On the Subject of Griffons

by Lindsey Byrd

  Mori’s great warhorse gave a mighty fart, tail lifting as she passed gas, and then slowly walked out of the stable.

  Holly was a smooth walker. She kept her head down and moved her legs one right after another. Kera held one arm around Aiden’s body and kept him steady as she guided Holly with her other hand. He was still asleep, but his limbs continued twitching despite that.

  The plague had haunted the streets of Ship’s Landing for over a year, starting just before Morpheus’s death and increasing in strength afterward. No one knew how the ill were infected, but once they succumbed, it was already too late. Kera remembered seeing the wailers in the street. Friends she’d had for ages, screaming in mourning as their loved ones were carted away.

  Initially, physicians had flocked to Ship’s Landing in an effort to help the victims. But as the plague spread, more medical professionals began to contract it as well. Fewer and fewer new arrivals came, and those that did bickered for months as they tried to find the cause of the sickness. But for all their efforts, no one understood why some lives ended like a shattered glass of wine, while others were barrels with a crack at their base, slowly letting one drop of life slip out a moment at a time.

  Kera tried to remember what Aiden had been doing the last time she’d seen him well. Playing with his siblings. Cirri and Junior had helped the little ones dress for the day. Then they’d taken them down to lessons. When she was home from university, Cirri had been leading “classes” on needlepoint in the drawing room. Kera remembered seeing Aiden sitting on Cirri’s lap once. His little hands latched around Cirri’s as she made fine stitches in the shape of flowers and letters. When the bankers came, the children had left to occupy themselves elsewhere, Aiden skipping after the others. Perhaps they’d been searching for monsters in the cellar. They all loved to play pretend.

  He’d been in perfect health . . . and then he hadn’t been.

  Kera bent her head and kissed her son’s hair. She urged Holly onward. They lived almost eight hundred miles from the Long Lakes. To get there, first she would need to cross the river to Tymber. They would need to travel along the ocean for almost two weeks past Doleystown and Kytesberg until they were well into the deep south.

  Holly’s slow steps plodded along. “You must think me mad,” Kera murmured. Holly’s ears flicked back to listen to her. One swiveled so it faced her while the other returned to the front, Holly’s attention divided between the road and Kera’s voice. “I’m not mad.” She was talking to a horse while riding with her dying child to a griffon’s nest on the off chance that they would survive the journey and not be killed by a plague in the meantime, but she was not mad.

  Holly continued walking, immune to Kera’s growing anxiety. “You’ve probably seen enough to know I’m not mad.” Holly had seen more wondrous things than she ever had. Kera used to be enamored with the war stories Mori would tell. He and his soldiers sounded gallant and brave as they rode about with their guns firing and swords raised in the air. Mori’s friend, a True Lord from Ruug named Amit, had told Kera that her husband had been the bravest of them all for facing the nightwalkers.

  “Was the griffon large?” Kera asked Holly. Holly huffed in response, taking a long stride as if to present her rump for evidence. The scars were hidden by the saddlebags, but Kera knew them well enough. She’d seen paintings of griffons in city hall next to images of salamanders, sirens, and vipers. But unlike the sirens, renowned for pulling sad sailors to their graves, or selkies making off with hapless children, the griffons had merely been celestial creatures flying high above the rest of them.

  “You know, considering the likelihood of encountering a griffon in the first place, I have to admit I’m amazed you even met one. There are hundreds of different nightwalkers you could have run into that night.” Holly huffed loudly, throwing her head up and down just enough so the reins didn’t pull too much in Kera’s hands. “But you didn’t run into a wraith or a specter or even a death march, no you ran into a griffon. I saw a death march once, did you know that?”

  Holly did not respond. Her ears wiggled to and fro, but despite being told since she was a child that meant the horse was listening, Kera strongly suspected Holly was more interested in the food in her saddlebags than the words coming from Kera’s mouth.

  “My father took my siblings and me out to see one. They’re horrifying, did you know that? All the spirits rise up and reenact their final moments leading up to their death, and I’m sure you know just how many battlefields there are now after the war.” Battlefields that Kera would be unable to completely avoid on her ride to the Long Lakes. She shivered atop Holly, hugging Aiden closer and adjusting her seat.

