The Gryphon's Lair

by Kelley Armstrong

  The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the only person who actually wants to spend time with me is Rhydd, who doesn’t have much choice either, being my twin brother. Of course, as soon as I’ve decided that, Jacko climbs onto my back and purrs. Even Sunniva turns and rubs her cheek against my shoulder. I have to smile, if weakly, at that.

  I reach for the mane comb and a voice says, “That is one spoiled pegasus.”

  My smile widens as I turn to Rhydd. “She’s more of a princess than I am.”

  “She is indeed.” He takes an apple from his pocket and feeds it to her. “So what’s up with you and Dain?”

  “Me and Dain? Or me and Alianor?”

  He scrunches his nose. “Yeah, Alianor not wanting to join you is weird. But Clan Hadleigh is coming this week, and I wonder if her father wants her to spy on them. You know they’re old enemies.”

  “No, they’re old allies who became enemies, which is always worse.”

  “True.”

  Our father was Clan Hadleigh. They’re river people, who know how to navigate the waterways, including those in the mountains. That brings them into conflict with Clan Bellamy, who want to be the only option for mountain guides…because if you have to pick between being guided by bandits or not-bandits, the choice is clear. The only reason anyone hires Clan Bellamy is because the main river through the mountains mysteriously dried up years ago.

  Rhydd bites into a second apple. Sunniva whinnies and tosses her mane…as I’m combing it.

  “Hey!” I say. “Do you want your grooming or not?”

  “She wants the apple more, and I’m teasing her.” He feeds her the rest of it. “About you and Dain…I know things have been strained between you, but he really was the obvious companion choice for this trip.”

  I make a face. “I know.”

  “So why didn’t you pick him first?”

  I shrug.

  “Rowan…” He lowers his voice. “It’s just you and me here.”

  Yes, but the truth sounds like whining. Like running to your parents saying that someone was mean to you. Sometimes you should tell a grown-up. Other times, you should work it out yourself. I don’t know which this is. When Dain complains about me to others, is he disrespecting the royal monster hunter? Or is he just complaining about another person?

  Either way, if I tell Rhydd, then he’s honor bound to assure me that I’m fit for my position, and that’s just awkward and embarrassing.

  So I don’t lie—I just…shift the focus of the truth.

  “We got into an argument about why I invited him on the khrysomallos mission. I said it was because we haven’t had much time alone together lately, and he thought that meant I liked him as a boy. I said ‘Eww.’ ”

  Rhydd chokes on a laugh. “Eww? Well, now I know why he’s annoyed with you.” Another laugh, louder, as he shakes his head.

  “I meant ‘eww’ to liking anyone that way. I explained, but he still seemed offended.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Rhydd murmurs.

  I finish Sunniva’s mane and put the comb into the box. “Yes, under the circumstances, ‘eww’ is never the right response. Now he’s offended, and I didn’t need a week of him scowling and complaining.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I glance sidelong at my brother as I rearrange the grooming box.

  Rhydd shrugs again. “I mean that. If he’s not going to enjoy the adventure, why take him along? Others would love to go. I would.”

  He settles on the ground, his bad leg extended. I sit cross-legged, with the brush in hand and Jacko on my lap, wriggling with anticipation at a little grooming of his own.

  “In Dain’s defense,” Rhydd says, “he might be getting teased about you. He’s your age, and he’s a boy, and people are always quick to see a potential romance there. If someone teased him, he might be uncomfortable with you. He needs to deal with it, because the teasing is going to happen. Same as I get for hanging around girls my age.”

  I eye him. “Like Alianor?”

  His lips twitch in a smile. “Oh, it’s worse with Alianor. Her father is already planning our wedding.”

  “Wh-what?” I sputter.

  “Not exactly, but let’s just say that’s another reason Everard was so quick to leave his daughter here. In case she catches the eye of a future king.”

  His grin turns to a laugh. “You should see your face, Ro. Don’t worry—I’m not in the market for a queen, and Alianor isn’t in the market for a husband. But I’ve overheard enough to suspect her father has matchmaking in mind.”

