It was a gryphon egg.
A blood-red egg the size of Eva’s head.
Chapter Four
The Scrawl boy scrambled forward, but before he could snatch up the egg Seppo clamped a hand around his neck and lifted him off the ground again.
“Let me go, I said!” He kicked and squirmed but this time didn’t utter any incantations. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
Eva stared at the egg. Almost as if compelled by another force, she sank to her knees and reached out for it. In her mind, she became aware of a steady thumping, a heartbeat not her own. When her fingertips brushed the egg, she was surprised to find it warm to the touch. She picked it up in both hands, and the heartbeat increased until it pounded in her ears. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it quivered in her palms.
“What shall we do with this intruder, Mistress Evelyn?” Seppo asked. The boy hung from the golem’s grip like a kitten in its mother’s mouth, surly and pouting. Seppo gave him a slight shake and watched to see if anything else fell out of his cloak. “I think we should break his legs.”
Eva broke her gaze away from the egg. “What? No! We’re not going to hurt him!”
Seppo sighed, from wounded pride, Eva guessed, when the boy had rendered him immobile on the ground. “Very well. Shall I take him to Master Wayland?”
Without waiting for an answer, he began to stomp toward the cottage, both Eva and the boy hissing in quiet protest.
“Wait!” Eva said, jumping in front of him and holding up a hand. “Just wait!”
She wrapped the egg in her cloak and nestled it close to her, feeling an odd urge to protect it, similar to the feeling that compelled her not to wake Soot. “How did you come by this egg, thief?”
The boy frowned at her, still fidgeting in Seppo’s grip. “I’m not going to say anything until this thing puts me down!”
Eva nodded at Seppo, who responded by raising the Scrawl higher in the air before letting go to let him fall in a heap on the ground.
“I am not a thing,” the golem said for the second time that day. “I am Seppo.”
“Don’t try to run,” Eva warned the boy, attempting to sound braver than she felt. “He’s almost as fast as a horse, and he could snap your legs like twigs. Now, where did you get this egg?”
“I saved it!” Scrawl said. “The egg was in danger — someone wanted to destroy it!”
“I think he stole it,” Seppo said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“No! Please, you have to believe me,” The Scrawl paused and took a deep breath. “I…I had a vision. If I hadn’t stolen the egg, it would have been destroyed, and…it was meant for you. It’s no coincidence that I’m here. I saw this place — and you. That’s how I knew where to come.”
Eva stared. “What?”
The boy nodded his tattooed head toward the egg nestled in the crook of Eva’s arm. “It feels right, doesn’t it? The egg? It was meant for you.”
The egg pulsed again, and she felt its warmth through her clothes, making her skin tingle. A second thought struck her and replaced the tingling with a weight in the pit of her stomach: she was holding the stolen gryphon egg — the egg the entire palace guard and Windsworn were looking for. Even so, for reasons she couldn’t explain, it felt like the boy told the truth.
“Here,” Eva said, unwrapping the egg and pushing it into the boy’s hands. “It’s not meant for me. You’ve made a mistake. I’m…no.”
“May I make an observation, Mistress Evelyn?” Seppo cut in. “It seems a very poor idea to give the egg to the person who stole it in the first place.”
Eva held a finger to her lips, afraid the golem would wake up Soot if he carried on much longer. She looked down at the boy, a head shorter than her. For some reason, she felt he was telling at least part of the truth. Of course, the egg couldn’t be for her, but she couldn’t help but believe he really was looking after it.
“Look, I don’t know why you think I’m the one you needed to bring the egg to, but you got it wrong.” She paused. “You can sleep in our woodshed overnight, and I’ll bring you something to eat in the morning. But then you have to leave.”
The Scrawl wrapped the egg up and placed in back in his satchel. “I appreciate your…hospitality…and I’m sure after a night’s sleep you’ll come around.”
“No,” Eva began. “I think you misunder —”
“Eva, what in the Tempest is going on out there?”
Eva froze at the sound of Soot’s voice, but Seppo filled the ensuing silence.
“We have apprehended the thief, Master Wayland!”
The boy’s eyes went wide, and he stared at Eva.
