by Jess E. Owen
Pale fungus crawled along the walls and gave them scant light. Ragna and Thyra scented the way from the front of the line. Once, Sigrun thought she caught Kjorn’s scent on the rocks, but all was too damp and old to be sure.
The low, echoing call of a wolf brought the band to a dead halt.
“Be calm,” Ragna called from the front. “Sigrun!”
Sigrun trilled encouragingly to the terrified half-Aesir females she had just been checking over, and shouldered through the narrow stone passage to the front. Squinting, she found Ragna had already trotted ahead.
“If they’re feeling peaceful,” Ragna said, “you and I have the best chance for a friendly meet.”
Sigrun merely dipped her head, uneasy. Until Per the Red, she had never feared wolves. But Helaku’s pack had traversed those very caves that summer past and attacked the nesting cliffs, killed fledges, killed the old, attacked the young warriors who guarded them. Sigrun knew why, but it didn’t soften the hurt, nor dull her worry now.
Another low howl dipped into mournful, melodic singing. A male voice.
“Which rises first, the night wind, or the stars?
Not even the owl could say,
whether first comes the song or the dark.”
A chill slipped down Sigrun’s back. It was a rhyme she hadn’t sung in years. To her surprise, a brittle male gryfon voice joined from the back of their ragged line. An elder of the Vanir.
“Which fades last, the birdsong or the day?
Not even the sky could tell,
Whether last stills the sun or the jay.”
The old song soared through Sigrun’s heart, a song of mourning, a song of the earth and moon and the Vanir. Beside her, Ragna joined. Sigrun closed her eyes, her own voice silenced from grief. The half-Aesir shifted nervously, those who had never heard the old songs, but other gryfons sang with the wolf in the dark stone hall. The Vanir, at last, unafraid to raise their voices.
“Only the long day brings rest
Only the dark of night, dawn.
When the First knew themselves, the wise will say
They took their Names to the Sunlit Land
But their Voice in the wind sings on.”
“I am Ragna!” called the queen when the last echo died, and they heard the scuff of paws on stone, approaching. “Once mate to Baldr, friend of Helaku who now runs in the stars. We seek friendship and shelter. We offer peace and friendship in return.”
Sigrun thought that sounded respectful enough. The steps advanced. A single wolf, but a turn in the cave ahead prevented them from seeing it yet. Sigrun shifted, lowering her head, then lifting to try and catch a scent.
“This is folly,” Thyra whispered from behind, and Sigrun merely flicked her tail in dismissal.
If Thyra could stand up to Sverin, surely this can’t frighten her.
“I am Ahanu, son-of-Helaku.” His voice was low, smooth and rich, and he introduced himself as a gryfon would. The eerie light picked him out in pieces as he emerged from the deeper tunnel. First paws, then glimmering black and gold coat, and finally a calm, sharp-eyed face.
“Welcome, at last, wind sisters and brothers. Joy fills me to hear you sing the Song of Last Light again. We know you had losses, and we mourn with you.” His gaze fell on Sigrun. “Daughter of Hrafn. I’m glad to see you here. You are needed on the Star Isle.”
“This is a trick,” Thyra said quietly. Before Sigrun could warn her to silence or ask Ahanu what he meant, and why, Ragna spoke.
“Be still, daughter of my wingsister. Mate and soon mother to a prince. Be calm. If you need any more proof that a friend stands here, behold.”
Ragna stepped aside so that Thyra could see Ahanu for herself, Thyra took a sharp breath. Other gryfons shouldered forward to see, and Sigrun turned back, eyes narrowed. Ahanu had stepped fully into the light of the tunnel and at last she saw what she had missed before, so delirious was she with hunger and exhaustion and grief.
Neatly twisted into the heavy fur of Ahanu’s shaggy neck was a long, gleaming golden feather, and like a shadow beside it, a gray.
Kjorn. Shard. The sight made them real again to Sigrun, and to all who saw. Sigrun wanted to ask what Ahanu needed with a gryfon healer, but Thyra stepped forward first, gazing hungrily at the gold feather. Sigrun knew her own question could wait.