  Is that why Alianor is staying behind? To spend more time with my brother? She obviously isn’t in the market for a husband, but she is interested in boys already. Even if she doesn’t know her father’s hopes, she might still look at Rhydd and see…

  The thought makes my head hurt. It makes me feel like a child, everyone else growing up and me staying the same.

  “Don’t tell her I said that,” Rhydd says. “I like her as a friend, the way you like Dain. I hope she doesn’t find out what her dad wants. That would make things awkward.”

  “I won’t tell her.”

  “Thank you. As for Dain, maybe this trip will be good for both of you. Work out your problems. If not, well, you can always abandon him in the forest somewhere. Jacko wouldn’t mind, would you, boy?”

  Jacko chitters and preens under my brush, and Rhydd and I switch to the more interesting subject of my impending journey.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The expedition party leaves at dawn the next day. Rhydd has been given permission to accompany us to the foothills, and I wonder whether that means Alianor will join, but she only says a breezy farewell and then returns to her studies.

  The first leg of this journey is a full procession. That was my idea. We will take the main roads, with Tiera on a long, lightweight chain, which allows her to be seen by villagers. This is their opportunity to view a young gryphon…while also seeing their royal monster hunter doing the right thing and returning her to the mountains.

  Mom was very pleased with my plan. Wilmot, on the other hand, was as thrilled as Dain at the idea of parading through the villages. When he grumbled, Mom gave him leave to avoid the towns and join up with us later, and he and Dain both chose to do that.

  Malric is still limping slightly, but there’s no way he’ll stay behind. Jacko is also with me. Sunniva is not. I took her for a pre-dawn run and then left her sleeping beside a quarter-bushel of apples, so hopefully by the time she realizes I’m gone, we’ll be past the villages. We already have a gryphon, a unicorn, a warg, a jackalope, a princess and a prince. I want to put on a parade, not a theatrical performance.

  When I first went to find Wilmot in the forest, it’d taken three days to get there. We’re entering at a closer point this time, so it is the end of the second day before we reach the Dunnian Woods. Tamarel is shaped like a capital D. Along the curved edge is ocean, thick with both fog and sea monsters. There are coves where fishers ply their trade, but no one ventures far. The straight part of the D is the mountain range that separates us from other countries. Those mountains are also filled with fog and monsters. That explains why monster hunting is so important to Tamarel. We’re literally surrounded by the beasts.

  Before reaching the mountains, we need to pass through the Dunnian Woods, which thankfully are not foggy. Monsters, though? Oh yeah. The woods are full of them. Monsters, monsters, more monsters and very few people, which is why Wilmot chose to live there.

  When Clan Dacre united the clans and created a monarchy, they built their castle in the middle of Tamarel. A path directly west takes a day and a half. Two days if you’re slowing in every village and stopping in every town. Dain and Wilmot rejoin us after that part.

  Rhydd stays with us until the third morning. Then he’s homeward bound with his guards, a
long the quicker and quieter route. He still has Courtois, and that’s enough to draw people from their homes, especially when they know the only unicorn in Tamarel is also the new mount of their future king.

  Speaking of mounts, we can’t ride ours into the forest. It’s too thick, and the monsters make them nervous. Two guards set up camp by a stream with our horses, which they’ll keep ready for our return.

  Once we head into the forest, I’m alone with Dain, Wilmot and Kaylein, and I will forever be grateful for Kaylein’s presence. While Rhydd was with us, she’d stayed back with her fellow guards, but since then, she’s been walking with me, and we chatter away, saving me from the abyss of silence I’d fall into otherwise.

  Wilmot is never exactly talkative. That’d been different when we first met and, in his mental confusion, he’d mistaken me for Jannah and been thrown back to their childhood together. Then, he’d been all easy conversation and easier smiles. Now that his head is clear, he is what I’d been warned to expect. Gruff but fair. Quiet and reserved and stingy with praise. I don’t mind that in a teacher, but it would make a weeklong walk endless.