“Quick!” she hissed, spinning him around and shoving him toward the shed. “Get inside!”
Without further encouragement, the boy ran for the woodshed and ducked inside, closing the door behind him. Eva turned around just as Soot rounded the corner, rubbing his eyes.
“You two are raising enough racket to wake the dead,” the smith said. He looked at Eva. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
Eva jumped in before Seppo could reveal anything else, the lie spilling out easier than she expected. “Something was in with the chickens. I ran out to scare it off. Sorry for the noise.”
Soot studied her, and Eva wasn’t sure if he believed her or not.
“And you?” he said, looking at Seppo. “Where were you, you big pile of slag?”
“I was here!” Seppo protested. “It was I who caught the thief and —”
“Yes!” Eva said in a loud voice. “It was a raccoon, trying to get inside the coop to steal the eggs. I chased it out, but Seppo caught it. Don’t think we’ll have to worry about that one again.”
She finished with a weak laugh, stomach rolling, and hoped her foster father bought the story. Sure as sky, Soot wouldn’t believe the boy’s story — even if he gave the Scrawl half a chance to explain himself in the first place. Eva did her best not to glance toward the woodshed as Soot looked around the yard.
After what felt like forever, the smith yawned and headed back to the cottage. “All right, back to bed,” he told Eva. “You’ll be dragging your feet as it is tomorrow.” Soot paused to point a gnarled finger at Seppo. “And you. Keep it down!”
As Soot turned away, Seppo looked at Eva, and she knew the golem was dying to say something. She held a finger to her lips and gritted her teeth, shaking her head. Exasperated, Seppo shook his head and stomped away, muttering.
When morning arrived, Eva woke early enough to sneak out a heel of bread and bucket of water to the woodshed. Crossing the yard, she found herself hoping the boy was gone — or better yet that the whole thing had been a wild dream. When she opened the door, however, Eva found the Scrawl sitting cross-legged on the ground, the red gryphon egg nestled in his lap.
“Here,” she said, handing him the bread and setting the pail down beside him. “You need to leave soon. If Seppo sees you again, I can’t promise he won’t hand you over to Soot.”
The boy shook his head. “You have to take the egg. And I’m not leaving until you do.”
Exasperated, Eva opened her mouth to argue, but the Scrawl cut her off.
“Who’s Soot?” he asked through a gigantic mouthful of bread.
“The blacksmith!” Eva said.
“Your husband?”
“What? No!” Eva wasn’t sure to laugh or be appalled. “He’s…he raised me.”
The boy nodded. Stuffing the rest of the bread into his mouth, he offered up a hand, covered with rune tattoos. “My name’s Ivan.”
Eva hesitated. Like everyone else, she’d heard the old wives’ tale that Scrawls could kill with a touch. Ivan extended it again, however, and she took it feeling the same when their hands fell apart as before. “Good to meet you, Ivan. I’m Eva. But really, you’ve got to go. I —”
Ivan nodded as she spoke. “I know who you are. I told you, I saw you in my vision. That’s why I’m staying. You’ve got to take the egg.”
Once more,
he reached into his satchel and held it out for her. On impulse, Eva’s hands rose. She wondered if the egg was still warm, if it still pulsed…but no. Eva shook her head, pulling her hands back.
“You should be gone by nightfall,” she said. “Soot usually has Seppo or me fetch the wood for the furnace, but I can’t promise that Seppo won’t reveal you — he’s still upset about whatever you did to him last night.”
Ivan shook his head after taking a long draught of water. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and the satchel. “I’m supposed to be here, with you and the egg.”
“It won’t go well for you if Soot finds you. He’ll turn you over to the gryphon riders.”
The boy shrugged again, as if Eva were a little girl telling him about her imaginary friends. The gesture infuriated her more each time he did it. But before she could argue with Ivan anymore, Soot’s voice rang out over the sound of hammer striking anvil.
“Eva, where’s that water? I’m getting parched in here, girl!”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Eva said as she closed the door. In answer, Ivan smiled and waved.