“Where is Kjorn?” Thyra asked.
Ahanu’s voice was low, but the stone carried his words to the very end of the line of gryfons.
“He has gone to face the king.”
48
The Horn of Midragur
The mountain stood tall over him, black rock leaping up from ragged foothills. Snow dusted the ground, glittering in the sun, and the peak shone brilliant white. He had to tilt his head to see it. Beyond the peak, the sky blazed blue.
He leaped up to fly, soaring high, searching the mountain. He traveled along the nightward slope, not sure what he searched for, but an inner tug guided him onward.
A gash marred the face of the mountain and plunged into a deep crevasse. Drawn toward the crevasse, he plunged down, soaring along the canyon in a long, wide spiral that took him so deep into the earth that the sky became a thin line of blue above him. For many moments he flew that way, until he wasn’t sure what side of the mountain he was on, or if he’d almost circled it completely.
A rock arch loomed ahead, the entrance to a massive cave. He dove under the arch. Under the mountain, into a vast, dark, underground canyon large enough for him to fly.
He marveled, winging at a steady tilt in the quiet air, feeling safe and at peace for the first time.
A low sound thrummed through the dark rock on all sides.
A warm hum.
A song.
Without hesitation, he sang out in answer. At last, the song he had longed for and thought lost. The song ceased as if in surprise at his voice, and for that moment of silence his heart ached.
Then an answering call came.
“Only the long day brings rest
Only the dark of night, dawn…”
Plump fungus laced the walls and its soft light caught on tiny crystalline rocks and lit his path like a river of pale blue stars.
I fly in the Horn of Midragur, the star dragon, who coils around the world, and the inside of the dragon is also made of stars…
Ahead, the starry stone tunnel narrowed. He couldn’t quite tell the width, but beyond it he saw strange, dim light, and suspected it widened again into a cavern. A swift current of air filled the tunnel, air sucked through the narrow entrance by the pressure of the canyon behind him.
Taking a chance, he beat his wings hard, flying swift against the air current, and aimed for the narrow hole at the end. He just had to time it right…two more wing beats, one…he shut his wings and shot through the narrow crack. He took a risk on the passage widening before he could see, and flung open his wings once he’d passed through.
He stared.
The tunnel opened into a cavern, indeed, almost too large for him to fathom.
The Dawn Spire of the gryfon aerie could’ve fit inside the cavern and left room to fly over the top. He’d flown through a tunnel that opened in the middle of the rock wall between the distant roof, and the distant stone floor. He peered up, flapping slowly in the still air.
Long fangs of rock hung down from the far away ceiling, glistening with crystal and moisture. A vast nebula of stars splashed and played out on the distant ceiling of the mountain, and he stared in awe. He flew up, and up, to the very top of the cavern, and touched one of the little stars, only to learn it was a tiny, odd worm that spun a glowing thread. He laughed in delight and let himself fall back down to behold the thousands of false, glowing stars again.
He flew one long circuit around, studying everything. A freshness permeated the air that smelled of minerals and water. Tiny cracks in the mountain must let in little breezes. Far below, the cavern floor glistened abysmally dark—volcanic glass from the First Age.
He co
uldn’t figure out what the massive cavern was. Then his mind flashed on the high, snow-capped singular peak, and he understood.
The Horn of Midragur was hollow.
An ancient volcano, he mused. Earthfire carved this mountain, once long ago.
He soared through the cavern, keening triumphantly, calling to whatever had called to him.
A song answered him, and he peered down. Far below at the bottom of the cavern, he spied something white. A dark rock mound rose out of the stone floor, cupped and concave like an eggshell.
Inside that rock nest perched an enormous, pearl-white serpent, such as he’d never seen or dreamed. Coil upon coil of gleaming, iridescent white scales filled the rock nest, and the false starlight light almost appeared to fall through the creature, as if it were made of snow, or rain. A silvery mane flickered around its head and down the endless serpent back. Then he spied four legs, more like a lizard than a snake. Two wings like swan wings opened to greet him.