  Wilmot is still more companionable than my actual companion. Now that it’s the four of us, it’s very obvious Dain and I are avoiding each other. So I value Kaylein’s company—and Jacko’s and Tiera’s antics—all the more. Even Malric’s plodding silence is better than Dain’s active avoidance.

  This is Kaylein’s first time in the Dunnian Woods. Her family lives along the coast and fishes the ocean. They’re Clan Montag, same as Berinon. She’s the daughter of his cousin, which is how she ended up in the guard service.

  As a child, Berinon had been apprenticed to a blacksmith in the castle village. He saved my father’s life and became Dad’s bodyguard. That’s unusual—royal positions are usually inherited, like most jobs. If your family farms, you become a farmer. If your family fishes, you become a fisher. If they’re monster hunters or royal guards, you become that.

  Berinon had been apprenticed to a blacksmith because he was big and strong, and his clan wanted him to train and bring those smithing skills home. They gladly surrendered that dream when he became a young lord’s personal bodyguard. Especially when that lord grew up to marry the queen.

  Kaylein tells me that Berinon is a legend in his village: the boy who went away to become a blacksmith and wound up the queen’s personal bodyguard. When Kaylein was five, Berinon returned for a visit, and Kaylein declared she, too, would be a royal guard. So he made her a tin sword and taught her a few moves, all in good fun. He came back five years later to find Kaylein fully trained in sword fighting and pugilism, having sought out everyone who could teach her. He’d said if she was still interested at sixteen, he’d take her to the castle. And so she began her service.

  When we stop for lunch, I regale everyone with a Jannah story. That’s a guaranteed way to get Wilmot’s attention. I’ll tell him one, and then he’ll tell me one. We do that now, as we eat and I feed Tiera. Then I stretch out against the gryphon as she naps, her belly full. Wilmot is in the midst of a chickcharney story when a distant cry has me looking up. I glance Wilmot’s way and whisper, “Firebird?”

  At Wilmot’s nod, I scramble to my feet, unceremoniously dumping Jacko from my lap. I scan the sky and the surrounding trees. When I look at Wilmot again, a second nod grants me permission to scale one.

  I take off, Jacko following. Halfway to my chosen tree, I turn to see Dain still eating his cheese and bread, gaze fixed on his meal.

  “Dain?” I call.

  He glances over, but in that way he’s been doing, where he turns his face to me while his eyes stay elsewhere.

  “Aren’t you coming?” I say.

  He shakes his head and returns to his lunch.

  “You wanted to see one,” I say. “You said that when we found the feathers last time.”

  Another shake of his head, and annoyance darts through me.

  He really had wanted to see a firebird. He’d told me that Wilmot knew where to find them, and he’d been bugging him to go, but it was too long and dangerous a journey just to see a monster. Now there’s one about to fly overhead…and he can’t be bothered climbing a tree for a look?

  When I hesitate, Wilmot says, “Go on, Rowan, or you’ll miss it.”

  “I’ll join you,” Kaylein says.

  We jog off. Jacko hops along at my side as Malric watches from the campfire, lying beside the sleeping Tiera.

  I climb as fast as I can. Below, Kaylein tells me not to go so high, but I pretend not to hear her. I finally reach the right spot and stand on the branch, clutching the trunk as I peer through a hole in the foliage. Kaylein sits on the branch below mine.

  Overhead, the firebird croaks again, the call harsher than a crow’s caw. Legend says that firebirds used to have a beautiful song but, when combined with their beauty, it meant people would risk their lives to steal eggs and capture live chicks. So firebirds started using this harsh croak instead.

  Jannah always said that with many legends, if you dig deeply enough, you’ll find a scrap of truth. With this one, she theorized that the firebirds with the worst voices were the ones who had survived to breed, and so eventually, they evolved to have that croak.

  I don’t care what they sound like. I only want to see one. This spring, I found three firebird feathers, now among my greatest treasures. I didn’t get to see any birds, though.