Throughout the remainder of the day, Eva couldn’t stop thinking about Ivan and the egg, especially the way she’d felt when holding it. She wondered how long the boy would wait before he gave up and left. And what was all that nonsense about seeing into the future? Although the Scrawls kept much of their rune lore to themselves, Eva felt certain none of them could use it to see things that hadn’t happened yet. Rune magic, as far as she knew, only worked on real things, like people, animals, objects, and the elements. Fortune-telling and all that sort of mystic mumbo jumbo had nothing to do with real magic. It just didn’t work that way.
But that didn’t explain how Eva felt while holding the gryphon egg. The thought sent a shiver through her. She’d never felt so…complete. Ever since, there’d been a pressing need to experience that again, like an itch she couldn’t quite reach to scratch.
A shower of sparks brought Eva back to the present as Soot pounded away at a cherry-red wagon axle. She smacked the tiny embers stinging her neck and pulled her leather cap down tighter to cover her hair. The forge was no place for daydreaming, and Eva had her fair share of burn marks and scars like any other smith’s assistant. Whenever she got careless in her work, Soot told her stories of careless smiths who’d lost limbs, been killed or horribly disfigured. Chastising herself for her carelessness, Eva refocused on the job at hand.
Due to their heavy workload, the day passed by without a chance for Eva to check on Ivan again. Even so, something told her the Scrawl hadn’t gone anywhere. For his part, Seppo acted as if the whole thing hadn’t happened — at least while the forge preoccupied him. Soot held a deep-rooted love for the forge that Eva shared to a lesser degree, but the golem lived to work with hammer and hot iron.
On rare occasions when work ran slow, Seppo grew restless and they’d wake up one morning to find random pieces of intricate metalwork he’d crafted to pass the time. Once, he’d made a rose so lifelike that, aside from its metal color, looked like it could have just been picked. At the moment, Seppo pounded away with a hammer Soot could barely lift, humming a weird noise akin to a cat’s purr mixed with wind chimes.
When they stopped for the night, Eva felt even more tired and dirty than the day before. After picking up their tools, she and Soot and walked over to rinse away the grime. When Soot finished, Eva waited until he’d gone in the house before sprinting over to the woodshed. She opened the door and blew out a long sigh. Ivan was gone.
Chapter Five
Eva prepared dinner for the night and tried not to think about Ivan, or the gryphon egg. Now that he was gone, Eva wondered if she’d done the right thing by letting the Scrawl go, wondered if she should have told Soot. The more she thought about it, the guiltier she felt. What if the Windsworn captured Ivan and the Scrawl confessed she’d helped him? She swallowed hard and tried not to think about it, although the implications weighed on her until it felt like Seppo stood on her chest.
“Why so glum?” Soot asked after he’d finished eating. He wiped his whiskered face with the back of his hand and smacked his lips. “I swear, each stew you make is better than the last!”
Eva managed a weak smile as she cleared the table. Soot continued to watch, face softening. “Eva, maybe we’ve been working a little hard lately — how about you take the afternoon off tomorrow and visit the library? Seppo and I can take care of things.”
“All right,” Eva said, trying hard to sound more excited than she was. It didn’t work.
“Look here,” Soot said and put an arm around her. “I’m sorry about the other day. All that talk of Windsworn caught me off guard. It’s… been a long time since I had any reminders of that life. Some things are hard to remember.”
Eva nodded, too flustered to even attempt to pry more information from Soot about “that life.” After washing their bowls at the water pump, she excused herself to bed. Leaving Soot to his nightly ruminations out on the porch, she opened the door to her bedroom. Ready to collapse on her straw mattress, Eva instead stifled a scream.
Ivan sat cross-legged on the middle of her bed. When their eyes met, he grinned. “I thought you’d never go to bed,” he whispered. “Didn’t bring any food, did you?”
Eva shot a worried glance out her window. “What are you still doing here?” she hissed, afraid even the slightest noise would alert Soot. “I thought you left!”
“I did. Well, the shed anyway. It got too hot and cramped — this is much better!”
Eva stared in disbelief, her throat tight as panic gripped her. Not only was she hiding a thief wanted by the king, but what if he’d found her Wonder?
“You can’t stay here!” Eva said, rushing to her mattress and pushing the Scrawl aside. She shoved her hand underneath her bed, her panic doubling when her hand found nothing.