He knew at once that the white serpent was female, that she was the one who had called to him over sea, in the storms and in his waking dreams, and that she was afraid.
He flew lower, not hesitating, and landed on the rock platform in front of her, dropping his wings to a mantle.
She was a dragon, he knew, but unlike the creatures he’d met in battle before. Some part of him remembered her large, searching, pale eyes, like twin suns before him.
“I called to you,” she whispered. Then he realized it wasn’t a whisper. It was her normal voice, flickering like a gentle wind on his ears. “I sang to you, but you did not come. I called the Summer King.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, finding a voice in his chest when he heard hers, remembering that he had a voice, after all. He blocked the meaning of the name Summer King, what it meant to him, the names it brought him, and the pain. But he knew she had called to him. “I’m here now.”
“Welcome.” Her reptilian eye ridges scrunched down in concern with wolf-like delicacy. “I…I did not expect a gryfon. The song…suggests someone greater.” She tilted her large head, studying him from each angle.
He bowed lower, his beak tapping the rock, and didn’t know how to answer. She slid a forepaw under his chin to lift his head. Something about her slender, articulate talons struck him with a memory.
The blunt, deadly paws of the Winderost dragons.
They couldn’t have forged the treasures that Kajar stole.
As surely as their were Vanir and Aesir, he knew with sudden, sharp clarity, there were different kinds of dragons in the world.
The thoughts confused him, the names, the questions that flocked to him.
He stared at her face instead, reptilian, long and elegant and ending in a nose like a doe. A wispy mane feathered out from her jaw line and formed a crest along her neck and back. Two long, delicate whiskers drooped out from her nose, her eyes slit like a reptile but were dilated in the dark.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“I…I don’t know,” he whispered, tight heat forming in his chest. Tight shame.
She considered him with enormous eyes. “I see. Sorrow has hidden your name. Well.” She shifted, lightly flexing her wings. “To me you shine like a shard of sunlight in this dark place, so that is what I will call you until you remember. You will only remember once you grieve. Only in grief do we honor the lost. Without grief there comes forgetting, denial, Nameless, dead hearts. We who have names and hearts must grieve. Do you understand, little Shard of Sun?”
He stared into her eyes. A shard of sun.
A shard.
Rashard.
The nightmare crashed into him and he had no time to escape.
He gasped, crumbling to his belly under the weight of it.
The battle. The dragons, the dead gryfons of the Dawn Spire that he hadn’t counted. His arrogance and stupidity. The days he’d spent running, the empty, Nameless hours walking until his paws bled.
The dragons hunting him. Still hunting me. He had named Kajar, and so they hunted him as they had never hunted a gryfon of the Dawn Spire.
He was ravenous. He was injured, exhausted. Lost.
He was Shard, the son of Baldr—failed brother, failed son, failed Summer King.
“Stigr,” he choked, and something broke inside of him.
His wild, raw keening echoed around the cavern. The dragon held still, watching him until his voice scraped and dissolved to silence.
When at last Shard only stared blankly at the roof of glow-worm stars high above them, like an impossibly close galaxy within the mountain, the dragon spoke.
“Do you remember now?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes fixed firmly above him. “I remember everything.” He managed to stand, though every muscle twitched and quivered.
“Good,” she said. “We have very little time.”
“Time for what?” His tongue felt dry. The stars danced above him. A rush of heat flooded him from tail to shoulders and he stumbled to one side as if the cavern floor pitched beneath him.
The dragon caught him against her wing, and herded him to her side. “For everything.”
Her voice sounded leagues away. Over a distant sea. Through the sky, a dream, as he’d heard it before.
“Everything…?”
“Rest,” she said. “I will wake you before too long.”
“Your name,” Shard insisted, ashamed that he hadn’t asked before.
“Amaratsu,” she answered, and he collapsed into a dream of the rising sun.
49
The Final Exile
Sverin hunched, curled on his rocks, snow weighing down his wings, and worked at cleaning Einarr’s blood from his talons. A day of scraping, gnawing, and dragging through snow and he still found flecks and spots.