  I hold the tree tight as Jacko scrabbles up beside me, his semi-retractable claws digging into the bark. Jackalopes aren’t climbing rodents, but he’s learned because I love climbing.

  Jacko hops excitedly at my feet…too excitedly, considering we’re fifty feet above the ground. I heft him onto the branch near my shoulder. Then I grip it for extra safety, while he digs in his claws and presses against me, his gaze tracking mine.

  We’ve barely settled when flame streaks across the midday sky. My breath catches, and I blink against tears of wonder as the firebird soars past, low enough for me to make out the flame patterns on its tail feathers. I sigh, and Jacko squeaks, and below us, Kaylein echoes my sigh.

  I watch the bird disappear from view. Then I’m glancing down at Kaylein when I spot another figure, lower in the tree, and my heart leaps when I think Dain came along after all. But this figure has light hair and light skin. Wilmot. I open my mouth to call down, but he puts a finger to his lips and points up.

  I squint into the sky. The firebird is gone, so I’m not sure why he’s…

  A second firebird appears, and then a third, and I stifle a gasp. A fourth. Then a fifth. A flock of firebirds? Do they always fly in flocks? I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know. I’ve studied them—where they live, what they eat, their size and lifespan—but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything saying whether they flock or—

  A fluttering sounds above me. I squint into the sun, suddenly bright orange as if it’s setting already. Then I blink and realize it’s a firebird settling into the tree. Into this tree, twenty feet over my head.

  I presume it didn’t realize I’m here. Then it hops along the branch to peer down at me. It’s a young bird, as curious as I am.

  It’s careful, having landed well above us. For a young bird that has probably never left the forest and mountains, seeing a human would be a very rare event, so it doesn’t fear a poacher’s arrows or darts.

  The beast cranes its long neck down…and Jacko and I crane our much shorter ones up. Below, Kaylein giggles. I’m sure we look giggle-worthy. At least she can’t see my mouth gaping. I stare at the firebird, taking in its flame-colored feathers and brilliant head comb, and it stares back at me. Then it cocks its head and croaks.

  “Hello,” I say.

  It pulls back sharply, looking so surprised that I chuckle, and it shakes its head at the sound. Then it bends again.

  I talk to it, half speech and half croon. Jacko chatters, and the fireb
ird peers at him and makes a noise that sounds like an imitation of his chatter.

  The firebird sidesteps and shakes. Two feathers fall, and I watch them drop like flames, spinning to the dark earth below.

  “Thank you,” I say. “We’ll make good use of those. I only wish I had something to give you in return.”

  The firebird lowers its head and croaks, beady eyes studying me. Then a larger firebird circles over the treetop, clearly a parent telling this half-grown bird to stop dawdling. I can’t tell whether the newcomer is male or female—both sexes have the same plumage. This one has a truly glorious train, and as it waggles its glowing tail feathers, I stare, transfixed.

  The young firebird is not nearly as impressed by the display. Even when the older bird half-fans its tail mid-flight and my breath catches, the young one ignores it. The older bird flies down and gives it a poke, and the younger one squawks its indignation.

  A harder poke. The young firebird bristles and fans its own tail, and they face off on the branch, the parent squawking and shaking its tail while the juvenile does the same. As they bicker and fluff their plumage, feathers fall, as if the younger one is molting, and with each one that drops, I salivate. I’m almost tempted to let them keep arguing…and keep dropping those glorious feathers. But finally, I call up, “You really should go. The others won’t wait.”

  The parent gives one final hard poke at the child, and with a last indignant squawk, the younger one lifts off. I watch them go, streaks of fire against the sky. Then Kaylein taps my boot.

  “You don’t want to collect those feathers, do you, your highness?” she asks, her dark eyes dancing with a grin. “Just checking before I climb down and gather them all.”

  I race her, grabbing feathers as we descend. At the bottom, we both spot a tail feather and charge toward it, only to have Wilmot scoop it up and stick it into his hair band. Jacko leaps onto Wilmot’s leg, climbs up, and is reaching to snatch the tail feather when the hunter pulls him away.