“Are you looking for this?” Ivan said, holding up the twinkling Wonder stone. “I’ve been studying it. It’s really quite the thing — of all the places to find a relic of the Ancients, I never would have guessed a blacksmith’s daughter would have one! Where did you get it?”
Eva snatched the necklace out of the Scrawl’s grasp and held it close, smothering its light.
“Get out!”
“Fine,” Ivan said, voice rising. “I just wanted a little company after a whole day in that woodshed, and this is the thanks I get.” Shooting Eva a dirty look, he hitched one leg over the lip of the window.
Eva’s heart raced, and she stumbled forward, dragging the Scrawl back down onto her bedding. “Not now!” she hissed, fighting to keep her voice down. “Soot’s out on the porch — he’ll see you!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” Ivan whispered back. “One second you say I have to go; the next you’re telling me to stay — you Sorondarans don’t make any sense.”
“You have to wait. Until. Soot. Comes. In,” Eva said, teeth gritted. “Now go over there in the corner, and don’t move until I say.”
No sooner had Ivan slumped down in the corner than Eva heard the porch creak as Soot rose to retire for bed. She held her breath when his heavy footfalls paused outside her door.
“Eva?” Soot said. “You awake in there?”
As quiet as she could, Eva lowered herself onto the mattress and closed her eyes, her thumping heart pounding in her ears. After a long moment, she heard her foster father sigh and walk away. Eva’s eyes shot open, and she help up a hand as Ivan started to cross the room.
“Not yet,” she mouthed, holding up her hands to show Soot had to fall asleep first. Ivan winked, which irritated her even more, and sat back on the floor. He only sat still for a few moments before reaching into his satchel and pulling out the gryphon egg again.
Eva stared at it, transfixed by the way the faint moonlight shimmered on its blood-red surface. Seeing her looking at it, Ivan held it out to her. Eva hesitated and bit her lip, torn by indecisiveness. Ivan stretched
his arms out again, encouraging, and Eva relented.
As soon as her hands wrapped around the egg, a thrill rushed through her. Stifling a gasp, she sat back cross-legged and sat it in her lap. The beating sound filled her mind, matching the rhythm of her own heart. When she stretched out a trembling hand again, the egg quivered at her touch. Eva held it for a long time, lost in the sensation until sleep started to overtake her.
She looked up to see Ivan already asleep and heard Soot snoring in the next room. Fighting to keep her eyes open, Eva lay down and curled around the egg, lulled to sleep by its reassuring heartbeats.
When morning came, Eva bolted upright in bed, the sounds of drums filling her head. She looked around her room, still half-asleep. The sight of Ivan scratching runes into the floor jolted her awake.
“Why are you still here?” she asked in a loud whisper.
Ivan shrugged. “You fell asleep! I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”
Eva glanced out the window and saw the sun already high in the sky. For some reason, Soot had let her sleep in. Panic overwhelmed her, and the beat of the gryphon egg pounded in her mind like a drum.
“What am I going to do?” Eva asked herself, running her hands over and over through her long, tangled hair. “What am I going to do?”
A shadow crossed her window, followed by the sound of heavy wings beating. Eva’s insides froze. Outside in the yard, feathers shook, and a screech sounded, deeper and louder than any eagle’s. The gryphon riders were visiting.
Shaking, Eva pulled herself up high enough to peek over the bottom of her window. Three gryphons filled the small yard between the cottage and the forge, riders just sliding off their backs. Eva’s breath caught in her throat, terror momentarily forgotten at her first sight of the magnificent creatures up close.
The white, gray, and brown plumage of each gryphon glowed like burnished metal in the sunshine. As each rider stepped aside, they folded their enormous wings and shook their great eagles’ heads, causing a shiver to run down Eva’s back. The gryphons were shorter than most horses but carried more muscle on their feline frames than even the war-horses Eva saw knights riding in the parades. From the curve of their yellow beaks to their long, wicked front talons and massive back paws, each creature made a fearsome sight on its own as they switched their long, tufted tails.
Windsworn: Gryphon Riders Book One (Gryphon Riders Trilogy 1) Page 3