Snow fell on the Copper Cliff, obscuring the sea and the rest of the Sun Isle. Sverin enforced a silence of mourning to those few left in his pride. The elderly Aesir, their mates, his own kin, and his young King’s Guard were all that remained. Many of their mates had left them, bewitched by the Widow Queen and Sigrun.
The King’s Guard milled below him, restless, and he ignored their sideways looks.
Every warrior should know that filthy talons made dull talons.
“My lord.”
Sverin perked his ears at Halvden’s voice, but didn’t raise his head. His new wingbrother sounded weary and uncertain.
Unusual.
“My lord, another blizzard comes.”
“The witch,” Sverin muttered, rasping in frustration when he found yet another bloodstain. He shook his head and ruffled his feathers, skin crawling as if he suffered mites. “The witch queen is trying to undo me.”
Halvden’s shadow fell on him in the dull light. “My lord. Ragna is gone as of last night, and all who followed her. Will you have us hunt for them?”
Sverin lashed out and Halvden stumbled back. “Can you not see I’m busy?”
Halvden leaned away, one wing lifted to shield himself. “Sire, your talons are clean. Please stop this. What should I tell the Guard and the hunters?”
“Tell them this winter will never end,” Sverin snarled, “until we kill the Vanir and the wolves in name of Tyr. He is punishing us.”
Halvden stood silently. He shifted his talons. “Sire…”
“You sound uncertain, my wingbrother,” Sverin said, lifting his gaze to Halvden’s eyes. “Is it because your pretty mate left you? She’s a fool and a traitor and you’re better off. We will find you a new mate, better, of full Aesir blood as befits your father’s memory.”
Doubt flickered in Halvden’s gaze and he glanced toward the dregs of the pride. Then he dipped his head. “Yes, of course.”
“Sire!” called a young male of the Guard. Sverin loosed a soft growl and pushed himself up to stand, shaking the snow from his feathers. “Tell us what to do! May we go in, and shelter out the storm?”
“All may shelter,” Sverin called, and heard murmurs of relief. He focused
on the young male who had spoken. “Except you. Leave my sight and don’t return until you hold a wolf pelt in your talons, or the white feathers of the Widow Queen.”
A silence fell, then other gryfons shuffled away from the unfortunate member of the King’s Guard.
“Sverin,” Halvden murmured, sidling closer as if to calm him before his anger grew. The member of the Guard stared at him, and didn’t move.
Sverin growled. “You heard me. Fly. Hunt.”
For a moment it looked as if the young male would fly, then he just stood, wings open.
As Einarr had stood before.
As Shard had stood.
Defying him.
“My lord this is madness! We serve you loyally, but you can’t ask more! We—”
Sverin leaped, felt Halvden’s talons try to catch his heel. “No, Sire!”
The young male cowered, bunching himself to spring away as Sverin dove. Sverin stretched his talons forward, his shriek cutting the snowy air.
Another gryfon plummeted from the sky and slammed him to the side.
Sverin hit the snow and rolled.
“Who dares—” Sverin jumped to his feet and turned on his attacker, flashing his wings wide.
“Enough.”
It felt as if his stomach dropped out. The figure before him couldn’t be real. The handsome golden outline, the broad wings, the softly angled face, so like her face, and so like her eyes.
“Father.” Kjorn’s voice sounded real, and then Sverin caught his scent. “Enough. Step down. Grief maddens you. I should never have let it go this far.”
The sad remains of his pride crept forward, staring and whispering in awe as if Tyr himself had stepped down from the sky.
“You stink of wolves,” Sverin snarled. “You can’t be my son. You can’t be the prince of the Aesir.”
“I am Kjorn. Son-of-Sverin.” His gaze searched Sverin’s eyes, unbelieving and sad. Sverin couldn’t fathom what put that emotion in his face. Here they were, both alive and well.
“My real son would be happy. You’re a trick.”
Kjorn shook his head. “Face what you’ve done and let’s move on. Please, Father. There’s been enough death. Enough separation in this pride.”