  Holly pushed forward, heedless of Kera’s diatribe. They made good time crossing the river. The road wasn’t busy, and the lack of traffic encouraged her to move a touch faster than Holly would have preferred. Even at their accelerated pace, though, some travelers paused to watch her ride by. They seemed incredulous as their eyes wandered across her clothes and overall appearance.

  Kera didn’t give herself permission to feel embarrassed. She knew how she appeared with all her adornments and baubles left behind her: ragged and plain. She’d spent each day of the past year wearing a mourning dress. Plain though it had been, her show of grief was far more acceptable than trousers and a traveling coat. She hated how that made her feel. She guided Holly off the main road and kept to the quiet trails leading south, doing what she could to avoid the dumbfounded stares of the casual civilian traveler.

  Her brain felt like an ouroboros, endless and cannibalistic. It chewed on its own tail in a desire to sustain its own quest for knowledge. Her thoughts circled, each one hurting worse than the one that came before.

  Clouds began to turn the sky overcast, when Aiden woke. He mewled at her chest. His dark-brown eyes opened and stared up at her, fevered and delirious.

  “It’s all right, Aiden,” she cooed. “It’s all right.”

  He cried out, though. Limbs shaking as he thrashed in her arms.

  Holly slowed to a stop. Her head turning to look back at them. Air huffed from her nostrils and she shifted restlessly. She didn’t know what to do, and Kera didn’t either. She knotted her reins as best she could, and woahed Holly unconsciously as she adjusted her hold on Aiden. Aiden’s limbs didn’t flail so much as stiffen and seize in place. She wasn’t sure if she’d have preferred the alternative or not.

  General Zakaria’s wife, Najah Zakaria, had once spoken to Kera about the shaking illness. Her daughter Amani had suffered from tremors, and they worried Amani would bite her tongue and drown in her own blood. If Kera remembered, they used to put a cloth in her mouth to stop the fear. Kera fetched one now, pulling a stretch of fabric from her pocket to slide between her son’s teeth. He gurgled and choked as he shook, but she could hear him breathing through his nose. “You’re going to be all right,” she repeated to him. “You’re going to be all right.”

  Holly shifted, unhappy with the wriggling weight upon her back. Through it all, Aiden continued to cry. He lifted his tiny hands to his mouth, and Kera held them back to keep them from his face. “Hush . . . hush . . . baby . . . hush . . . it’s all right. It’s all right,” Kera whispered. She tried to keep calm, to not sound desperate or frantic. She wasn’t sure she was succeeding.

  Holly whinnied.

  It felt as though Kera were trying to juggle and cook all at once. Keeping Holly content and Aiden safe seemed like an insurmountable task. Panic blossomed in her chest as she realized that she had no idea what she was doing in the first place.

  I shouldn’t have left. The thought circled about on repeat. It wrapped around her brain and slid down her back, taking root deep in her body until she recoiled in order to free herself from the self-defeating madness. “It’s barely been ten miles,” she hissed out loud. “I’ve hardly started.” She squeezed her son. “I can’t stop now.”

  The shaking stopped, and Kera sobbed in relief.

  She rested her head
against his small shoulder and breathed against his back. She retook her reins and urged Holly onward. Aiden was asleep again, and showed no signs of waking. My son is going to die. She knew then and there. “It’s either here or at home,” she spoke out loud. Giving the terror a voice felt almost like signing his death warrant, but she let spite motivate her anyway.

  She would not let Aiden die without a fight, and if that meant she forced herself through an eight-hundred-mile journey on her own, she would do it. Kera urged Holly to walk on.

  The sun started to dip beyond the horizon as Kera reached a small tavern. She stopped Holly before they approached the stable. Aiden was warm against her chest. His head lolled against her shoulder, little legs jerking very subtly every now and then, almost as if he were simply kicking in his sleep. Holly turned her head. One big brown eye stared up at Kera, as if to say, Are you ready?

  “They could get sick,” Kera whispered. Holly’s eye kept watching her. Waiting. Her son jerked a little more. “They could all get sick and die.” It would be her fault, too.

