have had to come at all, nor prove ourselves to this pride.”
Shard’s belly tightened and his wings tensed. Before he could respond, Valdis stopped and gestured her talons toward a dim crack in the stone wall. It looked just large enough for a gryfon to squeeze through.
“You may nest here.” She said it as if she presented a wide den laced with the scent of pine and piled with soft furs. Stigr swiveled to eye the dark crack, and sniffed twice. Shard had already caught a whiff of old rat bone and plant mold.
Stigr coughed. “Tell the king his generosity is overwhelming.”
Valdis studied him calmly. “I w
ill.” She turned to go and then paused, looking over her shoulder at Stigr. “Not many impress me, son of Ragr. If that means anything to you. Rest well.”
She left them, and they stood there, eyeing the den and the shadows from the fires bouncing on the rocks.
“What is that supposed to mean,” Stigr demanded, feathers ruffling.
“I think it was a compliment,” Shard said, growing tired of Stigr’s attitude.
“As if I need complimenting. From an Aesir. From her.”
“I think she admired the way you beat Asvander,” Shard added, just to rub it in. He had never seen his uncle so belligerent or quick to anger. He tried to be understanding, for he needed Stigr’s support and strength, tried to remember that he’d landed Stigr in the middle of his sworn enemy. “Uncle…”
“Rest well,” Stigr said as he stepped forward to work his way into their den. “I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Freezing winter winds gusted through his dream, knocking him from a star-filled sky into a blizzard of blowing snow. He couldn’t figure out if he was back on the White Mountain, or if the snow filled the Winderost, but he rolled to face it on his feet. Something locked his talons and hind paws to the ground, and he couldn’t move.
He stood shivering, wings open, staring at a wall of white.
A shadow loomed forward in the white flurry. Something stalked forward through the storm. Shard’s heart beat hard.
For a moment he expected to see the owl, or Catori, or even a raven, and he was ready to call the name of a friend.
But he had no name for what exploded out of the storm.
A dark, screaming creature burst out of the white gloom, knocking him flat before he got a look at it. Shard hit the ground gasping, his limbs locked, unable to block out the creature’s hateful, grating roars. It was gone, leaving him in cold dark, but the roars went on and on.
Someone called to him. He strained to the voice.
“Shard. Rashard! Wake up!”
Shard surged out of the dream. Brynja jumped back when he leaped to his feet, wings knocking the rock walls on either side of his cramped den.
“It was a nightmare!” Brynja ducked her head to avoid his wings.
“What is that sound?” Shard asked, breathless, barely understanding that he was no longer dreaming. The chilling roars from his dream hadn’t left him. They remained, echoing from afar, in the real dawn wind beyond the Winderost.
“The enemy,” Brynja said quietly, her gaze averting to the entrance of Shard’s den. “You needn’t fear them during the day.”
No sentries sounded an alarm, and it seemed that Shard was the only gryfon to have awakened to the sound. Whatever beast roared in the pre-dawn light, it wasn’t an immediate threat.
But it was a threat.
“Tell me what it is,” Shard demanded, settling his wings. “And where is Stigr?”
“He was gone when I arrived,” Brynja said, ignoring the first question. “Probably to meet Asvander. It’s dawn. Time to go to the hunt.” Brynja turned to leave, tail twitching.
Shard didn’t move. “I’d like to be friends,” he said. “But if you don’t tell me who or what this enemy is, I will find out myself.”
Brynja paused, looking over her shoulder. “For one who claims to be wingbrother to the great grandson of Kajar…well, I’m surprised you don’t know. We don’t speak of it. Ask me again and I’ll find a more suitable duty for you.”
Shard narrowed his eyes but followed her out of the den into the morning light. Sunlight glowed orange on the horizon, and the roars had faded, leaving only the sound of waking gryfons and twittering birdsong in the breeze.
22
First Frost
The howl of wind against rock pulled Kjorn from a vague dream of his first nest, surrounded by red stone and an elusive, sweet, grassy scent. He lunged up, tail flicking, and sniffed the air. The sweet smell of grass was gone, replaced with frost and sea. Beside him, Thyra burrowed deeper into their nest with a huff. Frosty cold deadened the air, and the wind sang against the riddled face of the nesting cliffs.
Kjorn walked to the entrance, head cocked. “Did you hear something?”
“Yes,” mumbled Thyra, tucking talons over her face. “A great boar is shuffling around my den.”
Kjorn leaned out, listening. Dawn tapped at the sky in light grays, a long rosy line under a blanket of cloud. He shuddered. Thyra and others with Vanir blood had already grown in winter feathering—long, soft feathers that nearly covered their talons and brushed down along their necks like manes. Kjorn had always thought it looked beautiful on the females, enviable on the males, but some muttered among themselves that it only made the half bloods stand out.
“I heard something.”