  Risking a glance over her shoulder, Kera stared out into the dark. Already, it felt as though the shadows were moving. Nightwalkers seeping backward into existence. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Her breath felt chill in her breast. A shadow, or a black cloak, flickered on the edge of her vision, and her heels kicked on impulse. Holly’s head swiveled around and her great hooves clacked on the stones beneath them.

  A boy approached as they neared the stable. Turning Aiden so his face wasn’t directed at the child, Kera cleared her throat. “Please . . . and how much for board for the horse?”

  “A copper piece, miss,” the stable boy told her as he rested a hand on the reins just under Holly’s chin. Fishing a coin from her pocket, Kera handed it to the boy. Adjusting her hold on Aiden, she leaned forward and then swung a leg over the saddle and Holly’s rump. Her knees almost crumpled beneath her as she half fell, half stumbled off the horse. The boy caught her back with a startled yelp, bracing her so she didn’t fall to the ground.

  She clung tight to Aiden, anxiety sparking along her senses. It’s all right, she reminded herself. It’s all going to be all right. Then she caught sight of her saddlebags, and realized that between her son and her things—she could only carry one.

  “If . . . you don’t mind waiting, miss,” the stable boy offered. “I can help assist you with your bags?”

  Some of the anxiety lessened at that, and she nodded. “Please.” She tried not to think about how she was risking this poor boy’s health by letting him interact with them. Still, the boy was quick about his work. He hurried to move Holly into a stall and saw to her care. Kera even had a moment where she could stroke Holly’s muzzle and remove a stray leaf from her mane. “Thank you,” she whispered as Holly snuggled into her touch. They wouldn’t have made it this far without her.

  Once finished, the boy retrieved Kera’s bags and led her into the tavern. He called for the owner to come meet them, and a portly man did just that. The gentleman wiped his hands on a small towel as he approached, eyeing Kera up and down. “What can I do you for, missus?”

  “Just a room for the night, and lodging for my horse. I’ll be gone by morning.”

  The man nodded, still rubbing at his hands. “Don’t have any free rooms, missus, but there’s a couple open beds if you don’t mind sharing. One’s . . . with a gentleman, and another’s with a lady and her young lass.”

  Kera hesitated. Logic dictated the safer option was, of course, the room with the woman. However, with Aiden’s illness . . . she would be horrified if he infected a child and mother.

  The innkeep jutted his chin toward the man in the corner. “There’s one boarder.” Following his gaze, Kera tried to hold back her distaste. The man in question was leering her way, licking his lips. Food and drink had tangled his beard, coating it in a greasy finish. Flinching away from the mere thought of spending a night in close quarters with such a man, she forced a smile, anxiety swimming through her as she imagined someone else coughing and writhing in the throes of a fit that no one could stop. Her voice sounded far stronger than she felt when she managed to say, “The lady, if you please,” at long last.

  Without even batting an eye, the innkeeper nodded and barked at the stable boy to lead her to the room she requested. The sun disappeared behind the hills, and the night howls of the dead began to start. Aiden didn’t wake. He remained unconscious against her shoulder, looking to all the world like any other child made tired from a long journey.

  The stable boy chattered as he led her up a staircase to a room with a well-worn door. He needed to adjust the saddlebags in order to free a hand to knock, but he did so with surprising grace. Two raps, then a pause earned them a reply. “Come in,” they were beckoned, and the boy pushed the door open for Kera to enter.

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” the boy announced for the present occupant, “but you’ve a roommate for tonight. S’another lady ’n’ her bairn.”

  “That’s . . . fine,” the woman in question intoned. With that acceptance, Kera rounded the bend and entered the room. Aiden slipped a little, but she managed to catch him in time. She kept him from falling from her bloodless fingers. The boy didn’t notice. He shuffled in and placed her things on the ground before bidding them a good evening. He shut the door behind himself as he left.

  For her part, Kera was struggling to understand how her life had come to this. She stared at the woman sitting across from her on one of the two beds. Horror painted Kera’s skin, her soul, with a thick miasmic lacquer.

  This, she thought as she tried not to cry, is a joke. A cruel joke.

  Perhaps their family really was cursed.

  For there, sitting across from her, resting with her back against the headboard of the farthest bed in the room, was her husband’s mistress, Aurora Sinclair.

  Mori used to write Kera the most beautiful letters. He rhapsodized on his love for her. He called her the sweetest names. He wished her every happiness in the world. Once, he wrote her an entire letter dedicated to the feeling of her arms around him. How he yearned for such an embrace while he fought his wars, he wrote. He cursed his new position in the Overwatch for keeping them apart. It was unfair that he was expected to toil day after day, when the gods knew his place was at her side.

  In each and every one of those letters, Mori failed to mention that he had also had an affair with a twenty-three-year-old girl named Aurora Sinclair.

  She must be . . . what . . . thirty-seven now? She was a woman in her own right, as was the girl beside her. Kera had known Aurora had a daughter near Cirri’s age, but Kera’d rejected such knowledge as unnecessary. She had done much the same for all else Aurora-related. She didn’t care about Aurora’s family. She didn’t care about her relatives. She. Didn’t. Care.

  Forced to examine the woman who’d caused immeasurable discord to her marriage, Kera supposed Aurora had aged . . . well. Her black curls were pulled back in a tight wrap, and there were lines under her eyes. Her cheekbones protruded from her face, though her nose was acceptable. Kera wished she could find fault in Aurora’s appearance, either too pretty or too hideous, but Aurora was a plain woman with a normal appearance.

  Kera hugged Aiden closer. She should go.

  “. . . Mrs. Montgomery,” Aurora intoned. She placed her feet on the floor by her bed and stood. Her pace was geriatric, weathered, and exhausted. She rubbed her palms on her thighs as though she needed to force stiff muscles into position. Kera’s eyes flicked over Aurora’s clothes. The dark trousers were of poor quality, and just as inappropriate as Kera’s own. Wonders never ceased.

  Kera didn’t make any move to approach or go near. She was eager to keep distance between them both and shuffled through tutor cards of conversation starters in her mind. Words. How hard could it be to form words? “Mrs. Sinclair,” she managed, glancing toward the door. Perhaps she and Aiden could risk the night. Holly was used to traveling in the dark. Mori had rhapsodize
d about that too. No one else on General Zakaria’s staff ever volunteered to traverse the wicked space between dusk and dawn.

  “Lawrence,” her unwelcome interloper corrected. She attempted to form a smile. It was the same half-somber grin the bankers liked to wear. It made Kera’s nose twitch. “Or, eh, if it pleases you . . . just Aurora. Don’t go by Sinclair anymore.” She slurred some of the words together, her you was too short, and her words dangled as if she meant to say something more but cut herself off at the last moment.

  “Ah. I had heard of your divorce from Mr. Sinclair. A pity.” She was being nasty. Aurora’s plain features sank a touch under her eyes. Her flesh darkened in splotches, lips twisting into a grimace. Kera took a deep breath. Let it out. Stop being so rude. “I apologize . . . my tone is . . . not the best.” After the day she’d had, and the urgency with which she’d left her home, the last person she wanted to see was Aurora Sinclair.

  No. That wasn’t true.

  She was quite certain that all of her good manners and well-behaved habits would be set to the side in the face of Brennan Wild. She might even take up her husband’s pistol and fire the shot he should have fired into Wild’s side the year before. Unlike Mori, she wouldn’t miss.

  Aiden whined a high-pitched keening noise that distracted her from Aurora and thoughts of murder. She took a few steps back until her boots clicked against the wall. Aiden squirmed against her body, and Aurora’s eyes never left Kera’s face. She was assessing and judging them in equal measure. “He’s sick,” Aurora deduced.

  “I can leave.” Kera was already mapping out their exit. She was already factoring in how many hours she could stay awake and how much stress Holly could take.

  But Aurora shook her head and walked to a satchel of sorts that was lying near the end of her bed. “No. No, it’s fine. Faith . . .” She glanced at her daughter, still sleeping and not at all aware of the confrontation that was brewing. “Faith is as well.”