“Mmh.”
Kjorn slanted an ear to her, then, irritated, leaped from the cave into the morning. The cold air swept against Kjorn and he worked hard to gain lift over the bronze-black faces of the cliffs. Rising over the edge, he entered a world of white.
Hoarfrost caked the ground and the rocks and the trees as far as Kjorn could see. The rolling plain above the nesting cliffs stretched white and silent, broadening into frosted hills around the Nightrun and the White Mountains beyond. Kjorn’s breath drove small clouds before his eyes and every wing beat needled cold under his feathers.
Voices echoed softly off the rock and water. It was difficult to keep secrets around the nesting cliff. Kjorn perked his ears and saw his father, unmistakably red and large, and Halvden, vivid green against the thick frost. They were speaking.
And eating. The torn carcass of a caribou cow reddened the ground between them.
Like a falcon Kjorn stooped, silent, until he smashed in between them. He ripped the caribou haunch from his father’s talons and flung it aside.
“Father! What is this? You eat fresh meat while the pride goes hungry in exchange for wolf hunts?”
“Calm yourself, Kjorn,” Sverin warned, his scarlet hackle feathers lifting. “You don’t know—”
Kjorn whirled and bore down on Halvden, lifting his wings, tail lashing. “And you. You should be taking food to your mate, who carries your kit. Soon she won’t be able to hunt at all.”
Halvden’s gaze slid to the king. Kjorn spun back to Sverin, who opened his wings to greet Kjorn’s threat.
“Kjorn. Stop.”
“Soon none of them will be able to hunt. Only the old females, and us, and none of us have any fat to guard against the winter. Although now to look at you, Father, you seem sleek enough to me.”
From the corner of his eye, Kjorn saw gryfons gathering. Young, and elderly, and some flying in from the air.
“Are you quite finished?” Sverin growled.
Kjorn flattened his ears. “Yes. Explain this.”
Halvden yawned and examined his talons. “My lord, may I carry on while you give the honored prince his explanation?”
“Yes, Halvden.” Sverin didn’t take his eyes from Kjorn. “Thank you.”
Halvden cast Kjorn a smug, amused glance, then continued breaking apart the carcass. “You should consider trusting your father,” he muttered, then shouldered by Kjorn, dragging the meat away.
To Kjorn’s surprise, as fledgling gryfons and elderly approached, Halvden handed out offerings of meat.
Heat lanced up Kjorn’s face and turned his belly. “Father?”
“Einarr’s mate advised us of a herd low in the foot hills,” Sverin said, his voice cold. “And select huntresses left early this morning to bring what kills they could.”
Kjorn sunk into a low bow, hanging his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t have a chance. The plan happened late in the evening. I thought it would be a pleasant surprise for you and Thyra this morning. She’s seemed overly tired these last days and so we didn’t include her in the plans for the hunt.”
Kjorn tucked his feathered tail low and pressed his head into the frost, sick with himself.
�
�Did you really think I would eat before feeding my pride? Should I have to explain myself to you?”
“No,” Kjorn whispered, though he had. “I just…when I saw…”
“Don’t stutter,” Sverin said. Kjorn flinched, then, taking the hint, shook frost from his head and stood tall again, meeting his father’s gaze with the small measure of pride he could muster.
“Forgive me.” Kjorn looked around again, and noticed gryfesses soaring in with meat clutched in their talons. A good hunt. Thyra would be surprised and pleased. If Kjorn had waited a few moments more before assuming the worst, it would have been a wonderful morning indeed, despite the cold. “Father, don’t shelter me. Include me in your plans. I do trust you. You just haven’t seemed yourself since the summer, and I know winter is hard on you. And Father, I don’t entirely trust Halvden.” He hadn’t planned to say the last part but it burst out, and he was relieved to say it.
Sverin watched him a moment, then cocked his head, indicating that Kjorn should follow as he walked farther from the gathering pride. “If I haven’t seemed myself,” he said quietly, “it’s because I was betrayed. As you were betrayed, Kjorn. Shard lied to all of us. The deceit of his mother and Sigrun and his own lies have torn us apart.”
Kjorn walked slowly, muscles stiff in the cold. “I know.”
“It is difficult to trust again after such a thing,” Sverin said, looking toward the leaden sky. “I know that Halvden can be arrogant at times, but he is young. Remember he lost both of his parents this summer. You know what it is to lose a parent.”
It was a blow. Kjorn narrowed his eyes, forcing his ears to remain forward, not wanting to look hostile.
“Consider,” Sverin said after giving him a moment to feel sympathy for Halvden, “That you will want a new wingbrother at your side one day.”
Kjorn narrowed his eyes. Is that Halvden’s scheme? To become my wingbrother? He doesn’t even like me. He forced his expression to relax, and dipped his head. “I will consider.”
